Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Toshiba introduces 32nm DDR NAND with 133Mbps speeds, or MT/s if you prefer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/toshiba-introduces-32nm-ddr-nand-with-133mbps-speeds-or-mt-s-if/

It doesn't quite have the efficiency and capacity of this 25nm process, and it's not half as speedy as that planned 400Mbps, but Toshiba is moving up in the world with today's reveal of 32nm, 133Mbps toggle-mode DDR NAND. The new flash memory chips will go head to head with the similar 30nm toggle-mode NAND used in Samsung's 512GB SSD and the 166Mbps ONFi 2.1 chips that power Crucial's RealSSD C300 drive; each of the tiny black chips can store up to 32 gigabytes. Shame there's no word on when we'll see these speeding our PCs and iPods, nor any mention of price. PR after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba introduces 32nm DDR NAND with 133Mbps speeds, or MT/s if you prefer

Toshiba introduces 32nm DDR NAND with 133Mbps speeds, or MT/s if you prefer originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 06:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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E Ink begins sampling color and capacitive touch displays, on track for late 2010 launch

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/e-ink-begins-sampling-color-and-capacitive-touch-displays-on-tr/

E Ink Holdings, the company behind the power-sipping screens contained within Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Readers, is keeping to its schedule for the biggest overhaul of its display technology yet. Color panels are reportedly now sampling out to device vendors and China-based Hanvon has already answered the call -- it promises to deliver color E Ink readers by the end of this year. Two varieties of touchscreens are also being prepared: the first is a capacitive panel to sate the kids' need to flick and swipe everywhere, while the second will include a pen-friendly digitizer that should make annotations a doddle (or should that be a doodle?). Better response times and reflectivity are also being touted, though the big question is obviously when this good stuff will make its way into mainstream devices like the Kindle. If you believe Jeff Bezos, that won't be any time soon.

E Ink begins sampling color and capacitive touch displays, on track for late 2010 launch originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:01:00 EDT. Please see ! our terms for use of feeds.

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Exclusive: Dell Thunder prototype rumbles into the wild (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/exclusive-dell-thunder-prototype-rumbles-into-the-wild-video/

Did it get hot in here all of a sudden or is it just this extremely sexy prototype we're looking at? Yes, the Dell Thunder that boomed onto your internet screens back in April is back, and this time we've got video of it too. Our tipster reports an 8 megapixel camera with LED flash on the back -- which includes 720p video capture capabilities -- along with a removable 1,400mAh battery. His prototype's running vanilla Android 2.1 at present, though the final units can probably be expected to ship with Dell's custom skin on top. Screen resolution is purportedly 800 x 480, though judging by that 7 x 4 icon grid up there and our tipster's own experience, it could be even higher; the 4.1-inch display looks to indeed be of the OLED variety, as our earlier leak had indicated. All that and it has the looks of a pocket-sized supercar. Enough teasing, skip past the break for the video.

P.S. With Thunder now confirmed as an honest to goodness device (and not just renders), the rest of the April leak would seem to be validated including the Windows Phone 7 Lightning handset, the 7-inch Looking Glass Android tablet, and the two mid-range Flash and Smoke Android devices.

[Thanks, Fahad]

Gallery: Dell Thunder prototype leaks out

Continue reading Exclusive: Dell Thunder prototype rumbles into the wild (video)

Exclusive: Dell Thunder prototype rumbles into the wild (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 04:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gartner and IDC agree: the Android invasion's accelerating around the world

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/gartner-and-idc-agree-the-android-invasions-accelerating-aroun/

Last quarter we reported on some pretty stellar growth numbers for Android in the global smartphone marketplace. Back then, Google's OS had a 9.6 percent slice of the pie, but today that's ballooned to a robust 17.2 percent, meaning that in terms of end-user sales over the last three months, Android has nearly matched RIM's BlackBerry sales. That's quite the feat when you consider that a year ago the latter was shifting ten times more units than the former. This extraordinary growth rate has narrowed down Symbian's lead at the top, in spite of Nokia's favorite OS actually shipping on more phones this year, while the big loser of the quarter has to be Windows Mobile, which contracted both in terms of market share and actual shipments.

