Monday, December 17, 2007
Pentagon prepping non-lethal "light and sound" weapon
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Posted by Augustine at 10:25 AM
Battleship Mtron: the absurdly fast SSD RAID array
[Thanks, David]
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Posted by Augustine at 10:23 AM
Intel develops integrated WiFi / WiMAX / DVB-H chip
Intel, clearly not wanting to be left in the dust by the slew of new wireless technologies that are starting to converge, nasty-like, inside our shiny new devices, has begun testing on a chip which can effortlessly swap between WiFi, WiMAX, and DVB-H. The idea is that the chip's radio would talk to your WiFi at home, hand over the data to WiMAX if you hit the road, and also allow you to pull down digital television while staying mobile -- without having to use an array of separate radios or silicon. This should open up a whole new vista of possibilities for time-wasting activities, so whenever manufacturers want to get this into our phones / laptops, just say the word. We're ready.
[Via Slashdot]
Posted by Augustine at 10:22 AM
Motorola's A1600 MING 2 surfaces
from Engadget by Darren Murph
What's that, you say? Reportedly, that picture you see above is the Motorola A1600, which could be the long-awaited successor to the A1200 MING. Granted, we've no proof to go along with it, but the design sure fits the mold. According to Chinese-based eNet, this bugger will sport quad-band GSM connectivity, a 3.2-megapixel camera (with autofocus), WiFi, assisted-GPS, a couple of built-in games, a "talking dictionary" and a Linux-based OS. Interestingly enough, that last tidbit certainly conflicts with other reports we've heard, but we suppose time will tell (look for a February launch) what system really ends up running the MING 2 show. [Via UnwiredView]Posted by Augustine at 10:20 AM
iPhone gets video recording capabilities
Continue reading iPhone gets video recording capabilities
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Posted by Augustine at 10:17 AM
ATI demonstrates hybrid-chip CrossFire graphics tech
from Engadget by Nilay Patel
We've already seen laptops like Sony's Vaio SZ include integrated graphics alongside much more powerful (and power-hungry) dedicated chips, but AMD's looking to make such setups all the more commonplace with new chips capable of hybrid CrossFire. AMD recently demoed the tech to PC Perspective, showing off a 2.2GHz Phenom machine with both unreleased RS780 integrated graphics and a RV620-based card labeled HD Radeon 3450. Running games like Call of Duty 4 and Unreal Tournament 3, frame rates jumped from 30-35fps to around 55fps when hybrid mode was enabled. That's pretty respectable, although the system is limited to speedups of the slowest chip times two, so bigger gains are probably not in the offing. However, there can still be benefits to using chips of drastically different horsepower: the integrated chips can power down the heavy hitter to save power when not needed, and totally switch over when required. That's a pretty solid compromise, we think -- and with AMD aiming for the initial batch of hybrid CrossFire-capable cards to be priced around $50, it looks like we'll be seeing these setups a lot when AMD starts shipping these early next year.
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Posted by Augustine at 10:15 AM
Homer's iViewer: the wireless TV transmitter
[Via ChipChick]
Posted by Augustine at 10:12 AM
ITRI showcases a 10.4-inch flexible color LCD
Hot on the heels of that flexible color e-ink display we saw a couple days back, here comes a flexible 10.4-inch LCD display that's less then 10mm thick. The display is being developed by Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and features two plastic substrate elements instead of a traditional glass one. ITRI says the display can reproduce 57 percent of the NTSC color gamut, but there's no word on when we might ever see these in production.
[Via TG Daily]
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Posted by Augustine at 10:09 AM
NVIDIA 3-Way SLI review roundup
from Engadget by Paul Miller
Posted by Augustine at 10:08 AM
Polymer Vision announces rollable displays are in production
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Posted by Augustine at 10:07 AM
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Export and Backup All Emails from Outlook to Your Gmail Account
Sachin writes - "I have few thousand email messages inside Microsoft Outlook (a pst file) organized in various folders. I know it is possible to download emails from Gmail to Outlook using POP3 or IMAP but is the reverse path possible."
Sachin is looking for a trick to archive all Outlook email messages (and folders) to his online Gmail account for two reasons - one is secure backup and two, he will be able to access his old emails from any computer.
Solution: It is quite easy to transfer Outlook emails to your Gmail mailbox. Here's a step by step guide:
Step 1: Enable IMAP in your Gmail account and then configure Outlook (or Outlook Express or Windows Live Mail) to sync with your Gmail address via IMAP. Read this guide.
Step 2: Import your Outlook PST file into a Personal folder that is different from your default Gmail Inbox.
To import, click File -> Import And Export -> Import from another program or file. -> Next -> Personal Folder File (.pst) -> Next.
Select the PST file that contains your email, then pick the email folders that you want to import in Outlook and click Finish.
Step 3: Select the Personal folders that you want to backup online and copy them your Gmail Folder in Outlook (see screenshot).
In the Folder List, right-click the folder you want to copy and click Copy Folder name. Click the Gmail Folder in Outlook to copy that folder in that location. You can repeat the steps as needed for other folders.
