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Friday, March 13, 2009

iPod shuffle teardown: guts weigh just 10% more than sheet of paper

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/ipod-shuffle-teardown-guts-weigh-just-10-more-than-sheet-of-pa/

Regular readers, you know the drill: interesting product introduced, product splayed wide for nerdgasm pulp. iFixIt has the honors again, this time aiming its Xacto at the new iPod shuffle. After the usual struggle to open Apple's un-serviceable (by consumers) gear, iFixIt notes that the functioning parts of the 3rd gen shuffle weigh only 10% more than a single sheet of letter-sized paper. Hit that read link for the visual gore -- pretty amazing stuff at this scale.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

Filed under: Portable Audio

iPod shuffle teardown: guts weigh just 10% more than sheet of paper originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: Apple logo modded as secondary LCD

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/video-apple-logo-modded-to-act-as-secondary-lcd/

The only thing more certain about an Apple fanboy than his unwavering trust in the infallibility of Steve Jobs is his affinity for the Apple logo. You'll see it prominently displayed on the bumper of his VW or on the backside of her MacBook where it glows in the conspicuous brilliance of latte-superiority. So it's no surprise to see said logo modded yet again, this time, with a fully functional LCD display thanks to the efforts of Eddie Zarick. Honestly, seeing the iTunes Visualizer pumped through that Apple mask looks pretty sweet. You seeing this Jonny Ive?

[Thanks, Chris T.]

Continue reading Video: Apple logo modded as secondary LCD

Filed under: Laptops

Video: Apple logo modded as secondary LCD originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gartner posts worldwide mobile OS numbers for 2008

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/gartner-posts-worldwide-mobile-os-numbers-for-2008/

This table pretty much speaks for itself as a snapshot of the year in smartphones that was 2008 (according to Gartner) -- a breakout year for the category particularly in the US. As you'd expect from the smartphone device tallies we saw yesterday, RIM and Apple have the momentum largely at the expense of Symbian's declining market share and the stagnation of Windows Mobile in an otherwise growing market segment. Palm's also a bit of a surprise showing 42.2% growth for the year. With any luck, Palm could turn this table upside down in 2009 with a successful global launch of WebOS. Regardless, you can bet that developers are paying particularly close attention to these numbers as they decide where to best align their resources for maximum financial gain.

Filed under: Cellphones

Gartner posts worldwide mobile OS numbers for 2008 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 06:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's P3 PMP gets imported, reviewed, adored

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/samsungs-p3-pmp-gets-imported-reviewed-adored/

Samsung's P3 PMP gets imported, reviewed, adored

Oh jealousy, you are a vile beast. While the Korean market has had access to the spicy P3 touchscreen PMP for months now, long enough for Samsung to release a complete revision of the firmware, we're still stuck waiting for the ambiguous "first half of this year." The impatient can always import, exactly what Pocketables has done, giving its gray-market gadget the full review treatment. Its design is found to be similar yet much more attractive than the earlier P2, size comparable to Cowan's S9, 480 x 272 touchscreen brilliant, and the UI snappy and intuitive. Negatives? Sound quality was found to be good, but not great out of the box (able to be fixed with a suite of tuning options) and the lack of video output is a slight handicap. Overall, the P3 sounds like the perfect competition for the S9 and just the PMP for our envious hearts -- if only it came in green.

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Samsung's P3 PMP gets imported, reviewed, adored originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zer01 is the new, contract-less MVNO that will bring VOIP to the mobile masses

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/zer01-is-the-new-contract-less-mvno-that-will-bring-voip-to-the/

Zer01 is the new, contract-less MVNO that will bring VOIP to the mobile masses

2008 marked the end for many a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), most going under in a flood of bankruptcies or getting consumed but their parent networks. It sure seems like no company in its right mind would want to wade back into that graveyard, but Zer01 is thinking differently, pledging to launch a new network within a network next month at CTIA 2009. Its services will be provided by AT&T, but it'll undercut the competition with a combination of a $69.95 monthly unlimited voice and data plan and a complete lack of contracts, as well as unlimited international calling (to 40 countries) for just an extra $10. What's the catch? The company will rely on a VOIP application for routing of all calls, and right now that app only works on Windows Mobile. That'll be a roadblock for many, and given AT&T's somewhat limited (and generally flaky) 3G data coverage we're a little concerned about call quality, but just the same can't wait to see how this one turns out.

