Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, September 14, 2009

Swiveling Touchscreen Viliv S7 Spotted With Lofty Asking Price [NetBooks]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/blZQjX0Lsjo/swiveling-touchscreen-viliv-s7-spotted-with-lofty-asking-price

The Viliv S7, that hot little number we spec'd for you in January, is all but out and about today with one little caveat: Its not so little asking price is pegged between $630 to $800, depending on options.

If that drew a bit of a dubious whistle out of you, you're not alone. Comments over at CrunchGear echo the sentiment, and cast just the slightest bit of uncertainty over this impressive little rig's shiny sheen.

A recap, if you please:

There's a substantial seven hours of video playback on a swiveling 1024x600 7-inch touchscreen, thanks in part to the energy-sipping internals. An impressively sized keyboard sits on top of standard netbook specs, including an Atom processor (up to 1.86 GHz), 1 GB memory, 60 GB HDD/16 GB SSD, and Windows XP.

Not bad, but the price is pushing it, if ever so slightly. Or maybe you disagree. Thoughts before the inevitably soonish release? [Dynamism via CrunchGear]

Volution Bluetooth Headset Concept Almost Makes Headsets Cool— Almost [Headsets]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/AXCv-Ln881k/volution-bluetooth-headset-concept-almost-makes-headsets-coolalmost

Bluetooth headsets suck, mostly due to the fact that they're butt ugly and turn users into talking-to-themselves crazy people. But this latest design takes care of the first issue—so long as you're a lady (says designer Fandi Meng).

As you can see, the headset is more earring than funky robotic ear leech, and it actually looks kind of nice in a futuristic fashionista kind of way.

Like a traditional headset, you tap the sensor to answer an incoming call, and talk into the air like a idiot as normal. But you look good, especially if you happen to be a model. [Fandi Meng via Design Blog]

MIT Students Explain How to Photograph Space for $150 [Photography]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Fm0DljhtLvY/mit-students-explain-how-to-photograph-space-for-150

On September 2, Justin Lee and Oliver Yeh successfully took these images of Earth's curvature and the blackness of space using only a weather balloon and off-the-shelf components—without complicated hacks. Total cost: $148. Here's how they did it.

First up, their rig used a Canon A470 camera with 8GB SD card that they bought used on Amazon. And instead of the expensive GPS radios commonly used by weather balloons, they used a prepaid Motorola i290 GPS cell phone to receive location text messages.

The Earth's stratosphere can get as cold as -67 degrees fahrenheit (-55 Celsius), but they couldn't afford expensive temperature-resistant housing. The solution: a styrofoam beer cooler, and an instant hand warmer. Awesome.

Their low-cost balloon-launch platform reached 17.5 miles high, into near-space. Using the GPS phone to track its location, they found the rig 20 miles away from the launch site about 5 hours later.

Total weight was 800g (about 28 ounces). Apparently FAA regulations only apply to balloons with payloads over four pounds. If you want all the details—including a full parts list—check our their site below.

While groups like EOSS (Edge of Space Sciences) have done things like this in the past, I've never seen it done so cheaply. High school science teachers, please take note! [L337arts via Slashdot]

GW620: LG's First Android Phone Gets Official [Cell Phones]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Jhwbwb8N3Ls/gw620-lgs-first-android-phone-gets-official

LG may have over 10 WinMo phones planned for the next year, but that hasn't stopped it testing out the Android waters. This QWERTY-slider (previously known as "Etna") has a 3-inch touchscreen, 5-megapixel autofocus camera, Wi-Fi and GPS.

LG says its first Android phone is about catering to diverse preferences, but beyond confirming a European release later this year, hasn't yet said if the GW620 will reach the U.S. [LG via KoreaNewsWire]

Asus Eee Keyboard Confirmed For October, Wireless HDMI Included [Asus]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/I7Feg3V0070/asus-eee-keyboard-confirmed-for-october-wireless-hdmi-included

Hell yes. Asus has finally committed to an October U.S and European arrival for its entertainment-PC-in-keyboard. The sleek device has a 5-inch touchscreen and Ultra Wideband HDMI (with receiver) to connect to your TV. I want it on my coffee-table.

