Saturday, July 17, 2010

Antennas Provides a Better Look at Your Cell Coverage [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5587493/antennas-provides-a-better-look-at-your-cell-coverage

Antennas Provides a Better Look at Your Cell CoverageAndroid: With cell reception cycling through the news, one Android app deserves credit for giving a pretty darned accurate view of how connected your phone is. Antennas shows not only signal strength, but maps out your tower location(s).

You get the best reading of your signal strength if you're on a network that offers both 2G ("EDGE") and 3G connections, and you switch to 2G-only connection in your Android settings (under Wireless & Networks/Mobile networks). You'll see every tower that's connected to you, their individual strengths, and your overall connection strength. On 3G or CDMA networks, you'll only get to see one tower, due to an Android OS limitation, but you can still know where your strongest tower is located, and how you're doing on connection.

Antennas Provides a Better Look at Your Cell CoverageAntennas is a free download for Android systems only. A direct market link is shown here, and more details on the app at the link below. Thanks to OolonColluphid for the tip!

AMD has record $1.65B second quarter, still loses a little money

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/amd-has-record-1-65b-second-quarter-still-loses-a-little-money/

AMD has record $1.65B second quarter, still loses a little money
First, the good news: AMD pulled in $1.65 billion in revenue -- a record for the second quarter! Now, the bad news: the company still lost money. Just a (relatively) little bit, though, with a net loss of $43 million or $.06 per share. That's five percent more revenue than the first quarter of 2010, and a massive 40 percent boost over the second quarter of 2009, in which it lost $330 million net. What changed? Sales of graphics hardware in particular, up eight percent over last quarter and a huge 87 percent from last year, driven by success of the Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards. Likewise, sales of mobile processors were up 18 percent over last quarter. Net profitability? Keep this up, AMD, and it's not far off.

AMD has record $1.65B second quarter, still loses a little money originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola responds to Droid X bootloader controversy, says eFuse isn't there to break the phone

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/motorola-responds-to-droid-x-bootloader-controversy-says-efuse/

There's been a lot of chatter going around the interwebs in the past 24 hours about the Droid X's exceptionally well-locked bootloader -- a situation that is going to make running custom ROMs considerably more difficult (bordering on impossible) compared to your average HTC. Specifically, the culprit is said to be a technology known as eFuse -- developed by IBM several years ago -- which allows circuits to be physically altered at the silicon level on demand. Thing is, the term "eFuse" has taken on an unrelated meaning this week, with My Droid World claiming that some chip inside the Droid X is commanded to "blow the fuse" if it's unable to verify the stock bootloader, which permanently bricks the phone. It amounts to a really, really hard slap on the wrist for anyone trying to hack, say, Sense or stock Froyo onto it.

Considering IBM's historically non-nefarious usage of the term "eFuse," we suspected something was amiss here, so we reached out to Motorola for an explanation. Read on to see what we got back.

Continue reading Motorola responds to Droid X bootloader controversy, says eFuse isn't there to break the phone

Motorola responds to Droid X bootloader controversy, says eFuse isn't there to break the phone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boxee's first production Box gets shown off to the world (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/16/boxees-first-production-box-gets-shown-off-to-the-world-video/

Looks like the first production Boxee Box must have slipped through customs alongside those Popboxes that went out yesterday, shown off in this video by Chief Product Officer Zach Klein. Other than a new fingerprint-resistant outer casing there's not a lot new to learn after our time with prototype hardware during CES, but check the video (embedded after the break) to see what the team is so excited about before it ships in November, and find out more about that box of Wheat Thins on the table. Mmm, Wheat Thins.

Continue reading Boxee's first production Box gets shown off to the world (video)

Boxee's first production Box gets shown off to the world (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, July 16, 2010

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7 [Review]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5588122/dell-m11xr2-review-the-worlds-smallest-gaming-laptop-goes-i7

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7With the M11x, Dell and Alienware gave the world the smallest gaming laptop, and we liked it a lot. So why change it? To include the two things we've all been waiting for: Optimus and i5/i7 CPUs.

