NASA is reporting the first successful tests of its Deep Space Network modeled after Earth’s own Internet. Instead of using TCP/IP, however, the interplanetary communication network relies upon DTN (Disruption-Tolerant Networking) co-developed by none other than Google’s Vinton Cerf. As such, NASA’s network does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection — if a link is lost due to solar storms or a planetary eclipse, the communication node will store the information until the connection is re-established. So, what’s the big deal you rightly ask, after all, we’ve been (purposely) transmitting data to and from space for a half-century. As Leigh Torgerson, manager of NASA’s DTN Experiment Operations Center explains it:
“In space today, an operations team must manually schedule each link and generate all the commands to specify which data to send, when to send it, and where to send it. With standardized DTN, this can all be done automatically.”
Testing of the Deep Space Network began in October with twice-weekly communications between NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft (on a mission to rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2) and nine ground-based nodes meant to simulate Mars landers, orbiters, and operation centers. The International Space Station is scheduled to join the testing next summer. Although the nature of the data transmitted wasn’t specified, we can only presume that it was laced with Google ads for Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong.
NASA’s interplanetary Internet tests a success, Vint Cerf triumphs again originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
They’ve been keeping tabs on dogs around MIT for a few years now, but it looks like the activity-monitoring SNIF Tags are now finally making their public, and commercial, debut. Unlike some other devices that track your dog’s whereabouts with GPS, these make use of an accelerometer and some motion analysis software to determine exactly how active your dog is, all of which gets logged online via the included SNIF base station that connects to your router. Even more ambitiously, the tags also promise to let you and your dog engage in a bit of social networking, with the tags able to recognize when they’re close to another tag and record the encounter online when you get back home which, of course, depends on plenty of other dogs having the tags as well. Their $200 introductory price (or $300 after November 24th) won’t exactly help those chances, however, nor will the $10 a month fee for the premium membership (a year of service is included with the starter kit). If that’s not a deterrent for you though, you can get your order in right now by hitting up the ready link below.
SNIF Tags go commercial, promise to monitor your dog’s activity originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you’re a devoted dog lover and have ever created a Facebook profile for your loyal companion (and I hope for your sake that you haven’t), SNIF Tag offers you the chance for beloved Fido to get in on the action. Just for $299, the SNIF Tag clips on to your pet’s collar and picks up interactions with other SNIF-enabled doggies, allowing you to meet other fellow dog enthusiasts. The tag then uploads all the information to a SNIF profile and shares it with other SNIF owners at home. I know dogs are great for meeting chicks and all, but you might seriously want to rethink that introduction. “Hi, my name is Joe, and my friend feed told me yesterday Kujo sniffed Princess’ butt. I saw on her profile she was in heat too?” [SNIF Tag via Core77]
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This is a guide that, if followed, will unchain your Apple TV from its cruel iTunes tether, turning it into the useful living room conduit of music, video and web-based content it should have been all along via the media center software Boxee. Boxee can be installed fairly easily via the ATV’s USB port to bring Hulu and Comedy Central streaming, playback of any video or music file anywhere on your network in virtually any file type imagineable, and a bevy of internet A/V sources like Flickr, Last.fm, NPR and BBC podcasts and tons of others—all upping the usefulness and fun of Apple’s notoriously underachieving box by a factor of 10, easily. If you have an ATV, Boxee is a must-install, and it’s 100% free. Let’s get started.
The stock Apple TV has never been able to decide what it’s supposed to do. Is it a device to store all your videos? Its built-in hard drive would suggest yes, but the fact that everything needs to be piped through iTunes makes this a hassle if you store your videos in any other way. And why are we downloading and storing anyway? Streaming is the way things are headed, and for streaming, Apple TV doesn’t make a ton of sense, especially when a box a quarter its size and a less than half its price can bring Netflix’s massive library into your living room with zero download delays and zero added cost, soon in HD, even.
