Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/toshiba-reportedly-prepping-glasses-free-3dtv-for-q4-launch/
Toshiba reportedly prepping glasses-free 3DTV for Q4 launch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/jvc-intros-picsio-gc-wp10-and-gc-fm2-1080p-pocket-camcorders/
Continue reading JVC intros Picsio GC-WP10 and GC-FM2 1080p pocket camcorders
JVC intros Picsio GC-WP10 and GC-FM2 1080p pocket camcorders originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 05:51:00 EDT.! Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/canon-proudly-intros-120-megapixel-cmos-sensor-probably-wont-h/
Oh sure, household names like Pentax are already producing cameras with 40 megapixel sensors, and we've seen quite a few gigapixel images crafted with a pinch of black magic, but Canon's newest innovation may take the mainstream megapixel race to its next logical level. Or should we say... illogical level. There's no two ways about it -- just trying to comprehend an APS-H-sized CMOS sensor with 120 megapixels is downright painful, and we're inclined to believe the company's claim that it's the world's highest resolution for its size. This new concoction has a pixel count of around 7.5 times larger than the company's highest-resolution commercial CMOS sensor of the same size (which is pegged at 16.1 megapixels), yet it still supports burst shooting of up to 9.5fps. Furthermore, it's fully capable of capturing 1080p video, but the one detail we're all eager to ingest isn't listed. For now, though, the plan is to let you know about the first camera to ship with it inside at Photokina 2030.Canon proudly intros 120 megapixel CMOS sensor, probably won't hit a DSLR in your lifetime originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/new-google-earth-for-android-lets-users-tour-bikini-bottom-new/
When you're not spelling out Objectivist instructions or taking bicycle tours, Google Earth can be a little bit boring. Finally Android users have something new and fun to do: go for a dive. With the release of Google Earth for Android 1.1 (available to Android 2.1 and above devices), you can now zoom in below the surface of the waves and explore the majestic wonder of undersea trenches. The 1.1 release also brings in Flash support, so YouTube videos will play right within the app -- if you're running 2.2 and your device has been granted the appropriate plug-in. The new version is available now, and we have the big honkin' QR code you need right after the break.New Google Earth for Android lets users tour New Kelp City, Mermalair, other underwater locales originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/dell-streak-procures-a-hacked-up-mini-usb-adapter-gets-friendly/
Dell Streak procures a hacked-up mini USB adapter, gets friendly with your dusty cables originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://gizmodo.com/5619680/draganflyer-x8-the-dreamiest-uav
DraganFlyer X8 complete spec list is pretty ridiculous, so let's just gun through some of the highlights: GPS that can track up to 16 satellites simultaneously, can carry a payload of over two pounds, has a microSD black box data recorder, 3 gyros, accelerometers, and magnetometers on-board, and capable of carrying a remote-operated 10MP still camera and a 1080p video camera. Also: it's foldable.
Pretty slick, and a worthy addition to the Draganflyer lineage. It's also, presumably, very expensive, since you have to request a price quote. That's fine, though; this little monster's meant for professional photographers and/or amateur spy games. For now, I'm content just to focus my gadget lust on it. [DraganFly]
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/23/apple-patent-unearthed-for-touchscreen-macs-that-can-flip-betwee/
Apple patent unearthed for touchscreen Macs that can flip between mouse and touch UIs with tilt of the screen originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-07/rx-every-disease
The biotech company Alnylam announced in June that its drug ALN-VSP cut off blood flow to 62 percent of liver-cancer tumors in those 19 patients, by triggering a rarely used defense mechanism in the body to silence cancerous genes. Whereas conventional drugs stop disease-causing proteins, ALN-VSP uses RNA interference (RNAi) therapy to stop cells from making proteins in the first place, a tactic that could work for just about any disease. "Imagine that your kitchen floods," says biochemist and Alnylam CEO John Maraganore. "Today's medicines mop it up. RNAi technology turns off the faucet."
Here's another analogy: If DNA is the blueprint for proteins, RNA is the contractor. It makes single-stranded copies of DNA's genes, called mRNA, which tell the cell to produce proteins. In 1998, scientists identified RNAi, a mechanism that primitive organisms use to detect and destroy virus's double-stranded RNA and any viral mRNA. Mammals' immune systems made RNAi's antiviral function irrelevant (although all vertebrates, including humans, still use RNAi to regulate mRNA activity), but researchers found that introducing small segments of double-stranded RNA to cells could trigger the ancient mechanism and selectively halt the production of specific proteins.
That ability makes RNAi a potential fix for many diseases, including cancer, that arise when abnormal cells produce excessive amounts of everyday proteins. In theory, manipulating RNAi to kill proteins is simple. ALN-VSP, for example, consists of synthetic double-stranded RNA designed to match tumor mRNA that codes for two proteins: VEGF, which cancers overproduce to help grow new blood vessels, and KSP, which sets off rapid cell division. The researchers send the synthetic RNA into liver cells, and the body's RNAi system kills both the synthetic RNA and any matching tumor-grown mRNA. Knock out the mRNAs coding for those proteins—which in the liver are produced only by cancer cells—and the tumor stops growing.
