Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Broadcom: 802.11ac chipsets already in preproduction, preparing router invasion in summer

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/broadcom-802-11ac-chipsets-already-in-preproduction-preparing/

Broadcom: 802.11ac chipsets already in preproduction, preparing router invasion in summer

Broadcom might have unveiled a bevy of 802.11ac chipsets back at CES, however when it came to availability the chipmaker played more than coy as to when they'd sashay their way out of developmental labs and into the hands of actual consumers. Fast-forward to MWC and the chipmaker's isn't nearly as shy, proclaiming its future WiFi solutions were "beyond the sampling phase" and now in preproduction. Also of note, was the estimate that finished products (read: the ones you can buy) containing this tech would go on sale by mid-2012. With competitor, Qualcomm, also previewing its 802.11ac concoction, could this year possibly shape up to golden era of speedy wireless transfers? Bring it on, we say.

Broadcom: 802.11ac chipsets already in preproduction, preparing router invasion in summer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/samsung-galaxy-tab-2-10-1-hands-on-video/

As far as product launches go, the 10-inch Galaxy Tab 2's debut was relatively discreet. Announced with little fanfare, it's not even on display in Samsung's booth here at Mobile World Congress; you'll have to talk your way into a private room if you want a shot at getting hands-on.

And we can see why: with a 1280 x 800 display, 1GHz dual-core processor and 3-megapixel rear camera, its specs are nearly identical to what you'll find in last year's Galaxy Tab 10.1. Sure, it has a redesigned back cover and ships with Android 4.0, but otherwise, it's the same tablet. But with the new Galaxy Note tablet replacing the original 10.1 as Samsung's premier 10-inch tablet, the new 10.1 could be the budget-friendly option its predecessor wasn't. So does it hold promise as a mid-range tab? It'll be impossible to say until we know the price, but watch our hands-on video after the break and decide for yourselves just how much you'd pay for this thing.

Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) hands-on

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) hands-on (video)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 05:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/samsung-galaxy-tab-2-7-0-hands-on-video/

It's easy to get confused by the variety of 7-inchers coming out of Samsung's gate; you might even speculate that the category is getting a bit crowded. But with the arrival of the Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0), it appears the popular Android manufacturer has an ace in its sleeve. The slate leaps past its cousins with the latest build of Ice Cream Sandwich out of the gate, although it still reps the same 1024 x 600 PLS TFT display, 3MP rear camera, 4,000mAh battery and dual-core setup. We had a chance to get a real feel for the tablet, so join us after the break as we parse through our initial impressions.

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) hands-on

Continu! e readin g Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) hands-on (video)

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (7.0) hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 06:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PixelQi has heavy night, wakes up married to French 'PadPro' tablet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/pixelqi-appears-on-french-padpro-tablet/

10-inch Pad Pro slate with PixelQi display

What has Mary Lou Jepsen been up to since 3M's cash injection? It's hard to say, but her sunlight-readable PixelQi panels are still popping up on the odd device -- like this Windows 7 slate from little-known Evigroup. The 10-inch PadPro is aimed at graphics types who are willing to bid adieu to €599 ($800) in return for a pressure-sensitive display, a 1.6GHz Atom processor (no mention of Cedar Trail), 1GB RAM and 160GB hard-drive. They also need to really hate Android.

PixelQi has heavy night, wakes up married to French 'PadPro' tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds camera to ship on March 31st?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/olympus-om-d-e-m5-micro-four-thirds-march-31st/

If a ship date pops up on Amazon for a date in the not-so-distant future, we're typically inclined to listen up -- after all, the world's largest e-tailer probably has a fairly good idea of when its products will first leave the warehouse. This time, it's the Olympus OM-D E-M5, which just appeared on the distributor's Japanese site with an estimated release date of March 31st. There's no mention of a date on the company's U.S. site, however, so it's still unclear whether or not the Micro Four Thirds cam will hit North American shores on the 31st as well. Still, unless a trip to Japan is in the cards for the end of Q1, your best bet for getting early access to the highly-anticipated mirrorless cam would probably be to get your pre-order on at our coverage link below.

Olympus OM-D E-M5 Micro Four Thirds camera to ship on March 31st? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 07:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft Flight reinvents itself as free-to-play simulator (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/microsoft-flight/

Microsoft's Flight Simulator has long prodded gamers to splash out on hardware upgrades and insane joysticks. Like Madonna, it's reinvented itself for the 21st century as a single-named free-to-play game for those who want to zoom around the skies of Hawaii. The company will make its money by selling premium add-ons including new aircraft and "adventure packs." The game is now ready for download (at the source link) and, if it proves popular, Redmond should expect a nice gift basket from AMD and NVIDIA this Christmas.

