Thursday, August 26, 2010

Netflix adds iPhone and iPod touch compatibility in latest app version

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/26/netflix-adds-iphone-and-ipod-touch-compatibility-in-latest-app-v/

We knew this was coming and here it is: the Netflix application, heretofore reserved only for iPad users, has trickled down to iPhone and iPod touch devices. Version 1.1.0 makes the TV show and movie streaming app universal -- so long as your universe is known as iOS -- and looks to massively expand the available audience for Netflix's mobile effort. What are you waiting for, go get it already.

[Thanks, Michael A.]

Netflix adds iPhone and iPod touch compatibility in latest app version originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 04:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS prepping Eee PC 1015PN/PEM versions with new dual-core Atom

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/26/asus-prepping-eee-pc-1015pn-pme-versions-with-new-dual-core-atom/

When Intel released the details on its dual-core, mobile Atom N550 processor earlier this week ASUS was one of the first to raise its hand with a netbook sporting the new CPU. Well, now we've got a few more details on the forthcoming Eee PC and unsurprisingly -- as it is coming from ASUS -- there appears to be a couple of different versions. The first is the 1015PEM, and according to TechInStyle, the small lappie will be powered by the new 1.5GHz N550 CPU, support up to 2GB of DDR3 RAM, and be €349 ($440 US) when it hits the market. However, we've also heard from ASUS's North American team of the 1015PN, which will add NVIDIA's Ion 2 platform to the mix and be landing stateside in September. Sounds like it could be one of the most powerful 10-inch netbooks to ever grace the planet, but unfortunately we don't have the exact specs and pricing on the latter one as of yet. Of course, as soon as we find out or see it hit Amazon we'll be reporting back.

Update: ASUS has gone and made the 1015PEM official. Well, it did for a while, page seems to have been yanked. See the Notebook Italia coverage for confirmation of the specs.

ASUS prepping Eee PC 1015PN/PEM versions with new dual-core Atom originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Now I Feel Old: Schools to Get Multitouch Interactive Whiteboards [Whiteboards]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5621379/now-i-feel-old-schools-to-get-multitouch-interactive-whiteboards

Now I Feel Old: Schools to Get Multitouch Interactive WhiteboardsTime for a next-gen spin on the age-old debate of whether a blackboard or whiteboard is better in the classroom? I pose that question because Panasonic's interactive multitouch whiteboard comes days after we saw Sharp's LCD blackboard. Who feels old?

Measuring 77-inches, Panasonic's UB-T880 whiteboard can be used by three people at once (making it "multitouch"), though it's worth pointing out that one will be holding the electronic pen, with the other two using more primitive tools—their fingers.

Snazzy features such as the ability to write in FOUR DIFFERENT COLORS, highlight in THREE DIFFERENT COLORS, listen to audio on the speakers and even activate the board remotely to turn PowerPoint pages, for example, are surely worth the AU$2,869 price-tag (USD$2,500). All that's written/drawn on the whiteboard can be saved to Word, Excel or PowerPoint once the Panaboard software is installed. [Panasonic via Gizmodo AU]

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How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take Them [How To]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5621475/how-to-automatically-upload-pictures-to-the-internet-as-you-take-them

How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take ThemAlthough technological advances have made uploading photos easier over the years, it's still impossible to have pictures you take with your DSLR transmitted immediately and automatically to the internet. Or is it?

In this article, we'll share out top secret industry secret method, which lets you use two cool gadgets together to automatically upload your photos as you take them, no matter where you are.

In order to pull this off, you're going to need the items pictured above. Seeing all this stuff laid out may seem a little daunting, but the basic idea is simple: the Eye-Fi is a special SD card that has a Wi-Fi antenna and a processor inside that allows it to automatically upload pictures, over a Wi-Fi network, to an online service. The mobile hotspot generates a Wi-Fi network anywhere, using a 3G signal.

