Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, May 17, 2010

Tablet PC shocker! Fujitsu LifeBook T730 official, smaller version of T900

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/tablet-pc-shocker-fujitsu-lifebook-t730-official-smaller-versi/

It's good to have options, right? And, bam! Just like that, Fujitsu announces a little something called the LifeBook T730. Sporting the same Intel Core i5-520M, i5-540M, or i7-620M CPU available on the LifeBook T900, this bad boy packs up to 8GB RAM, 320GB HDD (or 128GBSSD with encryption), Bluetooth, HDMI output, pen input (with optional capacitive multitouch), and a Super-Multi DVD writer into a comparatively svelte, 12.1-inch LED backlit package. Prices start at a Rockefeller-esque $1,869 and move skyward ever-so-quickly depending on your needs and budget.

Tablet PC shocker! Fujitsu LifeBook T730 official, smaller version of T900 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 10:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DuPont can print a 50-inch OLED TV in two minutes, you'll be waiting a little longer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/dupont-can-print-a-50-inch-oled-tv-in-two-minutes-youll-be-wai/

DuPont can print a 50-inch OLED TV in two minutes, you still can't buy one

Right now LG's 15-inch OLED TV is the cheapest you can get -- but at about $2,500 it won't be rocking too many peoples' lives. We've heard promises of dropping costs thanks to printed displays for ages now, but never on a scale like this. DuPont has teamed up with Dainippon Screen to create a printing technique capable of line-feeding a 50-inch display in just two minutes. Two minutes! The printer is likened to a high precision garden hose, flying over the display surface at a speed of five meters per second depositing that good, good OLED juice in just the right places with nary a drip or an unwanted sprinkle. DuPont Displays President William Feehery says the technique "is worth scaling up" and could compete on cost with LCDs while delivering a 15-year lifespan. That's not quite the 100 years they promised us last time, but we'll take it. No word on when, or if, this technique will actually be deployed en masse.

DuPont can print a 50-inch OLED TV in two minutes, you'll be waiting a little longer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DIYer combines iPhone 3GS with Show WX for pico projected gaming bliss (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/diyer-combines-iphone-3gs-with-show-wx-for-pico-projected-gaming/

The Moject project proved that smartphones and pico projectors do indeed have a thing for one another, but Ethan Janson has taken things one step further with an unnamed contraption that holds his iPhone 3GS, a Microvision Show WX and an "ancient" point-and-shoot camera. Put simply, the handmade thingamajig allows him to play his iPhone games on a far larger screen, and since the Show WX continually autofocuses regardless of distance from walls, there's never a blurring issue when flailing about in order to control the gameplay. The full skinny is down there in the source, but shortcut takers can head straight past the break for a video.

[Thanks, Ethan]

Continue reading DIYer combines iPhone 3GS with Show WX for pico projected gaming bliss (video)

DIYer combines iPhone 3GS with Show WX for pico projected gaming bliss (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 13:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Limitless, Cheap Chips Made Out of DNA Could Replace Silicon

Source: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-05/limitless-cheap-dna-logic-chips-could-replace-silicon-processing-backbone

Silicon chips are on the way out, at least if Duke University engineer Chris Dwyer has his way. The professor of electrical and computer engineering says a single grad student using the unique properties of DNA to coax circuits into assembling themselves could produce more logic circuits in a single day than the entire global silicon chip industry could produce in a month.

Indeed, DNA is perfectly suited to such pre-programming and self-assembly. Dwyer's recent research has shown that by creating and mixing customized snippets of DNA and other molecules, he can create billions of identical, waffle-like structures that can be turned into logic circuits using light rather than electricity as a signaling medium.

The process works by adding light-sensitive molecules called chromophores to the structures. These chromophores absorb light, exciting the electrons within. That energy is passed to a different nearby chromophore, which uses the energy to emit light of a different wavelength. The difference in wavelength is easily differentiated from the original light; in computing terms, it's the difference between a one or a zero. Presto: a logic gate.

