Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Lenovo C200 brings NVIDIA Ion 2 stateside for $499

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/07/lenovo-c200-brings-nvidia-ion-2-stateside-for-499/

If you've been patiently waiting on a low-cost NVIDIA Ion 2 system it looks like today is your lucky day since it looks like Lenovo has scored an early lead in unleashing the wrath of the new Atom / GeForce combo. Available sometime this month, the 18.5-inch C200 all-in-one isn't going to replace that Core i7 rig for ripping through Command & Conquer 4, but its Intel dual-core Atom D510 CPU can handle the light productivity while its GeForce G210 GPU will automatically turn on -- thanks to Optimus -- to deal with some Spore or 1080p video. Unfortunately the C200 only has a single touch, 1366x768-resolution display and a standard integrated DVD drive rather than Blu-ray, but we guess we can't expect much more for its appealing $499 price tag. Lenovo will also offer a sans Ion and touch version of the C200 for $399. We told you today was going to be your lucky day! PR and press pics for your viewing pleasure below.

Gallery: Lenovo C200 press shots

Continue reading Lenovo C200 brings NVIDIA Ion 2 stateside for $499

Lenovo C200 brings NVIDIA Ion 2 stateside for $499 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Notion Ink Adam still alive, working on Flash compatibility

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/07/notion-ink-adam-still-alive-working-on-flash-compatibility/

It was three months ago, in the midst of the most tablet-centric CES in recent memory, that we first laid our hands on Notion Ink's impressive Adam prototype. Since then, we've been on the lookout for signs that the small Indian startup will actually deliver on the tablet's lofty promises, and while that still seems to be on track, the latest update from the company's founder is casting doubt on the originally planned June release date. Stressing the need to agree subsidization deals with telecoms for the 3G-equipped device, Rohan Shravan explains that "some want to give you Adam for Thanksgiving, some for summer holidays." Add in his resolute commitment to only going ahead with the tablet when it's fully capable of running Flash (seriously Adobe, the thing can do 1080p video, but Flash makes it wince?), and you have a significantly more elastic release window than we were originally led to believe. All the same, Rohan couldn't leave us without some titillation, and he also promises "amazing freedom" on the email front and a number of content collaborations that he's not yet allowed to announce. If you ask us, we just want something -- anything -- with a Pixel Qi display; we'll make up our own content, just give us the hardware already.

[Thanks, Srikanth]

Notion Ink Adam still alive, working on Flash compatibility originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 04:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OCZ's Z-Drive gets swappable NAND sticks, ludicrous speed in second incarnation

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/07/oczs-z-drive-gets-swappable-nand-sticks-ludicrous-speed-in-sec/

While Fusion-io's PCI-Express SSDs garner glowing reviews and deplete wallets accordingly, OCZ hasn't been so lucky -- even as its similar Z-Drive boasted seriously speedy sequential transfer speeds that made it desirable for video editing and the like, it was tested and found wanting in consumer applications. This time, OCZ is playing to its strengths and marketing its next batch of Z-Drives directly to the professional market. Boasting banks filled with hot-swappable NAND modules, OCZ claims the Z-Drive R2 can be serviced and upgraded in the field -- and with two full tiers of flash memory woven together in a 2TB, eight-way RAID 0 configuration on their premium Z-Drive p88 model, the company claims you'll see 1.4GB/s (yes, that's gigabytes per second) read and write speeds. No word on pricing and availability, but you can safely assume that the power to instantaneously teleport your entire Doctor Who wallpaper collecti-- we mean, edit raw 1080p footage in real time -- won't come cheap.