The Eee Keyboard's netbook-like specs include a 1.6GHz Atom processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 16- or 32GB solid-state hard disk, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, HDMI, and battery (no word on its capacity).

The official confirmation backs up DigiTimes' "industry sources" who not only claimed that October looked likely, but estimated the price should be around $400-$500. Asus didn't elaborate on cost, but fingers-crossed that it can keep things that low. And with Windows 7 debuting on October 22, hopefully the Eee Keyboard will ditch XP altogether (though it may have a Mobilin Linux option). [PC World]

HTC Leo Bares All: Huge 4.3-Inch Screen, 1GHz Snapdragon [HTC Leo]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/sFNkrfDiVSc/htc-leo-bares-all-huge-43+inch-screen-1ghz-snapdragon

Remember that gloriously powerful, oddly fake-looking HTC Windows Mobile 6.5 phone from a while back? Well, it's real, and it's huge. For reference, the phone pictured next to it has an already impressive 3.6-inch screen—this thing breaks 4.

All we've got here are a few images, but they confirm a lot: First of all, this thing does have the 1GHz Qualcomm 8250B processor, 5-megapixel camera with dual LED flash, and will be running Windows Mobile 6.5, otherwise known as Windows Phone. It's thinner than you might expect for such a powerful handset, apparently fulfilling earlier leaks' promises of 11mm thickness. And hey, that weird, un-HTC-like "Pro.Three" branding, complete with "Lorem Ipsum" filler text, is there too. That's one way to designate a prototype, I guess.

What can't really be confirmed from the pictures are some of the juicier specs, like the fact that the alleged 4.3-inch screen is capacitive glass, unlike most of HTC's larger phones, and that the battery is worryingly low 1230MaH unit—a potential dealbreaker for a phone with such a massively huge ! display to backlight. In any case, the Toshiba TG01 finally has a competitor in the Windows Mobile hardware porn category, so if that's your thing, there are a few more photos at the source. [PDA.pl via WMPoweruser]

INQ picks Android for upcoming touchscreen handsets

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/14/inq-picks-android-for-upcoming-touchscreen-handsets/

We've enjoyed seeing what INQ is bringing to the featurephone space, most recently with the Facebook and Twitter-centric INQ Mini 3G and INQ Chat handsets (which still haven't been announced for the States), but things are getting a lot more interesting on word that INQ is going to be using Android for upcoming touchscreen smartphones. We're guessing INQ will be blending its Synergy-style blended social networking capabilities with traditional Android goodness, much in the way HTC and now Motorola are approaching Android. So far all INQ is saying is that Android hasn't done well against the iPhone so far, and that "you need to get the experience better," promising "cool things" in response to this self-defined challenge. You know what else is a "cool thing"? America.

Filed under: Cellphones

INQ picks Android for upcoming touchscreen handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saturday, September 12, 2009

Find Spammers Who Are Following You On Twitter

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/find-twitter-spam-followers/9686/

If that large follower base (count of people following you) on Twitter gives you a high, here’s a tool that might break your heart, a little bit at least.

twitter spammers Most of these Twitter users are @spam

Called TwitBlock, the tool will scan profiles of everyone who follows you on Twitter and it will then prepare a list of Twitter accounts that may be fake or have been created with the sole purpose of spamming Twitter.

The tools doesn’t require you password but since it uses Twitter’s OAuth to initiate the scanning process, you can’t use TwitBlock to determine spammers that be following another Twitter user.

For my Twitter account, the tool flagged some 354 accounts (or about 6%) – a lot of these accounts are spam for sure but there are some real people (human beings) and legitimate bots in the list as well so be a little careful before you block any user. Here’s the full spam report generated by TwitBlock.

For more tools like these, check The Twitter Guide.

Hat tip: Prem Kumar Aparanji (via FB)

How to Embed Facebook Videos in your Web Pages

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/embed-facebook-videos-in-web-pages/9715/

Anyone can upload video clips to the Facebook site but unlike YouTube and other online video sharing sites, Facebook doesn’t (officially) provide an embed code for their videos. That’s a problem for two reasons.

#1. You found a very interesting video on Facebook but how you do share it with your blog readers since there’s no code to embed that video into your site.