Rather than running computers and electrical circuits on electricity, light-sensitive DNA switches could be used to move signals through a device at much higher speeds. Furthermore, the waffle structures are cheap and can be made quickly in virtually limitless quantities, driving down the cost of computing power. Once you figure out how you wish to code the DNA snippets, you can synthesize them easily and repeatedly; from there you can create everything from a single logic gate to larger, more complex circuits.

A shift from silicon-based semiconductor chips would be a sea-change for sure, but semiconductors are reaching a technological ceiling and if the economics of DNA-based chips are really as attractive as they seem, change might be inevitable. DNA is already smart enough to be the foundation of life on Earth: why not the foundation of computing as well?

Diagram Designer Is a Free and Simple Diagram Designer [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5539057/diagram-designer-is-a-free-and-simple-diagram-designer

Windows: If you're looking for a quick and simple way to generate a flowchart, Diagram Designer is a free and lightweight tool for easy flowchart generation.

Diagram Designer offers easy chart creation with a library of flowchart nodes and connectors. Text in each element is customizable with a variety of tags and connectors automatically attach to points on each node. Every element is scalable and your charts are exportable in a variety of formats like JPG, PNG, and more.

Diagram Designer supports customization of nodes and importing of image files to the flowchart but it really shines with quick bare bones flowchart creation. Diagram Designer is freeware, Windows only. Have a favorite flowchart application online or off? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Diagram Designer [via Download Squad]

Five Best Bookmark Management Tools [Hive Five]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5540019/five-best-bookmark-management-tools

Five Best Bookmark Management Tools The web—and web browsers—evolve extremely quickly, but if there's one web browsing feature that's stood the test of time, it's browser bookmarks. Manage your bookmarks effectively and efficiently with one of these five bookmark management tools.

Above photo is a composite of images by kmg and flaivoloka.

If the only bookmarking you're doing is simply bookmarking web sites in your default browser using the default bookmarking tool, it's only a matter of time before you either end up with an overwhelming and incomprehensible pile of bookmarks, you lose your bookmarks file through some unforeseen problem, or both. The following tools will help you organize your bookmarks and avoid losing them to the long digital goodnight.

Weave (Web-Based/Firefox, Free)

Five Best Bookmark Management Tools
Mozilla Weave is an add-on for Firefox focused on unifying your Firefox browsing experience across platforms and locations. Weave syncs your bookmarks, bookmark toolbar, smart location bar, tabs, browsing history, and passwords across all the instances of Firefox you use—your desktop, laptop, mobile phone, and Firefox portable. In addition to syncing the files across all instances of Firefox, the settings are stored on Mozilla's servers so even if you crash your laptop and you're away from home you can quickly rebuild your bookmarks and browser settings from the Mozilla servers.

Xmarks (Web-based, Free)

Five Best Bookmark Management Tools
Formerly known as Foxmarks, Xmarks is more than just a bookmark tool. Xmarks syncs bookmarks, shares bookmarks, syncs profiles, and depending on the browser, will even sync tabs, passwords, and mobile bookmarks—check out the compatibility and feature comparison chart here. If you're privacy conscious and want to keep your bookmarks and browser settings in your own hands, you can even set up a private Xmarks server on your own web server to keep the entire process under your control but still keep your bookmarks seamlessly synced between browsers.

Diigo (Web-Based, Free)

Diigo is different from most bookmarking tools; it allows you to not only save the URL of a website, but annotate it, archive it (instead of merely saving the address of it), and share both your bookmarks and archived research with others. Even if you're currently only interested in a bookmarking service, it's nice to know that if you wish to expand your scope to archiving pages and collecting text in addition to just bookmarking URLs, you can do so easily with Diigo. You can access Diigo through their website, via the Diigo toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, via bookmarklet, or via the Diigo Chrome extension.