That's it. Your Outlook email will soon become available inside your online Gmail Inbox.
Caution: The migration from Outlook to Gmail can take a long time if you have very large Outlook pst file or if your internet connection speed is slow. Therefore, consider removing all large emails before moving them to your Gmail via IMAP.
Related: Is Your Outlook+Gmail Slow ?
Posted by Augustine at 9:47 AM
Sunday, December 09, 2007
CarbonRally: Small Competitive Steps For The Environment
CarbonRally applies gaming and social networking concepts to environmental activism by challenging participants to take positive steps against carbon emissions.
Boston based CarbonRally offers a series of carbon reducing challenges, such as not drinking bottled water, dumping shopping bags and leaving your car at home, whereby users can compete against others to become the most carbon friendly participant. Current users include Google's offices in Boston and Pittsburgh who are openly aiming to beat one and other.
The competition is all in good fun with no prizes offered, however CarbonRally is looking at corporate sponsorship of challenges in the future.
If you're passionate about carbon emissions, CarbonRally providers a fun and friendly forum from which you can join others in saving the world.
Posted by Augustine at 12:08 AM
In Japan Half The Top Selling Books Are Written On Mobile Phones
With all the talk about Amazon's Kindle, there's a bigger revolution taking place and those who studied classic literature will be horrified. In Japan, half of the top ten selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed on mobile phones.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, mobile phone novels (keitai shousetsu) have become a publishing phenomenon in Japan, "turning middle-of-the-road publishing houses into major concerns and making their authors a small fortune in the process."
One book, Koizora (Love Sky) about high-school girl who is bullied, gang-raped, becomes pregnant has sold more than 1.2 million copies since being released.
The mobile internet has a role in this growing phenomen in Japan, with another book Moshimo Kimiga (420,000 copies) starting with installments uploaded to an internet site and sent our to "thousands of young subscribers."
Notably, at least when considering the Kindle, is that the Japanese market happily pays for mobile books as well; we've quoted hard copy figures here but there are many more Japanese viewers paying to read this content online via their mobile phones.
I can't see anyone in Western nations waking up tomorrow and seeing mobile phone composed novels on the top seller lists, but usually Japan is years ahead on many tech fronts; mobile phone data services were available and popular in Japan years ago as the rest of us are only now catching up. Perhaps the NY Times best seller list in 2012 might consist of keitai shousetsu, stranger things have happened.
(image: Wikimedia Commons)
Posted by Augustine at 12:03 AM
Adroll: The Social Ad Network (Beta Invites)
Jared Kopf thinks that ad networks should be more like social networks. A member of the PayPal mafia (he also helped start Slide), Kopf is now CEO of Adroll, a social ad network that launched in private beta last week. (The first 100 TechCrunch readers to register and type in the promo code "Crunchroll" will get a beta invite).
The last thing the Web needs is another ad network, but Adroll is at least trying something new. It lets niche publishers self-organize into communities of interest so as to have a better shot at attracting advertisers. For instance, in the "Surfing Ad Community," there are currently eight surf sites that collectively attract an audience of half-a-million per month. There is also an "Alt Music Community" of music blogs. Any publisher can create their own community or ask to join an existing one. Kopf explains this to me in an e-mail:
(Communities can be a) Open, b) Members Can Invite, and c) Only Leader Can Invite)
This actually allows publishers to form communities that are exclusive, or semi-exclusive. So you could form the TechCrunch Ad Community that is made up of smaller tech-focused blogs that you rep. Or a community of "Breaking News Sites." Sites can join by "friending" you…and you approve (or deny) their admission.
The big point of differentiation for us is that we . . . use a "social-networking"-style matching system to enable publishers to create their own networks, and help publishers to sell more, at higher CPMs by working together.
Well, that's the idea. You create your own adroll, just like a blogger would create a blogroll with other related blogs. Except that advertisers can buy ads across that blogroll. They can also buy ads across a tagroll. When publishers set up their profiles they choose tags to describe their site, like "surf," "celebrities," or "web 2.0." And advertisers can buy those tags. Advertisers also have their own profiles, with their own tags. So publishers interested in attracting a certain advertiser need only look at its tags, add them to their own profile, and hope for a match. Thus, the tagrolls could end up being so easy to game as to render them useless.
The bigger question for Adroll is whether advertisers will bite at all. Do they actually want to reach the Long Tail of surfing sites, or just stick with the most popular ones they already can get through other ad networks? The bigger the adroll, the more appealing it will be to advertisers. But become too big and generic, and the communities lose their targeting advantage. Also, most advertisers are used to spraying ads at certain demographics, but Adroll communities are organized by interests. That could be another problem.
The bulk of advertising still goes to the top handful of sites on the Web. So anything that gives niche sites more of a fighting chance is worth trying. Adroll is offering them a new way to band together. Whether advertisers will care depends on how cool the publishers can come across. The same as any other social network.
Posted by Augustine at 12:02 AM