Dell Vostro V130 updated with more ports, fancy 'Hyperbaric' cooling

Back when we reviewed the Dell Vostro V13 we had a few complaints, including the fact that it lasted less than three hours on a charge and lacked an HDMI port. Well, Dell's gone and taken care of at least one of those issues with its new Vostro V130. The original thin and light chassis has been kept in tact, which means there's still the same old battery issues, but Dell's freshened up the 13.3-inch magnesium alloy laptop with an HDMI port, extra USB socket, a SIM card slot, new Core i3 / i5 ULV processor options, and some new Intel "Hyperbaric Cooling" technology. We don't know much about that new cooling stuff, but apparently it will help the .65-inch thick system stay cool and quiet. Oh, and did we mention it now comes in that bright red hue?! The small business machine still starts an impressive $429 and is available today. If you're looking for more details hit the break for the full press release and the gallery below for some glossy shots.

Gallery: Dell Vostro V130

Continue reading Dell Vostro V130 updated with more ports, fancy 'Hyperbaric' cooling

Dell Vostro V130 updated with more ports, fancy 'Hyperbaric' cooling originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon propose 500MBps memory card with more than 2TB capacity

While the CompactFlash Association scoots along at a maximum transfer rate of 167MB per second under its just released CF6.0 specification, Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon are already looking to the future. The trio have just officially proposed a new memory card format that switches from PATA to the PCI Express serial interface to achieve data transfer rates of up to 500 megabytes per second with a potential to extend maximum storage capacities beyond 2 terabytes. The proposed set of specifications hints at the high performance requirements we'll soon face as DSLRs and camcorders are updated to capture continuous burst shooting of massive RAW images and ever higher definition video. Naturally, the spec also enables photogs to transfer their troves of data more quickly to computers for post processing and combines high-speed transfer with a scaling system to extend battery life. The CompactFlash Association has already announced a new workgroup to study the proposal. Canon's Shigeto Kanda, CFA chairman of the board, had this to say about the proposal:

Future professional photography and video applications will require memory cards with faster read/write speeds. The development of a new high-performance card standard with a serial interface will meet the needs of the professional imaging industry for years to come and open the door for exciting new applications.

Sounds like tacit approval to us. And really, anything that brings Sony and Sandisk together on a future storage format should be seen as a positive step. Unless, of course, you're the SD Card Association or anyone who recently purchased a CFast card.

Continue reading Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon propose 500MBps memory card with more than 2TB capacity

Sandisk, Sony, and Nikon propose 500MBps memory card with more than 2TB capacity originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 01:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Star shows up again, flexes its Tegra 2 muscle for the camera

That high-end Android smartphone from LG seemingly destined for release early next year has made another appearance -- and this time, the UI's in full view and showing us a few tricks. Looks like the so-called Star will be running a variant of LG's usual Android skin, for better or worse, and the particular device shown off in Phandroid's forums here is loaded with Froyo -- a strange choice for a 4-inch beast launching in 2011 with Gingerbread around the corner, perhaps, but we certainly wouldn't put it past 'em. The owner (who actually claims to have two in his possession) was kind enough to run it through Quadrant, producing a score of 1759 -- fantastic for a stock device, and a score that'll undoubtedly go through the roof once hackers get their hands on these things and start trimming the fat. Between this, the LU3000, and that unnamed LTE device for Verizon, these guys could be a serious Android force in '11, couldn't they?

LG Star shows up again, flexes its Tegra 2 muscle for the camera originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 02:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cowon 3D is the 1080p-playing, 4.8-inch PMP that just jumps out at you

As far as 3D goes, we can still take it or leave it, but what's really got us intrigued about Cowon's latest effort is the promise of full 1080p video playback. Ally that to a HDMI output and up to 64GB of flash storage and you've got yourself a pretty potent portable media station. The Cowon 3D PMP offers an 800 x 480 resolution on its own 4.8-inch display -- which is touted as the world's first 3D visualizer on a PMP that doesn't require glasses -- plus a battery rated to last for 10 hours of video, 45 hours of audio and up to 300 hours on standby. And, in an upgrade from the recent X7, this new device also has WiFi connectivity! Launch is scheduled for December 10th in Cowon's backyard of South Korea, with prices coming in at KRW499,000 ($431) for the 32GB-equipped 3D PMP and KRW589,000 ($509) for the 64GB version.

