Do it Yourself: Tiny Battery Lamp

Here’s another product which was probably designed by someone completely bored. This is what I imagine under funny but completely useless product - special Do It Yourself Battery Lamp. Yeah, it’s like LEGO, but you need an extra 9V battery here. The rest is simple - buy one of tens various designes and build your own mini lamp. Sold as “Designer Emulation Kit,” this kit consist of a series of flat pieces that you remove from the printed circuit board, assemble, and hook up to a 9-volt battery. The price is set to 26 bucks per piece, so it won’t ruin your wallet but there are also more useful things you can buy for these money…

Microsoft sold one million Zunes

Robbie Bach, president of Microsoft’s Entertainment and Devices Division, confirmed in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that the company has cleared the million mark. While he said that “a little over a million Zunes” translate into a 10% market share in the category of hard-disk-based digital audio players, Bach conceded that it wasn’t quite an “overwhelming” start: “I’m not going to pretend it’s some gigantic move,” he told the Chronicle.



However, Microsoft did reach its initial goal outlined last December by former VP Bryan Lee. At the time, Lee considered one million Zunes within a nine-month timeframe as potentially “awesome”. Compared to its rival, Apple’s iPod, Zune in fact appears to have done reasonably well: It took the iPod nearly two years to reach the one-million milestone. But, in fairness, the iPod launched in a time (2001) when the portable MP3 player was a toy for geeks and the market opportunity was hardly more than a niche. Microsoft, on the other side, launched Zune in a booming market and, in this perspective, a million sold devices suddenly do not look that “awesome” anymore. Zune has been in the market for 193 days (November 14, 2006 to May 25, 2007) in the U.S. market – which translates into about 5200 Zunes sold per day. About 30,000 stores in the U.S. are currently selling the player, which means that, on average, each store sold about 33 Zunes during this 193 day period – or one Zune every six days. Anyway, it’s still far away from promised iPod killer…

Intel builds boards with SIS chipsets

INTEL IS TO BUY in a bunch of SIS chips to launch two new low-end desktop boards.

In a bid to further diversify its range of products and to spend less time worrying about the razor-thin-margins in the low end of the motherboard market, Intel will buy in the SiS671 and 672 chipsets, according to China's Economic Daily News.

This news comes on the back of another announcement from SiS that its chipsets would be included in a new low-cost PC from Dell. That's lower cost, in fact, since the cheaper-than-Dell Dell machine will be designed for so-called emerging markets.

Between the Dell order and Intel's new-found desire to stop fiddling with cheapo chipsets, SiS should see its chipset shipments climb about 50%, according to sources. That rather indicates how few it was shipping in the first place. Honestly, who do you know that has a SiS chipset in their machine?

Like Intel's low-end parts, the 672 and 671 both have integrated graphics functionality, although performance is even worse than Intel's graphics core (yes, we never thought we'd say that either).

Xilisoft Video Converter v3.1.30.0514b

Guys from group NoPE who became famous mainly with their Windows Vista release continues in releaseing new software - Xilisoft Video Converter is one of their latest releases. This is a useful application for converting videos from almost all formats. Xilisoft Video Converter features a good looking interface and simple controls, so you shouldn’t have any problems finishing your tasks. The retail price is $35.

Xilisoft Video Converter is powerful, versatile video conversion software which convert video file between all popular video formats such as convert AVI to MPEG, WMV to AVI, WMV to MPEG, H.264 video, etc. No other program like Xilisoft Video Converter supports so comprehensive video formats including DVD, VCD, SVCD, AVI, MPEG, MP4, WMV, 3GP, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, H.264/PSP AVC, MOV, RM, ASF, FLV, SWF, etc. In addition, The Video Converter provides an easy way to convert video file to popular audio file, like MP2, MP3, AC3, RA, M4A, OGG, AAC etc. The Video Converter also supports APE, CUE decoding and audio CD ripping.

Xilisoft Video Converter supports all of the popular multimedia devices such as PSP, iPod, MP4 player, mobile phone, Zune etc. All conversion processes, such as AVI to MPEG, WMV to MPEG, WMV to AVI, are very easy and fast with the best quality.

Product features:

* Convert video file including DVD, VCD, SVCD, MPEG ( MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ),, RM, AVI, MWV, 3GP, ASF, Divx, Xvid
* Convert audio file among OGG, Sun.au, WMA, MP3, WAV, Ra (Real Audio), M4a, AC3, AAC, MOV etc.
* Extract audio from video file including DVD, VCD, SVCD, MPEG ( MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 ),, RM, AVI, MWV, 3GP, ASF, Divx, Xvid
* Supports batch conversion
* Supports previewing video moive.
* Supports converting more than one file simultaneously.
* Support multi-languages including English, Chinese, French, Dutch, Japanese, Persian, Nederland
* Excellent video and audio quality.
* Super easy to use, suitable for both beginners and Veterans.
* PSP Video Manager inside! It can help you to transfer mp4 file to your PSP.

