Tobiasz Cudnik's shared items in Google Reader

Myka ION brings Hulu, Boxee and other web content to your TV

2009-11-07T00:12:00Z

It's been almost a full year since we heard a peep from the fine folks at Myka, but it looks like we could be talking about 'em a lot more often judging by the specs list on its latest contraption. The simply-titled ION is an Atom-based media PC that relies on NVIDIA's Ion graphics set and a customized interface that brings Hulu, Boxee and pretty much any other web content you can stumble upon to your television. Within, you'll find a 1.6GHz dual-core Atom 330 CPU, up to 4GB of RAM, ten USB 2.0 ports, VGA / DVI / HDMI outputs, an eSATA connector, Ethernet and plenty of audio outputs. The fanless design ensures that things remain quiet, and for those oozing cash, a Blu-ray drive, HDD and WiFi module can be implanted. It's up for order right now starting at $379, but you'll be stuck waiting four to six weeks for delivery.

Gallery: Myka ION brings Hulu, Boxee and other web content to your TV

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Myka ION brings Hulu, Boxee and other web content to your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Old Man IE6 shakes fist as Firefox surpasses him in browser share

2009-11-04T20:00:00Z

Filed under: Internet, Browsers

Web designers and standards advocates have tried everything to kill Internet Explorer 6, but it just refuses to die. In fact, Microsoft has extended support for the aging browser until at least mid-2010, and longer for some versions of Windows. However, there is strong evidence that people are coming around to browsers that support standards, don't make web designers cry, and have frickin' TABS, for crying out loud ...

Firefox is now more popular than IE6.

That's right: according to October browser usage stats reported by Ars Technica, the old, incontinent granddad of the browsing world has finally been overtaken by the cool kid with all the rad accessories. Although IE6 still has 23% of the market - sadly, more than any other version of IE - when you add up the usage on every version of Firefox, you get 24.07%, enough to top that single old edition of Internet Explorer.

I assume the shift is accounted for by home web users shifting to newer browsers with the release of Windows 7, because corporate IT departments are still the last bastion of widespread IE6 use. As Ars speculates, high Windows 7 adoption rates could be the stake through IE6's cold, tab-less heart.

Meanwhile, in the Webkit browser wars, Chrome and Safari both made gains this month. Chrome is still growing faster -- right now it's closing in rapidly with 3.58% to Safari's 4.42%.

Old Man IE6 shakes fist as Firefox surpasses him in browser share originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft - Safari - Internet Explorer - Firefox - Google Chrome

DIY 9V Battery-Powered USB Charger [DIY]

2009-11-04T19:30:00Z

Sure you could go buy a USB charger off the shelf, but what fun would that be? Try making one yourself with a little help from a 9V battery and a few extra components.

This simple hack on a standard 9V battery is an easy one to undertake. It's pretty straight forward, and all it requires is a quick solder to finish things up. It will give you power on the go and a sense of accomplishment for the day upon completing it. Hit up tech weblog anythingbutipod for the simple diagram to make your own.

The battery-powered USB charger isn't an altogether new idea. We'd be remiss not to point out previously mentioned Minty Boost, the classic Altoids-tin-cum-battery-powered charger.

How to Build a 9v Battery Powered USB Charger [anythingbutipod via Gizmodo]

Build a Home Server in a Whisky Bottle [DIY]

2009-11-02T16:30:00Z

Jason Marton was looking for a quieter, hidden home server. So, naturally, he built one into a whisky bottle that blends in with his existing dry bar.

Over at hack weblog MetkuMods Jason Marton explains how he created a personal PC or home server inside of a discarded and (obviously) empty whisky bottle. Although it isn't the first thing one might think of, we have to applaud the creativity and problem solving skills that went into the modification.

