Looks like all that excitement over PSPgo’s faster (but likely to be underused) 480MHz processor is all for naught. Our friends at Engadget Japan have gotten in contact with Sony Computer Entertainment and been informed that the Maximum clock frequency mentioned here is for the USB device, not the CPU. All those dreams of hacked firmware to unlock more power? Better hold that thought for now.

Filed under: Gaming

SCE: PSPgo’s 480MHz clock speed references USB, not CPU originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz are launching their much-anticipated $300 million venture fund this evening, aptly called Andreessen Horowitz.

The fund will make investments of $50,000 to $50 million (yes, $50 million), but will generally focus on early stage opportunities. And here’s a fun fact: they don’t currently have a website, and apparently they aren’t sure they will have one in the future. For now they’ve reserved a16z.com for use if they do ever launch a site. Basically, if you don’t already know Andreessen or Horowitz, or know someone who knows them, getting in contact with them is going to be…difficult.

Andreessen has long been one of my favorite people to interview, because he is tapped into nearly every hot company and isn’t afraid to answer questions directly. That is, when you can actually get him to sit down with you and a camera, notepad or tape recorder. But last week, he had to chat it up with the press since he and long-time partner Ben Horowitz were announcing their the new venture fund. This is not going to be your typical venture capital firm.

For one thing, there’s that $300 million fund size. That’s pretty big for a first-time fund and gargantuan when you consider there are only two general partners, Andreessen and Horowitz. It’s big enough that some people didn’t think they’d be able to pull it off.

How did they? Well, did we mention Andreessen was one of the partners? Heard of the browser? And the lesser-known Horowitz is no slouch. He was the CEO of their second venture, Opsware, which sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. As instant as Netscape’s success may have been, Opsware was the opposite, a hard post-bubble slog.

It’s too early to tell how well Andreessen’s third company, Ning, will do, but Andreessen and Horowitz’s angel stakes in companies like LinkedIn, Delicious and Twitter show their savvy at picking good teams and how much other entrepreneurs in the Valley value their advice. For instance, Andreessen is the only independent member on Facebook’s tiny board of directors. And investors were impressed by the 45 or so companies that Andreessen has independently invested in over the years. Just one, TipMobile, has gone under so far.

So, that’s how they raised $300 million in the worst fundraising environment in 40 years,  here’s why: Andreessen says there are only fifteen companies started each year that matter. By “matter,” he means they’ve got the potential to generate $100 million year or more in revenues, and those companies wind up making up 97% of the aggregate industry returns. The firm wants the flexibility to invest as much as they want in those fifteen names, whether it’s $500,000 or $50 million per deal. Considering the two have run big teams and small teams over their time at Netscape, Opsware and Ning, there’s no logical reason they should tether themselves to just one stage of investing.

Like Founders Fund and unlike most everyone else, Andreessen and Horowitz are more comfortable investing when an entrepreneur wants to stay the CEO. Hiring a “grown up” CEO always sounds like a great idea, but almost always hastens a company’s failure, Andreessen argues. There’s strong evidence that the biggest hits come when the founders stay engaged at a C-level position. See: Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon, Apple and Facebook.

Another distinction: They’re not meddlers. Because there are just two of them, Horowitz and Andreessen won’t always take board seats. If they pick the right entrepreneurs, Andreessen argues they shouldn’t have to.

The whole interview lasted about an hour, and you can see many of the highlights on my Yahoo show, TechTicker, today. Meanwhile, here are five other interesting things he said:

1. Twitter and Facebook’s investors aren’t worried about monetization, but “it’s sweet” of you to. Twitter has spent about $15 million acquiring 30 million users. It’d be a no-brainer to recoup that if need be. Meanwhile, Facebook will generate more than $500 million in revenues this year—it’s spent far less than that to build the company to date. In other words, these are pretty fiscally conservatively run businesses with huge growth potential and no trouble raising additional cash.

2. Digg isn’t done. Andreessen is still bullish on Digg, citing the fact that Kevin Rose is no longer distracted with Pownce and Jay Adelson is moving to San Francisco to manage the company full-time. He thinks having both guys focused on the company will make a huge difference in the next twelve months.

3. The venture capital market should stop whining about Sarbox and other factors that are hurting their ability to take companies public. Says Andreessen, “Build Companies More Valuable and You Won’t Have this Problem.” That said, he sees a conceivable scenario where public markets are no longer how investors get returns at all. Instead, the same institutional names that used to buy the bulk of the shares at an issue, will just buy out VCs at premiums in private deals. That’ll essentially mean everyday Joes can no longer invest in high growth companies. That’s a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how many scars you have from the dot com bust.

