The iFrog is a full keyboard designed for one-handed use. Being a Bluetooth device it is wireless and comes with a rechargeable battery. The device is recharged simply by plugging it into your computer via USB cable. It works much like the number pad does on your keyboard. With the NUMLOCK on, you […]

Gaming with an LCD monitor used to be a big no-no until major improvements have broken the LCD gaming sonic barrier. This time the sonic boom comes from VewSonic with their new nineteen inch LCD display with a 3ms response time. XYZ Computing has this review of the ViewSonic VX924 3ms Display. […]

This story is quoted from Linux Chix News, “The VeriSign Inc. regime will continue to monopolize Internet domain name control, running .com and .net for another five years until 2012. The giant will also be able to raise prices by 7% a year under a newly announced VeriSign and ICANN legal settlement. Brief history: VeriSign hijacked DNS in Sept. 2003, ICANN and computer geeks world wide demanded VeriSign disable the wildcard DNS (SiteFinder), VeriSign launched multiple frivolous lawsuits against the nonprofit ICANN to bog them down and force concessions which succeeded as today VeriSign and ICANN struck a monumental Internet deal.”

Continued from Linux Chix News,

The settlement contract draws critics for being skewed in favor of VeriSign, drawing complaints from all corners of the Internet industry. It grants VeriSign extensive power in how it can run the registry and how much it may modify it.

VeriSign has enormous financial resources and put heavy pressure on ICANN with a large number of law suites. ICANN is non-profit and could not sustain prolonged legal pressure from the private corporation VeriSign that has exercised anti-competitive practices in controlling the Internet. VeriSign has also very effectively lobbied Washington over the years to put pressure on ICANN to make decisions in its favor.

VeriSign’s GM, Mark McLaughlin, said: “An agreement could not have been reached without both sides trying to find compromise and new solutions. VeriSign’s objective was to gain clarity and business certainty for Internet operators. We are confident that this agreement accomplishes that objective and provides a framework for strong industry-ICANN partnership based on clear definitions and processes.”

Ever wanted to save a Real Player video stream to your hard drive? Unless the stream provider enables it, Real Player will not allow you to capture and save a video or audio stream. The terms “capturing streaming video, recording streaming video, downloading streaming video, and saving streaming video,” all refer to the same thing, saving the video to a file. There are many legitimate reasons why you would want to do this, and there’s one straightforward and totally free answer, “R7C“.

Tired of trying to watch a Real Player stream, having it pause “buffering” and cut out several times during the video event? Want to record the video event to watch later at your convenience when you have free time? Two legitimate reasons why you would want to capture and save the Real Player stream are easy to recognize. But unless the stream provider allows “saving” as an option, Real Player users are out of luck.

Real Media’s Real Player is obnoxious, and third-rate software. Even better than just saving the Real Video stream would be the option of converting it to another format, so Real Player wouldn’t even be required to watch the video. It still has to be installed, but just not “used”.

Streams like live streaming video, streaming news video, streaming movies, streaming music videos can be captured, recorded, downloaded with special software called Stream Rippers or Stream Recorders. This article focuses on capturing Real Video stream, converting it to a more desirable format, and saving it on your hard drive.

There is commercial software to accomplish this, a well know example is called Replay Video. Replay Video captures many different stream types and is loaded with features. However, for those interested in doing it for free, you need only use R7C “Real7ime Converter” (warning: it’s a .ru). The program doesn’t seem to contain any detectable spyware (at the time of this writing), works with standard Windows codec’s, and is free.

Real7ime Converter downloads Real Video and Real Audio Streams via the protocols HTTP, RTSP, PNM (TCP), PNM (HTTP) and you can capture rm, ra, ram and smil streams. R7C can convert Real Media files (ra, rm) to AVI, MP3 or WAV files. R7C bandwidth is controlled by Real Player (or Real One Player) under the Tools, Preferences, Connection, and Bandwidth dialog. Real7ime Converter needs the I420 codec to work, which is already on most computers running Microsoft Windows XP.

Real7ime (Download)
Replay Video Software (Web Site)
Real Player (Information and Download)

A new special LED light quoted with Quantum dots produces a soft white light with a slight yellowish cast just like an incandescent bulb. Moreover, the LED light produces twice the light output per watt and last up to 50,000 hours or 50 times as long as a 60-watt bulb. The Department of Energy has estimated that LED lighting could reduce U.S. energy consumption for lighting by 29 percent by 2025, saving the nation’s households about $125 million in the process.

Key points from the Vanderbilt News story:

• Until 1993 LEDs could only produce red, green and yellow light. But then Nichia Chemical of Japan figured out how to produce blue LEDs.
• White-light quantum dots, by contrast, produce a smoother distribution of wavelengths in the visible spectrum with a slightly warmer, slightly more yellow tint.
• The Vanderbilt researchers are the first to report making quantum dots that spontaneously emit white light, but they aren’t the first to report using quantum dots to produce hybrid, white-light LEDs.
• LED lights use semiconductor manufacturing, traditional light bulbs are metal and glass. Using the quantum dot approach, the manufacture becomes primarily a chemical process. The possibilities this opens include making almost any object into a light source by coating it with luminescent paint capable of producing light in a rainbow of different shades, including white.

Lazygirl of Geek Girl News writes, “With a Java -vs- PHP intro, ZDNet covers a Marc Andreessen speech, which actually goes farther in discussing many web technologies and a look at their future success. Key points are Zend PHP is succeeding over Sun Microsystems Java Server Pages due to the simplicity of PHP. […]

Washed out has-been portals such as slashdot have been blindly praising Dell for offering what has been inaccurately described as a Desktop PC Primed for Linux. Typically a day late and dollar short, Slashdot reports inaccuracies while The Register gets to the truth of the matter. Dell’s Open Source PC is not only a rip-off, their apparent support of Open Source for the desktop user is a complete facade. (more…)

Armed with the Radeon X1800, deep-pocketed gamers may have an edge over traditional high-end Nvidia performance card users. ATI has announced that the Radeon X1800 XL and Radeon X1300 cards are now being shipped. More Radeon X1800 configurations, such as the X1800 XT, and Radeon X1600 cards are scheduled to ship late October or […]