Tech Tuesday #14: Is That Supposed To Be Blinking?

Hello loyal readers and passerby alike. Ryo here after a crazy night of hanging out at my local Game Stop to enjoy the midnight launch of Modern Warfare 2. Unfortunately I didn’t have the cash to shell out, or the console to play it on due to my recent RROD on my 360. Three years of faithfully serving up hours of enjoyment, I think it deserves a rest. Ignoring the little itch in the back of my mind that wants to post detailed steps on how to disassemble a 360 in order to fix this error yourself…shall we jump into right into some techie news?

Nokia has finally started shipping out the new model of Maemo based smartphones to those who pre-ordered the device. Dubbed the N900 this is supposed to be Nokia’s top of the line hitter for the time being. I own their previous Maemo device called the N810 and if this really is an improvement over that, I can’t wait to see about getting my hands on that tempting piece of tech. The obvious improvements for this new model are going to be better CPU and larger internal storage. The N810 had an internal 2 GB card installed with a slot so you could add an extra micro SD in, but the CPU is what really was the limitation of the device. Better CPU means better programs/games and load times for apps.

When I first came across the GlideTV Navigator, my first thought was: “I wonder how well you could spin that on a table.” Ignoring the mocking comments I made to myself, I studied the review of it a bit closer and the thing really does look useful. If you are willing to plop down the cash for a piece of hardware that is essentially a remote control for your laptop or desktop. Honestly the thing looks uncomfortable to hold, but apparently the reviewer said that GlideTV really has put quite a bit of effort into the design to make it simple yet elegant enough to be set out in the living room without it sticking out like a sore thumb. This new device really makes the fairly simple setup for remotely controlling my laptop seem a bit amateurish…maybe I just am missing a funky styled device to connect to the laptop? Brilliant idea.

In an unsurprising move, Google has opted to toss out free WiFi to people using the US’ airports. Well some of them at least, 47 announced so far, but this is certainly a welcomed gesture from Google. It shows a bit of a human face on the giant company doesn’t it? Maybe even dispute the claims that Google is evil? Seriously though, Lee Williams from Symbian still thinks Google is evil because they state in their philosophy page that they will do no evil in order to make profits.

Couldn’t bring myself to type out a joke about that so I’ll leave it to your imaginations. A little side note, off topic of course: Today marks the 26th birthday of the first known bit of code that could give an un-priviledged user access to a server. Fred Cohen’s proof-of-concept code took five minutes after running to take over a Unix server. Not bad at all for the time, and since then malicious code has become nearly commonplace on the internet. I doubt I need to tell anyone not to open any suspicious attachments…do I?

Well, I’m off to steal one of my family member’s consoles so I can actually enjoy Dragon Age: Origins for awhile. Hopefully I can scrounge up some cash and get a new system since I have no desire to get this one repaired and it doesn’t help the fact it was previously opened due to one small mishap in the past. If anything it will make a great test system for testing out case mods and the like. Take care everyone, I’ll see you next week.

 

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