Corkscrew nanopropellers may one day deliver drugs internally

Clearly, vaccinations are so three years ago. As the race continues to find the best, most mobile internal transportation device for delivering drugs to remote places within the body, Peer Fischer of The Rowland Institute at Harvard University has teamed with colleague Ambarish Ghosh to concoct the wild creation you see to the right. The glass-derived nanopropeller was designed to move in a corkscrew motion in order to plow through syrupy, viscous liquids within the human frame. The device itself is fantastically small, measuring just 200 to 300 nanometers across at the head and 1 to 2 micrometers long. Fischer points out that each of these can be controlled with a striking amount of precision via an external magnetic field, though we don’t get the impression that they’ll be on to FDA testing in the near future. Ah well, at least our gra, er, great-grandchildren will be all taken care of.

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Corkscrew nanopropellers may one day deliver drugs internally originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget arrives at E3 2009!

We’ve landed in somewhat sunny Los Angeles, just in time to watch the (de)construction of a mountain of miscellany in front of the LA Convention Center’s South Hall. It’s gonna be a long week for us covering all the hottest hardware and gaming peripherals, including DJ Hero, Beatles Rock Band, and we’re thinking a few non-surprises from the likes of Microsoft and Sony. We’ve joined forces with our cohorts at Joystiq in creating a dedicated E3 2009 hub to satiate all your game news needs, as well as keep track of when all the keynotes are going down — but of course if you’re just interested in the Engadget side of things, you know where to look.

Things kick off tomorrow — June 1st — with Microsoft’s press conference, and we’ll be there blowing it out live. Here’s when all the fun begins:

07:25AM
– Hawaii
10:25AM – Pacific
11:25AM – Mountain
12:25PM – Central
01:25PM – Eastern
05:25PM – GMT
06:25PM – London
07:25PM – Paris
02:25AM – Tokyo (June 2nd)

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Engadget arrives at E3 2009! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gametrak Freedom Xbox 360 motion controller up for pre-order with Squeeballs

We get the feeling this isn’t the motion sensing surprise that’s likely in store for Xbox 360 fans at E3, but it’s still great to see this controller moving beyond the hype stage. After being spied late last year and detailed around two months ago, the Gametrak Freedom motion controller is now listed at GameStop with an October 15th ship date. The controller, which will come bundled with Squeeballs: Island Party for the Xbox 360, is already up for pre-order, promising gamers who shell out $69.99 a grand total of 11 motion sensing party games. Unfortunately, there’s no word on how much extra Freedom sticks will run, but based on the price of this kit, we’d wager not much.

[Thanks, Josh]

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Gametrak Freedom Xbox 360 motion controller up for pre-order with Squeeballs originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 23:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acoustic superlens could mask ships from sonar… in theory, anyway

Man, the mad scientists are really on a roll of late. First we hear that Li-ion cells are set to magically double in capacity, and now we’re learning that a new form of invisibility cloak is totally gearing up for its Target debut. As the seemingly endless quest to bend light in such a way as to create a sheath of invisibility continues, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Nicholas Fang has reportedly developed a metamaterial that acts as a type of acoustic superlens. In theory, at least, this approach would rely on phreaking with sound rather than light in order to intensely focus ultrasound waves; by doing so, one could hypothetically “hide ships from sonar.” To be fair, this all sounds entirely more believable than hiding massive vessels from human sight, but we’re still not taking our skeptic hat off until we see (er, don’t see?) a little proof.

[Via Slashdot]

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Acoustic superlens could mask ships from sonar… in theory, anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 21:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s OmniaHD gets high-def unboxing

If watching the N97 crawl out of its Espoo-designed packaging just isn’t enough for one day, how’s about this? An unlocked Samsung OmniaHD (or i8910, if we’re being proper) has found its way into the ever-loving hands of one mareskino, and he was kind enough to unbox the thing on video. Better still, the quality here is second to none, and we’d bet you’ll be drooling by the end of it. If you’re ready to prove us right / wrong, hop on past the break and mash play.

