Doug Aamoth…

RealNetworks is currently entangled in a legal case over a prototype hardware DVD ripper called “Facet.” Described as “TiVo for DVDs,” the $300 box aims to replace set-top DVD players by allowing owners to rip their movie collections directly to a 500GB hard drive for quick and easy access and playback.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is less than thrilled about the prospect of a machine thats sole defense against the copying of rented or borrowed movies is a nag screen that advises the owner to only copy legally-owned DVDs.

Aside from copying rented or borrowed DVDs, the MPAA asserts that consumers shouldn’t even be able to make a digital copy of a DVD they legally own in the first place, insisting that an additional fee must be paid for a hard drive-based copy of the content found on a physical disc.

The case is currently in US District Court, where RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser gave over four hours of testimony yesterday with more to go today. According to CNET:

Real began work on Facet with the hope of building the next-generation DVD player, Glaser told before U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel. Glaser argued that consumers are clamoring for a better way to manage their DVD collections and that Facet and similar products, such as DVD players from Kaleidescape, do exactly that. In addition to building its own box, Real could conceivably generate income by licensing Facet’s software to consumer electronic makers.

The major film studios perhaps view Facet as a device that could do to DVDs what the iPod did to recorded music. Facet owners could rent or borrow films and then copy and store them without ever having to pay a cent. It’s been widely reported that most of the music on iPods was ripped from CDs or illegally downloaded.

The studios maintain that consumers don’t have the right to copy films they already own, according to statements made by MPAA lawyers during the hearing, which started Friday and will continue Wednesday. Hollywood contends that if, for example, consumers want to download a copy of a movie they already own, then they must pay additional fees for the digital version…

…During Glaser’s demonstration of Facet, he showed how the box made the process of scanning, selecting, and pulling up digital DVD copies as simple as managing an iTunes music library.

In addition, the box could instantly provide a synopsis about a film or the movie’s cover art, as well as enable a user who interrupts the playback for whatever reason to instantly return to the spot where it left off. Glaser used a copy of a box set from the show “The Sopranos” to demonstrate how a Facet owner could begin playing any episode within the set almost instantly.

Copied DVDs would only be playable on the particular box to which they were copied in order to prevent illegal sharing. There’s also the question of how the technology handles bypassing CSS encryption. The company behind the $10,000 Kaleidescape system won a legal battle in a similar lawsuit brought about by the DVD Copy Control Association, which handles CSS encryption technology, and RealNetworks’ defense team alluded to the rather large selection of software-based DVD ripping programs currently available on the market.

Whatever the outcome of the current case, though, will consumers really go for a $300 set top box that rips DVDs when there are already plenty of streaming and OnDemand options available for much cheaper? People with disc-destroying toddlers and/or large DVD collections who don’t like swapping discs in and out of their DVD players all the time might go for something like Facet, but will there be enough of them to make the entire project worthwhile?

[via CNET]

Wow, interesting to see someone actually quit their job nowadays but a game developer for 2K Australia did just that. And he went out with a bang, too, creating a browser-based Mario-inspired game with several short levels with thank you’s, reasons for quitting, and so on.

His last day is June 5th if you guys all want to go in on a cake or something. Or maybe we can all meet at Chi Chi’s after work for happy hour one of these days.

A Message for 2K Australia [Farbs.com via Kotaku]

No fair! I wish I had a broken arm with a bionic LEGO cast that allowed me to accessorize with several wonderful gadgets like flashlights and voice recorders. Lucky!

That’s the kind of talk this kid is going to hear on the playground for quite some time. He broke his arm and his dad “putty-glued a large flat Lego directly on the cast” and glued smaller LEGO pieces to “a voice recorder/changer, a compass, a flashlight, a USB drive, and a small box.” Now Junior can just pop a few gadgets onto his arm, grab his hot lunch ticket, and head out the door in the morning.

