Slashdot has a short post on the 10th anniversary of the MP3 audio file format.

"The Data Compression News Blog reports that on July 14th 2005, the name "MP3" celebrates its tenth anniversary. On this day back in 1995, the researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS decided to use ".mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987, in 1992 it was considered far ahead of its times, then MP3 became the generally accepted acronym for the ISO standard IS 11172-3 "MPEG Audio Layer 3" and no other coding method so far (2005) could uncrown MP3 as the popular standard for digital music on the computer and on the Internet."

The more things change, the more they stay the same. ;)

As reported by C|Net:

Microsoft will offer a wireless keyboard designed for computers running the home entertainment version of the Windows operating system, the world's largest software maker said Tuesday.

and Engadget:

Yup, it’s even got backlit buttons and an integrated touchpoint mouse, and should go for about $100; in other words, we’d totally hit it.

I had the opportunity to play around with a prototype (codenamed, "Kirk") a few months ago.  Here are my thoughts:

• It feels good in your hands or on your lap
• The backlit buttons are GREAT
• It works up to 30 ft away
• The eraserhead-style mouse works great on the rare occasion you want to use it
• A master lock so that my kid won't reprogram my PC banging on it!  My washer/dryer/refrigerator/microwave/oven have this.  All major devices designed for home living spaces should do the same.

Feedback I'm sending to the team:

• IR is good, but BlueTooth would be even better IMO.  I understand why IR, it helps keep costs lower (for PC Mfrs and consumers)
• I would have put the green button further up on the r-hand side.
• A small, LED-based battery meter on the underside would be ideal.

Available in September, more details here.

Chris Lanier did a nice writeup of Podcasting Plug-ins for Windows Media Player the other day.  I wonder if he saw the Podcasting category of plug-ins that was added to www.wmplugins.com, the community site for WM Player about a month ago?  Maybe he saw Jake Ludington's Guest Editorial on the same site. 

Well, technically Dave Winer started a few hours after they launched, but Jake McKee, who runs the "Community Guy" blog, has an incisive run-down on his experience trying to get his podcast listed in Apple's directory:

"Community work is simple - just treat your community like you'd want to be treated. I can't imagine a developer or project manager inside of Apple who worked on iTunes 4.9 who would want to be treated the way they're treating the community."

I'm actually going to defend Apple here.  I suspect they've just been inundated with requests and it takes time to hire on new staff to review and approve items into the system. We can all learn for experiences like this- a status blog and community developer forums could be a simple way to help address.

While Hurricane Dennis was a very dangerous storm, Chris Pirillo has an interesting and humorous take on US news coverage of the Hurricane.  Then he topped himself with his own audio "News Report".  

Does anyone even care that large news organizations are run together as "News and Entertainment" orgs? I find myself watching BBC News more and more.  Not that they're not without their own faults, but US Nightly News has become so ridiculous...

This is pretty darn funny... 

http://www.nytimes.com/video/html/2005/06/29/technology/highbandwidth/windowsmedia/20050629_GUEST_VIDEO.html

Via ThomasHawk.com:

The Windows Media Center Show - The Windows Media Center Show #16 The Windows Media Center Show #16 is out. This week Ian interviews Stuart McMillan from Gigtek and with Garry Whittaker talks about Media Center hardware, displays, fans and getting the most out of your Media Center hardware.

If you like Ian's show vote for it on Podcast Alley.

Phil Torrone over at MAKE Magazine should do an article on this one.  Via Alexander Grundner at eHomeUpgrade, the in-dash Media Center-capable PCs are coming. As he notes (via engadget):

Details are still coming out (mostly due to translation issues Korean language + Flash files = pain in the ass), but various sites have been able to deduce that the INFILL T3 is powered by a 1.0 or 1.6Ghz CPU and offers 40GB of storage, DVD drive, TV tuner, GPS, voice control, USB, remote, and one empty mini PCI slot (where's the Wi-Fi?). Moreover, the T3 is either pre-loaded with Windows XP and/or can be upgraded to MCE. Again, details are forthcoming, so don't shoot the messenger

I'd love to put one of these bad boys in my car but it won't fit. Meanwhile, I'm trading in my cherished Honda "I want a sportscar before kids and my midlife crisis" S2000  for a Toyota "I'm a responsible parent toting the kids to Gymboree" Prius.  Maybe I can hack it to add Media Center? We'll see..

RSS: MAKE Blog
RSS: eHome Upgrade Top Stories

A bit belated due to my being on a blogging break, we've heard from our friends in London that they're safe and sound in the aftermath of last week's bombings. The fact doesn't diminish the sincere empathy we feel for those who suffered or lost loved ones. Nor does it diminish our conviction that we must continue to move forward in the face of, as British PM Tony Blair put it, "barbaric" acts.  United we stand. 

