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Monday, April 13, 2009

SandForce breaks into SSD market with speedy SF-1000 processors

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/13/sandforce-breaks-into-ssd-market-with-speedy-sf-1000-processors/

With SSD prices still well above the point of affordability, we're thrilled to see more entrants joining the burgeoning market. Big players like Western Digital and Corsair are being greeted by small timers such as PhotoFast, Fusion-io and SandForce, the latter of which has just escaped "stealth mode" in order to launch its first solid state drive processor family. The chips utilize DuraClass technology and promise to address "key NAND flash issues allowing MLC flash technologies to be reliably used in broad based, mission critical storage environments." More germane to our discussion is the nice boost in transfer rates and lower cost of production; we're told that the SF-1000 crew sports a standard 3 gigabit-per-second SATA host interface connecting up to 512 gigabytes of commodity NAND flash memory, and that it delivers 30,000 IOPS and 250MB/s performance (sequential 128KB read or write transfers) with 100 micro-second latency. If all goes well, select OEMs will be launching SSDs based on this processor later this year, so we'll definitely be keeping our eyes peeled.

[Via GadgetMix, thanks Kamal]

Filed under: Storage

SandForce breaks into SSD market with speedy SF-1000 proc! essors originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Studio Spotlight: Bulletproof

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDieline/~3/Mefh_h2yYzk/studio-spotlight-bulletproof.html

Bulletproof is a firm in London that focuses on packaging, branding and shopper marketing. Take a look at their varied body of packaging design.

More after the jump.

New Shuffle Costs Apple $21.77 to Build [Apple]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/EoS2t1B6060/new-shuffle-costs-apple-2177-to-build

According to a new teardown report by iSuppli, the $79, third generation iPod shuffle costs Apple a total of $21.77 to build and box. Here's the cost per component:

Main Processing Chip (Samsung)
$5.98

4GB Flash Memory (Samsung)
$6

Lithium Ion Battery (Smallest iSuppli had ever seen)
$1.20

Various Capacitors and Resistors (Smallest iSupply had ever seen, a grain of salt a pop)
Less than a penny each

The prices of the headphones, body and case were unspecified, but apparently those components make up the other half of the shuffle's component cost to Apple. And with the build price at just 28% of the sale price, the shuffle should be Apple's most profitable iPod ever, even if iSuppli's report doesn't account for expenses like R&D. [BusinessWeek and image]

Carriers could be forced by EU to support VoIP services

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/13/carriers-could-be-forced-by-eu-to-support-voip-services/

We've seen it time and time again -- carriers using their power to strong-arm consumers into paying services that could very well be free. Over in Europe, the almighty EU is considering "binding guidelines" that could force wireless operators to allow VoIP services such as Skype to run over their cellular networks. It should be noted that all of this is still very preliminary at the moment, but if the Union can somehow force carriers to support these so-called "innovative services," we could see a very favorable (for consumers, anyway) domino effect. As it stands, each EU country has the ability to decide individually on how they deal with blocked internet services, but obviously an EU-wide mandate would seriously shake things up. Or cause unstoppable riots, one.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Cellphones

Carriers could be forced by EU to support VoIP services originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New in Labs: Gmail search made easier (and lazier)

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/Ih3f6KUQTEk/new-in-labs-gmail-search-made-easier.html

Posted by Ibrahim Bokharouss, Software Engineer

On the Gmail team, we believe finding the right email among thousands of messages can be as important as finding the right web page across the billions of web pages out there. So with the aim of making search in Gmail easier, we built a new experimental feature in Gmail Labs: Search Autocomplete.

Turn on Search Autocomplete from the Labs tab under Gmail Settings, and you'll get suggestions as you type in the search box. One of the most popular searches in Gmail is for names or email addresses, so the first kind of suggestions you'll see are contacts. Some names are not easy to remember (my last name is an excellent example!) — with this new Labs feature you can just type a couple letters and select the desired contact from the drop down list. Easy and quick as that.