4. At least 300 venture firms will go out of business in the next five-to-ten years.

5. Innovation and opportunities to build businesses on the Web aren’t done. They won’t be done for a long time because the Web is one of the only inventions that’s pure software, compared to computers, the television or even the railroads. That means it can completely change without having to fit into set molds. Anyone—Andreessen included—is deluding themselves if they think they know where it’s going. (In other words, don’t listen to anyone making Web 3.0 predictions.)

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Go here to see the original:
Details on Marc Andreessen’s New Fund (Plus Five Other Interesting Things He Said)

Talk of a possible Android / Nokia tie-up has been ongoing since time immemorial, and the latest fuel to the fire comes from the Guardian which is sourcing “industry insiders” as saying that the world’s largest phone manufacturer will reveal an Android-powered touchscreen handset at its Nokia World event this September. Though Nokia itself has never truly ruled out the possibility of working with Open Handset Alliance code, a move into Android right now would truly be an odd one — granted, the Symbian Foundation is probably on thin ice any way you look at it, but even without S60 and its successors in the mix in the long term, Nokia still has Maemo quietly reaching platform maturity in the background with rumors of an imminent MID / superphone hybrid swirling in recent months. It seems that adopting Android (even if only for a select number of models) would be an admission on Nokia’s part that it has failed to be a Maker of Standards, despite its overwhelming size and market position — not to mention a major bet that it can continue to win customers based on the strength of its hardware alone, since it’d now be working with a common platform adopted by dozens of companies large and small. So, here’s the million- (or maybe billion-) dollar question: all things being equal, can Nokia outdo HTC and Samsung on the same platform?

Update: And now the Nokia spokesman response: “Absolutely no truth to this whatsoever, everyone knows that Symbian is our preferred platform for advanced mobile devices.” Yes, unfortunately / fortunately, we do know that.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nokia claimed to be working on Android phone for unveiling later this year (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the Nintendo Wii can only display games in 480p, this emulator shows what Super Mario Galaxy looks like in 720p. No word yet on availability. Click here for first picture in gallery.

So if the Wii could manage high definition (which it can’t), this is probably what Mario would look like. Nice, no?

[via Kotaku - Neogaf]

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Wii Emulator Shows Super Mario Galaxy in 720p

This beautiful time lapse footage was shot on an iPhone 3G S by using the application TimeLapse, which snapped a photo every 30-seconds — approximately 1400-photos total were used in making this clip. Continue reading for the video.

The quality is so good that I figured the reflection you can see in the clip revealed that the footage was phone – a mere camera aimed at a TV screen.

[via Gizmodo]

The rest is here:
Incredible iPhone 3G S Time Lapse Footage

As a boss or owner of a large organizations, especially a factory, it can get pretty hard trying to run the operations at its optimum levels all the time. Well, good thing there is always technology to assist us, although I find it rather ironic that the smartest bunch of people on earth create devices and new methods to make living a whole lot easier, dumbing down the general populace in the process with devices that require less and less brain power to operate. DSS Co Ltd. from Japan, however, offers something to make us more efficient. This Japanese firm edits and processes digital maps based on survey data, and have already begun a service of recording the actions of factory workers for long hours and visualize them.

Of course, before it has enough data to play around with, it will require to mine such information, and mining will require the right tools. Some of the tools used for collecting the data include an ankle sensor that can be attached to the leg of a worker for recording his or her movement, while the other is a milestone that will see action throughout various places in the plant so that it is able to find out just how long workers remain in that area of the factory. Last but not least would be the small video camera that can be placed in the chest pocket of the worker to record his or her action(s). All of these will work together in tandem, where data of up to 30 workers can be collected at the same time. After three days’ worth of data, a special behavior analysis report can be yours for around two million yen (that is approximately $20,857), opening up your eyes to see just how many hours are spent by majority of the workers around the water cooler as they trade juicy company stories with one another.

No idea how much privacy intrusion can be calculated into this system, but we suppose it helps management make more calculated decisions when streamlining their processes.

