May 28

Gigabyte bolts an SSD to a motherboard (so you don’t have to)

Posted in: flash, intel, sandy bridge, SandyBridge, solid state drive, SolidStateDrive, SSD, Today's Chili
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-iSSD

Gigabyte has decided to simplify matters for those who want the power of an SSD in their desktop, but don’t want to deal with the hassle of buying and connecting one. The company’s new Z68XP-UD3-iSSD (catchy, no?) motherboard comes with a 20GB Intel SSD 311 mounted right on it. It’s not clear if you can simply dump files on it like a normal drive — what it can do, however, is use Intel’s Smart Response tech to cache frequently accessed data, like your OS, to improve performance. Essentially, it turns any hard disk you connect to the system into a hybrid drive with a much larger reserve of flash storage, which should sound somewhat familiar. The board also features the ability to switch between discrete and built-in graphics thanks to Lucid Logix’s Virtu. The rest of the features are pretty standard fare: USB 3.0, a pair of 16x PCI-E slots, and 6GB SATA connections. The latest Z68 board from Gigabyte will go on sale early in June and, while we don’t have a price, we’ve done a little (PR) embedding of our own after the break.

Continue reading Gigabyte bolts an SSD to a motherboard (so you don’t have to)

Gigabyte bolts an SSD to a motherboard (so you don’t have to) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 15:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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May 28

Lodsys shifts in-app purchasing target to Android devs following Apple response

Posted in: Android, android market, AndroidMarket, Apple, AppleIphone, developer, developers, iPhone, Law, lawsuit, legal, patent, Today's Chili

We figured Apple’s firm response to Lodsys earlier this week regarding its claims against iOS devs would prompt the patent holder to move on to its next target, and sure enough, it looks as if said target has been selected. Unfortunately, a group of Android app devs have now found themselves in the Texas-based company’s crosshairs, which is citing the same patent infringement that Apple recently addressed, relating specifically to in-app upgrade purchases. As was the case with the last round of letters, Lodsys is demanding licensing fees from small, individual developers, who don’t have the resources to fight back. Lodsys appears to be maintaining its trend of ignoring media requests, so we’re keeping an eye on the patent troll’s blog to see if anyone comes up to the surface to defend this latest round of allegations. In the meantime, plugging your ears while humming and ignoring the mailman might not be such a bad idea… you know, if you do this kind of thing for a living.

Lodsys shifts in-app purchasing target to Android devs following Apple response originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 14:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET  |  sourceGoogle Groups  | Email this | Comments

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May 28

My First WordPress Plug-In: Digg Button

Posted in: Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 25, 2006 by CyberNet.

If you noticed that my posting was a little light yesterday that was because I finally sat down to create my first WordPress plug-in. It isn’t anything extravagant but it saves me some time and a lot of headache.

Digg Button WordPress Plug-In I cleverly named the plug-in Digg Button because that is exactly what it is. It makes it easy to insert the Digg API code into your WordPress post wherever you would like. You can then style the button using CSS if you choose to.

The plug-in that I made is not like the “Digg This” one which is great for some people. That plug-in automatically recognizes when someone has submitted your story and will display the button on your site. That didn’t work good for me because I didn’t want the button displayed on every post that gets submitted. In my opinion that would add too much clutter to the site.

There was also a WordPress “hack” available to make the Digg API work but it wasn’t compatible for every browser. The Digg button would display fine in Firefox but would show nothing in Internet Explorer. Up until this point if you have never seen the Digg button on this site then you are probably an Internet Explorer user. :D

If you want more details on how the plug-in works go ahead and checkout the homepage I have started for it.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 28

Tactile Brush uses sensory illusions to let you feel games, movies

Posted in: research, study, Today's Chili
TactileBrush

Poor arachnophobes — it’s bad enough that 3D movies can make it look like swarms of eight-legged freaks are pouring out of the screen, now Disney wants you to feel the creepy crawlies, too. In a presumed effort to one-up those “4D” chairs used at Shrek’s castle down in Orlando, the company has been working on what it calls Tactile Brush — a chair with an array of 12 vibrating coils that are able to simulate anything from the sensation of speeding around a race track to the delicate drip of rain on your back. Two techniques are used: apparent motion, which triggers two motors in quick succession to create the illusion of something moving over your skin, and phantom sensation, in which two stationary vibrations are felt as a single tingle between the two points. Disney researchers demoed Tactile Brush at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Vancouver using a racing game, but hope to bring it to amusement park rides and movie theaters — which, in the right hands, should lead to more screaming and at least a few pairs of wet pants.

