Tuesday, October 13, 2009

HP LD4200tm 42-Inch Touch Display Hands-On: Meant For Retail Stores, Still Finger Fun [Hp]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/POq7UR6sf6o/hp-ld4200tm-42+inch-touch-display-hands+on-meant-for-retail-stores-still-finger-fun

HP is smoking a big touch pipe, and its 42-inch finger friendly LCD is the ultimate rip. Unlike the TouchSmart, it is meant for use as digital signage in a store or for presentations. It's still really fun to touch.

The 42-inch 1920 x 1080 resolution monitor uses infrared touch technology (just like the TouchSmart 600). It also supports multitouch, so you should be able to flick to swipe pictures (or snooze worthy PowerPoint slides) and use two fingers to zoom in. You can imagine the uses. HP had a demo going of a truck that you could spin around and then select the paint color. For some reason, spinning things on large touchscreens (like the Coke bottle on the digital vending machine) never gets old. The LD4200tm doesn't have a computer inside it; you have to hook up a PC to it.

I wouldn't need this thing in my living room, because honestly when would I ever get up to touch the screen. But I still think big touchscreens, like Microsoft's Surface, are a good time. But good times always come with high prices. It will start at $2,800 and will be available in December. [HP]




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SanDisk Starts Shipping X4 Flash Cards, Will Eventually Be Awesome [Flash]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/jAhzrOgH_oI/sandisk-starts-shipping-x4-flash-cards-will-eventually-be-awesome

SanDisk's X4 tech packs four bits of data into each memory cell, compared with the typical one or two bits. That means they'll be able to far exceed the 32GB limit on SDHC, microSDHC and others, and they've started shipping.

Right now, they're only shipping in 8GB and 16GB capacities, which have been long available, but soon they'll be releasing 64GB and even higher flash memory. The X4 tech doesn't yet extend to SSDs, though it's not really clear why, but it's still great news for us gadget hounds. Many smartphones, especially those running Android, WinMo and BlackBerry OS, rely on microSDHC cards for memory, and a 64GB or even higher capacity card would make those much more viable as, say, multimedia machines. SanDisk assures us that the price will not skyrocket, which is a relief. X4 chips should start appearing in stores very soon. [CNET]




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Acer's Dual-Bootin', Android Lovin' Aspire One Netbook Almost Here [NetBooks]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/uHcfOJdgNQY/acers-dual+bootin-android-lovin-aspire-one-netbook-almost-here

As you may have heard, the 10.1-inch Aspire One D250 dual-boots between Android and, err, Windows XP. It has a 1.66GHz Atom 280 processor, 6-cell battery rated for 9 hours, and is now up for pre-order on Amazon for $350.

Other specs are unchanged from the current model, including 1GB memory, 160GB hard disk, and an on screen resolution of 1024 x 600 driven by Intel GMA graphics. No Nvidia Ion graphics, and no 3G…yet.

Meanwhile, Acer Japan has just confirmed an updated version of the D250. It runs Windows 7 Starter Edition, bumps the resolution up to 1280 by 720, and costs Y46,800 (about $553). It will be available there when Windows 7 arrives on October 22, but there's no word on when it will come to the U.S. [Netbooked and PC World]




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Monday, October 12, 2009

SnagFilms Catalogs Documentaries for Your Viewing Pleasure [Movies]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/9L-rbgGAx9M/snagfilms-catalogs-documentaries-for-your-viewing-pleasure

If you're looking for something a bit meatier than YouTube fare for weekend watching, check out SnagFilms and enjoy documentaries on a wide range of topics.

You'll find all sorts of content on SnagFilms, ranging from well-known documentaries like Super Size Me to lesser-known but interesting works like The Times of Harvey Milk, about the assassination of San Fransisco's first openly gay elected official, and Hell on Wheels, about the origins of modern women-only roller derbies.

The films are almost all full length and of a high quality—no grainy webcam political rants here. Watching the videos is free and requires no login, though there are brief 10-15 second ads sprinkled throughout the videos—one appeared during out test run of Super Size Me every 15 minutes or so.

If you have a favorite place for finding interesting and informative videos or audio, let's hear about it in the comments.



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Goby Helps You Find Fun Things To Do [Entertainment]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/1zu4Nphqp6g/goby-helps-you-find-fun-things-to-do

If you have an idea what you want to do and where you're going to be but you want someone else to figure out the rest, Goby can take care of the searching for you.

Skydiving in Las Vegas? Rock climbing in New York City? Sailing in Bar Harbor? Give Goby a rough idea what you want to do and it scours calendars, event listings, directories, and more to bring you relevant information about everything from extreme sports to theater listings.

You can sort the results by relevance, distance, date, and even the name of the event or activity. You can also filter the results via categories. If you wanted a dinner theater experience, you can easily drill down through the results for theater to include only dining experiences.

