Wednesday, December 02, 2009

Micron RealSSD Drives Claim Title of World's Fastest (by a Lot) [Ssds]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/f-LeKnAB0Bw/micron-realssd-drives-claim-title-of-worlds-fastest-by-a-lot

Micron's new C300 2.5-inch SSDs are incredibly fast. We're talking 50% faster than the current market leaders, and fast enough to downright shame any hard drive. Yeah, there's a new SSD speed champ every week, but these are damned impressive.

The C300 SSDs, available in 128GB and 256GB capacities when they're released sometime early next year, whups the current top dogs in read/write speeds. It's also the first to take advantage of the new SATA 3.0, which allows 6Gb/s throughput, twice that of SATA 2.0—but regardless of whether it's using 2.0 or 3.0, it's still blazingly fast. It's rated at 355MB/s read and 215MB/s write—for comparison, the champ, OCZ's Agility EX, gets 255MB/s and 195MB/s read and write speeds, respectively. You can see it compared with "a market leader" (probably either the OCZ or maybe Intel's X25-M) here:

By using the new ONFI 2.1 specification, it's also got nearly five times the data speed per transfer, which is basically means you'll be seeing improved performance while multitasking.

The C300 series is expensive, obviously, at about $350 for the 128GB and $715 for the 256GB (and then only when bought in bulk), but it's a pretty incredible performer—hopefully we'll be seeing it in some equally impressive laptops when it's released next year. [Micron]




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Intel SSD firmware 02HD brings back Trim support, sans bugs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/intel-ssd-firmware-02hd-brings-back-trim-support-sans-bugs/

Intel's 34nm X25-M G2 drives might not've had the most peaceful of existences so far, but you can't fault the company's efforts to fix whatever maladies have popped up. The latest firmware update from Santa Clara brings back the lauded Trim support, but this time leaves the drive-killing antics behind. User experiences so far have been positive, though unsurprisingly a couple of people have questioned whether Trim is in fact enabled on their drives -- clearly, the difference between fast and really, really fast is not as distinguishable as we like to think. The source link will provide you with the latest firmware update tool and the precious new code -- if you dare risk it.

[Thanks, Alex]

Intel SSD firmware 02HD brings back Trim support, sans bugs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ViewSonic outs 23-inch VP2365wb and 26-inch VP2655wb IPS LCD monitors

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/viewsonic-outs-23-inch-vp2365wb-and-26-inch-vp2655wb-ips-lcd-mon/

ViewSonic's last round of LCDs were nothing short of unforgettable, but these two might actually grab (and retain) your attention if you consider yourself a "professional." The 23-inch VP2365wb and 26-inch VP2655wb both fall into the firm's VP series of 1080p pro LCDs, and the both of 'em are blessed with IPS panels and 4-port USB hubs. You'll also find pivoting stands on the pair, and while the 23-incher gets a 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution, the big boy steps it up to 1,920 x 1,200 and offers a 118 percent NTSC wide color gamut for those discerning retinas of yours. Interested? The duo is available now if you look in the right places, and while the VP2365wb will cost you just $399, the larger sibling will ding you for $1,299.

Continue reading ViewSonic outs 23-inch VP2365wb and 26-inch VP2655wb IPS LCD monitors

ViewSonic outs 23-inch VP2365wb and 26-inch VP2655wb IPS LCD monitors originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 10:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kingston 40GB SSDNow review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/kingston-40gb-ssdnow-review/

From the moment that we heard of the the new 40GB Kingston SSD, we couldn't help but get our hopes up. Who knows if (or more likely, when) SSD drives will ever completely replace spinning platters with all the digital media people collect today, so rather than stretching your budget and compressing your media in order to stuff everything onto a 256GB solid state drive, we dug the idea of snagging a small (and affordable) SSD for boot / application operations and utilizing a spacious HDD for archival. Not to mention -- regardless of how fast a disk is -- two are almost always better than one. If you're interested in rigging up a similar setup, hop on past the break to have a look at our impressions.

