Friday, April 15, 2011

Intel and Micron announce new 20nm NAND Flash manufacturing process

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/intel-and-micron-announce-new-22nm-nand-flash-manufacturing-proc/

You didn't think Intel and Micron would just rest on their laurels after starting 25nm flash production last year, did you? The two are now back with an even more impressive 20nm process, and an 8GB MLC NAND device that measures just 118mm² and allows for a 30 to 40 percent reduction in board space. Of course, those 8GB chips can also be combined for far more storage, so you can count on seeing even higher capacity phones, tablets and SSDs sometime after production kicks off in the in second half of 2011. At that point, Intel and Micron also plan to show off a 16GB device that promises to allow for 128GB of storage in a solid-state storage solution smaller than a postage stamp. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Intel and Micron announce new 20nm NAND Flash manufacturing process

Intel and Micron announce new 20nm NAND Flash manufacturing process originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hertz launches hourly EV rentals in London, self-satisfaction comes free

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/hertz-launches-hourly-ev-rentals-in-london-self-satisfaction-co/

Connect by Hertz
Contract-free cellphones, declining marriage rates and car-sharing services all tell us you're a bunch of commitmentphobes. Lucky for you the world is willing to oblige your wishy-washy ways, and for those who also happen to have a bit of a green streak, Connect by Hertz offers hourly rentals on electric cars. After launching its EV rental program here in New York last year, Hertz promised to expand to several other cities and countries by the end of 2011, with London being the next to go online this Friday. British urbanites averse to car ownership will be able to pick from a fleet of vehicles including the the iMieV, Nissan LEAF and Renault Kangoo, range anxiety diminished thanks to the city's 16 charging stations. It's not exactly the Jetsons, but if this is the future of transportation, we're ok with that -- we're thinking Mother Earth is too.

Hertz launches hourly EV rentals in London, self-satisfaction comes free originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Neonode's zForce optical touchscreens hitting ASUS tablets later this year

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/neonodes-zforce-optical-touchscreens-hitting-asus-tablets-later/

It's been over a year since Neonode coyly said some nameless "Asian companies" would use its multitouch zForce displays in future products. Now one of them, at least, is coming out of the woodwork -- ASUS said it plans to ship a "series of products" with these optical touchscreens later this year. What does this mean for consumers? Neonode's screens don't tack any additional layers on top of the touchscreen, making this line of 5 to 13-inch displays different from more common capacitive and resistive ones. The result, Neonode says, is thinner and -- one would hope -- more responsive screens. No word on when these products will hit (nor how creative ASUS will get with its designs), but feel to dig for details in the terse press release.

Continue reading Neonode's zForce optical touchscreens hitting ASUS tablets later this year

Neonode's zForce optical touchscreens hitting ASUS tablets later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 8 to feature USB-runnable Portable Workspaces, sales of 16GB thumb drives set to soar

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/windows-8-to-feature-usb-runnable-portable-workspaces-sales-of/

Windows 8 to feature USB-runnable Portable Workspaces, sales of 16GB thumb drives set to soar
There are endless flavors of "Linux on a stick," tasty downloadable versions of that OS which run from removable storage and let you take Linus' progeny for a spin without dedicating any of your partitions to the cause. There have been ways of making this work with Windows, too, but now Microsoft is getting into the game properly. That leaked version of Windows 8 we looked at recently contains a feature called Portable Workspaces, which enables you to take a 16GB (or greater) external storage device and dump a bootable, runnable copy of Win 8 on there. It remains to be seen just how many copies one could create, and whether they ever expire or, indeed, whether they can themselves be copied onto an HDD like a ghost image, but it's easy to see this as a boon for support personnel. Well, support personnel of the future, anyway.

