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Monday, January 31, 2011

Scientists stumble upon bomb-sniffing laser with a boomerang effect

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/scientists-stumble-upon-bomb-sniffing-laser-with-a-boomerang-eff/

You might think of a laser as light forced into a single, directed beam, but scientists have recently discovered that if you fire a laser in one direction, the air itself can fire another right back. Using a 226nm UV pump laser, researchers at Princeton University managed to excite oxygen atoms to the point that they emit infrared light along the same channel as the original beam, except this time pointed back where it came from. Since the return beam's chemistry depends on the particles in the air to generate the return beam, the "backward laser" could potentially carry the signature of those particles back to the source and help identify them there. That seems to be the entire goal, in fact -- the project, funded by an Office of Naval Research program on "Sciences Addressing Asymmetric Explosive Threats," hopes that such a laser can ID bombs from a distance by hunting for trace chemicals in the air. Sounds like the perfect addition to our terahertz specs, and one step closer to the tricorder of our dreams.

Scientists stumble upon bomb-sniffing laser with a boomerang effect originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Leak: Motorola Atrix 4G's Dock Will Cost Just $60? [Cellphones]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5747567/leak-motorola-atrix-4gs-dock-will-cost-just-60

It looks like our product-of-CES will cost $200 all-in, if leaked retailers' prices are correct. We'd heard last week that the phone itself will cost $150, and now the dock looks like it could be just $60.

This isn't just any old dock, capable of charging your smartphone. It actually connects the Atrix phone to a laptop or computer, running Motorola's apps right there on the other screen. The dock itself has three USB ports for connecting keyboards, mice or external hard drives, plus there's also a microHDMI port.

Intriguingly, the retailer which leaked the dock's price, Fommy.com, has also got a pre-order page up for a more basic dock, for $50.

Supposedly the Atrix 4G will go on sale in February (with the 11th having been bandied about before), so we don't have too long to wait before all these rumored prices are confirmed. [Fommy via WirelessGoodness via Androidandme]

NewerTech adapter turns eSATA into USB 3.0, makes legacy external HDDs feel young again

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/newertech-adapter-turns-esata-into-usb-3-0-makes-legacy-externa/

There's a powder-blue USB 3.0 port on the side of your shiny new computer, whispering your name, but you simply can't afford to replace your perfectly good eSATA external hard drive for the sake of compatibility. You could simply resist the urge entirely, but if you have the need for speed, there's a USB 3.0 to eSATA adapter with your name on it, and it just might come in a NewerTech case. Sure, Addonics, Siig and Bytecc sell similar, but as Everything USB points out, NewerTech did the legwork here, benchmarking the cable to be sure it could handle 206.4MB / sec writes and 247MB / sec reads. That's enough to handle most solid state drives, and you should be completely covered when it comes to anything with spinning magnetic plates. You'll find it for $30 this week at the likes of OWC.

Continue reading NewerTech adapter turns eSATA into USB 3.0, makes legacy external HDDs feel young again

NewerTech adapter turns eSATA into USB 3.0, makes legacy external HDDs feel young again originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 01:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG G-Slate makes guest appearance on MysteryGuitarMan's YouTube channel (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/lg-g-slate-makes-guest-appearance-on-mysteryguitarmans-youtube/

LG's promotional strategy for the G-Slate seems to be to keep officially mum about the device, while letting random pseudo-celebrities tease it out in brief glimpses. A week ago, K-Pop artist Seungri gave us our first sighting of the dual-camera array on the back of the G-Slate, which has today made its triumphant return to YouTube, courtesy of one MysteryGuitarMan. The rear of the device here doesn't look identical to the one in Seungri's video, however the metallic strip separating the cams and its "with Google" branding look nearly identical to what LG has on the back of its Optimus 2X Android smartphone. We're also seeing a single LED flash for the first time, there are a couple of unidentified connectors at the bottom, at least one of them likely to assist docking in landscape mode, and we do get to see the tablet in profile for an idea of how thin it is. Video after the break.