Delicious (Web-Based, Free)

Five Best Bookmark Management Tools
Delicious is a social bookmarking service. By default, your Delicious bookmarks are public—unless you check the "private" box in the bookmark adding dialog. Delicious is focused on sharing bookmarks and engaging in social interaction around them. The public lists of what is hot and trending and the ability to easily share bookmarks with friends and the greater public are solid features of Delicious that really set it apart from less social bookmark tools. The most notable feature about Delicious is the tag-based organization system. There is no hierarchy in the Delicious system for saving and organizing bookmarks, everything is driven by tags—saving, searching, and organizing. You can add bookmarks to and access bookmarks from Delicious through the web site, via bookmarklet, and numerous Firefox and Chrome add-ons.

Google Bookmarks (Web-Based, Free)

Five Best Bookmark Management Tools
While some bookmark services, notably Delicious (see below), are focused on public sharing, Google Bookmarks is a private bookmarking tool with some public elements tacked on for those who desire them. The default mode of operation with Google Bookmarks is to keep your bookmarks private. You can save bookmarks in Google Bookmarks by using the Google Toolbar, starring search results while logged into your Google Account—this works with any browser so long as you're searching at Google and logged into your Google Account—or using the Google Bookmarks bookmarklet. Bookmarks can be organized into private, semi-private, or public lists for organizing your research for personal use, sharing among friends, or sharing with the public respectively. You can access your Google Bookmarks from any browser by logging into your Google account.

Now that you've had a chance to look over the top five contenders for bookmark management tools, it's time to cast your vote for your favorite tool for the job:

Which Bookmark Management Tool Is Best?online survey

Have a favorite tool, trick, or tip you want to share that wasn't highlighted here? Let's hear about it in the comments. Have an idea for the next Hive Five? Send us an email at tips@lifehacker.com and we'll do our best to give your idea the limelight it deserves.

Home Depot Ordered To Pay $25 Million For Stealing Inventor's Safety Gizmo [Lawsuits]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5539322/home-depot-ordered-to-pay-25-million-for-stealing-inventors-safety-gizmo

Home Depot Ordered To Pay Million For Stealing Inventor's Safety Gizmo Years ago, Floridian inventor Michael Powell pitched Home Depot a device that would keep its employees' fingers safe when cutting wood for customers. It worked so well that they stole his idea. Now Powell's getting sweet, $25 million justice.

Before Michael Powell came along, Home Depot employees were slicing off fingers left and right, resulting in nearly $1 million a year in worker's compensation claims. But Powell devised a simple guard for protecting workers' digits and let the company test it out in eight stores in the area. The trial was a huge success—and cut worker's compensation claims down to $7000 the following year—but instead of ponying up Powell's proposed $2000 per device, Home Depot just went ahead and fabricated copies of the saw guards without Powell's consent.

According to court documents, when Powell's claim to the invention was brought up in a meeting, one Home Depot executive responded, "Fuck Michael Powell. Let him sue us." Well, hey, Powell did just that, and after a series of courtroom victories, he's now looking to collect some $25 million from the company.

Handing down the latest ruling, a district judge said:

Home Depot knew exactly what it was doing. They simply pushed Mr. Powell away and they did it totally and completely for their own economic benefit.

As it turns out, the economic benefit is all Powell's. Home Depot: supporting local inventors, advertently or otherwise! [Palm Beach Post via Consumerist]

Image credit Neubie

Auto-dimming electrochromic panels reduce glare when driving (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/15/auto-dimming-electrochromic-panels-reduce-glare-when-driving-vi/

It's rush hour, and you're headed due West on your evening commute -- the sun burning holes in your eyes. You could flip down a window visor, trading your field of view for visibility. Or, with a prototype shown off at Intel's 2010 International Science and Engineering Fair, you could simply let the windshield darken on its own. Two San Diego students (both accustomed to copious amounts of sunshine) rigged a Toyota Prius to do just that by stringing up electrochromic panels, which dim when voltage is applied. The trick is figuring out when and where to apply it, because when the sun is shining the panels themselves all receive the same amount of light. So instead of gauging it at the glass, Aaron Schild and Rafael Cosman found that an ultrasonic range finder could track the driver's position while a VGA webcam measured the light coming through, and darken the sections liable to cause the most eyestrain. We saw a prototype in person, and it most certainly works... albeit slowly. If you're rearing to roll your own, it seems raw materials are reasonably affordable -- Schild told us electrochromic segments cost $0.25 per square inch -- but you may not need to DIY. Having won $4,000 in prize money at the Fair, the teens say they intend to commercialize the technology, and envision it natively embedded in window glass in the not-too-distant future. Here's hoping GM gives them a call. See pics of the Prius below, or check out a video demo of their prototype right after the break.