Price and Configuration

The model we tested came complete with a 1.2GHz Core i7-640UM processor (Turbo to 2.66GHz, Overclockable to 166MHz bus), 4GB DDR3 RAM (800 MHz), and a 500GB SATAII 7,200RPM hard drive. This model, complete with Windows 7 Premium and Bluetooth, will set you back $1,319, though the base model including an i5 CPU starts at $949. The older Core 2 Duo models are also available, starting from $799. Customizations include 2-8GB of RAM and 160GB-500GB hard drive or a 256GB solid state drive. All models now ship with the NVidia GT 335M with Optimus.

Design Changes

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7
If you put the M11x and M11xR2 side by side, it would be almost impossible to tell the difference. The only real difference in the aesthetic design is instead of the glossy black coating, the R2 can have a black matte finish, which both looks and feels more appropriate for the laptop. Like any PC of this size, the last thing you want is to leave constant fingerprints just from carrying it around.
Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7
Aesthetics aside, the only other change is that Dell's done away with the VGA port, which means no more impressing the class with Powerpoints directly through your laptop. All the other ports remain (3 USB, HDMI, Ethernet, FireWire, DisplayPort and a memory card reader), but this is still a letdown. VGA may be old tech, but it's still widely used nationwide.

Otherwise, the R2 is identical to the M11x on the outside. The display hasn't been improved. It still feels an inch too small and way too reflective. All of the keys on the right, including the arrow keys, still feel too small as well.

Performance

With the M11x, Brian told us that it's really two computers in one because of the switchable graphics. With Optimus, that all goes away…sort of. As Brian noted, Optimus is the automatic switch between integrated and discrete graphics, and indeed it does exactly that. The problem is that in practice, Optimus isn't as beneficial as previously described.

On my Gateway EC1437u, I can stream 720p videos from Youtube without slowdown, all through integrated graphics. On the M11xR2, any video above 360p will activate the discrete graphics, even though the i7 CPU is far more powerful than the Core 2 Duo in my Gateway. (Discrete graphics aren't necessary.)

This lack of optimization slams battery life when running various applications when it doesn't altogether increase performance.

I ran two main benchmarks and tested both with integrated and discrete graphics enabled, and compared them to our scores from our benchmarks on the M11x.

Testing with GeekBench, the R2 fares much better than the M11x, thanks to the i7 CPU, garnering as much as 700 points more than the original model. While the M11x was no slowpoke when it came to everyday computing, the R2 works and feels faster, even though the hard drive and RAM are the same.

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7

The PCMark Vantage test gave me some trouble. At first, I ran the tests in triplicate and averaged the scores, but they weren't high enough compared to the integrated GPU scores for gaming and music, though everything else was significantly higher except for the HDD. Then I fiddled around with the Optimus settings in the NVidia control panel, and these were the results.

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7

What seems to have happened is that the default setting for the GPU when running PCMark Vantage is to simply not run at all, which is why the gaming score was so low. But when I changed the settings to force the GPU to run, it's almost as if it decided to take over all of the tests and every score, except for gaming and music, lowered because of it.

This may seem like a petty side note, but in reality, it's evidence that NVidia needs to update their drivers. A composite of the PCMark Vantage scores would probably be more accurate, but because I couldn't create a perfect scenario for proper scoring (and I wonder if such a thing exists given finicky Optimus tech), these will have to do.

The bigger problems with the M11xR2 manifest in actual gaming. With the drivers at hand, half the games I set out to test just didn't work, including Batman: Arkham Asylum, Metro 2033 and Shattered Horizon. Others, like Left 4 Dead 2, Crysis Warhead and Far Cry 2 worked fine. Ultimately I did get all of the games to run after installing beta GPU drivers, which involved far more than the typical gamer who doesn't want to build their own rig would want to do.

Alienware isn't really to blame here, though they are building and selling the product. NVidia's had enough time to get their drivers done properly already, and users are bound the get frustrated just trying to get a game to run.

Once I did get the games to run, just as with the M11x, most ran smoothly at medium graphics settings. Some games, like Batman and Left 4 Dead 2, could run on high and even very high settings without incident, easily kicking 60 frames per second. But don't expect to run Crysis all-out. Even with the boost from i7, and even with overclocking, the 3D-chewing boost to the R2 is minimal when compared to the M11x.

Battery Life

There's no listed battery life for the M11xR2—a bad sign—though Dell rated the M11x at 8.5 hours, and we got that down to 6 hours 7 minutes on integrated graphics and between 2.5 and 3 hours with discrete graphics. With Optimus, the battery should last as long as the best a non-Optimus machine can muster, though in reality Optimus turns on and off depending on the application at hand, so battery life jumps up and down depending on what you're doing. This was of course true in the past (watching Hulu all day will drain the battery faster than word processing), but with the GPU running every time it thinks it's needed, battery life can easily go down the toilet.