Continue reading LG G-Slate makes guest appearance on MysteryGuitarMan's YouTube channel (video)

LG G-Slate makes guest appearance on MysteryGuitarMan's YouTube channel (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 02:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

@KevinLyHD (Twitter) | source

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AMD has a 5W Fusion APU to put in your future tablet of choice

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/31/amd-has-a-5w-fusion-apu-to-put-in-your-future-tablet-of-choice/

The same Singapore event that brought us our first look at AMD's humongous Radeon HD 6990 has also served as the stage for the company's first showing of a new, even lower-powered Fusion APU. The regular dual-core Ontario (C-50) variant requires a 9W power budget to operate, but AMD's managed to shrink that down to 5W in a chip designed specifically to be used in tablets. Clock speed remains at 1GHz and the core count hasn't bee touched, but the memory controller has been dumbed down and peripheral ports have been reduced to one of each type. This streamlined C-50 has already found a home in Acer's 10.1-inch Windows 7 tablet and should prove decently popular among manufacturers looking for an x86 alternative to the coming tidal wave of ARM-based devices.

AMD has a 5W Fusion APU to put in your future tablet of choice originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 06:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Softpedia, Netbook News | source

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Sunday, January 30, 2011

Intel's mSATA SSD 310 reviewed: a pint-size performer through and through

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/29/intels-msata-ssd-310-reviewed-a-pint-size-performer-through-an/

The forecast for speedy, razor-thin laptops is looking pretty sunny right about now, because it seems Intel's SSD 310 truly does bring the power of a full-sized solid state drive on a tiny little board. Storage Review and The SSD Review thoroughly benchmarked the tiny 80GB mSATA module this week, and found it performs even better than advertised -- easily tearing through 200MB / sec reads and 70 MB / sec writes -- which put it slightly behind Intel's legendary X25-M series but well ahead of the company's X25-V boot drives. While we're still not seeing Sandforce speeds from Intel's tried-and-true controller and 34nm silicon and they might not make Toshiba's Blade run for the hills, we can't wait to test it out in some new Lenovo ThinkPads when they integrate the SSD 310 later this year. Oh, by the way, that big green board up above isn't the drive. It's actually the tiny one on top.

Intel's mSATA SSD 310 reviewed: a pint-size performer through and through originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 16:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olympus XZ-1 reviewed: $499 for sweet simplicity

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/30/olympus-xz-1-reviewed-499-for-sweet-simplicity-in-a-compact-sh/

We had a feeling the Olympus XZ-1 would be a winner, and Digital Photography Review seems to think so, too -- it called the 10 megapixel, full-manual point and shoot "the best photographers' compact currently available" at the end of a thorough review. Most of the praise was heaped on that F1.8-2.5 Zuiko lens, providing an "unbeaten combination of range and brightness" whose potent, detailed low-light performance was practically enough to cancel out the publication's worries about the lack of a adjustable noise reduction setting. Though the publication admitted that the camera lacked the customization of certain Micro Four Thirds cousins, it didn't miss most of the advanced controls, preferring the streamlined menus and manual dials for easy access to common adjustments. (Battery charging over USB and a dedicated movie button were also deemed nice touches.) In fact, the only major ding DPReview had for Olympus was the complete omission of auto exposure and autofocus locks for focus-and-recompose shooting, but if you're willing to snap shots using Olympus's 11 AF points and aren't looking to tote a set of expensive interchangeable lenses around, this might be the one. Dive into our source link to find out for sure.

Olympus XZ-1 reviewed: $499 for sweet simplicity originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, January 28, 2011

Nook Color earns its very early, very unofficial Android 3.0 Honeycomb wings

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/nook-color-earns-its-very-eary-very-unofficial-android-3-0-hone/

One of the first things that happens after a new platform emulator breaks loose is that a bunch of hackers far smarter than ourselves get hold of it, tear it apart, and port it to whatever's convenient. In the case of this week's Android 3.0 Honeycomb preview, "whatever's convenient" would be the Nook Color, which reigns as perhaps the cheapest decent-quality Android tablet money can currently buy. Naturally, xda-developers has a thread going on the subject as we speak; the current port is said to be really slow and mostly broken -- but then again, that kind of describes the current state of the emulator itself. Good news is that the developer says he plans on working on graphics acceleration to improve performance over the weekend, so with any luck, the Xoom might have some unofficial competition before too long. Follow the break for another shot.

