It still doesn't play real HD (Blu-ray support won't be around till 2009) like a much cheaper Xbox, AppleTV, Vudu or PS3, and we can already import DVDs for a streamer using the freeware Handbrake. If we did want to play high quality content without importing it, we'd just buy a $99 upscaling DVD player. Available now, hit the link for the full review, but please don't believe it. [Sound & Vision]

• If you love music enough to install a server, you probably already own (or, um, have borrowed) at least 500 really good albums, potentially a decent overlap of stuff. Like me, you may have accumulated most of the 500 totally by accident, not to mention a lot of other less popular music.

• Assuming you don't have the CDs in pocket, and your digital downloads just don't cut the mustard, you can probably buy them all at an average of $8 or $9 a piece, and many are pre-collected in box sets at substantial discounts—and with attractive keepsake booklets to boot. Besides, most of this stuff would be easy to find in used bins, too. We're not exactly talking about the rare and out-of-print here. At most you'd be out somewhere between $4,500 or $5,000.

• The argument that this will save you time ripping CDs only holds true if you can't find someone to rip your CDs for less than $4,000. Ask any kid in the market for a plasma TV if he'd rip all your CDs and he'll probably name a price between $1,000 and $2,000—throw in a USB drive for free—and believe he's getting away with murder. [Electronic House]

• Same amazing armors as before, check.
• Random circuitry fiddling, check.
• Playboy sport supercars, check.
• One of said playboy sport supercars, a Cobra of all things, destroyed in goofy accident, check.
• $5,000 Armani suit, check.
• $7,000 Zegna leather jacket, check.
• Obligatory just-out-of-bed hot girl, naked in man's shirt, check.
• Obligatory hot-but-untouchable secretary for underlying sexual tension, check.
• Random casino gaming, check.
• Dell servers...

Dell servers?

Tony, Tony, Tony... really, you, me and the devil in the bottle go a long way back, but come on, off-the-shelf Dell servers? Where are the elegant supercomputers that any playboy should use? Where are the stunning mirrored-surfaced classified computers that only Stark Industries and Nick Fury would use? Even those punks from the X-Men have mind-blowing hardware. You can't have a friggin' flying armor and run it on commodity server racks, mate. Damn marketing.

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[Worst Previews]

Ours arrived with 1TB of storage, broken down into two 500GB Seagate drives—this would be the EX475 version that lists for $750. As you can see, there are still two more bays, plus 3 USBs and an eSATA port on the back. (And another USB jack on the face of it.)

Already, the sucker was surprisingly heavy, weighing in at an even 13lbs. It feels nice and sturdy though, and we're interested to see how quiet those two fans are. Spec requires them to be south of 30dB, so we shouldn't really notice them at all.

There wasn't much else in the package—just a power cord, an Ethernet cable and a lot of Windows-only software. By the end of the day, we will have a video of the set-up experience, courtesy of me and Benny. In the meantime, enjoy those pics. [HP]

Rip-Off Of Haven't manufacturers of cheap, swilly beer been using the lost-in-the-desert scenario for ages? Although their spots usually end with the protagonist discovering a trove of Bud Light and lots of jiggly girls in teddys, which I'd say are far more desirable prizes than a lesson about the new BladeCenter's operating temperature.

The Spin Unbeknownst to most of the millions of baseball fans who've recently been bombarded by this ad, IBM is taking an overt swipe at HP, maker of the rival BladeSystem. It's IBM's recent contention that HP's blade servers run too hot, and thus fry memory chips at an alarming rate. HP, of course, begs to differ, claiming that its own lab tests have fingered BladeCenters as the scorchers of the two. Trouble is, HP doesn't have a semi-comical commercial vouching for the BladeSystems' relative frigidity. So point to IBM for simply recognizing that, yes, there are IT geeks with purchasing power who watch pro sports. Will HP counter with mainstream advertising of its own, or will it continue working the drab trade-mag channels? With tens or hundreds of millions dollars at stake, it shouldn't be long till we see a counter from HP—perhaps the company still has Gwen Stefani under contract? I'd love to hear her salient BladeSystem thoughts.

