Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Fennec, a.k.a. Mobile Firefox, Hits Alpha 2 with Speed Improvements [Featured Early Adopter Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/ExTobBp7_us/fennec-aka-mobile-firefox-hits-alpha-2-with-speed-improvements

Mozilla's Firefox-like browser for mobile devices, Fennec (which we toured in screenshots on release) is out with a second alpha release you can try on your desktop.

This alpha mostly improves upon the speed, smoothness, and usability of Fennec's existing features, but the newest thing to try out are two recommended extensions that can be installed. URL Fixer attempts to auto-fix common misspellings entered by fat thumbs into the address bar (like Gogle.com, perhaps?), while AutoAuth simply adds password memory for sites that require authentication.

Hit the link below for free, no-install try-outs of Fennec Alpha 2 on Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. If you happen to have a Nokia N815 tablet, you can install the alpha natively.

Fennec M10 (alpha 2) for Maemo Release Notes [Mozilla.org]

Download Free Computer-Generated Christmas MP3s [Featured Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Jz7sUGiKLYg/download-free-computer+generated-christmas-mp3s

Load up your iTunes playlist with some holiday cheer but save a few bucks in the process with almost 20 classic holiday recordings that are available as a free download from the Garritan music community.

The Garritan Community Christmas album includes tunes from O Holy Night to Auld Lang Syne. What's most interesting is how they were recorded:

A community of musicians from all over the world met on the Garritan community forum and agreed to submit their own recordings of holiday music, to be freely distributed. Each of these orchestral recordings were made not with large live orchestras in vast recording studios at huge expense, but rather were created by a single person working on their own desktop or laptop computer. What they have in common is the use of Garritan libraries representing software musical instruments based on samples of real instruments.

Preview the tunes on-site before you download, then grab the entire album (with art) to add to your collection for free.

Garritan Christmas Music Player [via Pogue's Posts]

Auto Bailout Won't Mean More Ad Buys

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AdvertisingAge/LatestNews/~3/Tc95ZMc4DFc/article.php

DETROIT (AdAge.com) -- General Motors Corp. may finally be getting its loan from the federal government, but that doesn't mean it's going to resume its former marketing-spending levels.

Nano-Sized Semiconductor Dots Could Fix Your Terrible Vision [Nanotech]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/yotZwOH8QIQ/nano+sized-semiconductor-dots-could-fix-your-terrible-vision

New Scientist reports that researchers at the University of Colorado came up with this crazy idea that if they inject semiconductor nanoparticles in your retinas, photons will make them glow, thus improving your vision.

These quantum dots, as they're referred to, would theoretically fluoresce when hit by light packets, and serve as a light amplifier for retinal images. The patent says early tests on rats have been successful, as they showed improved vision over the control group. The upside is that this solution requires no power source, and can target specific areas of the retina, making it more of a reality than bionic eyes or begging for an eye cam. [Patent via New Scientist via Oh Gizmo!]

Eyeglasses With Fluid-Filled Sac for World's Poor Are Instantly Adjustable [Glasses]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/y_x0iRn5RcU/eyeglasses-with-fluid+filled-sac-for-worlds-poor-are-instantly-adjustable

British Inventor Josh Silver has developer a pair of eyeglasses that are instantly adjustable. They've got a liquid-filled sac in the middle—add more fluid to make the glasses stronger, deflate to weaken them.

The no-optician-required glasses rely on the principle that the fatter a lens is, the more powerful it comes, so by pumping in or sucking out fluid, the glasses can be instantly tailored to the right strength. They're so simple to adjust that practically anyone can do it. So far the only complaint with the glasses is that they're kind of ginormous—which kind of goes with having specs that operate on the coke-bottle glasses principle and have a fluid-filled membrane sitting in the middle of the lens.

