FLIP OFFERS A WIRELESS WAY TO GET VIDEOS FROM PC TO TV
Roughly 3 million people use a Flip, the pocket-size camcorder from Cisco that has spawned a new category of video devices that are one-button simple. Ease of use is also the capstone of FlipShare TV, a new system that enables you to wirelessly shuffle Flip videos from computer to television, then share them with far-flung friends and family.
The US$150 FlipShare TV system has three elements: a wireless USB key that you plug into the PC that stores your videos, a receiver box that you connect to the TV, and a remote control. The FlipShare TV’s USB drive and TV base are already configured to work with each other; no setup or home network is required.
As its name implies, the FlipShare TV includes an element of social networking. Users can create “channels” to share video instantly with other FlipShare TV owners. It’s not an open platform like YouTube, however. FlipShare TV owners must first “friend” those with whom they want to share video, a la Facebook.
The FlipShare TV seems to be an easy and useful, if expensive, way for Flip aficionados to view and share their creations. But at US$150, Cisco should have tossed in an HDMI connector.
A SERVER FOR THE MOST
DEMANDING OF MUSIC LOVERS
Audiophiles know that the quality of the sound from CD recordings leaves much to be desired. To hear the gold standard of recordings, Olive has created its 4HD Hifi Music Server, a US$2,000, 2-terabyte hard drive that stores and delivers audio in studio quality, 24-bit/192 kHz oversampling format.
The drive is large enough to store 20,000 24-bit tracks, or 6,000 standard CDs. For buyers of the unit, Olive
will digitize and import 100 CDs at
no charge.
All of one’s music can be transferred from a PC, as well as CDs, into the unit’s drive, and then that music can be distributed to an existing audio system. A free iPhone app lets the user control the selection of music remotely.
The biggest challenge with the 4HD is finding 24-bit recordings. In a deal with Chesky Records, known for its high-quality recordings, the unit comes with 12 24-bit tracks already installed. The company is also in talks with the major labels to provide more 24-bit content, so you can hear that Black Eyed Peas track in all its glory.
SOME NEW iMAC DESKTOPS
ARRIVE WITH ISSUES
Apple’s reconfigured iMac desktop — a bright, shiny, wide-screen example of a home computer — works beautifully ... unless it doesn’t work at all, or arrives out of the box with a cracked display.
Some reviewers and, judging from a survey of some Mac forums, some users, are encountering issues with some new models.
The review team at Engadget, for example, found that their new Intel Core i7-based iMac would not boot up. (The 2.8-gigahertz Core i7 processor is sold as a US$200 built-to-order option, and isn’t generally offered on machines sold at Apple retail stores.)
And TechNews.AM reports that some customers who ordered the Intel Core i7 received cracked display screens, commonly with the damage near the bottom left corner, speculating that the problem might be due to inadequate shipping packaging. The defective products are being replaced by Apple.
This may give pause to some consumers who have been eyeing the iMac’s gorgeous LED-lighted display and searingly fast processor. But many people have had another problem with the latest version of the iMac — particularly the newest model with a 27-inch display. It’s so big, it’s hard to find a place in the house where it will fit.
A MUSCULAR LAPTOP THAT
DEFIES THE LIGHTWEIGHT TREND
With netbooks and ever-slimmer notebook computers attracting the most consumer attention this holiday, Dell apparently believes there’s still room for workhorse PCs, even if — at about 4kg — they defy current fashion. Enter the Precision M6500 “mobile workstation.”
Workstations are just that: monster-spec machines intended for high performance and powerhouse applications. Dell’s just-released package, priced to start at US$2,750, is structured around an advanced Intel Core i7 quad-core processor — among the first mobile PCs to use that chip — and a 17-inch LED backlighted screen, 1920 by 1200 pixels. There’s a gaudier variation, the Covet in hot copper orange (US$4,220), that makes the Apple MacBook Pro look like the Fisher-Price version.
While the base version is loaded with only 2 gigabytes of memory — not nearly enough for a computer with this potential — it will accommodate up to 16 gigs in four memory slots, a feature normally found on desktops, not on laptops.
The nine-cell battery should perform strongly, although its life
on the road depends on how the PC
is configured.
March 24 to March 30 When Yang Bing-yi (楊秉彝) needed a name for his new cooking oil shop in 1958, he first thought of honoring his previous employer, Heng Tai Fung (恆泰豐). The owner, Wang Yi-fu (王伊夫), had taken care of him over the previous 10 years, shortly after the native of Shanxi Province arrived in Taiwan in 1948 as a penniless 21 year old. His oil supplier was called Din Mei (鼎美), so he simply combined the names. Over the next decade, Yang and his wife Lai Pen-mei (賴盆妹) built up a booming business delivering oil to shops and
Indigenous Truku doctor Yuci (Bokeh Kosang), who resents his father for forcing him to learn their traditional way of life, clashes head to head in this film with his younger brother Siring (Umin Boya), who just wants to live off the land like his ancestors did. Hunter Brothers (獵人兄弟) opens with Yuci as the man of the hour as the village celebrates him getting into medical school, but then his father (Nolay Piho) wakes the brothers up in the middle of the night to go hunting. Siring is eager, but Yuci isn’t. Their mother (Ibix Buyang) begs her husband to let
In late December 1959, Taiwan dispatched a technical mission to the Republic of Vietnam. Comprising agriculturalists and fisheries experts, the team represented Taiwan’s foray into official development assistance (ODA), marking its transition from recipient to donor nation. For more than a decade prior — and indeed, far longer during Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) rule on the “mainland” — the Republic of China (ROC) had received ODA from the US, through agencies such as the International Cooperation Administration, a predecessor to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). More than a third of domestic investment came via such sources between 1951
The Taipei Times last week reported that the Control Yuan said it had been “left with no choice” but to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the central government budget, which left it without a budget. Lost in the outrage over the cuts to defense and to the Constitutional Court were the cuts to the Control Yuan, whose operating budget was slashed by 96 percent. It is unable even to pay its utility bills, and in the press conference it convened on the issue, said that its department directors were paying out of pocket for gasoline
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