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Monday, May 21, 2012

Elgato announces Game Capture HD, shows off your deathmatch prowess in H.264

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/21/elgato-game-capture-hd/

Elgato is releasing the Game Capture HD, a device that lets game-casters and YouTube walkthrough mavens shed low-resolution, over-the-shoulder smartphone footage once and for all. The sleek black box sits between console and display, enabling gamers to record their speed runs and kill records for the world to see. Xbox 360 users can daisy-chain the gear into their HDMI set-up, while PS3 users will have to use the bundled AV cable to circumvent Sony's stronger copy protection. The footage will then be compressed with the company's H.264 know-how and pushed to your PC or Mac for uploading. When it arrives at the start of June, it'll set you back $200 -- just giving you enough time to get practicing your soothing and confident narration voice.

Continue reading Elgato announces Game Capture HD, shows off your deathmatch prowess in H.264

Elgato announces Game Capture HD, shows off your deathmatch prowess in H.264 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 201! 2 13:24: 00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/21/hands-on-with-the-electric-imp-at-maker-faire-video/

Yesterday at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 we visited the Electric Imp booth to chat with the startup's founders and get some hands-on time with the tiny wireless computer. What is the Electric Imp? It's a module containing an ARM Cortex M3 SoC with embedded WiFi that's built into an SD card form factor. While the device looks just like and SD card, it's not pin-compatible with the standard -- the idea is to leverage a reliable and affordable connector for the Electric Imp. The module is not very useful on its own -- it only comes to life when inserted into one of several boards, which provide the Electric Imp with power and access to the real world. In turn the device gives these boards a brain and an Internet connection. Eventually the company hopes that appliance manufacturers will incorporate Electric Imp slots into products to make them network aware.

We talked with CEO Hugo Fiennes (formerly with Apple) about the past, present and future of the Electric Imp so hit the break to read more and to watch our hands-on video.

Gallery: Electric Imp hands-on

Continue reading Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video)

Hands-on with the Electric Imp at Maker Faire (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 May 2012 00:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Raspberry Pi hands-on and Eben Upton interview at Maker Faire (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/21/raspberry-pi-hands-on-and-eben-upton-interview-at-maker-faire-v/

Unless you've been hiding under a rock lately, we're pretty sure you've heard about the Raspberry Pi by now -- a $25 credit-card sized PC that brings ARM/Linux to the Arduino form factor. As a refresher, the system features a 700MHz Broadcom BCM2835 SoC with an ARM11 CPU, a Videocore 4 GPU (which handles HD H.264 video and OpenGL ES 2.0) and 256MB RAM. The board includes an SD card slot, HDMI ouput, composite video jack, 3.5mm audio socket, micro-USB power connector and GPIO header. Model A ($25) comes with one USB port, while Model B ($35) provides two USB ports and a 100BaseT Ethernet socket. Debian is recommended, but Raspberry Pi can run most ARM-compatible 32-bit OSes.

This past weekend at Maker Faire Bay Area 2012 we ran into Eben Upton, Executive Director of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and took the opportunity to spend some quality time with a production board and to discuss this incredible PC. We touched upon the origins of the project (inspired by the BBC Micro, one of the ARM founders' early projects), Moore's law, the wonders of simple computers and upcoming products / ideas -- including Adafruit's Pi P lates and Raspberry Pi's own prototype camera add-on. On the subject of availability, the company expects that "there will be approximately 200,000 units in the field by the end of June". Take a look at our hands-on gallery below and our video interview after the break.

Gallery: Raspberry Pi hands-on

Continue reading Raspberry Pi hands-on and Eben Upton interview at Maker Faire (video)

Raspberry Pi hands-on and Eben Upton interview at Maker Faire (video) originally appeared on Engadget on M! on, 21 M ay 2012 06:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sunday, May 20, 2012

Share Your Internet Connection Using an Outdoor Wireless Access Point [Dark Side]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5911812/share-your-internet-connection-using-an-outdoor-wireless-access-point

Share Your Internet Connection Using an Outdoor Wireless Access Point Have you ever shared your internet connection with another person? Many users are protesting arbitrary price hikes from ISPs by sharing Wi-Fi connections. Typically this only works well if you're within a few hundred feet, but outdoor wireless access points can extend this range up to 2,000ft if you don't have any trees blocking line-of-sight.

Early retirement weblog Mr. Money Mustache engaged in an experiment to see if he could share a high-speed internet connection with a friend 900 ft away—too far for sharing a Wi-Fi connection using his router. He purchased and installed two high-power wireless outdoor access points, installed them on each roof, and found a way to run an ethernet cable from their router to their roof. In his particular case he had to step up to a more powerful antenna but that all depends on your distance and if any trees obscure your line-of-sight connection.