Have your own favorite service or tool for finding things to do? Let's hear about it in the comments.



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Google Brings Search Options to Mobile Version [Search]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/8KDP1eWmdjM/google-brings-search-options-to-mobile-version

Want newer results when you search Google from your smartphone? Want more or fewer pictures in your results page? Google's recently begun showing Search Options to a number of smartphone users.

Like its desktop counterpart, Search Options lets you restrict search results to recent time frames, tweak how many non-text results crop up, and perform specialty searches, in this case for forum posts and review sites. There aren't as many options as on a full-sized browser, and the Options menu is similarly tucked away, on the right-hand side in this version.

Still, the reviews search seems useful for browsing what's gotten good notice around you, when combined with mobile location, at least. Search Options should show up on iPhone, Android, and Palm WebOS phones; Windows Mobile and BlackBerry users might have to wait a bit.

Introducing Search Options for mobile [Official Google Mobile Blog via Download Squad]


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How to Build a DIY Digital Camera Scanner [DIY]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/lWT0fSh9jNs/how-to-build-a-diy-digital-camera-scanner

Instructables user DHagen was sick of feeding coins into a public copy machine, wanted quality copies, but didn't want to spend much cash to get his own photocopier or scanner, so he did what any DIYer with a digital camera would do:

He built his own DIY copy machine/scanner using less than $20 of material (mostly plexiglass and a few various nuts and bolts). After building the camera mount apparatus, DHagen details how he snaps, crops, and converts the picture to PDF, but we'd recommend skipping that hassle altogether and using a previously mentioned photo-to-document tool like Qipit, Snapter, or scanR to accomplish similar results with less work on your part.

If you've gone the DIY scanner route in the past, let's hear how happy you've been with the results in the comments.



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Nobel Prize In Physics Rewards Fiber Optics Expert, CCD Creators [Prizes]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/hHCH514eRKE/nobel-prize-in-physics-rewards-fiber-optics-expert-ccd-creators

So apparently a controversial Nobel Peace Prize was awarded this week. Forget that one. Focus instead on the far geekier one that was also awarded this week. Why? Because we gadget lovers have a lot to be thankful for!

The Nobel Prize for physics is the award in question, and it was actually split between two winners this year.

The first, Charles K. Kao, is the man most responsible for making fiber optic communication the force it is today. Whenever you fire up FiOS next, give thanks to Kao.

The second winner is actually two people: Willard Boyle and George Smith. These two chaps invented the CCD. No, not the Catholic classes your parents forced you to go to when you were a child, the CCD device that's used in countless thousands of digital cameras and other similar gadgets.

Of course if you combine the two breakthroughs you get digital porn, for which, as far as I know, there is no Nobel category. Regardless, lots to be thankful for today. [DPRReview via CrunchGear]




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Lisse Q10: A PMP With Style [PMP]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/w9epPOgYDcg/lisse-q10-a-pmp-with-style

Yea, that is a personal media player. Sure, looks nicer than an Archos or iRiver. The Lisse Q10 has a 3 inch display and from the looks of it a slammin bod.

I'm hoping the screen is OLED, though I can't find any evidence of that anywhere. Rather than use a touchscreen, the device uses a retro dial to control the user interface. According to the Korean site it will play back your tunes for up to 20 hours and your assortment of video files for 8. Chances of it coming to the U.S. are slim, but I'm always one to appreciate a nice piece of PMP. [Lissie Lisse via Geeky Gadgets ]




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Rumored ASUS' Eee PC 1201N's Dual Cored Specs Could Eat Other Netbooks Alive [Rumor]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/X2I96UdPppU/rumored-asus-eee-pc-1201ns-dual-cored-specs-could-eat-other-netbooks-alive

If you believe the dual core Atom rumors, the ASUS Eee PC 1201N could knock out all other netbooks in performance.

The leaked 12-inch Eee PC 1201N apparently has Nvidia Ion graphics (GeForce 9400M chipset) along with a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N330 Dual Core processor. That along with 3GB RAM, and a 320GB HD should make it one of the most powerful Atom netbooks around.

There is also the rumored Eee PC 1201HA which will have the same 12-inch chassis but is said to have less powerful guts with the standard Atom processor and chipset. Since both will be running Windows 7, don't expect to see these guys to get all official until October 22. [EeePC.IT via Liliputing]




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Cheap netbook sales bringing down laptop revenues, no brainers require no brains

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/11/cheap-netbook-sales-bringing-down-laptop-revenues-no-brainers-r/

Hey, this is probably surprising to no one, but here we go. A new market research report from DisplaySearch says that the overall mobile PC market is down about 5 percent over last year. The main reason cited for this decline? The increasing popularity of netbooks, which average around $300, and are much, much cheaper than traditional laptops. Netbook revenue is up 264 percent from last year, and have contributed to an overall lowering of the average PC cost by 19 percent. While this is certainly bad news for the PC industry itself, hooray for all of us, right?!

