The newest super-powered Android 2.1 phone on the block is the Acer Stream, a 1GHz Snapdragon fuelled, 3.7 inch multi-touch WVGA AMOLED screen sporting, HDMI port having smartphone that easily compares with the Nexus One and Droid Incredible. Hold on to your hats, kiddies, it’s been cleared by the FCC and is heading to the US all soon-like (no word on Canada though).
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The Logitech WebCam Pro 9000 actually is sold under two monikers – the WebCam Pro 9000, and the QuickCam Pro 9000. If you want to stream high quality video, this is a great camera. I love this one so much that I bought one for my parents, and for my nephew. Although your internet connection may prevent you from streaming the full 1600×1200 HD quality of the video during a Skype video call, the video quality is still excellent. My parents upgraded from an old Logitech camera, and the difference is like night and day when I have a Skype chat with them.
About a month or so ago, I came across a few articles about Salmon Protocol – an open protocol that allows for communication beyond the confines of social networks; as well as a centralized conversation that brings comments from everywhere home to their source. Imagine, if you will, being able to communicate with people on Facebook from Twitter, or on MySpace from Facebook – and without having to join multiple networks. Wouldn’t that just make life peachy? Or maybe you are a blogger and would like to know about conversations that have sprung up around your post on the various social networks out there. Salmon Protocol plans to take you there – and may well be the future of the web.
We haven’t done much in the way of gear and gadget reviews here at 40Tech. That’s about to change. In the near future, we’ll be debuting 40Tech Picks, where we’ll spotlight gadgets that we REALLY like. At the present time, we don’t receive review units, so this will be gear that we use on a regular basis. We’re going to try to make these spotlights and reviews easily digestible, and from the perspective of "real users" – people who will use the gear like you and we would use it.
Pretty soon, you’ll also notice a "40Tech Picks" section on the navigation menu, above. Clicking on that will take you to a page where all of our picks are listed. We’re going to start by populating it with the handful of gear reviews that we’ve already done. Future picks will appear on the front page of the site, but also in that section.
We don’t often cover news stories here at 40Tech, but this one bears mentioning. A recent FCC decision [PDF file from FCC site] now allows the movie industry to disable analog outputs on your equipment in certain situations. Say what? Yes, you heard that right- in some cases, a content provider can reach in and mess with your gear.
This started back in 2003, and an FCC ruling concerning Selectable Output Control (SoC). SoC is what the MPAA wants to use to close the analog hole, by disabling outputs that don’t support HDCP. Previously, such conduct was prohibited.
Under the FCC ruling, a movie that has never been released on DVD or Blu-ray can be restricted for 90 days, by using SoC to disable the analog outputs on your gear. As some have pointed out, this isn’t all bad, because the content in question would be content that isn’t currently available, so those with analog gear won’t be missing anything that is currently available.
What is the practical effect of this? It really has three ramifications, two of which are bad. First, owners of older equipment without HDMI ports might be unable to get some of this new content. Second, all owners will be unable to make backups of this new type of purchased content, as the analog hole will be closed (some articles solely discuss streaming or on demand content, but it is hard to imagine that the industry won’t try to sell you movies, too, leaving you at their mercy to save it on their system). Third, if you have a newer television, you may get access to new content.
Is this a good thing? Does the ability to get new releases, earlier, offset the control the movie industry will be able to exert over your gear?
Photo by RocketRaccoon
