Monday, July 06, 2009

Google G0 Android Smartphone Concept: If Only the G1 Was So Slick [Concepts]

Google G0 Android Smartphone Concept: If Only the G1 Was So Slick [Concepts]

Tryi Yeh's Android smartphone concept, cheekily dubbed the G0, is a touchscreen slider, but the slide-out section isn't a hardware keyboard. Instead, it's got a camera and four customizable smartkeys. Still, we like the design, and it looks fairly realistic.

The G0 concept comes with a few equally-conceptual accessories, including what seems to be an inductive charger a la the Pre's Touchstone, as well as some kind of media hookup that uses a very Windows Media Center-like interface. We can't exactly tell what's going on with the slider: It might actually be detachable, though we can't be sure. Make it a hardware QWERTY and we're sold. [Tryi Yeh via DVICE]

Enhanced Gmail Plug-in for BlackBerry now in beta testing

Enhanced Gmail Plug-in for BlackBerry now in beta testing

It's no secret that using Gmail on a BlackBerry is a painful experience -- since the built-in mail client has shamefully broken IMAP support, your only real choice is a variant of the same Java-based Gmail app that runs on ancient featurephones, and that rules out direct integration with either contacts or attachments. Yeah, it's sad, but hope is in the air, as RIM's apparently beta testing something called the "Enhanced Gmail Plug-in for BlackBerry," which promises to bring things up to speed. Features are said to include Conversation View, support for labels, stars, and archiving, and full mailbox search -- you know, Gmail. Of course, it would be even nicer if RIM would just sack up and bring proper IMAP support to the most famous messaging platform in the world, but we'll take what we can get.

[Via BerryReview]

Filed under: Cellphones

Enhanced Gmail Plug-in for BlackBerry now in beta testing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists Create Eerie Ambient Music Using Human Brains, MRI Machines [Brains]

Scientists Create Eerie Ambient Music Using Human Brains, MRI Machines [Brains]

A professor at Trinity College in Connecticut has written what is essentially a MIDI player for the human brain, converting MRI imagery into a sort of bleeping, blooping ambient music.

Here's how it works: people are subjected to a range of stimuli, ranging from a series of flashing lights to a driving simulator to, well, silence, while changes in brain activity are monitored by MRI. The results get passed through software that assigns specific tones to different regions of the brain, netting something like a song for each scan.

These impulses aren't inherently musical—they've been deliberative assigned tones that sound nice together, and even so sound rather chaotic—nor would you expect them to be, since this is just a novel way to present MRI. What's fascinating is how noticeably different the sounds of active and dormant brains, or troubled and untroubled brains actually are. And not to diminish the seriousness of schizophrenia in any way, but the scanned map and accompanying sounds for an affected brain, seen at about 40 seconds into the video, are nothing short of awesome. [New Scientist]

Rising Stars, Fading Stars, Hit-Driven Stars - http://bit.ly/BWTCM

Sprint first to offer a 99-cent netbook, but is it worth it?

Sprint first to offer a 99-cent netbook, but is it worth it?

We knew we'd see cheap / free subsidized netbooks eventually, and here we are: Best Buy and Sprint are offering up a Compaq-branded HP Mini 110c for just 99 cents when you sign a two-year data contract. Yeah, it looks good on paper, especially since AT&T and Verizon will ding you $199 for the same machine, but we just don't think it's worth it: at $60 a month for service, you'll be spending $1,440 for two years of pain with that 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM and three-cell battery. We'd say you're way better off grabbing a 3G USB stick you can use with multiple machines, or, if you're feeling particularly baller, throwing down for a MiFi and kicking it mobile hotspot style -- it'll cost the same $60 a month from Sprint, but you'll be able to get five machines online at once. But that's just us -- any of you particularly hot for this almost-free netbook?

[Via jkOnTheRun]

Filed under: Laptops

Sprint first to offer a 99-cent netbook, but is it worth it? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Does advertising actually create demand? - http://ping.fm/2cUIV -- what's your take?