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Cheap netbook sales bringing down laptop revenues, no brainers require no brains originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/11/sidekick-failure-rumors-point-fingers-at-outsourcing-lack-of-ba/

Backing up your personal PC to external media might still be a novel concept for some, but any IT manager fresh out of school can tell you that regularly backing up mission-critical servers -- and storing those backups in multiple physical locations -- isn't merely important, it's practically non-negotiable, and it only becomes that much more critical before undertaking hardware maintenance. Alleged details on the events leading up to Danger's doomsday scenario are starting to come out of the woodwork, and it all paints a truly embarrassing picture: Microsoft, possibly trying to compensate for lost and / or laid-off Danger employees, outsources an upgrade of its Sidekick SAN to Hitachi, which -- for reasons unknown -- fails to make a backup before starting. Long story short, the upgrade runs into complications, data is lost, and without a backup to revert to, untold thousands of Sidekick users get shafted in an epic way rarely seen in an age of well-defined, well-understood IT strategies.

The coming weeks are going to be trying times for both Microsoft and T-Mobile, a sideline player in this carnage that ultimately still shoulders responsibility for taking users' cash month after month and keeping tabs on the robustness of its partners' workflows. We're betting that heads are going to roll at both of these companies, formal investigations are going to be waged, users are going to be compensated in big ways, lawsuits are going to be filed, and textbooks could very well be modified to make sure that lessons are learned for the next generation of college grads tasked with keeping clouds running. Why there weren't any backups -- even older ones -- that could've been used as a restore point is totally unclear, so we're hoping Microsoft has the stones to come clean for the benefit of an entire industry that wants to understand how to make sure this never happens again.

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Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Achtung, T-Mobile: if Project Dark is $50 unlimited, you're in trouble

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/achtung-t-mobile-if-project-dark-is-50-unlimited-youre-in-t/

Put yourself in T-Mobile USA's shoes for a moment: rumor has it that the guys who pay the bills aren't happy. History, happenstance, and the realities of electromagnetics have left you with an oddball 3G frequency that literally no other carrier in the world uses (at least, not for HSPA). Larger competitors don't take you as seriously as you'd like, and you don't have smaller ones -- they're all regionals who don't play in the same space you do. So what's your next move?

Continue reading Achtung, T-Mobile: if Project Dark is $50 unlimited, you're in trouble

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Achtung, T-Mobile: if Project Dark is $50 unlimited, you're in trouble originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Archos 5 has 99 problems and a glitch is one, 160GB version pulled by Amazon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/archos-5-has-99-problems-and-a-glitch-is-one-160gb-version-pull/

It was only just allowed out to play, but Archos' five-inch, Android-sporting internet tablet has been called back in by its fastidious mother, a role played by Amazon in this case. Only the hard drive-based 160GB model is affected at present, with the 32GB version selling as normal and the half terabyte option out of stock already. Charbax of ArchosFans.com, a man in the know on this subject, has suggested this might have been caused by a firmware update wiping out some pre-installed Android apps, which is now being addressed. His site's forums and Amazon customer reviews, however, paint a different picture: there are consistent complaints about bugs and lock ups -- software issues that could well affect the other models in the line -- with some going so far as to suggest Archos has used its customers as Beta testers. There doesn't appear to be anything structurally wrong with the device, meaning a robust firmware update could remedy all ills, so now it's just a matter of waiting for Archos to do what it should have done before release.

[Via Pocketables]

Read - Amazon product page
Read - Archos Fans forums

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Archos 5 has 99 problems and a glitch is one, 160GB version pulled by Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG's Solar Cell e-Book goes an extra day for every 5 hours of sunlight

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/12/lgs-solar-cell-e-book-goes-an-extra-day-for-every-5-hours-sunli/


Funny thing going on in the marketplace right now: reading for pleasure is on a rapid decline yet the choice of e-reader devices grows weekly. That's good news for those of us not spending our down-time in front of a television, mouth agape -- awkward for manufacturers testing the waters of this unproven niche. LG's showing off its Solar Cell e-Book reader anyway, in a bid to flex its thin-film solar muscle. The prototype features an energy conversion efficiency of about 9.6 percent giving it an extra day's worth of power for that 6-inch TFT-LCD after about four to five hours in the sun. LG is working towards boosting its thin-film solar cell energy conversion efficiency rate to 12% by 2010 on up to 14% by 2012. We say bring it LG, if you can.

[Via OLED-Display]

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LG's Solar Cell e-Book goes an extra day for every 5 hours of sunlight originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 04:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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