Continue reading Kingston 40GB SSDNow review

Kingston 40GB SSDNow review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Sholes Tablet detailed, sounds as tasty as we'd hoped

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/motorola-sholes-tablet-detailed-sounds-as-tasty-as-wed-hoped/

Knowing what we now know of the Droid -- codename Sholes -- the mere mental image of that "Sholes Tablet" that we've been hearing about for a while brings us to our geeky knees. Taiwanese forum Mobile01 seems to have details on just what the Sholes Tablet is all about, and while we'd normally be skeptical to the point of dismissal, the presence of a few believable-looking images has us on the bandwagon. The biggies on the rumored spec sheet include HDMI out, 720p video recording paired to an 8 megapixel cam (which is hopefully of much, much higher quality than the Droid's miserable 5) with xenon flash, and Motorola's own CrystalTalk tech for background noise reduction on calls. It'll apparently be running Android 2.0 -- the presence of BLUR is unknown -- and the screen is a predictably awesome 3.7 inches at WVGA resolution with multitouch support; missing, as the name suggests, is the original's sliding QWERTY keyboard. All signs point to use seeing this in the next few months, so enjoy those Droids and Milestones while you can, yeah?

Motorola Sholes Tablet detailed, sounds as tasty as we'd hoped originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel crams 48 cores onto stamp-sized processor, wants to do what Cell did

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/intel-crams-48-cores-onto-stamp-sized-processor-wants-to-do-wha/

Just when we thought Intel's yet-to-release six-core Core i9 would be the future, the silicon giant drops the bomb yet again with more multi-core madness -- the experimental 48-core Single-chip Cloud Computer (SCC), a.k.a. Rock Creek. While it looks like Intel still has a long way from their 80-core target in 2011, this bad boy packs an impressive 1.3 billion transistors on a 45nm fabrication, but sucks up just 125 watts which is a far cry from Core i9's 130 watts. Intel's stated that their main goal is to use SCC's parallel computation -- a field where high clock speed isn't necessary -- to enhance gesture control. Sounds familiar? Yes, it was Toshiba's SpursEngine, but there's no harm in having a new contender for the challenge. You go, girl!

Intel crams 48 cores onto stamp-sized processor, wants to do what Cell did originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/time-inc-shows-off-magazine-tablet-demo-plans-future-anger-abo/

You know that Condé Nast tablet / digital magazine demo we saw recently (non-ironically paging through a copy of Wired)? Well now Time Inc. has gotten in on the same game, showing off its version of a digimag running a touch-friendly issue of Sports Illustrated. The company not only buzzed everyone with the charming walkthough video -- a floating hand paging through SI on a sleek, black tablet (embedded after the break) -- but also had a live, functioning variation of the product up and running on a touchscreen HP laptop. The gist of the project seems to be that the publisher will be able to offer this digitized version of its magazines in some sort of agnostic format, one that would be accessible to PCs and phantom Apple tablets alike. Peter Kafka over at All Things D says that he had a chance to play with the demo and it was, "quite a bit of fun." While it's clear that both Time and Condé Nast are taking parallel routes to online publishing (the former is purely in concept mode, the latter is working with Adobe on digital versions of its titles as we speak), one thing is painfully clear: both companies have shockingly similar ideas about what the future of magazine publishing looks like. We hope Apple has been informed.

Continue reading Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split

Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft giving Bing Maps a 3D overhaul, tacking on apps for good measure

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/02/microsoft-giving-bing-maps-a-3d-overhaul-tacking-on-apps-for-go/