Five Best Online Image Editors [Hive Five]

Five Best Online Image Editors [Hive Five]

Editing your images on a desktop image editor might be ideal, but sometimes you're away from your home workstation and need to do some impromptu editing. Check out these five options favored by Lifehacker readers.

Photo by karlfrankowski.

Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite tools for editing images online, independent of any downloaded or portable software.

You responded and we rounded up the top five nominees for best online image editor. All of the editors are free so don't hesitate to jump into any editor that catches your eye and give it a test drive.

Sumo Paint

If you're expecting online image editors to be anemic, you'll be surprised by the extensive features of many of the nominees like Sumo Paint. Sporting a toolbar, image navigator, swatches, and layers, Sumo Paint does more than just crop and rotate images. In addition to having layers, as some other editors do, Sumo Paint has support for blending modes and other advanced layering magic like drop shadow and outer glow. The brushes and ink tools offer a wide variety of shapes and textures. If you like some of the paint-centric features of Sumo Paint, you'll definitely want to check out the Gravity tool, which creates some pretty interesting abstract paint effects. Sumo Paint also supports drag and drop image opening for pictu! res you have stored in your Sumo Paint account. Sumo Paint doesn't require a login for use, but if you sign up for a free account you can store images online and participate in the Sumo Paint community by submitting your work and ranking the work of others. Photo by Randy Son of Robert.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Photoshop Express is Adobe's offering in the online editing arena. One of the first things you'll notice, and if you're an avid Photoshop user it's sure to elicit at least a chuckle, is that out of all the online image editors in the world, the one that looks the least like Photoshop is the actual legitimate Photoshop offering from Adobe. Nonetheless, the interface is easy to use and covers the basics nicely. One of the best features of Photoshop Express is the film strip view provided along the bottom of the editor when using a variety of the adjustment tools. Instead of just giving you a slider to adjust the saturation, white balance, and other subjective photo tweaks, Photoshop Express displays the changes incrementally, letting you pick your favorite from the gradient of choices. It's much faster for quick tweaks than fiddling with sliders. If you want to use a slider, however they haven't removed the feature; the more granular slider is underneath the pictures, allowing you to fine tune to your heart's content. Under the advanced feature set, you'll find tools like tinting, sketching, and distortion. Adobe Photoshop Express is free but, unlike all the other nominees in the Hive Five, it requires an account for you to use your own photos. If you just want to play ! around w ith it, the demo account contains sets of pictures for you to play with. Photo by pasotraspaso.

Pixlr

Pixlr takes a two-prong approach to image editing. When you visit Pixlr, you can opt to use Pixlr Express or Pixlr Editor—seen here—depending on your needs. Pixlr Express is a simple image editor with a right hand toolbar which covers basic tasks like cropping, rotating, applying basic correction filters, and so on. Pixlr Editor looks like a more traditional photo-editing application, complete with a toolbar, menu bar, and even navigator, layers, and history panels. If you're familiar with desktop applications like Photoshop and GIMP, it won't take you very long to find the location of tools like the clone stamp, selection wand, and gradient map. The Pixlr Firefox extension allows you to grab images and screenshots from your browser and send them to Pixlr.

Picnik

Picnik doesn't seek to emulate desktop editors with its simple toolbar design, instead opting to make the most popular tools as high profile and easily accessible as possible. Picnik has no Photoshop-esque sidebars, palettes, or other advanced features in the main editing window. The features it provides, however, are extremely intuitive and easy to use with tool tips that pop up to help you use the various tools. If you want to tweak you! r photo beyond basic cropping and color correction, you can find over 30 image filters and a variety of tools (like a blemish touch-up wand) under the Create tab. A premium version of Picnik is available for $25 a year and gives you access to more advanced tools, special effects, and other perks like bulk uploading. Photo by jurvetson.

