Ferguson Hill FH007 and FH008 Speakers

There are a few basic rules that all journalists understand and adhere to - most of the time. One is that whenever Microsoft releases a piece of software, several years are then spent fixing all the problems with it. Another is that when something's so stylish it wouldn't look out of place in a central London penthouse apartment, it's bound to be expensive - and rubbish to boot.




That was certainly my first impression upon pulling the delicately made Ferguson Hill FH007 mini-speakers out of their rather large boxes. Here's a product that just screams "style over substance": a stereo speaker consisting of two fruit-bowl clear acrylic horns, two football-shaped clear acrylic mid-bass speakers and a big, beefy sub-woofer in shiny iPod homage white livery.

The whole lot is powered by a cube-shaped amplifier with just two inputs - one 3.5mm input for your iPod (or other stylish pocket music player) - and another pair of phono sockets for a proper hi-fi component, like a DVD or CD deck. It looks fantastic resting on a table, desk or speaker stands, and costs an appropriately expensive £750 for the set. But before you lose all hope or roll your eyes in exasperation, stop and reverse your expectations; the FH007s turn out to be pretty good value for money too.






How can that be? After all, £750 is a huge amount of money to spend on a desktop speaker set that a) isn't portable, b) isn't surround and c) doesn't have enough inputs to serve as a speaker set for your main hi-fi or AV system? A clue to the answer lies in the speakers' origins. Ferguson Hill is no ordinary speaker manufacturer. Its main focus, in fact, lies in rather esoteric, high-end audio. This is a subject that's close to my heart, but one that inevitably leads to extremely high prices and a large amount of crippling debt. The FH007s are basically a miniaturised version of the only other speakers that Ferguson Hill makes - the FH001 and FH002 - and these man-sized speakers require an investment of considerably more than ten grand - £12,512 to be precise.

So let's put the FH007s in context for a moment: here, you're getting a slice of high-end, non mass-produced audio art for under a grand, and benefitting from the research and design experience of a company that normally plies its trade in the rarefied atmosphere of high-end audio. That's something that's not to be sniffed at.

Another reason these speakers are such good value lies in what you get for your money. Part of the reviewed package is not only those arty clear acrylic horn and mid-bass speakers, but also an extremely hefty and powerful 100W sub-woofer unit. You can choose not to buy the sub, but to be honest, the speakers on their own aren't very bassy, so it would be foolish not to.



On top of the sub you also get a beautifully-built amplifier which has been made specifically for the FH007s. This bi-amps the speakers, which means that, unlike a standard speaker and amp setup, each of the four passive drivers is powered by its own amplifier circuit; standard setups involve a single amp per stereo channel and rely on passive crossovers in the speakers themselves to split the signal between the high and low frequency drivers. To this end, the amplifier features five 3.5mm outputs: one pair for the horn speakers, one pair for the mid-bass speakers and a single output for the sub, with each speaker output supplying 16.4W of power.

The detailing is also very impressive. Each of the horn speakers might be 38cm high, but the blemish-free transparent horns will just disappear into the background of your living room (you get a pair of cotton gloves with which to keep them clean). They're supported by slender, brushed aluminium tubular stands which lead to three spiked feet, and a set of silicone feet have been supplied to further isolate the system from vibrations. The spherical bass speakers, similarly, rest on chunky aluminium cones and also have silicone feet supplied for them.



The final and decisive reason these speakers are so good, though, is the sound quality. The first time you fire them up they sound downright awful - but given two solid weeks of running in, playing away to themselves at medium volume levels and music is transformed from sounding as if it's being played through a trombone with no mouthpiece to a truly revolutionary, transparent and emotional experience.

The secret to this lies in the design of the speakers. Unlike most bookshelf or floor-standing designs, which use bass-mid drivers coupled with a tweeter for just the high end frequencies, the FH007 utilises what could be called a semi-full range approach. Whereas most tweeter-based speaker designs split the frequency at around the 2kHz mark (tweeters typically reproduces sound above this to 20KHz, while the bass/mid drivers focus on the range below it) the FH007's horn speakers reproduce sounds from 340Hz all the way up to 20kHz with the spherical bass units covering the frequencies from 75Hz to 350Hz. The sub is adjustable in the 50Hz to 150Hz range.

The difference might not sound like much, but when you consider that the ear is most sensitive to frequencies around the 2-3kHz mark, which is precisely where most speakers cross over from their mid/bass drivers to their tweeters, the advantages of a single driver to cover the whole range become obvious.

