International Space Station Computers Go Down
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Gocycle is moving in the opposite direction to many other bike makers. The company already makes a small, folding electric bike, and now it will sell you a non-electric version.
The Gocycle Black comes in at £1,000 ($1,540), £500 cheaper than the electric version, and is designed as a commuter bike (there is a scheme where your employer can buy the bike for you with tax benefits) which can be folded for the train or for keeping under the desk.
Apart from the color scheme (matt black), the lack of an electric motor, and a slightly steeper head angle (for “sportier handling”), the Gocycle Black is the same as its older brother. The frame is injection-moulded magnesium, the wheels are fixed on one side only for easy puncture-repair, the transmission is completely sealed for clean pants and the whole thing can fold down into a case for travel.
Apart from the money saving, there is a weight saving, too. The lack of a battery pack shaves off 4Kg (8.8-pounds) bringing the weight to a still-heavy 12.2Kg (27-pounds). Available now.
Product page [Gocycle via Ecovelo]
Neonode has been keeping busy over the past few years, getting into the GPS game, smartphones, and even an e-reader touchscreen. Today it’s a touchscreen of a different type, or rather a range of them, multitouch LCDs spanning from 5- to 13-inches. The suite is being demonstrated in a concept reference design called the zForce Pad, highlighting its relative thinness compared to competing products. The company is also highlighting the screen’s lack of a touch-sensitive layer, meaning there’s less sitting between you and your pixels — except glass, of course. Neonode is also happy to point out that this non-resistive, non-capacitive touchscreen is being adopted by “Asian companies” but won’t tell us which or when they’ll be releasing product based on it. Cheeky.
Neonode’s zForce Pad multitouch display panel set to rock the world originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We bring you the most awesomest Wii accessory ever, the completely home-made Ghostbusters Wii Proton-Pack which, according to its maker Jack, is the “first ever fully fictional Wii Proton-Pack” in the world.
The kit consists of a backpack (with glowing blue LEDs) and a wand, into which the Wiimote and nunchuk are slotted. It’s made from pure junk, consisting of a “combo of kit-bashed pieces, PVC piping, styrene strips, bondo, [an] air-brush cleaning canister and various miscellaneous plastic housing bits.”
Now Jack can put this unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back and play the Wii version of Ghostbusters. Don’t cross the streams!
Nintendo Wii Proton Pack [GB Fans via Gizmodo]
This one slipped the net during the excitement that was MWC this year, but it’s such a promising development that we have to give it its due attention. ARM and Globalfoundries have announced plans to start building new systems-on-chip using the latter’s ultramodern 28nm high-k metal gate production process, with the resultant chips offering up to 40 percent greater computational power, 30 percent greater power efficiency, and a terrific 100 percent improvement in battery longevity relative to their current-gen siblings. Mass production of these Cortex-A9-based units is expected in the second half of 2010, which means they should be among the very first chips off Globalfoundries’ 28nm assembly line. The good news, though, is that the technology is described as “ready for high-volume implementation,” so there should be no shortages when things finally get rolling. Let the wild-eyed anticipation begin.
ARM and Globalfoundries partner up for 28nm Cortex-A9 SOCs, invite great expectations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Above, you see a Samsung NX10 with an adapter that lets you put almost any lens on the front, from Nikon, Minolta, Canon, Leica and others. The adapter could be the most disruptive widget in the camera market.
There’s one thread running through the PMA photography trade show this year: mirrorless, interchangeable-lens cameras. These cameras, pioneered by Olympus and Panasonic with their Micro Four Thirds format, have become very popular with pros and serious amateurs who want great results but don’t want to lug around a big DSLR. Samsung has already shown its commitment to its NX format with eight lenses announced in under two months, and Sony is also getting in on the game sometime this year with a mirrorless Alpha.
This is great news, but what does it mean for the DSLR, which has for years been the fastest growing sector of the camera market? A DSLR used to be the only way to go if you wanted a camera that had a big sensor and a reasonably responsive shutter. The other benefits, like interchangeable lenses, are arguably only there for the more serious. Take a look around you next time you’re in a tourist spot and you’ll see mostly sub-$1,000 SLRs with the kit zooms still on the front.
Now, those buyers can buy something like the Samsung NX10 or the Olympus Pen and have everything they need, in a much smaller package. This alone is enough to shake things up. But the adapter above, versions of which are also available for Micro Four Thirds cameras, is even more dangerous to the current market. You can now use pretty much any lens ever made on a modern digicam.