OCZ's Z-Drive gets swappable NAND sticks, ludicrous speed in second incarnation originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 06:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ATI FirePro V8800 takes Cypress core into workstation woods, emerges victorious

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/07/ati-firepro-v8800-takes-cypress-core-into-workstation-woods-eme/

ATI has just let loose the first professional tier card based on its Cypress XT core, which in itself is part of the company's highly successful Evergreen series of 40nm chips. Boasting 2GB of GDDR5 memory running at 1.15GHz, 1,600 stream processors and an 825MHz core clock speed, the FirePro V8800 is very much an HD 5870 adapted to the demands of the digital creation world, and as such it's no surprise that it also requires the same pair of 6-pin auxiliary power connectors. It also supports DirectX 11 and the fresh new OpenGL 4.0 standard, something those business crazies seem to appreciate, but its killer feature is most probably the price, which -- although steep by common standards -- is $300 less than the $1,800 FirePro V8750 predecessor. Oh, and this card can drive 4 simultaneous displays, but we're kinda used to that by now with ATI -- the real question is how this pup ranks relative to its forebears and NVIDIA competition. The answer, according to the commonly used Maya, SolidWorks and 3ds Max applications, is that the FirePro V8800 simply destroys the V8750 while also generally outpacing the aging Quadro FX 4800. Feels pretty nice to have a straightforward conclusion, doesn't it? Check out the links below for the full disclosure.

ATI FirePro V8800 takes Cypress core into workstation wo! ods, eme rges victorious originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 05:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

FREE Customer Research and Why You SHOULD Run Ideas By Your Audience First - http://bit.ly/ae8RsH #TwitterROI, ROI of Social Media

Even the iPad won't save magazines, especially if they hold on to old business models - http://bit.ly/c8QOPM

Never Get A Scratch On The LCD or Lens

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/yankodesign/~3/zNdbpfDt-4s/

The agony of getting a scratch on a digital camera LCD screen is too close to home! One time I broke the screen while riding a coaster at Genting Highlands Park! And the other time, desert sand of Dubai ruined the lens. Only if my present Kodak had a 360 degree display protector as seen on this Zero Angle Digital Camera, I wouldn’t worry so much. The LCD screen is like a hard cover over the lens, that you flip 360 degrees to open up and use. When shut it's like a sleek metallic blub, when its open…it's a neat-o screen with all the camera navigation intact!

Designers: Sun ho Sin & Jeong eun Park

Zero Angle Digital Camera by Sun ho Sin & Jeong eun Park

zero2

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Physicist Creates Most Magnetic Material on Earth, Might Overturn Laws of Physics

Source: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/most-magnetic-material-ever-created-iron-and-nitrogen-might-overturn-laws-physics

The new compound is about 18 percent more magnetic than former magnet king iron cobalt

A more powerful magnetic material may have emerged to topple previous record-holder iron cobalt, until now the most magnetic material on Earth. The new iron and nitrogen compound might also force physicists to revise their understanding of magnetism, according to the Minnesota Daily.

The iron and nitrogen compound proved 18 percent more magnetic than iron cobalt in tests done by Jianping Wang, a physicist at the University of Minnesota. There also appears to be a "new physics" at work in the substance, but physicists at other labs must replicate the experiment and verify the work.

Wang reportedly found localized electrons in his iron and nitrogen compound, which have never shown up before in magnetic materials. Localized electrons are electron-pair bonds shared by nonmetals, as opposed to the free-flowing electrons typically related to magnetism and electric current.

Some physicists suspect that localized electrons, rather than free-flowing electrons, are more responsible for magnetism in materials. The discovery also appears to overturn traditional theories that set limits on the strength of magnetism in substances.

Japanese researchers at the Central Research Laboratory of Hitachi also created a magnetic iron and nitrogen compound in 1996, but no other scientists were able to get the same results. Wang has taken special care to allow other scientists to duplicate his experimental setup.

If the findings hold up, they could lead to a significant boost in magnetic materials that allow for more efficient power generation and transmission.

[via Minnesota Daily]

MIT Researcher Develops iPhone App to Easily Control Swarms of Aerial Drones

Source: http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-04/video-using-smartphones-control-aerial-drones

Flying UAVs might someday become as easy as fiddling with your phone

Fleets of unmanned drones have become a common weapon in the U.S. military's arsenal, but clunky controls and interfaces that distract human operators can lead to costly mistakes and crashes. Such problems prompted a former U.S. Navy pilot to develop an iPhone app that allows any smartphone user to learn how to fly an unmanned aerial system in just three minutes.