Google's not the only one in the game when it comes to wild mapping tech, and while Microsoft's excellent collection of bird's eye photos has never gotten it quite the attention of Google's Street View, the hope is that lasers and its much-lauded Photosynth tool can do the trick. Microsoft has done up a Street View-style canvassing of 56 US cities with cars that not only snap photos but include range-finding lasers to map out the architecture in 3D. The Silverlight-based viewer for this view (dubbed Streetside) is similar in interface to Google Maps, a tad slower, and rather visually impressive. In addition, Microsoft is leaning on its Photosynth technology to collect navigable panoramas of scenery and even building interiors. Finally, Microsoft has tacked on "apps" of sorts, little overlays that include traffic cameras, restaurants, a Twitter API and so forth. All of this coupled with an improved version of the bird's eye view is quite a visual treat, but the Silverlight requirement and non-Google-ness of it all might might keep away the Bing-averse among us. But really, with all this tit-for-tat going on between Microsoft and Google, we have to wonder what sort of stone age we'd be stuck in if we didn't have these two behemoths going at each other like this. The "Beta" is live now at the source link.

[Thanks Aimee]

Microsoft giving Bing Maps a 3D overhaul, tacking on apps for good measure originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Via Mobile-ITX Platform is Half the Size of the Pico-ITX, Still Powerful [Motherboards]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/y3Ezl-TT8uo/via-mobile+itx-platform-is-half-the-size-of-the-pico+itx-still-powerful

Via's Pico-ITX motherboard was small and powerful to begin with, but their new Mobile-ITX platform is about half the size and supposedly still packs a punch while keeping power consumption low.

Because of that low power consumption and tiny package, the Mobile-ITX should be great for always-on devices and even smaller gadgets. As far as whta features it brings to the table, it looks like there's support for "core CPU, chipset and memory functionality and I/O that includes the CRT, DVP and TTL display support, HD Audio, IDE, USB 2.0, as well as PCI Express, SMBus, GPIO, LPC, SDIO and PS2 signals." Wowza. Quite a lot for such a small fellow. [Hot hardware via Engadget]




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The Truth About Plasma Screen Burn-In [TVs]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3QLXk9KOlNM/the-truth-about-plasma-screen-burn+in

People are still talking about plasma burn-in, even though it's a non-issue. Actually, two very rare separate non-issues, permanent burn-in and temporary image retention. Gary at HD Guru decided to put the matter to rest:

Gary decided the best way to illustrate this issue is to figure out what it takes to create image retention or burn-in.

In his trials, he was able to cause retention, "a faint ghost image of previously viewed content," by tuning to a SMPTE color bar test pattern for 15 minutes and then switching to an all white screen. The resulting effect dissipated after a few minutes and is definitely of no concern to plasma display owners.

Burn-in, a "faint outline of a previously viewed image caused by uneven phosphor wear," turned out to be far more difficult to cause. Gary couldn't do it by freezing a frame for ten hours, nor by seeking out showroom demo plasma HDTVs that might have been on a burn-causing loop. In the end he concluded that the effect might be created in a "worst case scenario" which involves "100% viewing of 4:3 content with black side bars [instead of gray], or exclusive viewing of 2.35:1 aspect ratio movies (without using one of the zoom modes to eliminate the black bars) and leaving it on that way continuously for weeks."

So basically, unless you're seriously obsessed with a particular image that you'd stare at it for weeks at a time, or only watch 2.35:1 movies (in which case who cares if the burn is uneven in the unused pixels?), you can skip worrying about burn-in and enjoy your plasma. If you want more on the science of all of this, check out Gary's full story. [HD Guru]




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HTC 'Touch.B' is an Android-powered Touch2?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/htc-touch-b-is-an-android-powered-touch2/

If you glance at this thing for just a fleeting instant, you might actually mistake it for a Touch2 -- but it's not. A closer look at the button layout shows a decided lack of keys required by WinMo 6.5, which leads us to the logical conclusion that the so-called Touch.B here -- previously known under the codename "Rome" -- runs Android. MobiFrance doesn't have any additional details on the phone, its specs, or where it might launch, but if it does in fact run on the Google juice, it's looking like a possible successor (or kissing cousin, perhaps) of the Tattoo. Now that we look at it, we're not actually seeing the buttons that'd be required of an Android device, either -- and we have heard rumors for ages now that HTC would be releasing devices running a homegrown dumbphone platform -- but we'll hold off on the conclusion-jumping until we get just a little more detail.

