Cave News

Did iPods cause a crime wave?

Apple had no comment to the story that iPods could have caused a crime wave that began shortly after the upscale mp3 player made its appearance.

It's easy to see why iPods would be alluring targets for criminals: The music players are valuable and easy to resell, and people absorbed in their personal soundtracks can be vulnerably oblivious to their surroundings.

But could the temptation for stealing iPods be so strong that they're behind an increase in the crime rate? Researchers at a public policy institute say yes.

One widely accepted theory holds that crime happens when three things come together: A motivated offender encounters a suitable victim and perceives a high chance of getting away with it. And the Urban Institute researchers believe the sudden prevalence of iPods increased all three factors.

A key point in the Urban Institute's argument is that robberies — the taking of something by force or the threat of it — had seen dramatic reductions since the 1990s, but jumped in 2005 and 2006.

During those years, iPods were going mainstream. In late 2004, Apple had sold about 5 million iPods. By the end of 2005 that had ballooned to 42 million, and in 2006 the number neared 90 million.

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Satellite navigation devices blamed for rail damage in UK

An article at the link below reports that the increase in drivers using satellite navigation devices is causing millions of pounds worth of damage to Britain's railway property.

Motorists led astray by their in-car technology have led to a sharp rise in problems caused to railway lines, bridges and crossings over the past few years.

The number of bridges hit by trucks travelling on inappropriate roads has doubled over the past decade.

Maybe the satellite navigation devices sold in Britain should supply operators with lessons in common sense.

Just because a navigation device suggests a motor route doesn’t guarantee that trucks are safe to use the roads and bridges shown on the sat-nav screen.

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Format war ends: Toshiba pulls plug on HD-DVD

Reuters reports that Toshiba is planning to stop production of equipment compatible with the HD-DVD format for high-definition video, allowing the competing Blu-Ray camp a free run.

The electronics manufacturer had lowered prices of players so much that they were losing money on every unit sold.

After many defections from HD-DVD to Blu-Ray including Blockbuster and Netflix, the crushing blow came from Wal-Mart.

The HD-DVD format was well liked, but not by enough people. Besides, if Wal-Mart won't stock it, you may as well give up.

So rest in peace HD-DVD, you were destined to be the Betamax of the 21st century.

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HD-DVD is 21st Century Betamax format

Officially no decision has been made by Toshiba whether to drop its HD-DVD hi-definition format. The deathwatch, however, has begun.

Sony’s Betamax died a slow death a generation ago. Now its Toshiba’s HD-DVD that is on the wrong side of the 21st century format war.

Toshiba is widely expected to pull the plug on its HD DVD format sometime in the coming weeks, reliable industry sources say, after a rash of retail defections that followed Warner Home Video's announcement in early January that it would support only the rival Blu-ray Disc format after May.

Netflix is just another to defect to the Blu-ray format.

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Do iPod’s conflict with heart pacemakers?

Last year we often read about the iPod’s ability to interfere with cardiac pacemakers.

One test was made by a college student with this result:

When an iPod was held above five centimeters from the chests of the patients for five to 10 seconds, electrical interference was detected in about half of the 800 trials.

Pacemakers misfired because they may have mistaken electronic signals from iPods as a rhythm problem.

Now a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher says that portable media players such as iPods are unlikely to interfere with heart pacemakers.

Tests of a variety of iPods showed they did not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with heart monitoring devices.

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Crowd-monitoring droid may panic mall patrons

What would you do if you saw one of these things approaching you with lights cameras and lasers flashing, trying to determine if you are lost?

I’d probably bolt for the nearest exit and then go straight home for dry clothes.

The droid is called Robovie and was developed by the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) in Japan.

Robovie was designed to help people who are lost, giving them directions to their destination.

He uses 16 cameras, six laser-range finders (eek!) and nine RFID tag readers to watch up to 20 people at a time, analyzing their behavior to see if they're acting disorientated.

One look at this droid would be enough to disorient anyone so he should be kept very busy.

Anyway, Robovie could be working the shopping malls of Osaka by the middle of this year, so if you're going, watch out for him. And his lasers.

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Cooking spray helps clear snow from a satellite dish

A clever solution for keeping snow and ice buildup off your satellite dish is to put a plastic trash bag over it and pull it tight to prevent sagging.

Use duct tape to seal the bag to the back of the dish. The snow and ice will fall off the bag and give you clear reception.

If snow and ice starts to build up on the bag, spray the bag with PAM (or similar) cooking spray.

Satellite dish heaters and covers are available but you can’t beat the price of the remedy outlined above..

Electronic gadgets causing a shyness epidemic

An article at the link below says the art of chatting face to face is dying and that the introduction of e-mail, text messaging and iPods is causing a worldwide epidemic of shyness.

Technology is creating entire communities of shrinking violets

A psychologist and Harvard Business School researcher says, “In the past, only about 40 per cent of people reported being shy in social situations. It's now a significant problem affecting about half.”

More of the story here.

The Blu-ray vs. DVD war not over yet

We reported here last June that Blockbuster chose Blu-ray which was a big stride toward declaring a possible winner in the Blu-ray vs. DVD format war.

Then came further reinforcement that Blu-ray would be the winner because of all the Blu-ray players included in Sony Playstations.

However, just to show that the format war is not over, cane the announcement by Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc who said they will release their DVD titles exclusively on HD DVD. They also said this could be the biggest holiday season ever for DVDs and especially their HD DVD offerings.

Paramount had sold titles in both the new high-definition formats -- HD DVD and Blu-Ray -- but settled exclusively on HD DVD after deciding that it offered better quality, lower-priced players and lower manufacturing costs.

Do we see dual-purpose dvd players in our future? Players that will play HD DVD and Blu-ray may be the only solution.

In the 1980’s format wars, those of us who waited long enough only had to buy one VCR because VHS had become the standard before the decade of the ‘80’s ended. By 1990, Betamax VCR’s had virtually disappeared.

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Will Blockbuster decision end the DVD wars?

The closest analogy to the current Blu-ray vs. HD DVD war is the VHS vs. Betamax contest of the early 1980s, but the stakes are higher now.

Betamax was the better product 25 years ago. The reason VHS prevailed was due to many things including better marketing. We think the biggest drawback for Betamax was the short one-hour recording length -- not long enough to record a movie. VHS offered a minimum recording time of three hours.

The current war has Sony, Samsung and Pioneer supporting Blu-ray, while Toshiba, Intel, and Microsoft support HD DVD.

Ken Graffeo, the co-president of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group, was not pleased with Blockbuster's change of position. He said that "trying to make a format decision using such a short time period is really not measuring what the consumer is saying."

Mr. Graffeo should not be surprised, however, because Blu-ray has been outselling HD DVD titles, as well as offering a larger selection of titles since the beginning of this year.

The move by Blockbuster could be the first step in resolving a format war that has kept consumers from buying new DVD players until they can determine which format will dominate the market.

Blockbuster has been renting both Blu-ray and HD DVD titles in 250 stores since late last year and found that consumers were choosing Blu-ray titles more than 70 percent of the time.

It seemed like consumers needed to wait until a clear winner was established or pay extra for a dual format disc player. Now, it looks like the purchase of a Blu-ray disc player may be a safe choice.

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