To begin, you're going to want to configure your wireless hotspot to work in conjunction with your mobile PC. To set up your mobile hotspot, simply plug the device into the USB port in your computer, and follow the on-screen prompts for a quick installation of your mobile hotspot Access Manager.
How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take Them
Configuring your mobile hotspot isn't that hard hard, but you will need to enter a few pieces of basic information including an SSID and Network Key to allow access from any mobile device. Once you've configured your settings and are given an IP address, simply punch that into the URL bar of your favorite browser to gain access to your mobile hotspot's settings menu.
How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take Them
Luckily, the default formatted settings should work just fine for what you're looking to do, though keep this window open somewhere on your desktop in-case you're having trouble—some minor hiccups could affect your data transfer, but we'll touch more on this a little later. Now that your laptop/netbook is configured to run from your mobile hotspot, it's time to configure your Eye-Fi card, which is a strikingly similar process to configuring your Mi-Fi.

Pop your SD card into your computer (if it's a laptop, there's a good chance you've got a built in slot, if not, you'll need an external SD card reader). If it's the very first time you're using your Eye-Fi card, your computer should default you to the Eye-Fi Manager Software download screen. If your card has been used before or previously configured, check out the download page here.
How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take Them
Your Eye-Fi Manager is a web based interface that will allow you to customize your available network connections and map other potential cloud based pages to 'forward' your photos to. Configure your Eye-Fi card to work with your mobile hotspot by clicking on Wireless Networks in your Settings tab, and selecting your mi-fi.
How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take Them
The Photo Destination tab will allow you to choose from one (or multiple) of many social networking sites like Flickr, Facebook and Picassa to function as a repository for any and all images you take while your Eye-Fi card is in the camera.
How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take Them
Once you've chosen which website you'd like to send your photos out to, you're ready to pop your Eye-Fi card into your camera, and begin shooting. Keep in mind, your camera must be on for the images to transfer (so don't turn it off immediately after snapping a shot and expect to find it online), and we recommend keeping your mobile hot spot in your pocket for if you plan on moving around a lot. Upload speed is good, as long as you're in an area with good 3G coverage.

The service we used, Flickr, took a bit longer to receive the images (five minutes or so), though that's still a lot better than the amount of time it would take to find a Wi-Fi access point, transfer the pictures to your computer, and upload them.

Some Quick Tips For First Time Users:

Keep your camera on while using Eye-Fi: Turning your camera off between taking pictures will disrupt the data flow. Most cameras (especially point and shoots) will automatically turn themselves off after a set period of time, though this can often be disabled in the settings menu. This helps segway into our next point...

Bring extra batteries: If you plan on importing all of the pictures you take from an event, and your camera has to remain on the whole time, chances are you're going to need a spare battery or two. Pack accordingly.

WEP/WPA Security Settings: By default the MiFi runs WPA security which the Eye-Fi should work fine with. Our Mi-Fi was tweaked to run WEP which is compatible with more devices. In the interest of full disclosure, if you want to also run WEP on your Eye-Fi and MiFi, you'll need to access the MiFi's hidden configuration page. To do this, connect a notebook to the MiFi using a wireless connection. Fire up a browser and go to http://192.168.1.1/adv802.html. From there, you can tweak several hidden features in the MiFi.

How To: Automatically Upload Pictures To the Internet as You Take ThemMaximum PC brings you the latest in PC news, reviews, and how-tos.

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Libox is Your Own Personal P2P Network [Apps]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5621380/libox-is-your-own-personal-p2p-network

Libox is Your Own Personal P2P NetworkThe tiresome process of syncing your new stuff with your old stuff and your laptop stuff got a little easier today, with the launch of Libox—a personal P2P streaming application for all your media.

Libox has launched on iTunes, with an accompanying desktop client scanning the media content of your 'primary' computer, then distributing it all via a P2P network among your own devices. This could even beat Dropbox for modern media convenience. [Libox via TechCrunch]

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Evom Is a Minimal, Drag-and-Drop Video Converter [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5620334/evom-is-a-minimal-drag+and+drop-video-converter

Evom Is a Minimal, Drag-and-Drop Video Converter Mac OS X: The Mac has a few good and free video converters, but nothing is quite so simple and elegant as Evom. Backed by ffmpeg, it'll easily convert your video to the format you need with very little effort.

Evom Is a Minimal, Drag-and-Drop Video Converter

While Evom does a great of the standard operations you can get with most apps of its kind, it has a few minor features that really set it apart. Aside from its great, minimal interface it lets you convert video to audio (MP3 format). This is great if you want to use Evom's ability to pull music videos from the web and save the audio directly to iTunes. While Evom focuses on the iPod/iTunes standards, it can also help you create files that are upload-friendly for video sharing sites.

