Better late than never. Here’s a link to a grand collection of Quicktime VR’s from around the world on New Year’s Eve. Sorry, none from my in-laws living room in Sarasota playing Cadoo with our 5 and 8 year old nephews.
SMS Tsunami Alerts
BoingBoing reports on a remarkable idea to help warn people in remote areas, as in the case of the Christmas Tsunami. ‘Problem: No effective system of mass, international alert existed in South Asia to quickly warn those in harm’s way of the tsunami’s approach.
One approach to a solution, created in the span of about 24 hours by an impromtu volunteer geek corps: A tech system called Alert Retrieval Cache (ARC) which collects, sorts, and routes SMS messages for the puposes of alerts and relay communication. An early warning system based on SMS, short message service.’
Update: OnCinema MCE
For those of you DIY-types who lust after the Italian OnCinema TEATRO D1 A/V component sized, aluminum encased MCE 2005 PC with a built-in 7-inch touch screen I discussed earlier, here’s a nice option. Atechfabrication has announced a slick case, complete with a cutout for a 7-inch LCD touchscreen. Not a bad idea to offer this to the home consumer market itching to leverage the MCE2005 approach to home media convergence. Still gonna cost a bundle to build a complete system, but it’s nice to dream about, isn’t it? Meanwhile, my DHS system from Alienware has now been on order since 11/16, even after they called to swap out video cards to avoid a ‘lengthy delay’. Grumble.
Tivo To Go Released
TiVo has announced the release of their TiVo To-Go feature, a much ballyhood new capability with significant DRM included to placate rights holders. The software allows you to move recordings between your networked TiVo Series2 DVR and your computer (for now, Windows only). But with previous capabilities using Mac’s Rendezvous technology for picture and music sharing, I’m hoping the Mac software is not far behind. Now to go and get a TiVo 2 machines to replace my old first generation box.