Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A Hotel Wifi Hack

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/AVc/~3/253719935/a-hotel-wifi-ha.html

For those who haven't been following me on twitter or my tumblog or friendfeed, I am on vacation with my family in Hawaii.

Our hotel offers wifi, but no ethernet option, in the rooms. It's $11/day for seven days, or a total of $77 for hotel wifi for the week we are here. Not terrible, but what about the fact that all five of us have laptops and want to use them this week? $385 for the week for internet for the family is not an option.

So I came up with this cool hack that I though I'd share with all of you who might find yourself in the same situation. We signed up the Gotham Gal's macbook to the hotel wifi. Then we shared that connection via ethernet using the sharing feature in system preferences. Here's a sreen shot of my laptop's sharing options:

You can share a lot of resources on a mac, but in this case, you only need to share Internet and you need to share it via Ethernet.

Then I pulled out our trusty Airport Express which you can buy for $99. I never travel without it. It has come in handy so many times.

I connected the Gotham Gal's macbook ethernet port to the AIrport Express' ethernet port and we now have open wifi for everyone on our two hotel rooms.

It works great. The only thing is we can't disconnect Gotham Gal's laptop or turn it off or put it to sleep. Everyone is happy. Which is a good thing on a family vacation.

Panasonic Goes Touchscreen With the LUMIX FX500 Digital Camera

It may not be first touchscreen digital camera on the market, but Panasonic's new LUMIX FX500 is better late than never with a 3-inch touchscreen LCD and the same 25mm ultra-wide-angle Leica DC lens 10.1MP resolution, intelligent ISO and face detection as the FX35. It also features a 5x optical zoom, auto focus tracking and the ability to shoot HD video (1280 x 720p) content and still photos with a 16:9 aspect ratio. Not too bad for the $399.95 price tag. Expect to see it on store shelves starting this May. Additional pic and press release after the break.

IBM's light pulse love affair continues with tiniest nanophotonic switch

Posted Mar 17th 2008 8:59AM by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Merely months after IBM first inserted silicon nanophotonics into our memory bank, and just weeks after we drooled all over ourselves reading about its green optical link, the mega-corp has chosen St. Patrick's Day to trumpet the development of the "world's tiniest nanophotonic switch." The device, which boasts a footprint "about 100 times smaller than the cross section of a human hair," is said to be a vital part of creating an on-chip optical network. More specifically, it's bringing the gurus behind it one step closer to conjuring up multi-core CPUs that transmit data with light pulses rather than relying on electrical signals on copper wires. This particular switch would essentially divert traffic within the network, ensuring that "optical messages from one processor core could efficiently get to any of the other cores on the chip." Keep on livin' the dream IBM -- just ping us when this stuff is anywhere near ready for the commercial market.

Read

Samsung said to be prepping lower cost, education-minded Q1 Ultra

Posted Mar 17th 2008 2:33PM by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Handhelds

Samsung's already busted out a handful of different Q1 Ultra models, but it looks like it's now come up with yet another variation to throw out there, this one aimed at the education market. According to Pocket-lint, Samsung is dishing out this latest incarnation in order to compete with Asus' upcoming 9-inch, Windows-based Eee PC, although it's not quite going head-to-head with it in terms of price, with this particular model apparently set to demand £399 (or just over $800) when it hits the UK next month (no word on a release 'round these parts). While complete specs are still a bit light at the moment, the new Q1 will apparently drop the spiffy dual camera and cut back on the hard drive to keep the cost down.

Read

GreenFuel Technologies signs deal to build algae fuel plant

Posted Mar 17th 2008 4:24PM by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

As we've seen already, algae is big business these days, and it now looks like the alternative source of fuel is getting another shot in the arm, with GreenFuel Technologies recently announcing a deal to build an "algae-to-fuel" plant in Europe. The company, as you may or may not know, is now headed (at least temporarily) by Ethernet pioneer Bob Metcalf, with its main claim to fame being a bioreactor that's designed to grow algae from the carbon dioxide emissions of power plants. While complete details are still pretty light at the moment, that bit of technology was apparently enough to score it a $92 million deal with somebody (actually negotiated by the former CEO), which is reportedly contingent on it first building a small scale pilot plant and meeting cost and productivity goals along the way. As Xconomy reports, however, this latest development follows some hard times faced by the company, during which time it actually had to shut down one of its algae greenhouses after it produced more algae than the system could handle.

