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Thursday, October 01, 2009
The Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter Now Has Digital Audio [Adapters]
The USB audio version of the Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter hasn't shipped yet, but Kanex just came out with an even more updated version of it with digital audio.
There isn't a whole lot to explain, other than the fact that the adapter is now basically set to deliver full audio quality to the video content played back on your Mac, and all through one HDMI cable. The previous version was held up because of manufacturing issues, so we'll have to see if this version suffers from the same difficulties. [Kanex]
Posted by Augustine at 9:04 PM
Spotify Adds Offline Music Caching to Its Desktop Player, Makes iTunes Look Prudish [Software]
Not being allowed to have music subscription service Spotify is now officially the worst thing about being an American: Subscribers will soon be able to listen to unlimited music offline, just like in the murders-everything-else Spotify iPhone app.
The feature, which lets users designate any or all of their content to be available offline, is only available to the £9.99/month or £120/year premium subscribers, but effectively hands them unlimited music, available at all times, for a flat fee. The mobile app is still the showstopper here—we've seen a few all-you-can-eat DRM music services before—but, you know, still, insult to injury. Our only consolation? Spotify thinks they can launch in the US before the end of the year, though I'll be eager to see if they can get as cozy a licensing deal as they found in the UK. [Techcrunch]
Posted by Augustine at 9:02 PM
Custom Camera Rig Allows For a Stunning Vertical Panorama of a Giant Redwood [Nature]
Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols wanted to photograph a 300-foot-tall redwood in a dense forest with no clear lines of sight. So he built a custom camera rig to take tons of close-ups to stitch together.
The result is a stunning composite of 83 different shots of this incredible tree. Look for a huge foldout of the image in the October issue of National Geographic, and here's a video of Nichols talking about the process of capturing the image.
[NPR via Hack-a-Day via Make]
Posted by Augustine at 9:01 PM
Why is Panasonic the First to Invent a Two-Way Iron? [Iron]
Unless my Google skills are failing me, this Panasonic 360-Degree iron is the first iron to have the pointed tip at both sides of the iron. It's been staring us in the face for 100 years, and Panasonic's is first?
By making the back of the iron pointed instead of flat, like every single other iron out there, you can go back and forth with the Panasonic NIW810CS as much as you want without screwing up your ironing pattern and wrinkling what you already pressed. Best of all, Panasonic only charges $50 for this bit of ingenuity. [Amazon]
Posted by Augustine at 8:38 PM