One of the most bizarre tech stories to come out in awhile swept across the internet this week. It involved a company named Psystar, who was supposedly making Mac clones and selling them for just $399 base cost. This is far cheaper than any Mac Apple sells. The company had supposedly used the OSX86 project's code to run Mac OS X Leopard on off the shelf PC hardware. This violates the EULA for OS X (since it's only allowed to run on Apple hardware) and possibly the controversial Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The plot has thickened since then since information has come out showing that Psystar is most likely a hoax. For one, the address the company gives is home to a totally different company that sells packing supplies. I think a lot of tech heads were suckered in by this hoax, myself included. Mostly because it is plausible. OSX86 is a real project for running Mac OS X on off the shelf PC hardware, and yes, it does work. Though Psystar had claimed to have worked with them, OSX86 denies being contacted by them. Apple themselves seems to have been suckered in by this hoax, sending their lawyers after this guy. They've made no official announcements regarding this as of me writing this.

Why were so many people suckered into this? Well for starters, it is plausible as I said. It also had a lot of Mac fans licking their chops for the possibility of an ultra low cost alternative to Apple's pricy hardware. Low end systems like the Mac Mini typically are priced higher than their PC counterparts with similar specifications. There are a number of people out there with "Hackintosh" computers, PCs running OSX86. The idea of a cheap Mac clone is mighty tempting. Apple did test the waters of the cloning market back in the mid 1990s. Motorola was one of the more notable Mac cloners, being part of the Apple-IBM-Motorola (AIM) alliance that developed the PowerPC processor. Motorola sold its line of Mac clones under the StarMax brand. They were cheaper than regular Macs. We bought one of these and it's still occasionally used at the office of our family business. Apple didn't keep this going for too long though. The StarMax line ended in 1997. Mac clones themselves are still in high demand.

There have been repeated calls for Apple to open up it's OS to run on PC hardware in the post Intel transition era. Most notable is Michael Dell, who wanted to sell a line of Dell systems with OS X as an option. Apple has stated that they will not allow OS X to run on anything other than Mac hardware. Back in the 1980s, cloning arguably killed IBM's home PC business. Though Apple does create and release a large amount of software, the company is still primarily in the hardware business, and they want to keep it that way. Chances are they wouldn't sell very many computers if their profitable OS was ported to a cheaper system. It makes logical sense to them but I'm not sure if it does to others, or even myself. If Apple is really serious about taking down the big boys in Redmond, maybe they need to rethink their strategy. In recent years, Apple has become the Gucci of the PC world. Their products are solid but many see them as overpriced and underpowered for what they sell for compared to Windows PCs. There is obviously a demand for a low cost Mac. The Mac Mini is currently the cheapest option but at $599, it's expensive and doesn't even come with a DVD burner, which is standard on most systems these days. The Mini is a small form factor PC though, which is partly why it costs more. Perhaps Apple should think about making a sub-$500 upgradable tower based system. Given that this seems to be the route that a lot of manufactuers are going these days, it would only make sense for Apple to do so if they want to stay competitive.

There's a lot of buzz over Mozilla's latest web browser, Firefox 3. Chances are that you've used Firefox in the past. I first started using it around 2003 as an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer and I now use it exclusively on all my systems. Firefox is an open source browser that came out of the ashes of the old Netscape browser. If you had the internet before 1998, you probably used Netscape too. A lot of people adopted Firefox, mostly out of spite for Microsoft's IE6, which was infamous for it's swiss cheese security. Aside from being more secure, Firefox also introduced some features like tabbed browsing, which is now common. It currently has just under 18% market share for internet browsers, which is a considerable feat for an open source product.