Broken Arm Lego Accessories [Instructables]

If you like Slushees but you hate the inconvenience of getting out of your car, entering your local convenience store, and paying upwards of two dollars, might I suggest the Slush Mug, a $10 mug with a freezable core that allows you to make your own slushalicious treats at home with just six hours of prep time and another six minutes of stirring.

If you’re die-hard enough to buy this thing, you should probably buy two or three because you have to freeze the “Glaciercore” mug insert before each use. Then you just pour in your favorite bevarine and stir it for six minutes. That’s a long time, considering the average American’s attention span is — hey, is that a dog?! Oh, wait, it’s just a plastic bag. I thought it was a dog but it’s not. That bag sure was blowing around! If it was a dog it probably would have barked or sniffed something. Bags don’t do that.

Where was I? Oh. Slush Core. The mug thing. You can buy one for $10. You can’t use diet pop, though, because something weird happens with the artificial sweetner. Here’s a video!

Slush Mug: Create a slushee at home in minutes [Vat19 via TechEBlog]

Wow, hats off to some of the eggheads at Carnegie Mellon. They’ve developed a touchscreen that can actually produce tactile buttons by using latex, acrylic, and a little air pump. Imagine a touchscreen-only phone that pops up little keys when you open the on-screen keyboard. It’s like haptic feedback on steroids.

According to MIT’s Technology Review:

Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have developed buttons that pop out from a touch-screen surface. The design retains the dynamic display capabilities of a normal touch screen but can also produce tactile buttons for certain functions.

Graduate student Chris Harrison and computer-science professor Scott Hudson have built a handful of proof-of-concept displays with the morphing buttons. The screens are covered in semitransparent latex, which sits on top of an acrylic plate with shaped holes and an air chamber connected to a pump. When the pump is off, the screen is flat; when it’s switched on, the latex forms concave or convex features around the cutouts, depending on negative or positive pressure.

To illuminate the screens and give them multitouch capabilities, the researchers use projectors, infrared light, and cameras positioned below the surface. The projectors cast images onto the screens while the cameras sense infrared light scattered by fingers at the surface.

Apparently similar solutions have been proposed in the past but none have been as full-featured and relatively affordable as Carnegie Mellon’s version. For instance, this version can register the amount of force applied to a button press, which can be used in UI design. Music playing software could use a harder button press to scroll through a list of songs faster while using a lighter press to scroll more slowly.

The current system is still pretty large thanks to the air pump, so early production versions will most likely end up in car dashboards. The team is exploring ways to shrink everything and believes that it’d ultimately be able to fit inside a cellphone.

Check out this video of the screen in action. Very cool.

Touch Screens with Pop-up Buttons [Technology Review via Engadget]

Dell’s all-in-one “Studio One 19″ series is now available in the US starting at $699. That’ll get you a 2.5GHz dual-core Intel CPU, an 18.5 inch LCD at 1366×768, 2GB of RAM, a slot-load DVD burner, nVidia GeForce 9200 graphics, built-in webcam, and a 320GB hard drive.

You may want to spend an extra hundred bucks to get the multi-touch display that’ll allow you to manipulate photos and whatnot by swiping one or more of your fingers across the screen. Each configuration includes a standard keyboard and mouse, thankfully, or you can upgrade to a wireless kit for $40 more, which Dell promises will make the entire system setup consist of simply plugging in a single power cord.

The highest-level configuration starts at just under $1000 for a quad-core CPU, 64-bit Vista, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard dtive, and nVidia GeForce 9400 graphics. You can bump the hard drive up to 750GB for $80 and add a slot-load Blu-ray drive for $150, but all the money in the world won’t increase the screen’s resolution above 1366×768 on any of the available models, which may be a deal-breaker for those of us who like plenty of pixels to play with. A wireless network card is also a $20 upgrade ($40 for the N spec) on all the systems, which seems like kind of an odd choice.