[Thanks, Peter]

Windows 8 to feature USB-runnable Portable Workspaces, sales of 16GB thumb drives set to soar originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/htc-sensation-versus-the-rest-of-the-dual-core-world-smartphone/

We got to feeling a bit curious about how exactly HTC's latest Android superphone, the Sensation 4G, stacks up against its fellow dual-core competition, so we did what every geek does in such situations, we compiled a chart. Included in this list are the finest and brightest Android handsets from each of the major manufacturers that have gone dual-core so far: the Galaxy S II, the Atrix 4G, the Optimus 2X / G2X, and HTC's own EVO 3D. As it turns out, there are quite a few commonalities among these phones (besides the benchmark-crushing performance). They all boast screens of either 4 or 4.3 inches in size, the minimum amount of RAM among them is 512MB, the smallest battery is 1500mAh, and yes, they all have front-facing video cameras. Basically, it's the future of smartphones, reduced to a stat sheet. As such, it must also come with the warning that specs aren't everything, and user experience will most often depend on the software available on each device and on the preferences of the human holding it. With that proviso fully digested, join us after the break for the data.

Continue reading HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown

HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thursday, April 14, 2011

Now This is an Amplifier... [Desired]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5791968/now-this-is-an-amplifier

Now This is an Amplifier......Even if it is just a prototype. In fact, it's a student's project from a Krakow fine arts university, which just goes to show that some of the best designs don't necessarily come from the R&D labs of tech companies.

Made from stainless steel and aluminum, the amplifier houses the various components in individual compartments, to avoid any possible electromagnetic interference. I'm not sure about the tech behind it—after all, this is just a prototype—but Mateusz Główka looks to be on the right career path. [Mateusz Główka via Yanko]

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Microsoft's Official Kinect Software Is Better Than Most Hackers' [We Built This City]

Source: http://kotaku.com/#!5791981/microsofts-official-kinect-software-is-better-than-most-hackers

Microsoft's Official Kinect Software Is Better Than Most Hackers'Looking to remind people, hey, we made this thing, Microsoft's upcoming Kinect software development kit for the PC (which anyone can grab) will include a variety of features most hackers and code enthusiasts haven't been able to manage on their own.

One of those features is the ability for the camera to track the skeletal movements of two people, not just one. It'll also give people access to all four elements of Kinect's microphone, along with its noise cancellation features.

Other things you'll get with the software development kit (SDK) include a ton of documentation, speech recognition tools and "depth data, which provides the distance of an object from the Kinect camera".

So...you could jerk around with code the hard way, or grab this and let Microsoft do some of the work for you.

Before you ask if this will help, say, games, unless they're free the answer is "no", as the SDK can only be used for non-commercial purposes.

[Kinect, via Gamasutra]

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Samsung's 11.6-inch Series 9 lands an Amazon pre-order at $1,149

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/samsungs-11-6-inch-series-9-lands-an-amazon-pre-order-at-1-149/

Samsung may have priced its slinky new laptop at a buck under $1,200, but you know Amazon likes to dance to its own tune. The online retailer is now listing the 11.6-inch Series 9 at $1,149, saving you a nice bit of change, though it hasn't yet been willing to disclose a release date. The specs should be familiar by now, an Intel Core i3-380UM takes center stage, surrounded by 2GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 3.0, a 5680mAh battery, and a 1366 x 768 display with 400 nits of brightness. Amazon's just the latest of a growing batch of online stores now offering this laptop for pre-order, so check out Samsung's retailer listing below if you're looking for alternatives.

[Thanks, Imtiaz]

Samsung's 11.6-inch Series 9 lands an Amazon pre-order at $1,149 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kogan's Agora Internet TV Portal promises Android Market access, our LCDs remain skeptical

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/kogans-agora-internet-tv-portal-promises-android-market-access/

Believe it or not, we're still rooting for Ruslan Kogan and the rest of his Aussie compatriots, but the company's announcement today of an Android 2.2 set-top TV box with full Market access is, as usual, equal parts intriguing and unbelievable. The Kogan Agora Internet TV Portal: Powered by Android is priced at A$149 with a 1GHz Cortex A8 processor from Samsung, 512MB of RAM, 2GB of flash storage, HDMI output and three USB ports for external storage, that it claims will bring the full internet -- including everyone's favorite Angry Birds -- to your TV screen. According to the sales page it's expected to ship May 27th to anywhere you like, as long as it's in Australia or the UK. We'll mark our calendars to see if it beats official Google TV boxes to Market access in the living room (we're still waiting for the TV shown off last year), but in the meantime check after the break for a press release with more details on this box, a familiar looking 7-inch tablet that also claims access to the Market's thousands of apps and a couple of netbooks. Finally, we spotted a video from ARM fan Charbax checking out what could be the OEM version of the TV box at CeBIT, so that's included after the break as well.

