Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Fring optimizes its four-way video calling app for smiley iPad 2 owners

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/fring-optimizes-its-four-way-video-calling-app-for-smiley-ipad-2/

Fring

Sure, you could have fired up Fring to make four-way video calls from your iPad 2 this whole time, but you'd have saddled with an iPhone-sized interface on your 9.7-inch IPS screen. And, as we say around the Engadget compound -- tablet optimized or get the frack out. OK, we don't really say that, but everything is better when it's designed for the screen you intend to use it on. So, we're very pleased to tell you that Fring has been updated with proper iPad support (cue cheers). Basically there's no reason to use Facetime now, with its lame single-caller and WiFi only limitations. Hit up the source link if you're in the group video chatting mood.

Fring optimizes its four-way video calling app for smiley iPad 2 owners originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

SlashGear | source

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Sony's new VAIO Z ultraportable laptop with Power Media Dock hands-on

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/sonys-new-vaio-z-ultraportable-laptop-with-power-media-dock-han/

Now that we've seen Sony's new VAIO Z in its luscious press shots, it's time to face reality and lay our itchy hands on this 13-inch ultraportable laptop, along with its eccentric expansion dock that packs both a Blu-ray drive and an AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics chip (with 1GB of video RAM). Said dock is connected to the notebook via Light Peak -- a first for Sony -- but there's a catch: Sony's only implementing the architecture and not the connector, so for the time being, this sweet high speed connection is only compatible with the docking unit and nothing else.

Anyhow, here's a quick recap: what we have here is a 1.18kg feather-light machine packing a 256GB SSD and 1.3 megapixel webcam, plus a matte LCD display with resolution at 1600 x 900 or an optional 1920 x 1080. Oh yes, for an extra cost, you get some sweet full HD action at just 13 inches. This upgraded display performed well in the relatively dark confines of the press event, but how it fares under direct sunlight remains to be seen. Read on for more hands-on impression.

Gallery: Sony VAIO Z hands-on

Gallery: Sony VAIO Z components

Continue reading Sony's new VAIO Z ultraportable laptop with Power Media Dock hands-on

Sony's new VAIO Z ultraportable laptop with Power Media Dock hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 07:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google's Goggles App Brings The Getty Museum To Life [Google]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5816049/google-goggles-now-brings-getty-museum-artworks-to-life

Google Goggles is getting all museum-y on us. Google has partnered with the Getty Museum to let visitors photograph artwork with Goggles and receive a guided virtual tour in exchange.

Google Goggles, the scanning app that promises to identify everything from your soup can to your local landmark, can now pull content down from the Getty Museum's mobile website. Visitors can read about the museum's artwork and listen to commentary from artists and curators. Some characters within the painting can even come to life with lively conversation provided by Getty.

It's an interesting mix that links a mobile app with web-based content. Because the content is on the internet and not embedded in the app, it can be refreshed quickly and easily. It also works outside the museum setting. Anytime you see a work of art plastered within an advertisement, you can grab a photo and find out more about its non-marketing origins. [Google]

A Must Have Apartment For Millionaire Clock Lovers [Desired]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5816065/a-must-have-apartment-for-millionaire-clock-lovers

This Brooklyn apartment has everything you desire. Privacy, space and a breath-taking panoramic view that will knock your socks off.

The $23.5 million penthouse apartment has four clock-styled windows that gaze upon Manhattan, the Statue of Liberty, and both the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. You can rest in one of its three bedrooms or solitude in one of its three bathrooms which have stone floors with radiant heat. Oh, the decadence of warm feet in the winter.

For the geeky folk, it's located in the converted 1914 Clock Tower building which was outfitted with 12-speed CAT wiring and Smart Home technology that lets you control the A/C, lighting and AV system. The Clock Tower apartment has been off an on the market since 2009, likely due to its exorbitant price tag. Anyone with a rich uncle or two?
[GHK Realty via Core77]

HP Envy 14 Beats Edition gets a slice of Sandy Bridge silicon, costs $1,050 at Amazon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/hp-envy-14-beats-edition-gets-a-slice-of-sandy-bridge-silicon-c/

HP's Envy 14 is quite the looker of a laptop, with its etched aluminum skin beckoning you to explore the capabilities of the Sandy Bridge CPU that lies beneath. For those who prefer the murdered-out look, the HP Envy Beats Edition is the preferable PC, but until now it lacked the upgraded Intel innards of its showy stablemate. That's right, Amazon's offering a second-gen Intel Core i5-2410M chip clocked at 2.3 GHz to go with those dark Dr. Dre aesthetics you crave (oddly it's not yet for sale on HP's website). The inky Envy with the big red "B" is priced at $1,050, or half a hundred more than its equivalently-equipped cousin -- what, you thought the paint job was free?