Tactile Brush uses sensory illusions to let you feel games, movies originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 13:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink NewScientist, Wired  |  sourceDisney Research Pittsburgh  | Email this | Comments

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May 28

Alaska Airlines ditches paper flight manuals for iPads

Posted in: Apple, ipad, ipad 2, Ipad2, Today's Chili
The iPad has already gotten the go-ahead from the FAA as a replacement for paper flight charts and maps, and now Alaska Airlines has become the first major US airline to hop on board the paperless bandwagon. While it’s not quite ready to ditch paper navigation charts just yet (though that is under consideration), the airline has announced that it will be replacing its traditional flight manuals with iPads, which will be loaded up with the GoodReader app and PDFs of 41 different manuals and other materials. According to the airline, that change will result in savings of about 2.4 million pieces of paper, and it says the cost of the project will be offset by fuel savings from the reduced weight, and additional savings that are expected from “fewer back and muscle injuries caused by pilots carrying flight bags,” which can weigh up to 50 pounds. Let’s just hope those newly lightened flight bags still have room for a charging cable.

Continue reading Alaska Airlines ditches paper flight manuals for iPads

Alaska Airlines ditches paper flight manuals for iPads originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 11:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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May 28

Microsoft’s Virtual Earth Adds Birds Eye Coverage Around the World

Posted in: Apple, Microsoft, Screenshots, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on March 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

Microsoft recently added birds eye coverage of cities around the World to their Virtual Earth service.  More than 3.8 TB of information was added, and my home-town Chicago is one of them with great shots of Wrigley Field, Soldier Field (pictured below), and other great landmarks. (They’ve also created a collection of Landmarks in Chicago to help you get started with your tour).

Soldierfield

You’ll also find great bird’s eye views of many European cities within the UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and the list goes on. The complete list of cities is here. The image below is the bird’s eye view of Exeter in the UK.

Exeter

This was a pretty massive update (in size anyways!) and the bird’s eye views look great.

Along the same lines, Google Earth has been offering users interesting directions. For example, as Google Operating System points out, when you get directions from Standford,California to Stockholm, Sweeden, one of the instructions says “swim across the Atlantic Ocean”. It’s only 3,462 miles, you could do it, couldn’t you? :)

Googledirections

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 28

Paypal v. Google: a tawdry tale of trade secret misappropriation

Posted in: Google, lawsuit, legal, Today's Chili

Google and its poached Paypal employees got sued for trade secret misappropriation yesterday, but we didn’t know the dirty details until now. A peek at PayPal’s complaint reveals there’s a bit more to the story. Apparently, Paypal and Google were in talks last year to use PayPal for payments in the Android Market. Osama Bedier was in charge of those negotiations for PayPal in October of 2010, when the deal was supposed to close, but was allegedly interviewing for a mobile payment position at Google at the same time (holy conflict of interest, Batman!). The complaint claims that Bedier initially rebuffed El Goog’s advances, told PayPal of the job offer and professed that he would stay, but jumped ship a month later (bringing some PayPal coworkers with him) after being recruited by Stephanie Tilenius and the almighty dollar. Once it hired Osama, Google reportedly put the brakes on the PayPal deal and created Google Wallet. Then Google, Bedier, and Tilenius got slapped with a lawsuit. A brief rundown of the legal claims awaits you after the break.

Continue reading Paypal v. Google: a tawdry tale of trade secret misappropriation

Paypal v. Google: a tawdry tale of trade secret misappropriation originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 10:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  sourceComplaint [PDF]  | Email this | Comments

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May 28

iPad game deals for Memorial Day weekend

Posted in: Today's Chili

The annual Memorial Day weekend sale is now on in the Apple App Store. See which iPad games are on sale and worth buying.

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May 28

Visualized: a decade of mapping the universe, and all we got was this bloated JPEG

Posted in: galaxy, NASA, science, space, Today's Chili

Thousands upon thousands of galaxies. Ten years to complete. A glance at the most complete map of the local universe anywhere in existence. Something tells us Richard Branson‘s getting a print for his Virgin Galactic headquarters…

Continue reading Visualized: a decade of mapping the universe, and all we got was this bloated JPEG

Visualized: a decade of mapping the universe, and all we got was this bloated JPEG originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 May 2011 08:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Gizmodo  |  sourceHarvard University  | Email this | Comments

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May 28

This week in Crave: The backcountry edition

Posted in: Today's Chili

This week, we argued over battery life, celebrated our geekiness, and headed into the woods to unplug (with help from our mobile devices, of course).

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