"We can turn off any one of 20,000 genes with RNAi," says Bruce Sullenger, a molecular biologist researching RNAi at Duke University. "The challenge has been to get a drug into only the desired cells and not harm others." Researchers have worried that a drug might disrupt normal protein production in a healthy cell, or that the immune system will destroy the drug before it reaches its target.
Alnylam overcame both concerns by packaging the drug in a fatty envelope that is absorbed primarily by the liver. This allowed doctors to administer the drug through the blood, rather than by an injection to one spot, which improves results by ensuring that the entire liver receives an even dose.
The technique's ability to attack single genes could lead to drugs for the 75 percent of cancer genes that lack any specific treatment, as well as for other illnesses. Alnylam is already testing RNAi therapy for Huntington's disease and high cholesterol in cell cultures; other researchers are tackling macular degeneration, muscular dystrophy and HIV. The potential has driven nearly every major pharmaceutical company to start an RNAi program.
Because the approach is fundamentally simple, RNAi therapy could be ready within two years, say experts including John Rossi, a molecular geneticist at City of Hope National Medical Center in California. Alnylam plans to enroll an additional 36 patients in the ALN-VSP trial and increase the dosage, but the early results are good enough to suggest that it could be among the first RNAi therapies to hit the market. "I think RNAi could work for anything," Rossi says. "But even if it only works for liver cancer, it would be pretty good." For liver-cancer patients who have been failed by chemotherapy and radiation and felt their harsh side effects, that would be wonder drug enough.
Wiring large building for fire safety systems, climate control mechanisms, and other public safety monitoring schemes consumes a lot of wire -- imagine how much feet of copper connects every room, corridor, stairwell and broom closet in a building like the Empire State. So researchers figured out a far more simplified scheme for creating wireless sensor networks within buildings -- why not use the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) ducts that are already connecting the entire building as a big antenna that relays data via radio frequency identification (RFID)?
The scheme is rather simple but it could amount to huge cost savings for builders, as it saves the materials and time needed to physically connect sensors within a structure. Take the climate control system for instance. In order to function properly, temperature sensors have to be wired throughout the building to tell the central heating and cooling unit when and where to pipe conditioned air.
But the researchers -- all of whom are current or former students of Dr. Dean Stancil, formerly of Carnegie Mellon and now at NC State -- figured out that an array of RFID-enabled temperature sensors spread throughout a building could beam climate information back to the central unit using the HVAC ducts as a big building-wide antenna.
The researchers demonstrated their technology working across sections of HVAC ductwork about 100 feet long, and they are unsure how much further an RFID tag can be away from the central unit and still send and receive signals. But in concept, the system works for anything you can create a sensor for, eliminating all the wiring from fire alarms systems, security systems, air conditioning infrastructure and even public health and safety sensor schemes that monitor for threats like carbon monoxide. From a materials standpoint, that cuts down on a lot of wiring. From a construction standpoint, that's working smarter rather than harder.
Source: http://www.physorg.com/news201789781.html
Scientists today reported the first evidence that eating blueberries, strawberries, and acai berries may help the aging brain stay healthy in a crucial but previously unrecognized way. Their study, presented at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), concluded that berries, and possibly walnuts, activate the brain's natural "housekeeper" mechanism, which cleans up and recycles toxic proteins linked to age-related memory loss and other mental decline.Source: http://www.physorg.com/news201793368.html
Has the long-sought magic potion in society's "battle with the bulge" finally arrived? An appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, and costs almost nothing? Scientists today reported results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds. The weight-loss elixir, they told the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is ordinary water.Source: http://lifehacker.com/5617891/five-ways-to-download-torrents-anonymously
The services discussed in this post range from totally free to costing several dollars a month. The general rule is that free services are generally slower or have other restrictions, while paid ones can get you the same speeds as your regular connection would.
Hundreds and thousands of BitTorrent users have already discovered that a VPN is a good way to ensure privacy while using BitTorrent. For a few dollars a month VPNs route all your traffic through their servers, hiding your IP address from the public. Some VPNs also offer a free plan, but these are significantly slower and not really suited for more demanding BitTorrent users.
Unlike the other services listed in this article, VPNs are not limited to just BitTorrent traffic, they will also conceal the source of all the other traffic on your connection too. Ipredator, Itshidden and StrongVPN are popular among BitTorrent users, but a Google search should find dozens more. It is recommended to ask beforehand if BitTorrent traffic is permitted on the service of your choice.
BTGuard is a proxy service that hides the IP-addresses of its users from the public. The service works on Windows, Mac, Linux and as the name already suggests, it is set up specifically with BitTorrent users in mind. Besides using the pre-configured client, users can also set up their own client to work with BTGuard. It works with all clients that support "Socks V5″ proxies including uTorrent and Vuze. In addition, BTGuard also includes encryption tunnel software for the real security purists.
After these words of praise we're obligated to disclose that BTGuard is operated by friends of TorrentFreak, but we think that should be interpreted as a recommendation.
