http://reblog.earthlogs.ca A collection of news Wed, 10 Mar 2010 11:13:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Did you know there was a Digital Inclusion Summit going on? We already know the FCC isn't best pleased about the fact 93 million Americans are making do without access to home broadband, and this latest event was an opportunity for it to dish some more info on its forthcoming ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/fcc-will-consider-free-or-very-low-cost-wireless-broadband-service/ While the verdict is still out with regard to consumer appetites for a 3rd portable computing device, PC makers are betting the farm on consumer interest in tablets that fill the gap between small-screened smartphones and bulky (by comparison) netbooks/laptops. We've already seen an uptick in tablet devices on display ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/over-50-arm-based-tablets-launching-this-year/ In 2007, steampunk musician Yoshi Akai wrote his master's thesis on how to turn color into sound, and he's been dreaming up unorthodox ways of producing music ever since. Case in point: the Lego Sequencer MR II, a contraption that uses three-dimensional Lego structures to emulate a three-channel, eight-step sequencer, ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/steampunk-sequencer-generates-audio-from-lego-blocks/ Tired of the limited legroom, bad food, and worse movies you have to put up with during a flight? Well, it's time to bust out your company credit card and get yourself a Martin Jetpack, which has just become the first commercially available jetpack. Driven by a pair of washing ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/martin-jetpack-priced-at-86000-mere-mortals-will-soon-be-able-to-buy-one-too/ Man, MIT is making all of these other places of higher learning look silly. For what seems like the fortieth time this month, scientists at the university have revealed yet another breakthrough that might just change the way we compute in the future. Polyethylene, which is about as common a ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/mit-gurus-use-polyethylene-to-suck-heat-away-from-your-next-cpu/ TinyUrl and Bit.ly are becoming some of the staple services that we use today to exchange long URL addresses on the fly. They’re easier to type and to remember, and they’re friendly to use on services like Twitter that limit the amount of characters you can input in one tweet. ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/shorten-long-url-addresses-to-bitly-on-the-fly/ Whether you covet your Irish friends' ability to make in-flight cellphone calls or value your aerial naps too much to care either way, you must admit that the promise of in-flight SMS, MMS, voice messaging, and text email is tantalizing. To this end, the kids at Asiq have announced a ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/bluetooth-access-point-brings-text-messaging-voice-messaging-email-to-the-friendly-skies/ By and large, EA Sports' Season Opener event here at GDC was underwhelming, but one glimmer of newness did manage to shine through. Nearly a year after Active hit stores (video after the break) and encouraged Wii gamers to drop those unwanted pounds before hitting the soft sand in the ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/ea-sports-introduces-active-20-at-gdc-complete-with-sensors-galore/ We had a hunch that Pentax was readying a 645 Digital, and sure enough, the company has come clean with that very camera today. The May-bound 40 megapixel 645D is a medium format beast, but unlike similar options from Hasselblad, this one won't actually destroy your hopes of sending four ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/pentax-gets-official-with-40-megapixel-645d-medium-format-camera/ Well, Newegg just seems to be full of surprises these days. The latest example is this ASUS Eee Box (model EBXB202-BLK-E0037), which wouldn't be so remarkable if not for the fact that it comes pre-installed with the Chinese Linux distribution, Red Flag Linux. That helps bring the price down to ... http://reblog.earthlogs.ca/2010/03/newegg-selling-asus-eee-box-with-red-flag-linux-pre-installed/