Counterspin First off, the ad itself is a typical one for IBM as of late: stylish, for sure, but guilty of leaving painfully little to the imagination. If it's true that geeks aren't fond of abstractions, well, then I guess this is perfect—they pretty much club you over the head with the message, much like in that dreadful "The Heist" ad from a few months back. Secondly, is IBM grasping at straws by choosing to emphasize the BladeCenters' literal coolness, of all things? HP certainly seems to think so, claiming that its rival is "panicking" due to weak sales.

Takeaway The real story here seems to be the hawking of enterprise hardware to the masses. It's one thing for enterprise vendors to advertise in The Economist, quite another for them to run jokey spots during Games 3 and 4 of the ALCS. The slide in blade prices has a lot to do with that; the BladeCenter S system, set to launch on December 1, will sell for a paltry $2,599. With the hardware now so cheap, perhaps CIOs and their ilk feel a lot more comfortable about putting the purchasing decisions in the hands of their lower-level IT staffers—hey, even if the geeks in the basement mess up, it's no monumental loss. Still, I'd like to think your run-of-the-mill IT pro has a slightly sharper sense of humor than IBM's giving him/her credit for.

Hype-O-Meter 5.5 (out of 10). I was tempted to grade it lower because of the irritating lack of imagination, but at least the spot's message is clear and concise. And I'm actually sort of excited about a future in which enterprise hardware is pitched during sporting events—good to know my forthcoming son might live in a world in which Julio Jones is someday hired to endorse the Sun Constellation System.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired, a columnist for Slate, and author of the forthcoming Now the Hell Will Start. His Hype Sheet column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Hype Sheet

As you might expect for something that costs so much, it holds between 1,156 and 2,200 CDs at full quality, and can be accessed via web interface throughout your home network. It's nice to hear that no installer is needed:

Setup and basic operation of the OPUS is similar to a standard CD Player, so you will be up and running within minutes. Even its integration into your home network, a nerve-wrecking task with so many other network music players, is done completely automatically, wirelessly if you wish.

Now check out the mainstream retail prices (from Amazon) between Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM ATA drives in those capacities:
• 400GB - $123
• 500GB - $124
• 750GB - $220

My calculator tells me it's less than $100 to go from 400GB to 750GB. But it costs an extra grand for the higher-capacity Opus. And the funny thing is, you know they can get the drives for even cheaper.

But hey, we should probably let rich old people have fun with their cool electronics. This might be just the thing to pear with Charlie's similarly named but unrelated Opus transparent speaker cables. [Olive]

"The rear wheels of their forklift hit the raised surface at the entry door of the warehouse, causing the forklift to rock, and subsequently causing the server to rock," says T.R. Systems in court papers filed last month. So far, so fuck-up by T.R. Systems, no?

"As a result of the rocking motion, the base of the pallet and the crate broke and the crate fell onto the curb, damaging the server packed inside," it continues. Er, you said "Packed," didn't you? Admit it, it's down to your own clumsiness.

Er, no. The company goes on to claim that "the damages sustained by T.R. Systems was due to the poor workmanship and/or defective packaging design and methods used by IBM." In short, the palletized crate was not "strong enough to support the substantial height and weight of the server." And to add insult to injury, IBM refused to send technicians to repair the seven-figure piece of kit, or take back the damaged server.

IBM has vowed to defend itself "vigorously" during the case. [InformationWeek]

1. A terabyte of networked storage that I can access from any PC (or Mac) in my home. It's great. It's simple and it works. If that's all it did, I would be happy but there's much more.

2. Fantastic PC backup, automatically. I love this. Every PC on the network is automatically backed up. It's scheduled and incremental so once the first backup is done, the rest is a snap. I purposely killed one of my machines that was backed up and it took less than 20 minutes to fully restore it. Wow.

3. Remote access. Not only can I access my server from my network, I can access it from anywhere in the world thanks to a Microsoft free URL mapped to my server. Not only that, but I can also remotely access and control any PC on the network as well. Now that's not a new trick, places like Go to my PC offer that service but this is all free. Nothing to buy.

4. Streaming media. Add in your music and pictures your WHS becomes a media server for Windows Connect. That means my Xbox can see it and play.

5. It's a platform. Yep, it's built on Windows Sever 2003 so it's solid and there's a whole SDK for developing server apps. Microsoft is running a code contest for the best apps, so expect even more cool stuff.

