Personally, I don't think that standardized tests are really worth a damn when it comes to admissions, so all of the fuss surrounding it seems pretty silly to me. At most, it should be weighted on the very tail end of a student's accomplishments. Still, if dropping $250 on the GMATs is in your future, palm-vein scanning will begin next month in Korea and India, with US centers starting around the fall. A world-wide rollout is expected by May. [WSJ]

The machines were designed by a collaboration of artists and scientists from Queen Mary University in London. They use neural networks, a collection of computer processors that function like a simple animal brain, to differentiate between Black Flag and say... Bob Marley. The result: robots that can dance to a genre of music even if they've never heard the song before. Check out the BBC link to see a video of the robots gleefully pogoing to The Fumadores. [BBC]

The primary goal of the mission is to drill a few inches into Martian soil, where scientists think they may find red "water-ice," known on earth as strawberry Slushee, which could provide compelling evidence that life once did (or one day could) exist there. Digging is expected to start soon, but for now there's plenty of terrain pr0n at the Phoenix official website [Phoenix via NY Times] -by John Herrman

When you got to twelve months, you got somewhere between considerable fade and severe fade, which makes the page no longer usable. The lesson here is that if you're printing out movie tickets for tonight, cheap ink is fine. If you're printing out photos from your trip to Japan, go for quality. [Trusted Reviews via Crunchgear]

Once you snap a picture of the code, your phone will bring up the Citysearch's review page, letting you know whether you should go in. Also, a tourism company is shoving these onto some tourist locations, bringing up a 15 to 20-second audio snippet of what you're looking at. If they could stick this on things like busses, taxis, waitresses, drug dealers and prostitutes (all common in SF), we'd gladly use this service. [SFGate via New Launches]

Why why why? We can only assume the guy's got loads of money and didn't care if the camera burst into a million sad little fragments.

But, no matter how crazy the idea seems, it actually came up with a useful fact: according to the perpetrator himself, the solid construction of the D3 meant that it survived with no problems. You can check out the video on YouTube if you don't believe us. Freaky. [YouTube]

We didn't have the time, resources, or lack of shame to put some of your better ideas to work [See: here, here, and here], but we managed to try all of the choices in the poll. We cheated a bit on the puke, but our mix was pretty gross. The results—lucky for us—were inconclusive. Of the five liquids we put in the Toughbook, none made it explode or even slow down. After flushing the whole keyboard out with water, it wasn't even sticky the next day. So when it comes to the Y7 our answer to that Question of the Day is "none of the above." But please folks, don't try this at home. [Panasonic Toughbook]

[Thanks to Sam Mindel for the video help, and Communication Corporation for their song "Slimey"!!]

The most notable increase was in a Random Uncached Read test, where the HDD read at 13.28 MBs and the SSD at 48.24 MBs. Even though this is a substantial difference, it's expected since the HDD's head reads over various parts of the platter, where as the SSD has no moving parts. To see all the benchmark info check MacRumors for a compiled table. [MacRumors]

A Russian security researcher known only as "John Wane" (sic) says that his team has developed a system that correctly identifies the images from Yahoo's CAPTCHA system 35% of the time. According to one analyst, the irony is that the image recognition used to fight off the current generation of image-embedded spam will now be used to create the next wave of spam itself.

Yahoo apparently confirmed that this was the case:

We are aware of attempts being made toward automated solutions for CAPTCHA images and continue to work on improvements as well as other defenses.

Then it'll feed just about every test pattern you can imagine into projectors, televisions, CRT displays, LCD and plasma. We're taking this little sucker to CES, and we'll be able to run displays through the DisplayMate obstacle course, as long they're hooked up to a PC. It's excellent, and well worth the $79 for the DisplayMate for Windows on USB. DisplayMate for Windows Video Edition on USB is $99, and DisplayMate Multimedia Edition on USB is $495. [DisplayMate]

The device has just been awarded two separate patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, so you can expect to see these out in force at sobriety checkpoints sometime soon. On the bright side, you might make it on TV as the latest guy on COPS pressed face down onto the hood of a car with no shirt on. [Hawkeye via Press Release via Ubergizmo]

In a statement, the FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said, "The rules we adopt in this item attempt to provide broadcasters the flexibility they need while at the same time ensuring that any disruption to over-the-air viewers is minimized to the fullest extent possible."