Firefox 3.0 is currently in beta stage. The current version is 3.0 Beta 5. As it stands, the beta is pretty much finished and ready to be released as is. Firefox is cross platfrom and there have already been reviews of 3.0 for Windows and Linux, but not to many for OS X. First note is that Firefox 3.0 will only run on OS X 10.4 Tiger or higher. For this review, I'm running OS X 10.5 Leopard. One of the first things you notices is that the interface has been completely redesigned and is now more modern looking on all versions. The OS X version sports a full Aqua interface similar to the one used on Safari. It simply looks a whole lot nicer. When entering web addresses, it will now make fill in addresses of sites you visited in the past, as well as from your book marks. The latter being new. The search tool and RSS interfaces have remained the same. One problem I noticed with the Beta interface was that the forward/back buttons weren't on the tool bar by default. Being frequently used, they should have been. The book marks menu has essentially stayed the same though the way it organizes them is a little different. It used hierarchical folders similar to Safari, but I found the design here to be rather clumsy.

Performance has also improved. Firefox 2 was infamous for memory leaks. That's when a program uses memory inefficiently and starts consuming more RAM than it should. This has been tightened up. Firefox is currently using 76mb with three tabs open to Blogger, Wikipedia, and Macworld. This still seems like a lot but it's better than it was, and it will not start consuming more the longer the program runs. These performance improvements also resulted in lower rendering times for web pages, so pages will seem to load faster. Despite performance improvements, I've had the browser crash on me a couple of times. I'm running an older Mac with a PowerPC processor but I'm not sure if it runs better on Intel ones. The Windows version is more stable.

Overall, Firefox 3.0 Beta 5 offers a few nice improvements and the performance increase is nice. There still are some lingering problems though. We have to remember that this is a Beta version so hopefully these will be fixed when the final version is released in June.

I thought I'd start talking about TV and Movies since so much of this blog is dedicated to how we watch them. Lets talk about the Simpsons, which will be entering it's 20th season this fall. I grew up with the Simpsons and there isn't an episode I haven't seen. A general criticism of the state of the show these days is that it's in decline and has been for some time. The question is, should season 20 be its last?
Back when the show first started, it was one of the first cartoons truly targeted at an adult audience. It dealt with real issues in a humorous manner, yet was still fairly down to earth. In recent seasons, the show has gone from down to Earth to down right surreal and I don't think this has benefited it.

The Simpsons first premiered on the Tracy Ullman Show in 1987 as a series of cartoon shorts used to fill time. The shorts themselves were crude but became hugely popular. The Simpsons first became a show in it's own right in 1989 with an hour long Christmas special, which served as the pilot. The first episode, "Bart the Genius" aired on FOX on January 14th, 1990. It was a groundbreaking show for the network, being FOX's first truly hit show. I can't remember exactly when I first started watching it though I must have been in the third or fourth grade, around 1993/1994. The first two seasons were solid but still crude. Most critics agree the Simpsons really took off in Season 3, when big name guest stars such as Michael Jackson and Aerosmith appeared. The show also welcomed memorable reoccurring guests such as John Lovitz and the late Phil Hartman. The show remained solid right up until season 9 which contained a few memorable episodes. I would peg the death of Phil Hartman's in 1998 as the beginning of the show's decline. I remember back in 2000 talking with my high school friends about whether the show was starting to suck. Even then we thought it had been stale for a while even then.

So today, what's going on with the show? Well, creator Matt Groening and the new writing staff have been able to adapt the show to its changing demographic, which has switched from adults and older teens to a younger set. From about season 12 onward, the show has become increasingly surreal, with nonsensical, poorly written plots. Writers strike aside, I would rate Season 19 as probably one of the worst season to date. Season 19's saving grace was Ralph as a presidential candidate and the "murder" of Martin Prince. Season 18 takes the top dishonour as I didn't contain a single episode I really enjoyed. IGN ranked season 19's "That 90s Show" as one of the worst episodes ever (as Comic Book Guy might say) due to it throwing away all established canon, and doing a bad job of it to boot. This past Sunday's episode brought back Lurleen Lumpkin, a one-off character from the third season. While her original episode was good, we really didn't need to see this character again. Unless you religiously watch reruns or have all the DVDs, most current viewers would not be familiar with her. This particular episode stank of desperation; that they're running out of ideas. The movie itself took the wacky course too and though I found it funny at times, it wasn't worthy of the big screen. TV maybe, direct-to-DVD certainly, but not worth the price of theater tickets. The plot was just way to bizarre and far flung from the series' roots. Of course my tastes aren't the same as everybody's so what I think wouldn't matter if I was the only person saying this. Unfortunately, a lot of critics, both amature and pro, agree. Even the best TV shows produce one or two bad episodes a season. However, when you get to the point where you only have one or two good episodes, it might be time to reconsider keeping it on the air.