Continue reading Microsoft Flight reinvents itself as free-to-play simulator (video)

Microsoft Flight reinvents itself as free-to-play simulator (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba Excite 10 LE gets March 6th launch date, confirmed $530 price, yet another name

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/29/toshiba-excite-10-le-launch-details-confirmed/

Toshiba Excite 10 LE gets March 6th launch date

First it was the AT200, then the Excite X10, and now it's the Excite 10 LE. But behind the onion-like layering of names sits a singular and rather beautiful slate, with a 10.1-inch LED backlit display, a 7.7mm (0.3-inch) chassis and a righteous 1280 x 800 resolution. Toshiba says it'll arrive at select US retailers on March 6th, which happens to coincide pretty closely with another possible technology incident. And since there could well be some tough buying dilemmas on the horizon, let's recount just a few more specs: The $530 version of the 10 LE has 16GB of storage, while 32GB can be had for $600. Both variants are WiFi-only and will run Android 3.2 out of the box, but they'll be upgradeable to ICS sometime in the spring. The 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4430 processor will whirr for up to eight hours on a charge; connectivity includes micro-USB, HDMI and microSD; the rear camera shoots 1080p video and 5-megapixel stills. There, does that make things any easier? No? Then there's a full press release after the break. Gosh, you're demanding.

Continue reading Toshiba Excite 10 LE gets March 6th launch date, confirmed $530 price, yet another name

Toshiba Excite 10 LE gets March 6th launch date, confirmed $530 price, yet another name origina! lly appe ared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Feb 2012 09:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Craziest Jeans Company Is Making Silk Denim, Hemp Denim, Gauze Jeans and Reverse Red Dye Pants [Fashion]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5889111/the-craziest-jeans-company-is-making-silk-denim-hemp-denim-gauze-jeans-and-reverse-red-dye-pants/gallery/1

Naked and Famous Denim, the craziest jeans company in the world, is getting even wonkier. Along with other jeans, Naked and Famous is releasing Japanese raw denim woven with silk, hemp or gauze and a ridiculously awesome pair of jeans that'll fade red as you wear it (rather than white).

Naked and Famous, if you don't remember, is the same denim company that previously made the glow-in-the-dark and raspberry scratch-n-sniff jeans. The whole Spring 2012 line consists of 12 different styles of denim but these are easily the weirdest pants around. [Naked and Famous]

Silk Blend Denim: The raw Japanese denim is woven with 30% silk to make the pants softer and stretchier and not the typical raw stiff stovepipe jeans. $180

Hemp Blend Selvedge Denim:Same idea as the silk denim but made with hemp instead. The hemp adds a tinge of brown to the otherwise dark denim. Good for the lovers of grass, I'd imagine. $165

The Craziest Jeans Company Is Making Silk Denim, Hemp Denim, Gauze Jeans and Reverse Red Dye Pants Gauze Double Weave: If you're a weirdo and don't like jeans because they're too rough, these Gauze Double Weave jeans are lined with gauze to make it super soft. Won't chafe the jewels. $155

Red Core Selvedge Denim: Now this is where it gets prettttttty awesome. Unlike normal jeans that fade to white as you wear them more (because the indigo loses it color), this pair of jeans will reveal a red. The yarn is core dyed red an then the rope dyed indigo. 14oz denim. $210

Picarro's Emissions Maps Are Street View For CO2 [Science]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5889092/picaros-emission-maps-will-finally-show-your-citys-impact-on-global-warming

Here's the thing about the emissions which cause global warming: You can't see them. Picarro wants to use a Google Street View-like fleet of vehicles loaded with the company's technology to drive around cities measuring emissions so that the gasses can be plotted onto detailed 3-D maps.

It turns out that while we have data about emissions at the atmospheric scale, measuring them at a small scale is actually really hard. That's where Picarro's CRDS analyzer comes in, reports TreeHugger. The CRDS analyzer is basically an infrared sensor that can "see" the emissions from a particular source. Take for example, the above visualization of emissions in San Francisco. As the emissions-sniffing cars drive around a city, analyzer on board, they beam information back via satellite. This information can then be used to make crazy maps that show the way emissions are ejected from sources over time.

To test the technology—and show it off to the world—Picarro launched the City Carbon Project last month at the World Economic Forum by measuring the impact of the event itself. The surprise? Emissions in Davos actually went down during the forum. [Picarro via TreeHugger]

New Banking Hack Chats with You as It Empties Your Account [Security]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5889157/new-banking-hack-live-chats-as-it-steals

Recent attempts to separate a user from his banking credentials have employed some highly advanced methods. But this new take on the Man in the Browser attack just seems downright dastardly—we're talking mustache-twirling levels of deviousness.

The hack works like this. The attacker will target business and online commercial banking customers by infecting their systems with the Shylock malware platform. Once the mark visits his bank's website, Shylock suspends the session for several minutes to purportedly run "security checks." It then notifies the mark that a customer service rep will be contacting him to verify account information before popping a web-chat screen—the hacker playing the role of "customer service rep." The attacker will then extract the mark's login information through social engineering and proceed to commit the fraud while he's still web-chatting with the victim.

As web security firm Trusteer explains,

This web injection is followed by an elaborate web-chat screen, which is implemented in pure HTML and JavaScript. Within two to three minutes, if the user's login is valid (we believe), the fraudster engages in a live online chat session with the victim. This exchange is apparently used to gather more information from the victim. The session may even be used to perform real time fraud by enticing the victim to sign/verify fraudulent transactions that Shylock is initiating in the background.

