Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, April 06, 2009

Samsung's new SyncMaster 70 displays consume 33% less energy, 0% less pizzazz

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/samsungs-new-syncmaster-70-displays-consume-33-less-energy-0/

Taking global climate change as seriously as anyone is these days, Samsung has trotted out a pair of new SyncMaster 70 series monitors, on the green tip. Coming in at your choice of either 20- or 23-inches, the displays sport a 50000:1 contrast ration, 2ms response time, and consume thirty-three percent less energy than previous Sammy outings. No word yet on screen resolution, release date, or price. Don't tell us that you're not a little bit excited. Just a little?

Filed under: Displays

Samsung's new SyncMaster 70 displays consume 33% less energy, 0% less pizzazz originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LED-infused HDMI cables add some light to your home theater

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/04/led-infused-hdmi-cables-add-some-light-to-your-home-theater/

We know what you're thinking: you've decked out your gaming rig with a translucent case and a string of LEDs inside, and gave similar treatment to the wall just behind your display ... so why not add that special glow to your connection, too? Enter these HDMI 1.3 cables from Donya, available in only the finest of patriotic colors -- red, white, and blue. It'll set you back 999 yen (about US $10) plus an unknown amount for shipping, but if you're impatient, we're sure there's a little DIY weekend project to take from this.

[Via Akihabara News]

Filed under: Desktops, Home Entertainment

LED-infused HDMI cables add some light to your home theater originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell netbook roadmap leaks out, get ready for the Mini 11

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/04/dell-netbook-roadmap-leaks-out-get-ready-for-the-mini-11/

Oops, it looks like a Dell middle manager somewhere got a little too excited and let a full set of netbook roadmap slides leak out. The biggest news is a planned Mini 11 due sometime between now and the end of Q3, but the Mini 10 is where most of the action is in the short term -- the current model will get options for Vista, a 3G modem, and potentially a 1.86GHz Atom on April 17th, a new 1.6GHz Atom N270 SKU will arrive in May and everything will be updated again in the second half of the year with Intel's Pine Trail processors. Interesting, but we're wondering when Dell will realize that the Mini 10's HDMI output and 720p screen are useless unless it can handle true HD video -- Ion, anyone?

Filed under: Laptops

Dell netbook roadmap leaks out, get ready for the Mini 11 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo MRT800 touchscreen PMP unveiled, pities no fool

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/05/lenovo-mrt800-touchscreen-pmp-unveiled-pities-no-fool/

On the surface, Lenovo's MRT800 doesn't seem to have any surprises, but if you look closer... well, it's more or less the same. The touchscreen PMP's got a 4.3-inch TFT LCD with 480 x 272 resolution, a microSD expansion slot, FM tuner, and a voice recorder. Codec support includes RMVB, AVI, ASF, MP4, and FLV for video, and MP3, WMA, OGG, APE, FLAC, and WAV for audio. Mum's the word on pricing, release date, or if anyone else mispronounces its name and gets the urge to watch A-Team reruns.

[Via iTech News]

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Lenovo MRT800 touchscreen PMP unveiled, pities no fool originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia N97 hits FCC with glorious photography

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/nokia-n97-hits-fcc-with-glorious-photography/

We're not sure if these are false color images, weird lighting, a Finnish sense of humor, or an actual production color scheme for the N97, but regardless, we like it. Nay, love it. Ship it, Nokia. Anyhow, the FCC has published full submitted details of one of the non-North American varieties of Nokia's halo device for the year, putting GSM / EDGE 850 / 1900 and WCDMA band II (1900MHz, if you're curious) through their paces along with the FM transmitter, Bluetooth, and WiFi. We've also got a manual to peruse -- unfortunately, details on the Ovi Store are missing, but at least we can brush up on our phone basics before we get our hands on a device. Anyone else totally forget that it's got an internal magnetic compass, or was that just us?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nokia N97 hits FCC with glorious photography originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia's E75 now shipping to eMail lovers, pixel haters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/nokias-e75-now-shipping-to-email-lovers-pixel-haters/

It's out, Nokia's E75 S60 QWERTY is now shipping according to a feverish Nokia press release. For Espoo, that leading "E" stands for businEss so this slider is all about corporate eMail -- a first handset to ship with Nokia's new eMail user interface -- as well as getting you connected to your personal accounts from Yahoo, Gmail, and Hotmail. Unfortunately, the decent quad-band GSM / EDGE and dual-band HSPDA data, WiFi, microSD expansion, 3.2 megapixel camera, and a-GPS specs are offset by that puny 2.4-inch QVGA (320 x 240 pixel) display. For our money, we'll be holding out for the 3.5-inch, 640 x 360 pixel N97 QWERTY slider just peeped in the FCC, thankuverymuch.

