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Cool. I actually loaded RocBox on my iPod 30GB for a while.

Think back. You had an mp3 player with an annoying user interface, everything was locked down and you couldn't manage your music the way you wanted. And then you found out about Rockbox, the open source firmware for mp3 players. You hacked it on to yours and had a whole new music player that maybe wasn't as pretty, but sure was under your control.  Flash forward: Rockbox is still around--a surprise to me--and, even more surprising, a version for Android is in the works.

Unlike other versions of Rockbox, which replace a device's firmware entirely, the version for Android is a standalone music player app. Though far from finished, you can download working builds of the app so far directly from the site. Once you figure out that different (completely unmarked) regions of the screen have different functions (top/bottom to scroll up/down, the center selects the option you're on, etc.), you'll be able to give it a little whirl.

Certainly unfinished, and certainly not for everybody, but if you're like me, worth a try just for the nostalgia.

via AndroidPolice

Rockbox for Android in Progress originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

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Written language is on my list of All Time, Most Important Inventions. This is pretty cool.

From the Oriental Institute Museum’s website, via ANE-2:

A new exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago will show visitors how scribes in the ancient Middle East invented writing, thus transforming prehistoric cultures into civilizations.

Writing is one of humankind's greatest achievements. Writing took a variety of forms, many of which are displayed in the exhibition, "Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond" that runs from September 27 to March 6 at the museum, 1155 East 58th Street.

Exhibit curator Christopher Woods, Associate Professor at the Oriental Institute, said, "In the eyes of many, writing represents a defining quality of civilization. There are four instances and places in human history when writing was invented from scratch – in Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica – without previous exposure to or knowledge of writing. It appears likely that all other writing systems evolved from the four systems we have in our exhibition."

Among the items on display will be the earliest cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia (today's Iraq), dating to about 3200 BC, which are on loan from the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin. They have never before been exhibited in the United States. The pictographic signs, a precursor to writing, are part of a writing system that developed into cuneiform, a wedge-shaped script that was incised on clay tablets. Examples of that form of writing will also be exhibited.

[...]

A computer kiosk will include videos and interactive presentations that enhance the exhibit. One video will show visitors how ancient scribes wrote cuneiform on clay tablets and painted hieroglyphs on papyrus.

Interactive presentations will show how Oriental Institute scholars have been the first to use CT scans to reveal the contents of sealed clay "token balls" which are thought to be a precursor of Mesopotamian writing. Another interactive will demonstrate how the newest photographic techniques allow previously illegible texts to be read. Others will show how ancient cuneiform signs changed over time, and how early letters gradually evolved into the letters of our Latin alphabet.

A "Just for Fun" portion of the exhibition will help visitors compare writing systems and to write their name and simple sentences in various scripts. From the computer station, visitor will be able to send an e-post card in hieroglyphs or cuneiform to their friends.

A fully illustrated catalog edited by Professor Woods accompanies the exhibit.

The exhibit is supported by a grant from Exelon Corporation, the Women's Board of the University of Chicago, and private donors.

The museum is open Tuesday, Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. Suggested donation for admission is $7 for adults, $4 for children. For additional information, go to www.oi.uchicago.edu.

Cuneiform tablet, Early Dynastic period, on display at the Oriental Institute Museum

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Competition! I love to see capitalism working. (Of course, seeing it when it isn't working just hurts.)

The big get bigger. A new report on the cell phone industry (PDF) from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) opens with the line, "The biggest changes in the wireless industry since 2000 have been consolidation among wireless carriers and increased use of wireless services by consumers." Both parts of that sentence are significant; though only four players dominate 90 percent of the US wireless market, consumers have seen serious benefits over the last decade.

Even as the industry consolidated, making it "more difficult for small and regional carriers to be competitive," prices dropped and coverage rose. It might not feel like that when you pay your wireless bill, but the GAO concludes that (when inflation is factored into the equation) 2008 prices were only half of what they had been in 1999.

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Research paper: Detecting Deceptive Discussions in Conference Calls, by David F. Larcker and Anastasia A. Zakolyukina.

Abstract: We estimate classification models of deceptive discussions during quarterly earnings conference calls. Using data on subsequent financial restatements (and a set of criteria to identify especially serious accounting problems), we label the Question and Answer section of each call as "truthful" or "deceptive". Our models are developed with the word categories that have been shown by previous psychological and linguistic research to be related to deception. Using conservative statistical tests, we find that the out-of-sample performance of the models that are based on CEO or CFO narratives is significantly better than random by 4% - 6% (with 50% - 65% accuracy) and provides a significant improvement to a model based on discretionary accruals and traditional controls. We find that answers of deceptive executives have more references to general knowledge, fewer non-extreme positive emotions, and fewer references to shareholders value and value creation. In addition, deceptive CEOs use significantly fewer self-references, more third person plural and impersonal pronouns, more extreme positive emotions, fewer extreme negative emotions, and fewer certainty and hesitation words.