[Thanks, Kunal]

Cowon 3D is the 1080p-playing, 4.8-inch PMP that just jumps out at you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple forces PhotoFast to abandon 256GB upgrade kit for MacBook Airs

Remember that peppy aftermarket 256GB SSD upgrade from PhotoFast that easily smoked (on paper anyway) the SSD found in Apple's latest MacBook Air? It's been halted upon Apple's request before it ever went on sale, similarly to those HyperMac batteries before it. 9to5Mac first reported the news based on a source close to the company and we just confirmed it directly with the PhotoFast GM2_SFV1_Air product manager. The risk of losing access to Apple's product licensing program was just too grave a threat to ignore. So, enjoy your 160MBps max SSD transfer rate and 128GB top-end capacity MBA 11 owners, you'll get that storage and 250MBps sequential read/write speed bump only when Apple's good and ready to provide it themselves -- possibly sooner, we're told, if PhotoFast is given the green light to start sales after Toshiba's SSD modules (Apple's MBA partner) are available for purchase.

Apple forces PhotoFast to abandon 256GB upgrade kit for MacBook Airs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 04:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Curated.by Launches Public Beta, Brings Collaborative Curation to the Web

Curated.by - a collaborative curation tool that helps users organize anything and everything with a link, from Wikipedia to Tweets to this here blog post - announced the launch of its public beta today.

The space is heating up, with Storify and Keepstream both making their own efforts, and it will be interesting to see how Curated.by's latest incarnation (it was previously a tool to curate Tweets) pans out in the burgeoning realm of content curation.

Sponsor

Curated.by offered an introduction to the public beta on its blog today:

If you joined us early during our beta, you will notice that many things are different today. Not only did we changed our UI but also the way you collect, organize & discover content on curated.by.

The idea behind curated.by, remains the same. We are a growing collection of topics and interests, edited, organized and curated by everyone. A place that makes it easy to follow a specific topic or an evolving story, something that is still very difficult today.

Now, instead of dragging and dropping Tweets onto the Curated.by page, you tag content by bookmarklet or using a Chrome extension. Curated.by Founder Bastian Lehmann told The Next Web of the old "Bundler" tool that "Most people didn't like it, it was too much work".

We got in touch with Jim England, co-founder of Keepstream, who explained in an email that Curated.by, Keepstream and Storify are all "carving out unique niches on the manual curation front." Curation, he told us, is a space that is "definitely heating up", because as time goes on, users will start following more and more people until it becomes unbearable.

"There will reach a 'breaking point'", wrote England, "where many people will become frustrated with the amount of content they are missing from the firehose and will look to curated sources on particular topics to keep up-to-date."

Both Keepstream and Curated.by started out as social media curation tools, with the differentiation that Keepstream was more personal, while Curated.by was more collaborative. The most recent change - wherein Curated.by changed its focus to links - could be a step backwards.

"Our vision of curation is to connect to actions you are already doing on your social networks (favoriting, retweeting, and liking).  We think that these actions are already curation... individuals are screening and sharing only the best content with their networks, so why don't we take advantage of that?" wrote England, adding "Copying and pasting links is good for stuff you miss, but I don't think it should be the primary input method."

For us, the new incarnation of Curated.by reminds us of a Web we once knew, where content, including websites and not just tweets and Facebook "Likes", were organized into categories for browsing.

What do you think - will a more generalized form of curation, such as the one offered by Curated.by today, take off? Or should we stand atop the shoulders of Twitter and Facebook and go on with our curation from there?

The point may be as moot as whether or not curation is an inherently solo or collaborative effort. Perhaps there is room for both.

Discuss

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Plug an HTML5 Photo Editor Into Your Site With Aviary Feather

Aviary, a New York startup that provides web-based media editing tools, has announced today that it now offers a simple photo editing widget that can be plugged-in to any website with ease. Called Feather, the tool uses HTML5 to let users quickly and easily remove red-eye, add text, crop photos or perform other simple image editing tasks.

Aviary says that the service is free to use but will include premium features later. The tool puts an emphasis on customizability now and will be entirely open sourced later. Site owners can choose between a floating, draggable widget or a lightbox and site visitors can edit images without ever leaving a publisher's page.

Sponsor

Aviary says 9 partner sites will launch Feather integration within the week: Digital Youth Network, Everloop, Fashism, HowMutch, Hyper Public, Market Publique, Rrripple, and Saw You At Sinai and online shopping platform Shopify.

The downsides to integrating 3rd party services like this include:

• the risk of down time that an implementer has no control over


• that changes could be made by the tool creator that don't suit the implementer well.

