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The discovery store just dropped what is quite possibly the most ridiculous gadget yet - the LED pet water bowl - on the unsuspecting masses. I had no idea such a thing could exist - nor do I really know why such a thing needs to exist. It’s a pet water bowl that has a ring of green LED’s (what - not blue?) surrounding the top that light up when the bowl is less than 1/4 full. I mean really - can’t people tell if the bowl has water in it by looking at it? Do they really need to spend extra money to add lights? Not to mention that Rover would be pretty freaked out by the concept of drinking from a bowl that lit up and blinked at him. Then again, maybe that is reason enough to give it a buy.
| Discovery
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Chris Pirillo opened the show, welcoming everyone to GnomeDex 5.0. Below are some of the key points of his opening. Interestingly enough, the Bell Harbor Conference Center here in Seattle had to upgrade their WiFi system for all the GnomeDexers. The best part was his mom came down to start snapping images, distracting Chris and causing a breakout of laughter. Chris took it in stride, walking over to give his mom a kiss. The GnomeDex WiKi is up as well.
Thank You’s:
- Ponzi, Lockergnome’s CEO
- Bob Fogarty, LockerGnome’s Editor
- Jake Ludington, Chris Pirillo Show Partner
- Steve Gillmor, The First IM
- LockerGnome Contributors
- GnomeDex Sponsors
- Every Single Gnomedexer
Ground Rules:
- Always use the microphone
- Blog, Cast, Snap, Share
- Take extended rants/agendas outside
- Play nice, play fair
- No unnecessary upload/download
Click to continue reading GnomeDex: Chris Pirillo Opens The Show
GnomeDex will be under way in just under five minutes. Lockergnome.com’s yearly People Aggregator aims to have their best year yet, with influential Internet minds, a large group of entrepreneurs, and a few announcements as well. I expect Attensa to announce a Microsoft Outlook RSS reader at some point. Check back with Venturus throughout the day for live GnomeDex 5.0 updates.
Click to continue reading Live Blogging GnomeDex 5.0
Latest Gear Live Videos
An online research company called Entertainment Media Research has recently released the 2006 Digital Music Survey. The survey, using information collected from 4,000 people, says that 35% of consumers now download tracks legally thru the Internet. They estimate the number will continue to climb and eventually surpass the 40% who continue to obtain music illegally online. The main reasons cited for using legal downloads were fear of prosecution, viruses, and low quality.
Read More | Reuters
eMachines has just dropped the MCE bomb on the general public but offering a sub-$600 media center. It’s does not have the worlds best specs, but for a price that most people would consider reasonable for a device that can manage all of their digital media, I’m ecstatic. It features an Athlon 64 3400+, ATI Radeon Xpress 200, 200GB HDD, 1GB RAM and a dual-layer DVD burner. It should be available at Best Buy and Circuit City shortly for $599 after a mail in rebate. Of course, if you are a heavy sepnder, you could always just go for the high end. People like you don’t normally let an eMachine anywhere near their vicinity.
| engadget
Battlefield 2 Hits Store Shelves
Posted by Oscar M. Cantu Categories: First Person Shooters, PC, Role Playing Games,
Today is the day Battlefield 2 for the PC hits the shelves. Here’s your chance to play the game before you buy it. Since this game is so popular, many servers are becoming overloaded. Thanks to TDG, here’s a list of mirrors for your downloading pleasure. What’s the big deal with this game? Check out the features and decide yourself if its worth to try it out or wait until our review soon.
KEY FEATURES
- Online multiplayer action with up to 64 players on the PC.
- All-new gameplay engine brings the immense locations to life complete with realistic physics and dynamic lighting.
- Maps scale to the number of players engaging in battle for a unique and intense experience every time.
- Take control of over 30 land, sea, and air vehicles, including tanks, helicopters, hovercraft, fast attack vehicles, and fighter jets.
- Choose to battle as U.S., Chinese, or Middle East Coalition troops, each with their own unique arsenals.
- A variety of soldier classes including Assault, Sniper, Special Ops, Combat Engineer, Medic, Heavy Weapons, and Anti-Tank units.
- New state-of-the-art weapon systems, including wire-guided missiles and laser designated bombs.
- Material penetration feature makes sure players know the difference between cover and concealment.
- Character Persistence and Growth. With in-game success, players increase their rank from recruit all the way to General and unlock new weapons, medals, and more.
- Join a squad or select the new Commander Mode to assume the strategic role of a battlefield commander directing his forces.
- Full in-game community support including, buddy lists, stat tracking, live chat rooms, and in-game clan creation.
- Voice over IP supported with headset.
Read More | Mirror List Courtesy of TDG
Read More | Battlefield 2 Home Page
CNN reports on a Welsh designer that’s coming up with another useful advancement in technology in sportswear. The “Smart Goggles” designer Katie William’s has come up with a small heads up display in the goggle lens to keep track of laps and time the swimmer. I’m hoping this gets adapted quickly into sunglasses for running, biking, and other sports. Then we can get all, you know, Predator on you.
| CNN via PopGadget
Microsoft is once again offering a block utility for one of their service packs. Just like its Windows XP SP2 block they offered last year, this one blocks SP1 for Windows Server 2003 until March 30, 2006. This will give companies plenty of time to prepare and test their systems for company wide deployment of the service pack. While this utility blocks SP1 it does not block the rest of Microsoft’s security updates. The utility is available for download from the Microsoft website.
Read More | Windows Server 2003 SP1 Block Utility
With the growing number of people who own an iPod or a similar portable audio device, each user has access to a storage device capable of transferring a wealth of information in an extremely portable fashion. The double-edged sword is that it poses a great threat to big businesses where loss of data is as easy as someone just walking in and taking all they want through the computer’s USB port. A lot of people are urging enterprises to disable USB ports or Window’s Universal Plug and Play. Should we really sacrifice accessibility for security? Has security become so bad that we must some day do away with hard drives all together and move to data storage in one central location?
Read More | Yahoo! News
Panasonic CQ-TX5500D: Retro Style Car Deck
Posted by Sparky Categories: Music, Portable Audio / Video,
Panasonic just went retro on us and announced their very first car deck that includes a tube amplifier! The Panasonic CQ-TX5500D features dual tube amps to give that old fashioned warm sounding sound stage. The CD deck can read CD-R and CD-RW discs and play MP3’s. Now I realize that true audiophiles really like tube amps and think they offer the cleanest warmest sound (and I have to agree) but can anyone figure out why you would care when you are listening to digital audio with it? If you are listening to an MP3 that’s been compressed to begin with why would you care about how natural sounding the amp is? Well if you do care you can pick one up later this year for a little under a grand and be the first guy on your block with this awesome looking deck.
Read More | Uncrate via engadget
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