Wednesday, December 07, 2011

drag2share: LG Nitro HD review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/lg-nitro-hd-review/

And then there were three. AT&T's lonesome LTE duo -- the Samsung GS II Skyrocket and HTC Vivid -- just gained a new member with the recent launch of LG's Nitro HD. You may recognize this particular handset from its former life as the Optimus LTE, except here the phone's been rebranded with a moniker that more astutely conveys its blazing 4G purpose. There may be tough times ahead for the handset, considering the current crop of high-end devices hogging the spotlight. But if three's company, the Galaxy Nexus, HTC Rezound and Droid RAZR are sure to make this a standing room-only crowd -- an especially haughty bunch given their heavyweight specs. Which is why this sudden end-of-year release for the Nitro HD has us questioning the company's timing. Sure, it's no slouch when stacked up against the competition, with a 4.5-inch 1280 x 720 AH-IPS display, dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm APQ8060 processor and 1.3 front-facing / 8 megapixel rear cameras. Yet at $250 on contract, the Nitro HD needs to outshine the legacy set by its best-in-class Sammy stablemate or, at least, offer a performance boost over the cheaper Vivid. So can LG's last second contender rise above the fray to win your holiday dollars? Will it succeed in outclassing its LTE compadres? Or is it a case of too little, too late for this me too three! smartphone. Follow on past the break as we dive into the mobile nitty gritty.

Continue reading LG Nitro HD review

LG Nitro HD review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Intel springs another leak, mobile Ivy Bridge CPUs abound

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/07/intel-springs-another-leak-mobile-ivy-bridge-cpus-abound/

Just yesterday, we caught a glimpse of what Intel has in store for Ivy Bridge, and it seems those details were but a prelude to a bevy of details that leaked out today. It seems the folks over at VR Zone got their hands on some of Chipzilla's internal documents showing a host of changes for its post-Sandy Bridge mobile CPUs. Apparently, we can expect quite a few new full-power models, including a 2.9GHz Core i7-3920XM -- clocked at 200MHz faster than the Core i7-2960XM that's Intel's presiding mobile chipset champion -- along with two other quad-core Core i7s and a couple of Core i5 chips as well. For those who cherish battery life above all else, there's a dual-core Core i7-3667U clocked at 2.0 GHz and a 1.8GHz Core i5-3427U coming down the pipe. All the speedy new silicon comes with upgraded Intel HD 4000 graphics, and is slated for release in April and May of next year. If you can't wait until then for your next-gen CPU fix, head on over to the source for a heaping helping of Ivy Bridge charts and specs.

Intel springs another leak, mobile Ivy Bridge CPUs abound originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Add Telephoto Powers to Your Lens for Cheap [Photography]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5865588/add-telephoto-powers-to-your-lens-for-cheap

Add Telephoto Powers to Your Lens for CheapZoom lenses are expensive. Telephotos lenses are really expensive. But if you want to shove a little extra optical oomph into you camera, this 2x $50 telephoto adapter is a killer deal. Just screw 'er on and shoot.

It's as easy as it is cheap—each lens adapter is made for whichever lens you're seating it on—77 through 49 mm threads—and about doubles the focal length of your cam. A 50mm lens becomes a 105mm, pretty much. And for $50, that ain't bad! The thing is pretty, cheap, and portable—three wonderful adjectives, and rare when it comes to photography. [Photojojo]

Add Telephoto Powers to Your Lens for Cheap

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drag2share: 128Gb NAND Chips Promise SD Cards with Terabytes of Storage [Memory]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5865748/128gb-nand-chips-promise-phones-with-terabytes-of-storage

128Gb NAND Chips Promise SD Cards with Terabytes of StorageCell phones have taken another step towards becoming full-fledged pocket computers with an announcement by Micron and Intel. Get ready to carry even more of your digital life on your phone.

The 128Gb NAND device, a world's first, is the result of a multi-year collaboration between the memory and chip manufacturers. It uses MLC technology and has to potential to store as much as 2 terabytes of data on a 2.5-inch SSD drive—128GB per chip—and perform as many as 33 megatransfers per second on an eight die form. It goes on sale in January and is expected to quickly outpace the 64Gb version that is already in production.