Source: Tech On

Original post:
Factory owners and bosses, here’s something for you

Pioneer’s back into its groove not with another GPS navigation system for vehicles or DVD/Blu-ray player, but this time round they aim to raise the bar (and seem to have done so successfully by the time you reach the end of the post) with their new range of high powered A/V receivers, where the quartet of these are targeted to enhance clarity, detail and dynamic “quick response” from uncompressed Dolby True-HD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks that can be found in Blu-ray Disc entertainment. For instance, the all-new Pioneer Elite SC-25 and SC-27 A/V Receivers do feature a Direct Energy HD Class D amplifier that boasts ICEPower technology to ensure unprecedented reproduction of high resolution multi-channel, stereo as well as compressed audio and provide premium home entertainment that would even fool some into thinking that they’re at a movie theater. As for the Elite SC-27, this model will leverage the full advantages of this emerging amplification technology, as it holds the position of being the industry’s first Class D amp design to achieve THX Ultra Plus and AIR Studio monitor certifications.

Entertainment purists will definitely be more pleased than punch to find out that the SC-25 and SC-27 utilize Burr-Brown analog to digital converters (ADC) and renowned Wolfson digital to analog converters (DAC), working in tandem to maintain high resolution performance throughout the entire digital signal processing chain from input to output. DAC performance is further brought to another level with the SC-27 as it boasts a professional-grade Burr-Brown 192kHz / 24-Bit sampling rate converter (SRC) for ultra-wide dynamic range and advanced jitter reduction. Guess all of your recently purchased Michael Jackson records are going to sound even better on this, just make sure you have a well defined room to maximize the effect of the audio output.

The other two models would be the Pioneer Elite VSX-21TXH and VSX-23TXH that are lower end and yet pack a punch with its Direct Energy Class A/B amplification, integrated video signal conversion, 1080p video scaling and an abundance of connectivity solutions for current and new high definition as well as standard definition entertainment sources. The Pioneer Elite VSX-21TXH and VSX-23TXH will begin shipping sometime from this month onwards for $700 and $900, respectively, while the Pioneer Elite SC-25TXH and SC-27 will ship out next month for $1,700 and $2,000, respectively.

Press Release

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Pioner Elite A/V Receivers add new dimension in home entertainment

If you have a Nano, you likely have one of the brightly colored versions.  If you do, you might want to check out iLive’s line of boom box docks.  They feature bright colors to go along with the color of your Nano.  Even if  you don’t own a Nano, having one of these around will add a little color to your music ritual.  Of course, this boom box might appeal more to the ladies than it does the guys, due to the unfortunate purse-like shape that these come in.

The dock will charge your iPod, unless of course you own a Shuffle.  If you do own a Shuffle or any other type of non-Apple MP3 player, you can always plug it in through the aux port.  Which plugging it in that way won’t charge it, but it will at the very least play your music.  It also has an AM/FM radio for when you’re tired of listening to your MP3 player.  You can find the iLive Portable Dock for $29.99 on Amazon.

Source: ChipChick

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iLive Portable Music System Boom Box with iPod Dock

There are some that are willing to pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars to get the top of the line sound and the quality looks that go along with it.  Which for them is fun, but not everyone needs that kind of a set up.  Instead, it’s entirely possible to go extremely minimal with your speakers.  You can now purchase a kit to create your very own DIY speakers.  What makes them even better is that they’re eco-friendly.

The kit comes with everything you’ll need for the speakers and that includes things to decorate them with.  They don’t state what exactly the utensils are though, whether they be eco-friendly crayons or just an ordinary set of coloring pencils.  Either way though, even after the speakers are finished you could still use them to decorate other items you find.  The cardboard set of speakers can be found for $18 through Urban Outfitters.  Which definitely isn’t a bad price, especially when you get to decorate them to fit your tastes.

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DIY Eco Speakers allow you to decorate and customize

When it comes to camping lighting you typically get to choose between one that requires buying batteries or the slightly more old fashioned versions that require you to light them.  Well this camping light features a vintage look, so you can feel like you’re using an old lamp.  However, it uses solar power to keep the LEDs burning brightly, instead of running on the same thing a vintage lamp would run on.  It’s definitely the best of both worlds, old look and new technology.

Although the lamp is shown in the bright red shown here, once you get to reading through the product page you’ll discover a brief mention that the lamp is actually jet black instead of red.  The lamps use 2 AA batteries.  If for some reason the solar panel does not receive 4-6 hours of the sunlight it needs to charge, you can pop in a couple of regular batteries to run the 7 LED lights.  It doesn’t say quite how long the lamp will run on a full charge though.  You can purchase the lantern for $21.99 from Sourcing Map.

More here:
The Solar Power LED Vintage Camping Lantern