There is still discussion of conducting last-minute digital transition tests around the US before the deadline, although one of the FCC commissioners recognized that it should have acted more quickly. "I recognize there may be legal, technical and practical challenges with planning and conducting such a test this close to the national transition date," said Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps. But I believe it can be done. At least—for the sake of a successful DTV transition—let's hope it can,"

The switch to digital is being made in order to allow police and fire departments access to public airwaves, as well as giving the general consumer a better sound and picture quality. There is, of course a downside: people with analog TVs will have to shell out for a digital TV, converter box or subscribe to digital or cable TV, a move that may not be popular with voters. The government is attempting to sugar the pill with $40 discount coupons to analog TV owners. [Reuters]

Update: We've found that XviD playback does work, but only on burned DVDs and external hard drives. See here for an update and a workaround.

DivX and WMV play back fine. Just as they claimed, the PS3 now can play back DivX files and WMV files. No problemo.

XviD does not work. Again, no XviD support at all. You'd be surprised how many of your files are actually XviD and not DivX, especially if you've been "obtaining" TV shows and movies over the years. Often times the files aren't labeled with the codec type in the name, so you'll have to try and play it back to know whether or not it's supported. If it's not, the file name will change to "Unsupported Data." [Some readers are reporting that XviD support works. Others have written us saying that some files work, others don't. Jason has tried this with a few XviD files and none of them worked. -JD]

Streaming only works off of Windows Media Player 11 shares, not Windows Media Connect or SMB (regular Windows folder sharing). This one could be a biggie. The PlayStation 3 doesn't actually support SMB network shares, which is the default Windows folder sharing network protocol that both Linux and OS X understand. This means you're going to have to install Windows Media Player 11 (or something similar, like Orb) in order to stream video from your home computer. Windows Media Connect, which sits on our Windows Home Server that housed most of our video files, didn't work. WMP11 did.

You can play files off a burned CD/DVD. If your PlayStation 3 isn't connected to a network, or if it's hooked up to a Wi-Fi network that's too slow to stream big files without dropping out, you can burn your flicks to a DVD. This is a hassle, but ensures that your movie experience won't be interrupted by someone microwaving popcorn.

The quality is pretty good. When we got the network streaming to work and found a compatible DivX file out of all our XviDs, playback was smooth and (for the most part) artifact free.

Video dimensions stretch well. The PS3 knows exactly what aspect ratio your files are and stretches them to fit your screen without distortion. The 360 couldn't quite handle that without a little coaxing.

The first time you play back a WMV file, you need to activate WMA playback first. Not a huge deal, but kind of a pain that you have to go to the System Settings screen and activate WMA playback before you can watch any WMV file that uses the codec.

Playback controls are gimpy. This isn't the fault of the new DivX support, but of the way the PS3 handles all video playback. It's usable, but it's not as polished as the Xbox's (which wasn't all that great to begin with.) UI isn't Sony's strong suit.

It's not all bad news though, as the PS3 is actually entirely DivX certified—unlike the Xbox 360. This means that the console natively supports the codec, so games can play back DivX files as their in-game cut scene movies. However, this fact doesn't help out the rabid downloader that's expecting it to play back most of his media files—like the Xbox 360 does. If you're looking for a machine to replace that aging Xbox Media Center (XBMC), the 360 is the current winner.

You see, in Iraq, most of the guys in uniform already have to schlep around 40, 50, 60 pounds worth of armor, ammo, helmet and radios. So they want their laptops to be as light as possible—not the other way around. Plus, they're not whipping out their notebooks in the middle of a firefight; they're using 'em back on the patrol base. So there's no real need for so much reinforcement. I felt kind of silly hauling such a beast around.

For the full high-res gallery hit up Impress

You can play files off of a CD/DVD. This feature wasn't listed on the Xbox Team's website as one of the supported locations for playing back content, but this is fantastic for homes that have wireless networks (or no network at all). In fact, reading off a disc is probably the best way to ensure your movie won't cut out in the middle due to network congestion (unlikely) or someone turning off the computer accidentally (fairly likely).

