Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

ASUS U33Jc and U53Jc Bamboo Series laptops priced for UK consumption

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/asus-u33jc-and-u53jc-bamboo-series-laptops-priced-for-uk-consump/

Just when you were thinking the pandas had gobbled up all the bamboo laptops, ASUS has finally shipped some of its latest offerings to the UK. Unlike the US, however, the lucky tea-sipping Brits are spoiled with two size options: the 13-inch, 3.75-pound U33Jc and the 15-inch, 6.1-pound U53Jc. Apart from the extra inches and the bonus DVD burner on the U53Jc, these two Windows 7 machines are almost identical: there's a 2.26GHz Core i5-430M CPU, 1,366 x 768 LED-backlit LCD, NVIDIA GeForce 310M with Optimus technology, 4GB DDR3 RAM, and one USB 3.0 port along with two 2.0 ports. The prices? £849 ($1,292) and £899 ($1,368), respectively. Before you whip out your credit card, though, be sure to keep an eye out for our forthcoming review.

Gallery: ASUS U33Jc and U53Jc Bamboo Series laptops priced for UK consumption

Continue reading ASUS U33Jc and U53Jc Bamboo Series laptops priced for UK consumption

ASUS U33Jc and U53Jc Bamboo Series laptops priced for UK consumption originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 05:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC opts for Android, dumps Windows Embedded Compact 7

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/asus-eee-pad-ep101tc-opts-for-android-dumps-windows-embedded-co/

The lesser of ASUS' two Eee Pad tablets announced at Computex this year, the EP101TC, is getting itself a software rejig ahead of its planned early 2011 launch. Originally slated to run on Microsoft's Windows Embedded Compact 7 -- a wordy OS, if nothing else -- the Pad will now entrust its operational infrastructure to Google's Android. ASUS is currently working on prototypes with Froyo on board, but Gingerbread (or Android 3.0) has not been ruled out as a possible final OS choice. We're told to expect the first public demos at CES 2011, with retail units likely following on from there at a relatively brisk pace.

ASUS Eee Pad EP101TC opts for Android, dumps Windows Embedded Compact 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 06:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp's XMDF format looks to bring e-books into the next generation

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/sharps-xmdf-format-looks-to-bring-e-books-into-the-next-generat/

Sharp's XMDF format looks to bring e-books into the next generation

When it comes to boring 'ol text and images, there are plenty of formats that modern e-readers can manage -- your EPUBs and OPFs and the like. But, when it comes to integrating multimedia content into a kind of next-gen e-book experience, the sort Wired is pushing on the iPad, things are rather less standardized. Sharp wants to be on the forefront of bringing that style of content together under a single standard: XMDF, or ever-eXtending Mobile Document Format. It enables video and animations and flashy presentation to be mingled in with the text, surely with the intent of distracting you from actually having to read anything. Of course, XHTML can manage all this stuff too, but it never was particularly great at the sort of precision text layout publishers crave, and presumably that's also being addressed here. Naturally we're a little more excited about hardware, and Sharp showed off two prototype readers measuring 5.5- and 10.8-inches respectively... though it didn't have much to say about them otherwise. More details later this year, supposedly.

Sharp's XMDF format looks to bring e-books into the next generation originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MOG arrives on iPhone, Android with 7.8 million songs but no multitasking mode

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/mog-arrives-on-iphone-android-with-7-8-million-songs-but-no-mul/

The name may sound like something out of a Final Fantasy game, but we hear it stands for Music On the Go, and today MO is doing the name proud by bringing a wide swath of streaming music to Android and iPhone. $10 a month gives you access to 7.8 million songs, and during a completely unscientific impromptu testing session, that number actually included a reasonable amount of most everything we'd want. Of course, you don't get to keep any of the 320Kbps MP3 files, merely store local copies on your phone for as long as you pony up, and even on Android (where we take task switching for granted) the merest jump to web browser stops those tracks cold. (MOG says it's working on it, at least for the iOS 4 version.) We were also disappointed to find out the MOG Radio feature is nothing like we were told -- rather than a Pandora you can tune to specific artists, the feature just seems to filter your existing queue. Playback options were also lacking in this early version (like volume and jog sliders) but at least MOG's got a slick, robust discovery mode, and with this many songs to choose from that's a very good thing. Both versions should be live immediately with three-day, no commitment trials, and there's a press release after the break if you still need more info.