In response to this concern, Aviary writes the following in its announcement blog post.

In general, our plan is to update Feather with new features every two-three weeks. We plan to inform you in advance of any new feature or option that is available and will provide a testing and feedback platform for you to let us know what works best for your site. We will never introduce a breaking change without giving you ample lead time to make an adjustment and without providing legacy support.

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Chinese man plays MMO on titanic screen, pleads for higher pixel density (video)

Never mind your 103-inch plasmas or Guiness Word Record-holding stadium displays, real gamers do their thing on LCDs that span a cool seven thousand and five hundred square meters (translated into imperial measuring units, that's... a lot!). What you see above is a little glimpse of an MMO enthusiast with a big passion and no less sizable wallet. The gent in question was displeased by the fact a competing guildmaster in the Chinese MMO Magic World Online 2 got to play in an IMAX theater, and therefore decided to one-up him in the only way possible: by hiring Beijing's crazily oversized display (titled "All Beijing, look up!") for a little session of supersized gaming. Jump past the break to see it on video.

Continue reading Chinese man plays MMO on titanic screen, pleads for higher pixel density (video)

Chinese man plays MMO on titanic screen, pleads for higher pixel density (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 04:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New electrowetting technique could do e-paper on real paper, lead to disposable Kindles

Wahey, another day another theoretical display that will revolutionize the world, this time one that fits right in with your disposable, capitalistic lifestyle. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found a new way to utilize electrowetting, modifying the water repellency forces of a given surface to move colored ink and create a reflective display -- a technique that has long been the domain of Liquavista. This new version of that technique enables the creation of e-paper on actual paper, requiring no glass or fancy circuitry and, in theory, creating displays nearly as cheaply as magazines are printed today, opening the door to disposable e-readers and the like. No word on when such devices might be available outside of a lab, but we'll go ahead anyway and take this opportunity to remind you should always recycle your high-tech future e-readers.

New electrowetting technique could do e-paper on real paper, lead to disposable Kindles originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 06:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Most Helpful Ways to Use Google Voice that You're Not Using [Video]

Google Voice is suddenly everywhere—in Gmail, Android devices, and now even on iPhones. Beyond the basic call/text/voicemail services, though, Google Voice can do some pretty incredible things. Here's a look at the more unusual—and unusually helpful—alternate uses.

If you're just getting into Google Voice and all its call-routing, free-SMS-sending, and voicemail-transcribing ways, we'd suggest taking a glance at our tips on easing your transition to Google Voice and these 10 clever Google Voice tricks. Also, if you're signed up for Google Voice, but as a voicemail-only user, take note that not all of these uses may be available to you (but most are).

The Killer Alternate Number

Signing up for the "full" Google Voice service provides you with a new number in your area code of choice. Maybe you don't want to change a number you've had for a while, though, or you just can't bear to switch again. Here are some clever uses for that free Google Voice phone number that don't involve completely changing your number.

Permanent Emergency Contact Number:

Rather than provide your own number, your spouse or parents' numbers, and try to be on top of any changes that occur in perpetuity, set up a Google Voice number and give that out as your emergency number. Hook that number up to your phones and any other emergency contacts' phones, and swap them in and out as your lives progress.

Get a Second Number in Another Area

If you're keeping your standard cellular number, but you'd like to get a number in another area code for logistics or appearances, grabbing a Google Voice number is a free and fairly pain-free way to do it. But what if you already have a Google Voice number and would like a second? Do what reader Phillip did and set that number as a "home" or "work" for the second account (or on both accounts, if you plan to use them equally). Your secondary number won't be able to forward text messages through standard SMS, but you can have them emailed to you instantly. On most smartphones these days, that's as good as SMS.

Trade Pre-Paid/Trac Phones Under One Number

If you're not a heavy phone talker, or you just like the contract-free nature of pay-as-you-go phones, you can at least keep the same incoming number without having to go through a manual switch by hooking those phones into your Google Voice number. Dialing out isn't as convenient, but can be made easier, once you learn your contacts' Voice-specific numbers (detailed by Gina).

Hand Out Your Voice Number, Then Screen It

It's not really a hidden or even obscure feature of Google Voice, but the depth of call screening, filtering, and blocking in the service likely goes unexplored. If you're not dedicated to your Voice number, you can have your contacts keep calling your trusted number. Your Voice number? Give it out to companies or pepole you know will be phone-spamming you, or use it on personal business card (or discrete slips of paper). You can have Voice make each caller say their name and present it for you before taking the call, and set offenders of your free time to always go to a specific voicemail. Truly egregious jerks can even be sent to what sounds like a wrong number. Now, that—that is sweet justice.

