Crave

(Credit: DoubleTwist)

Wednesday saw the launch of a new version of DoubleTwist, the iTunes-like desktop music client that also syncs with Amazon's music store and was founded by Monique Farantzos and Jon Lech Johansen (aka notorious hacker DVD Jon). While we don't cover every piece of software that hits the Web, this one is unique: it not only syncs with iTunes, it syncs with Android phones, like the forthcoming Droid from Verizon.

This is big news for non-iPhone users. All the major smartphones these days boast of being music players, but for the most part users don't use them this way. One reason is it's a pain in the neck to copy your songs onto a media card and then slip it into the device. On most smartphones the media playback features seem like an afterthought.

The DoubleTwist app aims to bring a more iTunes/iPhone like experience to other devices. If Verizon really wanted to position the Droid phones as an alternative to the iPhone then it would start packaging the software with every phone it sells.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot of fanfare about an application called DoubleTwist that is at its core a free music jukebox that offers content syncing to a variety of portable devices, including the BlackBerry, the PSP, and the iPod, as well as pretty much anything that can mount in Universal Mass Storage mode. One of the main draws of the program is that it can take your iTunes library and sync it to a variety of non-iPod players, an important feature for anyone who has ditched the ubiquitous device in favor of a music phone or other MP3 player. And soon, the Windows version of the jukebox will offer built-in support for Amazon MP3 store purchases as well (note: the Mac version already supports Amazon MP3 purchases), a move in line with the company's goal to offer consumers choice when it comes to digital music management.

The DoubleTwist video view.

Certainly, DoubleTwist is a useful solution for a lot of people, especially since it incorporates automatic video transcoding for a lot of the supported devices, which is the feature that drew me to the software. However, the program is not without its pitfalls, and some of them are sure to cause no small amount of frustration. For example, the video transcoding--done during the syncing process--takes forever. Conversion speed was roughly two times normal speed, so a 90-minute movie took 50 minutes or so to encode and transfer. Still, considering DoubleTwist offers this feature for free and integrates it so simply, I'm willing to forgive the sluggishness.

Much more annoying is how slow the video library loads in thumbnail mode, and while it is loading, you can't actually browse the selections. ... Read more

Brutal Legend is the latest from legendary game designer Tim Schafer, who is responsible for such classics as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. His latest adventure, undoubtedly the most mainstream yet, stars Jack Black as the voice of Eddie Riggs, a roadie for a metal band who finds himself transported to demonic, metal-infused world.

We got a chance to sit down with the near-final build of Brutal Legend in New York. Here's how the game is shaping up:

Jeff:
Brutal Legend is a metal fan's absolute fantasy come true. The game is overflowing with references and jokes about the genre and is sure to lure in gamers on charm alone. Beneath the metal spikes and skulls lies a hack and slash action/adventure game, but it seems that the overall production value, soundtrack, and presentation might be the winners here.... Read more

(Credit: Quirky.com)

I've seen a lot of designs for USB drives: the nerdy one, the credit card one, the key one, the prosthetic finger one, and the San Francisco cable car one. You've probably seen even more.

Now there's another one to add to the repertoire: a double-sided USB drive that's called the Split Stick.

Announced Thursday by Quirky, the Split Stick does just want its name states: it splits its storage into two. This is essentially two storage drives put into one housing. You can use one side for personal files and the other for work-related files.

Quirky is a community that engages participants to collaborate on product creation, where people can summit their ideas about different products. The Split Stick is the sixth product designed and developed by the Quirky community since its debut on June 2.

The drive combines two 2GB drives to make a total of 4GB. The USB drives are retractable and each come out of one end of the housing, which takes the regular shape and size of a typical USB thumb drive.

The Split drive comes in many different colors.

(Credit: Quirky)

The Split Stick is made of an anodized aluminum body and encased in a protective rubber membrane. It comes in a range of colors: orange, blue, pink, red, black, violet, gray, or green. It has a plastic button on top that allows for easily navigating between the two sides of the drive.

Personally, I think this design is rather useless as you can use folders to organize different type of data. And if you forget what folder is for what purpose, chances are you'd mistake one side of the drive for another. Also, splitting the storage means you can't carry larger files with it. For example if your "personal" drive is 1.5GB full, you can't put another file that's 600MB on it, even when the "work" drive is still empty.

It would be a much more useful design, though, if the two drives were combined into one storage source and one of the sides allowed for read-only access, while the other side allowed for both writing and reading. This keeps you from accidentally erasing data or catching viruses when using the drive on computers you don't know are safe.

So, that's my first Quirky submission. Until it becomes reality, you can get the Split Stick now, and it costs $20.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is one of the big Blu-ray releases slated for later this year.

Blu-ray detractors and backers, here's the latest status report on the format:

According to Adams Media Research, about 9 million Blu-ray discs sold in the U.S. from January through March--up from 4.8 million units sold in the first quarter of last year.