You'll need to be savvy with how to manually set an IP address and be able to assign router DHCP Lan addresses on 192.168.2.x subnets, but you'll be able to share an internet connection with a friend saving up to $300 per year and means that you'll never have any problems getting a Wi-Fi signal in your immediate neighborhood. You can also use this technique with one antenna to fine-tune a nearby public Wi-Fi network that you can't otherwise pick up at your home, such as a citywide pay-for-use Wi-Fi network.

Finally, most for-profit ISPs have restrictions against sharing internet connections. Make sure you have carefully reviewed your service restrictions to see if this is allowed before attempting this setup. If you disregard the restrictions you can face fines or worse. For that reason we're tagging this a dark side post and reminding you that it is for educational purposes only.

Internet Sharing—How to Get Revenge on the Cable Company | Mr. Money Mustache

REPORT: Traders Are Flipping Out Over Facebook SNAFU, And Want $100 Million From The NASDAQ

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/report-traders-are-flipping-out-over-facebook-snafu-and-want-100-million-from-the-nasdaq-2012-5

Nasdaq

Glitches, delays, and confusion on Facebook's first day of trading reportedly have traders livid, and they're taking their anger out on the NASDAQ.

Charlie Gasparino reports:

Angry traders and investors are bombarding Nasdaq officials with demands that the exchange make good on losses they say were incurred during the messy execution of the Facebook IPO, where Nasdaq systems essentially broke down and failed to execute buy and sell orders for the stock at various times during Friday’s stock sale, according to
people with first-hand knowledge of the matter.

These people say that the demands for money could total $100 million or possibly more, but Nasdaq chief executive officer Bob Greifeld is, at least for now, taking the position that the exchange will not cover the losses.

Our Nicholas Carlson reported on these glitches on Friday:

A theory from a source close to FB's IPO bankers: The volume that caused NASDAQ to delay the IPO for more than a half hour, also prevented Nasdaq from informing big bank trading desks whether or not their trades on Facebook had gone through.

This left trading desks in a position where "you don't know whether you bought it, and you think you did at $42 but you're not sure," says our source.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if NASDAQ does have to eat losses somehow. We're not sure what the mechanism would be. They have certainly acknowledged issues, and shares in the NASDAQ itself were down 4% on Friday.

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Saturday, May 19, 2012

$74 MK802 PC-on-a-stick beats Cotton Candy to market, has ICS on board

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/18/mk802-beats-cotton-candy-to-market/

Unless you're lucky enough to live in Scandinavia, you'll have to wait till the end of summer to get your Cotton Candy fix. Aching to nab yourself a computer-on-a-stick before then? If you're willing to step down in specs, the Chinese-made MK802 could be the PC in your pocket. For $74 (versus $199 for the Cotton Candy), this 7-ounce device gives you a 1.5-GHz Allwinner A10 CPU, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of storage and, like the Cotton Candy, Android 4.0. FXI's version, on the other hand, packs a dual-core 1.2-GHz Samsung Exynos processor, and while the MK802 offers an HDMI port, the Cotton Candy includes an HDMI connector. The MK802 is slightly bulkier than its sweetly named competitor (3.5 inches vs. 3.1), but that Android logo on the front does wonders for its design cred. AliExpress.com is currently selling the MK802 with free shipping to the US -- click the source link for a gander.

$74 MK802 PC-on-a-stick beats Cotton Candy to market, has ICS on board originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 14:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Raspberry Pi team shows off pics of (and taken with) prototype camera add-on

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/19/raspberry-pi-camera-add-on/

While the main thing that would make Raspberry Pi's diminutive $25 / $35 Linux setups better would be if we could get our hands on them faster, the team behind it is already working on improvements like this prototype camera seen above. The add-on is slated to ship later this year and plugs into the CSI pins left exposed right in the middle of each unit. According to the accompanying blog post, the specs may be downgraded from the prototype's 14MP sensor to keep things affordable, although there's no word on an exact price yet. Possible applications include robotics and home automation, but until the hackers get their hands on them you'll have to settle for one pic from the Pi's POV after the break and a few more at the source linked below.

