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Friday, June 29, 2012

Shuttle takes quiet nettops down the Cedar Trail, intros XS35V3 and XS35GTA V3

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/29/shuttle-takes-quiet-nettops-down-the-cedar-trail-intros-xs35v3/

Nettops have slipped a bit out of vogue, but Shuttle is keeping the flame alive for those who like their desktops tiny and hushed. The XS35V3 and XS35GTA V3 have moved on to more contemporary Cedar Trail-era, 2.13GHz Atom D2700 processors that keep the power draw to a fanless 27W, even when everything is churning at full bore. That limit might get tested with the GTA variant, which brings in Radeon HD 7410M graphics for a lift to 3D performance, but neither mini desktop will exactly make the power company beg for mercy. Either is a barebones kit with the laptop-sized hard drive, optical drive and OS left to the buyer -- if you don't get them at the same time, you'll have only the HDMI, VGA, USB and card reader to keep you company. Europeans are currently the only ones getting a crack, where it costs €172 pre-tax ($214) for the XS35V3 and €233 ($290) to get its faster GTA cousin.

Shuttle takes quiet nettops down the Cedar Trail, intros XS35V3 and XS35GTA V3 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 06:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google helps train developers, hook up universities in new education programs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/29/google-helps-train-developers-hook-up-universities-in-new-educa/

While it only just revealed Google Developers Live earlier last week, offering interactive broadcasts and tutorials, the hardware-dabbling giant has now kicked off two more programs to support its dev faithful. The Google App Engine, Google Drive, YouTube and several advertising APIs will all be covered by the Google Developers Academy, a new site hub that offers up training materials on the above, with more promised in the future. It's joined by a new University Consortium, aiming to collaborate between academics who use Google's tools and dev platforms in their research and teaching. Both sites are now live -- learners can hit up the sources for all the details.

Google helps train developers, hook up universities in new education programs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jun 2012 06:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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THE STATE OF MOBILE COMMERCE: How Facebook Is Losing The Retail War

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-of-mobile-commerce-how-facebook-and-pcs-are-losing-the-online-retail-war-2012-6

girls shopping phone mobile

As more online shopping moves to mobile and tablet devices, PCs are the obvious losers in the e-commerce wars.

But Facebook, which once also dominated social media referrals into e-retailers, is losing share too.

About 67 million iPads have been sold since the device was launched. Apple now claims it sells more iPads than any other PC—and that's having a profound impact on e-commerce and social commerce retailers.

"Desktop and laptop usage is being replaced by tablet browsing," according to a new report by Monetate, the e-commerce customization company. "At the current rate, website traffic from PC users will dip below 75% in less than one year."

Until very recently, nearly 100 percent of shoppers arriving at retailers' web sites did so on a PC.

But "at the current rate, website traffic from PC users will dip below 75% in less than one year," Monetate's report says, because of the iPad.

In addition, Facebook's dominance of online shopping referrals has weakened. It once served 88 percent of e-commerce referrals. Now it only serves 59 percent. Pinterest is stealing its share over time, the numbers show.

The following slides are a selection from Monetate's "EQ1 2012" report into social commerce. The data is drawn from more than 100 million online shopping experiences.

The death of the PC? Traffic to e-commerce sites from tablet devices increased 348% in one year; visits from smartphone users increased 117%. PCs, however, lost 6 points of share.

Tablets are almost as effective as PCs for converting users into customers. Phones are the least effective for purchases. The conversion rate for smartphone shoppers has never gone above 1.7%, Monetate says.

Similarly, tablets are now just as effective at getting existing shoppers to add things to virtual shopping carts. Phones aren't.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Thursday, June 28, 2012

3D NAND Chips Are Going to Make High-Capacity SSDs a Reality [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5921974/3d-nand-chips-are-going-to-make-high+capacity-ssds-a-reality

SSDs are wonderful things that massively speed up your computer and they're getting cheaper too. But currently they don't offer the capacity that some users demand. Fortunately, that could all be about to change.

Extreme Tech reports that a company called Applied Materials has announced that a new etching system will allow it to take 3D transistors from scientific dream to reality. You see, currently most flash memory is made up from a bunch of transistors grouped together to form things called NAND gates, which can be used to store data. String enough of them together, and you get a flash memory chip.

The problem is, though, that currently they have to be made in 2D layers. That means the only way to increase memory density for a given area is make the transistors smaller—but scientists are reaching a plateau, where they can't reduce things in size any longer.

The solution it to build up—a bit like building skyscrapers in Manhattan. One way is just to stack layers on top of each other—and that's already done—but to really get high-density memory, you need to build a proper 3D NAND structure in the first place.