Those quirks aside, the kit looks pretty intriguing for under a grand. You can also choose a trim color to surround the LCD. White is standard, while navy, charcoal, pink, and red will set you back $20.

Dell Studio One 19 Desktop [Dell.com]

Oh my, take a look at this feat of ingenuity. Anyone who plays Rock Band or Guitar Hero World Tour and lives in a smallish apartment will appreciate how difficult it is to store the controllers without making them permanent fixtures in one of the rooms you use on a daily basis.

Believe it or not, my wife doesn’t care for the drumset that sits in our living room next to our TV. We have moderately nice furniture and then — BAM! — big plastic drumset. If I could turn back the clock, I would have pushed for this very ottoman instead of the faux rustic red wooden chest thingy we use as a coffee table.

See, this leather ottoman — the Rock Box — opens up and features a lift mechanism that pops your drumset out for some quick-and-easy rock. When you’re all done, just lower it back into the ottoman with an “easy one-hand motion.” It also has room for two guitars, the foot pedal, and a microphone. And at $200, it’s not outrageously priced, considering you’re also getting a handsome leather ottoman.

AK Rock Box Gaming and Storage Ottoman with Drum Lift (Black) [Amazon via GeekSugar]

Way, way, way, way, way back in January of this year we took a look at a clock adorned with Star Wars vehicles that was being sold on Etsy.com. If you saw the clock and hoped against hope for a Star Trek version, your (space) ship has finally come in.

The Star Trek version costs $109.99, a bit more than the Star Wars version did at $90, but maybe there’s some sort of premium on Star Trek paraphenalia. There are “12 vintage classic Action Fleet Micro Machine starships, warships, and other vessels” that have been “hand finished in a black and silver pewter-like color.” As with the Star Wars version, you can ask for custom ships or vehicles, which the creator will include if he has them in stock.

Star Trek Clock – We Need More Time Captain [Etsy via Geeky-Gadgets.com]

You guys like your Babylon 5, do ya? Today only, you can get the whole series on DVD for just over a hundred bucks. That’s 30 discs in all, spread out over five seasons equalling 80+ hours of content.

I, myself, have never seen a single episode, which probably dings my geek cred immensely. As an olive branch, here’s what one of the people in the customer reviews section at Amazon suggests for everyone to watch in order to get the full Babylon 5 experience:

1. Watch the B5 movie “The Gathering”

The Babylon 5 pilot movie The Gathering was originally broadcast in 1993 a full year ahead of the regular show.

2. Season 1

3. Season 2

4. Season 3

5. Watch Season 4 up to episode “The illusion of truth”

6. Watch the B5 movie “Thirdspace”

7. Season 4: continue with episodes 9-22

8. Watch Season 5 up to episode “Objects at Rest”

9. Watch the B5 movie “River of Souls”

10. Watch the B5 movie “In the Beginning”

This is a prelude set 10 years before Babylon 5. Against the logic of the title, I would strongly recommend seeing it at this stage. Should one see it before Season 1, much of the suspense in the main series would be ruined.

11. Watch the B5 movie “A Call to Arms”

This movie lays the groundwork for the spin-off TV series “Crusade”.

12. Season 5: watch final episode “Sleeping in light”

13. Watch Crusade Series

So that oughta eat up at least a long weekend or two. Enjoy!

Babylon 5 – The Complete Television Series (5-Pack) [Amazon.com]

Pretty nice deal on the 2GB iPod Nano-like Archos 105 at $26 with free shipping. It generally sells for around $60 or so at various sites, but Amazon’s got it as a one-day Gold Box deal today.

Features include a 1.8-inch OLED screen, 7mm thickness, MP3/WMA/WMV/JPEG support, and, as mentioned, two gigabytes of storage.

UPDATE: All gone — looks like Amazon sold them all. They’re only available from third-party sellers now at closer to $60.

Archos 105 2 GB Video MP3 Player (Black) [Amazon]