Continue reading Raspberry Pi team shows off pics of (and taken with) prototype camera add-on

Raspberry Pi team shows off pics of (and taken with) prototype camera add-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 04:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers tout efficiency breakthrough with new 'inexact' chip

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/19/researchers-tout-efficiency-breakthrough-with-new-inexact-chip/

Accuracy is generally an important consideration in computer chips, but a team of researchers led by Rice University are touting a new "inexact" chip (dubbed PCMOS) that they say could lead to as much as a fifteen-fold increase in efficiency. Their latest work, which won a best paper award at a recent ACM conference, builds on years of research in the field from the university, and is already moving far beyond the lab -- some inexact hardware is being used in the "i-slate" educational tablet developed by the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics, 50,000 of which are expected to wind up in India's Mahabubnagar school district over the next three years. As for the chips themselves, their inexactness comes not just from one process, but a variety of different measures that can be used on their own or together -- including something the researchers describe as "pruning," which eliminate rarely used portions of the chip. All of that naturally comes with some trade-offs (less defined video processing is one example given), but the researchers say those are often outweighed by the benefits -- like cheaper, faster chips that require far less power.

Researchers tout efficiency breakthrough with new 'inexact' chip originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 06:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, May 18, 2012

SPOTTED: Lamborghini's Street Legal Lightweight

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/spotted-lamborghinis-street-legal-lightweight-2012-5

The Lamborghini Gallardo is one of our favorite supercars.

There are many different versions of the car, but our choice would be the LP570-4 Superleggera. Superleggera is Italian for "Super Lightweight." It is 154 pounds lighter than the standard car and has ten more horsepower.

That's enough for us.

Our friend David Tulchinsky saw this Superleggera in Washington, DC near Woodley Park. We love the color scheme of this car; it looks awesome.

Have you spotted a rare or unusual car/plane/train/boat/industry person in your travels? Did you take a photo? Do you like sharing?

If you answered yes to these questions, please send the picture to tokulski@businessinsider.com with the subject line "Spotted." Be sure to include where you saw it to be considered for our Photo of the Day.

Lamborghini Gallardo Superleggera

Check out the last Photo of the Day >

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Dell Precision R5500 lets four graphics pros work on one PC, we wish it did gaming

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/17/dell-precision-r5500-lets-four-graphics-pros-work-on-one-pc/

Workstations aren't normally our focus, but when Dell shows off a new Precision system that lets four media pros share its graphics hardware at once, you can be sure the company has our attention. If your IT chief springs for a Precision R5500 with four Quadro 2000 cards, each of those cards can take advantage of a graphics pass-through in Citrix's virtualization to render 3D models at speeds much more like what you'd get if the Quadro were sitting in your own PC. Before you have visions of four-player Modern Warfare parties after-hours at work, the inherent barriers of distance and the virtual machine itself will likely rule out any game sessions. We'd add that the Quadro, Xeon processor and the $2,742 minimum price make it an expensive proposition. That engineering simulation will finish a lot faster, though, giving you a bit more time to play back home.

Continue reading Dell Precision R5500 lets four graphics pros work on one PC, we wish it did gaming

Dell Precision R5500 lets four graphics pros work on one PC, we wish it did gaming originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Midtronics GRX-5100 simplifies servicing hybrid and EV batteries

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/18/midtronics-grx-5100-simplifies-servicing-hybrid-and-ev-batteries/

As we move away from traditional fossil fuel-burning automobiles towards hybrids and EVs, we're presented with new challenges -- namely servicing those vehicles and their high-voltage batteries. When it comes time for transport, in the event of an accident or when components need to be serviced individually, it's necessary to completely drain the cells on board, and that's where Midtronics' GRX-5100 comes in. The vehicle battery service and de-power tool is wrapping up field testing at GM and may soon find itself in "reclamation yards" (read: junk yards) as well as your local mechanic. With testing out of the way Midtronics plans to ramp up production before the end of the year, and its updateable firmware means it will be able to handle future vehicles with nothing more than an upgrade loaded on a USB key. For more info check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading Midtronics GRX-5100 simplifies servicing hybrid and EV batteries

Midtronics GRX-5100 simplifies servicing hybrid and EV batteries originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 05:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thursday, May 17, 2012

LG 55" Cinema 3D Smart TV Lightning Review: A Pretty Good TV for Children of the Night [Lightning Review]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5909909/lg-55-cinema-3d-smart-tv-lightning-review-a-pretty-good-tv-for-children-of-the-night

LG's newest LED member of its Cinema 3D line is packed to the gills with features and functionality including native support for Netflix and HuluPlus, sharing media from mobile devices and PCs, and Internet access, but you're going to have to keep vampire hours to avoid the glare.

What Is It?

A 55" Smart TV (read: Internet connected) with Passive 3D—the same as the Real 3D tech theaters keep forcing upon us, it's less crisp than active 3D (the glasses with the batteries) but easier on the eyes and loads cheaper.

Who's it For?

Night owls, home theater aficionados, and anybody who likes to watch with the lights off.