Adapters have been around for years, but they never worked well. The extra length they added to a lens meant that it would be mounted too far off the body, and couldn’t focus at infinity. But because these new cameras don’t have mirror boxes, their native lenses sit much closer to the sensor. Adapters, then, have to move DSLR lenses further away. This is why they work so well with these little cameras.
Traditionally, you never really bought into a camera brand. You bought into a range of lenses. Once you had a few grand’s worth of Nikon glass, you weren’t going to buy a Canon body. Now, if you’re willing to sacrifice some automation, you can swap as much as you like. For the enthusiast, this brings cheap old manual lenses back from the dead. Expect secondhand prices to rise.
Does this spell the end for the Nikon/Canon duumvirate? Not really. Both companies will surely release cameras soon, and they could have one big advantage. All they need to do is make their own adapters so that their legacy lenses can talk to the bodies, allowing autofocus and aperture control. That alone would make me buy a mirrorless Nikon in a second (I have a lot of Nikon glass).
The DSLR won’t die. But it could become a niche product, and the specialist tool of the professional.
Novoflex shows adapters for Samsung NX [DP Review]
Photo: DP Review
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February 22nd came and went with nary a word from Spring Design about its Alex availability. Now, after a bit of prodding, we’re being told to check back during the first week of March; that’s when you’ll be able to order your dual-screen, 3.5-inch Android and 6-inch EPD e-Reader. So, $359 for Alex or $499 for the iPad launching just a few weeks later… decisions, decisions.
Spring Design’s Alex pushed to first week of March originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
As Apple, HP, Dell, and others gear up to grab a piece of the new tablet market, let’s not retread old ideas. That is, of course, if they have some really good new ones. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-31021_3-10458551-260.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Circuit Breaker/a/p
Editor’s note: This story has been updated. The LoJack car-security system is based on radio frequency technology, not GPS.
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Every time tech is used to fight crime, the bad guys just get better gear. The only crime-fighter who manages to always have the better gadget is Batman. Now car thieves are using GPS jammers to blot out the satellite signals that some antitheft services use to locate stolen automobiles.
It’s not hard to do, either. A quick Google Shopping search for GPS blockers shows models on sale for under $30. They don’t even need to be powerful. In order to swamp the incoming satellite signals, a jammer only needs to put out two watts of power. Speaking at a symposium, Bob Cockshott of “cybersecurity” company Digital Systems KTN said that “the strength of a GPS signal is about as strong as viewing a 25-watt light bulb from a satellite 10,000 miles away.” Small wonder that sat-nav devices take so long to acquire a lock.
It’s not just criminals who are using this tech, either. Employees whose cars are tracked by their companies use them to go off the clock, and according to The Guardian, German truck drivers use them to “to evade GPS-based road charging.”
But knocking off gas-guzzling cars and sticking it to the man are just the annoying part of the potential for GPS jammers. A 20-watt unit would be enough to cover a commercial airport, with rather scary results.
There is also the possibility of feeding false signals to a GPS unit, which would be harder for an operator to spot than straight-up jamming. If you start doing that to boats driven by sailors with no sextant experience, you get havoc.
Still, something good could come of this. It’s possible that people reading the story could become less trusting of their in-car sat-nav units and actually look through the windshield once in a while. This would avoid the estimated 300,000 crashes caused in Britain every year by GPS-following fools.
Car thieves using GPS ‘jammers’ [Guardian]
Jamming of GPS signals threatens vital services [FT]
Image (and we know Skylab wasn’t a GPS satellite): NASA
Hold tight kids, internet privacy laws just got flipped upside down. An Italian judge found three Google executives guilty of violating the privacy of an Italian student who was bullied in a 2006 video posted on Google Video. The video resided on the site for two months before it was brought to Google’s attention and pulled. None of the executives were involved in any way in the making of the abhorrent video. Nevertheless, Italian judge Oscar Magi sentenced the execs to a six-month prison sentence but cleared them of defamation charges. No jail time is expected, however, since any sentence of less than 3 years is typically commuted in Italy for those without a criminal record.
As you can imagine, Google has responded with vigor. In a post on Google’s official blog ominously titled “Serious Threat to the Web in Italy,” Google calls the decision “astonishing” citing the assistance it provided to local police in helping bring those who uploaded the video (and bullied the autistic child) to justice. More importantly, Google says that the decision “attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built.” On the surface, we have to agree. Here’s how Google describes the dystopian knock-on effect should this ruling take precedent:
“European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them – every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video – then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.”
Google will, of course, appeal.
Google executives found guilty of violating privacy of student bullied on video originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 06:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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