Technology Nirvana

There's not exactly much more details than the headline on this one, but China's official Xinhua news agency is reporting that the country is delaying its plans that would require that the so-called "Green Dam Youth Escort" internet filtering software be installed on all PCs sold in China. That requirement was set to go into effect on Wednesday but, as we have seen, it's caused no shortage of controversy during the lead up -- both because of the general nature of the software, and because of some piracy and security issues that could leave PCs with the software vulnerable to an attack. No word on a new date just yet, but it seems unlikely that the delay will be an indefinite one.

[Thanks, James]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

China delays plan for mandatory "Green Dam" internet filter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Like solar-powered air conditioners, this solar hand fan makes a lot of sense. Well, save for the part where you have to fan yourself.

But it is a night light, which goes great with your ensemble if you're a southern belle who's also a robot. [Lost Values via Fashioning Tech via MAKE]

Batman normally likes to stretch his legs and have trunkspace for a few accidental dead bodies. But he might pilot an ATV powered by a jet engine on a weekend at the links.

John Carnett modded brand new Polaris RZR 2-seater ATV with a grey market, 40-year-old turbine. The result is a 114db joystick-driven vehicle that spews out 1300°F exhaust to achieve around 60MPH. And it sounds glorious.

Our only regret is that Carnett was too sane to take his jet ATV over any sweet jumps. Give him time, though. A guy who builds stuff like this has to be slipping a bit. [PopSci]

The 3.1 version of the iPhone SDK is available now, bringing a couple new fixes like having the OS simulator "more closely matching the device." There are also new Interface Builder, XCode and Dashcode changes. [iPhone Developer]

SkyGrid, the nifty, free financial news aggregator, is now publishing a stream of news on Twitter, letting users follow breaking business news headlines via the microblogging network.

The news aggregator, which only features stories about publicly traded companies, not only has an comprehensive Twitter feed for news stories, but the site also has Twitter feeds that are broken down by sector. So users can follow SkyGridHealth or SkyGridEnergy for sector-related news. SkyGrid currently has separate Twitter feeds for 8 different industries. SkyGrid says that the Twitter feed may be especially useful to users who want to access SkyGrid on their mobile devices.

Similar to TechMeme and Google News, SkyGrid clusters related news stories based on keyword analysis, what they’re linking to, etc. SkyGrid also tries to determine the sentiment of each article - red for negative, green for positive.

As we wrote in our earlier review of the services, SkyGrid is an incredibly useful tool, especially now that it is free. But the one element that is missing from SkyGrid is coverage of larger private companies, like Facebook. In order to become a serious competitor to popular aggregators like Techmeme (which also has a Twitter firehose), the site will need to expand its range of coverage. But especially for people in the financial services industries who use Twitter as a news source, SkyGrid is on the right track to providing users with real-time valuable financial news.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

It looks like Apple has already started sending out the beta version and SDK for the next iteration of the iPhone OS, 3.1, to developers.

The iPhone 3.0 software was released just about two weeks ago, ahead of the iPhone 3GS launch. By most accounts it’s pretty stable, though some users have been having battery issues. That’s why it’s a bit odd that Apple would iterate up to version 3.1 already, instead of something like 3.0.1, which it tends to do for minor updates and bug fixes. Could we be seeing a larger update to the OS already?

I’m told that there’s nothing much of interest in the release notes to indicate anything major that is new or changed.

Here’s the text of the email being sent from Apple:

iPhone SDK 3.1 beta and iPhone OS 3.1 beta are now posted to the iPhone Dev Center. These versions are for development and testing only and should be installed on devices dedicated to iPhone OS 3.1 beta software development. Please read the iPhone OS Pre-Install Advisory and the iPhone SDK 3.1 beta release notes before downloading and installing.

Update: I’m hearing a few reports that one change is that MMS is turned on by default. Perhaps AT&T is getting closer to turning it on as well in the U.S.

[thanks Michael]

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

The Library of Congress just made a bunch of historical videos available on iTunes U. Now you can watch the original Edison films or Book Festival videos in a "University" setting without the need for booze or girls. Yay. [iTunes]

The Machinedrum is not something you can easily acquire. It’s hard to find Elektron in your local drum machine shop - not that there are many drum machine shops out there but fortunately all their products can be ordered online - if the price isn’t too steep for you. Anyway, I was eager to try this little beast out so let’s see what it can do.

The Machinedrum is a drum synthesizer with a small sample memory. It has 6 audio outputs and 2 inputs making it a device capable of serious routing and sound designing on stage or in studio. The heart of the machine is the 16 track sequencer which is very easy to use and unlike other devices out there it can in fact be used for live production. You get 64 step patterns out of the box - some are great, some are not - and 130 “machines” that are basically the sounds you can use and edit as you wish.

Look and feel

It’s a brick. I like the simple design and the square buttons although they are quite loud. The body is made of steel but the unit only weighs around 6 pounds. The screen could be bigger in my opinion. When you are performing live you often need to glance on the screen and it can be hard to read. In fact the black/white area around the screen could be used for a bigger screen making it easier to see things. Then again, you can read most of the stuff from the step sequencer and surely you wont be spending time editing sounds on stage. All the buttons and knobs are made of plastic and they react without latency.

Control

Sound selection is done with the big black wheel. You can see which sound is selected on the nearby LED bar. Changing patterns is a piece of cake and I love how the Machinedrum handles that. By selecting a bank from A to H and pressing a number you can change the pattern on the next beat. Recording beats can be done in different ways. The original drum machine method is to select a sound and select when it should be played. The alternate method is live recording with quantize of course. It works like a charm. Effects are handled on the screen and it’s easy to do some weird stuff with it. You can record the effect changes you made to your sound although it is hard to control them with a little knob. I love that the device responds immediately to everything.

Sound

The Machinedrum sounds great. Superb quality kits can be achieved in a small amount of time (see video). Audio signals can be routed to any of the 6 outputs. A great thing to mess around is recording external audio and resample them. 2.5 MB of sample memory however raises some questions. Why not include bigger memory or a CF card slot? Because of the lack of storage I’m refusing to call it a sampler. Resampling can be applied to the built in sounds as well opening a whole new world of sounds without limits. The sound is punchy, deep, delicate and very dynamic. Different kits will give you different styles from nu jazz to techno.

Overall

The Machinedrum SPS-1 UW will cost you  $1790, shipping included. In the package Elektron’s midi interface, a TM-1 is included. It might be a little too high for “just” a drum synthesizer. This device sounds great, it’s easy to use and it’s very compact. You can take it with you in your backpack and you can lay superb beats and patterns down in a minute. If you are looking for a sampler, I suggest you look somewhere else. However, to be honest the Machinedrum is the best drum machine out there. Period.

The N97 might not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're still tempted to pay the $700 entry fee, you could sweeten the deal by throwing in a free-ish laptop -- Dell's currently bundling the Vostro A860 with Nokia's latest for $730 after a discount coupon. Flip that sucker on eBay for anywhere close to its $379 list price plus some "handling fees" and you might just come close to paying a reasonable price for the N97. Well, sort of reasonable. Those still interested should hurry past the read link, as the full discount will only be available through tomorrow or until stocks last.

Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops

Nokia N97 and Dell Vostro bundled for $730: make one mistake, get one free originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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