Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Friday, May 17, 2013

Fitbit now syncs to Galaxy S 4, broader Android device support is coming

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/16/fitbit-now-syncs-to-galaxy-s-4/

The state of Fitbit wireless syncing is far from ideal for Android users, but the company's latest step is proof that it's slowly getting better. Today, Fitbit updated its Android app to bring wireless syncing to the Galaxy S 4, which follows a previous update for the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II. According to Fitbit's blog, its difficulty in supporting more devices stems from software differences on various Android smartphones, which causes trouble regardless of whether the device includes Bluetooth 4.0. On the upside, just yesterday, the Bluetooth SIG announced that Android will gain support for Bluetooth Smart Ready and Bluetooth Smart devices in the coming months, which Fitbit reckons will solve much of the compatibility issues that it and other device manufacturers have faced. So, if you have a Galaxy S 4, take the opportunity to get syncing your fitness data today -- it won't be long before other Android devices get to join in the fun.

Filed under: Misc, Software, Mobile

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Source: Fitbit

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Corning intros Lotus XT Glass for next-gen mobile displays, touts more efficient production (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/16/corning-lotus-xt-glass/

Corning's Lotus Glass promised a world full of thinner, more advanced mobile displays when it was unveiled in 2011, but it hasn't always been easy to build with the volumes or features that customers want. Enter the company's new Lotus XT Glass as the solution: clients can produce it more reliably at high temperatures, leading to more usable panels for our LCDs and OLEDs. The improved yields should not only result in larger device volumes than the original Lotus Glass could muster, but push the technological limits -- Corning notes that hotter manufacturing allows for brighter, sharper and more efficient screens. The glass is commercially available today, although we'll still need to wait for gadget makers to choose, implement and ship it before we notice the XT difference.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile

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Source: Corning

Google's Blink team pulls 8.8 million lines of WebKit code in one month

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/16/google-blink-team-pulls-8-8-million-lines-of-webkit-code/

Google let us all know that it would strip out unneeded WebKit code to make its Blink web engine scream, but it never said exactly what kind of pace we could expect. The answer, it turns out, is "breakneck." The company's Alex Komoroske told Google I/O attendees that the Open Web Platform team has already yanked 8.8 million lines of programming from Blink in about a month, with 4.5 million of them scrubbed almost immediately. Removing so much cruft has reportedly improved not just the upcoming engine, but the engineers -- they're far more productive, Komoroske says. The team has already had time to explore new rendering techniques and garner code contribution requests from the likes of Adobe, Intel and even Microsoft. Although we don't yet know if all the trimming will be noticeable to end users by the time Blink reaches polished Chrome and Chrome OS releases, it's safe to say that some developers won't recognize what they see.

Filed under: Internet, Software, Google

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Source: TechCrunch

MIT crafts analog circuits from living bacteria

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/16/mit-crafts-analog-circuits-from-living-bacteria/

Previous work on using organisms as circuitry has usually involved shoehorning parts of the digital world into a very analog environment. MIT has just found an approach that uses the subtlety of the natural world to its advantage: the circuits themselves are analog. By combining genes that produce similar molecules in response to different inputs, the school's scientists have created bacterial cells that perform basic math -- the exact quantity or ratio of a given molecule is the answer. The approach offers a much wider range of results than a binary circuit (10,000 versus 2), and it exploits the cell enzymes' inherent ratio awareness to do some of the hard work. MIT wants more variety in genetic ingredients before it can produce a truly universal system, but its work could lead to organic sensors that are much simpler and more precise than their digital peers.

Filed under: Science

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Via: ExtremeTech

Source: MIT

Archos intros Xenon 80 8-inch tablet, delivers Jelly Bean and 3G for $200

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/16/archos-xenon-80/

Just in case that recently announced ChefPad wasn't suited to your tastes, Archos is now introducing a smaller, not-so-kitchen-friendly Android tablet, the Xenon 80. Naturally, the main highlight of this 8-inch slate is that it boasts 3G capabilities, and the company's quick to point out it's SIM-unlocked. Archos also endowed the Xenon 80 with some decent specs, including a vanilla flavor of Google's Jelly Bean, an unnamed Qualcomm quad-core CPU, a 1,024 x 768 IPS display and 4GB of internal storage (expandable to 64GB by way of a microSD slot). And as with other recent Archos tablets, the Xenon 80 carries the proper Google Play credentials, making it easy for you to have access to all your favorite apps. It'll cost a mere $200 when it hits shelves in June, which is on par with competing offerings. Now, whether it's worth taking the plunge, well, you'll have to make that call for yourself.

Gallery: Archos 80 Xenon press shots