Monday, November 12, 2012

Lamborghini's New $380,000 Aventador Is Topless And Hugely Powerful

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/lamborghini-reveals-aventador-roadster-2012-11

Lamborghini Aventador Roadster

In the summer of 2011, Lamborghini introduced the Aventador LP 700-4. Having delivered 1,300 so far, the Italian supercar maker is now offering the LP 700-4 as a roadster.

Without a roof in the way, drivers of the new Aventador can enjoy the noise of the 6.5-liter V12 engine that produces a huge 700 horsepower.

The Roadster LP 700-4 comes with a €300,000 ($381,420) price tag, before taxes.

It features Lamborghini's trademark scissor doors.



The roof is made of carbon fiber and weighs only 6kg (about 13 lbs).



It is removed by hand and stored in the front luggage compartment.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Livescribe Sky WiFi Smartpen review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/12/livescribe-sky-wifi-smartpen-review/

Livescribe Sky WiFi Smartpen review

For a relatively niche company that has only been around for five years, Livescribe has grown quickly. Its smartpens -- which cleverly digitize handwritten notes and audio -- have already attracted a million users. However, just because these customers prefer to write their notes the old-fashioned way, that doesn't mean they aren't also obsessive about technological progress. In fact, many of them have been waiting on one new feature in particular: a totally wireless workflow, which would allow them to write a note with their smartpens and then -- without any docking or syncing -- see their scribbles appear in the cloud and on their mobile devices.

Well, as you've probably guessed by now, that is precisely the gap that the new Sky pen is looking to fill. The first half of its operation is identical to that of its predecessors, the Pulse and Echo: it contains a camera and microphone, which enable the capture of handwritten notes and time-linked audio f! iles. (Y ou can choose between 2GB, 4GB and 8GB of built-in storage.) But what happens next is totally different. You use "buttons" printed inside Livescribe's proprietary stationery, in conjunction with the pen's OLED display, to select a local WiFi network, enter the password and sync your files directly to Evernote. The popular online note-taking platform then handles everything else, automatically filing the text and audio in the cloud using a time stamp, making it available on whatever devices run Evernote's apps or web interface. What's more, it makes the note searchable through optical character recognition (OCR) of your handwriting.

If there's a downside to users getting what they've been asking for, it's that they are the ones expected to pay for it. The Sky's base model matches the Echo's $170 launch price, but that older pen came with twice as much internal storage, and can also now be had at a discounted price. Moreover, the 4GB and 8GB Sky pens rise to $200 and $250, respectively, which means this is only likely to be sensible if you really, really dislike writing or typing on a screen. Even assuming that you're totally stuck in your pen-and-ink ways, could a $170 pen ever be worth it? Read on to find out.

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Livescribe Sky WiFi Smartpen review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Camera unboxing (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/12/samsung-galaxy-camera-unboxing/

Samsung Galaxy Camera unboxing video

Samsung's much-anticipated EK-GC100 Galaxy Camera finally hit stores in the UK late last week and we've managed to get our hands on one of the very first samples to cross the assembly line. We're putting the Android-powered hybrid through its paces at this very moment, but since this is the company's first entry in a brand new category, we wanted to have you along as we opened the box. This may be a camera, but it's very much a Galaxy device, and that's immediately evident when you first see the packaging.

The cam ships just as any premium smartphone, with a very thin selection of accessories -- you get an AC adapter, USB cable, a wrist strap and a pair of pocket guides (there's no user manual to speak of). Much like Samsung's latest round of point-and-shoots, it uses microSD cards and charges via a micro-USB cable and AC adapter. Even the 1,650mAh battery looks like a smaller version of Samsung's smartphone offering, rather than something that ships alongside the company's traditional camera lineup. Rest assured, we'll have much more to share later this week, but for now, we invite you to join as we unbox the Galaxy Camera in our video just past the break.