Aviary Phoenix

Aviary Phoenix is an image editor that is part of the Aviary Suite of online editing tools, which—on top of image editing—boasts a vector and filter editor, among other tools. Aviary Phoenix has an advanced interface and plenty of options to help you edit your images, like layers, blending, and magic wand selection. You can use Aviary without signing up for an account, but with an account you can save your creations, collaborate with other users, and otherwise participate in the Aviary community. The Aviary Phoenix Firefox extension, called Talon, adds in an assortment of functionality like screen capture, quick editing of images you find online, and—unique among the Hive Five candidates this week—it adds support for pressure sensitive input devices. The premium version of Aviary Phoenix is available for $25 a year and unlocks advanced features and the ability to save your work to your Aviary account without adding it to the public area of the Aviary community. Photo by tinyfroglet.

Now that you've had a chance to check out—and hopefully play with!—the nominees for best online image editor, it's time to cast your vo! te in th e poll below:

Which Online Image Editor is Best?(opinion)

See your favorite in the Hive? Can't believe your favorite didn't make it? Still chuckling that one of the least Photoshop-like offering is from Adobe? Let's hear about it in the comments below.

Install Chrome and Chromium for Easy Extension Testing [Tricks]

Install Chrome and Chromium for Easy Extension Testing [Tricks]

Google Chrome is the officially sanctioned browser from Google, but the open-source, alpha-level Chromium project has the cool stuff, like basic Greasemonkey support and extension support. Luckily, it's not hard to install and use both browsers on one system.

As the ReadWriteWeb blog explains, the hard part isn't the actual installation, at least on a Windows system. What might be confusing for a newcomer is actually finding pre-built Chromium installers for your system. They're found at build.chromium.org/buildbot/snapshots, along with the "official" Mac and Linux Chrome alpha tests. Grab a copy of the chromium-rel-xp release for Windows, install it, and then enable extensions in Chromium, explained both at the link below and in our look at early extensions.

Chromium's list of usable extensions is growing at am impressive rate, with social, bookmarking, and even IE8-style accelerators showing up in the latest test builds. If you're all about Chrome and want to get ready for the next big developments in that browser, keeping a self-upda! ting cop y of Chromium handy is a good way to go about it.

How to Install Chrome and Chromium Side-by-Side (So You Can Play with Extensions!) [ReadWriteWeb]

McDonalds to offer ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations

McDonalds to offer ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations

Mind you, we're talking just one of the 30,000 or so McDonalds around the world. Nevertheless, the first "green" version of the ubiquitous US "restaurant" will offer NovaCharge ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations when it opens in Cary, North Carolina on July 14th. The idea is to recharge your plug-in Electric Vehicle while "enjoying your meal." Unfortunately, the current generation of EV batteries won't likely benefit from the 10 minutes or so it takes to gulp down a value meal. However, Mickey D's might be on to something should drivers choose to stay for the additional 2-hours of regret that follows.

[Via RedFerret]

Filed under: Transportation

McDonalds to offer ChargePoint electric vehicle charging stations originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CrunchPad Web Tablet Landing "As Soon As Possible" for Less Than $300 [Crunchpad]

CrunchPad Web Tablet Landing "As Soon As Possible" for Less Than $300 [Crunchpad]

Mike Arrington's CrunchPad web tablet, already several prototypes in, is quickly bubbling to reality reports Bits: There's going to be an announcement in July or August, and it'll be available "as soon as possible."

Arrington's incorporated a separate company, called CrunchPad, and has apparently spent two-thirds of the last six months working on it with his 15-man team from Fusion Garage.

It's been iterated a bunch before, but worth saying again, that the Atom-powered touchscreen CrunchPad is strictly for internet consumption—it boots directly into the WebKit browser and there's no hard drive or keyboard, though you can plug in a keyboard if you want. It does support for Flash, so Arrington's claim that compared to netbooks, "most people will find it works as good as a netbook or better" for getting their internet on sounds pretty reasonable, given its 12-inch screen. Pointedly, it's not meant to compete with Apple's mythical tablet, whenever it graces the world.