Give yourself to the Church. You that are members of the Church have not found it perfect and I hope that you feel almost glad that you have not. If I had never joined a Church till I had found one that was perfect, I would never have joined one at all!

And the moment I did join it, if I had found one, I should have spoiled it, for it would not have been a perfect Church after I had become a member of it. Still, imperfect as it is, it is the dearest place on earth to us…

All who have first given themselves to the Lord, should, as speedily as possible, also give themselves to the Lord’s people. How else is there to be a Church on the earth? If it is right for anyone to refrain from membership in the Church, it is right for everyone, and then the testimony for God would be lost to the world!

As I have already said, the Church is faulty, but that is no excuse for your not joining it, if you are the Lord’s. Nor need your own faults keep you back, for the Church is not an institution for perfect people, but a sanctuary for sinners saved by Grace, who, though they are saved, are still sinners and need all the help they can derive from the sympathy and guidance of their fellow Believers.

The Church is the nursery for God’s weak children where they are nourished and grow strong. It is the fold for Christ’s sheep—the home for Christ’s family.”

Charles Spurgeon, “The Best Donation,” (No. 2234) an exposition of 2 Corinthians 8:5 delivered on April 5, 1891 at the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, England.

1. The Church: the dearest place on earth
2. A Bigger Vision: the local church – 1.0
3. A Bigger Vision: my church is too big! - 2.0
4. A Bigger Vision: the new category: church attender – 3.0
5. A Bigger Vision: let me care for you – 4.0

1. How to Find a Local Church, 1.0
2. The #1 Priority for Any Local Church, 2.0
3. The Second Question to Ask a Local Church, 3.0
4. You Better Believe Worship Matters, 4.0
5. Ministries, Programs & Amenities of Religion - 5.0
6. Fellowship! What is Missing in Most Local Churches – 6.0
7. Thoughts on Pursuing Others Relationally – 6.1

Checkout some of our training videos on our YouTube Channel

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I'm struggling to figure out how much computer it would take to process 120 megapixel images in a timely manner... then there are the nightmares of storage.... My computer struggles with 21 megapixel RAW images as it is.

Samsung’s Galaxy S series may be relatively special in the US for being a smartphone launched – in various identikit forms – across multiple carriers at the same time, but what if you want to use your AT&T Captivate on T-Mobile USA’s network?  Happily Samsung seem to almost be conspiring against their carrier partners by apparently including unlock codes for the Galaxy S series in files actually on the smartphones themselves.

The clever souls over at xda-developers have come up with a tool to extract said-codes from the .BAK files in which they lurk, and have put together a full guide on how to use it.  Since you don’t need to root the Galaxy S in order to unlock it, and there’s also a relock system, you can even restore the phone to as-delivered condition should you need to send it back to your respective carrier.

As ever, doing any modifications of this sort leaves you facing the risk of a bricked handset, but so far reports on the process seem positive.  It works on both the US versions of the Galaxy S – e.g. the T-Mobile Vibrant and AT&T Captivate – as well as the European Galaxy S model.

[via TechTicker]

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An interesting discussion on how the Church is learning to deal with the 'new media,' and all that that entails. It's very interesting to see the Church thrust into the 21st century. A new heresy. A new debate. A new way to win friends and influence people.... fascinating.

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ack..... that's kind of a scary fact.

Google’s general sales of the Nexus One via their US webstore may not have set the world alight – though they were apparently enough to satisfy CEO Eric Schmidt – but it seems its appeal as a developer device is stronger.  The company has confirmed that the Nexus One is currently out-of-stock through its developer portal, with both Google and HTC having burned through their supplies of the smartphone.

Google is blaming a “worldwide AMOLED shortage” for HTC’s inability to produce Nexus One handsets quickly enough, but says that “Everyone appreciates that it’s important to the platform to get phones in the hands of developers, so we’re working hard on re-stocking the shelves.”  No public timeline for that to happen, however.

Good essay by Seth Godin:

We pay the fear tax every time we spend time or money seeking reassurance. We pay it twice when the act of seeking that reassurance actually makes us more anxious, not less.

We pay the tax when we cover our butt instead of doing the right thing, and we pay the tax when we take away someone's dignity because we're afraid.

We should quantify the tax. The government should publish how much of our money they're spending to create fear and then spending to (apparently) address fear. Corporations should add to their annual reports how much they spent just-in-case. Once we know how much it costs, we can figure out if it's worth it.

Rachel and I have been doing the P90X exercise videos the past month. In all honesty, Rachel has been doing a whole lot more than I have, but we’ve both really enjoyed the program. There is just one problem – the videos are an hour a day 7 days a week, except for the hour and a half yoga.

