Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Friday, June 22, 2012

Facebook rolls out comment editing, embraces your change of heart

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/facebook-rolls-out-comment-editing/

Facebook has long betrayed you by forwarding your drunken wall ramblings in an email for posterity. Previously, though, the only way to limit further public shame was to try to delete the comment altogether. Now, it looks like the loose fingered have been given a reprieve, as the social giant is rolling out the ability to edit your ill-thought missives long after the fact. Even better, this seems to extend back to those written in the past. Don't think you can be sneaky though, as an "edited" link will appear below, letting everyone see the thread history. So even if you change your opinion, that indecision remains for all to see.

Facebook rolls out comment editing, embraces your change of heart originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Next Web ! ;| source

source

Facebook | Email this | Comments

Cropp.me Automatically Crops Multiple Images Online [Webapps]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5920259/croppme-automatically-crops-your-images-online

Cropp.me Automatically Crops Multiple Images Online Cropp.me a handy webapp designed to do just one thing well: crop images in your browser. No need to open up a bulky photo editor if you just want to crop even a bunch of images at once, thanks to Cropp.me's
auto-crop feature.

Using Cropp.me is dead simple. Upload your images (up to five at once), select from the predefined output sizes (avatar, Facebook cover image size, etc.) or define a custom size, and hit the button. The best part is, using clever image analysis algorithms, Cropp.me selects which part of the image to crop when your output size doesn't match the original's aspect ratio. You can always manually adjust the final cropping if you need to.

One difference from other online cropping tools is that Cropp.me can conveniently download all the images at once in a zipped file.

Sony pumps $994 million into building stacked CMOS that lets smartphones record HDR Video

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/sony-stacked-cmos-investment/

Sony is pumping 80 billion yen ($994 million) into its Nagasaki Technology Center, the home of its innovative stacked CMOS. Unlike traditional versions, the image sensor and circuit are mounted on top of one another, rather than side-by-side across a supporting substrate. The tweak means it shaves valuable millimeters from its body while producing far clearer images and, best of all, HDR Video. With the investment (and some Government subsidy) the company aims to pump out 60,000 wafers per month by the end of 2013. Given that both Samsung and Apple both use Sony's imaging equipment in their flagships, we can hope that the 13-megapixel units find their way into the next generation of handsets.

Continue reading Sony pumps $994 million into building stacked CMOS that lets smartphones record HDR Video

Sony pumps $994 million into building stacked CMOS that lets smartphones record HDR Video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 06:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Eurocom Monster 11.6-inch notebook: Ivy Bridge, Kepler, 16 GB RAM, multiple personalities

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/eurocom-monster-11-6-inch-notebook-ivy-bridge-kepler/

Mobile gamers and server pros aren't exactly cut from the same cloth, but Eurocom is targeting them both with its Clevo rebadged, 11.6-inch, sub-four-pound Monster notebook. That idea is crazy enough to work, since a fully spec'd model will have an Ivy Bridge Intel Core i7-3920XM processor, 16GB of DDR3-1600 of RAM, a 240GB SSD or 1GB Hybrid drive, and on-board NVIDIA GT 650M graphics running at 850MHz. The 1366 x 768 screen might be a touch undersized for gamers, but they could let that slide since the processor can be safely overclocked up to a decent 3.8GHz. As for business pros, the company claims the Monster could be used as a portable server, run multiple VMs of Windows and Linux, or high-end engineering apps like MatLab. As usual with Eurocom, you can configure the system in dozens of ways, including matte or glossy screen, Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge processors and multiple RAM or disk setups. Pricing and delivery dates weren't given, but if it's up your alley, check the PR and your wallet -- or hit up Ned in accounting.

Continue reading Eurocom Monster 11.6-inch notebook: Ivy Bridge, Kepler, 16 GB RAM, multiple personalities

Eurocom Monster 11.6-inch notebook: Ivy! Bridge, Kepler, 16 GB RAM, multiple personalities originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 07:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Revolutionary Coating Could Kill Touchscreen Glare Forever [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5920275/revolutionary-coating-could-kill-touchscreen-glare-forever

If Sony manages to perfect its fantastic new low-reflection display coating, one day you may never fear using your touchscreen device in a bright room, too close to overhead lights, or even outside when it's sunny. Because glare will be a thing of the past.