The Free Voice-to-Text Transcription Service (for More than Just Voicemail)

Google Voice's voicemail transcribing powers are far from infallible, but it's often good enough to get the gist—especially if you're the one talking, and you know how to speak steady and clearly.

Create a Searchable Personal Dictation Machine

Calling your own voicemail to speak your own ideas is weird. Emailing yourself while driving is deadly. Instead, set up Google Voice to take a call from your own number, transcribe it, and keep it stored in your Voice or Gmail database, or forwarded to any service you use. We turn to Mark Stout's setup and Drew Vogel's idea for inspiration. Vogel sends along his messages to Outlook, while Stout keeps his stashed in Evernote. Mix and modify to fit your own speech-as-text needs.

Blog or Write to Other Services

You can set up Google Voice to blog to a WordPress site when you leave a voicemail, as MakeUseOf.com details. We'd recommend expanding their filter to require an activating word, so that not all of your self-dialed voicemails end up on your site, but it's a great picture overall of how Voice's transcribe-then-email function can interact with any web service that functions through automated email checking.

The Phone Upgrade Tool

By its very nature, Google Voice makes your phones smarter by knowing when to ring them, and ringing them all from one number. But it has a few unofficial ways to save you money and boost your phone's own convenience powers.

The Bill Reducer

Google Voice officially offers free calls through Gmail, but there are other ways you can connect through the service to call for free. We covered one VoIP setup that basically turns Voice into a Skype-like service, and there are solutions for Android phones, too—the How-To Geek's compendium offers an updated how-to on connecting Android to SIPgate. And while Google Voice's official smartphone apps now connect you through individual dialing numbers, you can make what you know will be a long call a freebie by assigning your Google Voice number as one of "your 5" on your cellular plan—just call your own Voice number, then dial out from the menu prompt.

Add Contacts Faces as Speed Dial Icons on an iPhone

There are apps that create custom shortcuts for iPhone screens; some of them require jailbreaking. Using a Google Voice account and a little Web Clip magic to add Google Voice visual speed dialing to an iPhone. It's a little wonky to do over and over, but once you've set up one or two important contacts, you get access to all their numbers, right from your home screen.

Set Recurring or Temporary Quiet Hours on Your Phone

In the Advanced Settings area of Google Voice's Phones menu on the web, you can set the times in which each hooked-up phone will ring. But if you're about to hit crunch mode, or you should otherwise be without rings or buzzes, you can set up a do-not-disturb timer on your account for X minutes, hours, days, or weeks.

The Automatic Voicemail Forwarding Service

If you're in a long-term relationship, you know that sometimes the two members of the team often assume that each person knows everything the other person has heard from friends, relatives, and other contacts. Google Voice itself can only forward all or none of its messages to certain email addresses—but if you forward to a Gmail address, you can then use your Gmail Master filtering skills to have certain messages automatically forwarded to others (i.e. "has the words: 'New voicemail from Dave'"). That way, when the contractor calls and says the appliance delivery is set for Monday at 9 a.m., nobody's left wondering if they'll come home to a refrigerator on the lawn.

The Tool That Turns Gmail Into a Land Line

Adam already covered eight ways to put Google Voice to use in Gmail. The theme of the batch? With Voice calling available from inside Gmail, your regular workstation—desktop, laptop, or other—can serve as a kind of VoIP land line. Switch your calls from your cell to your PC to save on minutes, take a speakerphone or conference call through Gmail, use the pop-up call windows as a form of instant caller ID, and get more control over call recording—just as if the boss had given you one of those fancy phones from the 90s with all the 80+ buttons.

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We racked our brains, asked our friends, and dug through the deep archives to find these nifty uses of Google's free phone service. What do you use Google Voice for that's not on the label? What's the cleverest Voice hack you've seen? Tell us about it in the comments, and we'll add it to the post and give you the glory.

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How to Get the Best Deals with All Your Online Shopping [Deal Week]

Online shopping can quickly become overwhelming during the holiday season. Here's how to stay organized, focused, and keep on top of all the great deals when shopping online.

Deal Monitoring Browser Extensions

It's easy enough to check deal sites, like DealNews and Dealzon, for the best price, but it's just as easy to forget. Browser extensions PriceBlink and Invisible Hand both handle this problem by suggesting a lower price for any item you're shopping for if it finds one. There are subtle differences between the two extensions, but for the most part they're the same. Notably, PriceBlink will also provide related coupons and mail-in rebates, even when they apply globally to any store, and Invisible Hand will suggest low prices during a Google search. You'll be served equally well by either extensions, but many users have their preferences (we're pretty split here at Lifehacker) so we're offering you both.