Continue reading Kogan's Agora Internet TV Portal promises Android Market access, our LCDs remain skeptical

Kogan's Agora Internet TV Portal promises Android Market access, our LCDs remain skeptical originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OmniVision's new 12MP CMOS sensor shoots RAW pics and 1080/60p video, looks for smartphone home

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/omnivisions-new-12mp-cmos-sensor-shoots-raw-pics-and-1080-60p-v/

So what if Apple looks set to abandon OmniVision in favor of Sony with its next round of portable device cameras? The company that currently provides the none-too-shabby 5 megapixel imager inside the iPhone 4 has just announced a new 12 megapixel sensor and it's a bit of a beast. The OV12825 pairs the goodness of backside illumination with the ability to shoot RAW stills and 1080p video at a bodacious 60fps. Funnily enough, neither feature is a novelty for OmniVision, which has already given the world the option to shoot RAW and to crank Full HD video at 60fps, but nobody has yet been willing to maximize the previous sensors' capabilities. Now that we're finally seeing efficient dual-core solutions making it to smartphones, maybe the time has come? After all, there's gotta be something else to look forward to after 1080/30p, right? OmniVision is offering samples to interested companies right now and expects volume production in the second quarter of the year. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading OmniVision's new 12MP CMOS sensor shoots RAW pics and 1080/60p video, looks for smartphone home

OmniVision's new 12MP CMOS sensor shoots RAW pics and 1080/60p video, looks for smartphone home origin! ally app eared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI's Fusion-powered X370 laptop gets $579 price tag, hits Amazon and Newegg

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/msis-fusion-powered-x370-laptop-gets-579-price-tag-hits-amazo/

Our story about MSI's X370 ultraportable getting a dose of AMD Fusion ended on a cliffhanger -- the company stopped short of revealing just how much the thing would cost. Well, now we have our answer: this 13.4-incher comes with a $599 price tag and is up for grabs on Newegg. (Amazon already cut the price to $579, but isn't shipping it yet yet.) For the money, that sub-$600 sticker includes AMD's new Zacate E-350 APU, 4GB of RAM, integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics, a 500GB hard drive, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, HDMI and VGA output, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, and an 8-cell battery that MSI claims can last up to ten hours. While it earlier seemed that consumers would get their pick of hard drives and batteries, it's available in just one configuration for now -- not that you would have been tempted to downgrade to a 4-cell, anyway.

Continue reading MSI's Fusion-powered X370 laptop gets $579 price tag, hits Amazon and Newegg

MSI's Fusion-powered X370 laptop gets $579 price tag, hits Amazon and Newegg originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BMW and Siemens partnering for wireless-charging EVs, cutting the cord this May

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/bmw-and-siemens-partnering-for-wireless-charging-evs-cutting-th/

BMW and Siemens partnering for inductive charging EV trial, cutting the cord this may
Back at CES we were dazzled by Fulton Innovation's vision of the future of wireless power, which included an inductively-charged Tesla Roadster. Now, someone's actually making it a reality. Siemens and BMW are partnering on a field trial for inductive chargers, with the device itself making its debut in May ahead of it being deployed in Berlin in June. In theory these can be installed into parking lots, taxi queues, and of course driveways, sunk right into the ground -- out of sight and mind. Neither company is saying which prototype car will be given the ability to catch the waves that these inductive chargesters will be throwing out, but we'd hazard a guess it'll be one of BMW's new i cars, which won't look nearly as futuristic as the invisible wheels above that look to have escaped from the Wonder Woman set.

[Thanks, Jason]

Continue reading BMW and Siemens partnering for wireless-charging EVs, cutting the cord this May

BMW and Siemens partnering for wireless-charging EVs, cutting the cord this May originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Send a Photo Postcard for $0.99 via Postagram [Photos]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5791591/send-a-photo-postcard-for-099-via-postagram

Send a Photo Postcard for src=Digital photo sharing is nice and everything, but nothing beats a printed memory delivered to your home. Postagram, from the makers of the popular photo sharing Instagram app, makes it easy to send photo postcards from your iPhone or the web.

