Monday, November 21, 2005

Techy Stuff

LCD TV

High quality 8-inch TFT Screen
Built-in over the air tuner w/ antenna
Can hook up to cable or satellite receiver output
AC and DC Adapter included
Remote control included
Can be used with earphones (not included)
Measures: 10" x 6.5" x 1"Weighs: 2.75 lbs.Operates on AC/DC
You won't miss a moment of your favorite shows with our handy portable LCD TV. We know flat-screen TVs are the wave of the future, but that 32-incher can't be taken anywhere. Ours is just eight inches - so compact yet does not lose any of the quality you expect in an LCD TV. Watch your shows while enjoying a ball game, working in the garage, hanging out in a bar, lounging in your basement, eating at a picnic, camping in the woods, or anywhere else. You won't have to ever again worry about remembering to set a VCR or DVR. Our TV comes with a built-in tuner, and it can be connected to your cable or satellite television outlet. You can plug it in at home or in your car and operate it by remote control. It's even comes with an earphone plug so you won't disturb anyone nearby. Plus, LCD screens are much more handy and easy to ship than flat-screen plasma screens. Enjoy the latest technology in a manageable size.
Q: How is the screen size measured?
A: The screen is measured diagonally.
Q: Is the antenna removable?
A: No it is not.
Q: Does it operate on batteries?
A: No. It is powered by the included AC and DC adapters.
Apple iPod 40GB Mp3 Player


Ahhh…the Apple iPod. What can we say that you don’t already know? The next-generation iPods truly are a work of art, improving on many of the flaws from earlier models. The newest generation has incorporated the amazing click wheel design which was introduced with the mini. The battery life is now about 12 hours and it’s even a bit thinner than previous generations.

The navigation is easy to use and very intuitive. You can easily find songs and playlists, play your songs shuffled up, and scroll through thousands of titles. And of course it’s also loaded with tons of extra features: sleep timer, alarm, calendar, organizer, store to-do lists, and play games.

Interfacing with a computer is very easy and downloading music through iTunes is a snap. And remember, with the large size of the iPod, your mp3 player can double as a hard drive to store extra files for easy transfer to other PCs.


What’s wrong with the iPod? In a word, price. The Apple iPod is not cheap and you’ll be paying more per gig than any other mp3 player. And with fierce competition raging all around, other companies are releasing mp3 players quite comparable with the iPod, without the price tag. But if you want all the iPod has to offer or just can’t live without one, then no one will fault you. One last thing of note is that the 40GB version comes with dock included, which if you were going to buy anyway, may tip the scales towards the 40 gig version.


Apple iPod 40GB Mp3 Player
Features
• 40 GB model holds up to 10,000 songs; supports AAC (16 to 320 Kbps), MP3 (32 to 320 Kbps), MP3 VBR, Audible, AIFF, Apple Lossless and WAV
• Up to 12 hours battery life when fully charged (typically 4 hours); fast-charge in as little as 2 hours
• Mac OS X or Windows 2000 and XP compatible; FireWire and USB 2.0 interface for fastest digital transfer available
• Feature upgrades from previous version include new Click Wheel, slimmer case, and easier navigation
• Comes with earbud headphones, AC adapter, FireWire cable, USB 2.0 cable, and dock

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

News aboout the latest trends in IT

Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Computer program accurately picks music hits
By GRANT ROBERTSONTORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL
They know what songs you like, even before you like them.

Record labels spend millions of dollars each year trying to predict which singles will top the charts and which ingredients make a hit single.

Now, two Massachusetts Institute of Technology Ph.D. grads believe they have cracked the code.

After years of crunching data, Brian Whitman and Tristan Jehan have devised a computer program that listens to a song, then predicts how humans will react to it.

The response is so specific at times that it can forecast how a single will perform on the charts and spit out a review, guessing what words will be used to describe it, from "sexy to romantic to loud and upbeat," Whitman said.

It's a long way from the days of talent scouts combing smoky bars for the next big sound.
But computer analysis of songs is not necessarily new. A wide variety of companies spend hours in laboratories breaking down hit songs so the music industry can stay one step ahead of the market.

The goal is to pinpoint trends in pitch, rhythm and cadence that are driving consumer spending habits. However, the MIT researchers believe they've taken the science to another level.
"Some people really care about instrument sounds and complexity of the music," Whitman said.

The MIT method, developed at the school's renowned Media Laboratory, also takes into account social responses to hit music that are fed into the algorithms.

The researchers pull data from Web logs, chat rooms and music reviews -- anywhere a song is being discussed -- and feed it into the computer, which allows the software to gauge the popularity of a certain sound.
Once all the information is tabulated, the computer can listen to a new album and predict how people will respond based on what it knows about the latest reactions to the music it already has heard.
If it sounds far-fetched, consider this: The system has been predicting Billboard hits with surprising accuracy over the past several months. While people may think their musical tastes are unpredictable and whimsical, they are actually quite traceable, Whitman says.
The researchers' goal is to revolutionize the tracking techniques used by companies such as Amazon.com and Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music store. Those companies compare similarities between songs, add in the buying history of consumers, then recommend albums that each person should buy.
Whitman and Jehan, who are both musicians, scoff at those methods.
"They say you bought this so you'll like this. But it's really bad for music because it can only recommend stuff that people have bought a lot of," he said.
Still, the music industry has been trying for decades to come up with a reliable system. The standard practice today is to crunch data from focus groups across a broad spectrum of tastes, which gives hints of a song's true potential in the market.
New York-based HitPredictor has built its business crunching weekly data from focus groups, and many of the playlists heard on North American radio are influenced by the company.
HitPredictor polls thousands of listeners each week on songs that have not yet been released, then predicts how the single will perform.
The company established its credibility in 2002 when RCA used its method to determine the order in which the singles from Christina Aguilera's album "Stripped" should be released to maximize record sales. Since then, other labels have become regular customers.
After crunching feedback data on the Aguilera album, HitPredictor realized RCA needed to rethink the release order because the focus groups were unexpectedly reacting favorably to some songs, but not others. Each prediction the company made in terms of how well each single would sell eventually proved true in the market.
"A lot of labels put music through our research to confirm their instincts," said Doug Ford, co-founder of HitPredictor. "They've got a few guys in management that like this song, but marketing likes that song, so they go through us."
HitPredictor struck gold again in late 2003, when its computers flagged a blip in the focus-group data. Listeners, who are fed random songs and asked to rate them, were repeatedly highlighting a little-known U.S. band called Crossfade, which the big labels had passed over.
Ford went to Sony Music and told the company to consider listening to HitPredictor's computers and focus groups rather than their own talent scouts. In 2004, the band sold more than 1 million albums.
Despite the performance of HitPredictor, the researchers at MIT aren't looking to build another software program that simply picks commercial hits. Whitman and Jehan's goal is to expose the world to a wider variety of music.