HP Envy 14 Beats Edition gets a slice of Sandy Bridge silicon, costs $1,050 at Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP TouchPad veers into stores early, flaunts its webOS moves (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/hp-touchpad-veers-into-stores-early-flaunts-its-webos-moves-vi/

Dying to get your hands on HP's TouchPad before it's available on July 1st? According to Pre Central, a visit to either Best Buy or Walmart may afford you the opportunity. During the past few days, the stores have apparently begun quietly displaying demo-loaded versions of the slate. The device went up for pre-order about a week ago, but for webOS hopefuls still contemplating whether to take the Palm-rooted plunge, a pre-release impression may not be a bad grab between socks and motor oil. Don't feel like taking a trip to Wally World, you say? You'll find a video overview past the break; although the box to the left has us wondering if now's a good time for getting lucky...

Continue reading HP TouchPad veers into stores early, flaunts its webOS moves (video)

HP TouchPad veers into stores early, flaunts its webOS moves (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 22:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Palm Infocenter | source

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rbrown530 (YouTube), PreCentral (1), (2) | Email this | Comments

Sony's ultraslim 13-inch VAIO Z laptop revealed in Europe, packs external GPU for power on demand

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/sony-ultra-slim-13-inch-vaio-z-laptop-revealed-in-europe-packs/

Turns out those leaked shots we saw of Sony's new VAIO Z laptop were right on the money as the company showed it off officially today for the European press. The specs reveal a 13.1-inch "ultramobile" notebook that comes in at under 1.2kg with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, 1600x900 screen and sheet battery borrowed from the earlier VAIO S for up to 7 hours of computing. Onboard it features only Intel's HD Graphics 3000 solution but the VAIO Z beats other ultralights with its Power Media Dock, which contributes the power of an AMD Radeon 6650M GPU with 1GB of dedicated memory connected via "the architecture codenamed Light Peak" -- Sony can't call it Thunderbolt -- when more polygons have to be pushed. The dock sports one USB 3.0 hookup plus additional USB, VGA and HDMI ports, and a slot for either a DVD or Blu-ray drive. ~~There's no word on a price yet~~, but it is promised to ship by the end of July in Europe so if the full specs (included after the break) are appealing then you don't have much time to save up.

Update: Head over to the Sony UK site to configure one yourself -- pricing starts at £1,434 ($2,294) with a Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and no PMD. The dock is a £400 ($640) option with no optical drive included, while upgrading to a 1080p 13.1-inch LCD is a mere £40 extra.

Gallery: Sony VAIO Z

Continue reading Sony's ultraslim 13-inch VAIO Z laptop revealed in Europe, packs external GPU for power on demand

Sony's ultraslim 13-inch VAIO Z laptop revealed in Europe, packs external GPU for power on demand originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Akihabara News | source

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Sony Europe (PR), Sony UK store | Email this | Comments

What do you love, asks Google with a new portal to its many web services

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/28/what-do-you-love-asks-google-with-a-new-portal-to-its-many-web/

Say hello to your new online friend, wdyl.com. An eagle-eyed TechCrunch tipster spotted this freshly launched Google portal, whose purpose it seems to be to gather up all of the company's multifarious web services under one umbrella. A Google search for Google products, in other words. Punching in a topic brings up its popularity in Google Trends, lets you set up Google Alerts, plan related events in Google Calendar, email someone in Gmail, or hit up Picasa, YouTube or Google News with the same query. You get the picture. It hasn't yet been made official and hitting up the site without the "www." prefix throws up a bad URL error at the moment, but it's there and seemingly fully functional. Give it a try and let us know which search terms bring up the most humorous results.

What do you love, asks Google with a new portal to its many web services originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 02:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TechCrunch | source

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Monday, June 27, 2011

Apple's A6 processor may come courtesy of TSMC, Samsung left to wonder why

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/apples-a6-processor-may-come-courtesy-of-tsmc-samsung-left-to/

Apple's fondness for anorexic handhelds knows no bounds, and if this alleged deal with the Asian foundry holds water, expect to see its waistband tighten further. Rumoured back before the iPad 2 launch, the house-that-Steve-built's reportedly been eyeing Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp to produce an 'A6' for its upcoming iPhone refresh. While it's easy to dismiss this purported move as a direct diss to Samsung, what's more likely is that Cupertino's engaging in a competitive bit of size does matter -- specifically, the A5's 45nm process. A transition to newer, lower power 28nm ARM chips would give Jonathan Ives' employer a distinct market advantage, dwarfing even TSMC's current 40nm in the process. While it's all still just speculation for now, only time and an iPhone 5 tear-down will tell for sure.

Apple's A6 processor may come courtesy of TSMC, Samsung left to wonder why originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This Is My Next | source

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Ars Technica | Email this | Comments

NVIDIA teases a pair of mystery laptop GPUs running Crysis 2 (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/nvidia-teases-a-pair-of-mystery-laptop-gpus-running-crysis-2-vi/

Did someone say controlled leak? NVIDIA's come clean about the fact that it has some news to share tomorrow, but until then, it's being oh-so demure about what it has up its sleeve. Behold, an unnamed GPU -- two of 'em, in fact! -- running Crysis 2 in SLI mode. What you see in the short clip below is the DirectX11 version of the game running at 1080p resolution with tesselation enabled and a high-resolution texture pack. All told, the game appears to play smoothly, even with the settings cranked to the max. So just what is this thing? Looks like we'll find out in the morn, folks.