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Create Synchronicity Is a Tiny, Portable Backup and Sync Utility [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5620838/create-synchronicity-is-a-tiny-portable-backup-and-sync-utility

Create Synchronicity Is a Tiny, Portable Backup and Sync Utility Windows only: Portable, open-source backup utility Create Synchronicity is a tiny but powerful way to run backups or synchronize folders on your system, an external drive, or to another PC on your network.

Once you've launched the utility, you'll need to click on the New Profile icon and type in a name for the profile, which will open up the settings window where you can choose the source and destination folders and choose the other options you might want. Once you're done, you can easily run the backup profile, or setup scheduling options to happen automatically. Create Synchronicity is free and open source, works on Windows systems only.

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Change the Default Save Folder for Windows 7 Libraries to Something Else (Like Your Dropbox) [Windows Tip]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5620928/change-the-default-save-folder-for-windows-7-libraries-to-something-else-like-your-dropbox

change-default.jpgWhen you save a file into a Windows 7 library through the common "Save As" dialog, it ends up in just one of the folders that make up that library. Here's how to customize the default save location for any library.

As an example, if you were to save a Word document in your Documents library using the Save As dialog, it would end up in your My Documents folder by default. But what if you would prefer that the files get saved in a different folder that's still part of your Documents library? Like one of your Dropbox folders, for instance?

Change the Default Save Folder for Windows 7 Libraries to Something Else (Like Your Dropbox)

Changing Default Save Location: Method 1

You can simply click the "Includes 3 locations" in the Open/Save dialog to make your way into the quick properties window.

Change the Default Save Folder for Windows 7 Libraries to Something Else (Like Your Dropbox)

From here, you can easily add or remove library locations, and if you right-click on one of them, you can choose "Set as default save location". Useful!

Change the Default Save Folder for Windows 7 Libraries to Something Else (Like Your Dropbox)

Changing Default Save Location: Method 2

You can also head in Windows Explorer down to the Libraries section, right-click on any of the libraries, and choose Properties.

Change the Default Save Folder for Windows 7 Libraries to Something Else (Like Your Dropbox)

This will take you into the extended library properties window, where you can add or remove locations, and click the Set save location to set the default.

Change the Default Save Folder for Windows 7 Libraries to Something Else (Like Your Dropbox)

You'll note in the screenshots above that I've included my Dropbox documents folder—this is a really great way to include your Dropbox folders in the default libraries, and set the default location as your Dropbox instead of the regular folders.

Note: While we used the Documents library as the example here, this should work for any of your Windows 7 libraries.

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Know Your Rights: These Cards Might Help You Dodge Photo-Bullying [Photography]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5620625/know-your-rights-these-cards-might-help-you-dodge-photo+bullying

Know Your Rights: These Cards Might Help You Dodge Photo-BullyingWe've already explained why harassment against photographers is illegal and intolerable—but now resistance might be easier. PetaPixel is now selling a set of portable cards that clearly state your legal rights as a camera-carrying citizen.

Know Your Rights: These Cards Might Help You Dodge Photo-Bullying

The durable set, drawing on the legal expertise of attorney and photography expert Bert Krages, also doubles as standard white balance cards. [PetaPixel]

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Soon You'll Be Able To Make Phone Calls From Your Gmail Inbox [Unconfirmed]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5621146/soon-youll-be-able-to-make-phone-calls-from-your-gmail-inbox

Soon You'll Be Able To Make Phone Calls From Your Gmail InboxIt seems that Google might have a lovely new offering for us soon: A web-based VoIP client. According to CNET, we'll be able to access this client through our Gmail inboxes to make and take calls on the spot.

This web-based VoIP client appears to be the reason Google acquired Gizmo5—a company who offered a similar product—and could make life just a bit simpler by letting us use the Google Talk box in our web-based Gmail client to make calls.

