Friday, October 16, 2009

The Dark Sword UAV - Chinese Knockoffs Can Be Better Than the Real Thing [Uav]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/in0x2iZ7OoA/the-dark-sword-uav-+-chinese-knockoffs-can-be-better-than-the-real-thing

The Chinese military has apparently been copying American UAV designs for a while now. After they got bored simply rebuilding Uncle Sam's models, they decided to design a few of their own. And they blow ours out of the water.

Above is the Dark Sword, the Chinese military's newest drone. Not only does it look a lot cooler than any American model, it's apparently much more maneuverable and highly capable in air-to-air combat. This is on top of the Chinese having carbon copies of the Predator and Global Hawk UAVs ready to go in their arsenal.

Not to mention the names are much more awesome. How cool is the phrase "Dark Sword?" Or better yet, "Sour Dragon?" Seriously. [DefPro via Wired via PopSci]




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Memorex MyVideo pocket camcorders are content to fit the mold

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/15/memorex-myvideo-pocket-camcorders-are-content-to-fit-the-mold/


Memorex has never exactly been one to go out on a limb with its consumer electronics, and it looks like that's especially true of its new MyVideo pocket camcorders, which the company itself doesn't even bother to go into much detail about in its press release -- other than that they'll let you "zoom in on life's moments before they zoom out," of course. A bit more digging turns up some expectedly standard specs, however, including 4GB of memory and an HDMI port on the MyVideo HD model and 2GB and no HDMI on the MyVideo VGA, along with a two-inch screen and the usual integrated USB connector on each. Then again, they do just cost $99.99 and $129.99, and seem like a prime candidate for discounts in the run up to the holiday season.

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Memorex MyVideo pocket camcorders are content to fit the mold originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Pixon 12 phonecamera hybrid gets tested

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/15/samsung-pixon-12-phonecamera-hybrid-gets-tested/

It's probably best to think of Samsung's Pixon 12 not as a phone with a killer camera, but more so as a good point-and-shoot with phone capabilities tacked on. Our friends at Engadget Chinese managed to get some hands-on with the device, and while they say the voice and SMS portion is nothing to write home about, the form factor and AMOLED screen seems quite nice and the sample pictures come out even nicer. Hit up the read link for some odd, machine-translated text and pretty photography.

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Samsung Pixon 12 phonecamera hybrid gets tested originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thursday, October 15, 2009

Acer's dual-boot Aspire One AOD250 netbook gets doubly official

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/15/acers-dual-boot-aspire-one-aod250-netbook-gets-doubly-official/


Alright, so we've already seen this one in the wild and up for pre-order, but it's not everyday that someone releases a dual-boot Android / Windows XP netbook, so we can understand Acer wanting to get extra official with its new Aspire One AOD250 model. Of course, this one's about as standard as it gets once you move beyond its dual OS nature, including an 10.1-inch WSVGA screen, Atom N280 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a six-cell battery. You can get it in your choice of four different colors though, and the $349.99 list price is certainly right for anyone looking for an easy way to jump into Android.

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Acer's dual-boot Aspire One AOD250 netbook gets doubly official originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now YOU Can Contribute and Comment to Gizmodo Directly [Announcements]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/809tzX4o1gM/now-you-can-contribute-and-comment-to-gizmodo-directly

Tweaking the design is actually the less interesting design change we made today. The more interesting one is adding ways for you to get your tips and problems onto Gizmodo instantly.

All of Gawker's sites opened up our comment systems four years ago, and since then, not only have you folks contributed to the content of each post—many people skim through the post just so they can get to the comments, like some sort of home-made dessert—you've actually contributed to making many of those posts better, with tips and things we hadn't thought about.

And also, many of the Editors on all our sites were commenters before they started working here; something that will definitely happen again in the future.

So, the two new ways you can contribute

First, you can directly comment from the top of the main page, which is useful for sharing tips about stuff (#tips) or telling the world about how some gadget you own is defective and the manufacturer won't address your issue properly (#broken). Just type in your problems and make sure to include the correct hashtag, and a hashtag page will be created just for your tag. In this case, http://gizmoodo.com/tag/tips and http://gizmodo.com/tag/broken. These work for new tags as well, not just existing ones, so go ahead and create as many http://gizmodo.com/tag/jasonis[variationofhandsome] that you like

You can also create these new hashtag tag pages from inside regular posts as well, just by tagging them with the correct #hashtag inside your comment. Creating hashtag pages will essentially give you guys forums to talk about stuff, since every comment with that hashtag will display there.

So, the most important bit is that your tips can appear directly on the site without going! through the filter that is us; and we'll go through them regularly to feature them on the main site.

As with all new releases, there will be bugs. In the spirit of the new comment system, you can report bugs directly to our tech team here, without waiting for us to pass along your bug reports: http://getsatisfaction.com/gawker

Make sure to include an image of your problem and as much description as possible (OS, Browser).

And as for regular commenting, here's a FAQ that should get you up to speed on the basics.




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