PriceBlink  •  Invisible Hand

Coupons, Coupons, Coupons

Before you buy anything, check for a coupon. Even if you don't have one, you can generally find one online through a number of web sites. While there are a bunch of options, RetailMeNot is particularly easy to use. You just search for the store you're looking for and it'll display a bunch of coupon codes. RetailMeNot also displays success rates for each coupon so you can see how it worked for others. If you don't want to have to visit the site each time you're going to buy something, RetailMeNot also has a browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, letting you check for relevant coupons while shopping on a specific site.

Monitor Your Daily Deals

In addition to your basic coupon searches, you should keep an eye on group coupon sites like Groupon and LivingSocial. Many have plans to offer their best deals during the holiday shopping season and you may be able to save quite a bit of money by keeping a watchful eye.

Daily deal sites like Woot! are also great to watch, as you can often find an item you're looking for at a huge discount (especially if someone on your gift list wants a refurbished flat screen television or a Roomba). Check daily to be sure you don't miss out on anything good. If you want to make things even easier, you can install the Woot! Watcher browser extension for Chrome or Firefox.

Stay Organized with Wish Lists

Keeping track of all your online shopping can be a lot of work, so it's best if you keep everything nicely organized. A shopping list on a piece of paper, or with a great to-do app, will work just fine, but you can make things a lot simpler with wish lists. Amazon's Wishlist is a great choice because you can add products outside of Amazon and organize multiple lists. With browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, as well as a wish list bookmarklet for other browsers, you can browse to any product page and quickly add a product to any of your lists. When you've got everything organized you can tackle all your buying quickly by going down your wish list.

Amazon Wish List | Chrome • Firefox • Safari

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Got any great tips for getting the best deals for online shopping? Let's hear 'em in the comments!

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Nielsen: 31 percent of kids want an iPad, other stuff

Hey look, a chart with the iPad on top. Aren't statistics fun? And yet, this chart may not mean quite what you think it does. The Nielsen Company presented a cadre of individuals with a list of nice, shiny gadgets and let them cross off anything and everything they'd like to buy in the next six months, and 31 percent of kids 6-12 picked the iPad as one of them. That doesn't mean these youngsters wanted the iPad any more than a game console, mind you, it just means more of them picked the tablet than any other single game console on the list. Also, it turns out that the iPad was the only tablet PC available, so it could well ave served as a proxy vote for other slates -- Galaxy Tab, anyone? The survey results also don't factor in ownership, so if the Xbox 360's low on the buy list, it could be because respondents already have one... but we suppose this is the definitive proof we've been searching for that e-readers are on the outs in the 12-and-under crowd. Jeff Bezos is crying over his evening oatmeal right now. After the break, see what the same chart looks like for teenagers and adults. (Hint: they aren't all that hot on handhelds.)

Continue reading Nielsen: 31 percent of kids want an iPad, other stuff

Nielsen: 31 percent of kids want an iPad, other stuff originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 00:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Data Visualization, Visualized [Chart]

We love nice charts and data visualization. That's why we like this meta-chart: Data visualization, visualized. Design, user interface, information, data journalism, communication and visual communication, merging. [Ffunction]

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Want To See What Your iPad Videos Look Like Projected at 100 Inches? [Video]

I'll happily watch a TV show on the iPad by myself, but once you start trying to share that screen things get crowded. MicroVision's SHOWWX+ pico projector, designed specifically for iOS devices, projects their videos at 100 glorious inches.

The SHOWWX+ laser projector is 50% brighter than its predecessor, throwing video at 15 lumens with a 5,000:1 contrast ratio for 2 hours with a built-in battery. It's designed specifically for iPads, iPhones, and iPod Touches, so it has a dock connector and can project all your Netflix goodies without any DRM hang-ups.

Because it's a laser projector, the SHOWWX+ has "infinite focus," as MicroVision calls it, allowing the image to be projected crisply on curved surfaces, or when the device isn't perfectly perpendicular to the surface it's projecting on. Its native resolution is 848 x 480, not quite HD, and it includes composite cables in the box for non iOS devices. But pair this thing with some AirPlay speakers and your iPad theater just got a lot more compelling. Available now for $450. [MicroVision via Wired]

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