Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, February 07, 2011

Carl Zeiss joins the Micro Four Thirds revolution

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/carl-zeiss-joins-the-micro-four-thirds-revolution/

Another big name is jumping headfirst into the increasingly popular Micro Four Thirds waters with the announcement from Olympus today that Carl Zeiss has signed up as a member of the MFT System Standard Group. What that basically entails is that the folks responsible for some of the finest optics in the world will start making lenses directly compatible with Olympus and Panasonic's camera standard. You could, of course, have tracked down adapters to get Distagon glass working with your GF2 before, but it sure is nice to see the big boys producing hardware designed specifically for this relatively new category of camera. Full press release after the break.

[Thanks, Ken]

Continue reading Carl Zeiss joins the Micro Four Thirds revolution

Carl Zeiss joins the Micro Four Thirds revolution originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 05:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony VAIO YB now shipping AMD Fusion to your door for $600

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/sony-vaio-yb-now-shipping-amd-fusion-to-your-door-for-600/

The wait on AMD's Fusion has been so long that we feel like we should pop open the bubbly every time another laptop ships with it. Latest off the assembly line is Sony's VAIO YB series, which gives you a 1.6GHz processor to make similarly-clocked Atoms AMD-green with envy, 4GB of RAM and 500GB of hard drive space, an 11.6-inch glossy screen with 1366 x 768 resolution, and up to six hours of battery life for $599.99. It's available in silver and pink varieties today, or you can wait a little while longer for Amazon to get stock of its lower-specced variant, with 2GB of RAM and 320GB of storage, which will cost you $50 less. See more of the VAIO YB in our CES hands-on gallery below.

Gallery: Sony shows off VAIO laptop with AMD Zacate goodness inside (hands-on)

Sony VAIO YB now shipping AMD Fusion to your door for $600 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 07:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netbook News | source

Sony Style, Amazon | Email this | Comments

HP twirls out TouchSmart 610 and 9300 all-in-one PCs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/hps-touchsmart-610-and-9300-all-in-ones-tilt-and-twirl-on-out/

When almost every other computer manufacturer has copied its touchscreen all-in-one, what's a company like HP to do? Create a totally crazy pivoting and reclining one, of course! Yep, HP's newest TouchSmart 610 and 9300 Elite Business PC may look like typical 1920 x 1080-resolution, 23-inch all-in-ones when positioned upright, but that all changes when their screens recline up to 60 degrees or the entire body of the rig swivels around to do a 180. It's one seriously flexible AIO, but the new design isn't just about yoga-like tricks -- it aims to make touch interaction more comfortable and ergonomic, and on that vein HP has also updated its TouchSmart 610 consumer model with its latest TouchSmart software layer, which includes finger-friendly Hulu, Netflix, and Twitter apps as well as a TouchSmart Apps Center. The 9300 Elite Business all-in-one, as you may have caught from its name, is meant for enterprise and "customer spaces" (aka kiosks, counters, etc.), and thus only comes loaded with Windows 7.

Spec-wise, the 610 can be configured with Intel and AMD desktop processors, up to 16GB of RAM, a terabyte of storage, a Blu-ray drive, while its 1.3 megapixel camera and Beats Audio speakers come standard. Naturally, the 9300 has to keep up its professional reputation, and though it cuts out the Beats, it gains Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processors, a 160GB SSD option, and a higher quality two megapixel cam with facial recognition software. You know, for "enhanced security." So, when can you pick up one of these monsters? The $900 610 is expected to start shipping on February 9th, while the 9300 will hit in May for an undetermined price. We're hoping to bring you a full review of the 610 soon, but we can tell you from our early look at it that the viewing angles were sufficiently wide and the tilting mechanism fairly rigid. Man, it's already turning out to be quite a week for HP -- that webOS event is coming up on Wednesday, but in the meantime you'll want to hit the break for the full TouchSmart press release and a short video of the reclining mechanism in action.

Gallery: HP TouchSmart 610 and TouchSmart 9300 hands-on

Gallery: HP TouchSmart 610 and TouchSmart 9300 press images

Continue reading HP twirls out TouchSmart 610 and 9300 all-in-one PCs

HP twirls out TouchSmart 610 and 9300 all-in-one PCs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 07:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists grow nanolasers on silicon chips, prove microscopic blinkenlights are the future

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/07/scientists-grow-nanolasers-on-silicon-chips-prove-microscopic-b/

What you see above may look like a nanoscale Obelisk of Light, ready to protect the tiny forces of Nod, but that's not it at all. It's a nanolaser, grown directly on a field of silicon by scientists at Berkeley. The idea is to rely on light to transmit data inside of computers, rather than physical connections, but until now finding a way to generate that light on a small enough scale to work inside circuitry without damaging it has been impossible. These indium gallium arsenide nanopillars could solve that, grown on and integrated within silicon without doing harm. Once embedded they emit light at a wavelength of 950nm, as shown in the video below.

[Thanks, Paul]

Continue reading Scientists grow nanolasers on silicon chips, prove microscopic blinkenlights are the future

Scientists grow nanolasers on silicon chips, prove microscopic blinkenlights are the future originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 08:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PC World | source

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Sunday, February 06, 2011

Newfangled lab-on-a-chip technology gets more health data from less blood

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/06/newfangled-lab-on-a-chip-technology-gets-more-health-data-from-l/

It's a nightmare of epic proportions: the finger prick. Anyone who detests 'em completely understands, and they'll also be supremely appreciative of the work being done by Dr. Karan Kaler and co. at the University of Calgary. Kaler's team has created a new lab-on-a-chip technology, which uses a wireless microchip to analyze nanolitre-sized samples of blood. That's far less fluid than is currently needed to run a gauntlet of tests, and this fresh take is also far more efficient. We're told that it "involves creating a structure called a micro-emulsion, which is a droplet of fluid captured inside a layer of another substance." From there, the emulsions are positioned precisely on the chip, and after tests are ran, the results are piped wirelessly to a computer. The potential here is far more impressive than the existing iteration; the long-term vision is to "create handheld devices for patients to use at home for testing fluids, such as blood and urine," which would prevent extensive wait times and enable patients to get vital information faster. There's no telling how long it'll take to escape the lab and land in the hands of those who need it, but we're sure the folks involved are cranking just as hard as they can.

Newfangled lab-on-a-chip technology gets more health data from less blood originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Feb 2011 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Physorg | source

University of Calgary | Email this | Comments