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Samsung Galaxy Camera unboxing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 09:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hisense T770 takes thin-bezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/10/hisense-t770-takes-thin-bezel-3d-tvs-to-the-masses-from-800/

Hisense T770 takes thinbezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800

We've seen a few TVs with thin bezels in our time -- some affordable, some not so much -- but they usually sell at prices that have many of us turning to less than elegant screens. If Hisense has its way, the lines between higher style and lower budget will blur with the unveiling of its T770 series. The 42- and 52-inch sets in the range both have extra-narrow 7mm bezels yet cost an entirely reasonable $800 and $1,200 respectively, according to a spokesperson. For the cash outlay, the two TVs share the common foundation of a 1080p LCD with edge LED lighting, active shutter 3D and 120Hz refresh rates. They likewise share a quartet of HDMI ports, WiFi and the seemingly obligatory local media support through DLNA sharing and USB. Although Hisense might not lure some viewers away from bigger or simply more elaborate screens once the T770 is in stores sometime in the undefined near future, it may have given us a friendly reminder that interesting design and sane prices don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Continue reading Hisense T770 takes thin-bezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800

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Hisense T770 takes thin-bezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Nov 2012 06:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Refresh Roundup: week of November 5th, 2012

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/11/refresh-roundup-week-of-november-5th-2012/

Refresh Roundup week of November 5th, 2012

Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy!

Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of November 5th, 2012

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Refresh Roundup: week of November 5th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Nov 2012 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $21 for Indian students

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/11/aakash-2-android-tablet-india/

Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $35 for Indian students

It's a few months late, but at least it's hitting the streets for a few less dollars than expected. The Datawind-built Aakash 2 is finally a reality, launching in India on the nation's National Education Day. It's the second iteration of what amounts to a barebones, affordable Android slate, packing a 7-inch touch panel, 1GHz Cortex-A8 processor, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of Flash storage, Android 4.0.3, built-in WiFi and a front-facing VGA camera. Reportedly, this one's going to be shipped to Indian students for Rs 1,130 (around $21), while outsiders will be able to snag one for closer to $80. Of course, the difference now is that these kinds of projects aren't quite as novel. Indeed, Chinese megashops are hawking low-rate Android tablets right now for around the same amount, setting a new (low) bar when it comes to pricing on ho hum slates. Still, we're all for getting technology into the hands of students, and you can learn a bit more about what those very students can expect from VentureBeat's hands-on just below.

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Aakash 2 Android tablet materializes, costs around $21 for Indian students originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD's dual-GPU FirePro S10000 gobbles watts, spews out nearly 6 TFLOPs for server graphics

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/12/amd-dual-gpu-firepro-s10000/

AMD's dual-GPU FirePro S10000It can't be easy, running a modern IT department. Not only are people making ever more graphics-hungry demands on your servers, but NVIDIA and AMD are locked in an unending spec war that can make it hard to keep up with the market. The FirePro S10000 is merely the latest salvo: a dual-GPU, server-focused version of the W9000 that greatly increases overall compute power, delivering 5.91 TFLOPs of single precision calculations and 1.48 TFLOPS of dual precision performance in a single PCIe 3.0 card with 6GB of GDDR5 RAM. Even though the Graphics Core Next GPUs have been slightly underclocked to 825GHz, and even though they technically offer better performance per watt than a single-GPU configuration, their overall 375w power draw could still get you in trouble with your local power station. That level of consumption is around 50 percent higher than a regular server card like the S9000 or Tesla K10 and it may well require you to research new server cases and coolers in addition to weighing up the $3,600 cost for the component itself. See? This was never going to be straightforward.

