Jan 13

IBM demonstrates Watson supercomputer in Jeopardy practice match

Posted in: LiveBlog, Today's Chili

We’re at IBM’s HQ in upstate NY, where IBM will pit its monstrous Watson project (in the middle buzzer spot) against two Jeopardy greats, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter. Watson has been in development for four years, and this is its first big public practice match before it goes on national TV in February for three matches against these giants of trivia. Unlike IBM’s Deep Blue chess project in the 90s, which was pretty much pure math, Watson has to deal with the natural language and punny nature of real Jeopardy questions. IBM, ever the salesman, has thrown gobs of its fancy server hardware at the project, with 10 racks full of IBM Power 750 servers, stuffed with 15 terabytes of RAM and 2,880 processor operating at a collective 80 teraflops. IBM says it would take one CPU over two hours to answer a typical question, so this massive parallel processing is naturally key — hopefully fast enough to buzz in before Ken and Brad catch on to the human-oriented questioning. We’ll update this post as the match begins, and we’ll have some video for you later in the day.

Continue reading IBM demonstrates Watson supercomputer in Jeopardy practice match

IBM demonstrates Watson supercomputer in Jeopardy practice match originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 13

Calling and Driving Could Make You Safer- Report

Posted in: car, Today's Chili

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Here’s a report sure to raise the ire of safety advocates, everywhere. According to a new study, an increase in the number of people driving while talking on the phone may have actually made us all safer.

The study, conducted by Saurabh Bhargava of the University of Chicago and Vikram Pathania from London’s School of Economics studied 440,000 made by California drivers over 11 days. They found no significant increase in crashes from those drivers using their cells. The study comes as the number of traffic accidents declines, in spite of an increase in those talking while driving.

So, how could “distracted driving” actually make you safer? Bhargava and Pathania have a few theories. First, there’s the fact that drivers are often extra cautious when they pick up the phone behind the while. Also, those who are crappy drivers while talking on their phone may just be crappy drivers in general.

Makes sense, I suppose. It also flies in the face of pretty much everything we’ve ever heard about distracted driving, ever–including a number of laws that have been passed over the past couple of years.

Of course, we can’t really recommend that anyone go out and actually try it–after all, who will keep the Bluetooth headset companies in business? 

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Jan 13

Centrafuse leads to iPhone control via touchscreen, carputer dreams come to life (video)

Posted in: app, Apple, hack, ios, iPhone, mod, screen, Software, Today's Chili, touchscreen, uk, video

We’ve seen countless individuals integrate their phone, PMP or tablet into their whip, but for years, we’ve all been thinking the same thing: “There has to be an easier way.” Turns out, there is. One Mr. Romin has seemingly unearthed the solution, which involves a Lilliput FA1042 touchpanel, a Belkin AV dock adapter cable and a critical piece of software by the name of Centrafuse. Working in conjunction, he has enabled his monitor to actually control the iPhone, and when firing up a YouTube video, the content plays back on the big screen while the controls remain visible on the handset. It’s a nifty setup, for sure, and we’re downright excited to see this rig get installed in a vehicle far too small for American roads in a fortnight or so. For now, catch it working in action just past the break.

Continue reading Centrafuse leads to iPhone control via touchscreen, carputer dreams come to life (video)

Centrafuse leads to iPhone control via touchscreen, carputer dreams come to life (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 13

RIM releases WebWorks SDK beta

Posted in: Today's Chili

WebWorks is intended to give Web and mobile developers skilled in HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS the tools to create apps for RIM’s upcoming PlayBook tablet.

Originally posted at News – Wireless

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Jan 13

Freecom gets slim with Mobile Drive Mg portable hard drive, supports USB 3.0 and FireWire 800

Posted in: external hard drive, ExternalHardDrive, hard drive, HardDrive, storage, Today's Chili, usb, usb 3.0, Usb3.0

Been awhile, hasn’t it Freecom? The same company responsible for serving up the world’s first portable USB 3.0 hard drive is now responsible for cranking out the world’s slimmest portable HDD. At just ten millimeters thick, the Mobile Drive Mg is likely thinner than your average ink pen, touting a magnesium enclosure and a USB 3.0 port, enabling it to shoot data back and forth at rates as high as 130MB/sec. Oddly enough, the drive will only be made available through Apple Premium Resellers, despite the fact that no existing Mac ships with native USB 3.0 support. At any rate, it’ll be on sale within the week for $69.95 (320GB) or $109.95 (750GB), with a high-end 750GB model offering both USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 for $119.95.

Continue reading Freecom gets slim with Mobile Drive Mg portable hard drive, supports USB 3.0 and FireWire 800

Freecom gets slim with Mobile Drive Mg portable hard drive, supports USB 3.0 and FireWire 800 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 13

iPad 2 May Drop Home Button – Report

Posted in: Apple, ipad, Today's Chili

ipad 2 ces.JPG

Steve Jobs hates buttons. He has said this before. Multiple times. In a very public fashion. In fact, we’re pretty sure that it has pained him that he’s had to feature the Home button on the iPhone, iPod, and iPad–a single aesthetic imperfection that has nearly driven him crazy, like the lead character in some Nathaniel Hawthorne short story.