It supports almost all files. It played back all TV shows we threw at it, including My Name is Earl, 30 Rock, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Battlestar Galactica, and The Venture Bros.. Most of these, and most TV downloaded TV shows, are encoded in XviD format. As for DivX, that's supported back to version 5.0, but it's unlikely that you're going to find any DivX 3 or DivX 4 online, unless you're talking about old files you've saved for a couple years.

AC3 Audio is supported. Nice! AC3 support was added in the Spring Update, but it's nice to see it working with DivX/XviD. Too bad it's not 5.1 though. 5.1 is supported!

It supports Windows Home Server as well. Along with USB drives and WMP11 streaming, you can also stream DivX/XviD from Windows Home Server too. It makes sense to store all your videos on here, since videos are big and WHS has a lot of room. QED.

Video Stretching is kind of weird. The Xbox will try and auto-fit your video to the screen when it starts playing, but it gets confused easily with different video dimensions. You'll want to manually change the playback mode to either letterbox or stretched, depending on what kind of content (widescreen, fullscreen, PAL) you're playing back.

You can skip through a video with the bumpers. RB and LB let you skip forward and back through the movie, but might not be granular enough to get to the place you want to be. You'll have to use the trigger buttons to FF or RW.

It's fast. If your network connection is fast enough (my network is Gigabit Ethernet enabled, which isn't a huge deal since the 360 is only 10/100), the video should play back without a hitch. It's quite nice to be able to play back stuff on your 360, in HD, without having to transcode it into WMV first.

It doesn't work in Windows Media Center Extender. You're going to have to kick out of WMC and back to the dashboard in order to play your videos. Annoying for people who like to switch between live TV and downloaded content.

It's not entirely perfect. It's 90% of the way there, but 5.1 AC3 support, improved handling of different video dimensions, better playback controls and Windows Media Center Extender support will make this the perfect DivX/Xvid implementation.

With a .7 second look, both man and beast are on even ground, but with a 0.4 second or 0.2 second (!!) peek, the college kids got owned, completing it 40% of the time compared to the chimps' 80%. One thing's for sure— taking this test probably didn't help the college kids with their self esteem. While not as funny as a chimp working a typewriter while smoking a cigarette, the video above of brave Ayumu doing his thing is pretty damn amazing. Get that chimp a stylus!

And if you want to be impressed, see the next video, showing the chimps memorizing the digits after the mere peek.

[AP]

•The Zune's blockish body is thin, but not as thin as the iPod's rounded body. Height causes the Zune to not be as pocketable. (Zune: 1.6 x 3.6 x 0.33-inches, iPod: 2.74x2.05x.25 inches.)
•The Zune's candy red beats the crap out of the iPod's anodized finish. The pink looks terrible, and I reserve judgment on the green. The Zunepad has a textured surface, but the bodies of these things are aluminum and the slickest paint you've ever seen on a gadget.
•The headphone jack is on the bottom, as is the dock connector (same as big Zune connector). There's a lock on top.
•The D-pad's raised profile is a blessing when it comes to track changing while the Zune is in pocket. but it does cause a bit of friction when sliding into the denims. Man, I need to exercise.
•The Zune's aluminum back looks gray, and is dull in comparison to the mirrored finish on the nano. Good news, it won't scratch as easily.
•Twisting the chassis shows some flex.
•It's very similar in size to the last gen nano, but has the same size screen as the current gen nano, in a much more efficient layout.
•More or less - the Zune has a 1.8-inch screen vs the 2-inches on the pod. Don't be fooled by the black border around the Zune's screen, which makes it look bigger than it is, but to Microsoft's credit, the black border helps the screen pop nicely.
•Oh, one more thing we can't forget. These little flash players by Microsoft have Wi-Fi inside for song/photo sharing and wireless sync. Pretty impressive in such a small package.

•The new touch sensor, the Zune pad, is actually terrific. There's a bit of lag, and drifting causes the flicking to be less precise than say, an iPod touch, but I prefer the Zunepad to the too small wheel on the iPod nano for quickly browsing lists. Clicking the D-pad for select is not that precise; often I'd want to click down and would hit "select" instead. That point aside, this is possibly the biggest reason to upgrade from a Zune 1 to a Zune Flash or 80GB. It is a lot better than the dumb directional pad of the original Zune, and scrolling through large lists of songs is much better this way.
•The screen has the same res as a full Zune 80, at 320 x 240 pixels, same as the nano, but is slightly less bright. Nonetheless, it's sharp and it's a great screen.
•The Zune pad's texture feels like your finger is on a zipline as you scroll. Whee!
•Here's a comparo of the Flash Zune to the nano and 30GB generation one zune.

