11th January 2006 Archive

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Levi's tailors jeans to fit iPod

Is that an iPod in your pocket or... oh, forget it

Jeans-maker Levi Strauss has designed a pair of denim trousers with an integrated iPod remote control. The jeans also provide an iPod dock and retractable earphones. The hardware tucks into the trouser's special side pocket - neatly side-stepping those bottom-broken back-pocket iPod Nano blues. The controller is located in the …

Media players 11 Jan 2006, 11:31
Downloads, iPods make music more 'disposable'

'There are simply too many notes, Herr Mozart'

A University of Leicester psychologist has concluded that modern listeners don't value music as much as their 19th-century counterparts did - and he blames the iPod and music downloading. A team of researchers from Leicester, Surrey and York universities, led by Leicester School of Psychology's Dr Adrian North, questioned 346 …

Media players 11 Jan 2006, 12:24
Griffin EarThumps earphones

Review Splendid isolation?

I've long stopped listening to portable music players on London's Underground. You have to turn the volume so high to rise above the background racket, it quickly gets uncomfortable. I began to worry about my hearing. Skip forward several years to the iPod era and my fears were undiminished - quite the reverse, actually, since …

Media players 11 Jan 2006, 13:48
Neuros preps DVD-quality, HDD-enabled video recorders

Open-source systems pitched at geeks

Neuros is to update its MPEG-4 Video Recorder with a new industrial design and an integrated hard-disk drive. It is also preparing to revive its Digital Audio Computer (DAC) line of MP3 players, basing both systems on both a common hardware platform and open-source firmware. Both the Recorder III and the Neuros III DAC will be …

Gadgets and Gizmos 11 Jan 2006, 15:02
'Quantum-Optical' chip maker shows 6.8GHz CPU

Will open tech to independent evaluation, sort of

Controversial computer company Atom Chip has said it will open the claims it makes about its ultra-compact memory technology and its 6.8GHz notebook CPU to independent scrutiny. The catch? Any such investigation must be made in the presence of company officials - just in case someone attempts to open the chip or the host …

PCs 11 Jan 2006, 15:06
Official: iPod owners are not thieves

Macs all right then...

iPod owners might be daft fashion victims who are easily parted from their money, but they are not thieves, despite what Steve Ballmer may, or may not, have said. A survey of US and UK music buyers reveals that although 25 per cent of people admit to downloading music from file-sharing services, only seven per cent of iPod …

Media players 11 Jan 2006, 15:38
Tablet Mac draws bidders on eBay

iBook iTweaked

Tired of waiting for Apple's long-rumoured tablet Mac to ship? Then US-based hardware mod project site, ThePlaceforitAll.com, may have the answer. It today offered the first of 100 12in iBooks re-tooled as a tablet, complete with stylus and touch-sensitive screen. The so-called iTabs - née iTablet, changed for legal reasons - …

Mac 11 Jan 2006, 17:15
Apple bitten by iTunes security bugs

Musical chairs

Security researchers have discovered four critical vulnerabilities involving Apple's QuickTime media player software and the download application for Apple's iTunes music store. The flaws create a means for hackers to take control of affected systems, according to eEye Digital Security, the firm that discovered the bugs. All …

Media players 11 Jan 2006, 18:55
Google and CBS release embarrassment of a video store

Review I know Apple, and you're no Apple

"This is a truly historical meeting of the established and new media," said Les Moonves, the head of CBS, about his network's new video partnership with Google. Um, no, Les. So far, it's just a really crap web site. If, like us, you expected the new and improved Google Video service to rival something like Apple's iTunes store …

Media players 11 Jan 2006, 21:16