Monday, February 08, 2010

BenQ V2220 claims 'world's slimmest' monitor title

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/08/benq-v2220-claims-worlds-slimmest-monitor-title/

BenQ is on the warpath today, updating its V series and crying from the mountaintops about unbeatable slimness and contrast ratios. We could care less about the supposedly class leading 10,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, but the 15mm thinness on the flagship V2220 certainly intrigues. It's claimed as the thinnest 21.5-inch monitor around and its junior sibling, the 18.5-inch V920, shaves another millimeter of thickness off while claiming the same title for its size class. Naturally, they're supplemented by slightly bulkier 23- and 24-inch varieties (V2320 and V2420, respectively) for those who need the extra room, with H variants offering HDMI and headphone connection options. You can expect 1920 x 1080 (1366 x 768 on the V920) resolution, 250 nits of brightness, 5ms response time and a good 1,000:1 real contrast ratio across the board, with the Taiwan launch set for the next couple of months followed by global availability in June.

BenQ V2220 claims 'world's slimmest' monitor title originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Far East Gizmos  |  sourceBenQ  | Email this | Comments

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Sunday, February 07, 2010

Congrats Saints! Made up for the utter dearth of memorable, good, or non-rerun ads this year. Yes, that's the sound ad dollars flushing away

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Remote-Start Your Car with a $10 Cellphone [Weekend Project]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/DtQhKQOG_44/remote+start-your-car-with-a-10-cellphone

Hardware enthusiast Dave Hacks read about the Viper SmartStart system, capable of remote starting your car from anywhere, all for $500. He loved the idea, but not the price, so he rolled up his sleeves and made his own on the cheap.

After looking into the system, I soon stumbled onto the fact that the system is ridiculously expensive, as is everything that has to do with the Goddamned iPhone newer technology. Further research on the subject yielded little hope, as all other systems were out of my budget (cheap as hell).

He details the step-by-step process in great detail on his blog in three parts. The project as a whole cost him $71.03, and while it certainly requires some time and know-how on your part, the end result is pretty cool.



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Build a High-Speed Laser-Triggered Photography Rig to Capture Split Second Exposures [DIY]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/-nebjLuVqYo/build-a-high+speed-laser+triggered-photography-rig-to-capture-split-second-exposures

Photographing things that happen in a split second—like a drop of water hitting a puddle—is difficult enough, but when the subject of the photo is in motion, like a flitting honey bee, it requires laser-triggered precision.

The photo above was captured by a Belgian photographer that has fused his enthusiasm for photography and electronic wizardry into one hobby. His photography rig is a technological sight to behold, the camera is flanked by flashes and two arms that have infrared lasers which act as a trigger for the shutter. Check out the picture below to see him at work in the field with the rig:

For those of you who are unfamiliar with macro photography, especially that of insects, a bit of explanation on just how awesome his franken-camera is. In my personal collection (I am a professional photographer) I have at most a dozen photos that come even remotely close to the awesomeness of his insect macros.

When you're trying to photograph a bee in flight using a powerful macro lens, you're entirely at the mercy of the bee. You have to set up your camera, get it incredibly steady, and hope that a bee will come into the tiny field of focus you have. If you get a perfectly crisp shot of a bee in flight about to alight on a flower, that means you managed to luck out and have a bee fly into the tiny business-card thin depth of field window your macro lens provides and you snapped the picture at the exact 1/100th of a second that was occurring.

The beauty of his rig is that the lasers which trigger the shutter of the camera are aligned perfectly in the exact sweet spot of the lens. Using the rig you can't miss a shot because the shot only occurs when the action is occurring in the frame and in focus. (I am so envious of this amazing setup!)

You can visit the link below to see his technical schematics and diagrams, along with photos of him constructing the rig. If you have no intention of building such an elaborate rig, we'd still suggest taking a peek at his galleries. His work is amazing and the type of ten-thousandth-of-a-second exposures he captures like a mosquito—a mosquito!—in flight are incredible. You can view his insect gallery here and his water droplets gallery here.



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Nexus One video series, part two: Google schools us on OLED displays

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/07/nexus-one-video-series-part-two-google-schools-us-on-oled-disp/

The first installment of Google's fancy Nexus One design series focused on the sound quality of the device, and on the overall design. Well, part two is here now, and this time, we get to watch while HTC project manager Tomasz Hasinki and Android software engineer Romain Guy give us the goods on the Nexus One's OLED display and the interactive, 3D framework. We're expecting a couple more videos in the series, so grab a very tiny bowl of popcorn (it's pretty short) and check out the video, which is after the break.

