Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on June 24, 2006 by CyberNet.

Weekend Warrior

Nowadays many people aren’t traveling solo anymore; they are bringing along their laptops- both those traveling for business and those traveling for pleasure. We simply like to stay connected and do so with the help of our portable computers. This is made easy with wireless connections that are popping up everywhere from airports to hotels. For those that travel frequently, this probably won’t help you quite as much as someone who is new to traveling with their laptop. It can be a bit more complicated, especially if you haven’t done it before!

To begin, lets talk about your experience at the airport. First and foremost, your laptop belongs in with your carry-on baggage. It is wise and highly recommended not to check your computer. Have you seen the bags being thrown around while getting loaded on and off the plane? Imagine what your laptop would look like after being thrown around a few times! When going through security, most if not all airports will require you to take the laptop out of the bag and out of a case if you have one. Keep an eye on your laptop and wait to put it on the belt until you are ready to walk through the metal detector. You wouldn’t want somebody at the other end to snatch it and run with it! Once you get on the plane, it’s a good idea to store it under your seat versus in the overhead compartment (this of course makes it easier to get out during flight to work or watch movies!). Here are a few additional tips for your flight:

• Carry an extra battery or two: It’s not a bad idea, especially for long flights.
• If your battery dies and you’re desperate, head for the lavatory where you will probably find an outlet.

Next, when traveling to international locations, you will be faced with new complications. There are 9 different power plugs that are used around the world. Additionally there are 39 different telephone jacks in use. This can certainly make plugging in and connecting to the internet more of a challenge than expected. To solve these problems, there are electrical plug adapter and telephone jack kits readily available. One site I found that sells a whole kit for power plugs can be found here.

Finally, this may seem obvious but not everyone thinks of it. Carry your laptop in a padded bag! This is something good to do no matter where your laptop is going, but especially when you are traveling by air! A little extra padding can go a long way!

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Amazon’s provocative new Kindle ad highlights the iPad’s biggest flaw: its screen gets washed out in direct sunlight.

Our keen eyed friend Dave Zatz spotted an offer that popped up on TiVo’s homepage over the weekend, offering customers the opportunity to obtain a TiVo Premiere DVR for zero dollars down, with the caveat that they would be locked into paying $19.99 a month for service for the next two years. That’s a slight bump over the regular $12.95 per month (currently offered at $9.95) service fee, but nothing unreasonable if you do the math. Getting a $299 box for an extended $240 payment over two years sounds nice there is one gotcha here — after the two years, customers are automatically resubscribed at the $19.99 rate, not the standard $12.95 fee. Once you’ve figured out the amortized rates and break even points (cancellation means paying $300 for the DVR minus $7 for each month that’s already gone by) move fast if interested, as TiVo’s PR team told Yahoo! News the deal was a “test” that would end within a week, but it still presents an interesting question. Does the possibility of buying a DVR like we buy our cellphones make TiVo’s hardware more or less attractive in your eyes?

TiVo tries a ‘limited test’ of free-on-contract DVRs originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video: Stanford University News Service

Making artificial limbs that can perform gross motor functions is relatively easy. Fine motor actions are harder, and wiring the limbs into the nervous system is harder still. But researchers at Berkeley and Stanford are crossing the real frontier: making artificial skin that can touch and feel.

Research teams at Berkeley and Stanford recently announced breakthroughs in producing highly touch-sensitive artificial skin. In both cases, an extremely thin layer of plastic or rubber is bonded to electronic elements arranged in micropatterns, so the skin can retain flexibility and elasticity while still transmitting a strong signal. The papers appear in an forthcoming issue of the journal Nature Materials.

At Berkeley, the team used germanium-silicon nanowires, which they compare to microscopic “hairs” on the filmy plastic skin. The Stanford team paired electrodes in a pyramid pattern, which communicate through a thin rubber film (total thickness of the artificial skin, including the rubber layer and both electrodes: less than one millimeter). They also created a flexible transistor, again to retain elasticity.

The density and sensitivity of the electrical transmitters allows the skin to detect and transmit extremely precise patterns and delicate pressure — essential for activities such as typing, handling coins, cracking an egg, loading and unloading dishes, or anything that requires a gentle touch rather than sheer mechanical force.

The sensors could also be used in nonprosthetic applications. Benjamin Tee, a Stanford graduate student, notes that an automobile’s steering wheel could be fitted with pressure-sensitive sensors that could detect whether or not a drunk or sleeping driver’s hands had slipped from the wheel.

It’s difficult to tell at this point which team’s approach might be better suited to particular applications. The Berkeley teams touts its skin’s low energy use, the Stanford team its skin’s extreme sensitivity.

There’s also a sobering link between the two projects. Both Berkeley’s and Stanford’s research were indirectly supported by the Department of Defense — Berkeley’s by Darpa, and Stanford’s by the Office of Naval Research. The past decade has seen tremendous advances in artificial limb technology, due in no small part to the number of veterans returning from Iraq or Afghanistan after losing arms or legs, or with major burns.

This in turn is partly a function of the previous decade’s advances in body armor, which have saved lives at the costs of limbs. Let’s hope that as these wars finally end, our desire to continue to improve the lives of everyone with limb differences continues.

Sources:

• “Engineers make artificial skin out of nanowires,” Berkeley News
• “Stanford researchers’ new high-sensitivity electronic skin can feel a fly’s footsteps,” Stanford Report

See Also:

• New Bionic Arms Are Strong, Sensitive, Human-Friendly
• Prosthetic Limb Research Could Lead To Bionic Athletes, Gadgets
• Pentagon Plan to Regrow Limbs: Phase One, Complete
• Salamander Discovery Could Lead to Human Limb Regeneration
• Army Aims for New Six Million Dollar Man
• Wired 13.02: The Painful Truth
• Dean Kamen's Robot Arm Grabs More Publicity

Yes, you could certainly accuse us of being easily pleased, but there’s just something inherently awesome about hiding a giant touchpad remote in the otherwise boring box that controls your TV. At IDF 2010, we spotted a pair of new Intel CE4100 set-top boxes from ASUS and Acer respectively, running the brand-spanking-new Windows Media Center Embedded. Both were so early in development that they relied on external USB tuners to do their thing, but the Acer Revo 2 caught our eye when we saw the ThinkPad aesthetic of the RevoPad. It slides right out of a charging cradle in the front of the box to become a mousing alternative (and houses a large volume dial on the side), but with the press of a button the surface shines light through tiny perforations and it becomes a touchscreen keyboard instead.

Aside from the remote, the Revo 2’s fairly well-connected to boot, sporting HDMI, Ethernet, optical and analog audio ports, and three USB ports, along with an internal hard drive of unspecified capacity and a slimline optical bay. The ASUS, meanwhile, has no drives, but an ATSC antenna, component and composite video to its name. Both boxes are slated for the first half of next year, though representatives weren’t willing to talk price just yet. We’re headed back for more, but in the meantime, check out video of the hardware after the break.

Update: We’ve got an expanded video walkthrough of Windows 7 Embedded now after the break!

Continue reading Acer Revo 2 with RevoPad sports Intel CE4100, Windows Media Center Embedded, and a slide-out touchpad with disappearing keys (update: more video)

Acer Revo 2 with RevoPad sports Intel CE4100, Windows Media Center Embedded, and a slide-out touchpad with disappearing keys (update: more video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Sep 2010 17:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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