Hasta La Gadget!

Stealth Computers has introduced a new ruggadized peripheral to add to the fold, the Stealth model KYBX-400 keyboard.

It measures 14.96 by 5.31 by 1.41-inches (WDH) and is made of stainless steel–not your average consumer-grade keyboard. The KYBX-400 comes with a 38mm, built-in optical trackball (800dpi feedback). Also included is a 5.75-foot USB cable, for wired connectivity. The keys themselves are made of polymer, lain out in the chiclet-style made popular by Apple, and feature NVIS-compliant red adjustable back-lighting, which is ideal for situations where night vision goggles would be worn. 

The Stealth model KYBX-400 will run you about $695 (list) and is currently in stock. 

Apple’s fall event happens today at 10AM PT / 1PM ET, and we’ll be there live! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After nearly two decades of planning, the $270 million IceCube neutrino observatory is finally being built in the frozen desert of Antarctica. The observatory may finally be able to observe and study neutrinos, which until now have remained largely allusive.

Aside from light, neutrinos are the most abundant particles in the universe. And yet, the nature of the highly-energized particles remain one of physics’ great mysteries. Neutrinos have nearly no mass and react weakly with matter. So, despite their abundance, they are frustratingly difficult to observe. Everyday, trillions of neutrinos pass through your body and those of
everyone you know without any effect.

That’s where IceCube comes in.

Neutrinos can be measured on the rare occasions that they interact with the nucleus of an atom creating a new particle called a muon along with a faint amount of blue light. In order to detect these faint blue light events, physicists led by the University of Wisconsin decided to build an observatory with thousands of optical sensors in the clean, clear ice of Antarctica. The IceCube observatory, at almost 1km in length and with over 5,160 optical sensors, is FAR larger than any neutrino observatory that has been attempted before.

Francis Halzen, the IceCube Project’s principal investigator was quoted by Physorg commenting that observatory “has been totally optimized for size in order to be sensitive to the very
small neutrino fluxes that may reveal the sources of cosmic rays and
the particle nature of dark matter.”  Dark matter is the mysterious, unobservable stuff that makes up over a quarter of the known universe. It would be a revolution in our view of the cosmos if we can get a handle on all that stuff.

Trust me, it’s cool.

Meet the iTouch 4G–or, rather, meet the first iTouch 4G case. This Hard Candy Street Skin case itself is so brand new that the device that it was designed to protect has yet to actually be announced–that will most likely occur later today during Apple’s long-awaited music at (which, incidentally, Gearlog will be live blogging, beginning at 10 AM PT).

Symbolically, the most interesting thing here is the name. Apple, apparently, has dropped the beloved iPod from the title altogether (ala Apple TV/iTV, another rumor)–no doubt to position the music player closer to its real flagship product, the iPhone 4. The “4G,” meanwhile, almost certainly refers to the device being the fourth generation, rather than any wireless carrier connections.

While we don’t actually get a great picture of the device itself (the shot is only of the case –i.e. the obscured rear of the device), there’s information in them thar holes. Take that big one in the upper left hand corner, for example. It’s a cut out for a camera and mic (in fact, you can see both pretty clearly in the picture–and an aluminum back, for that matter).

The other holes seem like pretty standard fare–volume on the side, power on the top, dock and headphones on the bottom, and a big cut out for the screen on the front (so, you know, no return of the click wheel, or anything).

The device is set to ship September 15th for $30–the iPod touch/iTouch, meanwhile, will likely go as sale as soon as it’s announced.

In spite of Apple’s infamous secrecy, we have seen devices outed prior to their release–including past ipod–by third-party devices. Keeping your own staff in check is one thing–partners are something entirely different. What’s most interesting, however, is the fact that, as of this writing, the device still appears on Hard Candy’s site.

We just got a chance to mess around with ViewSonic’s upcoming ViewPad 7 (one of possibly four tablets they plan to release this year), and while it is indeed a plastic rebadge me-too Android tablet, we mean that in the best sense. Let’s take these one by one:

• Plastic: It looks and feels enough like metal / glass that we won’t fault ViewSonic for the cost savings here.
• Rebadge: ViewSonic has an exclusive on this design for its particular markets (Europe), while the OlivePad is doing its version over in India.
• Me-too: This might be the biggest knock, since ViewSonic is dropping the ViewPad into a world that’s going to be up to its knees in 7-inch Android tablets in a few month’s time.

ViewSonic wins points for an above average build quality, better than crappy LCD (it’s not great, but we’ve seen a lot worse, and the capacitive response is just fine), passable processor (a 600MHz Snapdragon won’t win any bake-offs, but it also makes Android 2.2 completely usable in our opinion), and better-than-Augen Google blessing. Check out our video hands-on after the break.

Continue reading ViewSonic ViewPad 7 video hands-on

ViewSonic ViewPad 7 video hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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