[Thanks, s30zgt]

Continue reading Nook Color earns its very early, very unofficial Android 3.0 Honeycomb wings

Nook Color earns its very early, very unofficial Android 3.0 Honeycomb wings originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qwiki Is Like a Mini, Visually-Rich Wikipedia That Reads to You [Webapp]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5744339/qwiki-is-like-a-mini-visually+rich-wikipedia-that-reads-to-you

Qwiki is a new webapp that helps you learn about virtually anything, but aims to inform you quickly by reading the articles to you while showing you a slideshow of pictures while you listen.

Qwiki was announced awhile back but just launched to the public—as an alpha release—this week. When I first heard about it I thought it sounded kind of stupid—why do I need a web site to read to me, especially in a computerized voice?—but after giving it a try you'll come to see what it's compelling. It doesn't hurt that it's nice to look at (the format of the slideshows are especially creative), but each article is so concise yet sufficiently informative that you can brush up on any topic in about a minute and actually feel like you know a fair amount about it. It's one of those things you have to try.

Of course, it's not perfect. The page on George Orwell is far more compelling than, say, the page on Lifehacker. This is primarily because there's only one picture of the Lifehacker site and several pictures related to George Orwell (and other featured topics). The difference really demonstrates how effective the slideshow can be. Their computerized voice also needs a little work on her pronunciations, as I imagine Jizmodo would be a very different kind of blog. Again, it's an alpha release, so we should see improvements and more content as time goes on. Right now, it's pretty cool and definitely worth a look.

You can contact Adam Dachis, the author of this post, at adachis@lifehacker.com. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Toshiba Used Nano-Technology For This Color-Changing Laptop [Laptops]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5745828/toshiba-used-nano+technology-for-this-color+changing-laptop

Considering most of Toshiba's laptops have a design only their R&D department can love, they must've turned to the mood rings of yesteryear for styling inspiration with their Dynabook Qosmio T750. Supposedly it's the first-ever color-changing laptop.

Unfortunately it doesn't change color like a chameleon, but instead uses nano-technology for the metallic look, which changes from green through to blue and then purple. The effect was achieved without using any metal, making it kinder to the environment according to Toshiba.

Under all that gloss, there are some powerful components ticking away to ensure it's got brains as well as beauty: there's a 2.66GHz Intel Core i5-480M, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, plus a 750GB HDD. The laptop itseld measures 15.6-inches, and has a 1366 x 768 resolution screen. For now, it's only available to our Japanese friends. [JapanToday via The Earth Times and RegHardware - Thanks, Yogesh!]

Stanford researchers demo social NFC applications on the Nexus S

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/stanford-researchers-demo-social-nfc-applications-on-the-nexus-s/

To hear most mobile companies tell it these days, you'd think that NFC (or near field communications) is only for mobile payments. That's not the case at all, of course, and a group of researchers at Stanford's MobiSocial lab have now thrown a few new ideas of their own onto the table after getting a pair of Nexus S phones to play with. After first making a few tweaks to overcome some of Gingerbread's limitations -- it only uses NFC for reading tags -- they were able to develop a few social-minded applications that make use of the P2P functionality possible with NFC. That includes one example that lets you share photos simply by pressing two phones together, and a second that lets two phones share an application -- collaborative whiteboard, in this case. Unfortunately, those aforementioned tweaks to Android mean you can try out the apps yourself just yet, but the researchers are hopeful that similar applications will eventually be supported by Android and other platforms. Head on past the break to check them out on video.

Continue reading Stanford researchers demo social NFC applications on the Nexus S

Stanford researchers demo social NFC applications on the Nexus S originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI's Windows 7-based WindPad 100W now on sale for $710

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/msis-windows-7-based-windpad-100w-now-on-sale-for-710/

MSI's first entry into the wild, wonderful, and oftentimes wishy-washy world of tablets is now on sale, but frankly, we aren't too sure we'd be jumping to hand over our $710 -- er, $709.95 -- for the WindPad 100W. The retailer is Simply Electronics, which just so happens to rank a few rungs below Amazon in terms of heardability-ness. At any rate, those willing to take a flying leap of faith should expect a 10.1-inch device loaded up with Windows 7 Starter, Intel's Atom Z530 1.6GHz single-core processor, 2GB of memory a 32GB SSD and a battery that'll keep things humming for around six hours. Here's hoping it'll perform better than that first wave of Win7 tablets, and you know, that you actually receive one.

