Posted Feb 28th 2008 5:18AM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
Remember Project 28? That Boeing / DHS system to put a 28 mile stretch of sensor-tower laden virtual fencing along the US / Mexico border in Arizona? Well, the government swiped the contract back from Boeing last week for lack of, well, working, and is apparently going at it alone with plans to delay it three or more years to get the job done right. Well, you know, right as total failures and wastes of taxpayer dollars get, ultimately.
28
Feb
Siafu Concept PC
Published in electronics
The Siafu concept PC targets the visually impaired people group, bringing a more intuitive computer experience that relies on the sense of touch to navigate. The surface is made up of a conceptual material known as magneclay or magnetized liquid which can morph upward into any shapre through a controlled electromagnetic field. This results in the device creating a Braille surface that makes it possible to read, and who are we to say that these cannot be used to transmit pictures in 3D? Too bad everything is but a concept - I think something like this will definitely go a long way in helping the blind and visually impaired community hop on board Web 2.0.
28
Feb
Toshiba 120GB 1.8-inch HDD
Published in electronics
Toshiba has just announced its new 1.8″ hard drives that come with micro-SATA connectors, ferrying data at 5,400 rpm speeds in both 80GB and 120GB capacities. Known as the 80GB MK8016GSG and 120GB MK1216GSG, these two hard drives meet the stringent SATA 2.6 specification with a standard micro-SATA connector. They aren’t too shabby when it comes to performance as well, churning out a 489 Mbit/s transfer rate with 15 ms average seek time in tests while sipping relatively low power. These new hard drives are pretty…er, hardy, as they can handle external forces of up to 500G while operating and triple that amount when powered down. There is no word on pricing, but I hope to see these appear in Asus’ future Eee PC line.
28
Feb
Dell has officially unveiled their latest gaming desktop, the XPS 630 which is intended to serve as a “mainstream gaming” machine. The XPS 630 features an Intel Core 2 processor, comes standard with 2GB RAM, a 320GB or larger hard drive, running Windows Vista Home Premium and either a single or dual nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB2 graphics card, depending on your configuration.
Overall the reviews seem positive and the XPS 630 should make any gamer without an unlimited budget happy with the game experience. Let’s check out some of the reviews:
PC Mag.com:
“Dell’s XPS 630 slots in between the multimedia XPS 420 and the ultra-gaming XPS 720. It’s a “mainstream gaming” PC—one that ultimately outshines the others in the field.”
Computer Shopper:
“This serves as an important reminder: these systems aren’t intended for all-out performance freaks; they’re just supposed to bring the thrill and fun of 3D gaming to the masses who can’t shell out thousands of dollars to play the latest title at full-detail levels.”
“the XPS 630 is a well-tooled system that will bring you lots of enjoyment without breaking the bank.”
Tom’s Guide:
“It’s been a while since we’ve seen a complete performance system for less than $1500, and we simply couldn’t find another system to pit the XPS 630 against. But in addition to its respectable gaming performance, other components put the XPS 630 in the same performance league as our own reference system.”
Finally we have also found a video review courtesy of CNET. The XPS 630 is currently available and retails for $1,249 and higher depending on configuration.
Product [Dell]
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28
Feb
Posted Feb 27th 2008 5:16PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones
Garmin probably thought getting into the mobile phone game would just be smooth sailing, but it looks like they’ve made a deadly miscalculation. Okay, that might be over-dramatizing the situation, but the PND-maker is facing a new lawsuit over its upcoming 3G wonder-device, the Nuvifone. Apparently, internet telephone provider Nuvio Corp. feels that Garmin has crossed trademark boundaries just a smidge, alleging the nav company is stepping all over its good name. “Our customers commonly refer to our service as the Nuvio phone,” said Jason P. Talley, the company’s CEO. Not only is the provider calling for a cease-and-desist on the use of “Nuvifone,” but it also wants kickbacks for past infringement, and termination of the word “Nuvi” on any device made by Garmin. Garmin spokesman Ted Gartner says the company has been using the Nuvi name since early 2006 in North America, and earlier in Europe. He went on to add that they don’t discuss pending litigation — though we understand to friends and family he was like, “Pfft, whatever.”
28
Feb
Posted Feb 27th 2008 4:19PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Laptops
So at Sony’s Open House we were having lunch with Mike Abary, Sony’s US SVP of Information Technology Products Division, who oversees Vaio computers (among numerous other things). Of course, the inevitable question came up about the Eee PC’s success thus far, and what that means to computer companies on the higher end of the spectrum, like Sony. Mike’s response was a little surprising, but certainly sensible enough: if consumer expectations begins to weigh too heavily toward the $300 end of PCs, he believes that kind of consumer adoption would have a profoundly negative impact on the industry, referring to its effect as “a race to the bottom.”
We know there are a lot of Eee fans in the house, but the man makes sense. Sony isn’t trashing ultra-cheap machines so much as recognizing that it’s hard to push things forward when your primary objective becomes making the very cheapest possible machine you can (and not very best). Innovation is hard enough to subsidize, but when your already thin margins flatten even further in trying to sell ultra-cheap machines, it’s easy to see the economics working against tech companies. (Asus has less to worry about here because its primary business is making PCs for other companies.) Of course, the reality is that ultra-cheap machines probably won’t soon envelop the lion’s share of computer sales and threaten what most think of as “real” PCs, so we probably don’t have to worry about the industry bottoming out because of the Eee. False advertising and abusive trialware, however, are different stories entirely.
28
Feb
Photo: Chance Gardener/Flickr
An Italian designer has designed a car prototype featuring a windshield that removes water and dirt without the need of a wiper. Leonardo Fioravanti’s idea is to take the modern windshield’s features (mainly, laminated safety glass made out of two sheets of glass with a plastic layer in between), and add nanotech properties to it and then activating the system through an electric currency.
In the prototype, four sheets of nanotech-enabled sheets are grouped together, alternately filtering the sun and repelling water (the function of the exposed sheet of glass), moving the dirt to the sides of the windshield (through a magical-sounding nano-dust film), which is then activated by a third protective conduit layer, and is finally powered by a conduct of electricity in a fourth layer that makes the whole thing work.
If you thought this concept was destined to become vaporware, you haven’t told the guy who’s already put it in on a Hidra concept car sedan and told everyone and their mom that it will be within mass production in about 5 years.
It’s interesting that if you look at all the developments in cars throughout the years, the wiper system is one feature that hasn’t changed much. I’ll put a test drive of a rainstorm-ravaged Hidra car in my calendar for five years from now, and then we’ll see where we stand at the time.
27
Feb
1301 glowing fluorescent tubes, powered only by magnetic fields produced by overhead powerlines, stud fields somewhere in England.
Gallery [Richard Box via JWZ]
27
Feb
Posted Feb 27th 2008 12:58PM by Ryan Block
Filed under: Misc. gadgets
It’s confirmed: Apple’s next event is scheduled for March 6th, next Thursday. It’ll be a Town Hall event; obviously new MacBooks and MacBook Pros aren’t to be expected, but the unambiguous “iphone software roadmap” and the image above should help guide our assumptions as to what will be discussed. The SDK’s a given, but “exciting new enterprise features,” eh?
