Hello world!

March 13, 2009 by

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

Samsung 6tb RAID Array transfers 2000mb/sec

March 13, 2009 by

Now, this is a really great idea. Samsung gave some geeks a bunch of SSDs and they built a 24 drive raid array with a capacity of 6tb, and over 2gb/sec transfer speeds. He’s shown ripping a dvd in .8 seconds, opening 53 apps in less than 19 seconds, and jumping on a trampoline with the array dangling by the power cables. Great marketing idea, props to Samsung.

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Interview with FFMpeg Developers

March 13, 2009 by

Earlier this week the FFmpeg project reached version 0.5, which was quite significant considering no new FFmpeg release was made available in years. This release contained a plethora of new encoders and decoders, support for VDPAU, a variety of bug-fixes, and many other improvements. What is next for FFmpeg? When will we see proper Blu-ray support? Will there be a 1.0 release in the foreseeable future? To answer these questions plus others, I spoke with three of the main FFmpeg developers about this very popular — and important — open-source multimedia project.

The three developers that shared their thoughts were Diego Biurrun, Baptiste Coudurier, and Robert Swain. Diego is a developer that originally started working on MPlayer, but now with FFmpeg he is responsible for some of the code’s maintenance, handling some of the legal affairs, and other organizational tasks. In particular, Diego was the one that stepped up to the plate and took over the release manager position for version 0.5. Baptiste discovered FFmpeg three years ago and after realizing it was “the Swiss knife of multimedia on Linux,” he began fixing random bugs, quickly became the maintainer of the QuickTime handling code, and is regarded by the other developers as being the savior of MOV/MP4 support in FFmpeg. Robert originally began his FOSS multimedia development adventures through updating the Xvid and x264 interfaces in MPlayer and then in FFmpeg. Robert remained with the FFmpeg project thereafter, with a particular interest in making it easier to use. Robert is also FFmpeg’s AAC decoder maintainer and previously worked on the project as part of Google‘s Summer of Code. [Phoronix]

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Vote DJ Mode iPod/Iphone

March 13, 2009 by
Image representing Apple as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Over at Wired‘s Gadget Lab they’ve got a rundown of a neat new feature of iTunes 8.1: iPhone / iPod touch voting for songs in DJ mode. Basically, Apple also released an update to their Remote application to go with iTunes 8.1 and it is now possible to set up iTunes so that anybody with an iPhone or touch connected to the same network can actually request songs from your library into the DJ list (formerly Party Shuffle playlist). Once songs are queued up, other guests can even vote on the songs (presumably to move them up the queue, though that’s not confirmed). You can still control all playback features via Remote on your own, authorized iPod touch or iPhone.

This is a brilliant piece of integration from Apple. Invite your friends over (though only if they have an iPhone or touch, naturally) and let the guests choose the songs. There are apparently some annoyances and quirks to the system in the way the queuing actually works, but one imagines those will be worked out in the future.

[via Gizmodo]
TUAWiTunes 8.1 DJ gives another excuse to party originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:30:00 EST.

Macbook Second Monitor Hack

March 13, 2009 by
Apple MacBook
Image by Erik Eckel via Flickr

An anonymous reader from the Macmod forum wrote in with this appealing hack: “This is one of the coolest mods I’ve seen all year. Mac Moder EdsJunk submitted this mod to our forums late

Thursday night. By cracking open a MacBook he was able to put a second monitor inside of the screen. The end result is sweet. The second monitor can make the Apple logo have any kind of background, like the clown fish, or the flurry screen saver.”

Source

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How do militaries treat their nerds?

March 13, 2009 by

An anonymous reader writes “Cyber Warfare is a hot topic these days. A major reorganization may be looming, but a critical component is a culture where technologists can thrive. Two recent articles address this subject. Lieutenant Colonel Greg Conti and Colonel Buck Surdu recently published an article in the latest DoD IA Newsletter stating that ‘The Army, Navy, and Air Force all maintain cyberwarfare components, but these organizations exist as ill-fitting appendages (PDF, pg. 14) that attempt to operate in inhospitable cultures where technical expertise is not recognized, cultivated, or completely understood.’ In his TaoSecurity Blog Richard Bejtlich added ‘When I left the Air Force in early 2001, I was the 31st of the last 32 eligible company grade officers in the Air Force Information Warfare Center to separate from the Air Force rather than take a new nontechnical assignment.’ So, Slashdot, how has the military treated you and your technical friends? What changes are needed?”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Madoff goes to jail

March 12, 2009 by
Pleading guilty to orchestrating the largest fraud in Wall Street history, Bernard L. Madoff said yesterday he was “deeply sorry and ashamed” for his crimes, before being led out of a packed Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs.
Bernard L. Madoff, shown arriving at federal court in Manhattan yesterday, will return for sentencing on June 16.
US District Judge Denny Chin revoked Madoff’s bail and ordered that he be sent to jail to await sentencing, saying he was a flight risk because of his age and wealth. Madoff, 70, faces life in prison, up to 150 years, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 16.In his first public comments about his crimes since he was arrested Dec. 11, Madoff, in a dark gray suit and speaking in a soft, husky voice, admitted to 11 charges. When the judge asked if Madoff understood he was under oath, Madoff broke into a brief coughing fit, then replied, “Yes.”

“Try and keep your voice up so I can hear you,” Chin said. The judge read the charges, including fraud, perjury, and money laundering. “Guilty,” Madoff responded.

Later, Madoff read from a six-page statement in which he revealed the scope of his deception – a scheme that cost duped investors billions of dollars. Madoff said he knew what he was doing was wrong, and criminal.

“When I began the Ponzi scheme, I believed it would end shortly and I would be able to extricate myself and my clients,” he said. But that ended up being impossible, he said, “and as the years went by, I realized that my arrest and this day would inevitably come.” [boston]

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Torrent Droid for Android

March 12, 2009 by

This is a short demonstration of Torrent Droid for Android. It is running on a T-Mobile G1. This is only an alpha version and the UI has not been completed. In the demo I used a local WiFi network, but it also works over Edge. Please offer any feedback in the comments.

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Vertical SKI Jump

March 12, 2009 by

22,2 meters is the world record. this is just crazy.

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Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht on Jimmy Fallon

March 12, 2009 by

Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht were on Jimmy Fallon recently talking about Digg, Diggnation and the like. It’s basically a mini Diggnation episode minus the Diggs. Check it out.

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