Major Breakdown Department, Part Deux! In a stunning turn of events, NEC's speech to speech translator has stopped translating for tourists at Tokyo's Narita Airport and has begun talking to itself. Witnesses say that the button-eyed translator will first utter a phrase in English and then one in Japanese in response. Children have been ushered out of earshot as the cute 'bot banters back and forth to itself in some of the foulest slang and colloquialisms contained in either language, punctuated by a tittering laugh that inventors claim they never programmed. Those who have not contracted the vapors at the scene as a result of its verbal onslaught claim that the remarks all seem to center around French waiters, or something much like that. # Permalink
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8:55 AM
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It's Robo Translator Major Breakthrough Department: NEC has just launched the first successful speech-to-speech translation robot called Papero. Developed as a new high-tech visiting tourist feature in Tokyo's Narita airport, the little robot can instantly decipher a sentence in English or Japanese and then translate it on the fly. Better still, the robot is the first of its kind to handle over 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English words, including slang and colloquialisms, all spoken naturally by the user without any prior voice training and identification process.
The technology is expected to hit PDAs soon, and will hopefully end the brutal agony of sneering French waiters as you accidentally order squid eyes from the menu. # Permalink
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8:43 AM
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Earthlink to Test Caller ID for E-Mail Earthlink is about to roll out a version of e-mail that uses "Caller ID" technology developed by Microsoft. Isn't that a bit like using financial strategy brought to you by Enron? # Permalink
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8:33 AM
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THE LATEST NEWS
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Add Fake Background Sounds to Your Cellular Calls Naughty and Nice Department: Now you can sound like you're stuck in traffic from the comfort of your own recliner. SounderCover allows you to apply backgrounds sounds of traffic, the dentist, a thunderstrom, and even the contstant ringing of another phone line to common cell phone models. Simply hold the down arrow key when a call comes in and you can instantly apply a sound to your call. Wicked! The tones are almost $30 USD, but to anyone who has been pestered or wanted to jump into traffic after fielding an annoying call, SounderCover is for you. # Permalink
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5:15 PM
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THE LATEST NEWS
Tuesday, March 02, 2004
Antec cools your drive! Sure Antec makes some dynamite computer cases but it also produces power supplies and a ton of cooling products, now including a hard drive cooler. It would have been nice to know about this thing three weeks ago when one of my 160GB SATA drives crashed and burned (or vice versa), but this is one cool cooler. It's like a giant wrap-around heatsink with two fans and an LCD temperature display on the front which will show you the temp (in Celsius or Fahrenheit) from two different parts of the drive. You can actually watch your hard disk go up in flames --or, better still, know when you need to add some additional cooling capacity to the inside of your PC's case. Best of all, it's supposed to be selling for just under $30. Way cool. # Permalink
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10:51 AM
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NASCAR and Nextel Long-time sponsor Winston now past tense, NASCAR has penned an agreement with Nextel to be the new sponsor of its [Winston, now Nextel] Cup racing series. All the Nextel execs are happier than, well, pretty happy. Why, you ask? It's not the smell of Sunoco racing gas. Two or three times during a race, a marquee at the bottom of the screen asks a question to which fans can respond by texting Nextel. Of course, the usual text messaging rates apply. Geez, you'd think NASCAR would have been satisfied getting over on its fans with $63 1/25 scale die cast cars... # Permalink
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2:25 AM
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How to get Rush Limbaugh over the Internet In the interest of being fair after Howard Stern got pulled from a measly 6 markets by scalded dog Clear Channel, if you'd rather listen to Rush Limbaugh you can go the 77WABC website and click on the "Listen Live" button at any time during his show. (12:00pm - 3:00pm EST). You don't need any special software except for RealPlayer and it doesn't cost anything.
Sure, Limbaugh's not Stern, then again, we all have limits to how many times we can listen to the Lesbian Dating Game, guys farting to the tune of "Oh Canada!," and women asking for breast implants. Just ask Stuttering John.... # Permalink
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2:14 AM
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THE LATEST NEWS
Sunday, February 29, 2004
How to Get the Howard Stern Show via the Internet Howard Stern fans (like me) are reeling over the recent decision of distribution partner Clear Channel to pull the Stern show in many cities. Rest easy. We have the step-by-step instructions on how to download the show daily with your PC. All you need is a piece of software called Pix News Pro ($40) and access to a newsgroup server. Spread the word.
Here are the instructions from TechSono: 1. Download PixNewsPro. 2. Create a Downloader for your news server. If you don't know your server URL, call your ISP. 3. Add the alt.binaries.howard-stern newsgroup to your Downloader. 4. If your ISP does not carry the Stern newsgroup, subscribe to TechSono News Service. 5. Set PixNewsPro to download only MP3 files. 6. Click the Scan button. 7. PixNewsPro will now start to download Stern audio files. The files are large and posted in pieces, so be patient while the program works. 8. Click the "Open" button on the Downloader window. When PixNewsPro is done creating a file, you will see it in the Downloads folder. 9. Double-click on a file to play it like any MP3 file. # Permalink
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2:13 PM
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Interactive World Mood Chart Looks like the internet is still a haven for wacky programming projects. Case in point: the interactive world mood chart. # Permalink
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5:04 AM
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Barcode Yourself Here's a fun and tecnical diversion the whole family can enjoy for free. A website that turns basic stats about you into an actual barcode. With RFID threatening to make barcodes obsolete, take a moment to enjoy this blast from the near past.
Major Breakthrough Department: NEC has just launched the first successful speech-to-speech translation robot called Papero. Developed as a new high-tech visiting tourist feature in Tokyo's Narita airport, the little robot can instantly decipher a sentence in English or Japanese and then translate it on the fly. Better still, the robot is the first of its kind to handle over 50,000 Japanese and 25,000 English words, including slang and colloquialisms, all spoken naturally by the user without any prior voice training and identification process. 
Naughty and Nice Department: Now you can sound like you're stuck in traffic from the comfort of your own recliner. SounderCover allows you to apply backgrounds sounds of traffic, the dentist, a thunderstrom, and even the contstant ringing of another phone line to common cell phone models. Simply hold the down arrow key when a call comes in and you can instantly apply a sound to your call. Wicked! The tones are almost $30 USD, but to anyone who has been pestered or wanted to jump into traffic after fielding an annoying call, SounderCover is for you.
Sure Antec makes some dynamite computer cases but it also produces power supplies and a ton of cooling products, now including a 
Long-time sponsor Winston now past tense, NASCAR has penned an agreement with Nextel to be the new sponsor of its [Winston, now Nextel] Cup racing series. All the Nextel execs are happier than, well, pretty happy. Why, you ask? It's not the smell of Sunoco racing gas. Two or three times during a race, a marquee at the bottom of the screen asks a question to which fans can respond by texting Nextel. Of course, the usual text messaging rates apply. Geez, you'd think NASCAR would have been satisfied getting over on its fans with $63 1/25 scale die cast cars...
Here's a fun and tecnical diversion the whole family can enjoy for free. A website that turns basic stats about you into an actual barcode. With RFID threatening to make barcodes obsolete, take a moment to enjoy this blast from the near past.