The problem seems to be that the original creators and writers have lost control of the series. Add to that that the show has already done every conceivable plot and is starting to get repetitive. As Butters learned, chances are the Simpsons already did it. I really think if Groening wants in the record books, go to season 20 and make it the last. No other prime time comedy is going to break that record. There's nothing worse than a show that's been on too long, especially if it was once one of the greatest shows in history. All in the Family suffered pretty much the same fate and it wasn't on for nearly as long. FOX has plenty of hit shows now, it no longer needs the Simpsons to anchor the network. Homer, Bart, Lisa, Marge, and Maggie have overstayed their welcome. It's time to let them die peacefully. Obviously the show is still profitable for FOX but it really is a joke compared to what it once was. The show itself has mocked its critics but they're going to find this harder to do as it drags on. Sometimes it's best to leave on a high note and move onto other things, rather than let it die a slow, painful death.

Yes, another PS3 article. Sony has dated Firmware 2.3 and has leaked a few details on it. Most important is the inclusion of DTS-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio support for Blu-ray. The PS3 was one of the few BD players on the market that did not support DTS-HD. For those who don't know, DTS is a direct competitor to Dolby Digital 5.1. Many claim it to have better audio quality than DD. Both are lossy codecs which means they loose audio data due to compression. DTS-HD Master Audio however is lossless which means that it is identical to the studio master recording.

On DVD, DTS ran at 448kb/s typical with a 24-bit, 48khz sample resolution. DTS-HD is 24-bit at 96khz. DTS-HD supports up to 6mb/s audio. Higher bit rates mean better quality. DTS-HD has better audio quality than a CD does. DTS-HD Master Audio is also 24-bit at 96khz but has a bit rate of 24.5 mb/s. Audiophiles will love the latter. The big downside is that DTS-HD Master Audio requires a compatible AV receiver. If not, the quality is reduced to 1.5mb/s which is lossy but still better than CD and current DVD quality. Both support 7.1 channels. The PS3 also still can't bitstreme DTS. If you're confused by these terms, check Wikipedia.

Also new is a revamp of the Playstation Store. The lovely Grace Chen can explain it better than I can.

Yes, this is a few days old but new details have emerged about the rumored BD to PSP ripping utility that Sony was supposedly going to launch. Essentially, this would allow you to rip BD movies to a low def format for your portable media player. The good news is that it's coming, the bad news is that Sony, unsurprisingly, bungled it.

In an interview with IGN, senior marketing manager for the PSP, John Koller, detailed the concept. Basically, there's no ripping at all. The BD movie disc will contain a low def file that can be transfered to the PSP. The movie itself is not being transcoded to a lower definition but rather the low def copy is a separate file. This is some good news but for those hoping to be able to rip existing movies to their PSP like you can with audio CDs, forget it. Only new discs will have this feature. Koller did not however that it will not be just a feature for Blu-ray but will be featured on some DVDs as well. Likely in two disc special editions. Sony Pictures initiated the project and some other studios have come on board with the concept. There's no word on what DRM will be included in these copies but I think we can safely say it will be there and likely will be intrusive. For those hoping for a fuss free way of watching your DVD collection on the road, you're going to have to stick with doing it "illegally". This just proves that the studios are still out of touch with what consumers want.

You can read the complete interview here. The stuff mentioned above is on page 3.