Gmail also offers a bunch of advanced search operators, which provide a powerful way to find that one message you have in mind. You can search in specific places (e.g. in chats or sent items), or search for messages with attachments of a certain type (e.g. docs or photos). Suppose I want to search for photos that were sent to me by my friend Chris. Normally, I would have to enter Chris' email address followed by filename:(jpg OR png), which I gladly admit is even a bit too geeky for me. With Search Autocomplete, I can just type "photos" or "pictures," select "has photos" from the drop down list (as in the screenshot! below), and the search query (filename:(jpg OR png)) gets inserted for me. Similarly, you can type in the word "attachment" and Search Autocomplete will list the most common attachment types for you.

One of the reasons we still show you the geeky search query is to allow you to adapt it to your needs. For example, if you'd like to include tiff files in your search result, you can adapt the query manually to filename:(jpg OR png OR tiff).

That's it for now. Play around and make sure to use the time that you save on searching to let us know what you think.

A new mobile Gmail experience for iPhone and Android

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/CAvue3AfIBA/new-mobile-gmail-experience-for-iphone.html

Posted by Rob Kroeger, Engineer, Google Mobile

Today we're introducing a major revision to Gmail for mobile that takes advantage of the latest browser technology available on iPhone and Android devices. We've updated the user interface, made it faster to open messages, allowed for batch actions (like archiving multiple messages at once), and added some basic offline support

Despite the advent of 3G networks and wifi, smartphones still lack a high-speed, always-on broadband connection and can have connections far less reliable than their desktop brethren. So, just like when we redesigned the Gmail for mobile client app last October, we've gone back to the drawing board and redesigned Gmail for the mobile browser to overcome some of these limitations. We made performance more consistent, regardless of connection type, and laid the foundation for future improvements.

Now, when you go to gmail.com from your iPhone or Android browser, archiving email is quicker because it doesn't require a response from a remote server. Instead, we cache mail on the device itself (using database storage on the iPhone and a device-local mobile Gears database on Android-powered phones). Actions like archiving or starring messages are first applied to this cache and then sent to Gmail servers in the background whenever a network connection is available. You only have to wait for a response from the server when you're requesting an uncached message or list of messages. As a result, you can start-up Gmail even if you're on a slow connection. You can even compose mail and open recently read messages while offline.

We made extensive use of other browser functions too: for example, the floaty bar that lets you archive, delete or apply more actions is animated via CSS transformations and controlled in part with touch event! s (when you scroll the screen, it follows you).

The HTML5 canvas tag is used to render the progress spinner without the overhead of downloading animated GIFs to the device. Now that we've developed a framework for the new Gmail for mobile, we're planning a whole lot more: faster performance, improved offline operation, new functionality, and interface enhancements that take advantage of the unique properties of smartphones.

To try this new version of Gmail for mobile, just go to gmail.com from your mobile browser. It's currently available on any Android-powered devices or iPhone OS 2.2.1 or higher. For now, the new version is available in English only. We'll be rolling this version out to everyone over the course of the day, so if you don't see the updated user interface yet (you'll know you have it when you see that floaty bar), check back soon. For easy access, we recommend creating a homescreen link.

New in Labs: Sender time zone

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/CyvhP7Gn88U/new-in-labs-sender-time-zone.html

Posted by Marcin Brodziak, Software Engineer

Let's say your girlfriend sends you an angry email. It's mostly about how you behaved at the party last night and then left for a business trip without saying goodbye. You read it from the other side of the globe, jet-lagged after a 12 hour flight. You want to call and sort things out, but forget that it's now almost 3:00 am her time. After waking her up, things only get worse.

There's a new feature in Gmail Labs called Sender Time Zone that can help. Turn it on from the Labs tab under Settings, and you'll see green phone icons next to people who are probably awake and readily reachable (if it's between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm in the sender's local time zone) and red ones next to those who could be sleeping or out of the office:

Click "show details" and you can see when a message was sent in the sender's time zone as well as what time it is for them now:

Message headers always include the time sent and often include time zone info too. We use that information to show you these icons. If the time zone isn't included for a given message, this Lab! s featur e won't display anything. Try it out and tell us what you think.

New in Labs: Inserting images

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OfficialGmailBlog/~3/WMbC5KLDf9c/new-in-labs-inserting-images.html

Posted by Kent Tamura, Software Engineer

Well, it's about time. You no longer have to use workarounds to put images into your messages or attach images when you really want to inline them. Just turn on "Inserting images" from the Labs tab under Settings, and you'll see a new toolbar icon like this:

Make sure you're in rich formatting mode, or it won't show up. Click the little image icon, and you can insert images in two ways: by uploading image files from your computer or providing image URLs.