The only part of the hack that needed a small amount of professional help was from a glass cutter. After a few failed attempts to use at home tools, he took it in to a local professional to have the holes drilled and cleaned up. Here's the rest of the materials Jason used for his 2006 hack (you can update accordingly), and you can pick up the assembly details over at MetkuMods:

1.5 liter Ballantine's bottle
3.5" SBC board
Intel P3 733EB processor
256MB notebook RAM
40GB notebook HDD
60W mini-ITX PSU
44 pin mini-IDE cable

Would you consider modding your own home server from an unusual object? Or are you okay with your traditional, home office set up? Sound off in the comments.

Note: No Genies were harmed in the making of this craft.

Whisky PC [MetkuMods via Dude Craft]

Introducing the Flexible Box Layout module

2009-10-07T22:55:27Z

One aspect of CSS3 that hasn’t received a lot of attention so far is the Flexible Box Layout module. Already implemented in the Gecko and WebKit engines, in this alternative box model: “… the children of a box are laid out either horizontally or vertically, and unused space can be assigned to a particular child or [...]

New Plugin: SearchTab - v1.0.0

2009-10-20T17:48:09Z

SearchTab
Category: Tools

Description: Search Tab is a Firefox-like search tab

IntelliJ IDEA Open Sourced

2009-10-15T16:06:33Z

I believe you’ll like this announcement — IntelliJ IDEA has just gone open-source! Check out the press release as well as the new jetbrains.org community site for the details. We all will soon get a lot of new friends and colleagues in our IntelliJ IDEA community!

Starting with the upcoming version 9.0, IntelliJ IDEA will be offered in two editions: Community Edition and Ultimate Edition. The Community Edition focuses on Java SE technologies, Groovy and Scala development. It’s free of charge and open-sourced under the Apache 2.0 license. The Ultimate edition with full Java EE technology stack remains our standard commercial offering. See the feature comparison matrix for the differences.

Briefly, in the free Community Edition you’ll get all the Java code support — various refactorings and code inspections, coding assistance; debugging, TestNG and JUnit testing; CVS, Subversion and Git support; Ant and Maven build integration; and Groovy and Scala support (through a separate plugin). To learn more and download the Public Preview of IntelliJ IDEA 9 Community Edition, please visit the IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition site.

The IntelliJ platform, the common foundation for all our IDEs (IDEA, RubyMine, WebIDE or MPS), is being open-sourced under the APL 2.0, too.

You’ll find all the relevant information on how to participate and benefit at JetBrains.org. Check out the FAQ if you have additional questions.

Android 2.0 ported to original T-Mobile G1 (video)

2009-10-30T10:39:00Z

Did you hear? Google's got this little OS called Android that has reached the ripe, mature age of 2-point-Oh. With the giant eclair now sitting on Google's front lawn and the SDK out in the wilds, what was poor Akira Harada to do with all that code knowing that the Motorola Droid was still days away from shipping? Port it to the original Android device, the T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream, naturally. It's a rough port, not even close to being optimized but it should whet your appetites for all those official updates and delicious home-cooked ROMs we expect to be arriving in the hallowed halls of the XDA forums in the days ahead. See it after the break... roll it!

Continue reading Android 2.0 ported to original T-Mobile G1 (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Android 2.0 ported to original T-Mobile G1 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 05:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Would you like a _ with that $? New library gives JS what it should have

2009-10-29T05:50:06Z

Jeremy Ashkenas and the DocumentCloud team have just released Underscore.js a small library that provides all the functional programming helpers that you expect from Prototype.js or Ruby, but without extending any core JavaScript objects.

Jeremy told us:

This makes it a natural fit alongside jQuery, without having to worry about the conflicts and redundant functionality that using Prototype and jQuery together would entail. For browsers that support the new Javascript 1.6 array functions, it delegates to the native implementations, so your "_.map()" can run at full speed, where available. It's a tiny download, 4k when gzipped. Here's the project page, with full documentation, live tests and benchmarks.