The horn, or horn-loaded to use the correct term, design also means that the speakers are highly efficient and able to reach loud volumes with very little movement of the driver cone. In theory this means lower levels of distortion - both at the amplifier and speaker ends of the equation - as the speakers are having to shift less air, and the amplifier circuitry is having to do less work.




So much for the theory: does it work in practice? Well, it very much depends on the sort of music you want to listen to and the volume you want to listen at, but in most instances I'd have to say the answer is, most certainly, yes. Firing up Diana Krall's When I look In Your Eyes reveals the true strengths of the FH007s. Her smoky vocals just leap from the speakers in a way that seems holographically real. You can hear plenty of detail, such as when she takes breaths in between phrases, but importantly, the rich, subtle singing never overwhelms these speakers and they remain silky smooth right up to the top end, with a remarkable lack of sibilance and distortion.

Moving on to a touch of Stacey Kent and the performance is repeated. Stereo imaging is remarkable - these speakers not only melt into the background physically, but they also do so in an audio sense. The FH007s create a soundstage that's convincing, and they do so in a completely effortless way that's a joy to the ears.

Listening to some classical Spanish guitar played by the inimitable John Williams also plays to these speakers' strengths. Each pluck of the nylon strings on his guitar hangs in space before the speakers, as if the great man were sitting in your living room giving a personal recital. The rasp of finger against nickel-wound strings sends a shiver up your spine.

On Ben Folds' jubilant piano-led pop on Songs For Silverman there's a sense of space realism to the music that ‘normal' speakers just can't reproduce. And even a bit of Metallica - at medium volume levels sound great, with the sub really helping to thump out the low notes and the bass spheres working well on the driving guitars.


There are a couple of caveats, though. These speakers don't deal with loud, dramatic music very well. Push the volume right up to neighbour-bothering levels while listening to something demanding, like Mozart's Requiem, and the FH007s will start to sound a little muddled. Likewise, a session of Soundgarden, Biffy Clyro and The Prodigy had me hankering after a more traditional, box speaker sound. The FH007's horn-loaded design also means they're not a great party speaker. They're highly directional, so for the best sound quality you have to point the speakers straight at your listening position. Move off axis and that detail and involving sound starts to disappear. These are small points in the overall scheme of things, but ones that are worth bearing in mind when you're thinking of buying a set.

Verdict

You'll have probably figured out by now that I think the FH007 speakers are very good. But I'm not going to pull the proverbial high-end audio wool over your eyes: they're not perfect for every scenario. If you mainly listen to dance or metal at ear-splitting volumes and like your rock to rattle the window frames they won't be for you. It's also a shame the amp doesn't have more inputs. If it did, I'd consider recommending it as the main amp and speaker setup in a basic separates system. And it's a pity the sub is such a behemoth, which detracts a little from the overall appearance.

But in every other respect, the FH007s are simply stunning. Despite the seemingly high price tag, these speakers are actually great value for money for an amp, sub and speaker set up. They look wonderful, resplendent with their transparent spheres and horns, and the amp is well-designed too. But all that takes a back seat when you start to listen. They produce a sound that's detailed, natural and emotionally involving in a way that you just don't get from traditional speaker designs, and that's worth paying good money for.

Source:www.trustedreviews.com

Studio-Quality Triode-Tube iPod Speakers

Using superior analog technology all but lost in today's common digital electronics, this is the first tube-based iPod speaker system, producing a luxurious warmth and clarity prized by audiophiles and previously difficult to reproduce outside of custom-built amplifiers of a handful of live musicians.

Developed and built by German audio technicians, the system consists of an aluminum-encased amplifier housing four powerful Class-A tubes which glow gently as they generate warm, low-octave sound that is virtually distortion-free, considered by audiophiles to be the most pleasing to the human ear.

The tube amplifier smoothes over distortions found in modern digital recordings while helping to compensate and minimize the quality loss inherent in compressed audio such as MP3s, and in addition to the iPod line-in jack, a second audio-in port allows you to connect a CD player, satellite radio, or other audio component. The matching double-cone, full-range speakersdesigned solely for use with this systemfaithfully generate warm, realistic tones using a single, highly synchronized chassis per speaker (reducing ill-timed and out of phase audio). An RCA cable and two highly-insulated 13' triple-core speaker cables with gold-plated connectors are included. System: 111/2" H x 61/2" W x 26" L. (42 lbs.)


price:. $3,999.95

MojoPac

MojoPac is a technology that transforms your iPod or USB Hard Drive or Flash drive into a portable and private PC. Just install MojoPac on any USB 2.0 compliant storage device, upload your applications and files, modify your user settings and environment preferences, and take it with you everywhere.