Continue reading MOG arrives on iPhone, Android with 7.8 million songs but no multitasking mode

MOG arrives on iPhone, Android with 7.8 million songs but no multitasking mode originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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VoxOx expands its virtual phone number offerings, lets Canadians play along

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/voxox-expands-its-virtual-phone-number-offerings-lets-canadians/

Virtual phone numbers aren't exactly hard to come by these days, but TelCentris' VoxOx looks to be doing a decent job of distinguishing itself with its newly announced offerings -- and, for a change, it's letting Canadians in on the act. The new options expand on the basic free virtual number included with VoxOx's current service and, in addition to Canadian phone numbers, include numbers that are SMS and fax-capable for both inbound and outbound calls, and an optional "vanity" search for those willing to try their luck at snagging the phone number they've always wanted. Unlike Google Voice, you can also link as many virtual phone numbers to your account as you like, and you'll get free iNum integration so you can be accessible from overseas at local rates. Of course, the numbers themselves aren't free, but they are pretty reasonable -- just $1.95 a month or $19.95 a year. Head on past the break for the complete press release, and quick demo video of the service from Telcentris CTO Kevin Hertz.

Continue reading VoxOx expands its virtual phone number offerings, lets Canadians play along

VoxOx expands its virtual phone number offerings, lets Canadians play along originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Silicon chips get speed boost with a lead start

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/20/silicon-chips-get-speed-boost-with-a-lead-start/

In tennis, the materials of the tennis court affect the performance of the ball. Such is the case, on a much, much smaller scale, for electron movement across circuitry. Silicon chips give resistance that lowers the speed limit, while atom-thick sheets of carbon (a.k.a. graphene) have a special property whereby free electrons are almost weightless and can travel up to 0.003 times the speed of light -- sounds great, but it's hard to produce in bulk. Cut to Han Woong Yeom and Pohang University of Science and Technology in South Korea. His team has added a thin layer lead on a silicon chip, lowering the electron mass (and thus proportionally raising its speed) to 1/20th compared to standard silicon. Still a ways to go for graphene speeds -- by a factor of three, according to Yeom -- but it's also more likely to mass production.

Silicon chips get speed boost with a lead start originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monday, July 19, 2010

Publish your own Paid Newsletter with Letter.ly

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/create-paid-email-newsletter/13966/

While alternate channels like Twitter and RSS feeds have grown in popularity, the good old email newsletter still has its charm. Provide a newsletter with relevant and well-written content and they'll come for sure.

Email Newsletters – Where the Provider Pays

Like everything else, there're plenty of email newsletter services on the web to choose from.

For instance, if you are business owner looking to connect with your customers, you can go with Mail Chimp, Campaign Monitor or Constant Contact – these services will not only deliver your emails but will also help track the performance of your marketing campaigns.

Web publishers (including bloggers) can deliver RSS updates in the form of email newsletters using services like FeedBurner, AWeber or FeedBlitz.

Email Newsletters – Where the Subscriber Pays

Some of the service discussed above are free while others are paid but they all have one thing in common – the email newsletter is always delivered free to the subscriber. The service costs, if any, are borne by the newsletter provider and not the subscriber.

If you're however planning to launch a subscription based newsletter where people will have to pay a certain fee to receive your email, a service that you should explore is letter.ly.

With letter.ly, you can offer subscribe a one-click sign-up page (see example) – they simply have to share their email address and pay with their credit cards (through Amazon Payments) to become a subscriber of your email newsletter.

You get a unique email address and any email that you send to this address will be forwarded to your subscribers as a newsletter. So you get decide the format of the newsletter as well as the frequency and time of delivery.

It can't get any simpler than this. Thanks Mathew Ingram.

Publish your own Paid Newsletter with Letter.ly

Originally published at Digital Inspiration by Amit Agarwal.

OpenStack: Rackspace and NASA Nebula Join Forces for Open Cloud Ecosystem

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/readwriteweb/~3/KeDLaiJcO8E/openstack-rackspace-and-nasa-n.php

Rackspace and NASA are open-sourcing its code and technology for people anywhere to create their own cloud environments.

Called OpenStack, the initiative is one of the most substantive effort to support interoperability in the cloud. As part of the initiative, Rackspace is donating the code that powers its cloud files and cloud servers, the foundation for its public-cloud offerings. NASA will contribute technology that goes to power its Nebula Cloud Platform.

