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TiVo-like devices to get booster shot

Tomorrow’s digital video recorders will be able to record two live shows and shuttle recorded content to several TVs at once, setting up a battle with PC makers. [CNET News.com – Personal Technology]

Engineers in the consumer electronics lab of hard-drive maker Maxtor, for example, are working on DVR-type devices that can record or broadcast at least six media streams at a time. That compares to three streams in current DVRs, which are hard-drive-based machines that can record video and temporarily pause live broadcasts. Three-stream machines can simultaneously record two live channels while playing a previously recorded program.

DVRs in development not only will be able to serve up video in multiple rooms at the same time, but also handle data from a home video security system, said Jasbir Sidhu, director of engineering for consumer electronics products at Maxtor. The coming DVRs may hit the market sometime in the next 18 months, he said.

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Target is slowly joining Walmart on RFIDs

Target is slowly joining Walmart on RFIDs. This is great. Keep going. Unfortunately, misguided privacy activists want stores to destroy the tags as you leave the store. RFIDs could be a very powerful way for people to track the goods that they buy. For example: it would be great for insurance purposes (have you ever tried to catelogue your household items before a move?). In this case, the benefits far outweigh any negative privacy issues. [John Robb’s Weblog]

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Qualcomm to build DRM into WCDMA chipset

I guess taking care of things well in advance of mobile P2P really being too much of a reality is a good way to assure that your products get picked up by device manufacturers.

Qualcomm Inc. will build digital rights management (DRM) technology into its forthcoming chipsets in hopes of enticing content providers to distribute their content wirelessly to smart phones, the company said Tuesday at 3GSM World Congress conference in Cannes, Frances. [InfoWorld: Top News]

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The Home of the Future

In many cases, the mechanics for the gizmos already exist — mainly wireless sensors, cellphones, broadband access and home computers. What’s been missing, and what researchers now are trying to develop, are ways to harness the hardware to run your entire house with little effort or technological savvy — letting you turn up the heat remotely, anticipating when you want the lights on, or deciding automatically how long your food should cook. [WSJ via E M E R G I C . o r g]

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Safari Extender

Safari Extender adds functionality to Safari in the form of a contextual menu item. It can re-arrange the order of the Tabs or compose an email with the current web address in your browser.

It can also temporarily turn images off, which helps when you have a lot of browsing to do in a short time. After you found what you need you can then turn graphics back on easily.

Other convenient functions in the contextual menu allow you to quickly go back or forward in a page, reload the page and increase or reduce the text size. More features will appear with further development. [MacUpdate]

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Free the Grey Album!

I received this email last week and have decided to go Grey…

We noticed you linked to a story about the Grey Album. It seems like copies of the Grey Album are definitely making their way to people who want them, but we thought it was vitally important that we *insist* on sample-based musicians’ right to create, and on the public’s right to hear the amazing music they make. EMI wasn’t just trying to stop DJ DM from selling the album, they sent cease and desist letters to some websites that were making it available for free. EMI acted to stop people from hearing this piece of fun and inventive music, and that’s just not right.

So we’re organizing an online-protest of sorts–called “Grey Tuesday”–to take a stand and pretend, even if only for 24 hours, that we don’t live in a culture where the legal environment ensnares musicians. The idea is that this Tuesday, February 24th, as many sites as possible mirror the Grey Album and/or turn their page “grayscale” (i.e. no color) for the day. We’re also calling for people connected to independent radio stations (college, commercial, internet) to get the entire Grey Album played at some point on Tuesday (possibly along with the Beatles and Jay-Z sources).

We’ve been pretty successful so far with our attempts to provoke debate about sampling and copyright. Check out this article from Wired that we got going or have a look at our press page. We’re pretty confident that, if there’s a reasonable level of participation, we can translate this “online event” into some serious coverage in mainstream press that tons of regular people will read.

And what regular people think about sampling and copyright matters, especially when the future of the music industry is almost entirely up for grabs.

So please, check it out: http://greytuesday.org
and email us to join: greytuesday@downhillbattle.org

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Out of your F**cking mind!

Though Quiznos landed on our Dumbest Moments list for its wolf-nursing ads, I was always a fan of those bizarre spots. Now, the sandwich chain has come up with another winner, albeit even weirder. Featuring the Spongmonkeys of RatherGood fame, the ads feature creepy sock-monkey-fruit-bat hybrids singing ridiculous, arhythmic, poorly penned lyrics (“they are tasty / they are crunchy / they are warm / because they toast them / they got a pepper bar!!!”) in a stilted, off-key style that would make Ween proud. I don’t know about you, but those little ditties really make me want a sammich. See for yourself here. [business2blog]

No no and NO! The Quiznos ads are horrible! The nasty creatures that sing off key are about the least appetizing salesmen you would want for a FOOD product. I just don’t get it actually and find that especially living here in NYC … aka Rat Central … they are a total turn off.

There is a Quiznos not too far from where I live that prior to the ads, I was actually thinking of giving a try. Now though, I am not going to consider giving them my money and am certainly not planning to eat one of their rat-wiches.

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Tasks Pro 1.0 released

Alex King has released Tasks Pro 1.0, his web-based task manager. From the screenshots it looks pretty cool. It even generates RSS feeds! [Ranchero]

Indeed – this looks like a winner for small office / team work management. I love that it works in iCal or Moz Cal and can be accessed from any browser even mobile devices.