Previously, touchscreen manufacturers have tried to reduce glare on their displays by using layers of different materials with varying refraction indexes. And working together, they help minimize the reflection of external light sources into your eyes. But Sony's new approach involves a special film it's developed that was inspired by how a moth's eyes work. Across its surface is a pattern of microscopic concave and convex structures that serve to evenly bounce light away from the user, reducing glare. And apparently the approach works on an even wider range of wavelengths than the anti-reflective coatings currently in use.

The improvement means less squinting for the user, or having to awkwardly angle their device away from a light source. And since increasing the display's brightness is one way to reduce glare in current devices, it will also let users increase their battery life by turning down their displays. Next step: actually getting this stuff from being just a fancy trade show tech demo to actually on devices.

Revolutionary Coating Could Kill Touchscreen Glare Forever

[Tech-On! via Geek.com]

Pentax K-30 Hands-On: The Fastest, Toughest Inexpensive DSLR We've Ever Used [Cameras]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5920384/pentax-k+30-hands+on-the-fastest-toughest-inexpensive-dslr-weve-every-used

The promise of the new Pentax K-30: The toughest, fastest DSLR that won't break your bank. We just tried it out for the first time, and so far we're impressed. An $850 DSLR body shouldn't feel this good.

Lower-end DSLRs can take great photos, but the build quality's usually pretty cheap, and their performance on can be a little sluggish. If you drop them they'll break, and don't expect respond to your every desire.

The Pentax K-30 is weather-sealed for "all weather conditions." The company told us it'd be good to go in a monsoon. We didn't get a chance to put the camera under water, but it does feel a lot sturdier than the Nikon D3200 we used to take pictures of it. One detail we didn't notice before is that the cheaper 18-55mm kit lens isn't actually fully weather-sealed—Only the special 18-135mm lens is. Packaged together the lens and camera will run you $1100. That's cheap considering DSLRs can get ridiculously expensive, but it's not $900 like the cheaper kit package.

What's really impressive is the camera's performance. It's the fastest we've used in its price range. The camera's autofocus locks on instantaneously, and in continuous mode the camera peels of shots at 6 fps, which is faster than the 5 fps Canon T4i.

And make no mistake, the T4i is the K-30 main competitor. Its brand new Live View autofocus should make shooting video a breeze. Plus the T4i's touchscreen controls are the first of their kind on a DSLR. The K-30 and T4i come in at the exact same fully loaded $1100 price, so we'll see if the camera's ruggedness and speed are enough to counter Canon's innovations.

We haven't closely inspected the images from the Pentax K-30, so we don't yet know what kinda of image quality the camera's 16-megapixel APS-C sensor is good for. We'll let you know when we've spent more time with the camera.

University researchers develop AWARE-2 camera, hope it hits the mainstream in five years

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/21/university-researchers-develop-50-gigapixel-camera/

Gigapixel cameras aren't exactly hot-off-the-presses, but a few wizards at Duke and the University of Arizona may be close to getting that sort of technology into your future point-and-shoot. Reportedly, electrical engineers with gobs of free time and an imagination the size of Coach K's ego have managed to synchronize 98 minuscule cameras -- each with a 14-megapixel sensor -- "grouped around a shared spherical lens". The real kicker here is the hope for the future: these same researchers feel that "within five years, as the electronic components of the cameras become miniaturized and more efficient, the next generation of gigapixel cameras should be available to the general public." The prototype itself measures a whopping 2.5-feet square and 20 inches deep, but only around 3 percent of it is made of optical elements; the vast majority is circuitry needed to calculate the stupefying amount of information captured with such a device.

University researchers develop AWARE-2 camera, hope it hits the mainstream in five years originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Nature, TG Daily | source

source

Duke | Email this | Comments

T-Mobile Galaxy S III hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/21/t-mobile-galaxy-s-iii-hands-on/

T-Mob's variant of the Galaxy S III made its in-store debut on this very day, and we just had a chance to go hands-on with the flagship smartphone. The carrier brought the handset down to the Metropolitan Pavilion for Pepcom's baseball-themed shindig and we just had to get our greasy paws all over its shiny Pebble Blue shell -- and it is a serious fingerprint magnet. Aside from that, though, it's hard to take issue with such a slim and marvelously engineered device. The plasticky build quality does leave something to be desired, but it's something we've become accustomed with Samsung devices. We've also got to give it to Sammy for getting carriers, including T-Mobile, to leave well enough alone. Other than the innocuous logo on the back there are no physical differences between this version of the S III and its 4.8-inch cousins on other networks. There's no keyboard, redesigned corners or rejiggered buttons. Truth is, you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference between Big Magenta's variant and the international version.

