New search engine "listens" to music to help you find new tunes

from Engadget by Nilay Patel Peer-recommendation services like Last.fm and Pandora are pretty good at leveraging the power of the community to help you discover new music, but a recent grant from the National Science Foundation to the College of Charleston aims to take the concept to the next level, by creating a search engine that "listens" to music and creates critical comparisons between works. The system, as described by Ars Technica, involves a neural network that is trained to recognized the composer and style of music, an evaluation engine that's supposed to simulate human taste, and a set of objective metrics like pitch, tempo, and and duration. The results are then combined and the system can then recommend matches to find similar music. The researchers have already demoed a similar system with good results, so here's hoping the grant money helps them refine things further -- we've been looking way too long for the next Wham!

[Image from O'Reilly's Digital Media Blog]

 

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Sarotech's latest HD DivX player, portable HD, and photo storage unit

from Engadget by Nilay Patel

We don't usually hear the name Sarotech around these parts, but the company has some interesting products in its catalog -- including the three it released today. The Cutie Slim ditches the fingerprint reader of the previous Cutie we looked at to weigh in at just half an inch thick and three inches wide, while the DSR-281 Plus photo storage unit lets you offload your SD cards to its internal 120GB drive, and includes SDHC compatibility. The real monster, however, is the abigs DVP-570 HD Lite, an external media bridge that supports virtually every format we can think of, including HD DivX at 1080p resolutions, and also includes USB host mode, DVI-out, 5.1 channel digital out with DTS passthrough, and even a freaking FM transmitter, for some reason. If that's not enough to keep you entertained, the 570 also features an ebook reader, so you can curl up on the couch and read a book on your big screen. We're aching to get our hands on one of these, but sadly it looks like these are Korea-only for now. Damn. Read - abigs DVP-570 HD Lite Read - Cutie Slim Read - DSR-281 Plus photo storage unit

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Jabra BT8030 bluetooth headset works as a speaker too

from Engadget by Conrad Quilty-Harper

While the kids at the back of buses everywhere may already be aware of the fact that headphones can act as speakers if turned up loud enough, the rest of humanity tends to keep the volume down, and is therefore unawares. Jabra has latched onto this concept and created the BT8030, which can act as a bluetooth headset when you're on the move, and then switch into a speakerphone mode for Skype at your laptop. The speaker / headphone combo will also play music over Bluetooth, lasting up to 26 hours in music mode, 32 hours in talk mode, and sitting in standby for up to 25 days. It'll retail for $249.99, although we're not sure when you'll be able to pick one up. [Via FarEastGizmos]

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Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III: thanks, Amazon

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Not only did Amazon loose the goods on Canon's EOS 40D, they've also activated the page for Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III for the pros. That's an 11 megapixel jump from their EOS 1D Mark III (pictured) announced in February... Shazam! Canon's hope is to supplant the medium-format cameras dominating fashion and commercial photo studios with this relatively light-weight, full-frame DSLR. We're talking a 36 x 24-mm self-cleaning CMOS sensor; a pair of DIGIC III image processers operating in parallel; improved 45-point advanced autofocus; 5fps continuous shooting (for bursts of up to 45 Large/Fine JPEGs or 15 RAW images); sRAW image support; 3-inch Live View LCD with 5x or 10x magnification; and CF, SD/SDHC storage options. Of course, it won't come cheap when (and if) it ships on December 10th. In fact, you'll be looking at $8,000 for the body (only) according to Amazon's site. While it's not an official announcement, it's close. Besides, we've been waiting for this thing to get official since we first heard about it in February. So expect one of two things to happen next: either Canon will officially announce in the next few days or Amazon will pull their pages. Update: Amazon pulled the price and delivery date. No worries, we've got the screengrab after the break. Update 2: Oops, the whole page is gone now. No probs, we've captured the specs to the gallery below.

Gallery: Canon's 21.1 megapixel EOS 1Ds Mark III: thanks, Amazon

[Thanks, Robby B and Manhog]

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Toshiba's REGZA Z3500 series of 120Hz LCDs: 57-inches

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

Like TVs do ya? Then go ahead and block off the next few hours to decipher the machine translated Japanese surrounding Toshiba's 11 new HDTVs. Of these, the new top of the line REGZA Z3500 series of 37-, 42-, 46-, 52- and 57-inch LCDs are by far the more interesting. Each offers a 120Hz / 10-bit IPS panel with 3x HDMI (1080/60p and 24p) supporting x.v.Color / DeepColor, 2x Firewire, and a whopping 3x Ethernet jacks for surfing the internet (browser built-in) or streaming DLNA and DTCP-IP media from Tosh's own VARDIA recorders, Qosmio PCs, your local NAS server, and plenty more. Better yet, sling a few disks off the included 2x USB jacks and you've got an instant DVR -- suuuweet. Prices start at ¥360,000 ($3,123) and run up to ¥950,000 ($8,242) for the biggie 57-incher. We'll bring you the rest of the new sets a bit later, mkay? [Via Impress]