Aside from adding the golden goose of Hulu streaming, Boxee’s other main advantage is freeing your Apple TV from its direct connection with your iTunes library. No longer will it be necessary to convert all of your video files into iTunes compatible formats to get them to your TV—Boxee will let your Apple TV read just about any video codec you can throw at it (full list of codecs here) from any computer or network-attached storage device on your network, or read files off the Apple TV’s own hard disk—all while leaving the default OS untouched and 100% functional. So let’s do this.
What You’ll Need:
• Apple TV with software version 2.0 or higher
• A USB flash drive 512MB or larger
• ATV USB Creator [download: 1.0.b7 version - Mac only, for now]
• An invite into Boxee’s semi-public alpha (use this link especially for Giz readers to jump the line a bit)
Prepare Your USB Drive
Just like the iPhone, the Apple TV is basically an OS X computer (running a 1GHz Intel processor), so Boxee installs just like a regular desktop app in the Applications folder, which is hidden normally. Why Apple hasn’t opened up the Apple TV to third party developers is anyone’s guess, but thankfully, with a prepared USB stick it’s all pretty painless.
1. After unpacking the ATV USB Creator application, start it up with the USB flash drive you intend to use mounted. Select “ATV-Patchstic” as your installation option and “Boxee for Mac” as the installation type. At the bottom, select the BSD location of your flash disk. You can find this with System Profiler under the USB section (probably a good idea to unmount any other USB drives so you don’t accidentally wipe them).
2. Click “Create Using ->” and your USB stick will be formatted and loaded up with the appropriate software.
3. Power off your Apple TV (by unplugging it), drop your USB patchstick into the ATV’s USB slot, and plug it back in. You’ll see Tux and a bunch of code streaming on your screen as the software installs.
4. When it’s done, remove the USB stick and restart the ATV.
Download Boxee via the Boxee Launcher
5. The USB patchstick installs a launcher that can then pull down the latest version of Boxee from the web. The first thing you’ll want to do, then, to ensure you have the latest version, is update the launcher itself. Go to the new option “Boxee” in the ATV menu, choose “Update” and then update the Launcher.
6. Now, go to the new Boxee menu and choose “Update” -> “Boxee alpha…” to pull down and install Boxee itself. Once it installs, select “Boxee” from the new menu “Boxee/XBMC” menu to start it up.
Configure Boxee
7. Enter the user account you registered on boxee.tv (via our invite link above). Boxee also adds some nifty social networking features—if you have any buddies also using it, you can see what they’ve recently watched, added to their collections, or recommended to you via Boxee’s home screen.
8. First thing you’ll want to do once you’re in is make sure Boxee displays perfectly on your screen. Settings are accessible by pressing “left” on the ATV remote at any time, so go to “Settings - Appearance - Video Calibration…” to set overscan and sizing options.
Add Your Sources
Right now, under the “Videos” menu, you can browse and stream the complete offerings from Hulu, Comedy Central, Revision3, and a ton of other web video sources. But Boxee really shines when it can play your media files from anywhere on your network.
Add an SMB Share
This can be a network attached storage drive (you’ve read our guide for getting the best NAS setup, right?) or simply a shared folder on a Mac or PC on your network (to share a folder in OS X, enable File Sharing in your Sharing settings, enable SMB shares under “Options” and add your media folder. Boxee will then auto detect your shares.
9. In Boxee’s Settings menu, select “Media Sources and Applications -> Network Sources” and choose “Add New Source.” Select your share in the menu that comes up and mark it wither Video, Music or Photos. Boxee will now monitor this folder and add any TV shows and movies it recognizes (complete with cover art, episode descriptions, and the like) to the main videos menu (Boxee’s full of little surprises like this). It won’t catch everything though, so you can always access your added folders manually by choosing “Sources” under the main Video menu.
Access Apple TV via SSH For Copying Media Files
Aside from streaming from SMB shares, Boxee can also of course play files stored locally in its own file system. You can connect to the Apple TV via SSH/SFTP for copying files directly over your network and accessing your Apple TV’s main file system.
10. In an FTP program like Transmit or Cyberduck (but using SFTP), connect to appletv.local with the username and password both set to “frontrow” - this will log you in to your Apple TV’s file system, which has a structure exactly like OS X’s. You can also connect via SSH from the terminal if you prefer the geekier side.