I'd take the under $300 CrunchPad over a netbook any day, since it seems like it'll surpass them at the one thing they were supposedly designed to do—eat the internet. And it still blows my mind it took a tech blogger to actually make it happen. [! Bits]

Samsung's XL2370 'highest performance' 1080p monitor goes global in August

Samsung's XL2370 'highest performance' 1080p monitor goes global in August

We're not at all clear what, if any difference, exists between Samsung's new XL2370 monitor and the $399 P2370L announced back in January. Both are 23-inch LED backlit members from Samsung's "Touch of Color" lineup sporting a 2ms response and 1080p resolution. The XL2370 claims an ambiguous "finger-slim" design sounding very much like the 0.65-inch depth of the P2370L. The only hard difference is the stated increase in dynamic contrast ratio from 2M:1 (P2370L) to 5M:1 -- a pointless distinction most likely rooted in competitive hyperbole rather than any visible distinction you'd see in your home office. Regardless, the XL2370 will carry the title of Samsung's "highest performance monitor" (which is saying something) when it ships to Korea in mid-July on the way to its European and "other parts of the world" debut in August.

Filed under: Displays

Samsung's XL2370 'highest performance' 1080p monitor goes global in August originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Jul 2009 01:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saturday, July 04, 2009

Upgrading the SSD in a Netbook Makes a Difference [Storage]

Upgrading the SSD in a Netbook Makes a Difference [Storage]

Netbooks are netbooks. Usually based on Intel's Atom chipset, and generally not that fast. What you gonna do? Well, I upgraded the SSD in my Hackintosh. Not just to bump the drive from 32 to 128GB, but for SPEED.

The drive is one of few things easily upgradable on these devices. On the Dell Mini 9, its a matter of removing two screws on the back plate, and two screws that hold the drive in place (which, if you've never seen a netbook SSD drive before, looks more like a RAM module.) The 64 and 128MB modules take up the space reserved for the WWAN card, so don't go that route if you have WWAN.

While I was able to restore my Mac OS X Time Capsule backup, it wouldn't boot til I used the DellEFIbootmaker (allows you to boot into the drive you just restored) and then ran DellEFI to restore the partition to a bootable condition. Oh, the Leopard install process which you use to restore won't read off of a Time Capsule, so you have to copy the restore file to a USB drive before hand. Anyhow, none of this is the point.

Look at how much faster the writes are, especially the random ones. The only sacrifice you end up with is a bit of big block read performance.

It's a bit of a shame the stock SSDs h! ad these compromises in the first place, though. If you're buying a netbook, its worth checking the forums for results like these on the models you're interested in, and perhaps buying a low capacity stock model, and upgrading to an aftermarket drive later. (The Super Talent drive I tested wasn't cheap, though, at $200 for the 64GB model and $380 for 128GBs.) Kind of ridiculous next to the cost of a $200-$300 netbook, I admit. *shame*

One other thing to consider: The runcore SSD upgrades for netbooks have little microUSB ports on them, so you can load up and back up files/images from another machine. Handy for Hackintoshing, for sure, but I think they top out at 64GB, taking up only a single wide form factor.
[Super Talent Dell Mini 9 SSD]

Should We Be Excited About the Archos9 Windows 7 Tablet Netbook? [Tablets]

Should We Be Excited About the Archos9 Windows 7 Tablet Netbook? [Tablets]

We already knew pretty much everything about the Archos9 tablet netbook running Windows 7, but with nobody sure what kind of touchscreen the thing uses, we're left to wonder if we'd want anything to do with a resistive-touchscreen tablet.

Crave got a little hands-on with the svelte Atom-powered Archos9, and without even thinking about it, published their post calling it a fairly accurate capacitive touchscreen. That makes us happy: Tablets, especially a little guy like this 9-incher, need as accurate tracking as they can muster. Archos's previous "tablets," the Archos 5 and 7, used mushy resistive touchscreens that worked okay but are firmly last-gen right now, and we're excited to see a slick capacitive interface with the highly-touchable Windows 7 OS.

