Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Starr Labs AirPower, Missing Link adapters take MIDI into the wild world of wireless

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/15/starr-labs-airpower-missing-link-adapters-take-midi-into-the-wi/

Ah, MIDI. How we love thee. You're older than dirt itself, but still totally relevant -- something we could only hope to one day be. But now, it's time to make a move. A move to a world where copper wires and insulated cabling aren't necessary. A world where wireless rules. Create Digital Music has a new report out on two of the most prominent options when it comes to wireless MIDI, with the both of 'em distributing bleeps and bloops over totally different airwaves. The Starr Labs AirPower relies on a proprietary 2.4GHz communications protocol, enabling MIDI guitarists to finally get their groove on without worry over cable ejections. 'Course, with a $425 (upgrade) / $250 (MIDI-only) price tag, it's far from being affordable, and that $250 dongle is needed in addition to the $425 adapter for any instrument not made by Starr. The Missing Link relies on traditional WiFi waves, enabling phones and tablets to easily tap into its potential. You'll need to be aware that even the slightest bit of WiFi interference could ruin a live gig, but at just $150 (limited first run), it may be worth the risk. Head on past the break for a live demonstration of the latter, and tap that via for more dirt on the duo.

Continue reading Starr Labs AirPower, Missing Link adapters take MIDI into the wild world of wireless

Starr Labs AirPower, Missing Link a! dapters take MIDI into the wild world of wireless originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 03:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Create Digital Music | source

source

Starr Labs | Email this | Comments

Notion Ink Adam clears FCC, begins shipping 'around Wednesday'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/15/notion-ink-adam-clears-fcc-begins-shipping-around-wednesday/

We don't see it in the FCC database yet but Notion Ink's charming Rohan Shravan just penned a post on the company's blog with news that Adam has official clearance from the US government. That's right, after several delays the tiny startup will finally condense its occasionally vapory molecules into a solid slab of shipping tablet starting "around Wednesday" after the hardware receives its FCC tattoo. Remember, Adam was that tablet good enough to earn a Best of CES 2011 honorable mention at an event absolutely flooded with tablets from a who's who of consumer electronics companies. While our first impressions of the production unit were positive, we're holding off on making a final judgement until we've had the chance to perform a full review. Having said that, Adam's final NI3421A01 product code is so nerdy -- the "3421" continues Rohan's tradition of numbering product iterations along the Fibonacci number sequence -- that we're almost tempted to place an order ourselves. Almost.

[Thanks, John]

Notion Ink Adam clears FCC, begins shipping 'around Wednesday' originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 04:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source

source

Notion Ink | Email this | Comments

NTIA says LightSquared proposal could pose national security threat

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/15/ntia-says-lightsquared-proposal-could-pose-national-security-thr/

Last summer it looked like Philip Falcone's LightSquared was on the path to a democratic LTE solution: a coast-to-coast network, incorporating satellite connectivity to cover the entire country. It's an ambitious goal to be sure -- perhaps too ambitious. In a letter to the FCC, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) warned that the wholesaler's wireless network, which would operate on the MSS spectrum, could interfere with systems like Department of Defense communications. Here's the snag: last year the FCC approved the company's initial proposal to create a network that would incorporate both terrestrial and satellite services. Now LightSquared wants to offer the option of terrestrial-only phones to their clients. According to the NTIA, such a system would require far more land-based stations, causing potential MSS overcrowding and increasing the risk of interference with everything from aeronautical emergency communications to Federal agency systems. The FCC has yet to make a decision on the revised proposal, and LightSquared hasn't made a peep, leaving us to wonder whether it was all too good to be true.

NTIA says LightSquared proposal could pose national security threat originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 Jan 2011 08:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source

source

Reuters | Email this | Comments

Research shocker! Keyless car entry systems can be hacked easily, elegantly

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/16/research-shocker-keyless-car-entry-systems-can-be-hacked-easily/

We know you are vigilant enough not to trust your car's security to a wireless system, but plenty of other folks like the convenience of putting away the metallic keys and getting into their vehicles with a bit of Bond-like swagger. Professor Srdjan Capkun of ETH Zurich found himself perched on the fence between these two groups when he recently purchased a vehicle with a keyless entry system, so he did what any good researcher would: he tried to bypass its security measures. In total, he and his team tested 10 models from eight car makers and their results were pretty conclusive: each of the tested vehicles was broken into and driven away using a very simple and elegant method. Keyless entry systems typically work by sending a low-powered signal from the car to your key fob, with the two working only when they're near each other, but the wily Zurich profs were able to intercept and extend that signal via antennas acting as repeaters, resulting in your key activating your car even when it's nowhere near it. The signal-repeating antennae have to be pretty close to both the key and the car, but that's why heist movies stress the importance of teamwork. Hit the source link for all the chilling details.