11. In the folder /Users/frontrow you will find folders labeled Movies, Music and Pictures. Any media added to these folders will be automatically recognized and playable after copying.
Torrent RSS
Yeah, Boxee can also download Torrents. It comes with a listing of public domain movie and TV Torrents under the “Public Torrents” source, but you can also have your Apple TV download whatever Torrents you want.
12. To add a Torrent to Boxee’s download manager, simply copy the .torrent file to the Users/frontrow/Library/Application Support/BOXEE/UserData/Torrents folder using the SFTP technique above and it will immediately begin downloading. Awesome.
Uninstalling All Traces of Boxee
Should you want to wipe your machine totally clean of any Boxee related tinkering, it’s easy. Fire up a Terminal and type in the following commands, each on their own line:
ssh frontrow@appletv.local
sudo rm -rf /Applications/Boxee.app/
sudo rm -rf /Applications/XBMC.app/
sudo rm -rf /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app/Contents/PlugIns/XBMCLauncher.frappliance/
rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/BOXEE/
rm -rf /Users/frontrow/Library/Application\ Support/XBMC/
What’s Next For Boxee
Boxee is on the move. Over the course of three alphas I’ve used (I can’t believe this is alpha software) over only the last month or so, this thing has improved by incredible bounds—interface is getting better, weirdness and inconsistencies getting less common, all good signs.
Eventually, Boxee wants to be in set top boxes and on every platform (Windows is coming before the end of the year)—since it supports practically every audio and video codec known, it’s aiming to be the Firefox of multi-platform connected AV setups, featuring plug-ins and add-ons of its own. It doesn’t support DRM of any kind, so don’t hold your breath for Boxee to be picked up by any of the majors. Fine with me.
Feature wise, Netflix streaming (yessss) and ABC.com are first on the Boxee folks’ list.
Boxee’s an open source app, so its forums are a lively place to ask for help and suggest more features to the main developers, who hang out there often. If you run into any bumps, that’s the place.
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As the economy slips deeper and deeper into oblivion, we can take some solace in these wonderful Black Friday ads that will inevitably trickle out up until the day after Thanksgiving. Today, we bring you the Dell Black Friday ad, complete with deals on their computers, media devices, monitors, peripherals—pretty much you name it, it might be there. That includes this pretty incredible Xbox 360 deal: XBOX 360 Arcade With 7 Games Including Rock Band 2 - $199.00. Wha?!
Full ad text below:
Dell Inspirion 530 Desktop E-Value Code 16254-DDPHDD1 - $479.00
Dell Inspiron 13 Laptop E-Value Code 16254-DNPHWD1 - $699.00
Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop 15.4″ Widescreen E-Value Code 16254-DNPHPD4 - $559.00
Dell Inspiron 1525 Laptop 15.4″ Widescreen E-Value Code 16254-DNPHPD5 - $649.00
Dell Inspiron 518 Desktop E-Value Code 16254-DDPHOD1 - $549.00
Dell Inspiron 530s Desktop E-Value Code 16254-DDPHFD1 - $299.00
Dell Inspiron Mini 9 Laptop 8.9″ E-Value Code 16254-DNPHXD2 - $299.00
Dell Studio 15 Laptop 15.4″ E-Value Code 16254-DNPHUD2 - $699.00
Dell Studio 17 Laptop 17″ E-Value Code 16254-DNPHVD2 - $799.00
Dell Studio Desktop E-Value Code 16254-DDPHMD1 - $749.00
Dell Studio Hybrid E-Value Code 16254-DDPHLD1 - $699.00
Dell XPS 420 Desktop E-Value Code 16254-DXPHQY1 - $649.00
Dell XPS M1330 13.3″ Laptop E-Value Code 16254-DYPHTE1 - $1029.00
Dell XPS M1530 15.4″ Widescreen Laptop E-Value Code 16254-DYPHHE1 - $1029.00
Digital Cameras
Canon Powershot SD1100 8MP 3x Zoom Digital Camera - $159.99
DVD Players
Sony BDP-S350 Blu-Ray Disc Player - $249.99
Electronics
Smartparts 7″ Digital Picture Frame - $44.99
GPS Navigation Systems
Magellan 1400 GPS Navigation Unit - Free With Select Laptops
Pharos PDR200 GPS - $94.99
Hard Drives
Western Digital 1TB My Book World Edition Network Storage - $169.99
Home Theater
Sony HDX275 Home Theater System - $229.99
Monitors
Dell SE198WFP 19″ Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor E-Value Code 16254-DMPHWC1 - $129.00
MP3 Players
Creative Labs Zen Mozaic 8GB MP3 Player - $74.99
