Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Study says LEDs are about as efficient as compact fluorescents, all things considered

Study says LEDs are about as efficient as compact fluorescents, all things considered

As we've seen with the slight resurgence of new and improved incandescent light bulbs, the amount of energy used to actually light up the bulb isn't necessarily the whole measure of energy efficiency. There's also the small matter of producing the bulb, shipping it around the world, and eventually disposing of it. With that in mind, the Siemens Corporate Technology Centre for Eco Innovations conducted a study that compared regular compact fluorescents to LED lamps -- using one 25,000-hour LED lamp as a constant, compared to 2.5 10,000-hour compact fluorescents (and 25 1,000-hour incandescents). While it's still holding back on some of the finer details, the group did apparently find that LEDs are no more or no less energy efficient than compact flourescents when the entire lifecycle of the bulb is taken into account, although it is quick to point out that LEDs should eventually win out as they become more efficient to produce.

Filed under: Household

Study says LEDs are about as efficient as compact fluorescents, all things considered originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 05:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling

BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling

Believe it or not, this is far from the first time we've heard of a liquid cooled GPU; in fact, NVIDIA was tossing the idea around way back in 2006, when Quake III and Unreal Tournament were still top titles in the FPS realm. BFG Technologies, which currently holds the greatest name for a graphics card company ever, has today introduced its GeForce GTX 285 H2O+ and GeForce GTX 295 H2OC cards, both of which boast ThermoIntelligence Advanced Cooling Solutions (read: self-contained liquid cooling systems). BFG swears that both cards are completely maintenance free, with the GPUs kept around 30°C cooler under load as compared to standard air cooled models. There's no mention of pricing just yet, but both should be available any moment at NewEgg. Good luck resisting the sudden urge to upgrade.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

BFG gifts GTX 285 and GTX 295 cards with self-contained liquid cooling originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 06:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's Ion-infused N510 netbook steeply priced across the pond

Samsung's Ion-infused N510 netbook steeply priced across the pond

€499. $717. Or three easy payments of €171 ($246). That's the price folks in Europe are being asked to pony up for Samsung's admittedly svelte 11.6-inch N510 netbook. As one of the largest netbooks in its class, this machine -- which can purportedly last for around 6.5 hours under ideal circumstances -- also packs NVIDIA's Ion technology, but a sluggish Atom N280 is still manning the ship. If you'll recall, we actually heard that this here rig would surface sometime this summer, but it looks as if those orders may end up pushed to September. Anyone care to place a pre-order? Or are you more interested in those "real laptops" for just north of seven Benjamins?

[Via Blogeee]

Filed under: Laptops

Samsung's Ion-infused N510 netbook steeply priced across the pond originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Aug 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Unsubscribing made easy

Unsubscribing made easy

Posted by Brad Taylor, Gmail Spam Czar

We believe you should only get the mail you want to get. Some of you already use the "Report Spam" button on all kinds of unwanted email, and for that we're very thankful: the more spam you mark, the better our system gets at weeding out junk mail.

Unsubscribing from mailing lists and newsletters you subscribed to a while back but no longer want to receive should be just as easy. Searching through individual messages for little unsubscribe links is too big a pain —you should be able to unsubscribe with a single click.

So we just launched something that makes this all work better, both for Gmail users and big email senders. Now, when you report spam on a legitimate newsletter or mailing list, we'll help you unsubscribe. After clicking report spam, you'll see a little dialog like this:

Clicking "Unsubscribe" will automatically send a request back to the sender so they'll stop emailing you.

This only works for some senders right now. We're actively encouraging senders to support auto-unsubscribe — we think 100% should. We won't provide the unsubscribe option on messages from spammers: we can't trust that they'll actually unsubscribe you, and they might even send you more spam. So you'll only see the unsubscribe option for senders that we're pretty sure are not spammers and will actually honor your unsubscr! ibe requ est. We're being pretty conservative about which senders to trust in the beginning; over time, we hope to offer the ability to unsubscribe from more email.

For those of you senders who are interested in this feature, the most basic requirements are including a standard "List-Unsubscribe" header in your email with a "mailto" URL and, of course, honoring requests from users wishing to unsubscribe. You'll also need to follow good sending practices, which in a nutshell means not sending unwanted email (see our bulk sending guidelines for more information).

With an easy way to unsubscribe, everybody wins. Your spam folder is smaller, and senders don't waste time sending you email that you no longer want.

Update (1:50pm): If you want to unsubscribe without reporting the message as spam, click "show details" in the top-right corner of the message, then click "Unsubscribe from this sender."

Star Trek Meets Golden Eye at Moscow Electricity Control Center [Architecture]

Star Trek Meets Golden Eye at Moscow Electricity Control Center [Architecture]

This amazing 320 square meter control room features a two-level, six-workstation podium to oversee the Moscow United electricity network. More after the jump.

Designed by Russian architects, Arch Group, and ABTB, the space includes a wall of 36 Barco video cubes detailing the network's current condition.

(Updated pic, thanks Larissa!)