You'll find NAND flash memory in most SD card formats and SSD's as well as many USB drives as it offers superior densities and greater fault tolerances than NOR memory. So expect to see huge capacity gains in phones, cameras, thumb drives—just about anything with non-volatile memory. [Slashgear - ArsTechnica]

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Tuesday, December 06, 2011

drag2share: CMU Researchers One-Up Google Image Search And Photosynth With Visual Similarity Engine

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/06/cmu-researchers-one-up-google-image-search-and-photosynth-with-visual-similarity-engine/

head

To search these days is really an incredibly service-intensive process. Whereas before, to search something meant you had to through its drawers or folders by hand and inspect things by eye, now it means simply to produce a query and allow the vast computational engines of cloud services to exert themselves in parallel, sifting through petabytes of data and instantly presenting you with your results, ordered and arranged like snacks on a platter. We’re spoiled, to say the least.

It’s not enough, however, to have computers blindly compare 1s and 0s; when humans search, they search intelligently. We’ve seen incredible leaps in the ability to do this, and in the area of visual search, we’ve seen some interesting and practical technologies in (respectively) Photosynth and Google’s search by image function. And now some researchers at CMU have taken another step in the education of our tools. Their work, being presented at SIGGRAPH Asia, cleaves even closer to human visual cognition, though there’s still a long way to go on that front.

The challenge, when comparing images for similarity, is how to determine the parts of the image that make it unique. For us this is child’s play, literally: we learn the basics of visual distinction when we are toddlers, and have decades of practice. Computer vision, on the other hand, has no such biological library to draw on and must work algorithmically.

To this end, the researchers at Carnegie Mellon have determined an interesting way of comparing images. Instead of comparing a given image head to head with other images and trying to determine a degree of similarity, they turned the problem around. They compared the target image with a great number of random images and recorded the ways in which it differed the most from them. If another image differs in similar ways, chances are it’s similar to the first image. Ingenious, isn’t it?

The results speak for themselves: not only are they, like Google’s search tools, able to find images with similar shapes or, like Photosynth, able to find images of the same object or location with variations in color or angle, but they are able to reliably match very different versions of an image, like sketches, paintings, or images from totally different seasons or what have you.

Their video explains it pretty well:

Essentially, it’s an image comparison tool that acts more like a human: identifying not the ways in which a scene is like other scenes, but how it is different from everything else in the world. It recognizes the dome of St. Peter’s whether it’s Summer or Winter, ball point pen or photo.

Naturally there are limitations. The process is not very efficient and is extremely CPU-intensive; while Google may have reasonably similar images returned to you in half a second, the CMU approach would take much longer due to the way it must sift through countless images and do complicated zone-based comparisons. But the results are much more accurate and reliable, it seems, and calculation time will only decrease.

What will happen next? The research will almost certainly continue, and as this is a hot space right now, I wouldn’t be surprised to see these guys snapped up by one of the majors (Google, Microsoft, Flickr) in a bid to outpace the others at visual search. Update: Google is in fact one of the funders of the project, though in what capacity and at what level is not disclosed.

The research team consists of Abhinav Shrivastava, Tomasz Malisiewicz, Abhinav Gupta, and Alexei A. Efros, who is leading the project. The full paper can be downloaded here (PDF) and there is some supplementary info and video at the project site if you’re interested.



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drag2share: LG DoublePlay review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/lg-doubleplay-review/

It's no secret that Android's dominance of the smartphone world is due in part to the sheer number of models available running the OS. This abundance of choice, while undoubtedly good for consumers, presents a challenge for OEMs as they design and build handsets: how to craft a device that stands out from the crowd? At this point, we've seen slabs of all sizes, a legion of landscape sliders, and a dual-screen oddity join the Android family. Now, LG has created the DoublePlay, giving users both a hint of the Echo's dual screen experience along with a split physical keyboard for tactile typing. In doing so, the company has accomplished something we weren't sure was possible by building a unique Android phone. The question is, does this unusual form factor provide an improved user experience, or is it destined to go down in gadget history as a gimmick?