It seems every time I upgrade my media center, this happens. Sure, I can go for a year,  maybe longer without any major developments, but with the advent of dual-core processors, I find myself wanting.  Never is that more true than with HP's new Media Center PCs including the new Athlon64 X2 Dual-core processor.  Sure, MCE isn't native 64-bit today (but start asking your hardware manufacturers about drivers for the future) but you'll still get great performance.  I don't even mind that these look like Apple.  White and silver are the "new" black.  How long until Black is the new white and silver again?  I give it 10 months... tops.

Update: Thanks to Brian Hoyt for pointing out I was baited on this one. While HP's site says clearly "From $799.00 (after rebate)*" and directly underneath calls out "Powerful Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core" the combination of fine print and their configurator for purchase adds over $500 for the dual-core, putting the price at over $1300.  Ouch.

Catfish as large as a Grizzly bear caught in Mekong River.  646 pounds! Reports that the fishermen waterskiied behind it are unsubstantiated.

While we were at Gnomedex, Erwin at Doppler Radio pre-announced version 3.0, including details that he's adding more support for WM Player into my favorite Podcatching client, Doppler:

Doppler 3.0 will now auto-install smart playlists, showing you the latest podcasts you downloaded. Doppler 3.0 will include a Windows Media Player plugin that will auto-start Doppler (if not already running) when you start Windows Media Player and will start downloading the latest podcasts automatically (this will be configurable).

The Doppler 3.0 interface has been upgraded, including a new RSS reader pane, allowing you to read the posts in the RSS feed without even leaving the Doppler interface. We now also support ‘background’ downloads, leveraging the same technology Windows uses to download upgrades (it’s called BITS). And there’s so much more.

Very cool! I wonder if Erwin will pick up the Auto Playlists I wrote earlier this year for Doppler 2.0 (and other podcatchers)?

IMO, Podcasting or Audio Blogging, like RSS shouldn't be owned by any one company or individual.  Some of you might like this little resource that just popped up recently in that spirit.  It's great to see folks taking advantage of the platforms that exist to approach this from many angles.  No one angle is "right", perceptions may be shifted.

Speaking of shifted perceptions, after playing with Delicious Monster's Delicious Library this weekend, and I get it now.  I used my DV camcorder to scan almost everything in the house with a barcode. My wife was complaining that, "I was having all the fun" scanning.  My read is that she was having flashbacks to scanning wedding presents at the Macy's and saw she could do that at home.  182 DVDs scanned in 30 minutes  Now I just want an easy way to export my library to a webpage and I'm a happy camper. Next stop, Sean's personal NetFlix for family, neighbors and friends? 7 days late on returning a rental and I don't claim it as a purchase (ahem Blockbuster's smarmy "No more late fees" promotion), I'll just claim your lawnmower. :)

Steve Rubel is right-on IMO.  This picture of Dean Hachomovitch's sneaker from the AP sums up the news at Gnomedex for me. Dean is General Manager of Microsoft's Longhorn Browsing and RSS technologies team, a long-time co-worker of my wife (who was on the Longhorn team before leaving for a startup called our son).  If you have no idea what I'm talking about, Alex Barnett offers a good roundup.

For me, the lessons at Gnomedex can be boiled down to the three "C"s of "Communication, Collaboration, and Compromise".  When folks like Dave Winer, Lawrence Lessig, and frankly many people at Microsoft including Dean's team see the greater good that can come from opening lines of communication, collaborating  and acknowledging up-front that certain, smaller compromises will have to be made in order to achieve the greater good, stellar things can happen.  A lot of people were afraid to take the risk. I would argue it's been a smashing success. What's even better, updates are already happening to the proposed extensions released under the Creative Commons license- based on feedback from those at the event.

And Adam Curry can be both an engaging and inspirational speaker when he wants to be.  He's been studying Steve Jobs by his own admission. 

To my family - don't worry- you don't need to know what this means right now other than that it's going to make you more productive in your daily life. More to come at the PDC which is gearing up to be a really good show this year.

Just when you thought the sub-$700 Media Center PCs had arrived, eMachines delivers with a sub-$600 Media Center PC.  It has an Athlon 64 3400+, 200GB HDD, 1GB RAM, dual-layer DVD burner, and retails for $599 after the rebate. No mention of the TV tuner card. The video card is a bit underpowered for hard-core gamers as an ATI Radeon Xpress 200, but hey, this thing generally beats my Gateway FMC-901X.  Available at Circuit City and Best Buy retailers (couldn't find online).

[RSS - Via BetaNews]