Google has not given any further information regarding this service at this point, but I just hope they hurry up and release it. [CNET]

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Marvell says Armada chips will power new game platform

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/marvell-major-customer-launching-new-game-platform/

Marvell's been teasing potent little processors for over a year now, but we've yet to see the firm's Armada appear in anything we'd actually want... but co-founder Sehat Sutardja just let slip that Marvell silicon will power a genuine game console of some sort. "Approximately 15% of the sequential increase [in quarterly sales] was due to the initial production revenue from our ARMADA application processors, primarily as a result of a major customer preparing to launch a new gaming platform," he told investors in a conference call last week, which roughly translates to "We just sold a load of processors for a new game console, yo" if our business-speak is correct. While there's absolutely nothing connecting this transaction to Nintendo's 3DS (which was confirmed to have a Pica200 GPU), we honestly can't think of a single other game platform slated to launch anytime soon -- so don't be surprised if there's a quad-core Armada 600 under that variably-stereoscopic hood.

[Thanks, Roxanne]

Marvell says Armada chips will power new game platform originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 19:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSeeking Alpha  | Email this | Comments

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WD intros HomePlug-compatible powerline networking package

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/wd-intros-homeplug-compatible-powerline-networking-package/

Western Digital's bread and butter is (and will likely remain) storage, but as we all know, all the storage in the world is useless if you can't access it. It only makes sense, then, that the company would get behind the HomePlug bandwagon for networking all your connected devices over your home's existing electrical power lines. The WD Livewire Powerline AV Network Kit includes two HomePlug AV adapters with four Ethernet ports each, boasting data transfer speeds up to 200 megabits per second. And it's HomePlug compatible, meaning your previous investments in the technology won't go to waste. Available now for $140. PR after the break.

Continue reading WD intros HomePlug-compatible powerline networking package

WD intros HomePlug-compatible powerline networking package originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 20:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp's e-reader ready to 'rival the iPad' by year's end, may have a 3D future

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/25/sharps-e-reader-ready-to-rival-the-ipad-by-years-end-may-ha/

Sharp is going to launch its brand new e-reader in Japan this fall with US retail availability to follow by the end of the year. Riveting stuff, isn't it? Well, the company's President Mikio Katayama does his best to spice things up by proposing this device will aim "to rival the iPad," and it may well sport a color LCD if earlier indications still hold true, but what's really got us hot under the collar is the potential for 3D down the line. Katayama claims to have witnessed great enthusiasm for 3D -- particularly when it comes to games -- and posits it as a likely future direction for this new ebook reader. Multifunctional devices are what people want, he says, and since Sharp already has a 3D smartphone in the pipeline and a glasses-free 3D tablet display in the lab, we can't see many technical hurdles to the realization of his vision. Let's just hope his depth perception is accurate when it comes to measuring the interest in three-dee.

Sharp's e-reader ready to 'rival the iPad' by year's end, may have a 3D future originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 03:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceChunichi  | Email this | Comments

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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

New study sheds light on painkilling system in brain

Source: http://www.physorg.com/news201882502.html

Repeatedly boosting brain levels of one natural painkiller soon shuts down the brain cell receptors that respond to it, so that the painkilling effect is lost, according to a surprising new study led by Scripps Research Institute and Virginia Commonwealth University scientists. The study has important implications for drug development.

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ImageGrab Is a Powerful Video Screenshot Tool [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5620616/imagegrab-is-a-powerful-video-screenshot-tool

ImageGrab Is a Powerful Video Screenshot ToolWindows: Grabbing stills from a video using a traditional screenshot tool is a tedious hit-or-miss affair. ImageGrab is feature-packed tool for grabbing single stills, a series at set intervals, or scripting your own parameters for custom grabs.

ImageGrab makes it easy to precisely snap a frame directly from the source video itself. You can automate the process by setting ImageGrab to grab frames at a user-specified interval and stamp the grabs with information like the name of the file and where in the original video the grab is from.

If the default settings and toggles aren't versatile enough for you, ImageGrab supports user scripting. We tested both the portable and stable release ImageGrab 4.2 as well as the non-portable and beta of ImageGrab 5.0. Although we were disappointed the beta wasn't portable it was significantly more stable on our Windows 7 test machine than the older 4.2 version.

ImageGrab is freeware, Windows only. Have a favorite tool for snagging stills from a video? Let's hear about it in the comments.

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