With the M11x, I was stuck on it for over six hours. With the R2, I got 5 hours 12 minutes in standard use, meaning web-browsing, word processing, picture editing and the occasional Youtube clip, which is still decent, but clearly worse than the M11x. Gaming also fared worse, where the battery lasted around 2 hours 15 minutes, depending on the game.

Battery life is also expected to be worse because the i7 chip is not as efficient as the older Core 2 Duo, which Intel and Dell have had more time to play around with and make more power efficient.

A Message for the Future

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7
The M11xR2 doesn't improve performance enough for anyone to warrant switching from the original to the latest revision of Dell's mini game machine. Sure, i5/i7 is more powerful, and Optimus is more convenient, but these are minor benefits that barely influence performance. So why the hell would anyone care to buy this when they could find a good deal on the older model?

Put simply, software updates. Optimus is still a fresh technology, one that will get better over time. For anyone looking to buy a portable gaming laptop with decent battery life, the R2 at least has some room for improvement because NVidia will continue to support Optimus, meaning that soon it shouldn't make the mistake of activating the GPU for 480p or even 720p video if the integrated graphics can handle it, nor will benchmarks have wonky scores because Optimus activated incorrectly.

The life of this model will last significantly longer than the original M11x, and even though users may get less battery life and only a minimal performance boost today, the promise of future support makes it worthwhile.

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7Better CPU

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7Matte finish looks great

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7Optimus! But it still needs plenty of work

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7Battery life is worse, but not significantly

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7The screen , keyboard and weight haven't improved

Dell M11xR2 Review: The World's Smallest Gaming Laptop Goes i7Gaming performance improvement is minimal

Big mystery holding back practical superconductors may have been solved [Mad Science]

Source: http://io9.com/5588366/big-mystery-holding-back-practical-superconductors-may-have-been-solved

Big mystery holding back practical superconductors may have been solvedSuperconductors carry electric current with no energy loss. They could revolutionize our electrical grid, but they only work at impractically low temperatures. We just figured out a key reason why – and possibly got a lot closer to room-temperature superconductors.

Scientists have spent the last two decades trying to figure out why their superconductors only work at temperatures barely any higher than absolute zero. They've been able to identify the so-called "pseudogap" phase, which is a temperature range below room temperature at which superconductivity breaks down. We know there's something about what happens to electrons during this phase that makes superconductors fail, but until now we couldn't figure out what, despite several frustrating attempts to find out.

But physicists working for the Department of Energy may have just solved the mystery. Working with copper-oxide superconductors, they identified a change in electron behavior that only occurs during the pseudogap phase. Specifically, they keyed in on how easily electrons could "jump" from each copper and oxygen site to the tip of a microscope needle.

The difference in electron behavior was remarkably obvious, explains project leader Séamus Davis:

"Picture the copper atom at the center of the unit, with one oxygen to the 'north' and one to the 'east,' and this whole unit repeating itself over and over across the copper-oxide layer. In every single copper-oxide unit, the tunneling ability of electrons from the northern oxygen atom was different from that of the eastern oxygen."

Finding such a clear break in symmetry is very exciting, because there's a ton of precedent for such asymmetries revolutionizing our understanding of other systems. For instance, the discovery of broken symmetries in liquid crystals gave scientists the guidance needed to control the crystal, and now liquid crystal displays (or, as they're more commonly known, LCD screens) are commonplace and inexpensive. The hope is that a similarly huge leap in understanding of superconductors will come from uncovering this asymmetry in the pseudogap phase.

The researchers hope to find similar broken symmetries in other copper-oxide superconductors. They are also trying to figure out how the asymmetry affects electron flow, how this in turn affects superconductivity, and how to work around these issues to make room temperature superconductors a practical possibility.

There's still much work to do, but as Davis explains, the potential benefits are incalculable:

"Developing superconductors that operate without the need for coolants would be transformational. Such materials would greatly improve the efficiency of energy-distribution systems, saving enormous amounts of money and updating the electrical grid to meet the needs of the 21st Century."