Research shocker! Keyless car entry systems can be hacked easily, elegantly originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

CNET |

source

MIT Technology Review | Email this | Comments

Friday, January 14, 2011

World's first room-temperature semiconductor plasmon nanolaser created by Berkeley scientists

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/14/worlds-first-room-temperature-semiconductor-plasmon-nanolaser-c/

We're big proponents of the idea that everything is better with lasers, and a team of researchers at UC Berkeley has created a new type of semiconductor plasmon nanolaser, or spaser, that could eventually find a home in many of your favorite devices. The big breakthrough is that Berkeley's spaser operates at room temperature -- previous spasers could only sustain lasing at temperatures below -250° C -- enabling its use in commercial products. Plasmon lasers work by amplifying surface plasmons, which can be confined to a much smaller area than the light particles amplified by conventional lasers. This allows for extreme miniaturization of optical devices for ultra-high-resolution imaging, high sensitivity biological sensors, and optical circuits 100 times faster than the electronic variety. There's no word on how soon the technology will be commercially available, so you'll have to wait a bit longer for your first laser computer.

World's first room-temperature semiconductor plasmon nanolaser created by Berkeley scientists originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 01:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Technology Review | source

source

UC Berkeley | Email this | Comments

KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 WHDI graphics card is first to go wireless

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/14/kfa2-nvidia-geforce-gtx-460-whdi-graphics-card-is-first-to-go-wi/

What you're looking at is the world's first wireless graphics card affectionately dubbed the KFA2 (aka, Galaxy) GeForce GTX460 WHDI 1024MB PCIe 2.0. The card uses five aerials to stream uncompressed 1080p video from your PC to your WHDI enabled television (or any display courtesy of the bundled 5GHz WHDI receiver) at a range of about 100 feet. Otherwise, it's the same mid-range GTX 460 card we've seen universally lauded with 1024MB of onboard RAM helping to make the most of its 336 CUDA cores. Insane, yes, but we'd accept nothing less from our beloved graphics cards manufacturers.

KFA2 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 WHDI graphics card is first to go wireless originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bit-Tech | source

source

KFA2 | Email this | Comments

Fujitsu unveils Esprimo FH99/CM, touts it as the world's first glasses-free 3D desktop

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/14/fujitsu-unveils-esprimo-fh99-cm-touts-it-as-the-worlds-first-g/

After seeing Sharp's 10.6 glasses-free 3D display last September, we left convinced that parallax barrier 3D technology was a long way off from being ready for prime-time, and then we reached for a bottle of aspirin. Demonstrations by Intel and Sony at CES this year proved, however, that a lot can change in four months, and we hope for Japan's collective eye sight that Fujitsu's Esprimo FH99/CM desktop PC follows this trend. That's because Fujitsu claims it's the world's first glasses-free all-in-one, and it's scheduled to launch in the country on February 25th with a whopping $3,100 price tag. All that dough will get buyers a naked-eye 23-inch full HD 3D display plus top-of-the-line features such as a Blu-ray drive with 3D Blu-ray support, a 2Ghz Core i7 processor, 4GB of memory, a 2TB hard drive, and two USB 3.0 ports. There's no word whether the computer will land stateside, but if it doesn't, Toshiba has hinted they could fill the void with a glasses-free 3D PC of its own by late 2011. Still, we wouldn't recommend stomping your 3D glasses just yet.

Fujitsu unveils Esprimo FH99/CM, touts it as the world's first glasses-free 3D desktop originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 14 Jan 2011 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Crunch Gear | source

source

Fujitsu.jp | Email this | Comments

Thursday, January 13, 2011

RIM's WebWorks SDK: make apps compatible with both PlayBook and BlackBerry 6

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/rims-webworks-sdk-make-apps-compatible-with-both-playbook-and/

RIM's adding yet more incentive for developers to give its PlayBook tablet a chance. The company's just launched a beta of WebWorks SDK, a collection of tools that lets you package up your web applications, with access to the hardware capabilities, as apps compatible with both the PlayBook and BlackBerry 6 smartphone devices. RIM also released a handful of new SDKs and extended the free PlayBook offer to March 15th. If you're the sort who dreams in binary, hit up the relevant links below.

