Jun 15

Asus Eee PC T91 starts shipping today

Posted in: ASUS, tablet, tablet pc, TabletPc, Today's Chili, touchscreen

Great news, fans of multitouch (at least in Windows 7): According to the crazy kids at Netbook Market, the Eee PC T91 — that 8.9-inch resistive touch screen convertible tablet sporting an Intel Atom Z520 (1.33GHz) processor, Windows XP Home, a max of 2GB memory and a 16GB SSD, will start shipping today. And you know what that means! It’s only a matter of time before some sick person guts one of these things and sends us a pics and / or video. We’ll be keeping an eye out, and we’ll be sure to notify the proper authorities.

[Thanks, Alex]

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Asus Eee PC T91 starts shipping today originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 09:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 15

Willow Garage’s PR2 robot breaks, enters, steals electricity

Posted in: Today's Chili
Willow Garage's PR2 robot breaks, enters, steals electricity

Robots may be impressive and occasionally frightening things that will some day rule our lives and societies, but right now they’re rather co-dependent, unable to even recharge themselves without a helping hand. The latest from robo-startup Willow Garage is different, a bot called PR2 that’s capable of maneuvering through a crowded office, opening (non-locked) doors, and pilfering a little taste of that good, good, alternating current juice. What’s more, he’s sensitive to your time constraints, so the demonstration video below has been thoughtfully edited to minimize footage of aimless wandering, spinning, and general confusion. Next step: learning to knock.

[Via Robots.net]

Continue reading Willow Garage’s PR2 robot breaks, enters, steals electricity

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Willow Garage’s PR2 robot breaks, enters, steals electricity originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 15

More Leaked Shots Show Beautiful Retro Olympus ‘Pen’ Camera

Posted in: Retro, Today's Chili

olympus retro hot

No dubious blurry-cams here. In fact, this leaked shot of the Olympus E-P1 is so pristine and tallies so well with both other leaks and actual prototypes that it’s certainly the real deal. Coming in three colors (the leather patch is either orangey-brown, pinky-brown or black) and with a choice of at least two lenses and an accessory viewfinder, this is likely to be the modern Olympus “Pen” that will be officially unveiled tomorrow.

Here we see both the previously-leaked 17mm ƒ2.8 prime lens and a new 14-42 (28-84 equivalent) ƒ3.5-5.6 zoom and a huge and bright looking optical ‘finder. That finder alone has got us all hot, as compacts usually skimp on this part of the optics in favor of the LCD screen. Speaking of LCDs, this is the one part none of the leaks has shown us.

Like we said, only one more day to wait for the official line. If Olympus has gotten this camera right, it could be huge. Lovely styling, a big sensor (Micro Four Thirds sensors are half the size of a 35mm frame) and what looks like a well laid-out set of controls. If the shutter response is good and low-light performance up to modern standards, it will be almost impossible to stop me buying one. Fingers crossed.

New Olympus [Xitek via Engadget]

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Jun 15

Hillcrest Labs Loop combines Wiimote, mouse, and Ouroboros

Posted in: controller, HTPC, mouse, Today's Chili
Hillcrest Labs Loop combines Wiimote, mouse, and Ouroboros

Hillcrest Labs has taken a few moments away from its bitter patent dispute with Nintendo to finally release its $99 Loop controller, a Freespace mouse intended primarily for use by those with some sort of HTPC setup. It’s the latest in bangle-inspired design, sporting four buttons and a scroll wheel, compatibility with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, and lacking any sort of chunky sensor bars or the like, detecting hand movements to glide the cursor across the screen. We hear it also makes a great accessory for geek-chic parties.

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Hillcrest Labs Loop combines Wiimote, mouse, and Ouroboros originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 15

Wahl Reboots Male Grooming with Li-Ion Trimmer

Posted in: household, Today's Chili

wahl li-ion roarsThe batteries in electric shavers suck. Charge-times are better measured as large fractions of days than as hours, you can’t use them while they are charging and, even when full, they don’t last long.

Wahl’s new trimmer tries to fix this, and Wahl is so proud of the battery technology that it has put it in the name. The Lithium Ion Trimmer is the fist trimmer ever to use a Li-Ion battery, according to Wahl, which has several advantages. First, it only takes an hour to charge and then, when done, stops using power. Second, the shaver will run for a couple of hours instead of just a half an hour. It also has “2x more torque”, which we imagine would only be useful on the most wiry beards.

Last, and possibly most useful, is the quick-charge function. Plug a dead trimmer in for one minute and you get four minutes of use, enough for a proper shave (or, if you are as scruffy as me, eight proper shaves). The price is a reasonable $40, and it comes with enough special styling attachments to turn you into a facsimile of even the most primped and preened R&B singer.

Better still, though, is the Amazon product page. Scroll down to see the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section and you’ll see the “Mangroomer DIY Electric Back Shaver” and, at the end of the row, the James Bond “Quantum of Solace” DVD. Testoster-tastic.

Product page [Wahl via Uncrate]


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Jun 15

Gartner: Android on ARM “more snappy” than Windows 7 on Atom

Posted in: Android, arm, netbook, snapdragon, tegra, Today's Chili, windows 7, Windows7

The case for running Android — an OS developed for smartphones — on cheap, ultra-portable laptops has yet to be made. However, that hasn’t stopped manufacturers from tinkering with the idea as demonstrated by the broad range of Android “smartbooks” running on ARM-based (be it Snapdragon, Tegra, or Freescale) architectures at Computex. Now Gartner, the guiding force for many corporate CIOs, has issued a research note that puts Atom-based netbooks running Windows 7 on notice while giving credence to the emerging smartbook category of ultra-portables. Analysts Christian Heidarson and Ben Lee said the following in Gartner’s Semiconductor DQ Monday Report:

When Android did work, we found that the user interface was very snappy on relatively low-performance ARM processors, more so than Windows 7 on Atom.