Gallery: T-Mobile Galaxy S III hands-on

The only obvious changes come once you fire the device up, and you'll have to dig around a bit to find them. T-Mo has added a few apps to the standard Samsung Suite. Most of them are relatively inoffensive, but if you're the type who was taken aback when you discovered My Verizon Mobile on your LTE Galaxy Nexus, you might not be a happy camper. On board you'll find T-Mobile TV, Name ID, Access T-Mobile, Mobile HotSpot and Visual Voicemail -- pretty standard additions. Our brief time with the device turned up no surprises. Performance was snappy -- apps opened without a hitch and webpages loaded as fast as the congested wireless in the room would allow. If you're a Carly Foulkes fan with an upgrade on tap you could do worse than to pick up the Galaxy S III (which is available today) for $279.99. Though, that price tag is, admittedly, a bit hard to swallow. Be sure to check the video after the break.

Continue reading T-Mobile Galaxy S III hands-on (video)

T-Mobile Galaxy S III hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 18:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

AMD launches Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, demands rematch with NVIDIA

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/

If you've been missing out on the graphics card wars of late, then here's a quick rundown. AMD launched its high-end $549 Radeon HD 7970 at the end of last year, and it reigned comfortably for a few months until NVIDIA came out with the masterful GeForce GTX 680. That would have been the end of the matter, at least for this product cycle, except for one crucial factor: time. Having reached the market so much earlier, AMD has now had six months to not only tweak its drivers but also its 28nm silicon. That process has already culminated in 1GHz cards at the low- and mid-ranges, and today it leads to the (slightly predictable) announcement of a Radeon HD 7970 'GHz Edition' -- priced at $499 and expected to be available from a range of board makers from next week. To keep you amused in the meantime, there's plenty of detail in the gallery below and after the break.

Gallery: Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition official slide deck

Continue reading AMD launches Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, demands rematch with NVIDIA

AMD launches Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, demands rematch with NVIDIA originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Valve announces Steam for Schools, helps teachers create educational Portal 2 levels

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/steam-for-schools-helps-teachers-create-educational-portal-levels/

Who ever said being a scientific guinea pig couldn't be educational? With Steam for Schools, teachers can now use Portal 2's level editor to create lessons focused on boosting critical thinking, spatial reasoning and problem solving skills. Announced at the Games for Change festival in New York City, the educator edition of Steam comes with a free copy of Portal 2 and the Portal 2 Puzzle Maker. Students and teachers alike can use the tools to create puzzles, but distribution is handled by teachers alone. (That's right, kids -- no level sharing unless the teach says so.) An accompanying website serves as a gathering place for teachers to collaborate, and aims to provide sample lesson plans centered on science, technology, engineering and math. If you're an educator who can't wait to bring a Portal-assisted physics lesson to life, see the links below to sign up for the ongoing beta. Now if you'll excuse us, we're off to "study."

Valve announces Steam for Schools, helps teachers create educational Portal 2 levels originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Joystiq | source

source

Teach With Portals, Learn With Portals | Email this | Comments

All-carbon solar cell draws power from near-infrared light, our energy future is literally that much brighter

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/all-carbon-solar-cell-draws-power-from-near-infrared-light/

What's this orange-like patch, you ask? It's a layer of carbon nanotubes on silicon, and it might just be instrumental to getting a lot more power out of solar cells than we're used to. Current solar power largely ignores near-infrared light and wastes about 40 percent of the potential energy it could harness. A mix of carbon nanotubes and buckyballs developed by MIT, however, can catch that near-infrared light without degrading like earlier composites. The all-carbon formula doesn't need to be thickly spread to do its work, and it simply lets visible light through -- it could layer on top of a traditional solar cell to catch many more of the sun's rays. Most of the challenge, as we often see for solar cells, is just a matter of improving the energy conversion rate. Provided the researchers can keep refining the project, we could be looking at a big leap in solar power efficiency with very little extra footprint, something we'd very much like to see on the roof of a hybrid sedan.

