Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Thursday, April 10, 2008

There's No Place Like Home, Even If It's Upside-Down Or Suspended in Mid-Air [Houses]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/267920521/theres-no-place-like-home-even-if-its-upside+down-or-suspended-in-mid+air

PointClickHome took a look at 15 incredible houses that defy physics, conventional design, and every zoning law imaginable. We were most fond of this upside-down house from Poland—the builder's statement against Communism, apparently—as well as a house that turns towards the sun in winter and away during the summer and the Ukrainian "Floating Castle" that looks like it's supported by four toothpicks. See our most gadgetastic favorites in the gallery, then go to PCH for the full roundup. [PointClickHome via Curbly]

Three Giant Wind Turbines Turned On at Once at Bahrain World Trade Center [Environment]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/267936561/three-giant-wind-turbines-turned-on-at-once-at-bahrain-world-trade-center

What you're looking at isn't a render or merely a concept of some fanciful building that'll never actually become a reality. No, what you're looking at is an actually photograph of the new Bahrain World Trade Center, a pair of pointy skyscrapers with three propellers with 95 foot diameters between them. And this week, they activated all three turbines at the same time. Now that they're all running, they'll be providing 10-15% of the energy for both towers, which will save loads of money over the years.

[Inhabitat]

Your Computer Sucks, Get a New Graphics Card [PCs]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/267888858/your-computer-sucks-get-a-new-graphics-card

Your PC? It sucks, it doesn't have enough cores. Sure, you could get a new multi-core processor like a Phenom or Core 2 Quad, adding like 2 or 3 cores to your rig. Or! You could get a new graphics card instead and get over one hundred extra cores. And more cores = more better, right?

Actually, even though Nvidia's argument seems slightly retarded and self-serving, it has a bit of merit—as you go up in CPU price ranges, the price to performance ratio drops pretty steadily. And if you're running Windows Vista, you actually need a solid graphics card to run it without any hitches, even if you're not gaming. So instead of plowing an extra $100 into a slightly faster processor that'll net you minimal performance gains, you'd get more out of it investing in a better graphics card. [Nvidia via Pop Sci]

Verizon sues Time Warner Cable over some dumb ads

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/267794465/

Filed under: HDTV

Hey, we hate lawsuits just as much as the next guy, but we're finding it hard to fault Verizon for this one. Verizon and Time Warner Cable arrived in court on Wednesday to settle a tiff over some ads that Verizon claims offer up misleading info about Verizon's FiOS service. Listed among the complaints include supposed false implications by TWC that FiOS requires a satellite dish, doesn't include phone, broadband and video, and that Time Warner's network is better. Time Warner Cable is naturally calling the lawsuit "without merit." Verizon wants TWC to stop running the ads and issue a retraction, as well as compensate them for lost revenue. We're not positive which ad Verizon is referring to, but if it's anything like the ad after the break -- which has some downright false implications about Time Warner Cable using fiber optics "for over a decade" -- then Verizon very well might have something here. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

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Aliph Jawbone 2 exposed

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/267810801/

Filed under: Cellphones

So there are a couple of big complaints about Aliph's otherwise-lauded Jawbone noise canceling Bluetooth headset: one, it's rather porky, and two, the charge connector is about as reliable as a Comcast installation appointment. Hang tight, though, because help is on the way -- help in the form of the Jawbone 2. The new model just broke through the FCC's surly bonds in full visual glory, showing a headset that maintains the distinctive industrial design of the original while getting just a bit smaller and adopting a new connector that looks moderately less sketchy. The last thing we all want to do is blow another hundred on the next best headset, but if this means we can run a teleconference standing next to a freight train traveling 40 miles per hour and do it in style, count us in.

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IBM rolls out systems based on "fastest chip on Earth"

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/267963862/

Filed under: Desktops

It's not the first time IBM has tossed around "world's fastest" language when discussing its Power6 processors, but the company's now found reason to boast again, with it recently announcing that it's released some new supercomputers based on its new "world's most powerful microprocessor." Getting that distinction is IBM's latest Power 575 "Hydro-Cluster" supercomputer which, thanks to some nifty in-rack water-cooling measures, is able to accommodate the company's speedy new 5GHz Power6 processor. According to IBM, that processor should deliver "two-to-three times the performance per core of comparable HP or Sun processors," while still requiring only about the same amount of energy as previous Power5 processors. For its part, Sun is a bit skeptical IBM's focus on speed, with a company spokesperson telling the San Francisco Chronicle that "it's an easier marketing message to deliver to say that faster gigahertz means a faster processor," adding that Sun instead focuses on multithreading to make its processors more efficient.

Read - IBM press release
Read - SFGate, "IBM chip is fastest on Earth"

[Via Slashdot]

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CE-Oh no he didn't! Part LV: NVIDIA boss says "We're going to open a can of whoop-ass" on Intel

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/268062360/

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Looks like Intel's plans to enter the graphics space in a big way with its Nehalem and Larrabee lines strike NVIDIA CEO Jen Hsun-Huang as being rather foolish -- in a conference call with analysts today, Huang said Intel's integrated graphics offerings were "a joke," and that even a tenfold increase in performance would put them behind NVIDIA's current products. Huang didn't stop there, saying that NVIDIA was "going to open a can of whoop-ass," and that while Intel's graphics chips were fine for running Office, they would never cut it for gamers and other demanding users. Huang kept going, responding to questions about all those driver-related Vista crashes by saying that NVIDIA had to support new games weekly while Intel's chips aren't ever put to the test. Actually, that's toning it down a bit -- what Huang actually said was "You already have the right machine to run Excel. You bought it four years ago... How much faster can you render the blue screen of death?" Yeah, them's fightin' words -- you going to sit there and take it, Intel?

[Thanks, Mike A.]

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Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Toyota Goes on a Diet

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/yankodesign/~3/266873112/

Toyota is getting seriously body conscious with its latest fuel efficient concept the 1/X. Taking everything they learned from their highly successful hybrid Prius, Toyota is looking for more ways to squeeze every inch from a gallon of gas possible. This 1/X concept design was built from the ground up with light weight materials, with which they hope to double the Prius’ already impressive mileage ranking. Some interesting choices can be found overhead. The roof is transparent, heat and noise insulating, and made from a bio-plastic derived from kenaf and ramie plants. The wheels are thinner than normal cars due to its extreme light weight.This design, combined with the lightness of the car means that it can travel for over 600 miles on a four-gallon tank of fuel. Pretty impressive effort from Toyota, one of the only companies successfully marketing hybrids today.

Designer: Toyota [ Via: Inhabitat ]

Toyota

Tuesday, April 08, 2008

iPhone and iPod Touch Actually Support 720x526 Video Resolution [IPhone]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/266025701/iphone-and-ipod-touch-actually-support-720x526-video-resolution

Officially, the iPhone and iPod touch support 640 by 480-pixel video running at up to 30 frames per second. But Ars Technica is reporting that it'll actually take 720x576-resy video churning at 25fps, which is the same resolution and frame rate that PAL (mostly Euro) DVDs run at. Obviously not all that useful if you're just catching flicks on your iPhone, but if you watch them on your computer too (like a rental), the higher res means less squinting on your big boy monitor. [Ars Technica]