Every time you plug your MojoPac-enabled device into any Windows XP PC , MojoPac automatically launches your environment on the host PC. Your communications, music, games, applications, and files are all local and accessible. And when you unplug the MojoPac device, no trace is left behind – your information is not cached on the host PC.

MojoPac requires the host PC be logged in with administrative privileges or have MojoPac Usher installed. MojoPac Usher is an application that can be installed on host computers to enable MojoPac to run with a limited mode host login.


Benefits

Devices for MojoPac

ZAC Browser

ZAC - Zone for Autistic Children

is the first web browser developed specifically for children with autism, and autism spectrum disorders such as Asperger syndrome, pervasive developmental disorders (PDD), and PDD-NOS. We have made this browser for the children - for their enjoyment, enrichment, and freedom. Children touch it, use it, play it, interact with it, and experience independence through ZAC.

is the zone that will permit your child to interact directly with games (a LOT of games) and activities (focused on MANY interests) that cater specifically to kids who display the characteristics of autism spectrum disorders, like impairments in social interaction, impairments in communication, restricted interests and repetitive behavior. ZAC has been an effective tool for kids with low, medium and high functioning autism.

focuses on the children and their interaction - But we also provide an excellent forum for parents, caretakers, teachers, and others to share their experiences, tools and resources and to unite as a caring, compassionate, and extremely knowledgeable community. It is said that "it takes a village to raise a child", and that is exponentially true for raising a child with autistic spectrum disorders. The power of your experience yesterday is going to be instrumental in helping someone successfully tackle the circumstances of today.


Download at:http://www.zacbrowser.com/

Waterproof MP3 Player

Speedo™ Aquabeat Waterproof MP3 Player










* 1GB (up to 250 MP3 and 500 WMA files)
* Playtime up to 9 hours.
* Available in 3 colors.
* Weight 35g.
* Waterproof compact design (can be used safely down to 3 meters).
* Waterproof earplugs.
* Floats for easy retrieval.
* Ergonomic buttons allow ease of use while swimming.
* Comes with Playlist Editing Software enables quick and easy adding and sorting of music files.
* Easily recharges through PC or laptop through USB port.
* Short ear phone cord for easy w

iPhone 3G










It's been a long, leak-filled wait, but Apple finally took the wraps off its 3GiPhone. Thinner edges, full plastic back, flush headphone jack, and the iPhone 2.0 firmware -- Apple's taking a lot of the criticisms to heart from the first time around. Obviously 3G is at the forefront, but they're also making sure it's available all over internationally, works with enterprises, runs 3rd party apps... and does it all for cheaper. Apple claims its 3G speeds trounce the competition, with pageloads 36% faster than the N95 and Treo 750 -- and of course it completely trounces the old EDGE data speeds.

Battery life isn't getting put out to pasture though, with 300 hours of standby, 8-10 hours of 2G talk, 5 hours of 3G talk, 7 hours of video and 24 hours of audio. GPS is also a go. Apple is using A-GPS, which supplements regular satellite GPS data with info from cellular towers for faster location. (WiFi data is also worked into the mix, which should give users a pretty solid lock on where the heck they are on this planet.) Unfortunately, as expected there's no front-facing cam, and while its edges are thinner than before it's still about a millimeter thicker at the center (12.3mm over 11.6mm before). Apple hopes to launch in 70 countries, with the black 8GB going for $199 and 16GB for $299 in black or white. (Both price points require a contract, of course.) Apple will be hitting the 22 biggest markets

ASUS P320 GPS PDA Phone

ASUS has released th P320 GPS PDA Phone, a feature-packed device targetted at the style conscious. The phone which is powered by Microsoft Window Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system, also has an enhanced user interface called Asus Today that has customised icons to display the time, calender, incoming message, weather and media player. The P320 hac plenty of features such as WiFi, Bluetooth and built in GPS that uses SiRFStar III intergrated chipset that is supposed to quickly and accurately pinpoint a users location. It’s among the first low end smartphones to come with built-in GPS sensor. Also, the P320 has a 2-megapixel camera with autofocus and a microSD card slot. The new P320 is now available in pink, black and white colors with a price of around US$390.



Asus Phone Gallery

Java Servlet

The Java Servlet API allows a software developer to add dynamic content to a Web server using the Java platform. The generated content is commonly HTML, but may be other data such as XML. Servlets are the Java counterpart to non-Java dynamic Web content technologies such as PHP, CGI and ASP.NET. Servlets can maintain state across many server transactions by using HTTP cookies, session variables or URL rewriting.

The Servlet API, contained in the Java package hierarchy javax.servlet, defines the expected interactions of a Web container and a servlet. A Web container is essentially the component of a Web server that interacts with the servlets. The Web container is responsible for managing the lifecycle of servlets, mapping a URL to a particular servlet and ensuring that the URL requester has the correct access rights.