[Via Green Tech Blog]

Samsung announces world's thinnest 8 megapixel cellphone module

Posted Mar 18th 2008 3:14AM by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Measuring just 8.5-mm thin, you're looking at what Samsung claims to be the slimmest CMOS camera module of its kind. The 8 megapixel module is expected to supplant the 5 megapixel job found in todays top-end cameraphones sometime in the second half of the year. Fortunately, this isn't just a case of megapixel marketing as the module also features anti-shake, a 1-cm macro, and face tracking technology. It also packs a smile shutter feature to snap that picture just as soon as a smile, or vinegar, is detected.

Read

Intel's 6-core Dunnington CPU coming this year, Nehalem gets official

Posted Mar 18th 2008 6:42AM by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Quad-core shmod-core Intel, we need 6 cores or more to keep our uh, web browsers snappy. While you're at it, how about tossing in some Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT) so that each core can process two threads at a time -- 16 simultaneous threads per 8-core processor or 32 for dual-processor, 8-core rigs. If that sounds good then you're in luck; Intel just went official with its near-term architecture plans which include the 2008 launch of a 6-core Dunnington-class server CPU platform based on Intel's 45-nm Penryn "tick" architecture. On deck is Intel's second generation Nehalem "tock" architecture with SMT and scalable from 2- to 8-cores. We're talking "dramatic" performance and energy improvements, according to Intel, from a microarchitecture bent on delivering an 8 MB level-3 cache, DDR3-800 memory support, 25.6GB per second Quickpath interconnects (so long Front Side Bus!), an integrated memory controller and optional integrated graphics to high-end servers and eventually laptops. Hear that AMD? Tick, tock goes the clock.

P.S. That's Nehalem pictured. What, can't you tell?

[Via BetaNews, thanks Mike O.]

Eye-Fi SD card cracked, splayed

Posted Mar 18th 2008 8:12AM by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Wireless, Storage

Damn, that's a lot of technology packed into the tiny wireless Eye-Fi SD card. We're used to seeing cellphones and laptops stripped to the silicon bone but this is something special. Just look at that tiny 2GB Samsung NAND chip and even tinier Atheros ROCm 802.11b/g WiFi module. Hit the read link for all the techie gore.

[Thanks, John R.]

Luxim wants to brighten your block with ultra-powerful plasma lightbulbs

Posted Mar 18th 2008 9:58AM by Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Sure, we all enjoy a Tic Tac from time to time, but what if that minty Tic Tac were also able to generate the same amount of light as an industrial LED? You probably wouldn't want to ingest that, though according to the company Luxim -- known to us for its work in the A/V world -- you might want to stick it in a streetlight. Apparently, the company has created a micro-sized bulb that uses 250 watts of power, but outperforms a 400 watt LED. Gas inside the tiny bulb is electrified by a component called a puck, which heats the gas into plasma and produces light, allowing a sizable chunk of energy to become light rather than heat -- thus the ultra-bright performance. Inside the mint-sized bulb the gas reaches 6000-degrees Kelvin -- or about the surface temperature of the Sun -- producing 140 lumens per watt, or roughly ten times that of a standard lightbulb. Really, it's quite bright. Still, a Tic Tac would probably be more refreshing. [Via CNET]

Luxim's 250W Tic-Tac Sized Bulb Blows Away 400W LEDs

Luxim's new bulb may only be the size of a Tic-Tac, but this little bugger can crank out way more light at 250 watts than a traditional 400 watt LED. It can achieve this feat thanks to gas that is heated inside the bulb via electrical energy delivered to it by a "puck." As the gas turns to plasma, the bulb is illuminated. However, since most of the energy is not lost to heat, the light can reach a high level of brightness. In fact, it can produce up to 140 lumens per watt which is twice that of an LED and around 10 times that of a standard bulb. Impressive. Hit the link to see the light in action. [CNET and Luxim]