The original test is called the Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart, or CAPTCHA. This is CMU-originated modification is called reCAPTCHA. Instead of seeing one word, you see two, one that is already verified as correct. If you think about it, that's the only way the authentication could work. Both words are further distorted to fight spammers who may well have better OCR than the libraries.

Sites like Facebook and Twitter have already started using reCAPTCHA, and right now it's processing one million words per day. That's still chump change, though. According to Luis von Ahn, a professor at CMU:

"There's no danger of us running out of words. There's still about 100 million books to be digitized, which at the current rate will take us about 400 years to complete."

Besides the requirement for always having "Good" follow "Can you hear me now"—which coincidentally is the only thing he's allowed to say—the guy should be in his mid-20s to late-30s, and should never be seen doing anything else besides testing the network. That means no interviews by the press (he's just a dude in a jumpsuit) and no appearances without a background of the Verizon Wireless testbed (no ribbon cutting ceremonies for supermarkets).

No "too pretty" guys either, which means that's one other side job we won't be able to take. [Consumerist]

The bomb was tested this week, dropped from a Tupolev Tu-160—the same bombers that have been buzzing around the UK borders in recent months. Footage released afterwards showed multi-story buildings crumpling, so it looks like the test went pretty well. [Telegraph]

What's cool is that you can even enter field test mode during a call just by tapping the iPhone's "Add Call" icon, then the field test number. But before I give you this magic number, it is my duty to share Richard's warning.

NOTE: Although it seems that most of the information is read-only (so you can't change anything), field modes like this have the potential to damage your phone and possibly interfere with the phone network. We are providing this information as-is; we cannot be held responsible if anything you do in this field mode damages your phone or the phone network.

In addition, they went and dropped the phone on carpet, tile and the concrete. The iPhone pulled through with barely any scratches thanks to the keys and just a little bit of scuffing on metal edges thanks to the concrete.

We cringed at all the tests, but this should give you a semi-accurate view of how the iPhone does after a couple months abuse.

iPhone Stress Tests [PCWorld via PCWorld]

It scores higher on the frequency response test compared to the BlackBerry 8800, Helio Ocean, LG Prada, Nokia N95 and the Treo 750. The audio quality is great as well, as is the send frequency response. The iPhone did have a bit of "side tone", which is the amount that you hear yourself in a conversation.

Wireless Info

[Jalopnik]

It's not just text or audio: the $4.99 modules you download on iTunes are interactive, and focus on Critical Reading (sentence completion, reading comprehension), mathematics (algebra, geometry, arithmetic, etc.) and writing (how to improve sentences and paragraphs, sentence error identification).

The programs give you quizzes, which you can take timed or untimed, with or without music. Supporting features include explanation of the tests, Kaplan test-taking strategies, and analysis and feedback of the quiz you just took, whether you like it or not. – Wilson Rothman

Press Release:

Kaplan Introduces Test Prep on iTunes Store‎

Students Can Download Hundreds of SAT* Questions to Prep Via the Fifth Generation iPod®**

NEW YORK, June 21, 2007 — Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions today announced the availability of three interactive SAT* prep programs that students can purchase and download from iTunes®, enabling them to practice for the college entrance exam on a fifth generation iPod**. Among the key features of the programs: students receive detailed analyses of each completed quiz they take, as well as feedback and an option for tracking quiz score progress. The $4.99 programs focus on the exam's three graded sections: Critical Reading, Mathematics and Writing.

"Students don't go anywhere without their iPods and Kaplan has always sought to make test prep as convenient as possible for our students so it's a natural fit to offer test prep on iTunes. As students have embraced new trends over the years, from new learning and entertainment channels to new technology, we've adapted our materials in ways that are relevant to their lifestyles," said Mark Ward, president, Pre-College Programs, Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions.