MSI's Windows 7-based WindPad 100W now on sale for $710 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Laptoping | source

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Motorola will enable Atrix 4G's 1080p video recording in post-launch software update

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/motorola-will-enable-atrix-4gs-1080p-video-recording-in-post-la/

The software on Motorola's upcoming Atrix 4G has already been subject to some stern (and premature) scrutiny, but here's some rather more concrete information about it, courtesy of the company's own spec page for the device. As it turns out, Moto intends to launch the Atrix with some of its hardware capabilities clipped -- specifically its Tegra 2-derived power to encode 1080p content -- but will deliver them to users in an update (hopefully soon) thereafter. LG's Optimus 2X, which is built around the same dual-core chip from NVIDIA, has been spending its time before launch showing off exactly what those 1080p encoding skills can deliver -- both with video recording and through its HDMI connection -- so it'll be a downer for Moto fans to learn that their hallowed new superphone won't be able to match up at launch. Then again, when we think about how often phone makers fail to tap the full potential of their hardware, maybe we should just be happy that 1080p abilities are coming to the Atrix at all, eh?

[Thanks, Mr. techcrunch]

Motorola will enable Atrix 4G's 1080p video recording in post-launch software update originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 02:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fujitsu's tablet is easy like a hammer, cozy as a scarf, and never scratchy like Windows 7 (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/fujitsus-tablet-is-easy-like-a-hammer-cozy-as-a-scarf-and-nev/

There's no denying that Meinolf Althaus brings some personality to an otherwise stoic slate. Good thing too, because the idea of Fujitsu and Microsoft spawning a stylus-driven tablet from a session of ugly-bumping doesn't elicit much excitement in the burgeoning tablet space. Enter Mr. Althaus who begins his lesson with an explanation that software user elements must be based on recognition and not on something that's remembered. You know, like a hammer (or Fujitsu's new slate) which is obvious in its usability and function. He then likens the current crop of consumer-based tablets to chocolate bars: they're great for consumption but do little to help with content creation unlike Fujitsu's Windows-based slate that's optimized for corporations -- spreadsheets naturally, not music or illustrations. The highlight, however, has to be the point in the video where he equates the Windows 7 user experience to a "scratchy" kitchen sponge that's useful for utilitarian tasks like cleaning the dishes. Fujitsu's tablet, he contends, is "cozy" like a silk scarf thanks to a custom-built layer that sits on top of the standard Win7 desktop. Brilliant. We'll take two... Meinolfs that is. You will too after watching the video embedded after the break.

[Thanks, Hanson]

Continue reading Fujitsu's tablet is easy like a hammer, cozy as a scarf, and never scratchy like Windows 7 (video)

Fujitsu's tablet is easy like a hammer, cozy as a scarf, and never scratchy like Windows 7 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 05:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xbox veteran Ed Fries joins Razer in an advisory role, probably to work on something awesome

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/xbox-veteran-ed-fries-joins-razer-in-an-advisory-role-probably/

What do you do after spending nearly three decades tinkering with software -- from the humble Atari, through Microsoft Office, and into the modernity of Xbox gaming? Well, in Ed Fries' case, we're guessing you go to CES, find the wildest, most awesome gaming concept around, and sign up with its maker to help guide its development. Again, we're guessing that's what Ed's done, we can't know for sure what he'll be doing as a member of Razer's Board of Advisors, but there's no denying the proximity of the Switchblade's announcement and his joining the gaming peripheral company. Even if the kindly gent's focus isn't on Razer's portable gaming device, we imagine he'll be a good influence on other products going forward. After all, when has it ever been a bad idea to have more veterans on your team?

[Thanks, JL]

Continue reading Xbox veteran Ed Fries joins Razer in an advisory role, probably to work on something awesome

Xbox veteran Ed Fries joins Razer in an advisory role, probably to work on something awesome originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 06:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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