MP3 Players in the Year 2000 Were Not So Good

This is the Creative Nomad Jukebox from the year 2000. It may have been shaped like a CD player to mentally ease technophobes, but it actually had a 6GB hard drive on board. And boy did we love it.

That's not to say that this thing was great—because it wasn't; not by today's standards. It had only a USB 1.1 connection, so uploading all 6GB worth of music took hours and hours. Imagine filling up a 1TB hard drive over a USB 2 connection today, if that gives you any idea of how long the process was. Oh, and it cost $420.

But you know what? It actually a pretty decent player for the year 2000. The 6GB is adequate even now (the lowest iPod Nano today has 8GB), and that 8GB of 5-minute skip protection was good enough for continuous music most of the time, except when you were off-roading or running away from cougars.

Hell, because it was so early in the MP3 player era, it even had extraneous features that were eventually ditched for cost cutting reasons because only a small portion of people used it. There was the stereo line input for recording, dual stereo output for 4-point surround sound as well as WAV and WMA support. Creative did do a good job with firmware support after the thing was released, actually adding functionality to the player when they could have just released a new hardware revision.

So yes, the Creative Nomad Jukebox was heavy, and lost in every way to any Android, Windows Mobile or Apple smartphone today in both price and feature set, but it was pretty damn good in the year 2000. [Product Page (Price dropped to $300 by 2001)]

Decades: where we revisit gadgets we loved from the start of the decade and see how they compare to what we use today.

Gizmodo. Dec 30, 2009.

Teacher killed by drink-driver, three injured

A secondary school teacher was killed early on Thursday morning after being hit by a car in Sau Mau Ping, a police spokeswoman said.
The incident happened at around 8am. A car driven by a 23-year-old man was travelling along Lee On Road in Sau Mau Ping, when the driver suddenly lost control and the car mounted the pavement.

A 44-year-old man named Chu Chi-shing – a secondary school teacher in Putonghua and Chinese history at Ning Po No 2 College – lost consciousness when he was hit by the car. Chu was certified dead by ambulancemen at the scene.

Three other people – a 38-year-old female pedestrian, a 22-year-old female passenger and the driver of the car – were also injured. They were sent to the Union Hospital for treatment.

The car was seriously damaged.

Police have arrested the 23-year-old driver for drink-driving, after alcohol levels in his blood were found to exceed the prescribed limit.

One eyewitness said the car was travelling at 80km to 90km per hour before it crashed.

Investigations by Special Investigation Team of Traffic Kowloon East are under way.

The police spokesman urged anyone who may have seen the incident or who has any information about it is urged to contact the investigating officers on 2305 7500.

The victim who died in the tragic accident was a discipline master – one who dealt with difficult students – for the school. Chu was on the way to join the school's Christmas party before he was hit by the car, said Wong King Hung – vice-principal of Ning Po No 2 College.

Speaking at a press conference, Wong described Chu as a responsible teacher who was highly respected.

“Chu was a popular teacher. After the accident, many students feel very upset and some have been to the scene to mourn. Many have written note cards to express their condolences,” he said.

School teachers and social workers provided counselling to Chu's immediate students and those who witnessed the fatal accident.

Wong appealed to the drivers not to drink alcohol before they drive.

SCMP. Dec 26, 2009.


Question for discussion:
As there have been several accidents caused by drink driving, do you think the government should increase the penalty?

HP camera 'can't see' black faces

A YouTube video suggesting that face recognition cameras installed in HP laptops cannot detect black faces has had over one million views.

The short movie, uploaded earlier this month, features "Black Desi" and his colleague "White Wanda".

When Wanda, a white woman, is in front of the screen, the camera zooms to her face and moves as she moves.

But when Desi, a black man, does the same, the camera does not respond by tracking him.

The clip is light-hearted in tone but is titled "HP computers are racist".

"HP has been informed of a potential issue with the facial-tracking software included on some of its systems, which appears to occur when insufficient foreground lighting is available," an HP spokesman told BBC News.

"We take this seriously and are looking into it with our partners."

BBC News. Dec 24, 2009.

Heavy snow blankets the north-eastern states of the US

The Telegraph.

Mini-Moscow on Sale for Just $3 Million

It took 300 people to construct a 400 square foot model of the USSR's capital city back in 1977. Today you can buy that super-detailed, scaled-down version of Moscow for a mere $3 million.

Stunning, isn't it? Apparently every single of the itty-bitty windows in the model can be lit up and there are effects to simulate day and night time. I guess that it's not surprising that the electricity costs alone are making mini-Moscow enough of an expense to get pushed onto the auction block.

Engadget.

LED traffic lights don't melt snow and do cause accidents

A number of cold weather American states are reporting their dismay at finding out that LED traffic lights are so energy efficient that they do not produce enough excess heat to dissipate any snow that covers them. It turns out, perhaps in an homage to bad engineering everywhere, that the inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs was previously relied upon to keep traffic signals unimpeded. The new LEDs do not achieve the same effect, which has resulted in a few accidents and even a death being blamed on obstructed traffic lights. Feel free to apply palm to face now. It's not all gloomy, though, as the majority of people are said to treat a dysfunctional traffic light as a stop sign (how clever of them), and a tech fix is being worked on as we speak.

Engadget. Dec 17, 2009.

Border security guards kill -- literally kill -- a MacBook

A young American woman travels over to Jerusalem to meet some friends, see the sights, live the life. Overzealous border security officers ask her a bunch of questions, take issue with her answers, and a few well-placed bullets later she is allowed entry into the country with a somewhat altered MacBook in tow. So what can we all learn from this incident? Firstly, back up all the data you consider important; B, Israeli policemen don't mess about; and 3, distressed laptops look gorgeous no matter how they got there -- just look at the way the glass trackpad has wrinkled up from the force of the bullet penetrating near it, it's a borderline work of art. The young lady in question has been promised compensation, but lest you think this is a one one-off you can see pictures of an equally dead Dell at the Flickr link below. We've got a couple more close-ups of the ravaged MacBook after the break.

Engadget. Dec 16, 2009.