RIM's WebWorks SDK: make apps compatible with both PlayBook and BlackBerry 6 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Akai SynthStation49 dock / giant keyboard combo is less portable than its predecessor

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/akai-synthstation49-dock-giant-keyboard-combo-is-less-portable/

You may or may not be familiar with Akai's previous iPad dock / keyboard combo, the SynthStation. The thing is, the original SynthStation's keyboard was miniature, and the dock was designed for the iPhone -- presumably so that it was simultaneously portable. Well, the new Akai SynthStation49 adds a full keyboard, though it obviously loses that portability. Regardless, the SynthStation49 packs nine MPC-style pads, dedicated pitch and mod wheels, and transport controls. The internal audio boasts 1/4-inch outputs, and the hardware is MIDI supporting, so you can use the keyboard as a MIDI input device. This one is currently awaiting certification from Apple, so we can't say when it'll be released, nor do we have pricing. Hit up the source link for more details.

Akai SynthStation49 dock / giant keyboard combo is less portable than its predecessor originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 12:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Samsung Forte Android phone with LTE for MetroPCS leaked?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/samsung-forte-android-phone-with-lte-for-metropcs-leaked/

Things look to finally start to get interesting with hardware selection on MetroPCS' LTE network -- a network that still offers nothing more than the Samsung Craft dumbphone to tame those wild 4G speeds several months after the commercial launch. The latest leak here is for a device allegedly called the Forte -- also from Samsung, naturally -- that features a sliding landscape keyboard along with a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 5 megapixel camera, and Android 2.2 at launch, all specs that would suggest this might be a Galaxy S-branded device. What we don't know is whether the Forte is the same as the SCH-R910 that was leaked for MetroPCS a few days ago; Samsung Hub's tipster claims there are two LTE devices in the pipeline here, so they could be different (perhaps one with a keyboard, one without) even though the tops are identical at a glance.

Samsung Forte Android phone with LTE for MetroPCS leaked? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PhoneArena | source

source

Samsung Hub | Email this | Comments

Seas0nPass Jailbreaks Your Apple TV In A Jiff

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/13/seas0npass-jailbreaks-your-apple-tv-in-a-jiff/

Seas0nPass is an Apple TV jailbreak app that allows for a quick, painless jailbreak on most systems, thereby allowing you to install “extra” apps including XBox Media Center, Boxee, and Plex. You can download the application here and instructions for use appear here. It is OS X-only right now although future versions should run on Windows.

What does jailbreaking really get you? Sadly, very little right now except a slightly buggy version of media streamer Plex and SSH access to the box. With the hard drive removed, there is precious little space on the Apple TV and, whereas previous jailbreaks allowed you to upload non-iTunes video the the device, the new homebrew apps allow only for the streaming of previously unavailable files.

Using Big Data and Analytics to Automate the Sales Cycle

Source: http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/01/how-big-data-makes-the-most-of.php

Big data and analytics have found their place in the sales cycle. In particular that part of the business known as maintenance and renewals.

A method to aggregate and analyze multiple data sources is working for ServiceSource, a cloud services provider that offers a combination of managed services and its software to analyze data and help increase customer renewals.

ServiceSource represents a new generation of cloud services providers that are growing fast by offering a combination of managed services and SaaS-based tools that integrate with enterprise technologies, be they SaaS-based or on-premise.

Sponsor

Gartner Research predicts the cloud services market to increase from $68 billion in 2010 to about $149 billion by 2014. The companies providing cloud services are focusing to some degree on using data and analytics to provide an initial framework that is integrated into the SaaS environment.

For example, Marketo is one of the fastest growing SaaS providers. It provides marketing automation services. And who can deny Salesforce.com's growth? The service has had considerable success with its sales automation technology.

Gary Liu of ServiceSource said in an interview earlier this week that its growth can in part be attributed to the demands companies are facing from Wall Street to boost revenues.

That's also what we hear from Marketo. Companies are searching for incremental revenues. Automation is providing a way to do that.

Here's how it works for ServiceSource customers:

The client gives access to the data sets.
The data is put through the ServiceSource data management engine. The data is normalized and then put into an intelligence platform.
That allows ServiceSource to do benchmarking and tie it to metrics within a dashboard environment.

