It’s finally here; the moment where the iPad actually comes into some sort of contact with the market. As we announced before, iPad pre-orders begin at 5:30 AM PT (in about 1:30 hours), and the Apple Store is currently down, indicating that pre-order forms will be available when it comes back up (and possibly something more – you never know.)

Of course, users won’t actually be able to fondle the device until April 3rd, but (besides giving fans and enthusiasts a chance to be one of the first people to own an iPad), this moment is exciting because from now on, Apple (and, hopefully, the media) will have some idea how well this thing actually sells.

Although the iPad has created an enormous hype, one mustn’t forget that the jury is still out on whether it’ll be a huge success or a complete flop. It’s not only a new device, it’s a new type of device, and we’re eager to see what kind of ripples it’ll do to the IT market.

Tags: apple, ipad

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Washington Post:
If Democrats ignore health-care polls, midterms will be costly  —  In “The March of Folly,” Barbara Tuchman asked, “Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests?”  Her assessment of self-deception …

Claims that AMD has a some kind of Damascene conversion and is to finally target the netbook sector directly are, frankly, nonsense....

Sergey Chikuyonok gets his Philips Ambilight foo on as he created a HTML5 video + canvas sample that mimics the TV effect.

As the video runs, a snapshot is sent over to JavaScript land where colors are worked out:

•  
• function getMidColors(side) {
•         var w = buffer.width,
•                 h = buffer.height,
•                 lamps = getOption('lamps'),
•                 block_width = getOption('block_size'),
•                 block_height = Math.ceil(h / lamps),
•                 pxl = block_width * block_height * 4,
•                 result = [],
•  
•                 img_data = buffer_ctx.getImageData(side == 'right' ? w - block_width : 0, 0, block_width, h),
•                 total_pixels = img_data.data.length;
•  
•  
•         for (var i = 0; i <lamps; i++) {
•                 var from = i * w * block_width;
•                 result.push( calcMidColor(img_data.data, i * pxl, Math.min((i + 1) * pxl, total_pixels - 1)) );
•         }
•  
•         return result;
• }
•  

Then, two canvas objects are placed, one on each side, of the video itself.