One snag: according to Applied Materials, trying to build 3D NAND structures in real life is like trying to dig a one-kilometer-deep, three-kilometer-long trench with walls exactly three meters apart, through interleaved rock strata. Scaled down, obviously. Their new system, however, uses some neat tricks to make that possible—though they're not letting on exactly how it works.

They do, however, admit that the 2D proportions of the resulting chips are akin to older NAND memory—but that the extra third dimension allows them to cram in storage space which massively offsets the difference.

The downside, as usual, is the fact that there's bound to be a long wait before it makes a commercial appearance. Don't go expecting an affordable 1TB SSD just yet. [Extreme Tech]

Image by Intel

JVC's Tiny HD Action Camera Looks Like a Freaking Tank [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5921995/jvcs-tiny-hd-action-camera-looks-like-a-freaking-tank

JVC's new GC-XA1 ADIXXION action camera is loaded, combining the best features of the competition into a compact, everything-proof package. No extra add-ons to buy. Is this the most-powerful compact action footage weapon yet?

The GC-XA1 ADIXXION weighs just 4.5 ounces and it's water, shock, dust and freeze-proof. It packs a five-megapixel CMOS sensory, shoots Full HD 1080p footage as well as 1280 x 720 footage at both 30 and 60 fps. It's also capable of shooting stills.

Smart HDMI Cables Tell You If You're Getting an SD, HD, or 4K Signal [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5921983/smart-hdmi-cables-tell-you-if-youre-getting-an-sd-hd-or-4k-signal

It's no secret that you don't have to spend a small fortune on the HDMI cables connecting your home theater gear. But that doesn't stop Monster from charging hundreds of dollars for its cords, justifying the costs with features like glowing signal indicators.

The company's newest line of HDMI cables are certified by the Imaging Science Foundation—or ISF—to deliver "maximum picture and audio quality" but since it's a digital signal, that doesn't actually mean much. What makes these HDMI cables worthy of note—and the 'smart' descriptor—is a simple LED indicator that lets you know if the cable is sending a standard def, HD, or 4K video signal. It's supposed to guarantee you're getting the best signal quality, but it seems more useful in a complicated theater setup where it could make identifying multiple HDMI cables easier.

In true Monster form, the new smart HDMI cables don't come cheap. They start at $60 for the 5-foot ISF 750, which boasts 14.3 Gbps transfer speeds. Then, they go as high as $350 for the 75-foot ISF 2000, rated at 21 Gbps. But if you really want to guarantee you'll enjoy everything your home theater has to offer, you might just want to stick with that $15 gray market HDMI cable and put your money towards your Blu-ray collection instead. [Monster via Chip Chick]

Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-web-lab/

In case you didn't get enough Google I/O news today, the Chrome team has just let loose a video teasing the launch of Web Lab beta. We aren't exactly sure what the Mountain View crew is up to, but apparently, the Web Lab will be revealed through a series of experiments set to be launched later this summer. Apparently, the installations will make their debut at the London Science Museum, and from the video snippets we've seen, they'll leverage the web and some custom machinery to create works of art. You don't have to take our word for it, however, jus take a minute to see for yourself in the video after the break.

Continue reading Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet?

Google teases Web Lab beta, an intersection of art, technology and the internet? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 20:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This CEO Has A Plan To Save Us From Email Hell

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/clarizen-ceo-avinoam-nowogrodski-email-hell-2012-6

Avinoam Nowogrodski Clarizen

Who doesn't want something better than email? We all spend too much time dealing with it.

Avinoam Nowogrodski is CEO of Israeli-based Clarizen. It makes a cloud app that competes head-to-head with Asana.

Asana has the Valley agog in part because its founded by two prominent ex-Facebookers but also because it has a big, fat plan to get rid of email.

But Clarizen, founded in 2005, has been scoring big numbers with its project-management cloud service.

It's got 2,000 customers and it doesn't use the freemium model. Instead, customers get a 30-day free trial.

250 companies are starting new trials every day, he says.

150 companies sign on as paying customers per month.

60% of these customers are in the U.S. but others are spread across 67 other countries.

Revenues have quadrupled in a year's time.

Nowogrodski talked to Business Insider about how he sees a post-e-mail world.

"Many companies have tried to replace email. Remember Google Wave?" Nogrowdowski says. "It didn't work so well because the issue is not email. The issue is connecting email to the processes."

While Nowogrodski admires Asana's goal, he criticizes its methods.

"They are basically targeting teams," and this he says "creates a silo of collaboration," he says.