Sponsor

Twenty-five companies have signed on to support OpenStack. These include Intel, Dell and Citrix. Discussions have started with companies like Microsoft. The goal is to create an ecosystem of open-cloud environments.

OpenStack will feature several cloud infrastructure components including a fully distributed object store based on Rackspace Cloud Files.

NASA Nebula is one of the world's most powerful cloud computing platform. For instance, Nebula is processing the images from a camera that is orbiting Mars and taking images of the planet for use in the WorldWide telescope, a project of Microsoft Research. Nebula processed - and now hosts - more than 100 terabytes of high-resolution images, the equivalent of 20,000 DVDs worth of information.

This level of computational capability makes Nebula viable for any enterprise or government agency.

Rackspace representative said the lack of interoperability is slowing down adoption. Customers are asking about how they can move data around. As a result, customers are having to make technology and architectural trade offs.

Those trade offs should not be an issue. If all the cloud providers used the same core technology then customers could shop around based on the value of the different cloud services. It would create a market where the core technology is not the core differentiator.

All the cloud providers use open source components. The need is for a Cloud OS that ties it all together.

Coming into this week at OSCON, we were starting to speculate if the open-source movement had lost a bit of its clout or its will to protect the cloud as much as it had the open Web.

It had been a tough week. The Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems is proving to be a brutal blow for OpenSolaris. And the future of MySQL is still a question mark.

Further, there have been few if any effort to make interoprerabilty a high prirority.

OpenStack looks like it is a step in the right direction.

Discuss

It's a Trap! Atom Corral Is a Major Step Toward Quantum Computing

Source: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-07/its-trap

This maze of electrodes, known as a surface-electrode ion trap, brings us closer to building quantum computers—that is, computers that could manipulate the quantum-mechanical states of atoms to process data millions of times as fast as today's most powerful supercomputers do.

Whereas computers now use transistors to crunch 0s and 1s, a quantum computer could theoretically perform dozens of calculations simultaneously by zapping charged subatomic particles, called ions, with a laser.

One of the first steps in building a functional quantum computer is trapping the ions in order to zap them. That's why physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have created this ion trap, a web of electrodes that produces an electric field to hold the ions in place. Once in place, the ions hover just above the trap's surface. Project physicist Jason Amini says there's still much work to do. For example, he and his group would like to build a trap that can hold hundreds of ions instead of the two or three it currently manages. If they can pull it off, the traps could outperform conventional computers on certain tasks within the next five years.

Verizon's LTE rollout is imminent, computers updated for 4G SIM cards

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/18/verizons-lte-rollout-is-imminent-computers-updated-for-4g-sim/

We just got some alleged (but very convincing) internal documents on Verizon's 4G plans, and it's mostly stuff we've already heard -- 5-12Mbps down, aircards before smartphones, and plans to roll out in 30 cities in 2010. That said, documents dated this week show the company's still on track to serve up 100 million connections by the end of the year, and a pair of independent tipsters have just sent us pics of Verizon computers ready and waiting for those precious LTE SIM cards. Furthermore, the docs also claim that the planned LTE isn't just fast, it's got a lag-destroying 30ms latency too, and fans of wider wireless computing can expect 4G tablets of some sort in 2011 as well. See all the goodies in our gallery below.

Gallery: Verizon Wireless alleged internal 4G plans

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Verizon's LTE rollout is imminent, computers updated for 4G SIM cards originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First official Droid 2 pictures spotted in teaser site code?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/18/first-official-droid-2-pictures-spotted-in-teaser-site-code/

Astute reader Dominic was just minding his business, hunting for hints in the Droid Does website source code, when what should he allegedly discover but an entire Droid 2 spread inside a Shockwave Flash file. To our knowledge these may be the first official images of the Motorola A955, though of course we've already seen it a number of times before. We just need Verizon to leak an official announcement with price and release date now -- we're hearing August 23rd -- and perhaps a nice Hollywood trailer to round things out. See a larger version of Dominic's discovery right after the break.

Continue reading First official Droid 2 pictures spotted in teaser site code?

