Polymer Logic Speakers Slathered with Diamonds and Gold

The exploitation of audiophiles who think they have golden ears continues with these Polymer Logic speakers from Polymer Audio Research. They're characterized by the company as

"clearly an astonishing value for $24,990/pr and contains more pure diamond and gold then you'll find in any $500,000 diamond engagement ring."

Clearly, it's astonishing that anyone would fall for such a crock of bullshit. The midrange drivers are sprinkled with diamond fairy dust, and oh yeah, those golden ears will be matched up with the Polymer Logic's titanium dome tweeters, festooned with a pure layer of solid gold. Oh, wait a minute, those diamond drivers are made one at a time in a plasma reactor! We didn't know that—that's different. We're sold.

Junkies]

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40GB PS3 Uses a Smaller Chipset

According to European site Computer Base and a little help from automated translation, Sony has already shrunk their Cell processor down to the 65nm scale for the new 40GB PS3s, along with the the supporting NVIDIA graphics chipset. While our first response would be that PS3 users can look forward to less overheating—especially since Sony was able to shrink their heat pipe in this new PS3—hot chips really haven't been a problem for Sony (unlike *cough*Microsoft*cough* other console manufacturers). But consumers will still benefit from less power consumption, as the current 200-watt setup has been reduced to consume just 135 watts.

But ultimately, this means that Sony is making their PlayStation 3 more profitable...or maybe more aptly...less unprofitable. As far as we're concerned, the best PS3 purchase is still the original 60GB model that, unlike the new 40GB model, supports the most expansive backward compatibility.

Leopard Hacked For Self-Hating PC Users

We had written a very smug, Macs rule PCs drool post reporting that PC users could run Leopard. And then our Mac froze up and we lost it all. So now you just get the news straight, without our giggling. The news, once again: OSX Leopard has been hacked to work on all Intel PCs, and the process is ridiculously simple, requiring a small .zip and a touch of blank media.

Of course, by installing Leopard on a PC, you are endangering the stability of the space/time continuum, risking not just the future of the Earth and our own humanity, but the existence of everything in the Universe. And we could never condone anything that Back to the Future told us was best avoided.

source
gizmodo.com

$3.4 Million In-house Cinema Wins HE's Installation of the Year Award

A house in Austin, Texas has just been awarded with Home Entertainment's "Installation of the Year" accolade, and we have no reason to disagree with the judgment. Check out the tantalizing gallery below:

KickassCinemaGI

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The flamboyant in-house cinema room boasts 24-karat gold gilding details, hand embroidered fabric seats and genuine antique candle holders throughout. That's nothing compared to the technology behind the flush finish. There are twenty-four 12-inch subwoofers, CAT/MBX speakers tuned by professional engineers, a 200 pound, 3 feet long Runco MBX-1 projector, which is able to crank out 40 ft wide images, thirty-eight distinct audio zones, with the cheapest speakers costing $2000 /pair and touchscreen controls, which double up as controls for the whole house. The cost of all this flawless gadgetry? A staggering, $3.4 million. We'll keep saving. Hit the link to check out the full gallery.

Mach 8 Hydrogen Hypersonic Airliner

It looks like that Boeing jet we showed you yesterday isn't going to be the only airplane using hydrogen if the European Union has its way. The European Space Agency just got $14.5 million in a second round of funding from the EU to study the idea of developing A2, a hydrogen-fueled hypersonic aircraft that might travel at an incredible speed of Mach 5.5. They're studying what it would take to build an aircraft so fast that you could fly from Brussels to Sydney in 4.6 hours. Sheesh, that's 10,407 miles. There's even talk of an engine that could propel the craft to Mach 8. This rocket plane makes the Mach 2 of the Concorde seem glacially slow.

The trick here is to develop a special engine they're calling Scimitar, capable of thrusting the craft to those rocket-like speeds. It will be a rocket engine with a turbo compressor added, without needing liquid oxygen like those used in the boosters that send spacecraft into orbit. Such an engine is also capable of slower flight, allowing the aircraft to fly over land where supersonic speeds aren't permitted because of sonic booms.

The researchers are proposing a big plane, too. Check out the A2's size next to the gigantic Airbus A380 in the graphic above. This A2 hyperliner is big enough for 300 passengers, and the engineers are hoping to make it cost-effective enough for tickets to ride on the huge plane to cost about the same as a normal business class seat does today.