He has a point. While it's nice that teams that can talk to each other, it's far better to connect whole companies and have our messages automatically connect to our to-do lists.

Naturally, he says that his product does just that. But Nowogrodski also gives kudos to Salesforce.com.

"Salesforce is playing a major role with the social enterprise with Chatter and CRM processes," he says.

Unfortunately, he doesn't think that email will really die. But he does think that applications that use it can get smarter and make it less of a pain.

"The revolution is about connecting the conversation —email, chat, voice, or video—and putting it into context of the process. It's not about replacing email."

Interesting. And too bad. We'd personally like to see that overflowing inbox just go away already.

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Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Google Earth 7.0 for Android brings new, super-detailed 3D maps for some cities

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-earth-for-android-gets-new-3d-maps-for-some-cities/

Here's a bit of a surprise that slipped under the radar during the Google I/O keynote: Google Earth for Android has been updated to 7.0 to take advantage of the new 3D map technology it unveiled at another special event just a few weeks ago. As a refresher, the visuals are automatically created from 45-degree aerial imagery and can pick up 3D elements as subtle as trees. Before you go racing to your hometown to see how it looks in 3D, be aware that just a handful of cities and regions exploit that dimension. Besides San Francisco Bay, the full coverage extends to Boulder, Boston, Charlotte, Lawrence, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Portland, San Antonio, San Diego, Santa Cruz and Tampa in the US, with Rome being the lone international hotspot. If that's too few places to visit, there's always the addition of guided tours. Android users can head over Google Play to get the update today; iOS users shouldn't fret, as they'll get the new maps soon.

Google Earth 7.0 for Android brings new, super-detailed 3D maps for some cities originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More Google Glass details: experimenting with connectivity options, control possible via voice

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/google-glass-details-voice-command-connectivity-options/

While Vic Gundotra wasn't willing to talk Glass in our run-in here at Google I/O, a few others were. In speaking with folks from Google, we learned a few new details about the project, while confirming some whispers that we'd heard floated in the past. Here's a quick rundown:

Engineers are currently 'experimenting' with connectivity options. Existing prototypes -- including those worn in the skydiving stunt this morning -- do not have any sort of built-in WWAN connectivity.
While it's possible that a 3G / 4G module could end up in production devices, the general idea is that latching onto nearby WiFi hotspots or relying on a wireless tether with your smartphone will be the primary way that Glass gets its data to the web.
Controlling Glass will eventually rely on a mixture of inputs: it'll recognize voice commands, while also taking cues from the right sidebar. There's a touch-sensitive pad on there that'll understand gestures.
It's entirely probable that Glass will also be able to be controlled via one's smartphone, but physical inputs will be the preferred ones.
Glass has an accelerometer and a gyroscope, enabling wearers to tell Glass what to do by nodding, shaking one's head, etc. (For what it's worth! , we've seen similar demoed by NTT DoCoMo.)
The internal battery sits just behind the ear on the right side; the capacity and longevity weren't confirmed, though.
Glass will be able to record locally, but the idea is to have 'most everything' streamed live to the web; it's the "live, right now!" nature of Glass that Google intends to push as one of its differentiating factors.
In an area where wireless data isn't available (like a remote National Park or a hospital room that forbids phone usage), storing video locally would be possible for uploading later.

We also confirmed that the team is playing around with various colors, with orange, white, black and blue editions being sported here at I/O. Whether or not all of those hues make it to market remains to be seen, of course, but we're adequately jazzed about the possibilities.

More Google Glass details: experimenting with connectivity options, control possible via voice originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nexus Q social streaming device hands-on

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/nexus-q-social-streaming-device-hands-on/

What is the Q? Well, it's a ball... a ball that plays music. And videos. And it also lights up. It's what Google is calling it a "social streaming device" but what's most important is that this is finally the realization of the Android@Home standard that was unveiled last year. While the styling is what'll immediately grab you, it's the functionality that Google thinks will rock your living room. Join us after the break for our first impressions of this category-defying device.

Gallery: Nexus Q hands-on

Co! ntinue r eading Nexus Q social streaming device hands-on

Nexus Q social streaming device hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vizio XVT CinemaWide TV goes on sale, 21:9 movie purists celebrate the end of black bars

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/vizio-xvt-cinemawide-tv-goes-on-sale/

It's been a long, long wait for Vizio's ultrawidescreen LCD TV to show its face: the company was promising such sets starting around this time last year that ultimately missed the October and subsequent March targets. Vizio is one to eventually make good on a promise, though, and has just started shipping the first XVT series CinemaWide set. The lone 58-inch model's focus remains on that 2560 x 1080p screen, whose stretchy 21:9 aspect ratio fits what you often see at the movie theater without having to crop or adjust like you would with a typical 16:9 set. Whether or not you have a chronic aversion to black bars, the CinemaWide is still a respectable set in its own right, with edge-based LED backlighting, a 120Hz refresh rate, a Bluetooth remote and the common host of Vizio internet apps. The TV maker must be doing a form of penance for taking its time on the 21:9 display: the $2,800 regular price is a lot lower than the originally quoted $3,500, and you can pick up the CinemaWide TV for $2,500 if you act quickly.

