(Credit: Transcend)On the short list of things I appreciate in a digital photo frame is a lot of internal memory. Sure, it’s cheap enough to buy an extra SD card, but when a flash-memory manufacturer like Transcend makes a frame, I expect it to have a healthy amount. …
The rumors Sony is working on a PSP2? Pure confusion, says Sony exec John Koller. Rumormongers are somehow mistaking its push to digital distribution, away from UMD, as work on PSP2. Uh huh. [SAI]
NVIDIA still hasn’t gotten official with the less-than-secret card, but it looks like China’s IT168 website has already gotten its hands on an actual GTX 295 and gone ahead and published some early benchmarks, which now seem to have not so mysteriously disappeared. This being the internet, however, there’s already been screenshots taken, and while the benchmarks certainly impress, they’re also rightfully leading folks to wait for some slightly more official numbers. If they are accurate, however, it looks like the GTX 295 will trounce ATI’s top-end HD 4870 X2 in a number of tests, including a stunning 100% boost in performance in Dead Space, all while boasting a considerably lower power consumption too boot (hence the suspicion). We won’t have to wait too much longer to put things to rest, however, as the card is expected to be officially unveiled at CES, with a whole slew of benchmarks inevitably set to follow shortly thereafter.
[Via The Inquirer]
Early NVIDIA GTX 295 benchmarks impress, raise suspicions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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So you got a job, moved into your own place, picked up an IKEA Poang and then felt pretty good about life. Things were working out alright! Then you saw the Frederic Sofia Relaxation Chair…
Sitting on a cast aluminum frame, a cloth or leather cushion waits to do your rump’s bidding. The arm rests customize the seat’s comfort, and pneumatic springs arrange the seat, backrest and headrest.
Maybe you will never be able to afford the surely expensive Relaxation Chair, but fret not. Without actually sitting in it, you’ll never know what you’re missing. [Frederic Sofia via DVICE]
A piezoelectric power mat installed outside a popular Japanese train station is introducing commuters to the usefulness of self-generating energy.
The 90-square-centimeter, 2.5-centimeter-thick mat at the Shibuya station in Tokyo, Japan, generates electricity every time a person steps on it, lighting up a Holiday light display on one of the station’s wall. It also powers an LED board that updates, in real time, the total amount of electricity created. It is estimated that 2.4 million people pass through the huge Shibuya Station every day.
The piezoelectric mat creates a voltage of energy by applying a charge between the material sheets at the moment of impact, or what some call ‘applied mechanical stress.’
The power is stored inside the capacitors and sent to the displays.
According to planner Yoshiaki Takuya from Soundpower Corp., the company that created the mat, a person that weighs about 135 lbs generates 0.1 watts in the one second they usually take to step on the tile. "But when they are covering a large area of floor space and thousands of people are stepping or jumping on them," Tayuka says, "then, we can generate significant amounts of power."
The mat is a joint project between the Shibuya Ward government and Soundpower to bring about greater public support for clean energy initiatives, while also offering the company a good research opportunity.
At another large Tokyo train station, special floor ceramic tiles have also been installed in front of ticket turnstiles to trigger small vibrations stored as energy.
The ceramic tiles are supported by rubber sheet layers that absorb the vibrations.
Because it’s estimated that 400,000 people use this second station every day, the company hopes the pedal power will, at least, generate enough electricity to cover the amount used by the turnstiles and a few LED signs in the station.
Photos: AFP/Getty, ASCII, Soundwave
Lightweight netbooks are pretty little devices to have around but their wallet-friendly price tag comes at a cost. Netbooks today can do little beyond basic internet surfing. That’s set to change, says Nvidia.
The company is planning to launch a CPU-GPU combo that would combine Intel’s Atom processor and Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M motherboard graphics processing unit (GPU) into a new platform called Ion.
Ion, which is likely to debut in the first half of 2009, can potentially offer graphics and video performance that is ten times better than just an Atom-processor based device, says Nvidia.
The platform will also be powerful enough to go beyond Windows XP and run Vista and potentially even Microsoft’s upcoming operating system Windows 7.
An Ion-platform machine will generate less heat than a current Atom system, while offering battery life that is about the same, says PC World.
Clearly this is the next evolutionary step for netbooks. While netbooks score on price, size and weight, their limited processing capabilities render them almost useless for some time-killing activities such as playing some World of Warcraft or watching crazy animal videos on YouTube without the machine stalling several times.
Companies other than Nvidia are also taking note of this limitation. AMD is planning to release Yukon, its CPU-GPU combo for netbooks, next year.
It is likely Nvidia’s Ion will hit the market first. It could be a little more expensive than just Atom-based machines but it’s a price most consumers should be willing to pay.
Photo: Nvidia Ion (Masaru Kamikura/Flickr)
Filed under: Gaming
Sony PSP2 rumors debunked, probably not for the last time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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French designer Julien Bergignat’s Tima Watch concept has an actual basis in reality, and is something you may actually wear to places more upscale than Red Lobster.
E-Ink watches have made it onto the market in one form or another, but they’re still not as good looking as this render from 2006. You get a digital representation of an analog face (neat) as well as a digital representation of a digital face. If this ever made it to market, we’d buy this for upwards of $200. [Julien Bergignat via Fubiz via Dvice]
These guys don’t know when to stop—after wowing with the Bird’s Nest and an upcoming Jenga apartment tower in NYC, H&dM have just unveiled their equally stunning design for a bank HQ in Madrid.
Aside from looking like a delicious ‘nilla wafer standing upright in a field of whipped cream, or a sailboat at sea in a crazy greenhouse ocean, the BBVA building incoporates a ton of cool ideas that sound like the most perfect work environment ever.
The main buildings are long, horizontal and onlythree-stories tall, and in the alleys and other nooks and crannies surrounding, a “carpet” of plants and trees grows. This will give each workspace a garden view and create “a cool, moist, fresh microclimate analogous to an Arabian garden” in the desert-y Madrid suburbs. And from it all springs the aforementioned wafer, excised from the carpet and set vertically at a slight angle.
Hey BBVA – you hiring? [Dezeen]
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio
iLuv announces i9500 iPod / CD sound system originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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