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia's E75 now shipping to eMail lovers, pixel haters originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TiVo update brings pause menu ads to Series3 & TiVo HD owners

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/06/tivo-update-brings-pause-menu-ads-to-series3-and-tivo-hd-owners/

TiVo heard you liked ads, so it's putting ads in your pause menu so you can watch ads while you skip ads. Already rolled out on older Series2 hardware last December, Dave Zatz posts that the 11.0c software update for Series3 / TiVo HD hardware brings the new "feature" of ads popping up while viewers are time shifting. That can show up as a "More information" prompt for some shows, as seen above, but will hold advertisements on certain programs. The prompt will only show up once per recording, but if this new form of advertising bugs you, TiVo Community user bfdtv instructs that permanently hiding the progress bar can be achieved by pressing pause, press down to hide the popup, press play again, then enter SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-PAUSE-SELECT, which can also be reversed by using the code again while watching a recording. Still, we doubt the ad skipping arms race will end here.

Read - TiVo's Pause Menu Spam Hits S3/HD Units
Read - TivoHD Overview, Q&A, Setup, Tips

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

TiVo update brings pause menu ads to Series3 & TiVo HD owners originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, April 03, 2009

This Ornate Scroll Is A Gadget

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/yankodesign/~3/amio4orSzhQ/

It's inlayed with some mother-of-pearl work and looks like the Korean 'Najawnchilgi' lacquer ware craft, but Gyo-Ji is actually a translation device. Compared to the ViewTrans that we saw recently, this scroll features a rolled-up screen and allows you to write the foreign script directly onto it for translation. Another way of getting the job done is to place the screen on the foreign script and then hit the translation button. At this rate I think translation dictionaries and handbooks will soon be redundant.

Designers: Soonkyu Jang, Taehee Woo, Yonghuk Yim & Chung Lee

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Portable Ubuntu Runs Ubuntu Inside Windows [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/c7LVd0Z433k/portable-ubuntu-runs-ubuntu-inside-windows

Windows only: Free application Portable Ubuntu for Windows runs an entire Linux operating system as a Windows application. As if that weren't cool enough, it's portable, so you can carry it on your thumb drive.

Built from the same guts as the andLinux system that lets you seamlessly run Linux apps on your Windows desktop, Portable Ubuntu is a stand-alone package that runs a fairly standard (i.e. orange-colored, GNOME-based) version of the popular Ubuntu Linux distribution. It just doesn't bother creating its own desktop, and puts all its windows inside your Windows, er, windows.

The coolest parts about Portable Ubuntu are:

It actually works (in most cases, on most systems).
It fits on a (larger) thumb drive and can run entirely from it.
It can work on, and save to, your Windows folders and files.
It's persistent, so changes you make and apps you install are carried around with you.
It's easily manageable from Windows, and works great on dual monitors.

Wanna give it a go? Grab the latest Portable Ubuntu package (about 438MB as of this writing), then double-click to unpack it to a folder. On Vista or Windows 7, you'll have to open your command prompt as an administrator (hit Windows key, type in cmd, then right-click on the "Command Prompt" option that appears and select "Run as Administrator"); on XP, you'll probably just hav! e to lau nch a command prompt. Head to the folder where you extracted your Portable Ubuntu, and enter run_portable_ubuntu and hit Enter to launch the .bat script.

Your machine will whir and decompress for a while, and you'll likely get a few prompts to "Unblock" coLinux and a few other apps' abilities on your system. Unblock all of them, and you'll eventually get a small, move-able menu bar on your desktop, as seen in the top screenshot. Drag this wherever it's comfortable to keep it, and you're on your way.

From those three pop-out menus—Applications, Places, and System—you can accomplish pretty much the same thing as any Linux user can, just without the full desktop. Launch a program, and it appears in a window that looks like any other on your Windows system. Open a file browser from "Places," and you can get to your Windows files by heading to /mnt/C (or substitute your drive name/letter for "C"). Feel free to carry around Audacity, GIMP, or any other editing programs that lack a Windows equivalent and start getting creative with them.

Whatever changes you make to your system stick with it. So if you, say, want to install VLC media player for some on-the-go media, you can install it from the Add/Remove dialog or tackle it manually in Accessories->Terminal, and it'll be planted right in the Sound & Video menu. The same goes for system tweaks or startup apps you add to your little Ubuntu package.

Portable Ubuntu makes for a great place to test out your more cutting-edge stuff, wi! thout ha ving to worry about messing up your working Windows system. The latest beta of Firefox 3.1/3.5? Even easier to run than the portable solution, and you can keep both your Windows and Portable-Ubuntu-launched Firefox browsers open at once.

When you're running Portable Ubuntu, Windows treats it like any other program. You can close down individual app windows from your taskbar, and pop it onto and off your desktop with little hassle.

Portable Ubuntu is a free, portable download that runs from Windows systems only. Drop your Linux-inside-Windows ideas and other geeky stuff in the comments.

Portable Ubuntu for Windows [via gHacks]

Robot Makes Autonomous Scientific Discovery for First Time [Science]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/1e0Z2vt99MA/robot-makes-autonomous-scientific-discovery-for-first-time

A robot named Adam is reported to be the first robot ever to independently uncover scientific knowledge.