[Via Unwired View and PC Magazine]

Filed under: Cellphones

Zer01 is the new, contract-less MVNO that will bring VOIP to the mobile masses originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 07:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo's ThinkPad X61 Tablet selling for a song, or $649

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/lenovos-thinkpad-x61-tablet-selling-for-a-song-or-649/

Eager to pick up a $2,000 laptop for $649? What if we told you that said computer was a sturdy, reliable ThinkPad X61 Tablet that you can even doodle on when the workday's done? For a limited window of time, you can hit up the read link and toss in a sweet little $150-off coupon in order to bring the bottom line down to $649 on a new tablet PC, and that pittance will buy you a 1.6GHz Core 2 Duo L7500 CPU, Vista Home Premium, a 12.1-inch XGA display, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard drive, WiFi and an eight-cell battery. So, hot or not?

[Via LogicBuy]

Filed under: Laptops

Lenovo's ThinkPad X61 Tablet selling for a song, or $649 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI Wind U115 rated at 15 hours of battery life, torn apart for its trouble

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/msi-wind-u115-rated-at-15-hours-of-battery-life-torn-apart-for/

MSI's never been a slouch when it comes to its Wind series, but this new U115 seems to be something else entirely. In tests done by the folks at Eee-PC.de, the laptop ranged from 5.5 hours to 15 hours of battery life, based on level of usage. Even 5.5 hours is good for continuous use, but we could imagine all sorts of happiness with 15 hours of battery -- like camping. The laptop gets some of its battery mojo from its hybrid storage system, which allows the laptop to run entirely off of its 8GB of SSD memory, with the 160GB hard drive spun down to save power. The SSD is user-replaceable, if you don't mind a little warranty voiding, and the folks at nvision have thrown caution to the wind in ripping apart their U115 for our viewing pleasure.

[Via liliputing]

Read - Eee-PC.de
Read - nvision

Filed under: Laptops

MSI Wind U115 rated at 15 hours of battery life, torn apart for its trouble originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM-based netbooks primed to invade Computex?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/13/arm-based-netbooks-primed-to-invade-computex/

Steppin' out in the world, are we ARM? Shortly after hearing that OLPC was eying the brand for processors in the XO-2, Digitimes is now reporting that ARM-based platform makers including Qualcomm and Freescale are looking to unveil netbooks at this year's Computex trade show in Taipei. Granted, none of this has been confirmed just yet, but we're hearing that a model with Freescale's i.MX51 CPU (the ARM Cortex A8) and a version with Qualcomm's Snapdragon CPU (to be manufactured by Wistron) will be on hand. Not shockingly, in the same breath we're told that NVIDIA Tegra-based systems will appear "at a later time." So, is Computex the show where Intel finally takes a little heat in the netbook market? And no, VIA didn't (and doesn't) count.

Filed under: Laptops

ARM-based netbooks primed to invade Computex? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Mar 2009 10:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

Brother's SV-100B Bluetooth "Document Viewer" looks like an e-book reader to us

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/12/brothers-sv-100b-bluetooth-document-viewer-looks-like-an-e-bo/

Brother's SV-100B Bluetooth

It's finally coming true; all those e-ink readers we expected would flood the market after the Kindle's initial release were apparently just waiting for its successor before jumping into the fray. Joining recent announcements from iriver, Neolux, and Plastic Logic is Brother, with the SV-100B. The company is calling it a "Document Viewer," featuring a 9.7-inch, 1200 x 825 display -- larger and stocking twice the pixels of the Kindle 2. However, it's not meant to be a Kindle-killer, instead aimed at business users who will pair this over Bluetooth with PCs or mobile devices to keep its microSD card filled with content, content that must be run through a converter app prior to display. No MSRP was announced, but given its focus on the corporate clientele it will surely be priced accordingly when it ships early this June.