Overall, smartphone sales were up by 50 percent year-on-year, according to both Gartner and IDC, while Gartner adds that mobile devices as a whole grew at a tamer 13.3 percent pace. In terms of phone manufacturers' global share, Nokia and Samsung have held on to their top positions, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have experienced some uncomfortable shrinkage, and HTC, RIM and Apple have capitalized to expand their portions. Looking over to IDC's smartphone share data shows, again, that all smartphone makers are growing remarkably well, but it does highlight HTC (129 percent) and Samsung (173 percent) as really improving their presence in the sector. The reason? Android, Android, Android.

Continue reading Gartner and IDC agree: the Android invasion's accelerating around the world

Gartner and IDC agree: the Android invasion's accelerating around the world originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 07:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ordro HDV-D350S camcorder packs removable pico projector

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/ordro-hdv-d350s-camcorder-packs-removable-pico-projector/

It's not the first video camera to pack a built-in pico projector, but Ordro's HDV-D350S does look to be the first camcorder with a removable pico projector. In addition to that accoutrement -- which pumps out a WVGA image at 15 lumens -- you'll get full 1080p recording, a 10x optical zoom, a 3-inch touchscreen LCD, and an SD / SDHC card slot for storage. Of course, you'll also have to pay a considerable premium over your usual 1080p camcorder from a little known manufacturer -- look for this one to set you back $549.

Ordro HDV-D350S camcorder packs removable pico projector originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 08:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Time Warner Cable developing iOS app, laptime viewing may never be the same (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/time-warner-cable-developing-ios-app-laptime-viewing-may-never/

Time Warner Cable developing iPhone/iPad app, laptime viewing may never be the same (video)

Looks like TWC is the latest victim of tablet fever. Not wanting to get left behind as Comcast flaunts its iPad app for remote scheduling, Time Warner Cable is showing off its own, slated to hit the iPad and the iPhone at some point in the future. (It's called "prototyping work" at this point.) The app would allow a subscriber to view current TV listings and change their DVR's recording schedule from afar, plus use intuitive searches to find new content. That's promising, because whenever we search through TWC's current Scientific Atlanta DVR interface we wind up spiking our remote control in frustration, and that's getting expensive. Even more promising is the plan to pump TV Everywhere to iOS and, down the road, to provide an API for other devs to write their own apps against. Care to watch a bunch of TWC executives lounging in a corner office while discussing the app? Check the video after the break. It's part one of a series and, if you stay awake through all four, you win a prize!

Continue reading Time Warner Cable developing iOS app, laptime viewing may never be the same (video)

Time Warner Cable developing iOS app, laptime viewing may never be the same (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ATI CrossFireX versus NVIDIA SLI: performance scaling showdown

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/ati-crossfirex-versus-nvidia-sli-performance-scaling-showdown/

We know who the daddy is when it comes to single-card graphics performance, and we've even witnessed NVIDIA and ATI duking it out with multiple cards before, but this here roundup is what you might call comprehensive. Comparing a mind-boggling 23 different configurations, the Tech Report guys set out to determine the best bang for your DirectX 11 buck. Their conclusion won't shock those of you who've been following the recent love affair between reviewers and NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 460: a pair of these eminently affordable cards regularly outpaced the best single-GPU solutions out there. Slightly more intriguing, however, was the discovery that its elder siblings, the GTX 470 and 480, have improved in performance to the point of being markedly ahead of ATI's Radeon HD 5870, with the blame for this shift being put squarely on the shoulders of NVIDIA's driver update team. Hurry up and give the source a read while it's still fresh, we can't imagine ATI letting this be the status quo for too much longer.