Among the things he didn't like are the fact that Microsoft's not really specifying what people should be using it for (tons of applications, no focus on a single one), the lack of automatic copying of media, and awkward remote access. All pretty small complaints for something that seems to be a great unifying machine for all the media in your home. We're looking forward to testing this ourselves. [Jupiter Research]

Today in New York, Microsoft and HP showed off the latest version of the product, a four-bay SATA server that will ship this September. (No price yet.) A two-drive 2.5" concept config built by Carbon Design is shown above. Follow the jump for lots of stuff I found out, plus pictures of the HP box and its current interface.

•Microsoft has developed a remote-access tool for the system. Users get a free secure Web address that they can share so that family members and trusted friends can access files. The file structure itself looks clean and functional, but is fairly simple. Uploading is file by file: there's no bulk-uploading or drag-and-drop tool for transferring loads of files over the Internet to your Home Server.

•Microsoft also introduced a backup program with full and incremental options. Word is that it's a better bet than Vista Backup and Restore.

•HP's menu, shown in gallery, lets you automatically sync all iTunes tracks from all computers to the server, and access them via any computer. (I am betting that each computer has to be individually authorized for the DRM stuff, but it's nice to see an automatic way to both back up and share iTunes across a network.)

•HP's MediaSmart Server program has an added remote photo-management program, one that lets you partition the server so that one part is semi-public. You transfer all the stuff you want to share, and then let your friends and relatives hit it whenever they want. (No more bugging you for pics.)

•Microsoft will automatically provide access for any PCs that are Remote Desktop enabled. You don't have to figure out all of that port and DNS business to get to your computer, provided your computer runs XP MCE, XP Professional, Vista Business or Vista Ultimate.

•The Home Control Center panel provides information about all of the PCs in your home, for maintenance ("Backup now") or monitoring ("Your kid's firewall is down").

•You run a setup CD for every PC you want to link to the server. Xboxes use Windows Media Connect to access the content (though you can't sync your Xbox stuff to the server, at least not yet). Other computers, Macs, Linux machines and older PCs, can access the server as a network drive.

•While there is no true RAID option, there is a folder mirroring option, so that you can create redundant copies of particular folders or particular media types across two drives, for backup.

•When HP ships the four-bay product in September, it may offer hard-drive choices. It will likely leave at least two of the bays free, for an "upgrade path."

OK, you've been patient. Enjoy some pics. – Wilson Rothman

An interesting point was brought up on MacSlash:

There are systems on the list of the Top 500 Supercomputers with fewer and/or slower processors and slower network connections. Who knows? With a little reconfiguration and optimization for the LINPACK benchmark, maybe, just maybe... Just a little something for you to ruminate on while you marvel at the report's pretty pictures.

Just how important is the professional video market to Apple? You tell me. – Mark Wilson

High Quality Photos of Apple at NAB 2007 [via MacSlash]

Since most of today's stories will be running tonight, hit us up plenty into the PM hours just to see what it looks like for us to be sober after 3pm. – Mark Wilson

P.S. Things might still be f'd for a while.

But have you ever heard one of those radio controlled jets whining away at full tilt? It's a shrill scream that stays with you for a while, making you feel like you just sat through a couple of Grand Funk Railroad concerts in a row (for all you youngsters, that group is called "the loudest rock and roll band in the world"). A server cooled with one of those pocket rockets will have to be buried deep underground. Better get some nice long cables. – Charlie White

Cooling Computers with Tiny Jet Engines [Technology Review]

Interview/Article by Jonah Brucker-Cohen

In today's rapidly changing digital world, the need for human (or animal) intervention to control technological devices and machines is becoming outdated. With advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated sensor systems, we are approaching a future that might literally be "out of our control" or "autonomous." Examining this impending phenomenon through the eyes of the planet's most complex and abundant creatures: insects and amphibians, is Irvine, California-based, Canadian artist, Garnet Hertz. Hertz's work explores the belief that despite technology's increasing independence from human or animal intervention, there is still a part of us that wants some control. From implanting a web server into a dead frog whose limbs can be stimulated to "move" by participants over the Internet in "Experiments in Galvanism", to putting a live Madagascan hissing Cockroach atop a modified trackball to control a three wheeled robot in "Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot", Hertz creates projects that attempt to challenge and deconstruct these notions of technological progress over-stepping human jurisdiction. Gizmodo spoke to Hertz about his intricate animal-machine-hybrids and his overall view on whether or not technological determinism may be influencing the not-so-distant future.