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Sony's 12.47 megapixel APS-C sensor captures 10.4 fps

from Engadget by Thomas Ricker

So, you've already decided to save up the $1,300 green for your new EOS 40D, eh? We can't blame you in the least, in fact, we're pondering the hit ourselves. Still, we thought you should know that Sony just announced their 12.47 megapixel APS-C sized CMOS image sensor, the IMX021. Right, the same sized CMOS sensor you'll find in the 10.1 megapixel 40D capable of processing "just" 6.5fps. The new sensor is said to offer enhanced image quality with reduced noise at a staggering 10.39 frames per second. It's available now in ¥40,000 ($347) sample quantities and will no doubt make its way into DLSRs from Sony and others in the months ahead. Damn you progress! [Via Impress]

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Browser-based WiTV video player gets sneak preview

from Engadget by Conrad Quilty-Harper

WebwireTV got a sneak preview of a new online video client designed to compete with the likes of Joost and other higher quality online video offerings. The few differences between the two clients include a central content distribution model -- Joost uses P2P -- and support for Steve Jobs' hobby. Beyond that, WiTV doesn't have the same kind of content deals that Joost has, although the interface and the absence of any kind of software installation definitely shows potential.

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Faking one's death still not enough to escape Verizon contract

from Engadget by Darren Murph

It's no secret that some wily individuals will look high and low for loopholes to escape a wireless contract, but staging your own death in order to bypass a $175 early termination fee is admittedly extreme. Nevertheless, a frustrated and determined Verizon customer decided to do just that after the carrier refused to let him out of his contract. Insistent that a host of dropped calls and "string of defective cellphones" were reason enough to ditch The Network, he went so far as to "fashion a fake death certificate" and convinced a friend to fax it in. Unfortunately, Verizon caught on to the scheme and yet again refused to let Mr. Taylor out, so as you can probably guess, the perturbed ex-customer begrudgingly coughed up the dough, trashed his phone, and hoped that he "sent a definite message about how much people hate being strapped to a cellphone that doesn't work." [Via Pocket-Lint]

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Has Building B created an internet video "God box"?

from Engadget by Joshua Topolsky

Without getting overly dramatic, word on the street is that Building B, a new-fangled startup based in Belmont, California, has developed an internet video "God box" which will allow OTA streams of traditional cable, internet video, and on-demand content without the need for a PC (i.e., directly to your 70-inch plasma television). Obviously, as the wave of internet TV steadily increases, dozens of companies are scrambling to unify the set-top, and streamline the end-user's ability to get all their content in one place -- not to mention suck up some totally righteous dough. Although Building B claims their technology will bring a heretofore unseen convergence to people's living rooms, the boys in charge have been rather tight-lipped in regards to the "forthcoming" magic unit, or services and fees that would be associated with said device. Hopefully we'll soon know what the "God box" can or can't do with your television, what kind of "plague" capabilities it will include, and if it will be compatible with Atheism.

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this Sony camera ALMOST got me to buy Sony

http://www.sonystyle.ca/html/multimedia/DSC/T200_microsite_html/feature_4.html

So small, slim, stylish, and supremely capable! From taking pictures to viewing and enjoyment, the HD-compatible DSC-T200 revolutionises your whole photo experience.

Multi Resizing Change your pictures to suit your needs.This function allows original images taken in 4:3, 3:2 or 16:9 aspect ratio to be easily resized in-camera and their mode altered according to the application. Images taken in 4:3 and 3:2 can be resized into 16:9 at 2 Mega resolution for viewing on HDTV; images other than VGA (including 16:9) can be resized into 4:3 at VGA resolution for uploading to a blog or attachment to an e-mail. Fine tuning the trimming position is also easy with the 4-direction button displayed on the Touch Screen, and there's no need to import images into a PC to make all these transformations. Simply resize — and enjoy! Note: It is not possible to upload the screen image from the camera body directly to a blog.

HD (16:9)   WEB (VGA)

Wide zoom display

Change your viewer to fit viewing opportunities. A "wide zoom" function allows photos to be displayed in 16:9 aspect ratio. Even 4:3 and 3:2 aspect ratio photos can be displayed in 16:9 aspect ratio when viewing on actual HDTV or on the full wide-screen LCD display of the camera — for a feeling of HDTV viewing.

Note: Movies are shown in 4:3 aspect ratio.

Relax and enjoy the shooting experience

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