Continue reading LG DoublePlay review

LG DoublePlay review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Triggertrap automatic shutter release hits production, links your camera to most things

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/triggertrap-automatic-shutter-release-hits-production-links-you/

Want your camera to take a shot whenever the phone rings or someone loads your blog page? Triggertrap can arrange that for you. This Arduino-powered box has managed to cross the funding finish-line and will be bringing its multi-source automatic release to camera creatives early next year. The former Insert Coin project can communicate with cameras through either a wired connection or its own IR transmitter. It can initiate shutter release from a multitude of sensors, with the built-in light, laser and sound sensors backed up by an auxiliary port, meaning it can be hooked up to anything capable of generating an electronic signal. With prototype testing complete, the Triggertrap looks set to ship in early February next year, with a special build-your-own version appearing soon after that. The ready-made options will set you back $125, while the customizable 'shield' version is pegged at $75. Interested? Well, hold on after the break for a full video tour of the cherry red hardware.

Continue reading Triggertrap automatic shutter release hits production, links your camera to most things

Triggertrap automatic shutter release hits production, links your camera to most things originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 11:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Google brings graphing calculator functionality to search, still can't play 'Snake'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/google-brings-graphing-calculator-functionality-to-search-still/

Well, Google's gone an done it, turning the Internet into one giant graphing calculator. The software behemoth has brought graphing capabilities to search, letting users input a mathematical function into the engine -- or multiple functions, separated by commas. And, this being Google, users can explore the graphs more closely by zooming in and out and panning across. According to the company, it "covers an extensive range of single variable functions including trigonometric, exponential, logarithmic and their compositions." If you know what all of that means, we're guessing you're pretty psyched about this news.

Google brings graphing calculator functionality to search, still can't play 'Snake' originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Rentmix Makes Sure You Never Have to Stay in a Scummy Hotel when Traveling [Webapps]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5865422/rentmix-makes-sure-you-never-have-to-stay-in-a-scummy-hotel-when-traveling

Rentmix Makes Sure You Never Have to Stay in a Scummy Hotel when Traveling You don't have to book a bargain-basement hotel when you head out of the house on vacation or for the holidays. We've discussed before how you should book apartments or houses to get lots of space for little money, but new webapp Rentmix makes it easy to find available rentals in the area you're visiting so you can book ahead of time.

Rentmix aggregates listings from services like AirBnB, HomeAway, FlipKey, and other short-term rental sevices and puts them all on a Google Map so you can see how far away from events and other landmarks each listing is. For example, if you're traveling for a specific convention, you can see which houses and apartments for rent are available close to the convention center, instead of fighting all of the other attendees for hotel rooms. Just give Rentmix the dates of your trip, your budget for a rental, and how many bedrooms you need. The webapp will do the rest.

Have you rented an apartment or condo when traveling instead of spending on a hotel? Share your experiences in the comments below.

Rentmix | via The Next Web

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drag2share: Google's Nerdiest Move Ever: Now It's a Graphing Calculator! [Google]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5865326/googles-nerdiest-move-ever-now-its-a-graphing-calculator

Google's Nerdiest Move Ever: Now It's a Graphing Calculator!If you're neck-deep in math work, or just nostalgic for the high school days of your TI-83+, fire up the big G: it'll now serve you as a graphing calculator. Time to make sine waves!

It's pretty simple—plug in your formula of choice—say, x/3, (x/2)^2, ln(x), cos(pi*x/200)—and explore your graph a la Google Maps. Zoom in, zoom out, calculate. You just saved yourself a hundred bucks or so, and Google took a step closer to Wolfram Alpha. Both good things! Plug away. [Google via SearchEngineLand]

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drag2share: âInhuman Microphoneâ App Circumvents Occupy Wall Streetâs Megaphone Ban [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5865327/inhuman-microphone-app-circumvents-occupy-wall-streets-megaphone-ban

‘Inhuman Microphone’ App Circumvents Occupy Wall Street’s Megaphone BanOne of the most recognizable hallmarks of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been its "human microphone," a technique through which protesters make speeches louder without the use of megaphones, which are banned from the protests. (Amplifying sound outdoors requires a permit in New York.)

The concept behind the human microphone is simple: The crowd repeats in unison what the speaker has said, chanting each sentence in succession so that people further away can hear it. Depending on your point of view, it's either inspiring or tiresome. The Inhuman Microphone does essentially the same thing - except it uses iPhones instead of human voices.