Interview, images, and video after the jump ...

Name: Garnet Hertz
Age:32
Education: MFA, Arts Computation Engineering - University of California Irvine, Critical Theory Emphasis - University of California Irvine, In progress: PhD, Visual Studies (Media Theory / History) - University of California Irvine.
Affiliation: Research Fellow, California Institute of Telecommunications and
Information Technology
Exhibitions: Ars Electronica (Linz), Siggraph (Los Angeles), ArtBots (Dublin), STRP (Eindhoven), Walter Phillips Gallery (Banff), Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum (Istanbul), La Biennale de Montreal (Montreal)
URL:http://www.conceptlab.com

GIZMODO: Your project "Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot" puts a Madagascan hissing cockroach atop a modified trackball to control a three wheeled robot. Why is this transference of control from digital / human automaton to insect power important to you?

GH: This project was inspired by a number of different things, including thinking about biologically inspired ("biomimetic") technologies and also seeing and thinking about scientific and artistic experiments in bio-hybrid/robotic systems. In response to biomimetic technologies, putting a literal insect at the control of a robot is meant to be a little bit of a joke or perhaps the logical conclusion of biomimetics. Biomimetic technology looks toward biological systems as things that solve complex real-world problems. Within the field of robotics, the cockroach is a good model for a mobile robot because it is robust, has no centralized brain, has relatively low "megahertz," and is physically well engineered to navigate difficult terrain. Because of this, the cockroach and other insects inspire research in robotics: there are at least a dozen published robotics-related projects that are inspired by cockroaches. (An example can be seen at http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1183118.htm) Placing a literal cockroach at the center of a robot, then, is sort of like saying: "If the cockroach (and biology) is so great, why not literally use the real thing?"

However, when literally using biology, you soon discover the difference between biology and a model of biology: biology is unpredictable, lazy, and temperamental. Using biology as a substitute for a computer can highlight some key differences between the two realms. I had also seen the work of Ken Rinaldo a while ago, and really liked his projects using Betta fighting fish to control mechanisms. Similar to this, I like Stelarc's work, but don't agree with his basic thesis that the body is obsolete. I had seen science-oriented works, like Holzer and Shimoyama's "Robo-Roach" project, in which they implanted stimulators into the antennae and cerci of cockroaches to allow them to be remotely controlled. However, instead of having technology control a cockroach, I thought it would be more interesting to invert the system and try to have the cockroach control the technology... more along the lines of Ken Rinaldo.

"Posthuman System #1: Cockroach with Wireless Video" (Hertz, 2003)

GIZMODO: The "Posthuman System #1:Cockroach with Wireless Video" attaches a video camera to the back of a cockroach in an attempt to examine the concept of "Posthumanism" (or the transference of human form through technological means). What was your ultimate goal with this project and why did you choose a cockroach as the carrier agent?

GH: This was a fairly simple project that began by thinking about the term "posthumanism." Quite literally, my thoughts were that insects, especially cockroaches, were good post-humans: after we've killed each other in the war on terrorism (or some other holy crusade) organisms like cockroaches would make good successors to humans. The project was essentially just making a small link between humans, non-humans, and the term posthuman. Cockroaches are also something that people apparently like to watch: a foreign species. Putting an insect in control of technology is, generally speaking, quite interesting to observe. In the case of the "Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot" I think people are interested in watching the robot because it — like Natalie Jeremijenko's "Feral Robotic Dogs," perhaps — makes something legible that usually isn't legible. In Jerimijenko's work, toxic waste in public spaces is made legible through the mobility of a robot. In my project, the intentions of an insect that people usually want to immediately crush is made legible through a robot. Although Jerimijenko's work is much more socially engaged, I think physical mobility of an object through real space is a good format to work with: it's a format that's understood by children and grandparents. People flock to the damn thing and seem to be interested in figuring out whether the cockroach is in conscious control of the robot, whether it understands its technological feedback/VR system, or whether it's being controlled by the technology. It's a mini-diorama of the debates of technological determinism, perhaps.