With all the other stuff in my life, I selfishly have been wanting to find a similar program that only takes 30 minutes a day or so instead. With the kids and all, I just don’t have the time. Plus, I refuse to get up at 4:30am like Rachel to do the videos. Rachel is pretty enough to miss some beauty sleep, but I just can’t afford to lose any more.

So I checked out:

• Insanity: The Ultimate Cardio Workout and Fitness DVD Program

• TURBO JAM DVD by Beachbody

• And, the free, Cross Fit (which by the way has a really cool kids program as well Cross Fit Kids)

The first two are offered by the same company that puts out P90X, which is nice since we enjoy P90X. The last one seems a little military-like to be honest, but could be adapted to work as well.

Then, as I sat in my house staring at the filthy state that it has become something occurred to me. A new program. A free exercise video. I like to call it: Clean Your House, Jack*ss!

The principles of the program are simple and you are free to use them without charge:

• First, get off the couch and clean your house. Simplicity at it’s finest
• Second, while cleaning repeat, “Scrub the floors, Cinderella! Clean the floors, Cinderella!”
• Third, appreciate that you are killing many birds with one stone: (1) you aren’t wasting money on another video that is only going to be collecting dust in six months, (2) your house will free of previously described dust, and (3) you appreciate that cleaning your house is actually pretty darn hard work and looks a lot like many of the exercises on the other 3 exercise videos sitting on the shelf.

I think the idea is foolproof.  Come on! Join me and together we can change the world! Save time… Save money… And, clean your house. If you commit today, I’ll even throw in a second money-saving, waist-shrinking idea: Mow your yard, Dumb*ss!

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sweeeeeeeet.

Whoa. In a brand new report from Engadget, we can basically say that our socks have been officially rocked. If you own an Android handset, and we’re pretty sure you do, then you know that the gaming market hasn’t necessarily been the best on the mobile Operating System so far. Sure, there are some options out there that are fun in their own right, but there aren’t many high-profile titles out there. Especially not compared to the competition. But, if this is turning out to be true, then things are about to change in a major way.

Sony Ericsson is working on something different. Something new, and something that’s going to completely change the way the Android consumer looks at Sony Ericsson. Speaking to a trusted source, the company is apparently developing not only an entire ecosystem, a device, and an entire gaming platform, all based on the Android 3.0 mind state. The hardware is based on the idea of a phone, and apparently it’s not going to lose that appeal. Apparently it’s going to look reminiscent of the Samsung Captivate, and a strange crossover to the PSPgo. A landscape slider, that instead of having a full QWERTY keyboard, will actually have a control scheme more suited for video games.

The display will be between anywhere between 3.7- and 4.1-inches, have a WVGA resolution (or better), and a 5MP camera on the back of the device. Under the hood, the report suggests that a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. But, apparently none of these details are finalized, and could change well before the launch of the device. The color scheme will be between black and silver, and apparently the controls will be white. Apparently, it’s “pretty damn sexy.”

The software will be the aforementioned Android 3.0, or Gingerbread. And, it will have a phone-oriented skin. The Android Market will be a game-specific version. As for graphics, they’ll be on the level of PSX or PSP, which isn’t half bad at all. Amazing, in fact. Basically, that’s 3D gaming, and that’s great news. Apparently titles are already being shown off, like Modern Warfare, God of War, and Little Big Planet.

Details are still light in the really important parts here, but as you can see, there’s still plenty to go on. As for a release date, apparently there’s more to be announced or revealed by the time October rolls around. That’s so close, it’s almost ridiculous. However, even October hasn’t been confirmed. As soon as more happens, we’ll pass it along.

[via Engadget]

Nexus One owners rejoice! A one-click root application has now been released for the N1.  According to the developer, the app uses the same exploit that was used to root Droid X.  The best part about this app is that it does not unlock the boot-loader so your warranty is in tact! Woo-hoo!  The app is shooting to be a universal root and is now working on many different Android devices. Click here to see all 12 so far.

Something else we should mention is that this root application also allows for the usage of custom roms.  It really does it all. Khudos to the developer!  If you want the app, click here! To download it you must be a member of XDA-Developers currently. Hopefully it will be hosted on mirror site soon.  Let us know how it goes everyone.  It worked great for me.

Source: XDA-Developers

Image Source: Engadget

NOTE: Universal One-Click Root Now Available for Nexus One originally appeared on AndroidGuys.

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Cool.

Note: This blog post contains video or JavaScript effects that are illegal in RSS and will be removed by most feed readers. It should display perfectly if you open it in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox, though.

Haptic feedback based on electrical charges applied to a thin film inside a touch panel:

I’ve generally been unimpressed by haptic feedback that uses vibration. This, on the other hand, might actually succeed in making devices more usable.

(Found via Madhava Enros)

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In a country where the legal system is based on precedents, a judge's recent decision just may make the use of Linux a whole lot easier. more>>