Updated:

Sony has spilled the beans on the next major firmware update for the PS3. The update is due out later this month though no exact date has been set. The biggest feature of this update is Blu-ray Live functionality. This function will open up downloadable content with BD movies such as ringtones and interactive games. It's hardly what I would call a show stopper, especially given that the promised low-def ripping featured has not been mentioned. Seems to me that Hollywood's HD Illuminati are desperate for any advantage they can get over DVD but I don't think cell phone ringtones is going to do it. Take their last great idea, the Ringle, which was supposed to boost CD sales. The new profile does bring BD inline with HD-DVD in terms of internet connectivity.

Aside from that, 2.20 is going to add some more useful updates. First of all, the one major flaw with DVD and BD playback has been fixed. That is, you can now resume playback where you left off rather than having to start from the beginning, even if the disc had been removed. This has been a standard feature of PC DVD software and higher end stand-alone players for a long time.
Also, Sony said that DivX and WMV files larger than 2gb are now playable. It was possible to play these before but now it's official. Also included for video is "Mosquito Noise Reduction" as part of the AV settings for DVD and BD for improved movie playback. This supposedly reduces analogue and digital compression artifacts.

Sony has also tweaked the web browser for faster loading times. It will also be able to stream non-flash video files. Other improvements add an "audio output device" setting for remote play. This enables the PSP to be used as a remote control for music played through the PS3. This means that you can control audio on the PS3 through your stereo without having to turn your TV on. You can also now copy custom playlists made on your PS3 to your PSP. Not exactly the best update we've seen but it does add a couple of useful features.

Source: PSU
Playstation Blog

Asus has always planned an entire Eee line. Their slogan says it all. "Easy to learn, Easy to work, Easy to play." The idea was to make super low cost computers that could reach out to previously untapped markets. In most developed nations, having a PC is not only a luxury anymore but a requirement. Any university student these days will tell you. Asus noted that they plan to release a desktop variant of the Eee PC soon, starting at $199. DailyTech estimated that the final price will be in the ballpark of $299 given Asus's pricing record. There is little known about the system but prototype pictures have surfaced. It is a glossy black Small Form Factor PC, slightly larger than the Mac Mini. Like the Mini, it seems to feature a power brick. There is no solid information on specs but Asus said that it has "good enough" performance. (good enough, famous last words) The system will feature Hi-Fi digital stereo and Dolby Digital Live support, so it will have 5.1 audio. The system is also said to be quiet at 24dB. The word on the street is that it will use the new Intel Atom platform with the Diamondville processor core. The prototype picture also shows a likely 100mb/s ethernet port, DVI port, three analogue audio connectors, and at least two USB 2.0 ports. It will use the Eee PC's custom Xandros Linux based OS though a Windows XP version will likely be available. Other likely features will probably be a DVD/CDRW combo drive, 802.11g Wifi, and Intel integrated video processing. I doubt it will feature the solid state hard drive of the Eee PC in order to keep costs down.

Source: DailyTech

Thinking about this though, I wonder if Linux is really a viable OS for consumers. Most people probably aren't aware it even exists. Linux of course is a series of free, open source operating systems, not a single OS like some believe. I have PCLinuxOS installed on a computer that my parents use and they don't really seem to complain but then again, they just use it for web surfing. Any typing is done at their office, where the computers run Windows and MS Office.
Linux has numerous advantages to Windows. Namely, it doesn't cost anything for a fully legal copy, and it's usually pretty complete. Unlike OEM copies of Windows, Linux distributions usually include OpenOffice, image editors, etc. It also has one of the best 3D desktop interfaces around in the form of Beryl and Compiz. However, there is limited hardware support due to lack of drivers. Also, while some distros are easier to use than others, some basic tasks, such as installing drivers and programs, are still clumsy. Asus has really spiffed things up with their modified version of Xandros. Unfortunately, unlike most Linux distributions, Xandros is neither free nor open source. It's still significantly cheaper than Vista Home Basic is.