Torrentprivacy is another proxy service for BitTorrent users, very similar to that of BTGuard. It offers a modified uTorrent client that has all the necessary settings pre-configured. The downside to this approach is that it is limited to users on Windows platforms. TorrentPrivacy is operated by the TorrentReactor.net team and has been in business for more than two years.
"Anomos is a pseudonymous, encrypted multi-peer-to-peer file distribution protocol. It is based on the peer/tracker concept of BitTorrent in combination with an onion routing anonymization layer, with the added benefit of end-to-end encryption," is how the Anomos team describes its project.
Anomos is one of the few free multi-platform solutions for BitTorrent users to hide their IP-addresses. The downside is that it's not fully compatible with regular torrent files as Anomos uses its own atorrent format. Another drawback is that the download speeds are generally lower than regular BitTorrent transfers.
On the uTorrent Idea Bank, more than 1,600 people have asked for the Anomos protocol to be built into a future uTorrent build, making it the second most-popular suggestion overall.
A seedbox is BitTorrent jargon for a dedicated high-speed server, used exclusively for torrent transfers. With a seedbox users generally get very high download speeds while their IP-addresses are not shared with the public. Once a download is finished users can download the files to their PC through a fast http connection. FileShareFreak periodically reviews several good seedbox providers.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5618097/sad-steve-is-a-free-minimalistic-mp3-search-engine
Since Sad Steve is not out to make any money, the site is completely devoid of ads and other intrusive features, separating it from the dime-a-dozen MP3 search engines out there nowadays. It's just a simple engine from which you can search, download and stream a ton of different songs (even fairly obscure stuff). The site also hosts profiles of new indie bands on the site, and you can pledge money to bands that you like and would like to see succeed. It also has a nice "Percolator", which randomly generates a 20-track playlist every 20 minutes, so you have something to listen to even if you don't know what you're in the mood for.
Sure, it isn't the best-looking site around, but its simplicity gives it an ease of use that other sites don't quite have, and the lack of ads all over the place is a really nice change of pace. It won't give you the powerful playlist-crafting abilities something like Grooveshark or Mixtape.me will, but if you're just looking for a few tracks (or for a few new bands to check out), it's a pretty good place to start. Hit the link to check it out.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5618881/five-best-places-to-buy-cheap-textbooks
Photo by a composite of images by vierdrie and Leonardini.
Earlier this week we asked you to share your favorite place to find cheap textbooks. We compiled the results and now we're back to share the five most popular places Lifehacker readers go to save on books.
Chegg offers a nice compromise between buying the overpriced textbooks at your local bookstore and shopping for iffy-quality used books online. At Chegg you don't purchase your books; you rent them for a semester. The Chegg discount, compared to retail prices, is anywhere from 30%-80% off, with most book rentals falling around the 50% mark. You rent them a semester, a quarter, or a 60-day rental window and then ship them back for free with a prepaid UPS label. You won't be able to find books at pennies on the dollar like you can by scrounging for used or out-of-print editions elsewhere, but you do get a 30-day "any reason" return policy and free return shipping.
No one should be surprised to find out that Amazon has their hand in the textbook business. The book superstore originally offered textbooks mixed in with the rest of their book offerings, both new and discounted through their third-party marketplace. Now Amazon has a dedicated student/textbook section with enhanced textbook search and student-centric features. They even offer a free Amazon Prime membership to anyone with a valid student email address (even if you have an Amazon Prime account already, they will refund you the remaining balance and extend your Prime membership a year into the future). With careful shopping you can find textbooks anywhere from new with a slight discount to heavily-used and extremely discounted.
AbeBooks is a massive online marketplace for new, used, and rare books. They have a bustling textbook section with new and used books that average 50% off retail—we found quite a few books in our test searches that crept up in the 75-90% range, however. AbeBooks has a 30-day return policy and an easy-to-use sell-back program—plug in the ISBNs, print off a free mailing label, and ship them back for cash in your pocket.
Half.com, an eBay subsidiary, offers cheap media and books including textbooks. Like a giant used bookstore/record store equivalent of eBay, Half.com is a great place to find cheap textbooks. Low prices aside, one of the strong selling points for textbook shopping at Half.com is their Buying Wizard. Using the Buying Wizard you can search for the books you need and the wizard will search all the deals on Half.com to find you the best combination of prices and combined shipping to get your textbooks faster and cheaper.
BIGWORDS is the textbook website that put seller/shipping optimization on the map with their Multi-Item Price Optimization services. When you search for textbooks at BIGWORDS, they scan dozens of other textbook retailers and resellers to find you the absolute bargain basement prices. When the semester is over you can use the BIGWORDS engine in reverse to sell them all back or donate your textbooks through Better World Books to help fight illiteracy in developing nations.
Now that you've had a chance to look over the five most popular contenders for the best place to buy cheap textbooks, it's time to vote for your favorite:
Which Place to Buy Cheap Textbooks Is Best?online surveys
Have a favorite spot to grab cheap textbooks that wasn't highlighted in this Hive Five? Let's hear about it in the comments.
Source: http://lifehacker.com/5619011/attach-your-camera-to-a-microscope-for-super-close-macro-photography
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