ATM Card Comes With Its Own Keypad

For people whose paranoia leads them to believe that there are boogeymen actually living inside ATMs, this invention from Innovative Card Technologies and eMue Technologies lets them input their PIN—and presumably encrypt it—before they approach the machine. Cool as it is, I have a problem: I only remember my PINs from muscle memory, so this would need a standard telephone numberpad to work for me. How many problems can you spot with this admittedly slim piece of high technology

AT&T Lets You Talk, But Limits What You Say

AT&T has revised their Terms of Service in a manner that should horrify the consumer public. Usually such updates screw the customer subtly, but AT&T's new adjustment ironically pulls freedom of speech directly from those using AT&T's service to speak. In short, if you slam AT&T, they can pull your service:

AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes...(c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

Of course, AT&T has overlooked one important fact about their TOS: they can't cancel a customer's service who will no longer do business with them anyway. Changes in TOS are often a loophole out of your contract. And if I were an AT&T customer, my choice would be pretty clear. UPDATE: Confirmed with AT&T— this is a new TOS merged in from the Yahoo! DSL TOS. Naughty, but AT&T also confirms that this is the way its always been

Ferrari Segway PT i2

The Segway PT i2 Ferrari Limited Edition comes just in time to celebrate Kimi Raikkonen's F1 championship. However, despite being painted in red, having a "Genuine Leather" handlebar and sporting the Cavallino Rampante shield, it doesn't run any faster than a regular Segway, neither does it attract sculptural blondes named Ingrid or Helga. In other words, a waste of $12,000. Maybe Ron Dennis' darling snotty-boy Lewis Hamilton should drive one next year

Asustek P5E3 Motherboard Features Embedded "Splashtop" Linux Variant

If you are not familar, Splashtop is a Linux variant that provides basic functionality like wired and wireless connectivity, Firefox, Skype, and simple games. What's unique about the software is it that runs entirely in RAM. That means you don't have to wait for your computer to boot in order to surf or chat on the internet. With the release of the P5E3, Asustek has become the first manufacturer to implement Splashtop in a motherboard.

What does this mean for you? It could definitely be useful if you are extremely impatient and or want to save a few bucks on your energy bill, but the fact that Splastop can't save anything locally could prove problematic. However, future upgrades to the software could this functionality--among other things. In the meantime, the specs on the P5E3 are worth checking out: Intel X38 chipset, DDR3 1800MHz dual-channel memory support, Dual PCI Express 2.0 x16 lanes, ASUS EPU (Energy Processing Unit) allows users to monitor and change CPU power supply, and 802.11n WiFi support.

Apple Applies for Patent for Pressure-Sensitive Touchscreens

Aiming to go beyond just sensing the location of your finger on its touchpads and touchscreens, Apple has applied for a patent for a "Force Imaging Input and Device System," which amounts to a spring-like device underneath the touchscreen or touchpad. The pressure-sensitive "force detector" layer would create a separate set of data, or image, that could add another dimension to interacting with Apple's phones, media players, laptops and displays. After the jump, see a full-sized diagram of the idea.

iPhone 1.1.1 File System Accessed, Hacks Not Quite There

Good news! The iPhone 1.1.1 file system has been broken open as a result of two iPhone hackers inserting symbolic links into the file system of a 1.0.2 iPhone before updating. And with file system access, it means we're one step closer to activating, then jailbreaking, and then enabling third-party applications. Erica at TUAW is liveblogging her progress, and we'll update this post with more info as it comes in. TUAW]

Update: The current status is file access, but no executable access and no shell access. This means that although you can look, you can't run apps. With a little file fiddling, that should come very soon.

Update 2: Any dreams of using the Wi-Fi music store on 1.0.2, effectively negating one big reason to upgrade, have been squashed. It doesn't work.

Update 3: Pash from Lifehacker tells us the whole third-party app scene has been totally quiet since the 1.1.1 launch. Both new apps and updates to old ones have been stagnant.

Update 4: They have read access to the entire disk, but write access is still limited.

source
gizmodo.com

40GB PS3 Finally Made Official

Well, we've heard the rumors and the retail leaks, and now it's official: there's a 40GB Playstation 3 coming on October 10th. It's only official for Europe as of now, with a €399 pricetag, but it's pretty safe to assume we'll be getting the same thing soon enough. The catch? No memory card reader, only two USB ports, and no PS2 backward compatibility. Is this the pricepoint Sony needed to hit to finally make the PS3 affordable? Will you be making the plunge now despite the lack of backwards compatibility? Between this and some good games finally coming out, the PS3 might just start moving some units

source
gizmodo.com

Hitachi New Style TV Is Only 0.75-inches.

THIS IS REALLY SLIIIIIIMMMMMMMM

This is the new Hitachi New Style TV, a 32" LCD television that is not only ultra-thin at 0.75-inch (1.9cm) thick, but looks absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, it's just a prototype of the final model, which will come in 2009. Sony better hurry up scaling up their new XEL-1. [Gizmodo Japan]

Ceatec2007 New Style TV

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