ATI CrossFireX versus NVIDIA SLI: performance scaling showdown originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Purdue's 'self-calibrating' MEMS could produce the most accurate sensors yet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/purdues-self-calibrating-mems-could-produce-the-most-accurate/

Micro electromechanical systems, or MEMS, aren't anything new. But Purdue University's Jason Vaughn Clark has ideas that are far grander than those we've seen already. Mr. Clark has purportedly developed a new take on an old spin, with electro micro metrology (EMM) enabling engineers to "account for process variations by determining the precise movement and force that's being applied to, or sensed by, a MEMS device." These self-calibrating machines are the first to do so without any external references, which would allow nanotechnologists, crime forensics researchers and a whole host of others to determine what actually happens at a microscopic level. In theory, the gurus working on this stuff long to improve the accuracy of atomic force microscopes and to eventually create a diminutive AFM-on-a-chip, which -- according to Clark -- could "open the door to the nanoworld to a much larger number of groups or individuals." We're waiting.

Purdue's 'self-calibrating' MEMS could produce the most accurate sensors yet originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Notion Ink Adam priced at $498, lives up to promise of being below $499

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/12/notion-ink-adam-priced-at-498-lives-up-to-promise-of-being-bel/

Notion Ink, the plucky Indian startup intent on shaking up the tablet industry, was most recently spotted turning over the sofa cushions looking for spare change, but that isn't stopping the company from announcing pricing for its mythical first product. The Adam, it has now been revealed, will be available for $498 with WiFi, 3G, GPS, and a Tegra 2 system-on-chip powering things, with prices dipping down to $449 if you exclude either the 3G or Pixel Qi display option, and $399 if you drop both and make do with a WiFi-only LCD-based tablet. That certainly adheres to the promise of aggressive pricing, but the Q3 launch -- which in itself was a slip from a Q2 pledge -- has now also been definitively scratched off the board of possibilities, as the device won't be submitted to the FCC for certification until November. Notion Ink claims that from there on it'll be just a matter of waiting on the FCC to clear the Adam for its US launch, which could happen in late 2010 or CES 2011 at the latest. Or, you know, never.

Notion Ink Adam priced at $498, lives up to promise of being below $499 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wednesday, August 11, 2010

DeviantART Muro is an HTML5 Drawing App that Works On Your iPad [Drawing]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5609478/deviantart-muro-is-an-html5-drawing-app-that-works-on-your-ipad

HTML5 online painting app Muro is a surprisingly capable drawing app that doesn't require Flash, plug-ins, or anything else—just a browser that supports the latest technologies.

The application works well in any HTML5-compatible browser, which is basically all of them except for Internet Explorer—though it's obviously a lot easier to use if you've got a drawing tablet as well. The application also works surprisingly well on your iPad—the touch screen is an ideal platform for a drawing application. There's a good set of drawing tools, and a whole slew of filters for blurring, sharpening, embossing, or any other image editing type of task once you're done with your image. It's a great tool worth a look, if for no other reason than to see what HTML5 is capable of.

deviantART Muro [via How-To Geek ETC]

Someone Built the Perfect Green House in a Perfect Paradise [Architecture]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5609575/someone-built-the-perfect-green-house-in-a-perfect-paradise

Playa Carate, Peninsula de Osa, Costa Rica. 5% of the world biodiversity is in this place, a perfect paradise on Earth. Somehow, someone built this house in it. Loaded with green technology, it's not only pretty but 100% self-sufficient.

Created by Robles Arquitectos, the house is so isolated from civilization that it has no access to public power cables, sanitation, or water. For the latter, the house uses water from the forest, which also serves as a power source thanks to two low-impact hydroelectric turbines that crank 800kWh. In addition to the generators, the roof can provide up to 10,800kWh of electricity thanks to its panels. Additional panels heat up the water.

Everything else in the house has been designed to be energy efficient and easy to maintain:

All the proposed materials were tested in order to evaluate its behavior on the difficult environment that the Osa peninsula has because of its humidity, high percentage of rain, mould, fungi and its flora and fauna.

The whole house—which is 1 meter over the ground so it's away from its humidity—uses thermal panels, built around a steel structure. The structure itself has been designed following the same principles that make insects energy efficient, to enhance ventilation, reduced sun exposure, and provide with natural illumination for as long as possible during the day.

According to the architects, the house is the "first stage" of the ISEAMI Institute (Institute of sustainability, ecology, art, mind and investigation):

The house is the main area of the institute, therefore, it's design will serve as a multifunctional place in order to host activities as Investigation, meditation, training, Yoga and joy at the terrace located in the first level. At the same time, the Institute director will habit the house on the second level.