Of course, Windows 7 scales much better than Vista and as a full-blown desktop OS gives users a lot of flexibility as long as the netbook’s chipset is up to the task. Then again, if you’re looking for a purpose-built, fanless 10-inch ultra-portable with integrated WWAN data and FireFox browser that costs less than $200 and plays 25 days of music or 10-hours of 1080p video off a single charge, well then a smartbook might be the device for you. We’ll see which carrier is brave enough to sell ’em come October.

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Gartner: Android on ARM “more snappy” than Windows 7 on Atom originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 15

Specialized to Roll Out ‘Cheap’ Fixed-Gear Bikes

Posted in: Today's Chili, Transportation

globe_roll_01

One of the attractions of the fixed-gear bike is that they are cheap. Find an old beat-up road bike, buy a new hub and throw away all extraneous hardware. You now have a fixie.

Of course, as they got more popular, this didn’t last, and you can now pick up custom-made fixies for prices that seem closer to the track-bikes which inspired them. Specialized is attempting to redress this with the Rolls 1 and 2, bikes made under the company’s new Globe brand.

Most striking is the color-scheme: all white and chrome. Look beyond the pretty appearance and you’ll see some nice, normally high-end touches, from the integrated handlebar and stem to the built-in chain tensioners on the back dropouts/fork ends.

The Roll 2 will cost $800 and the slightly lower-end Roll 1 will go for $600, which isn’t bad. Both will go official as part of the full Globe brand rollout on June 28th, when you’ll also see the more pedestrian city bikes in the range.

Product page [Globe via Urban Velo]


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Jun 15

Intel Celeron, Core i7, and Atom lineup leaked?

Posted in: CoreI7, intel, intel atom, IntelAtom, Today's Chili
Intel Celeron, Core i7s, and Atom lineup leaked?

The sun rises, seasons change, CPUs get faster, and Intel’s plans get leaked. That’s the way it works, so while this report from Digitimes listing out Intel’s chip releases through the beginning of next year should be taken with a grain of salt, feel free to make it a small one. Apparently there’s a new line of celery-packing Celeron processors coming in Q3 called E3000, starting with the 2.4GHz E3200 and the 2.5GHz E3300. Both feature 1MB of L2 cache, 800MHz FSB, 65W power consumption, and hardware virtualization, meaning either can take you to XP-on-Win7 nerdvana. There will also be a new Core i7 960 chip with a core frequency of 3.2GHz in the fourth quarter, which is also when the nettop-intended dual-core Atom D510 will drop, while the more portable-friendly dual-core Atom D410 won’t release until Q1 next year — bad news for those who’d been hoping for a speedier netbook under the Christmas tree.

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Intel Celeron, Core i7, and Atom lineup leaked? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 15

Voigtländer ƒ1.1 Lens for Leica: A $1300 Bargain

Posted in: Today's Chili

nokton1$1,300 (¥130,000) might sound like a lot for a camera lens, but if it’s the new Voigtländer 50mm ƒ1.1 for Leica M cameras, it’s a bargain. To get anything close from Leica itself you’ll need to buy the slightly faster Leica 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux-M, a lens which costs a stunning $10,000.

The new Voigtländer lens, made by parent company Cosina, is clearly a good deal if you need either the extraordinary light gathering ability of an ƒ1.1 lens, or the extremely short depth of field it offers (this last provides extra fun as the lens focuses manually). The Leica is quite likely to be optically better than the Voigtländer, but is it $9,900 better? And although at this end of the lens market, every extra ounce of light counts, you’re really only getting around half a stop more with the Leica.

This new lens starts to look particularly attractive when you consider that Voigtländer and Panasonic also makes adapters so M-mount lenses will fit on Micro Four Thirds Cameras. Available later this month.

Product page [Cosina via DP Review]

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Jun 15

MacBook Pro All-Day Battery Life: Eight Hours

Posted in: Apple, Mac, Notebooks, Today's Chili

lithiumpolymer

It’s funny. When Apple announced it’s new sealed-battery MacBook Pros last week, almost nobody complained. Remember the fuss about the iPhone’s non-removable battery? Or the MacBook Air? Or the 17” MacBook Pro? It seems like people have finally realized most users hardly ever have to swap out a battery, and if you need some extra juice then an external powerpack works fine.

It seems that Apple wasn’t just trying to annoy its customers, either. The new MacBook Pros have been tested by AnandTech and the batteries last up to (almost) 50% longer. This is without any appreciable increase in weight. How has Apple managed such a thing? Tessellation. The picture above, from Apple, shows that you can squeeze a lot more battery into a small space if you don’t waste that space with gaps. The new batteries are square: the old ones cylindrical.

The 13” gets a decent 30% boost, too, but the winner is the 15”. Anandtech’s test had the machine running for a full eight hours before it died: 8.13 hours in fact, running a light test involving Flash-less web browsing. More strenuous tests cut this time down but as Apple only claims seven hours of life, this extra “free” hour is pretty impressive. All day computing in a regular, full-sized notebook? You got it.

The Best Battery Life I’ve Ever Seen [Anandtech]


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