AMD's dual-GPU FirePro S10000 gobbles watts, spews out nearly 6 TFLOPs for server graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 05:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saturday, November 10, 2012

ARM chief tosses Moore's Law out with the trash, says efficiency rules all

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/09/arm-chief-tosses-moores-law-out-with-the-trash-favors-efficiency/

ARM chief kicks Moore's Law to the curb, says efficiency rules all

ARM CEO Warren East already has a tendency to be more than a bit outspoken on the future of computing, and he just escalated the war of words with an assault on the industry's sacred cow: Moore's Law. After some prompting by MIT Technology Review during a chat, East argued that power efficiency is "actually what matters," whether it's a phone or a server farm. Making ever more complex and power-hungry processors to obey Moore's Law just limits how many chips you can fit in a given space, he said. Not that the executive is about to accept Intel's position that ARM isn't meant for performance, as he saw the architecture scaling to high speeds whenever there was a large enough power supply to back it up. East's talk is a bit long on theory and short on practice as of today -- a Samsung Chromebook isn't going to make Gordon Moore have second thoughts -- but it's food for thought in an era where ARM is growing fast, and even Microsoft isn't convinced that speed rules everything.

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ARM chief tosses Moore's Law out with the trash, says efficiency rules all originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Nov 2012 20:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel's NUC mini-PC internals exposed, available for around $300 in early December

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/10/intel-nuc-exposed-priced/

Intel's NUC miniPC internals exposed, available for $300320 in early December

Intel's Next Unit of Computing (NUC) is just about ready for store shelves, and Anandtech managed to get their hands on the DC3217BY model to provide us an early inside look at the mini-PC. Clearly aimed at enthusiasts, the motherboard and 4 x 4-inch chassis are all you get out of the box; you'll have to get the memory, the mini PCIe cards and even the power cord separately. Luckily installation looks quite easy -- only four screws hold the chassis and motherboard together. The bottom mini PCIe slot accommodates half height cards (for WiFi, presumably) and you can go ahead and put an mSATA drive or full height card at the top.

As we saw in our IDF hands-on, the NUC holds a Core i3 CPU, HD 4000 graphics, two SoDIMM sockets, mSATA and mini-PCIe interfaces, one to two HDMI and three USB 2.0 connectors. The DC3217BY eschews Gigabit Ethernet (which is available on the DC3217IYE) in favor of a Thunderbolt port. While we initially thought the NUC would go for somewhere around $400, it turns out it'll cost $300 to $320 and will be available from Amazon and Eggdrop in early December. If you're considering getting one for yourself, we recommend taking a peek at the source to get a more intimate look.

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Intel's NUC mini-PC internals exposed, available for around $300 in early December originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Nov 2012 04:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hisense T770 takes thin-bezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/10/hisense-t770-takes-thin-bezel-3d-tvs-to-the-masses-from-800/

Hisense T770 takes thinbezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800

We've seen a few TVs with thin bezels in our time -- some affordable, some not so much -- but they usually sell at prices that have many of us turning to less than elegant screens. If Hisense has its way, the lines between higher style and lower budget will blur with the unveiling of its T770 series. The 42- and 52-inch sets in the range both have extra-narrow 7mm bezels yet cost an entirely reasonable $800 and $1,200 respectively, according to a spokesperson. For the cash outlay, the two TVs share the common foundation of a 1080p LCD with edge LED lighting, active shutter 3D and 120Hz refresh rates. They likewise share a quartet of HDMI ports, WiFi and the seemingly obligatory local media support through DLNA sharing and USB. Although Hisense might not lure some viewers away from bigger or simply more elaborate screens once the T770 is in stores sometime in the undefined near future, it may have given us a friendly reminder that interesting design and sane prices don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Continue reading Hisense T770 takes thin-bezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800

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Hisense T770 takes thin-bezel 3D TVs to the masses from $800 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Nov 2012 06:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, November 09, 2012

More Proof That Treating Employees Like Humans And Not Machines Is Good For Business

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-you-should-treat-employees-well-2012-11

Foursquare Office Tour

How much effort and feeling employees put into their job  is one of the most important things for a company. When everybody's engaged and works hard rather than just punching a clock, companies succeed.