#2. You can watch video clips on Facebook only if you are logged into your Facebook account. How do you share these video clips with people who aren’t members of Facebook?

How to Add a Facebook Video to your Web Site

Here’s a simple trick that will let you embed any Facebook video into your web pages.

facebook videos

Every video uploaded on Facebook has a unique ID that you can find in the browser’s address bar (look for the value of parameter "v").

Copy that number and replace it with xxx in the code below.

<object width="400" height="224" >  <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" />  <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />  <param name="movie" value="http://www.facebook.com/v/xxx" />  <embed src="http://www.facebook.com/v/xxx" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"    allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="400" height="224">  </embed> </object>

Now you can put that code on any web pages and the video will play just fine.

For instance, here’s a Facebook video uploaded by the founder himself – you can watch it here itself without having to become a Facebook member.

Related: How to Embed Almost Anything in your Website

Layar Brings Semi-Augmented Reality to Your Android Phone [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/6WAG6t9yeNI/layar-brings-semi+augmented-reality-to-your-android-phone

Android: "Augmented Reality" is a buzz phrase gaining a lot of notice lately. Free Android app Layar, one of the first full-featured AR apps for Android, layers helpful, location-specific data on top of whatever you're looking at through your device's camera.

In a true-to-form augmented reality app, a phone's camera would be used to provide a live video stream, and the application would analyze objects in that stream and interact with them in some way. This video demonstrates what the future will likely hold for motion-sensitive, GPS-enabled, decent-camera-toting phones—with zombies:

Until phones catch up to developers' ambitions, we have half-breed apps like Layar that pull in geographic data from your phone's GPS location, check it against web databases, and then show the locations of nearby subway stations, restaurants, and more overlaid on the image of your surroundings from your phone's camera. Android phones allow apps to access the video stream for overlays, while the iPhone 3GS picked up that ability with the 3.1 firmware update, as ReadWriteWeb details. Here's how Layar's developers demonstrate the app in their native Amsterdam:

For a real-world, smaller-city test, I grabbed a T-Mobile G1 and headed to Buffal! o's Elmw ood Avenue commercial strip, with a side venture to Main Street, to see what Layar could show me. The app has a single view and function that pulls in your camera's video stream, but you can switch up what "layer" you see over it on the fly. The layers, listed at Layar's web site, come from web services with big geographic data piles, like Wikipedia, review site Yelp, real estate finder Trulia, and sites that mash up social apps like Flickr and Twitter. Yelp and Flickr (pulled in as "FlickAR" in this app) are, as you might imagine, the most densely packed of the apps I tried. You normally turn your camera, or yourself, to get thumbnail data on any "blips" that come up in Layar. When you come up with clusters of results in layers like Yelp, though, you'll end up switching to the less impressive list view, because trying to pinpoint individual finds will have passersby wondering why it looks like you're trying to rotate the world with your phone.

I didn't get any results for local tweets or Trulia real estate findings, but an architectural society layer and Wikipedia yielded a few fun surprises. If you were new in a city and looking for something to check out, Layar might well be worth the time (and battery drain) to check out. Who wouldn't want to check out the spot where President William McKinley was shot in Buffalo, or the seriously creepy spires of the H.R. Richardson "State Lunatic Asylum"? Layar is neat stuff, and will probably get better as more developers buy into it.

Layar is a free download for Android phones only. If you've used the app for something useful, fun, or something in-between, tell us about it, and post pictures, in the comments.

First iPhone game with 3GS-specific graphics released?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/first-iphone-game-with-3gs-specific-graphics-released/

Back in June it was revealed that the iPhone 3GS' newfound support of OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics put one of the first meaningful, material boundaries in software capability between iPhone generations (magnetic compass and video would be two other biggies), meaning that 3D-accelerated games targeted specifically for the 3GS platform could look a good deal fancier than their 2G / 3G counterparts -- and furthermore, they could be built to only work on the 3GS if the developer chose not to build in support for both. French software shop Eurocenter is touting that its newly-released Adrenaline Golf is the first game to take advantage of the 3GS' added graphics capabilities -- and while we can't verify that no other application submitted to the App Store in the past three months hasn't utilized OpenGL ES 2.0 in some regard, we can definitely verify that it looks way cooler on the 3GS. The good news is that Eurocenter has set up the game so that it chooses the correct graphics engine at runtime, regardless of the iPhone you're using, but after you see it on the 3GS it might seem a little inadequate on the older gear. Follow the break for our side-by-side demo of the sweet 3GS-exclusive water reflections, which are considerably better than real life since you don't risk getting wet.

