Zune Pics

Gizmodo has a picture of the upcoming Zune by Microsoft.  The Zune, said to be the iPod killer, looks fairly ugly to me.  There is not a lot of information on it, but as it comes available I'll have it posted.

More information was added at Gizmodo here, but the only thing that intrigues me is this:

FM support is fairly complete, with both an FM tuner and an FM transmitter so you can beam the music to your car. The FM transmitter also feeds up Song and Artist information so you can see what's playing from your car stereo (if it supports that feature, like in GM cars). Pretty neat.

While this is possible with an iPod, it's an add-on that you have to purchase separately.  I haven't done so yet, but I would like one for my car.  I'm sure Apple isn't far behind with their newest iPods being announced in December, and a handy feature like this would be nice to see.

Engadget also has information on the Zune, courtesy of iLounge, but really it says much of the same.  One feature that did stick out was listed here:

...but of course the Zune's killer app is WiFi. iLounge says that you'll be allowed to "loan" songs to other users for a day, which they can proceed to buy from the Zune music store, and you'll also be able to stream music to a WiFi-enabled Xbox 360, but we're not sure if a hard drive will be required to pull it off. At a purported $300 pricetag, we can't tell if the Zune will have what it takes to challenge the iPod -- iLounge, naturally, has their doubts -- but from the writeup it does seem like the Zune will have at least one heavily bandied feature: video.

'Loan' songs to friends?  Since everything digital is made of 1's and 0's this'll be cracked in no time.  You can 'loan' your song to your friend and they take it home, put it on their PC, crack it, put it back on the Zune, and away they go.  It'll only be a matter of time.  Look at the '360.  How long did it take people to crack the system?  No time at all.  How much effort did MS put into designing a system where people couldn't copy their friends games?  Too much for the amount of effort it took to crack their system.  Anyway, off topic a bit.

The technical details of the Zune will reveal whether or not it'll be worth switching over to iPod, or at the very least, going with both.

Tags: Microsoft, Zune, iPod

Blogger 2.0

Blogger seems to have an upgrade available.  I read it somewhere this evening and thought that I'd give it a try.  More on that in a second.

Google on Monday took the wraps off a new version of its Blogger service, which adds a number of new features in an attempt to catch up to its rivals. On the list of additions are categorizing posts with labels, controlling who can read a blog, and modifying the design without editing HTML.

While it's in beta, only a limited number of Blogger users are being offered the ability to migrate their blog to the new service, although those interested can create a new account on the beta. Google hasn't said when it plans to officially launch the new version, but notes that it will be tied to the company's Google Accounts system.

I had to sign up, which annoyed me because I already have a blogger account, why do I want two?  Anyway, after fiddling around with it for a while I came to the realization that it's not near complete and shouldn't have been released to the public yet.

There are neat features, like the drag and drop layout feature, but even that is far from perfect.  I have a feeling it won't be fully functional, to most users preference, even after the 'final' version is done.

Some more links:

Business Wire
VNUNet
MacWorld
Pocket-lint

[betanews]

Tags: Blogger, beta, update, 2.0

Imaging of Hydrogen Fuel Cells

While probably not that interesting to most people, this really intrigues me.

Thanks to a new and improved imaging instrument at the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), scientists now can conduct detailed surveillance on the comings and goings of water inside hydrogen fuel cells—a piece of intelligence key to making the technology practical for powering future automobiles.

With visualization powers 10 times better than those achieved previously, researchers can “see” water production and removal in fuel cells under a range of simulated operating conditions, from arctic cold to desert heat.

“This as-it-happens, inside view is essential because fuel-cell performance depends on a delicate balance,” explains NIST physicist Muhammad Arif, who leads the NIST team that developed the instrument. “Too little—or too much—water can shut it down.

”Better water management is fundamental to meeting targets for fuel cell performance, reliability and durability. Reaching these targets, in turn, is integral to efforts to replace petroleum with hydrogen to power cars and trucks by 2020—the goal of President Bush’s Hydrogen Fuel Initiative.

I've studied Fuel Cells in the past, and I think that they're going to be the only solution in the future.  Oil doesn't last forever, and electric vehicles will only get us so far.  The problem, as far as I can tell, is going to be having the cars make the hydrogen themselves.  The solution is quite easy in the mock up I designed, but the implementation is difficult.  The size of the cars would be massive.

[nist]

Tags: Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, Imaging

One Terabyte Drives

Desktop hard drives holding 1 terabyte, or 1,000 gigabytes, of storage will likely be announced in 2006, said Bill Healy, senior vice president of product strategy and marketing at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. These drives, which will have a 3.5-inch diameter, are expected to be incorporated into PCs and home servers. Healy wouldn’t say what companies would announce first. Sources at Seagate, however, said Seagate plans to come out with 1TB 3.5-inch drives by late 2006 or early 2007.

It's not that big of a stretch for some hard drive makers. Hitachi already sells a 500GB drive, while rival Seagate Technology started shipping a 750GB drive to desktop makers in April. Seagate also sells a home storage device with two 500GB drives to make up 1 terabyte. Drive density effectively doubles every two years and increases steadily over the two-year period; hence, a terabyte drive is on the horizon, Healy said.

The next line is quite funny, actually.

Granted, few people really need 1 terabyte of storage.

Really?  I could use one or two.  Especially when CDs and DVD backups don't last forever.  At least HDDs last longer, especially in a RAID configuration.  With file sizes only growing (HD-DVD backups on the PC anyone?) it's not enough to have one TB...  How about 200TB drives?  That would mean I wouldn't have to upgrade for a while.

[zdnet]

Tags: Hitachi, 1 terabyte, HDD

120GB iPod?

We can only hope.

Seagate has announced that they will be launching a new 1.8" Hard Drive possibly for the expected iPod in December. iPods have had the 60GB limit for quite some time and it is proposed that their new rumored iPod will be released and break the current maximum storage capacity.

This is currently just speculation, the image is also just a concept. (Seagate has announced the 120GB drive but they have not yet promised its use in the Apple iPod.) However, it is very possible....sorry about the mix up guys.

All these events are obviously happening around the Christmas Season....in hopes to spark up another iPod frenzy.

Would be nice.  I haven't grabbed a 60GB yet, but with all the podcasts and music crammed onto my iPod, I may just hold out for something even bigger.  Of course, once that happens I'll get into the video end of it and 120GB won't be close to enough.

[pcexposure]

Tags: iPod, 120GB, Seagate