The Instagram social photo app is pretty neat, and real-world photo sharing via Postagram sounds like a cool idea as well.

Postagrams are thick, high-quality photo postcards that can be delivered anywhere in the world (in the US, it'll take 2-5 business days; internationally, a bit longer). You can add an optional 140 character message and the Instagram photo can be popped out of the postcard by the recipient.

You can create your Postagram from the free iPhone app or the web app. It seems like an ideal app for sending customized vacation postcards or just a short and sweet message — one that your friend or loved one can actually hold and display. And it's just under a buck.

Update 2: Register for an Instagram account to use the web app (thanks computergeny!) — but you'll still need an iOS device to take the pics.

Postagram [via TechCrunch]

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What schizophrenia looks like on a molecular level [Brains]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5791852/what-schizophrenia-looks-like-on-a-molecular-level

What schizophrenia looks like on a molecular levelWhat you're looking at are neurons grown from a schizophrenic person. An incredible study, published today in Nature, reveals how scientists grew schizophrenic brain cells to understand the inner workings of this still-mysterious neurological disorder.

A team of scientists from research institutes across the US collaborated to conduct this first-of-a-kind experiment. Schizophrenia is known to be an inherited, genetic disease in the majority of cases, and the researchers drew their samples from the skin of four people with clearly inherited schizophrenia. Three were from families where one parent and all their siblings were also schizophrenic, and one had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 6. Then they then "reprogrammed" these cells to become stem cells, then neurons, creating small colonies of cells whose genetic profile exactly matches schizophrenic neurons.

Find out what they discovered over at io9.

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BlackBerry PlayBook Review [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5791814/blackberry-playbook-review-surprise

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewNo, it's not bad, like you expected it to be.

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewThe BlackBerry PlayBook isn't just the third major tablet platform to launch, or the first one to deeply poke at figuring out why 7-inch tablets should exist—it's literally the future of BlackBerry, since the QNX-based OS is going to be the gooey software heart of BlackBerry phones in the next year or so. This is not a bad thing.

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewThe first thought that'll ripple through your crinkly brainfolds: "Man, it's tiny." It's also pleasantly minimal, the face a buttonless void. It's a real-world manifestation of the archetypal black slate. Which sounds boring as balls, but it's not, because there's a fairly remarkable precision in the way it matches what you expect a tablet to feel like. Cut like a tall paperback, but just a hair or seven thicker than an iPad 2 (and half as thick at the latest BlackBerry), it's less than a pound. The back is just rubbery enough to feel grippy, but not so rubbery it feels gross. The screen, bright and pop-y (and glosssssy), just a shade short of killer.

PlayBook is the most thoughtful product that RIM's put out in a long time. A BlackBerry has never been this smooth or fluid. It has the best multitasking of any tablet out so far, both in terms of straight-up ballsiness (you can pump 1080p video out to an HDTV via HDMI while dicking around in another app or two back on the tablet and everything runs neatly) and the UI, which it borrows liberally from Palm's webOS. In an app, swiping up from the bezel pulls up the desktop/card view, where you can switch to a different app, or close them by flicking up on card. (Or you can switch directly from app to app by swiping from the left or right bezel. Swiping from the top bezel works like the menu button in Android—sometimes it pulls down additional options or features within the app, sometimes it doesn't.) You can choose how you want to multitask: Full-blown, every app stays open till the PlayBook has to kill them, or the default, where apps pause and resume, like the iPad and Android 3.0. Notifications inobtrusively hang out at the top of the screen.

Specs
BlackBerry PlayBook
Price: $500-700 Wi-Fi
Screen: 7-inch, 1024x600
Processor and RAM: Dual-core 1GHz TI OMAP 4430, 1GB RAM
Storage: 16GB, 32GB or 64GB
Camera: Rear: 5-megapixel, 720p video; Front: 3MP
Weight: 0.9 pounds

The most controversial thing about the PlayBook is that it doesn't have independent, native apps for mail, contacts and calendars. Instead, you've gotta "bridge" via Bluetooth to a BlackBerry phone to get all that stuff on the PlayBook. The first-time setup is a little obtuse, with a QR code—and tethering for internet access through your BlackBerry requires a separate action—but everything from your BlackBerry shows up on the PlayBook, in fresh, tablet-ized apps that are clearly inspired by the iPad. It may be a security feature according to RIM but to everybody else, it's just ridiculous. If you don't have a BlackBerry or your phone runs out of juice, well, you don't have access to those apps. Nightmare scenario: Your phone dies, there's no Wi-Fi, and you need a contact's info. You're hosed.