All-carbon solar cell draws power from near-infrared light, our energy future is literally that much brighter originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 05:52:00 EDT. Please see our te! rms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source

source

MIT Technology Review | Email this | Comments

AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition review roundup: a big, bad bruiser of a graphics card

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/22/amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-roundup/

You know the routine: we looked this revamped card's spec sheet a few hours ago, so now it's time to find out how it fared in independent tests and whether it's worth the $499 outlay. On the face of it, this powerhouse of a card ought to be a champ, since it comes $50 cheaper than the original's launch price (although that non-GHz Edition has now dropped to $449) and brings crucial improvements in clock speed and memory bandwidth. In practice? Well, it wins -- but only on points. Read on for more.

Continue reading AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition review roundup: a big, bad bruiser of a graphics card

AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition review roundup: a big, bad bruiser of a graphics card originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Jun 2012 06:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | | Email this | Comments

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Did a Car Company Really Just Make the Best Password Manager We've Seen? [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5920197/did-a-car-company-really-just-make-the-best-password-manager-weve-seen

Imagine if when you sat down at your computer it recognized you and unlocked all of your web accounts. No more logging in to anything. That's the promise of this new app by Ford. Yes, the car company.

Like other companies Ford has been using NFC keys for a while. When you're close to your car, it unlocks. So easy. Now the company has created Ford Keyfree, a Chrome extension which does essentially the same thing for your passwords. Your "key" is your smartphone. When you're close to your car, your phone talks to the Chrome extension via Bluetooth and automatically enters all of your passwords. When you walk away, the extension logs you out. Brilliant.

Ford Keyfree is a slick, intelligent piece of work. It turns out Detroit CAN innovate. As you can see from the video above it's obviously a marketing gimmick, and there are some practical security concerns. Isn't it kind of weird that all someone needs to get into my sensitive accounts is my phone? What's the proximity radius? Furthermore, since the app uses Bluetooth, it'll put a strain on your battery.

The app is only available in France right now. Ford reportedly plans to bring its password manager to America soon. [Fast Company]

Brilliant Spinning Heatsink Cools CPUs 30 Times More Efficiently [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5920224/brilliant-spinning-heatsink-cools-cpus-30-times-more-efficiently

Most computers use a two-step process to cool the CPU. First, a heat exchanger pasted to the processor draws the warmth away. And then a combination of a heatsink and fans dissipate it away from the PC. But by merging those two steps into one, this spinning cooler ends up being greater than the sum of its parts.

The Sandia Cooler was developed by the Sandia National Labs who do enough research to know a thing or two about how to effectively cool a computer. The most interesting aspect of the cooler is that it doesn't attach directly to the CPU using thermal paste—which isn't possible given it's always spinning. Instead, it sits a mere thousandth of an inch above the processor, which creates what's called an air bearing that's actually just as efficient at transmitting heat.

And as the heat moves from the CPU to the cooler, it's almost immediately blasted away via a series of fins spinning at 2,000 rpm. As a result, Sandia claims the system is at least 30 times more efficient at cooling a processor than traditional heatsink and fan methods.

And not only is it also far quieter, but the blades are spinning far too quickly to ever collect dust. So while it lets you safely overclock your system, it's also automatically keeping it clean at the same time. And maybe that's the real innovation here. [Sandia National Laboratories via Dvice]

Google files for a patent on peer-to-peer location finding, says cell tower triangulation is for chumps

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/21/google-files-for-a-patent-on-peer-to-peer-location-finding/

Crowdsourcing map data itself isn't a surprise; it's been the cornerstone of OpenStreetMap and is about to get a big boost through iOS 6. Crowdsourcing actual positions is still a relatively untapped resource, however, and Google thinks that it might just be the ticket to getting a device's location when GPS alone doesn't cut it. Much as your current phone uses triangulation between cell sites to help speed up a position lock, a technique in a new Google patent application uses the physical distances between nearby devices to get a complete picture, even if GPS is completely on the fritz. The peer-to-peer technique still needs an internet connection to reach the central service piecing information together -- there isn't much help if you're in areas where reliable internet access isn't always guaranteed. Likewise, there's no certainty that Google will use the patent in a future build of Android or Chrome OS. If it does, though, at least some of us may say goodbye to the days of our map positioning going haywire the moment we drive through a tunnel or step into an office without WiFi.

Google files for a patent on peer-to-peer location fin! ding, sa ys cell tower triangulation is for chumps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source

source

USPTO | Email this | Comments

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)