Gallery: Vizio CinemaWide Ultrawidescreen HDTVs

Vizio XVT CinemaWide TV goes on sale, 21:9 movie purists celebrate the end of black bars originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony's Action Cam prototype is incredibly small, we go fingers-on at CE Week in NYC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/sonys-action-cam-hands-on/

CE Week isn't typically a venue for major product introductions, then again neither is Sony's blog. Last night, we got a sneak peek at the company's new Action Cam on the aforementioned site, and this morning the Japanese manufacturer dropped the black curtain on what appears to be the very same prototypes used in yesterday's tease. We almost missed it at Sony's pint-sized booth at the annual week-long CEA event in New York City -- the camera, which has yet to get an official name and model number assignment from Tokyo, is massively smaller than yesterday's snaps may have implied. The adventure shooter is hidden behind glass, but we did manage to pull it out for a brief inspection, and boy is it tiny.

A variety of mounts were on hand to demonstrate the shooter's versatility, including a handlebar attachment, helmet holster and some sort of plastic enclosure that could presumably be used to shield the Action Cam from underwater hazards, though Sony declined to confirm. Specification details are also quite spotty at the moment, but we were able to confirm that there will be an Exmor R CMOS image sensor and a wide-angle Carl Zeiss Tessar lens on board. Things seem to be quite limited on the controls front, with simple navigation buttons, a Start/Stop toggle, a tiny LCD and stereo mics up front representing the entire bounty of I/O offerings. There also appears to be SD and Memory Stick storage on board, based on familiar logos printed on the jet-black housing. For now, that's all she wrote --! we expe ct more details as we approach the Action Cam's official launch in the fall. Flip through the gallery below for a closer look.

Gallery: Sony Action Cam prototype hands-on

Sony's Action Cam prototype is incredibly small, we go fingers-on at CE Week in NYC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer launches 11.6-inch Sandy Bridge TravelMate B113

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/acer-launches-11-6-inch-sandy-bridge-travelmate-b113/

4GB of RAM, half a TB of storage, Sandy Bridge and an 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 panel starting at €450 (about $563), sounds like a pretty sweet deal on a last-gen ultrabook right? Well, Acer's TravelMate B1113 is actually brand new and, as you dig a little deeper into the specs, this one sounds more like a rather hefty netbook. And we do mean hefty -- this laptop apparently tips the scales at 1.88 Kg, which puts it a touch over the four pound mark. 4.1 pounds certainly isn't shoulder busting, but it's a solid half a pound more than you'd expect from a machine of this size. Then there's the fact that the base model ships with a 1.4Ghz Celeron, and the top shelf €560 version (roughly $700) only sports a 1.5GHz Core i3. We haven't been able to dig up the dimensions on this sucker, but the press pics don't make it look particularly bulky. We can only assume, given its considerable weight and diminutive size, that the chassis is made of cast iron. On the plus side, it does have a matte screen... that's gotta count for something, right?

Acer launches 11.6-inch Sandy Bridge TravelMate B113 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers partially automate CPU core design, aim to fast track new PC processor production

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/researchers-partially-automate-cpu-core-design/

Tired of the year wait (or more) in between new silicon architecture offerings from Chipzilla and AMD? Well, if some Wolfpack researchers have anything to say about it, we'll measure that wait in months thanks to a new CPU core design tool that automates part of the process. Creating a new CPU core is, on a high level, a two step procedure. First, the architectural specification is created, which sets the core's dimensions and arranges its components. That requires some heavy intellectual lifting, and involves teams of engineers to complete. Previously, similar manpower was needed for the second step, where the architecture spec is translated into an implementation design that can be fabricated in a factory. No longer. The aforementioned NC State boffins have come up with a tool that allows engineers to input their architecture specification, and it generates an implementation design that's used to draw up manufacturing blueprints. The result? Considerable time and manpower savings in creating newly designed CPU cores, which means that all those leaked roadmaps we're so fond of could be in serious need of revision sometime soon.

Researchers partially automate CPU core design, aim to fast track n! ew PC pr ocessor production originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jun 2012 07:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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