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Monday, January 25, 2010

AMD launches new Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs right onto the test bench

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/amd-launches-new-phenom-ii-and-athlon-ii-cpus-right-onto-the-tes/

Hot on the heels of its first quarterly profit in three years (thanks to Intel, strangely enough), AMD is launching a new pair of desktop processors today that hit for under a buck twenty (amongst a few others). The $99 Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition is the company's quickest dual-core desktop CPU to date at 3.2GHz, while the Athlon II X4 635 is expected to be one of the least expensive quad-core chips around. Both slabs of silicon hit the test bench over the weekend, and as you may expect, no one was particularly blown away. Of course, AMD never set out to shock and awe with this duo, but the performance-per-dollar ratio was downright beautiful. We'll spare you the nitty-gritty details (all the bar charts you can handle are just below), but suffice it to say, these two are certainly worth a look if you're fixing to build a low-end, low-cost tower for... um, your mother. Yeah, her.

Read - Hot Hardware
Read - AnandTech
Read - Computer Shopper
Read - Tom's Hardware
Read - Overclocker's Club
Read - ExtremeTech

AMD launches new Phenom II and Athlon II CPUs right onto the test bench originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bang & Olufsen introduces 46-inch BeoVision 10-46 LCD

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/bang-and-olufsen-introduces-46-inch-beovision-10-46-lcd/

A 46-inch LCD with some high-end, built-in speakers from Bang & Olufsen? Yeah, this one won't come cheap, but it will definitely make more of a statement in your living room than the average big-screen LCD. Of course, if this one does look a tad familiar, it's because this new BeoVisoin 10-46 is basically just a larger version of Bang & Olufsen's existing 40-inch BeoVision 10, which boasts the same brushed aluminum frame, 200Hz refresh rate, and LED backlight as it's new, larger counterpart. No official word on a price, but the 40-incher came in at just under $10,000, so you can draw your own conclusions. Look for this one to hit "selected markets" (in Europe, most likely) sometime in April -- and if it's still a bit too small for you, you can always consider B&O's 103-inch BeoVision 4.

[Thanks, John]

Bang & Olufsen introduces 46-inch BeoVision 10-46 LCD originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung NC10 hacked to accommodate second mini PCI-e slot

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/samsung-nc10-hacked-to-accommodate-second-mini-pci-e-slot/

Samsung's NC10 may be getting a tad long in the tooth in the world of netbooks, but it still has its share of fans out there, some of whom are intent on stretching the netbook to its limits. One such individual is Graeme of the SammyNetbook forums, who amazingly managed to add a second mini PCI-e slot to the netbook that he's used to add a Broadcom HD decoder card. Of course, that mod is somewhat eased by the fact that the NC10 actually has a space and the necessary wiring for a second slot, but Graeme still did have to put his soldering skills to use, and simply hope that the NC10's BIOS recognized the extra PCI-e device (it did). Feeling a little brave? Then hit up the link below for all the necessary details and some pics of the process.

Samsung NC10 hacked to accommodate second mini PCI-e slot originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kingston's SSDNow V+ series hits 512GB capacity, adds Trim support

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/kingstons-ssdnow-v-series-hits-512gb-capacity-adds-trim-suppo/

Kingston's upping the ante on its solid state drive series in pretty much all the ways that count. The SSDNow V+ line boasts a 512GB upper limit, twice the previous generation, with iterative options for 256GB, 128GB, and 64GB. Read / write speeds have more than doubled to 230MB/sec and 180MB/sec, respectively. Best of all, these suckers now support TRIM. Prices range from as low as $268 for standalone 64GB an can go as high as $1968 for 512GB, with an extra $15 or so tacked on if you want the bundle instead -- still alluring, still not for the feint of funding, but the good news is, if you don't need Trim or the extra speed, the original SSDNow V series is available for much smaller dents on your wallet.

Kingston's SSDNow V+ series hits 512GB capacity, adds Trim support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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âTrexa EV Platformâ; Design your Own Electric Vehicle

Source: http://cubeme.com/blog/2010/01/22/trexa-ev-platform-design-your-own-electric-vehicle/

Trexa is aiming to make electric car designing as easy as simply picking up parts and plugging them in your dream machine. The company has unveiled the world's first fully electric vehicle development platform that lets users design the vehicle on their own.
The platform includes everything from a battery to power electronics. For starters, the standard platform has an acceleration of 0-60mph in 8 sec, a top speed of 100mph, a 105 mile range, and a charge time of 4 hours (based upon an efficiency of 200Wh per mile — comparable to a Prius in electric mode).The on-board batteries can be recharged in just four hours.

Via [Inhabitat]

Prezi Improves Freestyle Presentations with Simpler Editing, YouTube Integration [Webapps]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/C0ZPqK__O3w/prezi-improves-freestyle-presentations-with-simpler-editing-youtube-integration

Prezi, the previously featured online editing tool that lets you make zooming, free-flowing presentations, has simplified its editing tool, improved its presentation controls, and made YouTube embedding much more simple in its latest release.