Continue reading Nexus One video series, part two: Google schools us on OLED displays

Nexus One video series, part two: Google schools us on OLED displays originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 07 Feb 2010 05:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceGoogle Nexus One YouTube Channel  | Email this | Comments

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Saturday, February 06, 2010

No one knows you, the small fish in a big pond? Make a new pond? The mktng problem then becomes no one knows your pond: http://bit.ly/bb8MOd

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Friday, February 05, 2010

Set Up a Low-Tech, Whole-House Speaker System Through Existing Phone Lines [DIY]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Si_GJKftNz0/set-up-a-low+tech-whole+house-speaker-system-through-existing-phone-lines

Ed. note: It can be pretty expensive (and a big pain) to install a wired, whole-house speaker system, but reader Tom O'Brien writes in with his low-tech solution: Route your speakers through the phone lines already installed in your house.

Here's Tom's set-up:

Using existing telephone wire and powered speakers, it's fairly simple to connect speakers throughout the house via existing phone lines. This will work only if the lines have 3 extra wires, such as when no land line is in use, or if the house has 6 (very common) or 8 strand telephone wire. Cat 3 wire is 8 strand.

Each audio jack in the setup can connect to any source or supply output to speakers. All power is supplied by the input and output components. This is just a big complicated extension cable.

I live in an old 3 level house. This permits the same audio to be played throughout. Off/on and volume controls are on the remote speakers, as with any powered speaker. This will possibly violate the sensibilities of audiophiles, but the sound is fine for me.

Materials include:

  • 3.5 mm headphone jacks from Radio Shack
  • Repurposed Cat 5 or Cat 3 junction boxes drilled out for audio jacks. Home Depot's are cheapest.

Tools:
  • Soldering iron

All audio files, podcasts, etc are saved on netbook PC at "Home Base" (pictured above).

Note 2 cords plugged into panel. One is output from computer, other is to the speakers on shelf.

A CD player, portable mp3 player or any other source can be plugged in as well, hence so many jacks at home base.

The good speakers in living room.

3.5 mm headphone jacks from Radio Shack.

This is a cover panel for an in-wall junction box. The example has both speaker jacks and a phone jack and uses cat 3 (8 strand) wire. It would have been easier to just wire in a second box for the speaker jacks.

This is suitable for an in wall junction box.

The 3 screws at the top are for the audio jacks, the 4 screws at the bottom connect a 2 line phone via the cat 3 phone jack in the center.

External box wired in to existing phone system.

Double sided tape works well to secure wood to the box.

Thanks for the great suggestion, Tom! If you're looking for a higher-tech solution that'll still keep it cheap, check out our previous guide to using an AirPort Express to set up wireless, multi-room music playback.



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Toshiba's Viamo is the tablet your doctor has been dreaming of

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/toshibas-viamo-is-the-tablet-your-doctor-has-been-dreaming-of/

Tosiba's Viamo is the tablet your doctor has been dreaming of
Convertible tablets are a dime a dozen in the laptop space, but very, very few of them can save your life. Toshiba's Viamo is the one that could -- when used by someone who knows how to control it, that is. It's a portable ultrasound device that has some tactile knobs and buttons for the old-school practitioners, but can be entirely controlled by that touchscreen, which folds flat. Sure, it isn't as portable as other ultrasound machines we've seen before, but it certainly looks quite a bit more advanced, and this one mounts on a pole for easy wheeling around your busy ER -- important when helicopters crash into your roof, ambulances explode out front, and two doctors madly in love need to make a little room. Viamo is newly approved by the FDA and so is now available in the US at a cost that we wouldn't hazard to guess at.

Toshiba's Viamo is the tablet your doctor has been dreaming of originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 08:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MedGadget  |  sourceTosh iba Medical  | Email this | Comments

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Samsung's transparent OLED laptop could hit retail, IceTouch PMP will get the ball rolling

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/samsungs-transparent-oled-laptop-could-hit-retail-icetouch-pmp/

So um, remember this crazy 14-inch transparent OLED display Samsung was showing off perched atop a laptop at CES? Yea, that might be in the shops within the next 12 months. If that doesn't get you tingling with excitement, we don't know what will. Samsung will start its big push toward translucency with the IceTouch PMP, which we found to have a gorgeous 2-inch display in our earlier hands-on, but it's already working away in the labs on turning the prototype above into a concrete retail product. The IceTouch is slated to make its US arrival early in the first half of this year, priced at around $332. European availability is as yet uncomfirmed, but the Korean's company is being very ambitious about its technology, suggesting that windscreen-mounted SatNav units could be next on the agenda and ruling nothing out as it strives to bring its transparent AMOLED displays into the mainstream.

Samsung's transparent OLED laptop could hit retail, IceTouch PMP will get the ball rolling originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink OLED-Info  |  source+Plastic Electronics  | Email this | Comments

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ARM planning three new Cortex CPUs, Eagle headed for smartphones

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/arm-planning-three-new-cortex-cpus-eagle-headed-for-smartphones/

As if the Cortex-A9 isn't stirring up enough emotion all by itself, ARM revealed the roadmap for an even faster iteration of its Cortex-A series of chips during its earnings call a few days ago. Codenamed Eagle, the new processor is slated for a production run of 3 billion units annually, but alas this slide shares no more information on it beyond the intended market of smartphones, mobile computing, and digital TV products. (We've definitely heard that it'll be a 28nm multi-core part destined to ship around 2012, however.) There's also word of a pair of embedded chips, dubbed Heron and Merlin, which will find roles to perform in automotive and audio processing environments. Unsurprising that ARM isn't standing still, but we could've done with a little less mystery and a few more specs.