Easier control interfaces could drastically cut down on training time and costs, not to mention mistakes. Consider that current military pilots undergo thousands of hours of training to learn how to fly drones.

"This is all about the mission -- you just need more information from an image, and you shouldn't have to spend $1 million to train someone to get that picture," said Mary "Missy" Cummings, an MIT aerospace and systems engineer.

Cummings once flew F-18 Hornets for the U.S. Navy, and saw fellow fighter pilots die in aircraft carrier landing mishaps. Since then, she has devoted her research at MIT's Humans and Automation Laboratory (HAL) toward making it easier to fly drones and interact with technology.

That means less time spent fiddling with menus or trying to zoom a camera, and more time focused on the task at hand -- whether that involves trying to I.D. a sniper or search for victims after a natural disaster.

The HAL group recently ran experiments where participants controlled a drone via smartphone so that they could read an eye chart and find a photo within a building. Cummings and her students hope to eventually test the app in the real world and fly the drone up to 500 feet.

File Blender Converts Files with Drag and Drop Ease [Downloads]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5509681/file-blender-converts-files-with-drag-and-drop-ease

File Blender Converts Files with Drag and Drop Ease Windows: File Blender is a free and portable interface for more than a half-dozen tools. Drag and drop everything from pictures to music to File Blender and convert it to something new.

File Blender is a simple GUI for the command line conversion tools included in popular applications like IrfanView and Lame MP3. Drag files into the File Blender button and convert all kinds of files including MP3s, WAVs, JPGs, and other audio and image formats.

You can download File Blender by itself or with all the support apps included. If you download the full package (4.5MB) you won't have to do any configuration at all. If you download the stand-alone interface you'll need to configure File Blender to run with your favorite command line friendly applications. Check out the site below to grab a copy or to read up on how to make your own configuration files.

File Blender is free, portable, and Windows only. Have a favorite conversion tool or trick to share? Let's here about it in the comments.

File Blender [via Addictive Tips]

Stain Solutions Finds the Cure for Removing Any Stain [Cleaning]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5509890/stain-solutions-finds-the-cure-for-removing-any-stain

Stain Solutions Finds the Cure for Removing Any Stain The University of Illinois' Stain Solution web site gathers exhaustive remedies for hundreds of common, hard-to-remove stains in one easy-to-search resource—with surprising specificity. Did that coffee stain come with cream or no cream?

Photo by GrungeTextures.

The site offers a variety of stain solutions, including for difficult ones like blood and ink (including fountain, red, and India ink). It'll tell you exactly what kind of tools you'll need to arm yourself with, and the procedure for removing it. Best of all, the explanations highlight how to remove the stain from different places, like from your carpet or your clothes, along with alternate methods.

The stain removal methods themselves are extremely thorough. If you had an unfortunate morning mishap with your coffee, just search the site for "coffee." The results suggest using liquid dishwashing detergent, white vinegar, rubbing alcohol, an enzyme pre-soak product, and chlorine bleach or oxygen bleach. Soak it for 15 minutes in a mixture of water, dishwashing detergent, and white vinegar. Rinse, and then sponge it with rubbing alcohol. Soak it again for 30 minutes in warm water with a bit of the enzyme pre-soak product and your stain shouldn't stand a chance.

If you've got any tips for lifting stains out of those hard-to-get places, we'd love to hear your tips in the comments. Thanks, Charles!