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewThe not-so-secret secret about tablets right now is that everything comes down to the apps. And, well, the app situation is, uh, complicated. RIM says it'll have the most of any tablet at launch, with 3000. Most of what I've seen so far in the beta App World is junk—possibly it still has some issues making it hard to find good apps. RIM's offering like a billion different ways for developers to get onto the tablet—AIR, WebWorks, a native SDK, even Android apps (one day). Some of the built-in apps, like Weather and App World, are actually written in AIR and feel fine, no less "native" than the slick little port of Need for Speed, which is promising. But it's hard to tell what the app situation is gonna be like, ultimately (this dims my hopes a bit).

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewIn the meantime, RIM's pushing the PlayBook's browser as the solution to all its problems, like no native mail app and the lack of apps like Facebook and Twitter at launch—there's even Facebook and Twitter "apps" in the app menu, but they're just bookmarks. The PlayBook's browser isn't bad—it scores 100 on the Acid3 test, and the Sunspider benchmark is just a shade slower than the iPad 2 at 2338.8ms to 2121.0ms, for instance. But it's not a desktop class browser, either (even though in-flight Wi-Fi made me pay $10 like it was a laptop =( ). Facebook is fine, but the standard Twitter page it links to barely works. I don't love the font rendering, and pinch-zooming occasionally shoots you to a different section of the page. You've basically gotta wait for the whole page to load before you start moving around. With Flash, I could watch Amazon Prime streaming, at least until an HD stream kicked in, and then it got super laggy. Even though the standard YouTube site with Flash works, it's not exactly a joy to use either. Which is basically how I'd describe Flash on the PlayBook: It works, better than any other mobile device, but I still clench my asshole every time I have to deal with it.

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewFor being so small, it's got tons of muscle, like a freaky little dude on 'roids. Everything's fast and silky. (Apps typically take a second longer to start up than they should, though.) It runs a solid handful of apps (simultaneously, if you want) without going catatonic. Awesome multitasking UI. The battery life is legit all day long. The screen is super solid. Stereo audio. The front camera is mega-awesome, compared to every other tablet and phone's front camera (sample in the gallery). You can dump music and photos and other files onto the PlayBook via Wi-Fi (though I had to manually plug in the IP address and mount it on a Mac).

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewThere's a whole lot of stuff that's still not there, or on RIM's list of "coming soon": No Android apps yet. You can't create custom app categories. There's no universal search to quickly find apps. You can't re-arrange your open app cards. Half the time you try to touch a link in the browser, you don't know if you touched it correctly or not—the feedback isn't fast enough. Not a fan of the App World or Music Store interfaces—they feel cramped, and it seems hard to find good stuff. Needing to tether to a BlackBerry to use native mail, calendar and contacts apps is annoying, and potentially deal-breaking any way you slice it. (You have no mail, calendar or contacts stored on the PlayBook if you're not tethered!)

BlackBerry PlayBook ReviewBlackBerry PlayBook ReviewIn a lot of ways, the PlayBook is more polished and usable in its beta state than the Motorola Xoom, and it's straight-up the best seven-inch tablet out there (though in the tango between between portability and size, I think 10 inches is still the best). At the same time, I don't think anyone should buy it right now—BlackBerry user or otherwise—for at least a few months, to see if the platform has enough legs to carry itself to where it needs to be. If the apps do arrive to fill in the gaps, then the PlayBook is totally going to be a tablet to check out. The foundation is solid—I can't wait to see the first phones running this software—it just needs some stuff built on top of it before you can decide whether or not you should move in.

Video by Woody Jang; Illustration by Contributing Illustrator Sam Spratt. Become a fan of his Facebook Artist's Page and follow Sam on Twitter.

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