So not only is the victim getting robbed, he also is shamed for having been dumb enough to freely give away his company's banking information to start with. [Trusteer via The Reigster]

Image: jamdesign / Shutterstock

Sprint TV Brings Cable Networks to the iPhone—Still Insists on Bundling Channels [Streaming]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5889183/sprint-tv-brings-cable-networks-to-the-iphonestill-insists-on-bundling-channels

Sprint TV Brings Cable Networks to the iPhone—Still Insists on Bundling Channels $10 a month to get Comedy Central and ESPN streaming live on my iPhone? Woot! But I have to subscribe to Fox News and MTV to get them? Dammit.

Sprint announced an exclusive offering to its iPhone customers (you know, the one's it paid $15.5 billion for)—SprintTV, a streaming service that features live programming from some of cable's biggest networks.

After downloading the app from iTunes, users will have access to ESPN Mobile, Disney, ABC, NBC, CBS and others. For $10/month, Sprint TV adds Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, and Fox News. Sprint is offering 40 paid packages in total including a spanish-language bundle for $7/month and children's-programming for $5/month. Users will also need an unlimited data plan in order to use the app though it is compatible with both the iPhone and iPad.

But seriously, how dense can Sprint be? Consumers have been complaining for years about cable's absurd requirements to subscribe to unwanted channels in order to obtain the programming the consume actually wants and here's Sprint. Doing the exact same damn thing on a new platform. It's like they're trying to fail. [Sprint via 9 to 5 Mac]

You Can Now Buy This Tiny Computer for $35 (Updated) [Computers]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5889218/you-can-now-buy-this-tiny-computer-for-35

You Can Now Buy This Tiny Computer for $35 (Updated) Over the past year, we've seen a lot to get excited about over this tiny computer, the Raspberry Pi. It can stream video via Airplay, can run Quake III, yet only costs $35. Fortunately, now you can buy it.

The Model B Raspberry Pi is just finishing production in China, but is now available for pre-order. It features an ARM11 processor, 256MB of RAM, 2 USB ports, a LAN port, an SD card slot, audio-out and HDMI-out. It's capable of running an Ubuntu install or a version of Xbox Media Center, but nothing comes per-installed so you'll be spending some time at a command line.

But the best bit is: it costs $35. Thirty. Five. Freakin'. Dollars. This thing is incredibly cheap, and a great way to get you—or your kids—into coding. In fact, the beauty of the Raspberry Pi business model is that all the profits will be pushed into a charity set up to encourage kids to get into coding, an initiative which will itself use these tiny computers.

You can buy Raspberry Pi online from Premier Farnell or RS Components.

Update: Demand is proving high, and the Farnell and RS websites are struggling to deal with the demand. Patience, young grasshopper.

Samsung pairs Qualcomm and ARM DRM to get HD content on Galaxy Note Media Hub

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/28/samsung-qualcomm-arm-drm-media-hub/

Samsung's going to bring "premium HD video content" to Media Hub after pairing up Qualcomm's StudioAccess and ARM's TrustZone DRM systems. The first device that will benefit from the rollout is the Galaxy Note thanks to its enormous 1280 x 800 HD display. Owners of the large phone / small tablet hybrid will find HD content appearing alongside SD editions of your favorite movies and shows -- previously unavailable because of copyright concerns. There's PR after the break, but we'd suggest reading it only if you enjoy paragraph upon paragraph of executives praising DRM to the hilt.

Continue reading Samsung pairs Qualcomm and ARM DRM to get HD content on Galaxy Note Media Hub

Samsung pairs Qualcomm and ARM DRM to get HD content on Galaxy Note Media Hub originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Feb 2012 14:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A closer look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/28/a-closer-look-at-the-samsung-galaxy-note-10-1-video/

The last time we showed you the Galaxy Note 10.1, we had time for a few hands-on shots, but not quite enough to get to know the tablet, to warm up to the idea of interacting with one of our favorite 10-inchers using a ~~stylus~~ pen. Now that we've had a chance to park ourselves at Samsung's Mobile World Congress and get acclimated to the various S Pen apps, we wanted to hit back with one more hands-on, this time focusing on what makes the Note 10.1 so special: the writing experience. Meet us past the break and we'll share some early impressions, along with a walk-through video. Only have a minute to spare? Consider those photos below your Cliff's Notes.

Gallery: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 hands-on

Gallery: Galaxy Note 10.1 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, compared

Continue reading A closer look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (video)

A closer look at the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Exent's GameTanium Mobile launches for Android tabs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/28/gametanium-mobile-launches-for-android-tabs/

OnLive users may have been dining at the all-you-can-eat gaming table since December, but now it's time for the GameTanium crew to pull up a chair. Game provider Extent has brought its subscription platform to Android tablets and offers unlimited access to titles such as Fruit Ninja, Baseball Superstars and T-Racer HD. The service rolls in at a cent under six dollars a month, and there's a three-day free trial for those with commitment issues. The new mobile service is available right away via a direct .apk, so if you want in, skip past the Android Market and take a peek at the press release after the break instead.

Continue reading Exent's GameTanium Mobile launches for Android tabs

Exent's GameTanium Mobile launches for Android tabs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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