Some of the utilities:

Collections
each, map,
reduce, detect, select, reject, all,
any, include, invoke, pluck, max,
min, sortBy, sortedIndex, toArray,
size

Arrays

first, last,
compact, flatten, without, uniq,
intersect, zip, indexOf,
lastIndexOf

Functions

bind, bindAll, delay,
defer, wrap, compose

Objects

keys, values,
extend, clone, isEqual, isElement,
isArray, isFunction, isUndefined

Utility

noConflict,
uniqueId, template

There has already been nice community patches and suggestions from the community, and Kris Kowal helped make it CommonJS-compliant.

Obviously, other libraries have covered a lot of these before, but it is nice to see a small core covering.

Boston Dynamics PETMAN predicts the future of man as pet (video)

2009-10-27T08:08:00Z

At this stage of its development, PETMAN is here to assist mankind. However, it's clearly fated to be weaponized as an AT-ST walker in support of Imperial ground forces. For the time being anyway, this biped humanoid is being built by Boston Dynamics to test military suits used to protect soldiers in chemical warfare. As an evolutionary advance from its four-legged BigDog platform, PETMAN does the ol' heel-toe at a healthy 3.2 MPH (5.14 KPH) and packs enough balancing intelligence to remain upright even when given a shove from the side. Check out the action after the break.

[Via Make]

Continue reading Boston Dynamics PETMAN predicts the future of man as pet (video)

Filed under: Robots

Boston Dynamics PETMAN predicts the future of man as pet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PMRPC, HTML5-based Inter-window Cross-Domain RPC Librar

2009-10-13T06:52:46Z

Pmrpc is a HTML5 inter-window cross-domain JSON-RPC based remote procedure call JavaScript library. The library provides a simple API for exposing and calling procedures from windows or iFrames on different domains, without being subject to the same-origin policy. Pmrpc also provides several advanced features: callbacks similar to AJAX calls, ACL-based access control, asynchronous procedure support and fault-tolerance via retries.

The implementation of the library is based on the HTML5 postMessage API, the JSON-RPC protocol and the JSON data format. Pmrpc uses the postMessage API as an underlying communication mechanism and extends it to a RPC model using the JSON-RPC, a transport-independent protocol that uses JSON for formatting messages.

The library is compatible with Firefox 3, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 8, released under Apache v2.0 license.

Ready or not, the latest 3D technology is coming home

2009-10-26T16:36:00Z

Now wait one second before you start on the whole "I'm not wearing any stupid looking glasses," because no matter what you say, there are more people paying extra to go 3D movies than ever and the reason is simple; it's because this isn't like the crappy 3D you saw during the Super Bowl last year -- or that our parents grew up with. No, the 3D that Sony, Panasonic, and others are promising next year is like nothing you've seen. We've come a long way since the old anaglyph red and blue glasses that come in cereal boxes, so before you knock the new technology before it's even out, click through and read about the technologies that might bring us a real 3D revolution.

Continue reading Ready or not, the latest 3D technology is coming home

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Ready or not, the latest 3D technology is coming home originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Imo.im Provides a Web-Based Portal to Messaging and Social Networks [Instant Messaging]

2009-10-26T13:30:00Z

When you're away from your home terminal and without your favorite portable cross-service IM application, imo.im can help you get all your messages back into one window again.

Imo.im is a web-based tool to help you log in to multiple messaging and social networks. It currently supports MSN Messenger, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Skype, MySpace, and Facebook. You can log in to one or all of the supported services and access your contact lists. Messaging windows are all displayed within the imo.im site and denoted by service type and the user name of your contact.

In addition to the spartan but effective chat interface, imo.im also has a photo sharing tool and a whiteboard system. Using imo.im requires no special login, you access each account with the login you're already using. Have a web-based chat solution you love? Just tried out imo.im and want to share your opinion? Let's hear about it in the comments.

imo.im [via TechCrunch]

Be a CSS Ninja with your Font Dragr

2009-10-26T11:34:01Z

The CSS Ninja has created a Font Dragr drag and drop font tester:

Font dragr is an experimental web app that uses HTML5 & CSS3 to create a useful standalone web based application for testing custom fonts, once you visit it for the first time you don’t need to be online to use it after the initial visit. It allows you, in Firefox 3.6+, to drag and drop font files from your file system into the drop area. The browser will then create a data URL encoded copy to use in the page and render the content in the dropped font.