Networking & Wireless
Linksys WRT110 Rangeplus Wireless Router - $39.99
Software
Norton 360 2.0 All In One Security Software - $9.99
Television
Sharp 42″ 1080p LCD HDTV - $779.00
Video Games
XBOX 360 Arcade With 7 Games Including Rock Band 2 - $199.00
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Virgin Media shows off stylish 50Mbps cable modem
Posted by Jo
Filed under: Networking
This truly may be a world’s first: a cable modem you don’t feel incredibly pressured to relegate to the rear of your networking stash. Yes friends, that succulent device you see above is Virgin Media’s shockingly stunning 50Mbps cable modem, which unsurprisingly relies on DOCSIS 3.0 technology in order to provide such 1337 speeds. It’s still not as speedy as Ambit Broadband’s channel bonding modem, nor can it hold a candle to whatever Sigbritt Löthberg had going on in Sweden, but 50Mbps isn’t anything to sneeze at. No word on pricing just yet (don’t worry, you’ll pay it), but it should be available for UK-based speed freaks before the year’s end.
[Via TrustedReviews]
Virgin Media shows off stylish 50Mbps cable modem originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Nov 2008 18:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A MySpace portable audio player? (Design your own!)
Posted by Jo
Filed under: Portable Audio
Update: We’ve found ourselves so visually inspired by the concept of a MySpace player that we’ve decided to run a Photoshop contest (that grandest of traditions) to see what you can come up with. Fire your best ’shops on over to contests at engadget dawt com, and together we can create a brighter future.
[Via Electronista]
Continue reading A MySpace portable audio player? (Design your own!)
A MySpace portable audio player? (Design your own!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Networking
So, you’ve been desperately searching and hoping for a way to connect your SlingCatcher into your wireless network router, right? Well back at CES in January, the company showed off a little accessory called the SlingLink Wireless — a device that would do just that. Unfortunately, details were scarce. Things may be changing, however, as the adapter just appeared on Sling’s UK site looking all fancy and official. There doesn’t seem to be any indication of a price (last we heard it was $49.99), release date, or regional availability, and when we contacted Sling, they didn’t seem to know much more than what the page conveys… and then pulled the info from the site. Oh well — thank goodness for Google’s cache.
[Thanks, Brian]
SlingLink Wireless adapter appears then disappears from the company’s UK site originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Back in February we showed you a slightly botched-together system that lets your houseplants Twitter, but now there’s a complete kit available. After soldering it together, you simply shove it deep into your plant’s pot, connect it up to with an ethernet cable, and when its moisture sensors detect that you’ve been a bit lax in watering it’ll Twitter with a “water me please” prompt. Ignoring it won’t work as it’ll step up the game with an urgent Tweet, and over-watering’ll earn you a scolding. It’s possibly the only way I’d remember to feed Reg, my sadly dessicated lemon tree…though at this rate of digitizing the average home is at risk of networking overload. Out now for $99. [ via OhGizmo]
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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Networking
Steve Ballmer himself first dropped word of this one earlier this month, but Microsoft has now finally gotten official about its new cloud computing operating system, and its name: Windows Azure. What’s more, the OS is apparently just one component of Microsoft’s larger Azure cloud computing platform, which will eventually be fully rolled out alongside Windows 7, and will encompass Microsoft’s existing Live services, SQL services, and .NET services, among other things. If that’s got you excited, you can find plenty more details at the link below, and even a few SDKs ready for downloading.
[Via Pocket-lint]
Microsoft gets official with Windows Azure cloud OS, platform originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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