Author: TechDigest writer
Make your own liquid nitrogen ice cream
If you’re in the habit of spending upwards of $35,000 per year on ice cream then the credit crunch is probably amongst the least of your concerns. Still, if it is you could save money by making limitless quantities of delicious dairy snack with the £35,000 NitroCream machine.
Now, you’re probably thinking that you don’t need to spend $35,000 to get a good tub, but the reason this little wonder costs as much as it does is because it uses liquid nitrogen to instantly transform cream or yoghurt into smooth, creamy ice cream. You no longer need to take up valuable space with keeping your materials cool and the like.
"Xbox 360" graphics on phones by the end of the year
Cor. I remember when playing colour Solitaire on my phone was cutting edge, but if you believe the words of Remi Pederson, a graphics product manager at ARM, we could be enjoying Xbox 360 style visuals from our mobile screens by the end of 2009.
Given that Xbox 360s are prone to overheating and dying a horrible death (mine shuffled off its mortal coil for a second time this weekend), does this mean we’re all going to be heading to the burn ward after an extended commute? Probably not. You see, although the visuals will look similar to the 360’s, they’ll actually be closer to original Xbox in output.
Fitness First ad gives you something to ponder while you 'weight'
It’s not that uncommon for something which is amazing technology to show an equally amazing lack of tact, but this new advert in the Netherlands for Fitness First manages both with aplomb. The bus stop seat is linked up to the banner, and will display your weight when you take a seat.
Thomson launches next generation mp3 format
If you’re anything like the girl on the right, you probably enjoy your mp3 music as it is. But if you’re a serious audiophile, you may already be left raging at the amount that mp3 files miss out to keep the file size in the single digits. If that sums you up, then it’s time to celebrate, because Thomson – one of the companies to come up with the original mp3 format – has developed MP3HD technology.
What does this mean to you? Well potentially nothing if it doesn’t pick up, but if it does then you can expect higher quality audio with less sound loss than conventional mp3s. Mp3s achieve their svelte file size by discarding various bits of audio that the algorithm considers expendable. It essentially means that what you’re hearing will always be of inferior quality to the original CD source, though it’s questionable as to how many can tell the difference. In the days of smaller mp3 players (32mb ones used to be the norm, remember) this loss of quality was essential, but with flash memory and hard disk sizes growing every day, we can afford to be a little more selective in what should be left out.
Blue OLED efficiency up 25%
OLED technology may be about to take a massive leap forwards, which is good news for anyone looking to the screens becoming more widely used. The blue OLED has always been the weak link in the screens, offering significantly shorter lifespans than its red and green brethren. Well, a team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is one step closer to cracking the problem by improving blue efficiency by an impressive 25%.
Samsung announces N310, their new 10.1 inch netbook
It must have been, ooh, nearly a week since our last new netbook announcement, so thankyou Samsung for breaking the hours of silence by announcing the N310.
The new netbook, which follows on from the NC10 series, will be 10.1 inches, offers an unspecified Atom processor and 160gb hard disk space. Long gone are the days when your netbook’s storage space would be dwarfed by your mp3 player. It will also offer optional HSDPA or WiBro connectivity for internet when wireless signal is out of reach.
DS makes the Kama Sutra even more embarrassing
What could possibly be more embarrassing that being caught reading a copy of the Kama Sutra on the train? How about watching an animated couple having at it on your DS screen with an accompanying explanatory text? Yep, that’ll do it.
Before I go any further, I should point out that this isn’t an official Nintendo product and never will be. What you have here is some homebrew software unveiled as part of the annual flash card coding competition, and it will never ever sit alongside Mario Kart and Sonic on the shelves of your local game store. Which is a shame, because some of gaming’s iconic figures starring in a digital version of the Kama Sutra would both be hilarious and likely to make Daily Mail readers foam at the mouth like Pavlov’s dog chained next to Big Ben.
DSi downloadable content to rival iPhone app store?
While it has been known for a while that the Nintendo DSi will offer downloadable mini games to play off the machine’s flash memory with a shop like the Wii’s, it appears Nintendo have plans for content beyond games in a move that bears more than a passing resemblance to what Apple have done with the iPhone app store.
This is according to reports emanating from the Nintendo Developer Conference from last week, that suggest Nintendo want a whole host of useful applications that move beyond gaming. Currently the Japanese version of the DSi store only has one third party application on there – Mojipittan Shiritori Clock – the sole function of which is revealed from the last word in its title.
The Nintoaster is back – now in 16-bit
You may remember around 6 months ago we published a piece about the Nintoaster – a fine, if somewhat pointless piece of engineering ingenuity where the innards of Nintendo Entertainment System were crammed still working into the shell of a toaster with the bread-loading mechanism in tact. Given there was a five year gap between Nintendo releasing the NES and the SNES, it’s pretty impressive stuff that the same modder has a toaster based on the newer hardware already.
Other than the step up from 8-bit to 16-bit gaming, it’s more of the same, from the modder.You still switch it on by pushing down the bread switch (technical name that, I’m sure) and it still gives you a nice warming glow, even if you can’t use its original function of cooking bread.
Internet Explorer 8 hacked within 24 hours
If you’re going to announce that your new browser is the safest on the market, you’d best be damned sure you’re right. It seems Microsoft releasing Internet Explorer 8 out of open beta yesterday was a red flag to a bull (or a challenge to a hacker), because within 24 hours a new exploit has been found in the browser.
The feat occurred at the annual CanSecWest security conference, which hosted its PWN2OWN hacking contest, where the exploit was found. A German hacker going by the name of Nils found it and claims a prize of $5000 in cash and a Sony Vaio laptop as a prize.
It’s only fair to mention that the same hacker managed to claim an additional $10,000 for successfully hacking Safari and Firefox. There’s still two days left for more browsers to succumb to the hacker’s codey wiles – perhaps Chrome and Opera will let their guard slip as well.
