Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Panasonic HDC-HS350 allows you to record over 30 hours of HD

Panasonic HDC-HS350 allows you to record over 30 hours of HD

If you liked the HDC-TM350, then we can pretty much guarantee you'll be a fan of the HS350, unveiled by Panasonic today. Essentially identical to its elder brother -- but for the hard disk bump on its right side -- the new AVCHD camcorder ups internal storage from 64GB to 240GB and retains all other salient features: 10.6 megapixel 3MOS sensor, 12x optical zoom and SDHC expansion up to 32GB per card. The increase in storage allows for over 30 hours of continuous full HD recording, meaning that your battery will give out long before you need to fiddle with your storage options. No word on the when, where and how much questions, but if we had to guess we'd say soon, everywhere and plenty.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic HDC-HS350 allows you to record over 30 hours of HD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration

HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration

It's July 8th which means the white swirl and pink chic editions of HP's Mini 110 netbooks are available. Unfortunately, the addition of color over the base-black models will cost you an extra $20. More importantly, this commonly speced netbook with choice of Atom N270 or N280 processors and integrated GMA 950 graphics is also getting an HD video boost thanks to a $30 option for Broadcom's Crystal HD Enhanced Video accelerator. That should make HD video playback silky smooth without taxing the CPU (and battery) too much. Of course, it looks like you'll have to give up your favorite media player and use the bundled ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software if you want to take advantage of the acceleration. A small price to pay for portable, 10.1-inch LCD-backlit access to all your MKV, MOV, MP4, AVI, WMV, and TS/M2TS files -- or at least as many as you can fit on 160GB of HDD or 32GB of SSD storage. Pink and white models pictured after the break, for free.

[Via PortableMonkey, thanks David]

Continue reading HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration

Filed under: Laptops

HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked

BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked

It may have some 48,000 or so to go before it catches the runaway leader in app choice, but doubling up its catalog after launching just 3.5 months ago ain't nothing to scoff at. As RIM suffers through the traditional growing pains with its fledgling BlackBerry App World, it has managed to amass around 2,000 programs for users to love, hate or feel completely indifferent about. According to Jeff McDowell, vice president of global alliances, that number is apt to rise when it goes live in Italy, France, Germany and Spain this month. Also of note, Mr. McDowell declined to say just how many downloads had taken place, but he did note that RIM was "very happy" with the response. Unfortunately, we're not so certain that the company is eager to raise that 2,000 figure to something much higher, with ole Jeff spouting off that "[it doesn't matter] whether it's 40,000 or 2,000 [apps], you've still got a broad range of choice." We're willing to bet the public sees that a bit differently -- right, public?

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Limited-color OLEDs could operate with 40 percent less power, look just as stunning

Limited-color OLEDs could operate with 40 percent less power, look just as stunning

You know that fancy flat-panels can display more colors than the human eye / mind can even interpret, right? Thanks to our hard-wired limitations, a certain facet of boffins across the way are developing a method that would scale back the amount of colors used in an OLED screen in order to shave energy usage even further. Johnson Chuang of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia has worked with colleagues in order to conjure up sets of colors that "slash the power consumption of an OLED panel by up to 40 percent, with minimal effect on how people perceive an image." In theory, at least, this breakthrough could lead to longer battery life in cellphones, PMPs and all manners of portable devices. As Chuang puts it: "Say you're running low on battery and you want to use Google maps to get home; switching to an energy-aware color set could make your battery last longer." Don't pretend that doesn't interest you.

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays

Limited-color OLEDs could operate with 40 percent less power, look just as stunning originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink ! ;| Email this | Comments

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

By @sarita DMNews - Bing usage promising, but jury still out - http://ping.fm/AOOjD

Viral videos are cool and all ... but ... http://ping.fm/DCL5O

Monday, July 06, 2009

7-Inch Viliv X70 Tablet Reviewed, Found Viliviciousesquer [NetBooks]

7-Inch Viliv X70 Tablet Reviewed, Found Viliviciousesquer [NetBooks]

I'm not watching this 30-minute review of the Viliv X70 (info here), and I bet you aren't, either. But there's one huge Viliv fan reading at this very moment who is fist pumping like a mo fo. [JKKMobile via BBG]

Vue Wireless Home Video Monitoring Lightning Review [Review]

Vue Wireless Home Video Monitoring Lightning Review [Review]

The Gadget: A wireless monitoring system called Vue that consists of one central gateway and two tiny battery-powered wall-mountable wireless cameras. They're meant to let you monitor your house from anywhere, as long as you have a network connection.

The Price: $300 for two cameras and four magnetic wall mounts

The Verdict: It works and it's easy. The three pieces are self-configuring, and all you need to set it up is to plug the main gateway into an Ethernet jack and the wireless cameras will all hook up seamlessly. Here's the video quality:

It's not bad, especially for a wireless video recording from such a small camera. It's on par with a mediocre webcam, and is definitely good enough for a "security" cam. It's nothing you want to use for actual webcamming, but it's great for seeing whether or not your kids are doing their homework.

There are a few other interesting features, like video sharing and video recording. Recording is obvious, but sharing works by inviting your friends to view either live streams or recorded clips. You and your friends interact with the system via the Vue website, which is accessible inside or outside your network. The batteries are supposed to last a year (they're not rechargeable), but you can buy replacement CR123 batteries. You turn on recording from the interface and there is scheduling.

So is this worth $300? Probab! ly, depe nding on how much you need something like this. There are cheaper solutions like hooking up a webcam yourself to a computer and somehow routing that online so you can access it anywhere. This involves port forwarding and all kinds of more technical workarounds. So for ease of use, performance and convenience (it's wireless and reaches 300 feet), it's hard to beat the Vue. We only wish that, for $300, this would come with four wireless cameras instead of just two. Available later this summer. [VueZone]

Microsoft Warns Users of Serious Security Hole in Software [Security]

Microsoft Warns Users of Serious Security Hole in Software [Security]

Microsoft is warning users of Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 that a security hole in certain parts of Internet Explorer allows hackers to remotely install malicious viruses on unsuspecting users. The company is currently working to fix the breach.

The hole, apparently caused by the interaction of IE and ActiveX, has been used for about a week to install viruses on users who click certain links in spam emails. Microsoft's stopgap solution, available here, is to disable that video software, and the company is hard at work to fix the problem. Doesn't bode well for Microsoft's push into antivirus software, does it? [via AP]

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.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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.

Read | P! ermalink | Email this | Comments

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

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)