Sound and Vision has done their homework and finagled five tips that will help you get Uncle Sam to pony up for your home theater gear. Now, I’m no expert on these matters, but the advice seems to be viable—although making it happen is going to require a bit of work on your part.
First and foremost you will need to get involved in a business that will qualify you for these types of deductions. Obviously that is easier said than done, and there is definitely a grey area with regard to what jobs will do the trick. Writing and music production were mentioned, but again, there will be other qualifying factors to contend with. But after that it is all sort of, kind of cake baby! Hit the link for the rest of the tips. [Sound and Vision]
Original post by Sean Fallon
Hong Kong based WinWin Industry has recently unveiled a product that combines a digital picture frame, webcam, and an alarm clock with temperature and calendar functions in a single, semi-portable device. It also features 8MB of memory, a built-in rechargeable battery, a 1.44-inch screen and a 300K pixel camera resolution.
Ok, so it won’t blow you away on the specs, but it could be a handy device, especially when you consider that the pocket sized photo viewer can be removed from the base for easy transport. No pricing or release date information has been announced. [WinWin via Coolest Gadgets]
Original post by Sean Fallon
The judge on the class action lawsuit against Microsoft for those Vista handi-capable stickers unsealed a bunch of super-juicy internal emails exchanged between Microsoft higher-ups (including Ballmer) on Vista’s suckiness. They weren’t oblivious to the fact that “Vista capable” machines were horrible—but they let it slide, according to exec John Kalkman:
“To help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.”
They even screwed HP to make Intel happy.
Apparently, HP had made “significant product roadmap changes to support graphics for the full Vista experience,” specifically conditioned on Microsoft’s “100% assurance that [Microsoft] would not budge for Intel,” according to one of the emails. But they did. (And thus ensues a bunch of placating emails and explanations to HP.)
Windows-chief-at-the-time Steven Sinofsky knew the 915s were not up to the task and that labeling machines carrying them wasn’t a good idea: “The ‘915′ chipset […]
Original post by matt buchanan
When asked whether or not he viewed the upcoming PSP phone as a threat to the N-Gage, Nokia games head honcho Jaakko Kaidesoja responded thusly:
“I’m not scared about anybody. The real question is how do they [Sony Ericsson] do it? Can they create a link between the PSP games and a phone? Can they do the multiplayer and online stuff? We’ve been doing this for two years and it hasn’t been easy.”
Is that the real question, or is it whether or not Nokia can do anything right and finally get a gaming platform off the ground? [Pocket Gamer]
Original post by Sean Fallon