Hoping to breathe life into a struggling product, Nintendo cut the U.S. price of its GameCube video game console from $149 to $99.
Nintendo has lowered its forecast of GameCube sales and acknowledged that sales were so weak that it had stopped production of consoles in August. The price cuts are likely to be welcomed by retailers and game publishers, who remain jittery about holiday sales given the uncertain economic recovery.
Nintendo's move follows recent promotions from rivals Sony and Microsoft. Sony has begun bundling a free game with a network adapter for online gaming with its PlayStation 2 for $199, and Microsoft announced that it would bundle two free games and two months of online gaming for free with its $179 Xbox game console.
New LCD monitor uses software controls
Liquid crystal display computer monitors are sleek, bright and, increasingly, inexpensive. But Samsung, a leading maker of monitors, has introduced a 17-inch model with a different attribute: hands-free operation.
No, Samsung's new SyncMaster 173P does not respond to voice commands. Hands-free means that the display has none of the hardware controls common to monitors, such as screen and color adjustments and input selectors. The monitor's slim, silvery bezel bears only an on-off button. All controls are managed by mouse clicks through Samsung's software, called MagicTune, which works with computers using Windows 98 and later versions. Monica Islas, Samsung's product marketing manager for monitors, said the system helped the monitor operate at optimum performance and allowed custom settings for different users.
The 173P has analog and digital inputs and a 25-millisecond response time, Islas said, yielding clear, sharp images, a feature important for DVD playback and video gaming. The monitor offers a maximum resolution of 1,280 by 1,024 pixels and a 178-degree viewing angle. The screen can also quickly pivot into the landscape or portrait position; software reconfigures whatever is on the screen to fit the orientation.
The SyncMaster 173P is expected to reach stores next month with a suggested price of $549. More information is at www.samsungusa.com/monitor
Kazaa developers offer Internet phone service
The software developers who wrote file-swapping program Kazaa are taking the concept of peer-to-peer sharing to telecommunications, launching an Internet phone service they claim could put traditional phone companies out of business.
The service, called Skype, purports to offer free, unlimited phone service between users, with sound quality near to what its developers derisively dub "POTS" - a Plain Old Telephone Service. Unlike Kazaa, which drew the wrath of the music industry, Skype shouldn't stir up a legal hornet's nest.
"The goal here is that we want Skype to be the telephone company of the future," said Niklas Zennstrom, the company's chief executive. "Traditional network technologies date back to the 1870s. They're inflexible and costly to maintain."
Skype users can use the program only to talk to each other, but it could later be enhanced so someone could call other types of programs or even regular landline and cell phones, Zennstrom said.
Once downloaded from the company's site and installed, Skype works on personal computers running Microsoft Windows 2000 or XP. It requires a sound card, speakers, a microphone and a high-speed Internet connection.
Rayovac revs up fast battery recharger
With some battery rechargers, restoring a couple of AAs can take up to eight hours. But with Rayovac's new I-C3 system, batteries can be charged during a coffee break.
Charging a battery too fast builds up internal pressure, so Rayovac gives each nickel metal-hydride I-C3 cell a switch that senses pressure and interrupts the charging current when necessary.
With older rechargeable battery systems, controlled by the charger, "It's like pouring soda," said John Daggett, Rayovac's director of marketing services. "You control the flow by the angle of the can, pouring at a slow and constant pace so foam doesn't build up." But with the I-C3, "You can pour in a charge as fast as you want because the battery won't let you go too fast."
The system is in stores. A pair of the AA or AAA batteries costs about $10. The I-C3 chargers, which have small, quiet cooling fans, cost about $25 for the two-battery model; a four-battery version costs about $10 more.
If you have conventional rechargeable batteries, you don't have to keep their charger around. The I-C3 can handle older batteries, although charging them will still be an all-day affair.
New software tries to save damaged CDs, DVDs
CD and DVD discs are handy for storing large amounts of backed-up files, but a disc that takes a scratch or nick to the surface can become unreadable, fouling up the best-laid plans. Although such a disc may be damaged beyond repair, CD/DVD Diagnostic from Arrowkey can help recover the data and copy it back to your hard drive.
The program can recover files on discs in the CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and DVD-RW formats, no matter what software was originally used to record the files. In addition to deciphering scratched discs, CD/DVD Diagnostic will try to recover data from CDs or DVDs that were corrupted during the initial recording process, and through a readability test can determine just how damaged a disc might be. The program scans all kinds of discs, including standard audio CDs, DVD video discs, and discs created on Macintosh or Linux systems.
The CD/DVD Diagnostic software works on all versions of Windows. It sells for $69.99 in stores and can be downloaded for $49.99 from www.arrowkey.com where a free trial version also is available. Arrowkey offers a money-back guarantee on its software, making it possible that CDs full of freshly recovered data will be the only thing getting burned.
Move that cushion and plug in the Ethernet
And now, meet the "smart sofa," as developed at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.
The networked sofa enables couch potatoes to control appliances and lights and order food from the seated position. It also figures out who is sitting on it by measuring their weight, and says hello with a voice greeting.
Trinity has a partnership with Microsoft to use Windows.
Slashdot's history of the computer bug
A story about the first computer bug was picked up recently by the Web site Slashdot, which attributed the fascinating tidbit to the U.S. Naval Historical Center.
The bug was logged Sept. 9, 1945, when a moth was found trapped between points at Relay No. 70, Panel F, of the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator being tested at Harvard University.
The operators put the moth in their computer log and reported they had "debugged" the program, introducing the term "debugging a computer."
