Gearfuse

If there’s one thing that’ll interest you about Sony’s third generation internal Blu-ray optical drive, the BWU-300S, it’s not the specs. So, what if it can write single and dual layer BD-R discs at up to 8X speed, or if it writes DVDs at up to 16X, CDs up to 48X and supports DVD-RAM recording.

No, we don’t care about all of that. We care that this drive comes with a free movie, not the news about no DH DVD playback. So long as it comes with Men In Black on Blu-ray, we’ll buy it. That’s like – a fifteen dollar value. Unbelievable.

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Just when you thought that the 400GB Blu-ray discs announced in early July couldn’t get any sweeter sounding, Pioneer renders it obsolete less than two months after. The standard size of a Blu-ray disc is 25 GB on a single layer and 50GB with a dual layer. Well, the fat cats at pioneer were not satisfied with even 16 layers of storage. It needed to go bigger. So, they crammed 25 layers on to the disc, with each layer containing 25GB of memory, totaling up to a whopping 500GB of storage space. Even with Buffalo’s 8x Blu-ray recorder, it’d be a difficult task to fill up 500GB.

Brendan Sheridan, Product Manager of Pioneer Europe NV, Multimedia Division: “With its strong support among the gaming, movie and PC industries, Blu-ray has become the de facto next generation storage system. …we envision the need for a technology that can support far greater capacities as HD streaming in particular becomes commonplace and users build larger files of digital content.”

With Blu-ray getting bigger and bigger, you’re going to need a player for all your friends to know how hip you are. What better than a Playstation 3 for all your media needs at a fraction of the price of other Blu-ray players.

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Your house plants are withering. You have two options: put them out in the sun or build a gigantic robotic arm that takes up half of your living space. Lively plants at the cost of sleeping in the bathtub doesn’t sound too bad either.

The Bartlett School of Architecture showcased their “Experiments in Time” exhibit, which included this steel monstrosity strapped with an Arduino Lilypad controller to tilt a disc into sunlight.  Seriously, all you have to do is pick your house plants up, walk outside and place them down on the ground. You’ll be set, they’ll be healthy and you get to spend the night in your bed without sharing rent with a robotic arm.

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Editor’s Note: SEATTLE!!

If you like playing music with useless hardware and you’ve got no time to go to the Tashi station to pick up some power converters, then check this YouTube video out.

Some geek hacked his old 3.5-inch floppy disk drive to play the Star Wars “Imperial” tune.  Unfortunately, no documentation was made to show you how to build one yourself, so you’ll just have to suffer. Hey, it beats being taken to the Dune Sea, cast into the pit of Carkoon: the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlaac, where you’ll be slowly digested over a thousand years.
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I’ve written many an opinion column on why the Playstation 3 is the best console out there. After HD DVD died, my argument was strengthened further. Ryan then put the nail in the coffin by confirming that the only BD Live-enabled player on the market right now is the PS3.

A lot of talk has gone on revolving around the price of Blu-Ray players on the market. Some argue that prices have increased since HD DVD died out. Others state that prices are going down on specific players. While each side has some truth to it, the Playstation 3 remains at $399 and gives you both the best Blu-Ray player available and the most powerful gaming console on the market. Either way, consumers shouldn’t have any second thoughts about picking up a PS3 if they’re considering an HD solution for movies.

I’m glad we had this little talk. In the end, I’m just trying to keep you informed.