Prezi is the antithesis of the slide-to-slide PowerPoint style. Your presentations are mocked up on a large canvas, with bits of text, images, charts, and now videos embedded where you want them, and connected where it makes sense. You can set up a "path" to run through when giving a presentation, creating a kind of Disney-like rail ride through your points, but the real value comes when your audience has a question—zooming back to a point and expanding on it is easy and intuitive, and connecting two points doesn't require a slide hunt.

You can check out a demonstration Prezi below, embedded from the webapp's site:

As when it launched, Prezi's basic online editor and offline presentations (on Windows and Mac systems) are free, but removing the Prezi watermark, keeping your Prezi presentations private, and upgrading your storage require a paid plan. If you've used Prezi for a presentation, or like a similar non-linear tool, tell us about it in the comments—and feel free to show off your work by linking it.

Feature Release: New Prezi Editor [Prezi.com Blog]

Radio Tuna Combines Music Discovery and Internet Radio [Radio]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/VuyJLB2Z27I/radio-tuna-combines-music-discovery-and-internet-radio

If you're looking for new music you won't find a shortage of music discovery services online. Almost all of them search their own music catalogs and not the vast assortment of online radio. RadioTuna brings music discovery to online radio.

Click on the image above for a closer look.

When you visit RadioTuna you can dive right in by searching by genre, artist, and song to begin listening. Radio stations suggested by RadioTuna are given rankings to show you how much of a certain type of music they play. You can bookmark radio stations you find and then review your listening history, see the play charts from your saved stations, and share the stations you listen to with friends through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

RadioTuna provides a more in-depth method for discovering music online than simply searching a directory of radio stations and hoping to find one that plays songs you'd like. You can check out RadioTuna without signing up but saving stations and your search history requires a free login. If you have a music discovery service you can't live without, let's hear about it in the comments.

RadioTuna [via MakeUseOf]

Visual Sound Is A Phone Concept For The Deaf With Transparent Touchscreen [Concepts]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/O6cZXtObRh0/visual-sound-is-a-phone-concept-for-the-deaf-with-transparent-touchscreen

We don't give much thought to deaf users of phones, but Pratt Institute student Suhyun Kim has worked hard on this stunning Visual Sound concept, which converts voice to text and vice versa.

The scroll-like device has a touchscreen for text to be typed in, which then gets converted to voice for the other person on the line, whose audio then turns into text for the deaf user of the phone to read. If the Visual Sound concept ever got put into production, I'll be one of the first to snag one—not only does it look great, but it might help when phoning from noisy locations, as I'm prone to do. [Yanko Design via Recombu]

Tablet Sutra: How Are We Supposed to Hold This Thing? [Apple Tablet]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/9r4lm4dFhvQ/tablet-sutra-how-are-we-supposed-to-hold-this-thing

Speculation and guesswork aside, if Apple's got a tablet, we need to know how to handle it, physically. So, with two pieces of cardboard, scotch tape and Photoshop, we crudely mocked one up. It was... unusual.

Tablet PCs have been around for years, but they've got keyboard, ball-jointed necks and all manner of extraneous fixture and features. Smartphones are sort of like this new slate-like variety of tablet, only they're too tiny. Buttonless, slick, slab-like tablets do currently exist, but they're rare, and no one has found the right software pairing to make them particularly versatile. A 10-to-11-inch tablet wouldn't be totally new, but since none of us are really clear on how you're supposed to handle it in real-world situations, we built our own.

Here now, in the darkest, dingiest corner of the tech world's favorite rabbit hole, we've performed a hands-on with our cardboard version of Steve Jobs' mythical product. So, before it exists anywhere outside of our collective imagination, step into Tablet Sutra, the at-times-awkward position-by-position walkthrough of tablet handling:

The hurdles for a tablet like this aren't just technological. This is a device that's going to have to convert its usership to a whole new kind of physical experience. We're used to laptops and smartphones, and we take the things they're good and bad at for granted. The tablet's software may be a wonderful mystery box with massive potential, but the tablet form factor, like any other, won't be for everyone.

If you think we left out any key tablet positions, mention it in comments—feel free to upload photos—or send a note to our tips line with "Tablet Sutra" in the subject line. We'll be on the lookout.

South Korea Plans Giant Eco Dome [Architecture]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/GIheUN_04AM/south-korea-plans-giant-eco-dome

The Ecorium Project, South Korea's planned nature reserve, is a stunner. The 33,000 sq. meter park includes a wetland reserve, a wild plant area, and maybe—just maybe—two dudes and their hilarious hijinks.

The structure will comprise a series of connected domes, each of which contains its own greenhouse.

Sponsored by the National Ecological Institute of South Korea and designed by Samoo, the Ecorium Project is going to be as much an educational center as it is a preserve. It'll also be energy-efficient itself, with each greenhouse being capable of detecting external climate conditions and making the appropriate adjustments inside. The exterior will be made of metal panels, low-iron and low-e double glazing, wood and plexiglass.

