Dec 27

Lenovo IdeaPad U260 review

Posted in: laptop, Laptops, lenovo, notebook, review, Today's Chili, ultraportable

We mean this with no disrespect to Lenovo, but when you first lay eyes (or hands) on the incredibly attractive IdeaPad U260, it’s pretty hard to believe that it was made by the company. Sure, the Chinese laptop manufacturer has always had a certain knack for creating very powerful and well-rounded ultraportables, but “drop-dead gorgeous” isn’t exactly how we’d describe systems like the Lenovo IdeaPad U160, Edge 11, or ThinkPad X301. The U260 is indeed a total 180 for the company, and it’s one of the most dapper and svelte laptops we’ve seen in a long time — there’s no question about it, its magnesium-aluminum alloy shell, leather palm rest, and glass touchpad even give the newest MacBook Airs a run for their money. But even better, the 12.5-inch system has the brawn to match that external beauty – its 0.7-inch shell has been injected with a Core i5 ULV processor, 4GB of RAM, and 320GB of storage. At $1,100 (the Core i3 version starts at $999), there’s no denying that it’s more than enticing, but is the U260 immune to Lenovo’s typical ultraportable pain points, including poor battery life and tepid temperatures? We’ve been lucky enough to spend the last few days with the beautiful machine (yes, we took it on vacation!), so jump down below to find out in our full review!

Gallery: Lenovo IdeaPad U260

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Lenovo IdeaPad U260 review originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 27

IBM makes racetrack memory breakthrough, which could come in handy someday

Posted in: memory, storage, Today's Chili

If you can’t tell your DRAM from your STT-MRAM, you’ll need to bear with us for a sec: IBM’s figured out the math required to read and write data from the spaces between magnetic fields, racing across a nanowire, at hundreds of miles per hour. IBM’s been plugging away at the so-called racetrack memory since 2004, calling it the perfect hybrid of magnetic storage and flash, but until recently scientists didn’t know whether the magnetic domain walls (where data will live) had any mass to speak of. As it turns out, they do, and thus have to obey the tiresome laws of physics as they move along the nanowire “track,” but also accelerate and decelerate the exact same amount, more or less canceling out the effect. Long story short, IBM can use this knowledge to precisely position those 1s and 0s in their newfound data bank, and someday we’ll all reap the benefits of dense, speedy and reliable memory. You know, assuming PRAM, FeRAM, ReRAM and memristors don’t eat IBM’s lunch. PR after the break.

Continue reading IBM makes racetrack memory breakthrough, which could come in handy someday

IBM makes racetrack memory breakthrough, which could come in handy someday originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 27

Apple bringing Cherokee language support to iPhone and iPad

Posted in: Apple, ios, ipad, iPhone, Software, Today's Chili

Apple’s iOS devices currently support just 50 languages, out of thousands that are in use globally. Soon, that figure will creep up to 51. A fresh AP report notes that Cherokee Chief Chad Smith actually visited Apple and used students currently being schooled in immersion programs to “pull at the heartstrings” of Apple’s brass, and eventually, Cupertino caved. The tribe has been working with Apple to develop Cherokee language software for the iPhone, iPod and iPad, the latter of which will purportedly become available at a later date. Naturally, this momentous occasion wouldn’t have occurred without “years” of work, and while we’re sure members of the Cherokee Nation are stoked to have the only American Indian language supported by Apple devices, this may actually serve to provide hope for others who speak less prominent tongues. All told, just 8,000 or so individuals still speak Cherokee, and most of those are aged 50 and up. But if Apple’s willing to include support for that, who knows what else it’ll become fluent in during the coming months.

[Thanks, Christian]

Apple bringing Cherokee language support to iPhone and iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 27

LG bringing world’s largest LED-backlit 3D LCD HDTV to CES: 72-inch LZ9700

Posted in: 3d tv, hdtv, LG, Television, Today's Chili

LG swore up and down that it would be bumping its smart TV investment to kick-start 2011, and lo and behold, it looks as if this is one New Year’s resolution that’ll be kept. The aforesaid company has just revealed that it’ll be bringing the planet’s largest LED-backlit 3D LCD HDTV to CES 2011 next week, with the LZ9700 handling both 2D and 3D content and offering TruMotion 400Hz to smooth out Cam Newton’s faster-than-fast evasion techniques. As you’d expect, this set is also outfitted with the company’s Smart TV functions, giving owners access to TV apps, games, language classes, etc. The company’s also talking up its Magic Motion Remote Control — a diddy we’ll definitely be anxious to put to the test once we land in Vegas. There’s no mention of an expected price, but it’ll be available starting in “early 2011” for those who passed on HDI’s 100-incher.

Gallery: LG’s LZ9700 72-inch 3D LCD HDTV

Continue reading LG bringing world’s largest LED-backlit 3D LCD HDTV to CES: 72-inch LZ9700

LG bringing world’s largest LED-backlit 3D LCD HDTV to CES: 72-inch LZ9700 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 27

Ford to bring start-stop ‘microhybrids’ to U.S.