A new study from found that companies that use new style, "sustainable" engagement practices have operating margins of 27.4 percent compared to 14.3 percent for those that use old school methods that focus on the company's goals, and 9.9 percent for companies that ignore engagement. 

That's a huge difference in efficiency and productivity. 

Here are three of the things that the most engaging companies focused on:

Healthy work environments

Stress is a great motivator, but it has a dark side in a high pressure economy. Organizations that that have leadership that shows a sincere interest in employee well being, actively manage and ask about work loads, hire enough people to get the job done instead of working a few to the bone, are open and clear about goals and expectations, provide flexible schedules, and actively intervene when they see high stress levels were the most successful. 

There's a literal component to this too, companies that focus on providing a physically comfortable environment that supports things like a good diet and exercise see a boost as well. 

A high standard for leaders 

Companies need to evaluate managers on how they interact with their employees as well as on financial performance. The most engaging managers designed tasks for workers unique skill sets, followed through on! their w ords and commitments, are respectful, and spend a great deal of time coaching and improving employees.

Focus on image and company goals 

Employees pay attention to the external image of the company. They're more engaged when the company is publicly respected, shows honesty and integrity, and acts in a way that's consistent with the core values workers are taught. Also important is having leadership that puts effort into making employees aware of how they specifically factor into the companies image and goals. 

Here's the breakdown of how these new management practices impact performance: 

Engagement

Read the full study here

NOW READ: Four Ways To Keep Employees From Losing Motivation

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Netduino Plus 2 offers four times the speed, full round of futureproofing (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/08/netduino-plus-2-offers-four-times-the-speed/

Netduino Plus 2 offers four times the speed, full round of futureproofing video

The original Netduino Plus was a welcome alternative for Arduino developers that had its limits -- even networking was almost a step too far. Secret Labs doesn't want any of us to bump our heads on the ceiling with its just-launched Netduino Plus 2. The networkable, .NET-friendly developer board runs a four times faster 168MHz processor with double the RAM (over 100KB) and six times as much code space (384KB) as its two-year-old ancestor. Having so much headroom lets the team build common OneWire and Time Server code into the firmware; Secret Labs reckons that there's enough space that the Plus 2 can easily grow over time. The ports are just as ready for the future with four serial ports, software control of any add-on shields (including Rev C Arduino shields) and a new header that lets programmers debug both managed and truly native code at once. If the upgrade is sufficiently tempting, project builders just need to spend $60 today to enjoy some newfound freedom.

Continue reading Netduino Plus 2 offers four times the speed, full round of futureproofing (video)

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Netduino Plus 2 offers four times the speed, full round of futureproofing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Nov 2012 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hitachi intros UltraVision LED TVs with Roku-ready HDMI, freshens Value TVs and sound bars for the fall

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/09/hitachi-intros-ultravision-led-tvs-with-roku-friendly-hdmi/

Hitachi intros UltraVision LED TVs with Rokufriendly streaming, freshens Value TVs and sound bars for the fall

Although Hitachi was one of the first in line to promise support for Roku Streaming Sticks through MHL, it didn't have much more to say without the TVs to back up the claim. The second half of the puzzle is complete now that the company's fall TV revision is underway. Snag its new UltraVision UltraThin S606 TV in its one of its 42-, 46- or 55-inch sizes and you can discreetly (if optionally) hide the equivalent of a full Roku box in one of the HDMI inputs. The S606 sits strictly in the mid-range, however. Its 120Hz, edge-LED LCD design is superceded by the W806, which comes only in 48- and 55-inch sizes while carrying 3D, IPTV support and WiFi. Those who can get by on 60Hz refresh rates can opt for the Value line, where the H306 and S406 offer 720p in 29- and 32-inch dimensions; a third H316 line brings 1080p to those same sizes while adding a 39-inch panel. Hitachi hasn't said whether stores are stocking the TVs today, but it sees pricing ranging from $329 in the smaller Value sets to $1,399 for the largest W806 variant.