A Servlet is an object that receives a request and generates a response based on that request. The basic servlet package defines Java objects to represent servlet requests and responses, as well as objects to reflect the servlet's configuration parameters and execution environment. The package javax.servlet.http defines HTTP-specific subclasses of the generic servlet elements, including session management objects that track multiple requests and responses between the Web server and a client. Servlets may be packaged in a WAR file as a Web application.

Servlets can be generated automatically by JavaServer Pages (JSP), or alternately by template engines such as WebMacro. Often servlets are used in conjunction with JSPs in a pattern called "Model 2", which is a flavor of the model-view-controller pattern.

AMD Jumps to 12-core Chip

Advanced Micro Devices plans to release processors with 12 cores, which changes its product road map and kills earlier plans to release 8-core chips.

The 12-core processor, code-named Magny-Cours, will be targeted at servers and is due for release in the first half of 2010, according to the company's updated road map announced Wednesday.

The chip will include 12M bytes of L3 cache and support DDR3 RAM, according to the road map.

AMD is jumping from a 6-core chip code-named Istanbul, due for release in the second half of 2009, straight to a 12-core chip the following year, an AMD spokesman said.

Until last month, AMD officials repeated plans to ship the 8-core server chip, code-named Barcelona, in 2009. Montreal has now been replaced by Istanbul, followed by a 12-core product in 2010, the spokesman said

Twelve-core chips will handle larger workloads better than 8-core chips and are easier to manufacture, said Randy Allen, vice president and general manager at AMD, during a conference call.

AMD is also planning to release a 6-core chip code-named Sao Paulo in 2010. The chip will include 6M bytes of L3 cache and support for DDR3 RAM. Sao Paulo chips could meet the need of systems that don't require 12 cores, Allen said.

The new chips will be more power efficient as they will be manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, an upgrade from the 65-nm process currently used to manufacture Barcelona.

AMD, which is struggling financially, is making financial and technical considerations in jumping from 6-core to 12-core chips. said Dean McCarron, an analyst with Mercury Research. That should allow the company to dump more cores on chips while delivering better product margins and lowering manufacturing costs.

AMD's 12-core chip will include two 6-core processors on separate chips in a single processor package, McCarron said. That is a more realistic goal than including 12 cores on a single chip, which can be expensive to manufacture, McCarron said.

The shift also allows AMD to avoid competition with Intel in 8-core chips, McCarron said. Intel is shipping a 6-core Xeon server processor, Dunnington, in the second half this year, after which it plans to jump to 8-core processors.

Even with AMD's altered road map, Intel will remain formidable. Intel shipped 78.5 percent of chips in the first quarter of 2008, while AMD held a 20.6 percent market share, a slight gain from the 18.7 percent market share it held in the first quarter of 2007.

The new product road map is a way for AMD to bounce back from recent chip and supply issues, said Gordon Haff, principal IT advisor at Illuminata.

AMD's most recent server chips, the quad-core Opteron processors code-named Barcelona, started shipping late last month after multiple delays and bugs.

"Obviously, AMD had some missteps over the past year, but they have a staple of OEMs and routes to markets with their processors. What you're seeing is much more public focus on what's going to happen in the next 18 to 24 months rather than longer term," Haff said.

AMD has had a string of recent problems. The company last month reported its sixth consecutive quarterly loss and plans to lay off 1,650 jobs by the third quarter.

Sony Bravia LCD TVs

BRAVIA is a Sony brand used to market its high-definition LCD televisions as well as front and rear projection TVs. The name is an acronym of "Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture". All new Sony high-definition flat-panel LCD televisions in North America now carry the BRAVIA logo. The name BRAVIA replaces the "LCD WEGA" brand name which Sony LCD TVs used up until Summer 2005 (early promotional photos exist of the first BRAVIA TVs still bearing the WEGA name).

The BRAVIA brand is also used on mobile phones in the Japanese market[1][2].

Sony India is eyeing big for its recently introduced Bravia LCD televisions series to drive sales in the coming festive season.

The company has also decided to spend around Rs 30 crore in advertising and other promotional activities for the range.

Masaru Tamagawa, Managing Director, Sony India, said, “We are focusing a lot on LCD televisions right now, to drive our sales for the upcoming festive season. In fact, even going by the industry statistics, Plasma and colour television sales have been dipping, whereas the LCD market is soaring.”

The company has already reserved a total promotion budget of $35 million, out of which $10 million will be used up on marketing plans during Diwali.