Stain Removal Solutions [via #tips]

HP Slate to cost $549, have 1.6GHz Atom Z530, 5 hour battery?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/hp-slate-to-cost-549-have-1-6ghz-atom-z530-5-hour-battery/

Well, well -- what's this? We just got our hands on what looks like an internal HP Slate presentation given to cool down some of the iPad hype amongst HP employees, and it just happens to have specs and pricing details on the elusive Windows 7 tablet. As we'd heard, the Slate will run $549 in its base configuration, which has a 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 capacitive multitouch display, a 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor with UMA graphics and an accelerator for 1080p video playback (we're assuming it's a Broadcom Crystal HD chip), 32GB of flash storage and 1GB of non-upgradeable RAM. There's also a $599 version with 64GB of storage, and both models will have a five-hour battery, an SDHC slot, two camera, a USB port, a SIM card slot for the optional 3G modem, and a dock connector for power, audio, and HDMI out. Of course, what this spec list doesn't cover is software, and we still haven't seen much of how HP plans to make Windows 7 on a full slate device with netbook-class internals perform as smoothly or as intuitively as its demo videos. That's not a small challenge, especially since the iPad is out now and setting some pretty high expectations for how this new breed of tablets should work. We've got our fingers crossed -- show us something good, HP.

HP Slate to cost $549, have 1.6GHz Atom Z530, 5 hour battery? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 17:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fusion Garage JooJoo review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/fusion-garage-joojoo-review/

We're not sure what's harder to believe: the fact that after months and months of the soap-opera-like drama that the JooJoo (formerly known as the CrunchPad) has finally landed in our hands, or that within just a few days there are now two capacitive touchscreen, browsing-heavy slate tablets on the market. Sure, it's probably not the best timing for a tablet start-up, but that doesn't diminish our interest in the 12-inch, Flash-playing JooJoo. The JooJoo is meant to be a browser-based tablet for surfing the web on your couch or while traveling, but with little previous hands-on time, we're still wondering how well it'll really work. And, obviously, whether or not it's a $499 experience on par or superior to Apple's iPad. Fear not, we'll tell you all you want to know in our magical review after the break.

Gallery: Fusion Garage JooJoo review

Continue reading Fusion Garage JooJoo review

Fusion Garage JooJoo review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android and Arduino-packin' Cellbot features voice recognition, autonomy, and charm to spare

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/android-and-arduino-packin-cellbot-features-voice-recognition/

The Cellbots gang has been furiously productive as of late. Not even a month after their wooden "boxbot" was first spotted on You Tube the project has moved on from its humble beginnings of lumber and windshield wiper motors to a full-on a neon green acrylic Truckbot that uses a G1 and Arduino board combination for control. Sure, we've seen Android-powered robots before, but these guys have done some pretty cool things, and have no intention of stopping now. They've already implemented an ultrasonic range detector so the 'bot can override the operator and prevent itself from running off a cliff (although we'd like to suggest mounting one on the rear as well -- for obvious reasons), voice recognition, and the Android compass into the control system. If anything, the amount of progress makes this project very well worth keeping an eye on. Move past the break to see some video, and then hit the source link to keep up with the action yourself.

Continue reading Android and Arduino-packin' Cellbot features voice recognition, autonomy, and charm to spare

Android and Arduino-packin' Cellbot features voice recognition, autonomy, and charm to spare originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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APC adds LCD, zero-draw power outlets to new Back-UPS Pro models

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/05/apc-adds-lcd-zero-draw-power-outlets-to-new-back-ups-pro-models/

A new uninterruptible power supply isn't exactly the sort of thing to garner a ton of attention, but APC's latest Back-UPS Pro models do pack a few more features than your average power supply, and may just have you considering trading up. They're still just as uninterruptible as ever, of course, but the BR1300G and BR1500G models add a snazzy new LCD that displays the estimated runtime and other critical information, as well as some new power-saving outlets that will automatically shut off power to any unused devices. Otherwise, you can expect runtimes of between 92 and 164 minutes (depending on what's connected, of course), six or ten power outlets, and APC's usual PowerChute software for some more enhanced power management. Still no firm word on a release date for these, but they should be available sometime in the second quarter for between $129.99 and $249.99.

APC adds LCD, zero-draw power outlets to new Back-UPS Pro models originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Apr 2010 21:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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