Kaplan's SAT test prep being offered reflects the three graded sections of the SAT (Critical Reading, Mathematics, Writing):

Kaplan SAT Prep Reading: Students consistently cite the critical reading section as the section they find the most challenging. Using this download, students can take quizzes in the following categories: sentence completion, short reading comprehension and long reading comprehension.

Kaplan SAT Prep Mathematics: On this download, students are quizzed on algebra, geometry, arithmetic, word problems and other types of math questions.

Kaplan SAT Prep Writing: First administered in March 2005, this is the newest section of the SAT; perhaps unsurprisingly, students scored lowest on this section in 2006. To help students build up their writing skills for the exam and beyond, this download features activities in improving paragraphs, improving sentences and identifying sentence errors.

Each download includes explanations on the exam structure, expert Kaplan strategies for the SAT, plus tips and information about the increasingly competitive college admissions process. Students also have the option to take the quizzes timed or untimed, with or without music, and can see their quiz score progress through graphically dynamic charts and graphs which identify their key areas of success and weakness.

The Kaplan SAT prep downloads are available on iTunes® beginning June 21.

Over 2 million students take the SAT every year; Kaplan prepares tens of thousands of students annually for the test. These latest supplemental SAT prep offerings come on the heels of Kaplan's recent debut of SAT/ACT Vocabulary-Building Manga, a series of graphic novels with hundreds of frequently tested words on the exams, as well as its launch on MySpace.com/kaplan.

*SAT is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board, which neither sponsors nor endorses this product

** iPod® is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. All rights reserved

About Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions

Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions (www.kaptest.com), a division of Kaplan, Inc., is a premier provider of educational and career services for individuals, schools and businesses. Established in 1938, Kaplan is the world leader in the test prep industry. With 4,000 classroom locations worldwide, a comprehensive menu of online offerings and a complete array of books and software, Kaplan offers preparation for more than 80 standardized tests, including entrance exams for secondary school, college and graduate school, as well as English language and professional licensing exams. Kaplan also provides private tutoring and college and graduate admissions consulting services.

Since we're long-time electric razor users around here, we'll be able to compare this $79.99 Cool Skin directly to Norelco's earlier models, seeing if its design is just a pretty face or if it can actually outperform its predecessors. Blade users, this may not interest you much, but if you like electric razors, you'll want to hear about what it's like to use this new Cool Skin product.

The Cool Skin is designed to work with Nivea shaving conditioner, lubing up your skin and whiskers for easier cutting. You can either fill up the razor with a week's worth of the goo, or there's an optional $149.99 recharging station that also takes care of the lotion situation, too. Of course, you'll need to fill up that fancy optional recharging station with lotion once it's empty, but we didn't get one of those to test.

The standard charging station is a big improvement over its predecessors. The two little prongs on the razor have to merely touch the two contacts in the charging stand, and there's no awkward plugging in necessary. You just set it down on the stand and it's charged up and ready after a four-hour initial charge. That's good for about 45 minutes of shaving. After that initial charging, in a pinch, a quick nine-minute electro-blast is good for a three-minute shave.

First, I wanted to try using the razor without the lotion, since I'm not a big fan of spreading smelly slime all over my face just to do a quick shave. That's right, I am one of those lazy electric razor users, and we don't like messing with any liquids. So, I defiantly shaved one side of my face without using the Nivea lotion, and the razor performed admirably, doing a splendid job of removing facial hair and giving me a smooth shave without any lotion at all. It was even able to easily remove those stubborn neck hairs that grow close to the skin and usually resist cutting. And, the razor's slim profile fit perfectly in my hand, better than Norelco's fatter predecessors.

One drawback I immediately noticed was the whiskers falling on the front of my shirt and onto the countertop, unlike other Norelco razors that hold the trimmed hairs inside until you release them. I also don't care for the sideburn trimmer, which doesn't just pop out—you have to remove the cutting heads and replace them with the trimmer. Not good.

Besides those drawbacks, it shaved every bit as well as the three-year-old Norelco electric I've been using. That's saying a lot, because that previous model cost well over $200. But then, its blades may not be as new and sharp as these.

Next it was time to put some lotion into the razor and see what difference it made to spread that on the other half of my face as I shaved. To fill the razor with lotion, it's an action that reminds me of an FA-18 fighter refueling from a B-52, or maybe a John Holmes movie. But unlike Holmes, it takes just a few seconds to fill this hole up with spunk, and then you're good to go.

