Hasta La Gadget!

Say hello to the little friend you already know and want, this time dressed in a more extrovert red attire. We don’t yet know whether this 1201N variant will be finding retail shelves or if it’s just a pretty prototype, but that doesn’t make too much difference at this point. With the classical black model still only available on a pre-order basis (with a mid-January landing date) the closest you’ll be getting to ASUS’ Ion-powered 12-incher is glamor shots like these. Well, either that or a forthcoming Engadget review, both are good. See one more snap of the burgundy bruiser after the break.

Continue reading ASUS Eee PC 1201N dons burgundy garb, you still can’t have one

ASUS Eee PC 1201N dons burgundy garb, you still can’t have one originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Airbags have evolved from being in cars to on cars, so it’s only natural that airbags in aircraft should be making the trip outside. NASA’s Subsonic Rotary Wing Project is attempting to make autorotation landings a little bit softer by slapping a pair of expandable kevlar cushions between the skids, and the first test was a success. The helo was dropped at a height of 35 feet, achieving a speed of 48 feet-per-second before unceremoniously hitting concrete. The helicopter and its simulant occupants were said to be largely undamaged, giving hope that such a system could reduce injuries — if you’re not traveling downward at more than 48 feet per second, anyway. Future tests are said to be coming in the next year and, if all goes well, we hope to be seeing these on real whirlybirds soon.

NASA risks then saves lives of dummies in helicopters with external airbags originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The WiGig Alliance captured our imaginations back in May, but now it seems that the world of multi-gigabit streaming is so close, we can taste the data slipping over our tongues on their way to the next access point. Put simply, the specification that the group has been toiling on over the past few months is finally complete, and while some of its members have been prototyping wares along the way, this 1.0 announcement effectively opens the flood gates for partnering outfits to implement it into their gear. In case you’re curious as to how 60GHz will help you, have a listen: WiGig enables wireless transfer rates more than ten times faster than today’s fastest wireless LAN, and it’s completely backward compatible with existing WiFi devices. As we’ve already seen with those totally bodacious dual-band (2.4GHz / 5GHz) routers, having another band with this kind of speed potential can only mean great things for the future.

We had a talk with Dr. Ali Sadri (the group’s chairman and president) as well as Mark Grodzinsky (board director and marketing work group chair) in order to get a better idea of what’s at play here, and frankly, we’re anxious to see this get implemented into… well, just about anything. WiGig v1.0 supports data transmission rates up to 7Gbps, and if living in a house full of WiGig-enabled devices, you could finally envision streaming HD content from a bedroom PC to an HDTV and a living room netbook without any wires whatsoever. In the case of the netbook, there’s even a chance that the embedded WiGig module could support faster transfer rates than the sockets around the edges, which would simultaneously enable wireless to be faster than the wired (at least in this scenario) and your brain to melt.

Finally, the group has picked up four new members — NVIDIA, AMD, SK Telecom and TMC — though unfortunately, WiGig wouldn’t comment on the future availability of 60GHz products. We were told that they would be shocked if anyone had a prototype 60GHz device on the CES show floor, but you can bet that won’t stop us from looking. Oh, and if we had to take a wild guess, we’d surmise that companies interested in speeding up their own offerings will be jumping on this quick, so hopefully you’ll be ditching 2.4GHz once and for all come next summer(ish).

Continue reading WiGig Alliance completes multi-gigabit 60GHz wireless specification: let the streaming begin

WiGig Alliance completes multi-gigabit 60GHz wireless specification: let the streaming begin originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If I’d had this design back when I was a cubicle-bound temp then, well, lets just say I would have been fired even sooner than I was. The Pencil Crossbow is one of the designs for the book Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction by John Austin.

The crossbow is fashioned from just four pencils, a biro and seven rubber-bands, cunningly combined to make a deadly-accurate launcher which is guaranteed to take somebody’s eye out. The book allows for some escalation of inter-office wars with trebuchets, catapults and even printable targets to practice before an all-out assault on your boss.

We love this MacGyverization of office supplies, and the book is probably the perfect Christmas gift for the man who has nothing, or the cubicle monkey in your life. Especially if you want them to be spending more time at home. A lot more time at home. $17.

Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction [John Austin via Noquedanblogs]

NEPTUNE Canada, the world’s largest undersea cabled network, has powered up and will begin streaming data from hundreds of undersea instruments and sensors on the Pacific Ocean floor to the Internet, Scientific American reports.

The network will run around the clock and is expected to produce 50 terabytes of data each year. The data will include information about earthquake dynamics, deep-sea ecosystems, salmon migration, and the effects of climate change on the water column, the report said.

“It’s revolutionary in that it brings two new components into the ocean environment, which are power and high-bandwidth Internet,” says Project Director Chris Barnes, from the project’s offices at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, in the article. “We’re really on the verge of wiring the oceans.”

Shown in the photo is a rat-tail fish checking out the installation of a seismometer at “node ODP 1027” of the new network–buried at a depth of 2,660 meters underneath the surface. (Image credit: NEPTUNE Canada/CSSF)