Update: Sure enough, Eurocenter got a little overzealous with their claim -- Rocking Pocket's Blue Skies has had 3GS-specific enhancements for a while now. Thanks, everyone!

Continue reading First iPhone game with 3GS-specific graphics released?

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Handhelds

First iPhone game with 3GS-specific graphics released? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Medion's S47000 sports camera shoots HD video, ain't too pretty

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/medions-s47000-sports-camera-shoots-hd-video-aint-too-pretty/

Finally a product that integrates an MP3 player with a Flip-style digital video camera! Of course, we're talking about Medion's S47000 Digital HD Sports Camera, which counts among its many charms: h.264 video recording, 2x digital zoom, a whopping 1MP still camera, HDMI out, and 90MB storage (though there is an SD card slot, for what it's worth). Tempted? Didn't think so. As for us, we're not shelling out £100 ($165) on anything without a pedometer.

[Via Oh Gizmo]

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Portable Audio

Medion's S47000 sports camera shoots HD video, ain't too pretty originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 15:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Packard Bell's Viseo 200T display gets multi-touchy-feely next month

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/packard-bells-viseo-200t-display-gets-multi-touchy-feely-next-m/

We don't see too many multitouch displays for desktop systems in these parts, but if Packard Bell has its way that's likely to change tout de suite. Not only has the company just announced its oneTwo line of all-in-one PCs with touchscreen displays at CEDIA, but now its back with the Viseo 200T Touch Edition -- a 20-inch multitouch monitor featuring built-in stereo speakers, a 16:9 aspect ratio, 50,000:1 contrast ratio, 5ms response time, and VGA and DVI input. When this thing hits Merry Olde England in mid-October, you can expect to pay roughly £200 (about $330) to take advantage of all that Windows 7 multitouch magic. And, believe us, it is truly magical.

Filed under: Displays

Packard Bell's Viseo 200T display gets multi-touchy-feely next month originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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3rd gen iPod touch gets torn down, 802.11n and possible camera slot found

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/3rd-gen-ipod-touch-gets-torn-down-802-11n-and-possible-camera-s/

There's no denying that Apple let the entire world (yes, even the native Easter Islanders) down by not shoving a camera of some sort into its iPod touch, but if a delicate teardown completed by the screwdriver-wielding fiends over at iFixit is any indication, a seasoned modder could certainly add one. A 6- x 6- x 3-millimeter space was spotted between a Broadcom chip and the wireless antenna, which is reportedly not enough room for an iPhone-esque sensor, but just enough space for the video camera module found in the 5G iPod nano. In potentially more interesting news, the aforesaid Broadcom BCM4329 chip actually supports 802.11n. For the nerds in attendance, you'll recognize that even the iPhone 3GS can't handle those high-speed airwaves. Furthermore, the chip supports FM transmission, so at least theoretically, the device could stream tunes to your old school stereo through an open FM station. Eager for more? Tap that read link, buster.

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

3rd gen iPod touch gets torn down, 802.11n and possible camera slot found originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 17:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro takes longer to say than to boot

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/11/owc-mercury-on-the-go-pro-takes-longer-to-say-than-to-boot/

One of these days, SSDs will hit a price point that doesn't require a second mortgage to buy one. Until then, we can just gawk at things like OWC's latest, which is a portable version of Crucial's still relatively new line of affordable SSDs, built around the familiar Indilinx controller and Samsung NAND flash. Coming in sizes from 64GB ($280) to 256GB ($730), the new Pro devices can transfer data and get their power from either a Firewire or USB port. Alas, that means you'll be limited to 100MBps read rates -- as opposed to the 250MBps you could get from an eSATA connection -- but that's a small sacrifice to make if you care about losing the moving parts in your portable storage.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Storage

OWC Mercury On-The-Go Pro takes longer to say than to boot originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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