According to its creators, the use of hundreds or thousands of iPhone speakers rather than a single megaphone should be enough to get around New York's ban on amplification, because no one would argue that a smartphone's speaker would be covered by the ban. When these smartphones speak with one voice, as it were, they can not only increase the volume of the speaker's voice, but spread it to locations throughout the protests.

David Vella, Henrik Pettersson, Tom Leitch, and Tom Hannen built the Inhuman Megaphone at this past weekend's London Music Hack day event, where hacker types team up with each other to conceive and create functional music apps over the course of a single 24-hour period.

Here's how it works: The speaker simply shouts their message into an iPhone running the Inhuman Megaphone app, which sends it to a server on the internet, then back down to the smartphones of other people at the protest. They would, presumably, turn their phones up to full volume, which would then repeat the speaker's words.

The tricky part has to do with synchronizing all of those iPhones so that they play the speaker's words at exactly the same time. According to the creators,

Network latencies meant that we couldn't just fire the audio off as soon as the client received it - we have to 'synchronize watches,' as it were, so that they all trigger off at a given moment. This was achieved using Node, Socket.io, and some hack day time-sync-javacript-magic.

Luckily, you don't need to understand how the Inhuman Microphone works in order to use it. Just like democracy.

Some critics of the OWS movement have wondered why people protesting against abuses by large corporations would use devices created by large corporations in their efforts. Surely, there's a bit of irony there, and the spectacle of #OWS protesters holding aloft smartphones created by one of the biggest corporations in the world that are connected to the internet by wireless service from another massive corporation might give those people more to complain about.

Still, we can't help but applaud this development on the strength of its ingenuity. It also makes us wonder which band will be first to employ it at a concert - for instance, they could send just the vocals, keyboard part, or anything else to all the iPhones at a venue, somewhat in the style of the Flaming Lips' boombox experiment.

The presentation of the Inhuman Microphone from London Music Hack Day has some more information, or you can just try it yourself (as of right now, you can only join as a replayer):

‘Inhuman Microphone’ App Circumvents Occupy Wall Street’s Megaphone Ban Evolver.fm observes, tracks and analyzes the music apps scene, with the belief that it's crucial to how humans experience music, and how that experience is evolving.

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drag2share: Dual-core Meizu MX fully unveiled, launching on January 1st with HSPA+

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/05/dual-core-meizu-mx-fully-unveiled-launching-on-january-1st-with/

After some teases and leaks, Meizu's finally unveiled its next flagship phone MX to keep China entertained for 2012. While the quad core flavor won't be here until next year, this dual core model will be available in mainland China starting from ¥2,999 ($470) on January 1st (like with the M9 last year), and Hong Kong is still expecting an early January release. The full spec list now includes a 4-inch 960 x 640 ASV display, 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4210 dual core chip, 1GB of LPDDR2 RAM, 16GB of storage (32GB version to launch later), 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera, a secondary mic for noise cancellation and a 1,600mAh battery. Oh, that circular button at the bottom? It's just a physical home button instead of an optical trackpad as previously rumored.

Globetrotters will be pleased to know that the 10.3mm-thick MX will pack pentaband 3G with HSPA+, so all you need is a Micro SIM to get the phone working. As for software, it'll come with Meizu's heavily customized Android 2.3.5 initially (dubbed Flyme OS) but will eventually get the 4.0 update, as already promised by CEO Jack Wong. On the multimedia front you'll again find native support for FLAC audio plus various video formats like MKV, MP4 and AVI; along with a micro-USB port that supports S/PDIF digital output, USB host plus MHL; and an eight megapixel f/2.2 backside-illuminated camera (which does smile detection and panorama shot) with 1080p 30fps recording. Head on over to Meizu's website for the full lowdown -- it'll be a good way to practise your Chinese, too.

Update: Press release added after the break.