This whole institute feels like an excuse to build an amazing house in an amazing place, but whatever. I want to join it as much as I wanted to join those bastards of the Dharma Initiative. [Archdaily]

The Sun May've Belched Plasma, But the Sky Looked Gorgeous [Image Cache]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5609916/the-sun-mayve-belched-plasma-but-the-sky-looked-gorgeous

The Sun May've Belched Plasma, But the Sky Looked Gorgeous Last week's geomagnetic storm produced some wild photos of aurora borealis, otherwise known as the Northern Lights. Thankfully Flickr users were on hand to shoot the effects of the sun's expelled plasma, like this one seen here.

This particular photo, shot by Shawn Malone from LakeSuperiorPhoto.com, shows the aurora borealis over the Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan. My absolute favorite though is Ian Diamond's, who was out shooting in Quebec, Canada.

The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory Ahead telescope at NASA shot an impressive HD video of the sun's ejection of plasma, which chucks 10 billion tons of the charged gas into the air. Over the course of three and a half days, the gas soared the 93 million miles from the sun to the Earth, resulting in some amazing affects only seen by those living in the Northern parts of the world. [National Geographic via Boing Boing]

Image Credit: LakeSuperiorPhoto

Google Alarm for Firefox Screams Every Time Google Spies You [Privacy]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5610018/google-alarm-for-firefox-screams-every-time-google-spies-you

Not many people are aware about how many times Google collects personal browsing data whenever you visit a web page. If you have Firefox, now you can install Google Alarm and make this fact painfully and annoyingly clear.

The Google Alarm Firefox add-on will scream and show an alert every time your personal information is sent to Google servers. Since this happens almost everywhere—thanks to spying bugs like Google Analytics, AdSense, YouTube embeds, Google API calls, and who knows what else—you may just want to look at the demo:

But if you want to get into "Fuck You Google"-mode, go and install the add-on now. It will play an alarm, show a visual notification, and maintain stats of the percentage of sites that send information to Google. And then, imagine what they can do with all that information. [Jamiedubs]

Metamaterials used to focus Terahertz lasers, make them useful

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/10/metamaterials-used-to-focus-terahertz-lasers-make-them-useful/

Forget old and busted X-rays, T-rays are the future, man! It was only recently that we were discussing Terahertz lasers and their potential to see through paper, clothes, plastic, flesh, and other materials, but that discourse had to end on the sad note that nobody had managed to make them usable in a practical and economically feasible way. The major hurdle to overcome was the diffusion of Terahertz radiation -- which results in weak, unfocused lasers -- but now researchers from the universities of Harvard and Leeds seem to believe they've managed to do it. Using metamaterials to collimate T-rays into a "tightly bound, high powered beam" will, they claim, permit semiconductor lasers (i.e. the affordable kind) to perform the duties currently set aside for sophisticated machinery costing upwards of $160,000. Harvard has already filed a patent application for this innovation, and if things pan out, we might be seeing body scanners (both for medical and security purposes), manufacturing quality checks, and a bunch of other things using the extra special THz stuff to do their work.

Metamaterials used to focus Terahertz lasers, make them useful originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Screen Grabs: EVO 4G captures illicit in-progress surgery on The Closer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/10/screen-grabs-evo-4g-captures-illicit-in-progress-surgery-on-the/

Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.

The Sprint badge on our EVO 4G definitely isn't lit up in florescent yellow, but the logo on Sgt. David Gabriel's sure is. During last night's episode of The Closer, Brenda's right hand men were instructed to bust out their cellphones in order to videotape a crime in progress, with the "crime" being the removal of a rapist's heart for transplant into a young, innocent lady back at the hospital. We'll spare you the gory, sticky details, but suffice it to say this 8 megapixel shooter definitely proved valuable when it came time to show and tell. Oh, and didn't 4G just go live in the Los Angeles area? Man, talk about a timely appearance...

Gallery: HTC EVO 4G appears on The Closer

Screen Grabs: EVO 4G captures illicit in-progress surgery on The Closer originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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