To release the goo, I pushed the blue button which squirts a small amount of the lotion onto the two top cutting heads. It looked kinda gross, as if the heads were having some sort of ejaculatory climax. This whole thing is so phallic. But hey, let's see if it lubes up the shave. Undaunted, I began shaving the other half of my face.

This is some slippery stuff, and it actually smelled good—not too strong at all. However, all that jizzy slime didn't improve the closeness of the shave, and actually made it harder to cut the facial hair. It felt as if the blades didn't have anything to grab onto, because this stuff was so slippery. Perhaps I used too much, so I tried using just a tiny bit of the lotion on a different part of my face, with the same result. In my opinion, this razor works better without the lotion, but on the other hand, when you use the lotion, the resulting whiskers don't fall all over you and the countertop.

Using the trimmer, it works extremely well, but it's just inconvenient to install it each time you want to use it. It's also quite noisy, and holding it right next to your ear to trim your sideburns is a lot noisier than the razor when it's using its triple heads.

Those complaints aside, I like the Norelco Cool Skin razor. I can certainly do without its Nivea lotion, the inclusion of which I think may have to do with more with selling lotion than enhancing an electric shave. I'm looking forward to testing out the high-end version of this razor, which Norelco has dubbed Arcitec. It doesn't use this gooey concoction, and has a prettier carbon fiber finish, but uses the same cutter head technology. However, it costs nearly $200 more than this Cool Skin razor, which at $79.99, turns out to be cool, indeed, and an excellent value. – Charlie White

They're good for testing how a video processor handles jaggies, noise, and other factors.

The discs aren't complete testing suites, though. They don't give you any way of quantifying brightness, shadow detail, contrast and other things you can watch by seeing sets side by side, or by watching movies you know like the back of your hand cough*ChenAndHowardTheDuck*cough. And the standard-def version of this disc not only has more tests, but is useful for checking out the standard DVD video performance of a piece of HD gear.

And like I said earlier, these test discs can be used for HDTVs or HD disc players. By switching your disc player to output in a 1080i pattern, you can test your TV; putting it into 1080p tests the video processor in your player. Here's the full scorecard and instruction manual for using the disc: Download file

The discs go for $20 bucks, or $15 with the code below.

Enter the special promotion code HQV4GIZ1BR (Blu-ray) or HQV4GIZ1HD (HD DVD) to receive $5 off the HD HQV Benchmark DVD. In addition, a portion of the proceeds will be sent to the ELF Foundation, a nonprofit charity bringing music and movies through "Rooms of Magic" to children's hospitals across the country. For more information, visit www.elfsystems.org

HD HQV Benchmark [HQV]

As some of you may be aware, the acronym FOOSH stands for Fall On Outstretched Hand. If the claims of Foosh's makers are true, you're not going to be falling down too much after partaking of these mints. It says on the box they're seriously caffeinated, and one of them gives you the equivalent of a rather weak cup of coffee, or about 100mg of that sweet and legal speed. So how well did they work? Did we catch a buzz?

Opening up the $3.49 tin, I noticed there were 12 of the mints inside, but they're big, about twice the size of an Altoid. I popped one in my mouth and was pleased to immediately discover that like Altoids, these babies are curiously strong. They have a great, sweet taste to them, with no bitterness at all when they're dissolving but a slightly bitter aftertaste. In fact, they taste a lot like Altoids.

As the mint dissolves in your mouth, you can sense a slight gritty feeling, and I suppose this must be those little blue crystals you can see in the photos above. It's not an unpleasant effect, however.

Within a couple of minutes, I felt a good strong caffeine buzz coming on, much stronger than if I just drank a cup of coffee or Red Bull. Maybe it's the placebo effect, but these little mints seen to pack a powerful punch. Hey, I could write all day.

Anyway, to sum up, these are some potent mints, they taste great, and they get the job done. No, they don't make you feel like you just snorted a gram of Peruvian, but they can give you a kick in the pants when you need it. Surprisingly effective, and cheaper than Starbucks. – Charlie White

Product Page [Vroom Foods, via Think Geek]