Continue reading Dual-core Meizu MX fully unveiled, launching on January 1st with HSPA+

Dual-core Meizu MX fully unveiled, launching on January 1st with HSPA+ originally appeared on Engadg! et o n Mon, 05 Dec 2011 21:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Lenovo's rugged ThinkPad X130e targets the education market, arrives December 20 for $469

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/lenovos-rugged-thinkpad-x130e-targets-the-education-market-arr/

When we first spotted leaked photos of Lenovo's ThinkPad X130e, we just kind of assumed it was the next-gen successor to the X120e, which we reviewed almost a year ago. Well, you know what happens when you A-S-S-U-M-E, right? Turns out, there is indeed an X130e, but it's intended specifically for classrooms. The company just made its official announcement, and explained that that rugged design we've been hearing about isn't meant to protect it from careless baggage handlers at the airport so much as freewheeling six year-olds. Though Lenovo's already had a hand in Intel's Classmate project, this is the first time it's released a classroom-ready laptop under the ThinkPad brand, red pointing stick and all.

Of all the kid-proof touches, the more obvious ones include a rubber bumper ringing the plastic chassis, along with a thicker bezel shielded by 1.2mm of plastic. It also has recessed, reinforced ports, an accelerometer to protect the hard drive and a hinge rated for 30,000 cycles. Of course, the result of all this ruggedizing is that the X130e is fairly heavy for an 11-incher, at 3.9 pounds (1.78kg). Otherwise, though, its specs are pretty much what you'd expect in an 11.6-inch laptop. For starters, it's offered with an Intel Core i3-2367M processor, as well as AMD Fusion E-300 and E-450 APUs. It comes with 2GB of RAM (upgradeable to 8GB), up to 500GB in storage, Bluetooth 3.0 and a 6-cell battery rated for 8.5 hours of battery life. Lenovo's also added its RapidBoot technology, promising a sub-20-second startup time. It also has three USB 2.0 sockets, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, a combined headphone / mic port and a 4-in-1 memory card reader. And, because Lenovo is selling these to schools and not individuals, it'll customize the laptops by tweaking the BIOS and tricking out the lid in assorted colors. It'll go on sale December 20th starting at $469, and in the meantime, we've got some press photos below -- after all, just because you personally can't buy one, doesn't mean you can't look, right?

Continue reading Lenovo's rugged ThinkPad X130e targets the education market, arrives December 20 for $469

Lenovo's rugged ThinkPad X130e targets the education market, arrives December 20 for $469 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Chinese Motorola XT928 gets hands-on: less RAZR, more double-edged sword

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/chinese-motorola-xt928-gets-hands-on-less-razr-more-double-edg/


China's own Motorola RAZRs have arrived, and have plenty to differentiate themselves from the Verizon-coated version available in the US. Thankfully, our colleagues over at Engadget Chinese have managed to get some intimate hands-on time with the dual-SIM capable XT928. Whether it's the upgraded 13 megapixel camera, or the 4.5-inch HD display crammed inside, this Motorola mobile arrives slightly chunkier than the RAZR we're used to. In fact, it looks more like a distant cousin than a simple variant. A not-particularly tapered backing is now removable, giving access to the two SIM card slots. Ports and buttons have also been rejigged, although the main difference is certainly the carrier's decision to opt for network flexibility over the wafer-thin styling and Kevlar credentials of its fellow Moto countryman, China Mobile's MT917. See how they both measure up against the Droid RAZR in an awkward family portrait after the break or check the full gallery (and some hands-on footage) at the link below.

Continue reading Chinese Motorola XT928 gets hands-on: less RAZR, more double-edged sword

Chinese Motorola XT928 gets hands-on: less RAZR, more double-edged sword originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: AMD shaves 800 million transistors from Bulldozer chip, swears nothing's wrong

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/06/amd-shaves-800-million-transistors-from-bulldozer-chip-swears-n/

When a company cuts 40 percent of its transistors from an upcoming processor, one question comes to mind: why? According to ExtremeTech, AMD issued an update stating that its Bulldozer eight core / four module CPU would feature 1.2 billion transistors, as opposed to the previously stated two billion transistors. The reduction occurred despite the fact that the die size remains unchanged at 315 square millimeters -- putting it on par with AMD's lesser Llano chip -- and depriving the chip of valuable horsepower before I/O, an integrated memory controller or HyperTransport are added. When approached for comment, company representatives stated they were simply correcting a mistake regarding the chip's actual specifications. Before you bemoan the fate of the Bulldozer chip, remember that the drummer from Def Leppard has had a terrific musical career with only one arm, so what's the loss of several hundred million transistors to AMD's latest?

AMD shaves 800 million transistors from Bulldozer chip, swears nothing's wrong originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Dec 2011 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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