Well, it seems that the Apple head may finally be able to live his mobile life in a completely button-free bliss. Word from Boy Genius Report is that the company is set to drop the Home button for some future version of the iPad. In fact, the latest version of iOS (4.3) added multitouch gestures for precisely that reason, according to the site’s “sources.”

The disappearing button will eventually make its way to the iPhone as well, according to the aforementioned report. This aesthetic update may or may not make its way onto iOS devices released in 2011.

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Jan 13

Google Translate Adds Live Speech Translation to Android

Posted in: Android, Google, Software and Operating Systems, Today's Chili

Google has just just added a little bit of Star Trek to Android. An update to the Google Translate app adds “Conversation Mode”, which acts a lot like the universal translator from the TV show.

In Conversation Mode you speak into your phone, Google translates your words into the language of your choice, and then the phone reads out the results in a pleasant robot voice. Here’s a demo of a prototype version recorded a few months ago:

It’s not perfect, but it’s impressive nonetheless. The app will translate from 15 languages, and output the results in any of 53 languages. And there’s good news for owners of older phones: Google Translate works on Android 2.1 and better.

It probably won’t replace a little bit of study before you go on vacation, but as most native English-speakers seems morally opposed to learning another language, it certainly won’t hurt.

A new look for Google Translate for Android [Google Blog]

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Jan 13

Courtney Love Insults Designer on Twitter, Gets Sued

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili, twitter

Courtney Love.jpg

There are some things you can always count on. Things like Courtney Love. She may clean herself up and become a “serious actress” one minute, but you can bet that, like clockwork, she’ll be back to that old, loveable, mic throwing Courtney the next. You see, her methods of delivery may change over time, but the message will stay the same.

Love and fashion designer Dawn Simorangkir have been having a Twitter fight–and by “Twitter fight,” I mean, of course, that Love has been yelling at Simorangkir on Twitter. The parties have been fighting over a $4,000 payment, and Love has taken her message to the microblogging site, calling Simorangkir a “drug-addled prostitute,” a “nasty, lying, hosebag thief” (hosebag?), and a “52 year old desperate cokes ass [sic].”

Oh, and it gets better–she’s also threatened the designer, stating that she would wind “up in a circle of corched eaeth hunted til your dead [sic, sic, sic].” Her one women screaming campaign has also lead to posts on MySpace and online craft storefront Etsy.

Simorangkir fired back in 2009, with a suit against Love, featuring 20 some pages worth of examples. Not above personal judgments of her own, the libel suit says that Love has “drug induced psychosis, a warped understanding of reality, or the belief that her money and fame allow her to disregard the law.”

Love attorney James Janowitz, is taking a strongish stand on the matter. “We don’t believe there’s any defamation, and even if there were defamatory statements, there was no damage.”

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Jan 13

Researchers develop ‘liquid pistons’ for cameras, medical use

Posted in: lenses, nanotechnology, Today's Chili, video

It may still be years away from any sort of practical use, but a team of researchers at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed some so-called “liquid pistons” that they say could shake up everything from cameras to medical devices. Those pistons consist of some droplets of “nanoparticle-infused ferrofluids,” which are able to oscillate and precisely displace a surrounding liquid. In the case of a camera, that could be used for a liquid lens of sorts (as seen at right), and the researchers say the same technology may one day even be used for implantable eye lenses. The possibilites don’t end with optical uses, though — the researchers say that the precise ability to pump small volumes of liquid could also be used for implantable drug-delivery systems that would be able to deliver tiny doses at regular intervals. Of course, there’s no indication as to when any of that might happen — in the meantime, you can occupy yourself with the brief but oddly hypnotic video after the break.

Continue reading Researchers develop ‘liquid pistons’ for cameras, medical use

Researchers develop ‘liquid pistons’ for cameras, medical use originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jan 13

MySpace Mulls Sale, Spin Off

Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, Today's Chili

MySpace_Overhaul.jpg

These days, all seems like gloom and doom over at the MySpace headquarters. Earlier in the week, we reported that the once dominant social network has plans to slice its workforce in half for cost cutting purposes. Today comes word that News Corp. is planning to either sell or spin off the site.

MySpace spokeswoman Rosabel Tao told Bloomberg, “News Corp. is assessing a number of possibilities including a sale, a merger and a spinout,” Tao said. “The process has just started.”

If the company does opt for the spinoff option, MySpace will remain a News Corp-funded site, though the company will bring in partners to help MySpace work in a more entrepreneurial fashion, says Bloomberg.

A News Corp. spokeswoman would neither confirm nor deny the spinoff/sale plans. MySpace has suffered in the last few years as it has taken a backseat to the astronomical growth of Facebook.

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