Intel details the Larrabee next-gen hybrid CPU / GPU

Posted Mar 18th 2008 4:54PM by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Although they've gotten better recently, Intel's integrated graphics chipsets have never gotten a ton of love -- the underpowered 915 chipset is at the heart of the whole "Vista Capable" debacle, for example -- but it looks like the company's about to make a strong play to be your new pixel-pusher of choice with the new Larrabee graphics chip. Based on the x86 instruction set, the new chip isn't just limited to GPU duties, but can serve as a general-purpose processor as well. Early 16-core versions have been developed with max speeds of over 2GHz, but the design can apparently scale to thousands of cores in the future. The plan is first to release Larrabee chips as separate graphics units in Q4 of this year, but early next year we should see both laptop and desktop-oriented 45nm Nehalem processors with the Larrabee tech built right in. That should beat AMD's Fusion processors to market -- looks like the race is on. Read - PC Perspective roadmap article with Intel slides Read - DailyTech roadmap with Larrabee details

Sony XEL-1 hands-on

Posted Mar 18th 2008 11:44PM by Darren Murph

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

It's one thing to swoon all over Sony's 3-millimeter thin XEL-1 OLED while being keenly observed by likely armed guards. It's another to bust this baby out in the comfort of one's home. Our comrades over at the Spanish branch were able to do just that, and of course, they snapped a few glamor shots before ruining its allure with fingerprints. Curiously enough, their model arrived sans an Ethernet port -- needless to say, we're still waiting to find out the story behind that. Grab anything that can work as a drool rag and hit up the gallery below.

Gallery: Sony XEL-1 hands-on

Monday, March 17, 2008

InnoDisk intros 128GB FiD 2.5-inch SATA 10000 SSD

Posted Mar 15th 2008 11:54PM by Darren Murph

Filed under: Storage

If you were impressed with OCZ's latest 2.5-inch SSDs, chances are you'll be thoroughly enamored by InnoDisk's FiD 2.5-inch SATA 10000. 'Course, it's certainly not the first 128GB solid state disc we've seen, but it does boast a rugged metal enclosure and promises sustained read / write rates of up to 110Mbps / 90Mbps. Reportedly, this SLC NAND flash drive will see its way out to samplers later this month, and it should start shipping in volume sometime during Q2.

[Via FarEastGizmos]

Details Emerge on Intel's First Mobile Quad-core Processor

Chinese-language site HKEPC is reporting that Intel's first mobile quad-core processor will be the 45nm Penryn-based Core 2 Extreme QX9300. The chip will clock speeds of 2.53 GHz, have 12 MB of L2 Cache and 1066 MHz FSB. The QX9300, however, won't be part of the Q2 Centrino 2 launch because it is a 45W processor and current motherboards are designed for 35W chips. [HKEPC via Register Hardware]

Varioptic and Seiko to Bring Liquid Lenses to Cellphones, Finally

Varioptic has been talking about bringing liquid lenses to cellphones since 2005, but now they have teamed up with Seiko and the watery dreams look to be coming alive. Liquid lenses have the added benefit of being speedier and less power hungry than conventional lenses, but the release of Varioptic's pioneering technology for cellphones has been in the pipe lines for almost two years. Thankfully, Seiko has stepped up to the mark, coining a mass production date of Q3, 2008. The initial models that will be created are the Arctic 314 and Arctic 416, which rate 5 mega pixels in 0.33-inch and 0.25-inch modules. The faster lenses should see an increase in video capture quality and battery life for cellphones adopting the new standard, which can only be a good thing

MIT Media Lab's Siftables Are Cool, But Ultimately Useless

These Siftables from MIT Media Labs are small Post It-sized displays with processing power built in, allowing it to communicate with other Siftables as well as detect motion and proximity. You'll have to see what that means in the video, as they have different examples of shaking these Siftables, connecting them together, and having each respond accordingly to the one next to it. In its current form it's just a neat toy that doesn't really do much, but if you can adapt this to say, cellphones or MP3 players—stuff people actually carry around with them every day—it might make for some neat interactivity when you and your friends meet up and make your iPhones kiss. [MIT via OhGizmo]

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