[Thanks, Kamal]

ARM planning three new Cortex CPUs, Eagle headed for smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 06:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink GadgetMix, SlashGear  |  sourceTech.163  | Email this | Comments

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Germanium lasers offer ray of hope for optical computing

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/germanium-lasers-offer-ray-of-hope-for-optical-computing/

Bandwidth scarcity, is there any more pressing global issue that we're faced with today? We think not. Given the exponential growth in both computing power and software's exploitation and expectation of greater resources, it's no surprise that at some point we'll have to look beyond simple electrical currents as the transporters of our data. One bold step taken in that direction has been the demonstration of an operational germanium-on-silicon laser by researchers at MIT. By tweaking the electron count in germanium atoms with the help of some added phosphorous, they've been able to coax them into a photon-emitting state of being -- something nobody thought possible with indirect bandgap semiconductors. Perhaps the best part of this is that germanium can be integrated relatively easily into current manufacturing processes, meaning that light-based internal communication within our computers is now at least a tiny bit closer to becoming a reality.

Germanium lasers offer ray of hope for optical computing originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 07:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PhysOrg  |!   < img class="img_label" src="http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/post_label_source.gif" alt="source" />Optics Info Base  | Email this | Comments

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ASUS Eee PC 1008P (Seashell) review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/asus-eee-pc-1008p-seashell-review/

What do you do if your netbooks are starting to look so last season? Well if you're ASUS, you hire a leading industrial designer like Karim Rashid to revamp it, of course. The Eee PC 1008P's snazzy new design and removable battery certainly caught our eye at CES, but now so is its $499 pricetag. Positioned as a designer netbook, the 1008P is a mixed bag of specs -- it has got the now-typical Intel Atom N450 processor, boasts 2GB of RAM and larger 320GB hard drive, as well as a disappointingly small three-cell battery. So, are the 1008P's slimmer body and eye-catching design enough to make you shell out $100 more than the typical netbook? And how does the the smaller capacity battery compare to the $380 Eee PC 1005PE's that lasts for eight hours on a charge? Follow on past the break for some answers.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC 1008P (Seashell) review

ASUS Eee PC 1008P (Seashell) review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 09:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Precision M6500 gets upgraded with USB 3.0, Core i5 options

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/dell-precision-m6500-gets-upgraded-with-usb-3-0-core-i5-options/

Back in the beginning of December, when Dell outed its business-oriented, 17-inch Precision M6500 laptop, it boasted some pretty meaty specs: Core i7 CPU, up to 16GB of DDR3 memory, a choice of ATI FirePro M7740 or NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M graphics chips, plus support for up to three storage devices, and a 1920x1200 LED-backlit display. Well, it's added some new configuration options today, including USB 3.0 and a Core i5 processor, making this one bad boy all around. There's no word on the pricing yet, but the previously available Core i7 configuration runs around $2,700. We'll let you know when we find out what these new options will cost you.

Dell Precision M6500 gets upgraded with USB 3.0, Core i5 options originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Electronista  |  sourceNotebook Italia  | ! Email this | Comments

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HDMI 1.4's 3D spec publicly released

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/hdmi-1-4s-3d-spec-publicly-released/

Panasonic RealD active shutter glasses
3D's happening whether you like it or not -- but the good news is that there won't be any format war to go with the adoption of the new tech. At least that's the sense we've been getting, as most manufacturers are adopting active shutter glasses, delivery will happen on cable, satellite, and Blu-ray, and now the HDMI Licensing group has opened up the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 spec so non-licensees can make their gear compatible. There'll be some changes coming down the pike in HDMI 1.4a, but that's also due for public release, so really we'll all be one big dorky family in 3D glasses when this is all over.

HDMI 1.4's 3D spec publicly released originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceHDMI  | Email this | Comments

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Motorola Droid gets official multitouch support -- in Google Maps, anyway

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/05/motorola-droid-gets-official-multitouch-support-in-google-map/

When it rains, it pours, huh, Google? Not even a week after announcing the big multitouch update for its own Nexus One, Google has turned loose a new version of Google Maps that enables pinch-to-zoom support on the Droid. Of course, it was no secret that Android 2.0 had the framework in place to support this kind of stuff -- Moto enabled it all by its lonesome on the Euro-spec Milestone -- but it looks like this could be the watershed moment where multitouch finally becomes a must-have feature on Android devices across the board, as Moto CEO Sanjay Jha recently suggested would happen. The new version 3.4's available as a software update in the Market right now, so grab it if you've got your Droid handy.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola Droid gets official multitouch support -- in Google Maps, anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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