Silver is planning a trial in India that will distribute over 1 million of the glasses, which he hopes to have strapped to the heads over a billion of the world's poorest people—at a cost of $1 per pair—by the poetic date of 2020. Luckily for him, giant glasses are ironically cool again, so he could probably launch a Get 1, Give 10 style program funded entirely by hipsters . [Guardian via MAKE]

Boxee Media Center Open to Everyone on Jan. 8 [Boxee]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/mhpt4xU_-wA/boxee-media-center-open-to-everyone-on-jan-8

Boxee, which is our favorite way to unleash the true power of Apple TV is going from invite-only to totally open on Jan. 8, as it chugs along from alpha to beta. [boxee via Engadget]

SlingPlayer For Windows Mobile Comes to Loads More Phones [SlingPlayer Mobile]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nBw6yEp9Pr4/slingplayer-for-windows-mobile-comes-to-loads-more-phones

The aging SlingPlayer for Windows Mobile has been updated, and almost exclusively for compatibility. The app will now run on most modern phones, including (finally) 640x480, 800x480, 400x240 and 320x320 handsets.

The official list of supported phones now includes the following:

Sprint Treo 800w
Sony Ericsson X1
Palm Treo Pro
Sprint HTC Touch Diamond
Sprint HTC Touch Pro
Verizon HTC Touch Pro
Verizon Samsung Saga
Verizon Samsung Omnia
AT&T LG Incite
AT&T HTC Fuze
AT&T Samsung Epix
HP iPAQ 910
AT&T Pantech Duo
Sprint Samsung ACE
Verizon XV6900

That said, almost any phone running a compatible resolution should be fine (Touch HD, anyone?). [Sling]

Viliv's Atom-powered S5 MID gets detailed and pictured

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/vilivs-atom-powered-s5-mid-gets-detailed-pictured/

Viliv got us salivating when it introduced the S5 MID and S7 UMPC back at IDF, and now we've got a few tasty updates on both. Starting with the former, we've learned via an interview with parent company Yukyung that the S5 MID will come packing a 1.33GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 1.8-inch hard drive (1.3-inch when paired with a WiBro module in South Korea), a 4.8-inch 800 x 480 resolution touchscreen, integrated GPS / DMB and a primary battery good for up to six hours of use. The OS will be a home cooked system that's fairly attractive, though the outfit has made clear that WinXP versions will be available in the future. Speaking of the future, the currently unpriced S5 is expected to ship in South Korea this coming January or February, while the S7 is still on track for release sometime after that.

[Via Slashgear]

Filed under: Handhelds

Viliv's Atom-powered S5 MID gets detailed and pictured originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP Firebird 803 tower with VoodooDNA leaked!

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/hp-firebird-803-tower-with-voodoodna-leaked/

We always loved us that Voodoo-designed HP Blackbird 002, but it was certainly a behemoth. Now it looks like the duo are going for a more realistic size -- and hopefully pricepoint -- with the all-new HP Firebird PC 803 that just fell in our lap, a gaming tower which flips the disc drive and most other components on their sides to save on space. The resulting kit seems to have more in common with gaming consoles than desktop PCs in terms of design, with very little configurability or expansion available, but the leaked specs are still quite palatable to the modern PC gamer:

NVIDIA nForce 760i SLI chipset
Core 2 Quad Q9550 2.83GHz processor
4GB of RAM
Dual NVIDIA GeForce 9800S cards
Two 320GB SATA drives
Blu-ray
5-in-1 card reader
6 USB, 1 FireWire, 2 eSATA, 1 S/PDIF and 1 DVI dual-link
Bluetooth
802.11n WiFi

To save on space (and heat), the Firebird actually uses an external power supply, but we suppose the included wireless keyboard and mouse should help to make up for that clutter. As you've probably gleaned from the specs, those small form factor 9800S cards aren't going to be putting away the frame rates quite like the cutting edge cards from NVIDIA and AMD, and the seeming lack of expandability makes the (theoretical) up-front cost savings seem a bit less exciting, but for a certain type of gamer the Firebird could be a welcome respite from monstrous, unrealistic and just-as-quickly-outmoded performance towers.

P.S.: Rahul's dubious rant about the boutique gaming industry -- which Voodoo still serves -- makes a lot more sense in this light. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Gallery: HP Firebird 803 tower with VoodooDNA leaked!