Gallery: Electrochromic Windshield Panels at ISEF 2010

Continue reading Auto-dimming electrochromic panels reduce glare when driving (video)

Auto-dimming electrochromic panels reduce glare when driving (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 May 2010 12:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP's $950 TouchSmart tm2 surfaces at Amazon with Core i3-330M

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/15/hps-950-touchsmart-tm2-surfaces-at-amazon-with-core-i3-330m/

Don't you just love it when a plan comes together? Just a week after hearing that HP would soon be refreshing its TouchSmart tm2 convertible tablet with Core i3 and Core i5 options, in flies this: an Amazon product page confirming as much. The 12.1-inch, 4.72-pound TouchSmart tm2-2050us is currently in pre-order status, rocking a 2.13GHz Core i3-330M processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 640GB hard drive (5400RPM), Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), a WXGA LED-backlit display, Intel's integrated graphics set, Altec Lansing speakers, a 5-in-1 card reader and gigabit Ethernet. You'll also get a brushed aluminum finish, inbuilt webcam and fingerprint reader, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, a trio of USB 2.0 sockets, HDMI / VGA outputs, audio in / out and a battery good for around four hours of use. You can get in line now in exchange for $949.99, and if we were the betting type, we'd surmise that a Core i5 version was just around the bend.

[Thanks, Daniel]

HP's $950 TouchSmart tm2 surfaces at Amazon with Core i3-330M originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 May 2010 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EB710 e-reader rocks an LCD, intriguing user interface

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/16/eb710-e-reader-rocks-an-lcd-intriguing-user-interface/

Looks like this one's been sitting around in the shadows for awhile now, and in fact, we can't even find the bona fide manufacturer of this here device. Boasting a 7-inch LCD (since when were those deemed fit for reading on?), built-in rechargeable battery, multimedia player, image viewer, optional FM radio, USB 2.0 connector and a user interface that almost looks a wee bit like Android at a glance. Regrettably, there's no pricing or availability details to be found (nor any indication of an inbuilt wireless module), but we're guessing the mystery owners here wouldn't try moving this one for too much.

EB710 e-reader rocks an LCD, intriguing user interface originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 13:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS makes EeePC 1015P and 1015PE official, endows them with 13.5 hours of battery life

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/16/asus-makes-eeepc-1015p-and-1015pe-official-endows-them-with-13/

It's hard to differentiate yourself in the netbook world nowadays -- pretty much every manufacturer is trudging along the same Pine Trail, with the same one, maybe two, gigabytes of RAM and 160GB to 320GB in storage. So ASUS, the original gangster of this sector, is aiming to wow consumers with a scintillating 13.5 hours of autonomous use courtesy of its 6-cell 63Wh battery pack. The EeePC 1015P and 1015PE differ only in aesthetics, with both sporting 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 screens and Atom N450 processors. No, that's not going to break any performance records, but if that longevity number proves true, we suspect there'll be plenty of eager buyers out there. Price and availability haven't yet been revealed, but ASUS doesn't usually keep us waiting so look out for these in the very near future.

ASUS makes EeePC 1015P and 1015PE official, endows them with 13.5 hours of battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inspiron M301z: Dell's first laptop to take on AMD's new dual-core Neo

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/inspiron-m301z-dells-first-laptop-to-take-on-amds-new-dual-co/

If the words "Dell" and "AMD" excite you then lean in, we've got something for you. You won't find it on Dell's US site just yet, but Dell Singapore is showing off its first laptop to feature AMD's new Nile-class of processors. The Inspiron M301z starts at $999 (that's about $715 of the US green stuff) with a 1.3GHz dual-core Athlon II Neo K325 processor (optional 1.5GHz Neo K625), 2GB (up to 4GB supported) of 1,333MHz DDR3 memory and a 320GB hard disk spinning at 7,200RPM, ATi Mobility Radeon HD 4225 integrated graphics, a glossy 13.3-inch WLED display pushing 1,366x768 pixels, and a 6-cell 44WHr battery for up to 5-hours of promised life. It's available for purchase now in Singapore and likely elsewhere just as soon as the sun begins to warm the western world.