“Our target audience for the Bravia range of LCD televisions is the Rs 10-lakh plus annual income group,” said Mr. Tamagawa.

Actually, the company that unveiled 15 Bravia range models, which priced between Rs 27,990 and Rs 399,900, have cut prices on these latest models by about 10-15 per cent in order to comport with the Indian market conditions.

The company is also aiming to captivate 25 per cent of the total domestic market by March next year (2008).

Sony India is also in talks with various broadcasters for making High Definition (HD) television to lengthen its control in the sector.

Presently, the company claims to capture 80 per cent of the worldwide HD Tv market, and is planning to set up a sturdy base in India after the Government allows for HD broadcasting.

Mr. Tamagawa added, “We expect high definition broadcasting in India to start by 2009, and are currently talking to several broadcasters in the country for content creation.”

India
http://www.sony.co.in/microsite/bravia/default.html

Europe
http://campaign.odw.sony-europe.com

Overview

The overall objective of the XtreemOS project is the design, implementation, evaluation and distribution of an open source Grid operating system (named XtreemOS) with native support for virtual organizations (VO) and capable of running on a wide range of underlying platforms, from clusters to mobiles.

The approach we propose in this project is to investigate the construction of a new Grid OS, XtreemOS, based on the existing general purpose OS Linux. A set of system services, extending those found in the traditional Linux, will provide users with all the Grid capabilities associated with current Grid middleware, but fully integrated into the OS. The underlying Linux will be extended as needed to support VOs spanning across many machines and to provide appropriate interfaces to the Grid OS services.

Installed on each participating machine, the XtreemOS system will provide for the Grid what an operating system offers for a single computer: abstraction from the hardware, and secure resource sharing between different users. It would thus considerably ease the work of users belonging to VOs by giving them (as far as possible) the illusion of using a traditional computer, and releasing them from dealing with the complex resource management issues of a Grid environment. By integrating Grid capabilities into the kernel, XtreemOS will also provide a more robust, secure and easier to manage infrastructure for system administrators.

The XtreemOS consortium composition is a balance between academic and industrial partners interested in designing and implementing the XtreemOS components (Linux extensions to support VOs and Grid OS services), packaging and distributing the XtreemOS system on different hardware platforms, promoting and providing user support for the XtreemOS system, and experimenting with Grid applications using the XtreemOS system. Different end-users are involved in XtreemOS project, providing various test cases in scientific and business computing domains.

XtreemOS!

The emergence of Grids Gridsenables the sharing of a wide range of resources to solve large-scale computational and data intensive problems in science, engineering and commerce.
While much has been done to build Grid middleware on top of existing operating systems, little has been done to extend the underlying operating systems to enablee and facilitate Grid computing, for example by embedding important functionalities directly into the operating system kernel.



The XtreemOS project aims at investigating and proposing new services that should be added to current operating systems to build Grid infrastructure in a simple way. XtreemOS targets the Linux well-accepted open source operating system extending it to Grid with native support for virtual organizations. One of the most important challenges in XtreemOS is the identification of the basic functionalities which are to be embedded in the Linux kernel.

A set of operating system services, extending those found in the standard Linux distribution, will provide Linux users with all the Grid capabilities associated with current Grid middleware, but fully integrated into the OS. The underlying Linux OS will be extended as needed to support virtual organizations spanning across many machines and to supply appropriate interfaces to Grid OS services.

Installed on each participating machine (personal computer, cluster of workstations, mobile devices), the XtreemOS system will provide for the Grid what a traditional Operating System offers for a single computer: abstraction from the hardware and secure resource sharing between different users. It will thus considerably ease the work of users belonging to virtual organizations giving them the illusion of using a traditional computer, and releasing them from dealing with the complex resource management issues of a typical Grid environment. By integrating Grid capabilities into the Linux kernel, XtreemOS will also provide a more robust, secure and easier-to-manage infrastructure for system administrators. This will be experimentally demonstrated with a set of real applications, provided by well-known industrial partners, that cover a large spectrum of application fields.

Damn Small Linux

Damn Small Linux or DSL is a free Linux distribution for the X86 family of personal computers. It was designed to run graphical applications on older PC hardware -- for example, machines with 486/early Pentium processors and very little memory. DSL is a Live CD with a size of 50 MB. What originally started as an experiment to see how much software could fit in 50 MB eventually became a full-fledged Linux distribution. It can be installed on storage media with small capacities, like bootable business cards, USB flash drives, various memory cards, and Zip drives.


Website www.damnsmalllinux.org
Company/
developer John Andrews, et al
OS family Linux
Source model Open source
Latest stable release 4.4.2 / June 21, 2008 (2008-06-21); 21 days ago