Design

Simple and Clean. It has 1/4" borders along the top and side edges with a two-inch silver band along the bottom that matches the stand. All buttons and ports are hidden from the front.

Using It

A complete joy. Being only 70 lbs, the television was a cinch to unbox and set up. The initial system setup was ludicrously simple—it found and assimilated into my Wi-Fi network on the very first try. Being a Smart TV, the set offers in-TV access to numerous streaming services as well as the Internet.

The Best Part

The picture quality. Motion blur is nearly non-existent (and actually better than if you enable the dynamic tracking), the color representation is bright and vibrant with decent black levels. I was most surprised by the utter lack of artifacts on streaming content (both Netflix and HuluPlus).

Tragic Flaw

The glare when watching during the day is nearly unbearable.

This Is Weird...

There's no way to calibrate the the remote—so if it points slightly off-center by default, you'll have to get used to adjusting for that.

Test Notes

This set comes bundled with six pair of passive 3D frames.
Can share content over a DNLA connection with LG phones.
Laser remote works much like a mouse and makes inputting text much faster than having to cycle through character wheels or virtual keyboards.
The passive 3D is what it is, pretty good depth levels on converted 2D to 3D content.
Glasses are comfortable but you've got to make sure you're sitting front and center to get the full effect.

Should You Buy It?

With an initial MSRP of $2,300 this set was definitely a bit pricey for the picture quality. But with prices already dropping to the high $1400s online just four months after its debut, yeah, the LG55LM6700 is a pretty good deal right now.

LG 55" Cinema 3D Smart TV (55LM6700) Specs

• Screen Size: 55"
• Display Type: LED-LCD
• Refresh: 120Hz
• Backlight: Edge Lighting with Local Dimming
• Connectivity: Wi-Fi
• Weight: 70lbs
• Price: $1,700
• Gizrank: 3 stars

VIA unveils fanless, Eden X2-packing AMOS-3002, promises tiny dual-core PC in your car

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/17/via-unveils-fanless-eden-x2-packing-amos-3002-pc/

VIA is planning to get some serious mileage out of its Eden X2 processor -- in the most literal sense possible. It's now producing the AMOS-3002, a Pico-ITX-sized PC intended for in-car infotainment and other situations where an embedded PC needs to have a little more juice for media tasks. The Eden X2 in question comes in a dual-core 1GHz flavor that's completely fanless, but it's fast enough to show 1080p video (when your car is parked, we hope) and can handle more intensive work like dual gigabit Ethernet jacks, optional 3G and even a 2.5-inch hard drive. That breadbox-sized shell can also take a lot of abuse, surviving temperatures between -4F and 140F as well as 50 Gs' worth of shock. You'll have to wait until your favorite car designer or digital sign maker uses the AMOS-3002 to see it in action, but until then, you can get the full details after the break.

Continue reading VIA unveils fanless, Eden X2-packing AMOS-3002, promises tiny dual-core PC in your car

VIA unveils fanless, Eden X2-packing AMOS-3002, promises tiny dual-core PC in your car originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 18:17:00! EDT. P lease see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel wants to have conflict-free processors by the end of 2013

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/17/intel-wants-to-have-conflict-free-processors-by-the-end-of-2013/

Intel had already promised that it would avoid using conflict minerals, and now it's giving itself a more concrete timetable for that to happen. It wants to have at least one processor that's proven completely conflict-free across four key minerals -- gold, tantalum, tin and tungsten -- by the end of 2013. Lest you think Intel's not taking swift enough action, it wants to reach the tantalum goal by the end of this year. The effort's part of a wider array of goals that should cut back on the energy use, power and water use by 2020. Sooner rather than later, though, you'll be buying a late-generation Haswell- or Broadwell-based PC knowing that the chip inside was made under nobler conditions.

Continue reading Intel wants to have conflict-free processors by the end of 2013

Intel wants to have conflict-free processors by the end of 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 19:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Optimus 4X HD stops in at the FCC, flaunts AT&T bands, global support

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/17/lg-optimus-4x-hd-stops-in-at-the-fcc-flaunts-atandt-bands-global/

LG's latest 4.7-inch wunderphone may not have penned in an official release this side of the Atlantic, but that doesn't mean the Feds aren't putting it through its paces. A global version of the LG Optimus 4X HD made its way through the FCC test labs recently, revealing a quad-band GSM / EDGE radio with 3G support over AT&T's 1900 / 850 bands. In other words, feel free to import an unlocked slab when they hit Europe next month. Check out the federal filings yourself at the source link below, or check out our own hands-on coverage right here.

LG Optimus 4X HD stops in at the FCC, flaunts AT&T bands, global support originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 May 2012 20:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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