As Bill Hunt over at The Digital Bits says, those numbers are particularly good considering the ongoing recession and the relatively weak title slate early in the year. He adds that the overall rollout for the format is slightly behind DVD "due to the recession," but ahead of VHS.

Adams is also reporting that there are 10.5 million Blu-ray "households." That figure includes both standalone Blu-ray players and Blu-ray-enabled PlayStation 3s.

Here's what I think: With cheaper Blu-ray players on the way and a better slate of Blu-ray discs on tap for later this year, the format's future appears relatively bright. But detractors will surely point to the high price of Blu-ray discs, as well as improvements in digital downloads and streaming services as continued stumbling blocks.

Comments? Is Blu-ray in good shape or doomed to fail?

(Source: Video Business via The Digital Bits)

(Credit: Freshwatercatfish.org)

The noise you may hear in the background is one Antonio Stradivari spinning in his 18th century grave.

We honestly don't have anything against the boombox's comeback, but the monstrosity pictured here looks like a DIY version of something from a CSI autopsy table. This Frankensteinian project is the work of artist David Ellis, who created it with "medium-modified double bass fiddle, spraypaint, casters, oak, plywood, metal, iPod, two tube pre-amps, B and C mids and tweeters, Electro-voice woofers, JVC tweeters, Crown XLS 602 Poweramp, and Behringer equalizer."

Perhaps most impressive is that he created three of these things, according to Dvice. But at $15,000 apiece, the supply may still exceed the demand.

There's only one game available for download on the virtual console this week, but it's a classic!

• Double Dragon (1988, NES, 500 Wii points): Double Dragon is the ultimate side-scrolling action game. What started as a phenomenon in arcades eventually made its way onto the home console, which, in turn, lead to countless sequels. In this classic original, you'll take on a group known as The Black Warriors as you make your way through various stages with nothing but your martial arts training to save you.

What games do you think are missing from the Wii virtual console? Sound off here!

The man notorious for cracking the DVD code, and Apple's FairPlay DRM, is looking to make a legitimate business out of his expertise.

Beginning Tuesday, the first product from his company, DoubleTwist Ventures, will enter open beta. Called DoubleTwist, it's a free desktop client that essentially allows any kind of music, photo, or video file to be shared between a long list of portable media players, and through Web-based social networks.

Instead of iTunes songs or videos taken with a Nokia N95 remaining locked on the phone, DoubleTwist software allows for dragging, dropping, and syncing of different media formats no matter the device.

The idea, according to DoubleTwist founder and CEO Monique Farantzos, is that media files should be more like e-mail. It shouldn't matter what service you create the file in, or on what type of hardware, it all should work together seamlessly, she says.

Farantzos recruited DVD Jon, or Jon Lech Johansen, and the two have been working with about 10 others for the past eight months on the DoubleTwist software. Johansen says DoubleTwist allows him to bring the success he's found to a wider audience.

"It's one opportunity to write something for your Web site for use by a couple thousand geeks," he said in an interview. But with DoubleTwist, the idea is to hide all the complexity of making easy transfers of files from the user so that even non-techie types will understand. "The goal is to make something your parents can use," he said.

It works like this: When a device is plugged into a PC (Windows XP and Vista only right now, Mac OS X coming soon), DoubleTwist launches and recognizes all the media files on the device. Any file can be selected, dragged, and dropped into DoubleTwist to be synched up to a separate device, or shared with other users you've "friended" who also use DoubleTwist.

(Credit: DoubleTwist)

By adding Facebook compatibility (with OpenSocial platforms next on their list), DoubleTwist users can share media through the social network. A Facebook application called TwistMe will allow users to drag and drop media content into a box on a fellow user's Facebook profile. The friend will then see the shared files show up in his DoubleTwist desktop client.

Social-network compatibility is key to enable real sharing of media between users, Farantzos said. "It closes the loop between the Web, devices, and the desktop."

DoubleTwist also recognizes and imports all iTunes playlists and will read instantly which ones are protected by digital rights management technology. The software automatically plays the song files in the background (sans volume) and re-records them as MP3 files so they can be transferred to any device. Note: DoubleTwist only does this for songs you own or are authorized to play in iTunes.

Farantzos says they're not picking on any one particular brand of DRM, especially since the entire industry, led by Amazon, is leaning toward a DRM-free policy.

"Digital media is dominated by two players, Windows Media and iTunes, and they each have their own agenda...we see ourselves as the Switzerland of digital media. We are format and device agnostic."

(Credit: Akihabara News)

This is either a special product made for a very special person (with four ears) or a decidedly old-school way of getting around file-sharing laws. Either way, we wouldn't count on a huge market for this double headset.

Akihabara News says SKPAD's latest invention can be used with any device that has a standard headphone jack, though we're not sure about quality. And because it seems to work like a splitter or an adapter for multiple earphones, we're also not sure about the $37 price.

Something like this might be useful on a plane or in the backseat of the car if your kids are fighting over an older DVD player that has only one jack. But if that's the case, you probably have problems a lot bigger to deal with.