There are many uses for a TV remote, including the classic 'throw it at your TV', but Australian, Geoffrey Martin Fryatt, must have a really special one since he threatened to blow up Brisbane with his.
Having had one or six too many, 56-year old Fryatt who lived at Fairways Golf and Lifestyle Retreat in Brisbane decided to threaten his neighbours with a knife and claim that he was going to detonate a store of chemicals with his TV remote.
"One push of the button will blow up half of Brisbane," he roared during his stand-off with cops last May. They responded by shooting him with rubber bullets. The judge this week imposed a one-year probation sentence.
Here’s irony for you though. Fryatt said that it might interrupt his plans to travel overseas to carry out “humanitarian aid work”. Hahahahahahahaha…
The judge replied: "Let's get you right before we send you off to a third world country."-Martin Lynch
[Reuters]
TV news bomb
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The furore over the inability of the BBC’s hugely successful iPlayer catch-up TV service to run on Macs could have a happy ending after all.
BBC director general, Mark Thompson, has promised that iPlayer will be working on Macs by the end of the year. While this is good news for the angry non-PC brigade, the end of the year is a long way off. Until then, Mac users will have to settle for being able to stream content from iPlayer but will be unable to download content to their PCs for watching within the one-week time limit. Thompson wrote in a BBC blog:
“The first thing to say is that - contrary to what some believe - the BBC actually works hard to provide Internet services on a "platform agnostic" basis. The BBC iPlayer has made programmes available to Mac users and users of other operating systems via streaming since December 2007 - a move which I’m told has gone down very well indeed. However, the issue of download of programmes to Mac and other platforms has always been a more complex issue for technical and rights reasons. Our response to those challenges has been the subject of much debate and conjecture and I’d like to do what I can to clear this up here.
The Trust recognised the practical difficulties facing the BBC but required it to report progress on a six-monthly basis. Work is still ongoing, but I am happy to be able to confirm here that we are aiming to launch a download version of BBC iPlayer for Mac this year. I can also confirm that Firefox users are now able to download BBC iPlayer programmes. I hope this good news is evidence of the hard work that the BBC is committing to supporting other platforms.”
Good news for Firefox browser users though since many people have long given up on the fat and slow Internet Explorer.-Martin Lynch
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Archos, makers of very fine portable media players like the 605 Wi-Fi, have entered the living room entertainment market with Archos TV+, a Wi-Fi digital video recorder (DVR).
The device hopes to take a slice of the small, but growing market, for multimedia streaming devices like the revamped Apple TV offering.
The set-top box look-alike comes in 80GB and 250GB flavours and is designed to let you to record content off your TV as well as stream content wirelessly from your PC to your telly. For an extra £20, you can get the optional Opera browser which will let you surf the Internet via your TV too. The unusual square remote control also boasts a small keyboard and mouse wheel for navigating the Web and entering Web site addresses.
There are a wide range of video connection options, including composite, S-video, RGB, component and HDMI, as well as USB and Ethernet. Lots of formats are supported although you will have to shell out a little more for a codec plug-in to support MPEG-2 and H.264 up to DVD resolution with AAC sound support.
Shipping now from Play.com and Amazon, the 80GB and 250GB Archos TV+ devices cost £180 and £250, respectively. Jump now for the full specs.-Martin Lynch
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Microsoft has slashed $50 off the cost of the add-on HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360 console in the US, Canada and New Zealand.
There’s no indication - yet - that the company plans to cut prices in Europe but, unless it has a death wish for the HD DVD format, it will, and soon too.
The price in the US now drops to $130 from $180 – almost 28%. Even better – at least for those it affects – it can still be bought bundled with a remote and a copy of King Kong, as well as the cool promo offer that gives them a coupon to choose five free HD DVDs. So, in real money, they are getting a HD DVD player and six movies for £65. Just not fair!
Still, when you consider the beating the HD DVD format is taking right now, with big movie studios deserting it for Blu-ray and Woolworths dumping it in the UK, you can understand the need for some drastic measures.-Martin Lynch
[Microsoft]
xbox HD DVD blu-ray microsoft
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When a company like Sennheiser starts marketing its latest headphones with the words ‘high-end’ you know it’s time to break open that jar of coppers you’ve been collecting for years and start counting. However, when it uses the words ‘Mega high-end’, you know you’re in trouble.
Meet the Sennheiser Communications PC 350, the ‘mega high-end gaming headset’ for just £150. That’s a lot for any set of cans, but especially gaming headphones. That said, they do promise ‘the most accurate sound positioning and finest sound quality available in the gaming market’. For £150, they had better. They do sport a 3m cable and can also be used with your hi-fi, for Skype calls and other PC-based comms. Sennheiser says:
“A round-the-ear, closed type headset, the PC 350 shuts out disturbing noises from the environment. That combined with the special shaping of the frequency response improves gamers ability to detect where a sound comes from. This helps significantly sharpen reaction time, giving players a built in advantage over the competition. “When talking with your team or when listening for the enemy, the quality of your headset makes a difference,” says an online gamer.”
You’d have to very serious indeed about your online gaming to consider the PC 350s. Just don't blame them when you're still crap at 'Capture The Flag'. -Martin Lynch
games headphones PC music
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Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
Contributor | Tamlin Magee