The enterprise is just getting a taste for the power that automation offers. Sales has traditionally been a manual task where the relationship is of the first importance. That's still true. But the use of automating technologies that integrate with a SaaS platform is what we expect to continue to see as the year unfolds and the cloud services market expands its scope.

For ServiceSource, the challenge is in showing its systems work and can provide increased revenues for the organization. In a smart twist, ServiceSource proves itself by earning its compensation on how sales increase. The pay for performance model is apparently pretty popular with chief financial officers. Now there's a shocker!

The system seems to be working. ServiceSource says that it is seeing a 20% increase and sometimes as much as a 40% increase in customer renewal rates.

And the proof of its success? ServiceSource recently announced its intentions to pursue an initial public offering. That has to be worth something, don't you think?

Discuss

The Largest Molecule Ever Made Could Be Used to Deliver Drugs

Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/most-massive-synthetic-molecule-could-be-used-deliver-drugs-or-make-new-materials

Organic chemists in Switzerland have built a ginormous virus-sized macromolecule — it has 170,000 bond-forming chemical reactions — calling it a major step in the creation of molecular objects.

The molecule, called PG5, is the biggest synthetic molecule with a stable, defined form. Similar structures exist in nature, but they are hard to duplicate, because they fall apart during creation, as New Scientist explains. Future molecular objects would need to keep their structure regardless of their environment, and PG5 is a step in this direction. Its structure is similar to that of a tobacco virus, and it keeps this rod-like structure in various conditions — it resists flattening out on a surface, for instance.

PG5 is 10 nanometers in diameter and weighs as much as 200 million hydrogen atoms. This is far bigger than the previous record-holder, polystyrene polymers that were only 40 million hydrogen atoms. Still, it's only a fraction of the molecular weight of DNA.

New Scientist describes how researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich built their molecule, adding benzene and nitrogen branches to a carbon-hydrogen backbone. Synthesizing the whole molecule required 170,000 reactions, and the result is a foldy, tree-like structure. Scientists say PG5 could hold drugs in its multitudinous branches, and it is a step toward molecular objects that keep their forms regardless of their environment.

There are plenty of synthetic nano-objects, but these are made of multiple molecules, not a single, gigantic crablike one.

The molecule was described in a recent issue of the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.

[New Scientist]

Mysterious 7-inch Viewsonic Android tablet breaks cover, reveals little

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/mysterious-7-inch-viewsonic-android-tablet-breaks-cover-reveals/

Let's see, if there's a ViewPad 10 and a ViewPad 4, logic would dictate that a ViewPad 7 couldn't be far out, right? Unfortunately for those convinced, Viewsonic actually has a 7-inch ViewPad on the market already, and the device you're peering at above most certainly isn't it. This gem was spotted by CarryPad at Zinio's CES booth, complete with Android 2.2, the outfit's own content software and... well, who knows what else. Chippy noted that booth attendees weren't exactly hip with him toying around with the device, though he did remark that performance seemed snappier than usual when compared to the other 7-inchers out there. So, will Viewsonic come clean with its LTE-enabled, 7-inch miracle-of-a-tablet? Highly doubtful, but who said dreaming was a crime?

Mysterious 7-inch Viewsonic Android tablet breaks cover, reveals little originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source

source

Netbook News, CarryPad | Email this | Comments

Researchers develop 'liquid pistons' for cameras, medical use

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/13/researchers-develop-liquid-pistons-for-cameras-medical-use/

It may still be years away from any sort of practical use, but a team of researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed some so-called "liquid pistons" that they say could shake up everything from cameras to medical devices. Those pistons consist of some droplets of "nanoparticle-infused ferrofluids," which are able to oscillate and precisely displace a surrounding liquid. In the case of a camera, that could be used for a liquid lens of sorts (as seen at right), and the researchers say the same technology may one day even be used for implantable eye lenses. The possibilites don't end with optical uses, though -- the researchers say that the precise ability to pump small volumes of liquid could also be used for implantable drug-delivery systems that would be able to deliver tiny doses at regular intervals. Of course, there's no indication as to when any of that might happen -- in the meantime, you can occupy yourself with the brief but oddly hypnotic video after the break.

Continue reading Researchers develop 'liquid pistons' for cameras, medical use

Researchers develop 'liquid pistons' for cameras, medical use originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

PhysOrg | source

source

Rensselaer | Email this | Comments

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)