The project was apparently built in 2008-2009, but it almost looks rendered with all those super clean lines. One thing's for sure: give me 5 minutes in the Captain's chair and my gear's cable clutter will have the whole shop looking more like something from the Matrix. [Arch Group and Dezeen via William Gibson and Unfolding]

Mimo 710-S Monitor Flips Shut to Go Portable [Monitors]

Mimo 710-S Monitor Flips Shut to Go Portable [Monitors]

If you're looking for a tiny, extra monitor, Nanovision makes some utilitarian Mimo-branded gear. But now their latest 710-S monitor adds a bit of flare to the mix.

The Mimo 710-S is the "Mobile Slider" edition of their existing line, a 7-inch, 800x480 USB monitor that opens like a clamshell and rotates 90 degrees depending on your viewing preference. The catch? It costs $20 more than the existing Mimo 710 to attain this new portable formfactor. So if you're not planning to travel with it, you can probably save a few bucks on an older model.

Look for the 710-S when it's released later this month for $150. [Mimo via Everything USB via DVICE via Engadget]

Lab-in-a-Chip Can Perform 1,024 Chemical Reactions Simultaneously [Science]

Lab-in-a-Chip Can Perform 1,024 Chemical Reactions Simultaneously [Science]

An University of California Los Angeles' team of chemists, biologists and engineers has developed a funky lab-in-a-chip capable of performing 1,024 chemical reactions in parallel. Using microfluidics, the system may dramatically accelerate drug development for cancer and other diseases:

The precious enzyme molecules required for a single in situ click reaction in a traditional lab now can be split into hundreds of duplicates for performing hundreds of reactions in parallel, thus revolutionizing the laboratory process, reducing reagent consumption and accelerating the process for identifying potential drug candidates

The UCLA scientists think that their new invention can revolutionize chemistry laboratories, and drug development, since their chip is capable of performing more than a thousand simultaneous chemical reactions in seconds, processes that take insane amounts of time to do using traditional lab bench material.

The "integrated microfluidic device for large-scale in situ click chemistry screening" works by funneling the chemical matter through micro-channels etched in the chip. It works at the molecular level, so even while the reactions are the same that boffins get with traditional lab tools, the liquid quantities are so small that the eye can't actually see them. The results of these combinations are then analyzed manually using a mass spectrometer, a part of the process that the team expects to automate in the future.

In other words: Fasterer and fasterer research, less development time, more drugs to try. Seem! s like a win-win combination to me. [UCLA and Lab on a Chip journal via Medgadget]

Beautiful Waveform Timeline Shows Music Sales In All Media Through Time [Music]

Beautiful Waveform Timeline Shows Music Sales In All Media Through Time [Music]

This simple and powerful statistical graphic would make Edward Tufte proud: It shows all music sales since 1973, dividing them by media type, and presenting them like waveforms. Click to enlarge.

[NYT—Thanks David]

Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality along with friends

Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality along with friends

Man, the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj has gone from crazy rumor to seemingly-real to whoa-here's-the-press-release in record time -- the compact cam with the integrated projector was just officially announced, along with the three other cams we saw leaked earlier today. Leaked specs for the S1000pj were dead-on: a 12.1 megapixel sensor with ISO 6400 sensitivity mounted behind a 5x wide-angle zoom lens with five-way VR stabilization, and that LED-powered projector that'll put up a 40-inch image for slideshows complete with music, effects and transitions. We're a little less excited about the $430 list price this thing will carry when it hits in September, but on the whole it's a pretty terrific idea and we're completely intrigued -- looks like we'll be saving our pennies this month. Pictures of everything in the gallery, deets on the other cams and a video of the S1000pj after the break.

Gallery: Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality with friends

S1000pj

S1000pj

S1000pj

S1000pj

S1000pj

Continue reading Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality along with friends

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality along with friends originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD's integrated 785G graphics platform review roundup

AMD's integrated 785G graphics platform review roundup

It's mildly hard to believe that AMD's DirectX 10-compatible 780 Series motherboard GPU was introduced well over a year ago now, but the long awaited successor has finally landed. This fine morning, a gaggle of hardware sites around the web have taken a look at a number of AMD 785G-equipped mainboards, all of which boast integrated Radeon HD 4200 GPUs, support for AMD's AM3 processors and a price point that's downright delectable (most boards are sub-$100). Without getting into too much detail here in this space, the general consensus seems to be that the new platform is definitely appreciated, but hardly revolutionary. It fails to destroy marks set by the 780G, and it couldn't easily put NVIDIA's GeForce 9300 to shame. What it can do, however, is provide better-than-average HD playback, making it a prime candidate for basic desktop users and even HTPC builders. For the full gamut of opinions, grab your favorite cup of joe and get to clickin' below.