Currently, the only working superconductors have to operate at extremely low temperatures. The fact that they operate with no resistance and thus no energy loss is theoretically a huge savings, but in practice it's completely canceled out by the huge amount of exotic coolants needed to get them to such temperatures.

[Nature]

Dell Streak very likely coming to AT&T any day now

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/dell-streak-very-likely-coming-to-atandt-any-day-now/

You may have heard chatter recently that Dell's Streak is destined for AT&T as soon as July 19 -- and now, with a little dot-connecting, we're pretty much on board with that theory. We've just been tipped that on a corporate-owned AT&T store where contractors are in the process of installing new kiosks in the "Smartphones" area of the floor under tight security; they've apparently been made to sign NDAs and a number of employees "are already on the chopping block" for trying to figure out what it is. We suppose it could be something Captivate-related, but considering the level of security here, we think it's something much bigger. Like 5 inches or so, if you catch our drift.

Dell Streak very likely coming to AT&T any day now originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rumored HTC Desire HD specs surface: 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/rumored-htc-desire-hd-specs-surface-4-3-inch-screen-8-megapixe/

We didn't have a ton of details on the so-called HTC Ace when it turned up in a leaked roadmap last week, but a fresh set of rumors are now suggesting that the Ace is actually the Desire HD, which will reportedly pack a number of HD-esque upgrades over the standard Desire. That includes a larger 4.3-inch WVGA screen -- no word if it's AMOLED or SLCD -- and an 8-megapixel camera with 720p video recording. Other rumored details include Android 2.2, 4GB of internal storage, the same 1GHz Snapdragon as the current Desire and, perhaps most interestingly, talk of a "unibody aluminum design." Unfortunately, the rumors still don't include any actual images of the device, but there's still plenty of time for those to leak out before the supposed October release.

Rumored HTC Desire HD specs surface: 4.3-inch screen, 8-megapixel camera originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 13:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SLCD-equipped HTC Desire 'coming soon' to Telus

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/slcd-equipped-htc-desire-coming-soon-to-telus/

We'd already seen an HTC Desire with North American 3G hit the FCC, and it looks like we now know exactly where it's headed -- Telus has just announced that the phone is "coming soon" to its network. What's more, the carrier has also confirmed that the phone will be equipped with a 3.7-inch Sony Super LCD screen instead of the regular AMOLED display that's in short supply. Otherwise, the phone is the same Android 2.1-powered, Snapdragon-based, Sense-skinned device we've seen all along, which is hardly a bad thing -- unless you're waiting for a Desire HD, that is.

SLCD-equipped HTC Desire 'coming soon' to Telus originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Syabas Popbox surprises everyone, including Syabas, by going on sale today

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/syabas-popbox-surprises-everyone-including-syabas-by-going-on/

We thought we had another week or so to get ready, but no, the Popbox is on sale already, with some preorderers reporting they got shipment notifications as early as yesterday. In case you've forgotten since CES, the $129 box takes the Popcorn Hour into a more general consumer friendly form with an all new interface and SDK, YouTube access, support for 100Mbps bitrate 1080p video and more -- just not the Netflix access (at least for now) we were originally promised. According to the official Twitter account -- also accessible with a new "Popapp" -- a quicker than expected route through customs is to thank/blame for the launch, but whatever, we're one step closer to the 2010 media streamer battle we've been waiting for. It's your move, Boxee Box.

[Thanks, Jason]

Syabas Popbox surprises everyone, including Syabas, by going on sale today originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony NEX-VG10 HD camcorder preview

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/15/sony-nex-vg10-hd-camcorder-preview/

Well, that was quick. Right after yesterday's surprising announcement, Sony flew its yet-to-be-released NEX-VG10 camcorder into London just in time for today's showcase event. Naturally, we had to get our hands on this shiny baby, and boy we were impressed. In case you missed the news, this snazzy device is the world's first consumer HandyCam with interchangeable lens, meaning you can share E-mount lenses with your young NEX DSLRs, or take advantage of the abundant A-mount lenses with the help of an adapter. Likewise, there are also hot and cold shoe mounts on the mic shaft to cater your current camera accessories. Read on for our thoughts on the rest of the camcorder -- we've put together a little sample clip for you at the end as well.

Continue reading Sony NEX-VG10 HD camcorder preview

Sony NEX-VG10 HD camcorder preview originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Jul 2010 20:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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