[Thanks, Qayser]

Inspiron M301z: Dell's first laptop to take on AMD's new dual-core Neo originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 01:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's EX1 / TL500 flagship compact articulates 'release' in Korean

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/samsungs-ex1-tl500-flagship-compact-camera-articulates-a-kore/

It's out, Samsung's 10 megapixel EX1 (aka, TL500) with 3-inch articulating AMOLED display was just pushed out for retail in its Korean homeland. For 599,000KRW or about $400, you get a F1.8 24mm ultra-wide lens, 1/1.7-inch CCD, refined DRIMeIII imaging processor, dual image stabilization, and ISO 3200 max sensitivity (at full resolution) that should combine to deliver decent shots (for a compact) in low-light conditions without using a flash. As Samsung's flagship compact it also supports RAW with shutter‑priority, aperture‑priority and full-manual shooting modes. Unfortunately, H.264 video is limited to 640x480 pixels at 30fps. Fortunately, an optional optical viewfinder can be fitted to the hot shoe in case the AMOLED display fails to hold up under direct sunlight -- a very real possibility since there's no mention of Samsung's "Super AMOLED" anywhere in the press release. Can't wait to see the reviews on this pup.

Samsung's EX1 / TL500 flagship compact articulates 'release' in Korean originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 05:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA puts its Tegra 2 eggs in Android's basket, aims to topple Apple's A4

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/nvidia-puts-its-tegra-2-eggs-in-androids-basket-aims-to-topple/

Microsoft's Kin One and Kin Two might not turn out to be the most auspicious devices for Tegra's debut in the smartphone arena, but NVIDIA seems to be learning from its mistakes. Admitting that the company committed too strongly to Microsoft with the first-gen iteration, Jen-Hsun Huang has now said that the second generation of Tegra will look to Android devices first and foremost. This newfound focus will materialize with both smartphones and tablets in the third and fourth quarter of this year, and will, according to Jen-Hsun, offer device makers a viable competitor to Apple's A4 SOC. In other news, NVIDIA has now shipped "a few hundred thousand" Fermi cards, and has also achieved 70 design wins with its Optimus graphics switching technology. Eleven of those are now out in the wild, but the vast majority are still to come, mostly as part of the seasonal "back to school" refresh at the end of the summer. These revelations came during the company's earnings call for the first quarter of its 2011 fiscal year, and you can find the full transcript at the source below.

[Thanks, TareG]

NVIDIA puts its Tegra 2 eggs in Android's basket, aims to topple Apple's A4 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 04:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Mondrian with 1.3GHz Snapdragon detailed in leaked Windows Phone 7 ROM?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/17/htc-mondrian-with-1-3ghz-snapdragon-detailed-in-leaked-windows-p/

As expected, the official-looking Windows Phone 7 OS ROM leaked over the weekend is already yielding results. Pictured above is an image extracted from the "oemavatar.cab." Now that could be a generic Windows Phone 7 image or it could be the HTC Mondrian already seen referenced by the 100MB file. The kids at XDA-Developers have also pieced together specs from an ongoing analysis of the registry and RGU files. So far they've spotted references to a 4.3-inch WVGA (480x800) display from Optrex and a 1.3GHz QSD8650A/B Snapdragon from Qualcomm -- a chipset, you might recall, supporting multi-mode UMTS and CDMA 3G connectivity. It's also packing a digital compass but seems to lack a keyboard. Mind you, none of this is absolute but it's very very intriguing.

[Thanks, Andrew]

HTC Mondrian with 1.3GHz Snapdragon detailed in leaked Windows Phone 7 ROM? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 05:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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