"Experiments in Galvanism: Frog with Implanted Webserver" (Hertz, 2003)

GIZMODO: The "Experiments in Galvanism: Frog with Implanted Webserver" project examines the tension when biology meets technological imperialism, as online visitors can trigger movements in the dead frog's legs by clicking on them through a website. Why is this connection important to you and what was the intended control metaphor for online visitor interaction?

GH: This project started by looking at two things in parallel: the emergence of electricity and the emergence of the Internet. The hype and mystery of electricity, as explored by Luigi Galvani and his experiments with jumping frog legs, led to speculation about electricity being the "fluid of life." This uncertainty about the medium of electricity led to various forms of speculation, leading to works like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with electricity going as far as re-animating the dead. I see new media forms in a similar fashion, including the Internet hype of the 90s and ubiquitous computing hype of this decade. In an attempt to bring some of this stuff together, I brought the Galvanic frog together with the Internet in a "ubiquitous" form factor. The result — hopefully — is something that plays up and downgrades technological hype simultaneously while stacking Galvani in a layered context of information technology, i.e. the cyborg and biotechnology. An aside theme in this project relates to my longstanding interest in playing with a dual audience: online and in-gallery. In this project, online users physically activate the in-gallery work, which is a theme I've been working in since 1995.

"Fly with Implanted Webserver" (Hertz, 2001)

GIZMODO: "Fly With Implanted Webserver" re-examines the commonalities of the daily housefly through integrating a network interface into its body. By adding communications capabilities to this pervasive insect and allowing online visitors to control LEDs on the fly's body, you are putting a new spin on the age-old "fly on the wall" anecdote. What was your ultimate goal with this project and how important is the fly as disembodied messenger in the equation?

GH: This project began as a technical exploration into very small-scale web servers. After some searching, I found a thread of developers that were trying to build "the world's smallest web server," and the supposed winner was Fredric White, who built a web server using a matchead-sized chip from Fairchild. He had also built a potato-powered web server, and this stream of development began my thoughts into the potential of a web server as a physical object within a gallery installation. After a lot of headache, I finally got one of my own "world's smallest" web servers running, and since it was so tiny, I thought a household fly would be a suitable symbol to carry this minuscule technology: it was a small, ubiquitous pest. In many of my projects, I'm not trying to present "useful" technology to humans, [instead] I'm more interested in exploring how new technology could be fictionally coupled with underdogs of the animal kingdom: flies, worms, cockroaches, frogs, etc. Building fictional technologies for animal underdogs is a way to momentarily sidestep the human-based perspective that permeates technological development. Although there are obvious slippages of control between the animal, human, and technological, the underdog — at least — provides an alternate perspective for viewing sociotechnical change.

GIZMODO: What projects are you currently working on? How are they similar or different than your past projects?

GH: I have been working on doing more writing lately: artwork is the best at making forceful metaphoric statements and simultaneously exploring diverse fields of history, experience and emotion. On the other hand, I see writing more like doing surgery: you can carve up a page into an argument that can be more precise, positioned and articulated. I also see huge and interesting caverns of history, theory and art that lack a published voice. Toward this end, I'm considering tackling the "Dead Media Project" — a project manifesto'd by Bruce Sterling in 1995 in response to the hype and historical ignorance of the "new media" frenzy of that age, especially press coverage of CD-ROMs, the Internet, and multimedia. The basic idea is to [examine] failed or dead forms of communication as a tool to look at sociotechnological change and hype, i.e. to view "new" media as a constant process. Looking at forgotten forms of media is a way to step around the usual media-suspects (film, gramophone, telephone, television, Internet) and to enter a zone that is not usually explored. [This approach] has the potential to say a lot about social aspirations, communication and technology. This is a long-term project, and I don't expect anything that I do on this front will be visible for a number of years. In the meantime, I'm showing my Cockroach Controlled Mobile Robot and rolling out incremental improvements to it. I don't have any big plans for a new hardware-based project right now: I'm planning on starting work on something this fall.

USB Web Server [Red Ferret]

Product page

The kit will only fit on HP's 10000 G2 Universal Rack, a $1,200 rack system and requires a source of chilled water. Finally, it can communicate with HP's administration software and warn of impending meltdowns.

HP debuts water cooling system [News.com.com.com]

Product Page [Via BIOS]

Pocket Linux server showdown [Arstechnica]