Posted in: Today's Chili

Already used in Europe, Ford’s fuel-saving system turns off the gas engine when a car is idle to improve efficiency by up to 10 percent.

Originally posted at Green Tech

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Dec 27

2010’s Weirdest Tech Stories: Part Two

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Robots Robotics, Today's Chili, video games

Thumbnail image for jason chen and iphone.jpg

As we let on in the first part of this roundup, 2010 has been a banner year for weird tech news. When I sent out a note to our staff, asking for the top odd news of the year, I got far more responses than we could fit in a single story.

After the jump, we’ve got a look back at the weird year that was, including lost iPhones, sex robots, time-traveling wireless customers, and exploding cell phones.

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Dec 27

COD: Black Ops players fire for effect 87 min. a day

Posted in: Today's Chili

Call of Duty: Black Ops continues to be one of the most popular video games on the market. Activision offers up some stats to put it in perspective.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

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Dec 27

Daily Downloads: Firefox, Pidgin, RSSOwl, and More

Posted in: Daily Downloads, Today's Chili

This article was written on November 27, 2007 by CyberNet.

Pidgin Firefox RSSOwl Filezilla Logos Icons Welcome to Daily Downloads brought to you by CyberNet! Each weekday we bring you the Windows software updates for widely used programs, and it’s safe to assume that all the software we list is freeware (we’ll try to note the paid-only programs).

As you browse the Internet during the day, feel free to post the software updates you come across in the comments below so that we can include them the following day!

–Stable Releases–

The software listed here have all been officially released by the developers.

–Pre-Releases (Alpha, Beta, etc…)–

The software listed here are pre-releases that may not be ready for everyday usage.

  • Damn Small Linux 4.1 [Homepage] [Release Notes] [Mirror]
    Release: Release Candidate 3
    Type of Application: Tiny Linux operating system
    Changes: New boot options, dropped Small Window Manager, bug fixes, and more
  • Miranda IM 0.8.0 [Homepage] [Release Notes] [Mirror]
    Release: Test 3
    Type of Application: Cross-network Instant Messenger
    Changes: Improvements to Jabber, AIM, and MSN protocols

–Release Calendar–

  • November – Vista Transformation Pack 8
  • December 4 – OpenOffice.org 2.3.1 [Review]
  • December 15 – Paint.NET 3.20 [Review]
  • Early 2008 – Vista SP1 [Review]
  • January, 2008 – Mac Office 2008 [Review]
  • January 24, 2008 – WordPress 2.4
  • February, 2008 – iPhone SDK [Review]
  • February, 2008 – Deskscapes 2.0 [Review]
  • February 27, 2008 – Windows Server 2008 [Review]
  • March 4, 2008 – OpenOffice.org 2.4
  • April 24, 2008 – Ubuntu 8.04
  • September 2, 2008 – OpenOffice.org 3.0 [Review]
  • 2009 – Paint.NET 4.00 [Review]
  • 2010 – Windows 7 [Review]

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 27

Amazon’s third-gen Kindle is now its best-selling product… of all time!

Posted in: amazon, e reader, e-book, e-books, e-readers, kindle, sales, Today's Chili

Consider all the things you’ve bought from Amazon, all the things you wanted to, but couldn’t afford to buy from Amazon, all the wildly popular fashions and fads that have gone through that online store’s brief, but torrid history … each of those has now been overshadowed by the mighty sales of the third-generation Kindle. Jeff Bezos and team have today announced that their latest and greatest Kindle has become their bestselling product of all time, thanks in no small part to an aggressive price that’s been “low enough that people don’t have to choose,” as Jeff puts it, between an e-reader and a tablet — they’ve just gone and bought both, apparently. Alas, we’re still no closer to knowing the exact figure of Kindle sales, but who really cares at this point, the thing’s looking like a runaway success.

Continue reading Amazon’s third-gen Kindle is now its best-selling product… of all time!

Amazon’s third-gen Kindle is now its best-selling product… of all time! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 10:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 27

8mm Vintage Camera is Hipstamatic for Video

Posted in: apps, iPhone, Phones, Retro, Today's Chili

IPhone photographers get all the retro-licious fun. Apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram let you mess with your pristine digital pics and make them look as if they came from a low-quality plastic camera from communist-era Eastern Europe. Now videographers can join in the image-degrading hijinks, with 8mm Vintage Camera.

The app does exactly what you’d expect. It adds dusty, speckly artifacts to your footage, and you can shoot through a variety of virtual lenses (flickering frame, light leak and color fringing, for example) and capture the video onto one of several “films”. You can also add random jitter and movement to the movie, as if the projector was having trouble keeping the film fed neatly through its gate.

All the effects happen in real time, so you see on-screen exactly what you are recording. There are modern touches, too: you can light up the iPhone’s flash whilst recording, and the familiar touch-to-focus feature is in there. Exporting options are good, too. ITunes sharing is supported, as is email and saving to the camera roll, but you can also send movies straight up to YouTube.

Best of all, the app is just $2. Sure, my $800 Micro Four Thirds camera might shoot great-looking, hi0def video, but this looks like way more fun.

8mm Vintage Camera [iTunes via iPhoneography]

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