First official Droid 2 pictures spotted in teaser site code? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:! 57:00 ED T. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Mars 2 teases superpowered dual GeForce GTX 480 goodness

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/18/asus-mars-2-teases-superpowered-dual-geforce-gtx-480-goodness/

We'll be honest with you, we thought the GTX 480 was finally a graphics core too damn large and power-hungry to get the dual-GPU treatment. ASUS, however, is making us think again. Imagery has emerged of a Mars 2 (or II, if you're into outdated numbering schemes) reference board that fits two 480s on its densely populated surface, and is fed by not one, not two, but three 8-pin auxiliary power connectors. Back when Galaxy showed off a dual-GTX 470 prototype at Computex a month ago, we deemed it an unreasonable proposition -- in terms of power draw, heat dissipation, and cost -- but apparently those Taiwanese focus groups are really into their extravagantly overpowered video cards. We suspect if and when this Mars 2 hits retail it'll do so in a highly exclusive fashion, like its predecessor, and anticipate the unveiling of its cooler -- which is likely to be either the biggest or best engineered one we've seen yet.

ASUS Mars 2 teases superpowered dual GeForce GTX 480 goodness originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 18 Jul 2010 22:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Phone 7 in-depth preview

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/windows-phone-7-in-depth-preview/

It's been a long road, hasn't it? Well, in some respects, it hasn't -- in fact, it's only been about two years since development of Windows Phone 7 as we know it today kicked off -- but when you consider that this product will be replacing Windows Mobile 6.5, that puts things in proper perspective. In fact, even the very latest maintenance releases of good ol' WinMo are based on the same rickety underpinnings as version 5.0 was way back in 2005, at a time when WVGA smartphone displays were science fiction, 4G networks were a good two Gs beyond the average American's comprehension, and Engadget looked like this. Nowadays, it's a very different game; eight year-olds have access to mobile email, your phone understands German, and "Yelp" is a verb (okay, actually Yelp is a verb). Indeed, mobile devices are the new PCs -- and companies like Apple and Google are dominating an industry that had once been practically handed to Microsoft on a silver platter. No one -- either inside or outside of Redmond -- is arguing that change isn't desperately (and quickly) needed, because it simply isn't enough to dominate the desktop anymore.

In light of all that, you could call Windows Phone 7 a desperation move to become relevant in the pocket again. Call it whatever you like, but regardless, brand loyalty isn't going to save this product -- it simply has to be good to sell. Scratch that; it actually has to be nearly flawless in a world where iOS 4 and Gingerbread play. Microsoft still has a few months before it intends to get the first volley of Windows Phone 7-based products to the marketplace, but we've recently been provided with reference hardware -- a not-for-retail Samsung called "Taylor" that's closely modeled on the Symbian-based i8910HD -- to get a feel for where they're at as the clock ticks down. Is this shaping up to be a killer platform for the next generation of high-end smartphones? And more importantly, can it win customers? Read on for our first take.

Gallery: Windows Phone 7 preview

Gallery: Windows Phone 7 interface shots

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 in-depth preview

Windows Phone 7 in-depth preview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon FiveSpot CDMA / GSM mobile WiFi hotspot leaks out

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/verizon-fivespot-cdma-gsm-mobile-wifi-hotspot-leaks-out/

Looks like Verizon's about to take its mobile data game worldwide -- we just got this snap of the "FiveSpot," a "global ready" mobile WiFi hotspot . That certainly sounds like a hybrid CDMA / UMTS mobile hotspot to us, which makes sense -- Verizon already sells a bunch of world phones with dual CDMA and GSM radios, so a globetrotting riff on the MiFi fits right in. Based on the name, we'd guess this supports five simultaneous users, but that's a guess. No idea when this will hit or how much it might cost, but we'll keep our eyes open -- check the box shot after the break.

[Thanks, RWN]

Continue reading Verizon FiveSpot CDMA / GSM mobile WiFi hotspot leaks out

Verizon FiveSpot CDMA / GSM mobile WiFi hotspot leaks out originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon's 4G LTE SIM in the wild

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/19/verizons-4g-lte-sim-in-the-wild/

It's still baking our noodles to think about a Verizon device using a SIM on American soil -- but sure enough, those cards allegedly set up in Big Red's systems are floating around in the wild. What you're looking at here is a SIM that will slot into Verizon's LTE-enabled 4G devices when they launch later this year (hence the big "4G" logo on there), and yes, they look just like the SIMs you've been using for the last two decades on carriers around the world. The more things change, the more they stay the same, it seems.

[Thanks, RWN]

Gallery: Verizon's 4G LTE SIM in the wild

Verizon's 4G LTE SIM in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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