Thursday, May 24, 2007
Philips' 42-, 47-, and 52-inch Ambilight LCDs go 1080p, 120Hz, LED backlighting
Posted May 24th 2007 6:24AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Displays
Posted by Augustine at 11:53 PM
Sony's world's first 16.7 million color flexible OLED
Posted May 24th 2007 9:29AM by Thomas Ricker Filed under: Displays
Researchers develop ultrathin compound-eye camera
Posted May 24th 2007 2:22PM by Donald Melanson Filed under: Digital Cameras
Intel's Metro laptop prototype is "world's thinnest"
Posted May 24th 2007 3:48PM by Ryan Block Filed under: Laptops
Lord have mercy, Intel has just created a laptop that's as pretty as a supermodel, and thinner, too. Codenamed the Intel Mobile Metro Notebook, this prototype was designed by Intel along with Ziba Design, and it's a mere .7 inches thick and weighs just 2.25 pounds. It's no dumb blonde, either, packed with Intel's speediest and most efficient components, which will probably be plenty fast by the time this machine is manufactured, maybe even as soon as the end of this year.
This one has it all. The slim, champagne-colored magnesium notebook—which is only a quarter of an inch thicker than a Motorola RAZR cellphone—will include a magnetically attached folder that will be available in different fashion colors. That folder will also be able to charge up the laptop wirelessly, and ladies (at whom this design is clearly aimed) can attach a strap to it and make it look just like a purse. Jeez, what else did they include in this beauty?
It'll have always-on connectivity, using all Intel chips, of course, to connect via Wi-Fi, EV-DO and WiMax. It'll also have a flash memory hard drive, with an expected battery life of 14 hours. Check out the glow-in-the-dark, the screen on the outside of that folder, the beautiful gold accents, and the overall thinness of this thing. It's just astonishing.
If Intel is able to deliver this notebook anytime soon, it's going to give Apple a run for its money. The big question now? How much will this cost? According to Business Week, the main reason so many other laptops look so lame is because of cost considerations, and the designers of this notebook admit that price was no object. Even if it's expensive, this design is so thin and beautiful, it's sure to bring some fat changes to the laptop world. – Charlie White
The World's Thinnest Notebook [Business Week]
Posted by Augustine at 11:41 PM
Labels: Objects D'esire, prototype
Audi TT Clubsport Quattro Study
Luxist reportsvon the launch of the TT Clubsport Quattro Study which was first shown ar an enthusiast event called Wörthersee 2007. The press release says:
The Audi TT clubsport quattro study reduces the TT Roadster to a pure driving machine. A powerful engine, state-of-the-art technology and numerous traits borrowed from the world of motorsport are the dominant features of the TT clubsport quattro
The goal that the development engineers set themselves for this vehicle study was to achieve purism at a premium level. No hood, no A-post – instead, a wraparound windscreen kept extremely low which deliberately evokes images of a speedster. The flat, slightly tinted window strip surrounds the cockpit. The panoramic windscreen and the two humps located behind the interior in place of the hood compartment are reminiscent of a racing car.
The racing character of the Audi TT clubsport quattro is underscored by its technology. The Audi engineers have packed the 2.0 TFSI engine with even more power than the 260 bhp familiar from the Audi S3. The turbocharged four-cylinder unit with petrol direct injection breaks the magic 300 bhp barrier. Thanks to a modified intake manifold, it has been possible to get even more power out of this highly efficient engine (which was "Engine of the Year" in its class in 2005 and 2006).
Posted by Augustine at 11:04 AM
Labels: audi, enthusiast, Objects D'esire
HOWTO make OpenCola
FlavoringLink (Thanks, Joe!)* 3.50 ml orange oil * 1.00 ml lemon oil * 1.00 ml nutmeg oil * 1.25 ml cassia oil * 0.25 ml coriander oil * 0.25 ml neroli oil * 2.75 ml lime oil * 0.25 ml lavender oil * 10.0 g gum arabic * 3.00 ml water
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Introducing Google's online security efforts
Monday, May 21, 2007 9:43 AM Posted by Panayiotis Mavrommatis and Niels Provos, Anti-Malware Team Online security is an important topic for Google, our users, and anyone who uses the Internet. The related issues are complex and dynamic and we've been looking for a way to foster discussion on the topic and keep users informed. Thus, we've started this blog where we hope to periodically provide updates on recent trends, interesting findings, and efforts related to online security. Among the issues we'll tackle is malware, which is the subject of our inaugural post. Malware -- surreptitious software capable of stealing sensitive information from your computer -- is increasingly spreading over the web. Visiting a compromised web server with a vulnerable browser or plugins can result in your system being infected with a whole variety of malware without any interaction on your part. Software installations that leverage exploits are termed "drive-by downloads". To protect Google's users from this threat, we started an anti-malware effort about a year ago. As a result, we can warn you in our search results if we know of a site to be harmful and even prevent exploits from loading with Google Desktop Search. Unfortunately, the scope of the problem has recently been somewhat misreported to suggest that one in 10 websites are potentially malicious. To clarify, a sample-based analysis puts the fraction of malicious pages at roughly 0.1%. The analysis described in our paper covers billions of URLs. Using targeted feature extraction and classification, we select a subset of URLs believed to be suspicious for in-depth investigation. So far, we have investigated about 12 million suspicious URLs and found about 1 million that engage in drive-by downloads. In most cases, the web sites that infect your system with malware are not intentionally doing so and are often unaware that their web servers have been compromised. To get a better understanding about the geographic distribution of sites engaging in drive-by downloads, we analyzed the location of compromised web sites and the location of malware distribution hosts. At the moment, the majority of malware activity seems to happen in China, the U.S., Germany and Russia (see below): Location of compromised web sites. These are often sites that are benign in nature but have been compromised and have become dangerous for users to visit. Location of malware distribution servers. These are servers that are used by malware authors to distribute their payload. Very often the compromised sites are modified to include content from these servers. The color coding works as follows: Green means that we did not find anything unsual in that country, yellow means low activity, orange medium activity and red high activity. Guidelines on safe browsing First and foremost, enable automatic updates for your operating system as well your browsers, browser plugins and other applications you are using. Automatic updates ensure that your computer receives the latest security patches as they are published. We also recommend that you run an anti-virus engine that checks network traffic and files on your computer for known malware and abnormal behavior. If you want to be really sure that your system does not become permanently compromised, you might even want to run your browser in a virtual machine, which you can revert to a clean snapshot after every browsing session. Webmasters can learn more about cleaning, and most importantly, keeping their sites secure at StopBadware.org's Tips for Cleaning and Securing a Website.
