Hasta La Gadget!

Remember the Eee 901 “hammerhead edition,” the extra-wide monstrosity that offered 10 cells of goodness in one less than aesthetic package? Welcome to that accessory’s homebrew cousin, the creation of a modder by the name of TenaciousDre who stole eight batteries from an old laptop and wired them up to the existing four-cell battery, creating a 12-cell shrink-wrapped bulge to protrude less than majestically from the back of his Eee. The good news is 12 to 15 hours of life with the laptop set on its most frugal settings; the bad news is a 12 hour re-charge time and a useless battery gauge that reads zero percent despite eight hours of juice remaining. We have seen uglier examples of excess in the computing world before, but would probably rather carry around a second (and third) battery than have to explain this tumor to every passer-by at Starbucks.

[Via Portable Monkey]

Continue reading Modder crafts homemade 12-cell battery for Eee, doubles stock battery life, grows unsightly hump

Filed under: Laptops

Modder crafts homemade 12-cell battery for Eee, doubles stock battery life, grows unsightly hump originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The following quote is from Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Narayan, regarding Flash on the iPhone.

It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating […] The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.

What on Earth can this mean? Apple has repeatedly poured scorn on Flash, calling it too slow and inefficient for the iPhone and even saying that it doesn’t work well on desktop machines. Adobe, for its part, keeps yapping away and snapping at the iPhone’s heels like a faithful, over enthusiastic doggy. Back in September last year, Adobe’s Paul Petiem said that the company was already working on Flash for the iPhone.

We know that Apple, and Steve Jobs in particular, has a history of denying new products and then shipping them soon after, so we’ll leave aside the speculation and look at some facts.

First, does the iPhone need Flash? YouTube, which is Flash-based on the web, recoded all of its video in the h.264 codec to run on the iPhone. The Safari Web browser even shows a still preview of any YouTube video embedded in the page. The seamless result works great, and is Flash-free.

The other major use of Flash (other than terrible, annoying websites which should frankly be banned) is in interactive web services like Flickr slideshows or "cloud" photo editing applications. A fair point, until you realize that the tiny iPhone screen isn’t great for any kind of editing, photos or words. If a company has to recode a site to fit into the iPhone’s screen, why not do it in as lightweight a way possible and skip Flash altogether. This is what Flickr has actually done.

And possibly even more important is the drain on resources. Last night, the Lady’s MacBook was screaming like a leaf-blower after thirty seconds of YouTube video. This isn’t an old machine either — it is just over a year old and is stuffed with RAM. If Flash can drain her battery like an Englishman can drain a pint of lager, surely an iPhone version would be even harder on the tiny battery.

Last, for Flash to behave as it does on the "desktop web", it would need to work as a plugin for Mobile Safari. As of this writing, this is not allowed. Apple, of course, can stick whatever it likes inside Safari, but third parties are prohibited. The Google Maps application for the iPhone was actually written by Apple, not Google as many people think, as Apple likes to control what is going on. If Flash were implemented, it would come from in-house, not from Adobe.

Which brings us back to that odd quote from Narayan, "Apple and Adobe are collaborating." It seems straightforward enough, but is likely to be just bluster and wishful thinking. In fact, compare it to a statement made by Narayan on the Adobe earnings conference call, all the way back in March last year:

we’re also committed to bringing the Flash experience to the iPhone and we’ll work with Apple. [emphasis added]

Sound familiar?

Adobe’s Narayen Says Flash on IPhone Is a Challenge [Bloomberg]

See Also:

• Why Apple Won’t Allow Adobe Flash on iPhone
• Adobe Confirms Flash for iPhone, Awaits Apple’s Approval
• iPhone Users: There Will Be No Flash Soup For You

Rather than making the customary press release blast across media outlets, ASUS just loosed its newest Eee PC — the 1000HE (“E,” as in extended) — into pre-order limbo via its official ASUS Eee PC Facebook group. The latest 10-inch LED backlit Eee PC with new chicklet keyboard ships with 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, and a 160GB hard disk with an additional 10GB of Eee Online storage. The inclusion of Intel’s 1.66GHz Atom N280 processor and ASUS’ own Super Hybrid Engine battery conservation tech makes this the most powerful and longest lasting Eee PC ever. Members of the Eee PC Facebook group receive a $25 discount off the $399 pre-order price. Sweet… but you might find yourselves wishing you’d waited for a touchscreen model whenever Windows 7 rolls around.

[Via SlashGear]

Read — Facebook Group
Read — Where to Pre-order

Filed under: Laptops

Eee PC 1000HE with 9.5 hour battery seeks friends, pre-orders originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Security researcher Chris Paget has brought Cory Doctorow’s latest novel to life.

In the book Little Brother, kids use cheap RFID readers to clone San Francisco’s Fastrak cards and then rewrite the details to other users’ cards to cause mayhem and bring down the DHS. In reality, these cards contain RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) chips which can be read from a distance. The purpose is to let drivers cruise through toll-booths without stopping – payment is automatic – but you can be sure that there are plenty of other scanners dotted around the city, tracking your progress as you drive.

Paget wasn’t trying to bring down the government. He was simply making a point. Armed with a homebrew RFID reader kit (cost of parts: $250), he drove downtown and in 20 minutes had grabbed the details of two RFID passports. No Fastrak cards yet, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be wrapping them in tinfoil (we’re actually serious). Paget’s aim is to have these chips removed from personal IDs as, aside from being insecure they are "unsuitable for tagging people". We agree.

Passport RFIDs cloned wholesale by $250 eBay auction spree [The Register]

Little Brother [Craphound]

See Also:

• Mobile RFID Reader Brings Big Brother To Your Pocket
• New York Offers Drivers License with RFID Tag
• Access Denied: RFID Cat-Flap Scans Kitties

I spent most of Friday fiddling with iPhoto ’09, and you can read my first impressions here. On Saturday, I spent some major quality time with iMovie ’09, and I have to say it’s pretty easy to grasp. I’m no professional, and I’ll admit that I preferred iMovie HD (or the ’06 version) to iMovie ’08, but it’s not too bad. In fact, I created this short little video of the public pillow fight in San Francisco on Valentine’s Day 2007 in about three hours (It could’ve been shorter, but I spent most of the time finding the source material).

As you might recall, when iMovie ’08 first debuted, there was quite a substantial outcry in the Mac community. iMovie ’08 was drastically different when compared with its predecessors, without a lot of the depth and advanced features to which most Mac users have become accustomed. So much so that Apple made it a point that you could download iMovie ’06 (also known as iMovie HD) for free if you missed all the functionality you lost with iMovie ’08.

…

Originally posted at The Download Blog