Read - HotHardware review
Read - The Tech Report review
Read - Tom's Hardware review
Read - PC Perpective review
Read - Hardwa! re Zone review
Read - Hexus review

Continue reading AMD's integrated 785G graphics platform review roundup

Filed under: Desktops, Peripherals

AMD's integrated 785G graphics platform review roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 05:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Netflix rumored to be bringing Watch Instantly to iPhones, skepticism advised

Netflix rumored to be bringing Watch Instantly to iPhones, skepticism advised

Multichannel News is passing on word from "an industry executive familiar with Netflix's plans" that the company is prepping an app for the iPhone and iPod touch (not to mention the Wii, which we've heard before) that would let users enjoy their Watch Instantly queues from the comfort of the small screen -- likely restricted to WiFi, of course, because the mere thought of trying to stream a movie over a saturated 3G network is about as brutal as fingernails on a chalkboard. It's a cute rumor; the overlap in Netflix and iPhone owner demographics has to number in the hundreds of thousands, so it's easy to understand why the thought of catching up on Friday Night Lights on the road would go over well with the populace.

A couple problems here, though: first off, Watch Instantly doesn't store content locally, which means you've got to maintain an internet connection to enjoy the show. Assuming the no-3G thing panned out -- and rest assured, it would -- who wants to be stuck in a coffee shop for hours on end because you want to finish out a movie you've started? Secondly, if there's one thing Apple loves, it's maintaining control of the media ecosystem; we'll see hell freeze over before we'll see Watch Instantly on Apple TV, so why would the iPhone be any different? Of course, there's nothing stopping Netflix from creating a Watch Instantly app, but getting it into the App Store is another matter altogether -- and barring some wild FCC ruling, we're not seeing Apple letting that happen.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Video

Netflix rumored to be bringing Watch Instantly to iPhones, skepticism advised originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 06:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba's capacious 64GB SDXC card sampling this December, thrilling next Spring

Toshiba's capacious 64GB SDXC card sampling this December, thrilling next Spring

Mmm, storage. With megapixels on the rise and the storage ceiling nowhere in sight, Toshiba has joined the likes of Panasonic and Pretec in announcing an SDXC card of its very own. The 64GB device is expected to begin sampling this December, and if all goes well, it should begin pulling in 35MBps write and 60MBps read rates en masse early next year. In related news, a 16GB and 32GB SDHC card from the company should also hit store shelves early in 2010, but really, who's interested in that?

Filed under: Storage

Toshiba's capacious 64GB SDXC card sampling this December, thrilling next Spring originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA clings desperately to XP with the DirectX10-hating ION LE chipset

NVIDIA clings desperately to XP with the DirectX10-hating ION LE chipset

NVIDIA clings desperately to XP with the DirectX 10 hating ION LE chipset

Anything that makes our netbooks, nettops, and smartphones into slightly less mediocre video performers is okay in our book, so we're fond of NVIDIA's ION platform and are looking forward to finding out exactly what the company has up its sleeve for ION 2. We weren't, however, expecting an even cheaper revision of the chipset, but that's exactly what's been announced this morning. NVIDIA is creating ION LE, a sibling of the existing ION that does everything its big sister can do except support DirectX 10. The idea, of course, is to lower costs while providing all the functionality XP-packing netbooks and nettops need, but as Windows 7 sits at home getting made up for its débutante party we have to wonder just how much longer Microsoft's old faithful will be on the market -- and how much longer DX9 will be relevant.

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

NVIDIA clings desperately to XP with the DirectX10-hating ION LE chipset originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Altek crams a dozen megapixels of wishful thinking into T8680 cameraphone

Altek crams a dozen megapixels of wishful thinking into T8680 cameraphone

Altek crams a dozen megapixels of wishful thinking into T8680 cameraphone

There once was a time when a 12 megapixel cameraphone would have been laughed at, and, though many are still smirking (guilty), they're now a reality -- a reality that Altek wants desperately to be a part of with its T8680 handset. Its face looks rather like a PMP with a 3-inch WQVGA LCD, but on the back is the standard sort of 3x pop-out zoom that you'd expect on a compact shooter, sitting next to a tiny xenon flash. It'll capture unnecessarily high resolution images while being crippled to VGA video, play back MP3 and AAC files, and tune into the Weekly Top 40 over FM. Yes, it'll even make calls, but with only tri-band GSM/EDGE support don't expect to e-mail those gigantic pictures directly from the phone. The T8680 is expected to hit Chinese retailers in about a month for 3000 yuan (about $440), and probably won't be making much of an appearance elsewhere.

[Via GSM Arena]

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Altek crams a dozen megapixels of wishful thinking into T8680 cameraphone originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mimo's 710-S 'Mobile Slider' USB monitor gets low... real low

Mimo's 710-S 'Mobile Slider' USB monitor gets low... real low

Well, wouldn't you know it? Those off the wall concepts of what appeared to be a next-generation USB-driven Mimo monitor seem to have found their way into the production line, as the outfit made suddenly famous for its secondary displays now has a new model on tap. The 710-S "Mobile Slider" edition is really just a tweaked version of the aforementioned 7-inch panel, but it has been completely redesigned into a "sleeker, foldable and more portable unit." We hadn't really given much thought to bringing one of these things along in a laptop case, but this critter just might change our opinion on the usefulness to road warriors. Hit the read link to get in line; you'll have the opportunity to part with $149.99 in exchange for one later this month.

[Via EverythingUSB]

Filed under: Displays

Mimo's 710-S 'Mobile Slider' USB monitor gets low... real low originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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