[Thanks, Curtis]

Continue reading Samsung’s OmniaHD gets high-def unboxing

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Samsung’s OmniaHD gets high-def unboxing originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 20:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Meat, New Business

New%20Meat%2C%20New%20Business.jpg

Iconoculture: Consumers will soon be seeing some new names in the butcher case. The beef industry spent five years and $1.5 million studying the chuck roll, the area under the shoulder blade that’s normally turned into moderately priced steaks and chuck roast — and came up with five new products.

Country-style Chuck Ribs are boneless and best braised, like a short rib. America’s Beef Roast can be roasted in the oven and makes a great sandwich. The Denver has lots of marbling and is best cooked to medium-rare. The Sierra is similar to a flank steak and needs to be marinated for several hours before grilling or broiling. The tender Delmonico steak is best grilled or broiled.

Welcome to Flatiron Marketing 2009. More consumers are making their own dinners these days, and are seeking relatively cost-effective ways to enjoy a good steak by being educated about right cooking methods.

Meat market: Beef industry rolls out new cuts [Iconoculture]

Philips GoGear Opus reviewed: solid audio, but painfully boring

When we had the downright magnificent opportunity to toy with Philips’ latest PMP line here in the States, we immediately noticed that the GoGear Opus stood out among the rest. The crew over at TrustedReviews recently spent some quality time with the 8GB version of that very unit, and while they found the audio quality to be “excellent,” they seemed rather disappointed — if not irked — by everything else in the package. For starters, the whole solution just felt boring, with critics noting that its biggest problem was a lack of “excitement.” Granted, none of this would matter at a rock-bottom price point, but for $100, there’s an awful lot of competition. As we found during our short time with the player, these folks also noticed that the user interface was simply “old-fashioned,” and that video playback was nothing to write home about. The bottom line? Unless you score some kind of spectacular deal, your PMP dollars are probably best spent elsewhere.

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Philips GoGear Opus reviewed: solid audio, but painfully boring originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 18:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s Zune HD shipping on September 5th?

Look, we fully understand that September 5th is a long ways out, but don’t think for a second that Microsoft isn’t inking every last detail of its Zune HD launch in stone. That said, Windows expert and all-around good guy Paul Thurrott has been “told” that this very player will ship exactly on the fifth day of the ninth month of this year. Needless to say, that jibes with Microsoft’s official line (“this fall“), but sadly, we’ve no other information to go on at the moment. In other words, feel free to pencil this one in, but keep that eraser handy — cool?

[Via Zune Boards, thanks Joel]

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Microsoft’s Zune HD shipping on September 5th? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 17:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ultra-powerful laser could make incandescent light bulbs more efficient

Look, LED light bulbs are fanciful, great for Ma Earth and a fine addition to any home, barber shop or underground fight club. But let’s be honest — even the guy that bikes through blizzards to get to work and wears garb that he grew in his basement isn’t apt to shell out $120 a pop to have what’s likely the most efficient light bulb American dollars can buy. Enter Chunlei Guo from the University of Rochester, who has helped discover a process which could morph a traditional incandescent light bulb into a beacon of burning light without using nearly as much energy as before. In fact, his usage of the femtosecond laser pulse — which creates a “unique array of nano- and micro-scale structures on the surface of a regular tungsten filament” — could enable a bulb to increase output efficiency in order to emit 100-watts worth of light while sucking down less than 60-watts of power. Per usual, there’s no telling when this new hotness is likely to hit the commercial realm, but one’s thing for sure: we bet GE‘s paying attention.

[Via Physorg]

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Ultra-powerful laser could make incandescent light bulbs more efficient originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft showing off Windows 7-powered Viliv S5 MID at Computex

Being that Release Candidate 1 just hit the tubes, we weren’t really expecting a big Windows 7 presence at Computex this year. Much to our surprise, Viliv has announced that it will be showcasing the first official Win7-powered MID at the Taiwan-based show later this week. The heralded S5 will be the lucky device, with a duo of WiMAX-equipped cousins (X70 EX and S7) hanging around to demonstrate live video streaming. Needless to say, we’ll be doing everything we can to drop by and see how things are going.

[Via CNET]

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Microsoft showing off Windows 7-powered Viliv S5 MID at Computex originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 May 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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