Used in the app:

HTML5

Offline access applicationCache

Drag and drop API

File API

contenteditable attribute set to true so the text can be edited.

CSS3

Custom fonts with @font-face

Gradients

Rounded corners using border-radius

Drop shadows with text-shadow & box-shadow

Attribute and pseudo selectors

Multiple border colours

Box model adjust using box-sizing

See it in action:

Switched On: Making book with ePUB

2009-10-25T17:30:00Z

Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

The ePUB standard, developed by Adobe, allows consumers to purchase books at a variety of digital stores and use them on a wide range of compatible devices without the manufacturer having to explicitly support them. That may sound a bit like the PlaysForSure initiative that Microsoft tried mounting to challenge the iPod but ultimately shifted away from (at least for MP3 players) in favor of the Zune, but ePUB has a better shot than PlaysForSure did.

First, unlike PlaysForSure, which was playing catch-up to the already dominant iPod, ePUB is appearing relatively early in the market; it need not break anyone's "stranglehold." Second, after attracting the support of Sony, the format achieved a significant coup with the support of Barnes & Noble, which noted last week that it was "excited" to be supporting the format in its forthcoming Nook e-reader.

Continue reading Switched On: Making book with ePUB

Filed under: Software

Switched On: Making book with ePUB originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review

2009-10-23T16:36:00Z

Finally, the teaser's over. The latest delivery to Engadget's UK penthouse is the Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset due out in the US on 8th November, and we took no time to extract the pebble from the transparent cylinder. In front of us are the two parts of the STONE: an earpiece of a breakthrough form factor that instantly makes you pity its rivals, and behind it is the accompanying portable charging base which serves as an external battery. The latter is equipped with a micro-USB port and an LED indicator -- simply green or red -- to show whether there's enough battery juice for one full charge. It's a pretty neat idea as this is the only feasible way to fit eight hours of talk time (or twelve days of standby time) into such tiny package: two on the earpiece and an extra six from the surprisingly light battery base -- our scale reckons it is just under one ounce. We also dig the auto-off function when you dock the earpiece and vice versa. Docking and undocking are pretty straight forward too: just snap in for the former, and poke your thumb through the bottom hole of the base to push the earpiece out. The generic click button hidden under the Jabra badge is easy to access and responds well. Above that is the invisible vertical touch strip for volume control and similarly it responded nicely to our strokes. What's left on the earpiece are the two LED indicators on the underside for Bluetooth connectivity and battery. So far so good, but what really matters is the ear-on experience and the audio quality -- listen for yourself after the break.

Gallery: Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review

Continue reading Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Wireless

Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Streak is a 5-inch Android 2.0 MID, packs 3G and WiFi (video)

2009-10-21T11:08:00Z

Well, hello there! Those Dell MID rumors we've been hearing have finally received vindication in the form of a nice, picture-heavy leak courtesy of some industrious folks in Vietnam. What we know as of now is that there's an 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen display (with multitouch zooming), WiFi, Bluetooth and 3G WWAN connectivity, all riding atop an Android 2.0 (aka, ~~Donut~~ Eclair) install. A dual-LED flash 5 megapixel camera adorns the back, and there's a 1,300mAh battery to power all that goodness. See pics below and a video awaits after the break, where an old friend of ours plays with the jumbo smartphone.

[Via SlashGear; Thanks, Nicky N.]

Gallery: Dell Streak is a 5-inch Android 2.0 MID, packs 3G and WiFi

Continue reading Dell Streak is a 5-inch Android 2.0 MID, packs 3G and WiFi (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Dell Streak is a 5-inch Android 2.0 MID, packs 3G and WiFi (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Week in HTML5 – Episode 38

2009-10-20T19:03:22Z

Welcome back to "This Week in HTML 5," where I'll try to summarize the major activity in the ongoing standards process in the WHATWG and W3C HTML Working Group.