The problem is that Windows has an enormous amount of brand loyalty attached to it, and Microsoft knows this. Just go into any PC tech site and say you didn't like Vista and see the responses you get. When people buy a computer, they want it to have Windows so it can run Office, despite alternatives like OpenOffice being just as good. In addition, though Linux has a large open source community, there is almost no commercial software available for it. There is this general fear of free software out there. People believe that it is sub-par or contains viruses and spyware. Though some does, open source for the most part does not. Another issue is that most people simply aren't aware Linux even exists.

So can Linux ever be a viable alternative? Well, lets take a look at Mac OS X, which like Linux is also UNIX based. It has a sleek interface and tasks are easy and strait forward. However, like Microsoft, Apple too relies heavily on brand awareness and loyalty. The recent growth of Apple's market percentage I would directly, or at very least partially attribute to the trendy iPod. Toting a Mac around has become a bit the same as wearing designer clothes. The problem with Linux is lack of awareness. It is not mass marketed and is rarely if ever mentioned on TV, and for those averages Joes that do know about it, it's seen as an OS for hardcore geeks. I think unless it can reaches the ease of use and brand awareness of Windows and OS X, it can never be a viable alternative despite it's low cost.

Not only is smoking very bad for you, it's bad for your Wii too. So says the Boston Harold on the heels of the issues with Super Smash Bros Brawl. SSBB is the biggest Wii game to date and thus requires a dual layer disc. The problem is that if the lens gets contaminated with dirt and dust, the Wii has trouble reading it. The Wii uses special "Wii Optical Discs", which have the same capacity as a DVD. The only difference is that the discs are watermarked with a special barcode, presumably to keep the format proprietary.

Can second hand smoke really damage your Wii? What a stupid question. The residue of the smoke and tar gets sucked into the console and gums up the lens. Smoking around electronics is generally not a good idea. In fact, smoking period is not a good idea but some people insist on doing it, so just keep it away from your games. Nintendo has advised against using commercial lens cleaning kits and has told people that are receiving the read error to send the console to them. The service is free of charge regardless of warranty status. Some have taken matters into their own hands and reports that blowing compressed air into the slot will work. It's a good idea to try and keep all electronics dust and dirt free since they can blind optical drives, block fan intakes, and act like an insulator around heatsinks causing overheating.

For those old enough to remember, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) way back in the late 80s had a similar issue with dust on the cartridge slot causing read errors. Nintendo released the NES cleaning kit. The problem was only with the original toaster style NES, not the top loading NES 2.

Source: Daily Tech

Again with our monthly tradition of posting console sales though I think this is the last time I'm going to do it. Marketing firm NPD has released February's figures.

Nintendo DS: 587.6K
Wii: 432.0K
PlayStation 2: 351.8K
PlayStation 3: 280.8K
PlayStation Portable: 243.1K
Xbox 360: 254.6K

More of the same from last month. This month's winner is once again the Wii and the PS2 is still the dark horse. PS3 catching up. DS tops all. Not much to say on these numbers that I didn't say last month.

Source: PSU

One of the great debates of home theater among less technically inclined people is whether a $150 cable is really better than a $20 cable. Cables have become big business in a world where more expensive seems to automatically equal better. This generally garners eye rolling from both amateur and professional tech people.

CNET wrote a quick guide to HDMI cables which is aimed at helping people buy what's right for them. It discusses the subject of paying too much for a cable. Before someone says it, yes you can buy a $150 cable. Here's a 2 meter one that sells for $120. The approximate value of this cable is actually $20 but you can buy it for as low as just $2. This cable has a $100 markup, which is obscene. This particular manufacturer is infamous in the tech world for overcharging people for relatively cheap cables. They flatly deny overcharging but the proof is in the pudding. Their stuff is primarily sold in places like Best Buy and The Source, and several other chain electronics stores. Not that they're the only ones. The more expensive cables are not better made and they cannot handle more data. They only thing that makes them worth more is markup. It definitely pays to shop around rather than just buying what ever is on the shelf at the TV store.