Yet in Archos's press release for the Archos9, they list the screen as resistive. Now we trust Crave, and we believe that they (like the rest of us) can tell the difference with each finger press. So what's the story here? Crave doesn't seem to have any idea; all the documentation says resistive, but it certainly didn't feel that way to them. This may seem like nitpicking, but it might be a dealbreaker for us. Handwriting recognition is far worse with resistive screens, they can only pick up one signal at a time (so multitouch is out), and the screens thems! elves ar e often much muddier or washed-out looking than capacitive.

So help us out, Archos. We want to like this thing, we really do, but we'd like to know what we're dealing with first. Anyway, full presser below. [Crave]

ARCHOS REDEFINES MOBILE COMPUTING WITH ITS TABLET PC

New Ultra-Thin and Ultra-Fast ARCHOS 9 PCtablet Delivers Full PC Computing, Video Conferencing and Access to Media on a Full Touch Screen Handheld Device.

DENVER, CO – July 2, 200Your browser may not support display of this image. 9 ARCHOS is leading the innovation charge in the MiniPC market with the introduction of the ARCHOS 9 PCtablet. This new PCtablet combines the performance of a high-end PC with breathtaking design, excellent ergonomics and an astonishing touch interface. It gives PC users an entirely new way to work, stay connected and enjoy the Web and digital media on an ultra-thin and extremely fast full touch-screen tablet.

The ARCHOS 9 PCtablet is the ultra portable PC; extremely thin, just 0.63", and ultra lightweight, less than 22.29 oz. The ARCHOS 9 pushes the boundaries of style and function.

With a full touch-sensitive 9" screen, users can enjoy a comfortable computing experience. The resistive screen allows emails and documents to be composed easily via a built-in virtual keyboard. The innovative optical trackball and buttons allows easy navigation on screen, and provides an uncompromised PC experience.

The ARCHOS 9 features the new Z515 Intel® processor, Microsoft Windows 7® Operating system and an integrated multimedia platform that uses WiFi 802.11b/g connection and Bluetooth 2.1 for extremely fast computing anywhere, anytime.

Additional software includes Microsoft Office®, Web TV & Radio, video conference, antivirus, parental control, photos and movies edition applications and more.

The ARCHOS 9 PCtablet will be available this fall, 2009.

Friday, July 03, 2009

LG Making iPhone Competitor, Android Phone and Prada III [Lg]

LG Making iPhone Competitor, Android Phone and Prada III [Lg]

It would be amazing if LG could make an iPhone competitor, an Android device and a Prada III that's one single device, but somehow I don't think that's what LG's president means.

In an interview for a Korean news agency, Ahn Seung-kwon says (besides the details above) that LG will make another luxury phone (unrelated to the Prada) that will be similar to Nokia's crazy overpriced Vertu. He also said that they aim to be the number two cellphone maker in the world by 2012. The current #2? Samsung. So it's like Predator vs. Aliens, except instead of Predator and Aliens, you have a bunch of Koreans. [Unwired View via Boy Genius]

Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet does a little hands-on time

Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet does a little hands-on time

Looks like the Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet has made it out of the labs (and controlled show floor settings) and into the hands of Crave UK, where that seemingly-amazing resistive touchscreen continues to impress -- so much so that they initially thought it was a capacitive unit. We actually pinged Crave ed Nate Lanxon to find out what was up, and the real story appears to be a mystery -- either Archos PR is mistaken in telling everyone that it's a resistive screen, or the company has somehow improved the tech to the point where it's virtually indistinguishable from a capacitive display. Given our experience with previous Archos resistive touchscreen devices that felt like mush, we've got to say we're going with Occam's Razor on this and that it's really capacitive, but we're definitely ready to be proven wrong -- hey Archos, you feel like sending us a new toy to play with?

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet does a little hands-on time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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