Gallery: Brother SV-100B e-book reader

[Via Engadget Japanese]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Brother's SV-100B Bluetooth "Document Viewer" looks like an e-book reader to us originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel rated leading chip manufacturer again, AMD slips out of top ten

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/12/intel-still-leading-chip-manufacturer-amd-slips-out-of-top-ten/

Intel rated leading chip manufacturer again, AMD slips out of top ten

This economic crisis has been tough for nearly every business worldwide, perhaps best evidenced by the number of corporate spats we've seen develop lately as everyone gets more and more protective of their respective turfs. While Intel and NVIDIA have lately been engaged in an epic war of PowerPoint presentations, fewer disputes have been bigger or longer-running than the one between Intel and its more direct competition, AMD. That "us inside" company just earned some bragging rights, being named the biggest processor manufacturer in the world again by iSuppli, with a 13.1 percent global market share. AMD, which came in tenth last year, dropped down to the number twelve position in 2008 after its revenue declined 7.8 percent compared to 2007. News was also bad for Texas Instruments, which dropped a position largely thanks to the success of mobile processors from Toshiba and Qualcomm. Don't be so glum, TI, maybe successes from Russell Crowe's favorite flavor of pico projector will make up for the difference.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Intel rated leading chip manufacturer again, AMD slips out of top ten originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Too Much Space Debris? Try a Weak Laser or a Strong Water Cannon [Space Junk]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Gik6zPP8XqQ/too-much-space-debris-try-a-weak-laser-or-a-strong-water-cannon

There are 18,000 pieces of tracked space debris in orbit—and millions more smaller bits—all potentially fatal. To nudge them towards the atmosphere to burn up, one scientist proposes lasers, another proposes water.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the problem with debris eradication is that there's no money in it. Anybody can cough up a billion or so to launch a telecom satellite, but anyone who wants NASA or the ESA to start cleaning up has to come up with a plan that costs a lot less.

There's no money in it probably because nothing really bad has happened yet. According to that video down below, shuttle pilots have had near misses 12 times with pieces and parts that could've played serious havoc. Like so many busy intersections that are missing stop lights, the problem may require a fatal collision before money is made available. Though nobody died, the recent ~~mid-air~~ collision of US and Russian satellites was at least some kind of wake-up call.

In the meantime, here are some low-budget proposals:

1. Jonathan Campbell at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL says the answer is lasers, what the WSJ says would be "existing low-power lasers in quick pulses" to "singe the surface of an object in space" to "help point it downward." Campbell calls this Project Orion, as in the great hunter in the sky, but the Orion lasers would be based on land. (Note to self: Don't ever fly over Orion lasers.)

2. Jim Hollopete! r, who w orks for Satellite Communications in Austin, TX, likes water cannons mounted to rockets, or as the Journal says, "aging rockets loaded with water to spray orbiting junk" thereby gradually pushing it towards the atmostphere to burn up, along with the spent rocket itself. "The water would turn to steam," says the Journal.

3. Heiner Klinkrad, head of ESA's Space Debris Office in Darmstadt, Germany, thinks we should give a hoot and just not litter. Rockets should not drop bolts and straps when they separate, and satellites should commit space hara-kiri, by steering themselves toward the atmosphere when their job is done. He's also looking into garbage collection strategies.

What definitely won't work:
• Big magnets - There's no iron in space debris.
• Powerful lasers - Would just make more space junk.
• Strong Nets - Cuz you're in space, not in some meadow chasing butterflies.

Read the full article at the WSJ for more good stuff, or watch their video here:

Nintendo doubles up Sony's PSP, ships 100 millionth DS handheld

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/12/nintendo-doubles-up-sonys-psp-ships-100-millionth-ds-handheld/

Nearly a month ago to the day, Sony triumphantly proclaimed that it had sold its 50 millionth PlayStation Portable. Now, Nintendo's making that figure look awfully small by shipping its 100 millionth DS handheld. The number includes original DS, DS Lite and DSi systems, and clearly, those sales are still going strong. The original DS launched way back in late 2004, while the totally hip DSi is slated to ship here in the United States in under a month. So, who's taking bets on how long it takes to hit the magical 200 million mark?

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds

Nintendo doubles up Sony's PSP, ships 100 millionth DS handheld originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 00:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell's multi-touch Studio One 19 PC makes exclusive debut in Japan

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/12/dells-multi-touch-studio-one-19-pc/

Well, well. Japan just scored an exclusive on this new multi-touch Studio One 19 PC from Dell. The All-in-One "entertainment PC" comes in a variety of colors to match your kitchen decor with specs that max-out on options such as a Core 2 Quad processor, 4GB of memory, 750GB hard disk, 6x USB, integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam, and NVIDIA GeForce 9400 graphics, and Blu-ray player. The 18.5 inch display features a 1,366 x 768 aspect ratio with touch or non-touch glass panels -- capacitive or resistive... that's the question. Prices start at about ¥149,800 which translates to a tax inclusive price of about $1,538 of the green stuff. Hey Dell, how about a shot from the side so we can measure the chub index?