[Thanks, clo75]

HTC 'Touch.B' is an Android-powered Touch2? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Square iPhone payment system gets itself a website, showcased in public

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/square-iphone-payment-system-gets-itself-a-website-showcased-in/

Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and the quiet startup formerly known as Squirrel are finally opening up a bit. The company now called Square, as we noted back in October, has launched a website for its iPhone payment dongle, although it's still in somewhat private beta testing. TechCrunch managed to catch up with Dorsey, who gave a brief overview of the product and then showed it off by charging $4 for a cup of coffee -- so it goes in San Francisco. See Square in action after the break.

Continue reading Square iPhone payment system gets itself a website, showcased in public

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Square iPhone payment system gets itself a website, showcased in public originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/comcast-deal-to-buy-nbc-is-done-will-be-announced-thursday/

We told you we had a feeling this thing was happening -- less than a day after GE consolidated ownership of NBC Universal in preparation to spin it off and sell a controlling stake to Comcast, CNBC is reporting that the deal is actually done and will be announced Thursday morning. As rumored from the start, Comcast will now own 51 percent of NBC to GE's 49 percent, and the new company will fold in Comcast's various content assets, which means the new NBC will rival Disney in size. That's a big enchilada, and it should make the future of Comcast initiatives like TV Everywhere extremely interesting. Of course, all this still has to go through the FCC and FTC, and we wouldn't expect anything to be approved and finalized for a year, but none of that takes away from the magnitude of this deal. We'll obviously know more in a couple days, stay tuned.

Comcast deal to buy NBC is done, will be announced Thursday originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Energizer promises new and improved zinc-air battery for summer 2010

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/energizer-promises-new-and-improved-zinc-air-battery-for-summer/

Energizer has been working on zinc-air batteries for quite some time now (along with plenty of others), but it looks like its now finally set to deliver with a new "standard battery" that's said to be on track for a launch sometime in the summer of next year. What's more, while some of the company's previous attempts at zinc-air batteries have only been able to manage average run times of between one and three months, Energizer says it's recently been able to triple things in time for the batteries' big debut. That will first come in the form of some AAAA batteries from Energizer itself, which will apparently be priced similarly to "special lithium batteries," and will eventually be followed by zinc-air batteries in a range of different sizes. During the same time, we should also start to see some of the first products with integrated zinc-air batteries from some of the 30 odd OEMs now working with Energizer, who are working to put the batteries into everything from Bluetooth headsets to remote controls to portable audio players.

Energizer promises new and improved zinc-air battery for summer 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Mini 3iX shown off in Brazil, works on tan, leaves Android Market in the dust?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/01/dell-mini-3ix-shown-off-in-brazil-works-on-tan-leaves-android/

Hey, Dell: looking for the absolute quickest way to screw up your first entry into the dog-eat-dog smartphone industry? Well, removing the Market app from your Android load is a solid way to start. Yeah, you heard that right -- according to Brazilian site Zumo, the all-important Android Market was nowhere to be found on the Mini 3iX it had an opportunity to play with, rendering software discovery and installation about as easy as a WinMo device from three years ago. It seems that Dell's "strategy" here is to have users download apps directly from their sources -- a practice that typically needs to be manually enabled on an Android device as a security override -- and get the rest of their wares from proprietary stores, presumably operated by the carrier, Dell, or both. On the bright side, the 3iX includes the WiFi radio that its Chinese doppelganger lacks and features a generous 3.5-inch display, 3 megapixel camera, 3G support, and a completely button-free face that looks particularly sexy in this low-light shot. Dell's apparently commenting that Brazilians can expect the 3iX in shops in 2010 -- possibly in the first quarter -- which should give 'em just enough time to un-make that deal-breaking Market mistake prior to launch.

Dell Mini 3iX shown off in Brazil, works on tan, leaves Android Market in the dust? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 20:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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