This week, there were some more refinements to microdata. r4139 changes the names of the DOM properties that reflect microdata markup. r4140 renames the content property to itemValue Since no browser has actually implemented this API yet, these changes shouldn't make any difference. Standards are like sex; one mistake, and you're stuck supporting it forever! r4141 and r4147 fix up some microdata examples, in particular this example from Gavin Carothers about marking up O'Reilly's book catalog. Hooray for real-world examples!

There were also some noteworthy changes to the <video> and <audio> API. r4131 says that setting the src attribute on one of those elements should call its load() method. r4132 removes the load event for multimedia elements, and r4133 removes the "in progress" events (loadstart, loadend, and progress) that used to be fired while the video/audio file was downloading.

Other noteworthy changes this week:

r4097 defines fallback content for the obsolete <applet> element.
r4098 "dramatically simplifies <script defer> and <script async> handling." [Background: bug 7792]
r4106 makes the step argument to the <input> element's stepUp() and stepDown() methods optional.
r4111 removes <link rel=feed>. As I documented earlier this year, rel=feed was a reasonable idea that never took off. Only one browser ever implemented it, and in a survey of 3 billion pages I could only find a single page that used it.
r4126 lists suggested default encodings for different locales. [Background: RE: HTML5 Issue 11 (encoding detection): I18N WG response...]
r4138 drops support for non-UTF-8 encodings in Web Workers. [Background: [whatwg] Please always use utf-8 for Web Workers]
r4099 marks the creation of Web Applications 1.0, a super-spec that contains HTML5, pre-defined microdata vocabularies, Web Workers, Web Storage, Web Database, Server-sent Events, and Web Sockets. This marks the first time that some of those specs have been published by the WHATWG, rather than the W3C, and therefore the first time that said specs have been published under a Free-Software-compatible license. (The W3C is still deciding whether to use such a license.)

Around the web:

An Introduction to HTML5 covers a lot of ground
Video on the Web is the latest chapter from my upcoming book on HTML5.

Tune in next week for another exciting edition of "This Week in HTML5."

Possible new Windows Mobile 7 mockups give 6.5 a well-deserved spanking

2009-10-21T01:31:00Z

Certain user interface elements of the sundry Windows Mobile 7 mockups we've seen floating around over the years have remained more or less constant -- a general gravitation toward better touchscreen usability and some positively bizarre bottom-aligned signal and battery meters, most notably. WMExperts is showing off a newly-acquired document of some sort comparing screens in 6.5 and what was apparently supposed to be 6.5.1 -- the finger-friendly tweak of 6.5 that would precede 7 -- but those mockups on the bottom there have apparently been pushed forward and are now being repurposed as guidance for 7's visuals. For what it's worth, the mockups look so drastically different from 6.5 (and so similar to what we've seen prior 7 leaks) that we're inclined to believe this stuff was destined for 7 all along -- and it actually looks pretty snazzy, save for those dang meters down below -- but whatever, Microsoft, let's just get this moved to RTM already.

Update: pocketnow.com has some additional mockups posted, possibly from the same batch; it looks like they were playing with the appearance of elements, because the meters have a distinctly different appearance (though they're all still at the bottom). Can you tell we hate the fact that they're at the bottom?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Possible new Windows Mobile 7 mockups give 6.5 a well-deserved spanking originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Adamo Desire gets 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo SL9600, 256GB SSD

2009-10-19T21:19:00Z

Well, would you look at that? With Dell's 0.39-inch thick Adamo XPS just days from hitting virtual store shelves, the high-end Adamo Desire is undergoing a minor face lift... on the inside. Back in July, the Desire editions (available in Pearl and Onyx hues) stooped to $2,299 and shipped with a 1.4GHz CPU and a 128GB SSD. Today, those same machines are available with a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo SL9600 processor, 256GB SSD, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit). The best part? The MSRP has remained the same. Huzzah!

[Thanks, Billy]

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Adamo Desire gets 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo SL9600, 256GB SSD originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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