Posted by Augustine at 10:37 PM
Labels: google online security, malware
Postage Hacks: Save the new forever postage stamp
Reader Paul picked up a few Forever Stamps at the post office today and writes in with a money-saving tip:
Buy the new "forever" stamps now but DON'T use them yet! The real value in the new "forever" stamp will be realized at the next and future rate changes. As soon as I bought some of the "forever" stamps this morning the nice lady behind post office counter said "put them away for later" and explained the strategy.
See, the Forever Stamp will cost 41 cents now, but will send a first-class letter any time, regardless of when the Postal Service ups the rate again. (The 41 cents first class rate increase will be official this Monday, May 14th.) Paul also writes:
Some other lesser known changes also go into effect this Monday: the "second ounce" rate goes DOWN to $0.17 from $0.24, making the new postage for a 2 ounce letter $0.58 versus the current $0.63. "Flats" now have a new higher minimum postage rate and beginning Monday all international mail goes at airmail rates.
Now the question is: why would anyone buy any other type of stamp besides the Forever Stamp? Hit the link to download the USPS ratefold. Thanks, Paul! —Gina Trapani
Image Editing: Fix your photos online with Phixr
Phixr is an online photo editor that offers a wealth of image-tweaking tools and loads of options for distributing the finished product.
Like Fauxto, Picnik, PXN8, Wiredness and all the rest, Phixr lets you upload, modify, share and save photos. However, you're not limited to uploading from your PC: Phixr can also pull photos from your Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and other accounts. It can save finished photos to those services as well, along with Costco, DropShots, LiveJournal and others. You can also download photos back to your hard drive.
As for its image-editing tools, Phixr covers all the basics--cropping, brightness, sharpen, etc.--while offering plenty of nifty advanced effects. Everything's clearly identified (via pop-up descriptors) and easy to use. My only complaint is that most changes you make take at least a few seconds to appear; this isn't exactly real-time editing. Still, Phixr is a fun and effective tool, and definitely worth checking out. —Rick Broida
Posted by Augustine at 10:16 PM
Labels: photo editing
Explay intros oio nanoprojector, plans to launch in 2008
Continue reading Explay intros oio nanoprojector, plans to launch in 2008
Posted by Augustine at 9:58 PM
Labels: nanoprojector
UK to get even more Big Brother with hovering drones
With literally hundreds of thousands of cameras -- some sporting speakers and microphones -- trained on its poor citizens from the moment they step out of the house in the morning until their hasty retreat inside at night, we're not sure why the UK needs yet another set of eyes scoping out so-called 'anti-social behaviour' among the populace, but that isn't stopping the vanguard of Big Brother technology from deploying its first unmanned police drone next month. In what is being perhaps optimistically billed as just a three-month trial, Merseyside police will unleash a one-meter wide, night-vision camera-equipped mini-helicopter into the skies (up to 500-meters high) above their jurisdiction, and task it with gathering evidence for court cases as well as the less glamorous job of monitoring traffic congestion. Originally built for the military by a Germany company and called the 'hicam microdrone,' these repurposed mechanical bobbies can either be controlled by an operator via remote or set to patrol autonomously using their built-in GPS nav systems. You'll recall that a similar system being considered by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department was shot down by the FAA around this time last year, proving once again that up-and-coming British criminals could probably minimize their risks of incarceration by making the move Stateside.
[Via The Register, pic courtesy of microdrones GmbH, thanks Paul J. and rastrus]
Posted by Augustine at 9:06 PM
Labels: surveillance
Ani Phyo: Ani's Raw Food Kitchen book and videos
Foonz.com – Free group calls
Posted by Augustine at 8:52 PM
Labels: group calling