The robot's AI made a hypothesis about the genomics of a yeast, planned a test for the hypothesis and carried the test out in its lab. The results were replicated by human scientists later, confirming that, no, the robot wasn't lying about its discovery to get on the fast track to tenure. [Lab Spaces and image not of the actual robot]

LG EnV3 and Voyager 2 Leaked [Cellphones]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ycO6wNZVHEY/lg-env3-and-voyager-2-leaked

Boy Genius and other sources are showing off blurry-ass spyshots of Verizon's next ho-hum semi-smart handsets, the EnV3 and Voyager 2 from LG.

When they're open, the two phones are hard to distinguish. On your left, up top, is the EnV3, with the smaller 4:3 screen. On the right, there's the widescreen Voyager 2.

Closed, it's a different matter. Sticking with the formula that's made them hot sellers (without being in any way innovative), LG kept the touchscreen on the Voyager 2 (below, now on the left) and the full number pad on the EnV3 (below, right). Can I say we're excited? No. But will someone buy these, and even brag about them to their friends? Signs point to "yes." [Boy Genius, Electronista]

Arduino finds yet another use in homebuilt 3D scanner

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/03/arduino-finds-yet-another-use-in-homebuilt-3d-scanner/

The Arduino has long since proven itself to be one of the biggest boons to DIY heads since the soldering iron, but that doesn't mean it's not still able to impress, as amply demonstrated by this simple but effective homebuilt 3D scanner. While there's not exactly much to guide the rookies out there, the project does seem to be straightforward enough for anyone with a bit of experience, with the scanner itself comprised of nothing more than the Arduino, a couple of servos, and the Sharp GP2Y0A02YK Long Distance Measuring Sensor -- plus the necessary code, of course, which is conveniently provided at the link below. Once you've got everything pieced together, you should all set to make polar coordinate scans of your surroundings and watch the time fly by.

[Via Hacked Gadgets]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Arduino finds yet another use in homebuilt 3D scanner originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 08:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Promise's new SmartStor do-it-all NS4600 and easy-setup DS4300 make RAID 5 look easy

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/03/promises-new-smartstor-do-it-all-ns4600-and-easy-setup-ds4300-m/

While storage is by default a fairly boring topic, we're always happy to see someone try and spice it up -- and Promise sure is trying. The new Promise SmartStor NS4600 and DS4300 offer up four drive RAID 5 striped storage, with the NS4600 pulling full NAS and media server duties, while the DS4300 plays things like a Drobo competitor, with One Touch Configuration to set up new drives and a direct plug into your computer. The NS4600 is where things get really interesting, with the ability to serve up iPhone-friendly video as part of its iTunes Digital Media Server support, SmartNAVI for accessing and viewing media through a web browser, Remote Access Media Center for pulling up media anywhere, and Apple Time Machine Support. The NAS can host USB 2.0 and eSATA drives, and hooks into your network with a gigabit Ethernet plug. The NAS sans-drives goes for "sub $500," while the DS4300 clocks in around $400 -- both should be widely available around mid May. Full feature breakdown is after the break.

Gallery: Promise's new SmartStor do-it-all NS4600 and easy-setup DS4300 make RAID 5 look easy

Continue reading Promise's new SmartStor do-it-all NS4600 and easy-setup DS4300 make RAID 5 look easy

Filed under: Storage, Networking

Promise's new SmartStor do-it-all NS4600 and easy-setup DS4300 make RAID 5 look easy originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BenQ's Qisda QPD-111 Creative Design Center MID wins design awards, doesn't exist yet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/03/benqs-qisda-qpd-111-creative-design-center-mid-wins-a-design-aw/

Not that we have anything against products that don't exist, but it would seem to us convenient to have something to show on the other end of a couple design awards. BenQ's Qisda QPD-111 just won a red dot and iF award, but BenQ doesn't seem quite ready to show it off to the world. The MID sports a 5-inch screen, and is "designed for highly mobile people pursuing the best Internet experience while on the go." That fancy little red "Hot Key" sends you to the world wide internet with a single press, and the device can handle multitouch pinch-to-zoom and other gestures for browsing. There's also a built-in accelerometer, which lets you switch between communication and Internet functions with a little shake of your precious, imaginary MID. There's obviously no information on price or availability at this point -- we're not even sure what OS it's running -- but it's certainly a sexy and almost potentially usable entrant into the confounding and primarily useless MID market.

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Handhelds

BenQ's Qisda QPD-111 Creative Design Center MID wins design awards, doesn't exist yet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP TouchSmart tx2z with 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD now $450 off with coupon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/03/hp-touchsmart-tx2z-with-4gb-ram-320gb-hdd-now-450-off-with-cou/

In the market for a multitouch tablet? HP's TouchSmart tx2z, both the readers' and editors' choice for Tablet PC of the Year in the 2008 Engadget Awards, currently has two stackable discounts totaling $450, dropping the price here to a much more manageable $650. That includes an AMD Turion X2 Dual-core processor, 4GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive. Offer expires tomorrow, so hit up LogicBuy soon via the read link for details and the promo code.

Filed under: Laptops

HP TouchSmart tx2z with 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD now $450 off with coupon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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