While there's no word on when it will be completed—or started, for that matter—it's great to see a project like this moving past the concept phase and into development. [World Architecture News via Inhabitat]

Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/25/dell-mini-10-with-broadcom-crystal-hd-accelerator-review/

Michael Dell may not be a fan of netbooks, but you wouldn't know that from the newest Mini 10. Joining the current Mini 10v, Dell's completely overhauled the chassis and added Intel's new Pine Trail processor. But that's not all: come February the little laptop will be available with Broadcom's Crystal HD accelerator, which promises full HD playback on a high-res 1366 x 768 display. But does the $425 package rid us of our tireless complaints that Atom can't handle HD, and does it rival netbooks based on NVIDIA's Ion platform? And perhaps more importantly, can we count on the Mini 10 to be a valuable member of the growing Pine Trail netbook fraternity when it comes to battery life and ergonomics? Read on to find out!

Gallery: Dell Mini 10 Gallery

Continue reading Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Mini 10 with Broadcom Crystal HD Accelerator review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 11:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A La Carte Pie in a Jar Is Brilliant, Looks Delicious [Cooking]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/c-dJhqbLmT0/a-la-carte-pie-in-a-jar-is-brilliant-looks-delicious

There's nothing like a great slice of pie, but unless you're going to a party or pot luck, an entire pie spells danger for your waistline. The solution: a single-serving pie-in-a-jar.

Cooking weblog Our Best Bites shares their brilliant brainchild, the single-serving pie-in-a-jar. Making them isn't all that different from making a regular pie—you'll make some dough, some filling, and bake them—but they're small, freezable, and easy to cook up at any time once you've put in the legwork of making them.

Hit up the post for the full, delicious details.

Single Serving Pie in a Jar [Our Best Bites]

OpenShot 1.0 Is an Actually Usable Linux Video Editor [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/MYUC_9v9nNk/openshot-10-is-an-actually-usable-linux-video-editor

Linux/Live CD/DVD: It's one of the five features we desperately want in Ubuntu: a video editor that the average user can stitch together simple movies with. OpenShot 1.0 is mostly there.

That's not to say the interface has much polish, or that you don't have to install non-free multimedia codecs in your Linux system beforehand. Then again, unless you're a FLAC/OGG music purist, you probably already installed your MP3 and other file supports.

I had a video project to assemble over the weekend—combining a recorded audio file and still pictures into a video file that could be imported into iMovie, or watched on a standard PC laptop. I dropped an audio file into the left-hand sidebar, and it automatically dropped into one of the two default tracks. I dragged in a batch of pictures, and I could then drop them onto the timeline. From there, you can use the really simple tools—resize, razor, marker, and moving tool—to adjust and arrange the clips. For my purposes, that was perfect. It was a return to earlier versions of iMovie, a basic non-linear video editor for the rest of us.

If you're looking to make very complex transitions or pull precise transformations on your video, you're still better off with a more advanced suite on another platform—one of our six best video editing applications, perhaps. If you're a Linux user and looking to stitch together a small-scale video project, OpenShot is definitely worth a look.

OpenShot is a free download, available as a live CD or DVD, as an Ubuntu/Debian repository, and pre-compiled for Ubuntu and Fedora systems. If you've given OpenShot a try and like it, or find it lacking a certain something, tell us about it in the comments.

OpenShot 1.0 Has Arrived! [OpenShot Video Editor]

Chrome's Google Voice Extension Lets You Click To Call [Google Voice]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/c3NJsA8GONI/chromes-google-voice-extension-lets-you-click-to-call

Yesterday Google updated their Google Voice extension for Chrome, allowing Voice-heads to call numbers directly from their browsers. If you love Google or hate retyping phone numbers, this one's for you.

One of the great things about upgrading to a smartphone years ago was that all numbers were links. The updated Voice extension for Chrome allows for a similar streamlining in your browser.

The extension basically just turns phone numbers into clickable links, eliminating the need to cut and paste them across windows. It also adds a phone icon to Chrome, letting you quickly place calls and choose the number from which you do so. While it's a nice step towards a lazier future, there are some caveats. Mac users, for example, will need to install the latest Chromium build, not just the regular old Chrome, to gain the functionality.

Some people might find this capability insignificant, but anything that makes it easier to order food from places I find on Yelp is worthwhile in my book. [Google via TechCrunch]

World's First 3D Photocopier Goes On Sale For $17,000 [3D]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/uqXg1vyp4Dw/worlds-first-3d-photocopier-goes-on-sale-for-17000

Ortery's Photosimile 5000 3D photocopier has taken two years to go on sale since it first surfaced in 2008, providing digital 3D replicas of whatever object you place inside it. Think of the possibilities!

Once the object is placed on the Ortery turntable inside the box, a Canon DSLR takes 360 degree photos, with the four daylight bulbs giving 6500K of illumination—the perfect lighting conditions for the 72 photos taken.

Connected to a PC by USB, the images are saved as GIF or Flash files, and then transferred to the Photosimile software. If all of this is getting you hot under the collar at the thought of such a machine, better schedule a meeting in with your bank manager—it's $17,000 and has just started shipping. [Ortery via Gizmag via TechRadar]

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