Keep in mind that Gmail doesn't show URL-based images in messages by default to protect you from spammers, so if you're sending mail to other Gmail users, they'll still have to click "Display images below" or "Always display images from ..." to see images you embed.

Got feedback on inserting images? Send it our way.

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Widerbug Tweaks Firebug to Fit Your Wide Screen [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/YgW3LkKzIzU/widerbug-tweaks-firebug-to-fit-your-wide-screen

Firefox: If you've ever sighed and said "Oh Firebug, if only you were wide screen!", today is your lucky day. Widerbug is a version of the popular web development tool tweaked for wide screens.

Firebug is a handy tool for examining the HTML and CSS code of a website along with the page itself. The original extension orients the site and the code horizontally, as seen here. You can detach the panels and move them around, but then they don't update when you switch tabs.

Widebug is a tweaked version of Firebug, the site and the code panels are displayed side by side to take advantage of wide screen monitors. The panels maintain their connection to each tab, doing away with the phantom code effect found in Firebug when you try to coax it into wide screen mode. Widerbug is a free extension and works wherever Firefox does.

Widerbug [via gHacks]

Free Music Archive Puts Thousands of Royalty-Free Songs Up for Grabs [Free]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/UMKoTda-9-o/free-music-archive-puts-thousands-of-royalty+free-songs-up-for-grabs

Need a worry-free background track for a multimedia project, or just some new tunes to work into your daily mix? The Free Music Archive, a project of indie freeform station WFMU, has downloads and streams galore.

Inspired by the ideas and ethos behind Creative Commons licensing, the tracks on the FMA are offered for whatever use you want. Use them to soundtrack your latest YouTube epic, remix them and release them, or download and share them with friends. The site also boasts a kind of quality control to the database of songs both live and recoded, selected by WFMU's audio archivists and curators. The search functionality works pretty well, and can be re-sorted by genre, album, or other criteria.

If you really dig the tunes you're finding, there are links to the artists' albums and a tip jar for each. Otherwise, stream, grab, and go at your leisure. Free to use, sign-up required for the social aspects of the site, like mix publishing and sharing.

Free Music Archive [via ReadWriteWeb]

TuneConnect Controls iTunes Playback from Any Computer in Your Home [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Ac5RIcAawRQ/tuneconnect-controls-itunes-playback-from-any-computer-in-your-home

Mac OS X only: Free, open-source application TuneConnect controls iTunes playback on any computer in your house from any other computer through an attractive interface focused on album art.

In fact, as weblog MacApper points out, it's easy to think of this as a desktop version of the Remote iPhone application. The app requires you to install a preference pane that acts as the server (you'd only need to install this on the computer(s) you wanted to control), meaning the download comes with both the preference pane and the main application. The main TuneConnect application is the one you'll use on any computer from which you want to control the music.

TuneConnect loads libraries from server computers quickly, and playback control is snappy. Best of all, the application is free and open source. Unfortunately it's Mac only.

TuneConnect [via MacApper]

Chrome Bookmark Sorter Rearranges Bookmarks Recursively [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/OTce_5L41VM/chrome-bookmark-sorter-rearranges-bookmarks-recursively

Windows only: Reader James got tired of waiting for Google Chrome's bookmark manager to allow better sorting options—so he wrote up a small app that gets the job done.

Google Chrome's bookmark manager allows simple sorting by title and for a single folder, but James wanted more, so he created this utility to sort recursively by name or date added through all of your bookmarks. Using the utility is easy enough—just close all the open Chrome windows, launch the application and choose from the sorting options, and your bookmarks and folders will be sorted recursively.

Chrome Bookmark Sorter is a free download for Windows only. James asked us to provide the download here, so we've provided a direct link to the file. Thanks, James!

For more useful Chrome utilities, be sure and check out the previously mentioned Google Chrome Backup tool and our power user's guide to Google Chrome.

Download Chrome Bookmark Sorter 1.1
Chrome Bookmarks Sorter [James Burgess]

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