Update: Helloooo chubby sexy! Profile and top-down pictures found (thanks LionelatDell!) and dropped in after the break and into the gallery. Who knew that the display was actually offset-forward from the main slab? Nice. And she sure is curvy.

Update 2: PC World got a demo of the new AIO and reveals a $699 starting price when it hits the US this Spring -- a lot more when you start adding the $100 touchscreen option, $200-ish Blu-ray, more memory, etc.

Gallery: Dell's multi-touch Studio One 19 PC makes exclusive debut in Japan

[Via Engadget Japanese]

Continue reading Dell's multi-touch Studio One 19 PC makes exclusive debut in Japan

Filed under: Desktops

Dell's multi-touch Studio One 19 PC makes exclusive debut in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 02:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wednesday, March 11, 2009

BackTrack is a Security-Focused Live CD Packed With System Tools [Screenshot Tour]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Tb-AvcGT1_Q/backtrack-is-a-security+focused-live-cd-packed-with-system-tools

BackTrack was the winner of our recent Hive Five for best Live CD, so we decided to take it for a test drive and show off a few of the features for everybody else.

BackTrack can be installed to a regular boot cd, a USB drive, installed to the hard drive, or even downloaded as a VMware virtual machine. For our testing, we used the BackTrack 3 stable release instead of the Beta 4 version since most commenters directly mentioned version 3 in the original call for contenders.

After inserting the LiveCD and starting the boot process, you'll be prompted to choose which window environment to load up—the distribution includes the more graphically pleasing KDE, or the trimmed-down Fluxbox window manager.

Once you've booted to the desktop you'll notice the default resolution is 800x600, but can be easily changed through the system tray icon to any resolution.

The slick system monitoring application on the right-hand side of the first screenshot doesn't get started automatically—to open it, you'll need to use the Alt+F2 shortcut key and type leetmode into the command window. You can unlock the position of the monitors through the context menu, and drag them wherever on the screen you'd like.

One of the more interesting features in the Live CD is the inclusion of the excellent and previously mentioned Yakuake drop-down terminal window, which can be launched through the Alt+F2 dialog, or found under the System menu. Once started, simply use the F12 key to toggle the slide-down terminal.
Connecting to any network resource can be done easily with the Network Folder Wizard, found in the menus at Internet -> KNetAttach. You can easily map to a Windows share, SSH, or FTP server using the wizard—which is nothing more than an easy front-end to the Konqueror browser's rich connection support.

Since this distribution is focused on security, you can find a ton of security-focused tools under the Backtrack menu, although there are far too many to mention every one of them here—you'll have to explore them on your own.

One of the more useful security tools for everyday use is the chntpw utility (found in the menus under Privilege Escalation -> PasswordAttacks) that can reset any Windows password easily from the command line. For more on this command, I've previously written an article about ch! anging y our forgotten Windows password.

BackTrack 3 is a free download, works almost anywhere Linux does. Be sure to check out the original Hive Five for the rest of the Live CD choices from your fellow Lifehacker readers, or learn how to rescue files with Knoppix.

Songbird 1.1 Grabs Album Art in One Step, Runs Lighter and Faster [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/jpvKLjT5qAA/songbird-11-grabs-album-art-in-one-step-runs-lighter-and-faster

Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): The free, multi-platform iTunes assaulter (if not quite killer) Songbird busts out great improvements for a 1.1 version, including a one-click album art grabber, performance improvements, and loads o' little tweaks.

The killer new feature is a single menu option, under "Tools," that scans your entire music collection and grabs the relevant album art from Last.fm's web site. That alone makes the oft-improved, awesomely extensible music manager worth a look. But most of the big improvements in this release have been under the hood, so to speak:

We made some substantial gains this release:
* Reduced memory use with a large library by 40%
* Cut CPU usage during playback by half
* Fixed playback memory leaks
* Made library caching configurable
* Added batching to the media importer, reducing memory use by 60%
* Reduced Mac download size 45%
* Fewer Crashes: We've worked hard to identify and fix ten of the most common crashes in Songbird.

Songbird certainly doesn't suffer from a little tighter operation—it's competing, after all, with the 800-lb. gorilla named iTunes, so having a clearly distinct profile is a good stance.

Check out Songbird's more visible improvements by clicking through our short gallery:

Songbird 1.1 is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

Songbird 1.1 is here [Songbird Blog]

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