Hasta La Gadget!

Our planet recently made another fantastic journey around the sun. What better way to celebrate than to take a look at the marvelous mechanical contraptions we’ve created to visualize our solar system’s celestial dance. More »

We’ve recently had the chance to get closer than ever with the Model S, taking off the covers from a rolling prototype and gazing longingly at the fingerprints on its giant, Tegra-powered 17-inch central display inside. Now Tesla is showing what else is inside — inside the sheet metal, though. Tesla and its VP of Vehicle Engineering, Peter Rawlinson, have taken the time to release three videos showing the construction and development of the car, giving us a tantalizing view of the frame.

Looking at the above picture the amount of cross-bracing on the front structure is impressive, resulting in what should be a very twist-averse chassis that loves being slung through the twisties. What remains to be seen, however, is how well it will hustle the weight of its battery pack around. We’re just going to wait for a test drive to find out.

Continue reading Tesla shows us what the Model S looks like on the inside (video)

Tesla shows us what the Model S looks like on the inside (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft offered a brief glimpse of its revised Surface earlier this week at the Ballmer keynote, but now we’ve had a chance to check the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface (as its officially termed) for ourselves. The “2.0 experience” firmware is early and a bit buggy right now (especially with finger input), but there’s plenty of time fix that up before its launch later this year. The hardware itself is much thinner, with a 4-inch profile that can now be placed vertically against the wall (although we suggest using the stylish legs when possible). The 40-inch 1920 x 1080 gorilla glass display was crisp as all out, but since we could get close and scrutinize, you’ll definitely notice the pixels. The first demo we got to see is also probably the most impressive, wherein a paper with “I can see” written on it is scanned and read very clearly (a dev monitor was hooked up to show what Surface could “see”). Meanwhile, we couldn’t help but touch every point to watch the ripple effect emanate from our fingers.

Apps are arranged in a row that you can sift through or rotate 180 degrees for someone facing opposite. We kept accidentally opening apps when we tried to scroll through, which is annoying but again, we were reminded it’s early firmware. Some of the apps we have seen before with the original Surface — some changes are required to make compatible, but we’re told it’s a fairly smooth transition process. Some highlights from what we saw:

• Bing, which for now only does image search (maps and local to come). The screen right now is a bit too sensitive and would detect sleeves as much as it would our fingers (you can see typos galore in the gallery). Images are scattered about a new results widget, and you can move around a bit from there or pull out individual ones to rotate and scan.
• A Red Bull with a printed code on the bottom that launches on-screen prompts for videos that you can smoothly rotate and scale on the fly, and a RBC Royal Bank that’ll make you feel really guilty about that cup of coffee from this morning.
• Oldies like Social Stream, Garibaldi Panorama, and Galactic Alliance.

Another plus for the SUR40? It’s cheaper than its predecessor — but at $7,600, it’s still not ready for consumer market. We’ve got a ton of pics below and video after the break!

Update: We’ve added our full impressions and cleaned up the footage after the break. Enjoy!

Continue reading Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface hands-on with video! (update)

Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface hands-on with video! (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The MoGo product line is all about making normally-thick Bluetooth accessories insanely thin, and the trend continues with a couple new ones targeted at tablets and scheduled for launch in the second quarter. We had a chance this week to check out hand-built prototypes of a speakerphone / handset and headset with charging case, both designed to be thin and small enough to fit into the business card holder built into a tablet case. The speakerphone is pretty clever: set it on a table, it’s a speakerphone, hold it to your face and it becomes a tiny handset appropriate for holding private calls through the telephony services on your tab (or Tab, as the case may be). The headset, meanwhile, fits in a vanity-style case — also designed to stow away in a business card holder — but the real magic here is that the case doubles as a battery that charges the headset when it’s docked. Perfect for Skype, eh?

ID8 Mobile’s Bluetooth tablet accessories include business card-shaped headsets and handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on July 09, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Monday

With the introduction of Vista came a whole new set of unfamiliar features and terms. This article will be a set of questions and answers that define what some of the new features are which will help you make the most out of Windows Vista.

What is UAC?

We’ve mentioned UAC several times before. It’s an abbreviation for User Account Control, and it’s one of Microsoft’s newest ways to improve security and safety on your computer. At times, as some of you have probably experienced, it can be annoying. However, it’s there for a good reason.

How does it improve security and safety on your computer? The job of the UAC is to prevent unauthorized software from making changes to your computer. It’s a little over-protective it at times, but generally it’s a good thing to keep enabled.

If you find yourself frustrated with this new feature while you’re installing a lot of software at once (e.g., when you’re setting-up your computer for the first time), a good way to resolve this issue is to temporarily disable Vista’s UAC.  You can do this without needing to restart your PC with a program called TweakUAC.

What is ReadyBoost?

ReadyBoost is a new way to add memory (RAM) to your system. Adding additional RAM to your computer is often a great way to increase the performance of your PC, however, some of you may have run into the problem of not having enough room to do so.

ReadyBoost allows a user to add additional memory to your system using “non-volatile flash memory” like what you would find on a USB flash drive or memory card. To use ReadyBoost, just insert your removable memory device like the USB flash drives as mentioned, and Windows will check to ensure that it’s fast enough to work with Ready Boost. If it is, you’ll be given the option to use all of the memory, or part of it.

I tried it with my 2 GB USB drive and it displayed a message saying “this device does not have the required performance characteristics for use in speeding up your system.” Should you receive that message, there is a work-around for it so that you’ll be able to use any USB Drive or Memory Card.

What is SuperFetch?

The whole idea of SuperFetch was to improve performance of Windows Users with a faster loading experience. SuperFetch works by analyzing your behavior like which applications you use the most. Then it automatically puts those apps in available memory so that when you go to use them, they will be “superfetched”

For example, each morning when I wake up I open Firefox, FeedDemon, and Microsoft Word, usually in that order. SuperFetch would recognize this and have those apps ready to go for me in available memory so that the process of opening all of those programs is much quicker.

This idea is by no means new, and in fact, Windows XP had a feature called Prefetcher which had a similar idea behind it, but it was much more limited than the SuperFetch in Vista.

Wrapping it up

UAC, ReadyBoost, and SuperFetch are only three of many new terms and features introduced with Vista. We’ll cover more of these terms in the future, and hopefully this will help you get the most out of your operating system.

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