EA announces first details about FIFA 08

Electronic Arts (EA) has announced that the popular football game “FIFA 08″ will be releasing worldwide this fall on all gaming consoles, including the PSP, PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, and DS, as well as on the PC. And what’s more, FC Barcelona’s world-class midfielder, and two-time FIFA World Player of the year, Ronaldinho, will feature on the front pack of the game, together with other soccer greats from select teams around the world. The soccer stars to feature along with Ronaldinho include: rising star, Sergio Ramos of Real Madrid; 2006 FIFA World Cup Golden Boot winner, Miroslav Klose of Werder Bremen, Germany; attacking midfielder and captain of Andreas Ivanschitz of Panathinaikos FC, Austria; Tranquillo Barnetta of Bayer Leverkusen, Switzerland; midfielder Florent Malouda of Olympique Lyonnais; and winger Frank Ribery of Olympique.



These stars, along with Ronaldinho, will feature on the front cover of “FIFA 08″ in their respective countries. They will also be motion captured for the game. Joe Booth, Senior Producer for ‘FIFA 08′ said, “We are proud to call some of the world’s best football athletes our partners. The access, guidance, and insight they give us means that ‘FIFA 08′ will create a next-gen experience that not only looks authentic, but that captures the emotion, finesse, and beauty of the game.” Adding to it, Matt Bilbey, International Director, EA Sports, said, “Ronaldinho and all the ‘FIFA 08′ cover stars bring a passion for the sport that is raw and true. They enjoy helping us bring that real-world experience into the game. Their expert skills, commitment to success, and passion for football inspire our development team, and help us make ‘FIFA 08′ the most natural-feeling football videogame in the world.”

Sony sued for Blu-Ray patent infringement

Still reeling over its patent lawsuit with Immersion Corporation over the Playstation rumble technology, another tech firm has sued Sony because it claims Sony’s Blu-ray Disc infringes on its patents. Target Technology Company claims that it holds a patent for reflective layer materials in optical discs, and that Blu-ray Discs use the same technology without TTC’s permission. TTC alleges that its patent, which was filed in April 2004 and approved in March 2006, was deliberately and willfully infringed. It is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a permanent injunction against Sony. Although other companies are also responsible for BD replication, the suit only names Sony Computer Entertainment America, Sony Pictures, and Sony DADC as the defendants. Several months ago, Sony faced a similar patent headache over the Dual Shock rumble feature used in its Playstation and Playstation 2 controllers. Immersion Corporation claimed it owned patents that were used in the creation of the technology, leading Sony to pay $97 million in damages. Target does not specify in its suit whether it believes all of Sony’s Blu-ray discs infringe on its patent, or the suit applies to just a portion of the discs manufactured. The patent was filed in April of 2004 and granted in March of 2006. Yeah, developing new technologies doesn’t have to be that easy as it looks…

DriverMax

Now re-installing Windows is even more easier

Well after a re-install of Windows we all have to install the drivers manually, which can be quite boring sometimes. Also I have seen many users don't have the original mobo cd's to install the drivers and don't have updated drivers as well.

But now with DriverMax, all such worries is solved. DriverMax is a new program which allows you to easily reinstall all your Windows drivers. No more searching for rare drivers on discs or on the web or inserting one installation CD after the other. Simply export all your current drivers (or just the ones that work ok) to a folder or a compressed file. After reinstalling Windows you will have everything in one place!

The Export Wizard will only export the drivers you select by copying the needed files to a folder or a compressed ZIP file.
After reinstalling Windows all drivers will be back in place in less than 5 minutes - sparing you of searching, inserting disc after disk and losing precious time. The Import Drivers wizard allows you to install all the drivers that you exported earlier. The entire operation might take up to 5-10 minutes.

Just one single computer restart will be required after all drivers are reinstalled!


DriverMax is able to display a complete report of all drivers (versions, release dates) installed on your system. This feature can also be very useful when you want to analyze the differences between the drivers installed on different machines.


And what's more it works correctly in Vista too (You have to run it in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode).



Download :
http://innofiles.com/soft/dmx/drivermax.exe
http://www.innovative-sol.com/soft/dmx/drivermax.exe

freeware -- 2.3MB

An awsome software.