Continue reading NVIDIA teases a pair of mystery laptop GPUs running Crysis 2 (video)

NVIDIA teases a pair of mystery laptop GPUs running Crysis 2 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer's AC700 Chromebook coming to the US this month for $350, 3G model arriving later this summer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/27/acers-ac700-chromebook-coming-to-the-us-this-month-for-350-to/

Samsung's beautiful-but-pricey Series 5 Chromebook too rich for your blood? Fear not, cloud-dwellers. Acer just announced that its Chromebook, dubbed the AC700, will go on sale in the states this month for $349.99, to be followed by a 3G-equipped version later this summer. If you're part of the niche market that would happily live in Chrome OS in exchange for instant-on access, be advised that it runs on an Atom N570 processor and 2GB of RAM, and has 16GB of flash storage, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, two USB 2.0 ports, and a 4-in-1 memory card reader. We'll be curious to see how the build quality compares to the Series 5's, though for some people, that $70 price gulf will render that a moot point. PR after the break.

Gallery: Acer AC700 Chromebook

Continue reading Acer's AC700 Chromebook coming to the US this month for $350, 3G model arriving later this summer

Acer's AC700 Chromebook coming to the US this month for $350, 3G model arriving later this summer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panopticlick Determines How Unique and Trackable Your Browser Is, Even with Cookies Turned Off [Privacy]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5815856/panopticlick-determines-how-unique-and-trackable-your-browser-is-even-with-cookies-turned-off

Webapp Panopticlick examines how unique and trackable your browser fingerprint is even if you've disabled cookies in your browser.

Developed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the webapp uses information your browser shares with web sites by default—like installed plug-ins, system fonts, screen resolution, and so on—to create a fingerprint and test how difficult it is to track your browser across the internet. My browser's fingerprint, for example, was unique among the 1.6 million browsers already tested by the site.

For more information—including ways you can defend against this kind of fingerprinting—check out this PDF.

Panopticlick | EFF

Video Calling App Fring Now Offers Four Way Group Chat [Video]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5815864/video-calling-app-fring-now-offers-four-way-group-chat

iOS/Android/Symbian: Fring, one of our favorite mobile apps for VoIP calls, just released a new iPad app that supports four-way video calling between the iPad and non-iOS users. They also updated their iPhone, Android, and Symbian versions to match.

Fring for iPad beats Facetime for multi-party video calling, and is the only iPad app that allows iPad users to talk to more than one other person without an Apple product. Fring allows you to drag names from your contacts list directly into the chat window to start a session with them. Drag in up to four friends and you'll be able to talk to them all at once, and they'll be able to chat with the group. Plus, since Fring supports iOS, Android, and Symbian devices, there are no limitations on who you can chat with.

Fring | iTunes App Store via Fring Blog

You can reach Alan Henry, the author of this post, at alan@lifehacker.com, or better yet, follow him on Twitter.

Will Samsung's "Nexus Prime" Be the Next Best Android Phone? [Unconfirmed]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5815813/will-samsungs-nexus-prime-be-the-first-android-ice-cream-sandwich

Following their previous report on a beastly Ice Cream Sandwich phone, BGR's extending extra details—and confirming that Samsung will make the thing, possibly named Nexus Prime. The monster will be purebred—-no 3rd party skins. Just Android 4.0.

BGR also claims the Nexus Prime will indeed hold a dual-core OMAP4460 processor. The pairing of beefy specs with creamy-clean software—the upcoming (and most sophisticated) Gingerbread/Honeycomb hybrid—means this could very well be the next best Android phone ever. [BGR]

The Average American Drinks 45 Gallons of Soda a Year [Factoid]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5815818/the-average-american-drinks-45-gallons-of-soda-a-year

We're doomed. Banished to obesity. According to Beverage Marketing Corporation, the average American drinks 44.7 gallons of soda every year. That's about 487 cans or 286 bottles or 85 2-liters of that carbonated syrup every year. How are we alive?

The numbers, 2010 per capita beverage consumption in the US, are just insane. I know a lot of people who never touch the stuff and even more people who've cut back tremendously. Where is all this soda consumption coming from? Which mad man is making up for miss healthy vegan's zero soda drinking by double or even triple fisting at lunch time? Can people legitimately drink that much soda? Could you?

44.7 gallons would weigh about 375 pounds. People, you're pumping yourself with that stuff! I used to love soda as much as the next guy but those needless calories and extra sugar eventually catches up with you. On a good note, the number is falling. On a bad note, the number is still numero uno in the standings. What I also can't believe: how disappointing our national beer consumption is! 20.8 gallons is like three pints every week. Weak. Check out the full infographic over at AdAge. [AdAge]

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