The TV builder's audio mix isn't being ignored with the refresh. Launching in tandem with the TVs, the HSB32B26 and HSB40B16 sound bars are designed to respectively match up with 32- and 40-inch TVs while delivering 3D sound processing and Apt-X Bluetooth audio. At $149 and $199, the sound bars are close enough in cost that we may onl! y need a measuring tape to settle any purchasing dilemmas once the hardware is in stores.

Continue reading Hitachi intros UltraVision LED TVs with Roku-ready HDMI, freshens Value TVs and sound bars for the fall

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Hitachi intros UltraVision LED TVs with Roku-ready HDMI, freshens Value TVs and sound bars for the fall originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thursday, November 08, 2012

Intel launches 8-core Itanium 9500, teases Xeon E7-linked Kittson

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/08/intel-launches-8-core-itanium-9500-teases-xeon-e7-linked-kittson/

Intel launches Poulsonbased Itanium 9500, teases Xeon E7linked Kittson

Intel's Itanium processor launches are few and far between given that only so many need its specialized grunt, but that just makes any refresh so much larger -- and its new Itanium 9500 certainly exemplifies that kind of jump. The chip centers around much more up-to-date, 32-nanometer Poulson architecture that doubles the cores to eight, hikes the interconnect speeds and supports as much as 2TB of RAM for very (very, very) large tasks. With the help of an error-resistant buffer, Intel sees the 9500 being as much as 2.4 times faster as the Tukwila-era design it's replacing. The new Itanium also ramps the clock speeds to a relatively brisk 1.73GHz to 2.53GHz, although there will be definite costs for server builders wanting to move up: the shipping roster starts at $1,350 per chip in bulk and climbs to an eye-watering $4,650 for the fastest example.

Anyone worried that Poulson might be the end of the road for Intel's EPIC-based platform will also be glad to get a brief reminder that Itanium will soldier on. The next iteration, nicknamed Kittson, will be framed around a modular design that shares traces of silicon and the processor socket with the more familiar Xeon E7. Intel casts it as a pragmatic step that narrows its server-oriented processors down to a common motherboard and should be cheaper to! make. I t's likely that we'll have to be very patient for more details on Kittson knowing the long intervals between Itanium revamps, but fence-sitting IT pros may just be glad that they won't have to consider jumping ship for awhile yet.

Continue reading Intel launches 8-core Itanium 9500, teases Xeon E7-linked Kittson

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Intel launches 8-core Itanium 9500, teases Xeon E7-linked Kittson originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA's revenue hits a record $1.20 billion for Q3 powered by Tegra 3 tablets, Kepler GPUs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/08/nvidia-q3-2013-earnings/

NVIDIA's revenue hits a record $120 billion for Q3 powered by Tegra 3 tablets, Kepler GPUs

Just as it predicted, NVIDIA's earnings show revenue rose again in Q3, to a new record high of $1.20 billion, 15.3 percent higher than in Q2 up 12.9 percent from the same period last year. Its profits also grew accordingly, to $209.1 million, which should be no surprise thanks to its Tegra 3 chip's place at the heart of tablets including Google's Nexus 7 and Microsoft's Surface for Windows RT, with more arriving daily. The Consumer Products division that includes the Tegra family and other hardware had a 27.6 percent rise in revenue for the quarter. Despite predictions of a slumping PC market, its consumer GPU unit had revenue up 10 percent from last quarter as Kepler based products reached into lower price points and notebook revenue rose. Riding high, the company has decided to issue dividends to shareholders as well as extend its current stock repurchasing program. Hit the source links for the full breakdown, but so far NVIDIA's bets on the future of its chips in PCs and post-PC devices seem to be paying off.

Continue reading NVIDIA's revenue hits a record $1.20 billion for Q3 powered by Tegra 3 tablets, Kepler GPUs

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NVIDIA's revenue hits a record $1.20 billion for Q3 powered by Tegra 3 tablets, Kepler GPUs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Nov 2012 19:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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