Oh ASUS, what are you up to now? The company that brought us the wildly popular Eee Pad Transformer has another new tablet brewing in its design labs, which we’re promised we’ll get to witness for the first time at Computex 2011. Until then, we’ve been provided with a trio of images to pore over and get the guessing games going. The slate device, whose size and software remain unspecified, is said to feature a bump (above left) and a clip (above right), though there are no explanations given about the function of either. You may see both images in their full size after the break, along with a teaser image from ASUS’ Facebook page with the slogan “break the rules: pad or phone?” stood in front of a tablet silhouette. That provides plenty of clues for aspiring Sherlocks out there, but little concrete knowledge. Ah well, Computex is just a week away.
In an age where TV makers and the like are constantly outdoing one another with new “world’s largest” claims, it’s refreshing to discover that something so analog—a pinhole camera’s photo—is still the world’s largest, five years on. More »
As much as you love your PSP, we suspect that its low graphics definition is starting to bug even the most devoted fans. Sure, you can wait for the almighty NGP, but for the time being, Sony’s offering the next best thing for you game connoisseurs: the PSP Remaster series for PlayStation 3. As the name says for itself, Sony will be porting select portable game titles to the PS3 in high-def Blu-ray flavor, and some may even come with new add-on content plus stereoscopic 3D support. But that’s not all: gamers will also be able to share game save data between the two platforms, meaning you can pick up where you left off on your preferred device. Pretty neat, though it’ll be interesting to see how much Sony and the studios wants to charge for what are essentially the same games you already own. The first PSP Remaster title announced is Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, but this is only heading to Japan at an unknown date — gamers in other countries will just have to keep squinting at the PSP for now.
The HD collections of past game series have proved popular for Sony. But it looks like the raiding of back catalogs isn’t just going to stop with consoles games, Sony is now looking to its handheld titles for new releases. A new range entitles the PSP Remaster collection will bring exiting PSP titles to the […]
HP‘s expectations for its new TouchPad tablet are running pretty high — so high, in fact, that they can only be expressed with a make-believe number. During a recent press conference in Cannes, HP’s Eric Cador boldly declared that his company’s new slate won’t just be the best on the market, it’ll be the bestest. Cador explained:
“In the PC world, with fewer ways of differentiating HP’s products from our competitors, we became number one; in the tablet world we’re going to become better than number one. We call it number one plus.”
A spokesman later confirmed that the device will launch in the UK with apps from the Guardian, Sky and Last.fm, but promised that “thousands” of other apps are on the way. The metrics might sound a bit optimistic, but the message is clear: HP thinks the TouchPad will annihilate the iPad and blow our minds to smithereens. We’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s as explosive as advertised.
HTC brought in the 4.3-inch craze, but now that that form factor has gone mainstream, it’s looking to even larger dimensions. A 4.5-inch HTC Holiday has been dug up by none other than 911sniper, which is said to pack a qHD resolution (960 x 540), a 1.2GHz dual-core Qualcomm MSM8660, 1GB of RAM, an 8 megapixel camera, and the very latest version of Android Gingerbread (2.3.4). That comes on the heels of Pocketnow unearthing a supposed image of the AT&T-bound smartphone, showing a predictably uncomplicated design framing a vast display. Let’s just hope the Holiday codename doesn’t mean we’ll have to wait till the holidays to see this overpowered new beast in action.
Innovation and inspiration a plenty was on offer at last weekends fantastic TedxTokyo event which we were lucky enough to be invited to. Amongst presentations covering everything from climate change to female empowerment there was a particularly interesting session from medical bio expert Dr Yuichi Mori. Showcasing his invention of a unique, futuristic agricultural system called Imec, he demonstrated how crops can grow in almost any environment, even in space.
“A new innovative production technology of safe, high quality agricultural crops under minimized water and soil consumption,” Dr Mori exhibited what looks like a sheet of cling-film on which a healthy looking crop of cress was growing. Demonstrating how it was actually rooted onto the material by holding it upside down, it was amazing how the plant seemed to be growing very healthily without any soil at all. The cling-fim like material is actually based on medical-membrane technology, a field in which Dr Mori spent may years working in, and called a “hydromembrane”. Seeds are planted in the hydromembrane which also contains a culture medium with all necessary nutrients and water for the plant to develop. The plants develop a network of fine and dense roots closely attached to the material, and are able to fully develop using a mere one fifth of the water consumption needed in conventional soil based agriculture. The system also forces plants to regulate more sugar and amino acids in order to grow which has the knock on effect of producing particularly high quality crops, tomatoes and strawberries grown using the Imec method are particularly sweet and contain higher nutritional values.
The Imec membrane has the capability of blocking any harmful germs or bacteria usually passed through the soil to plants, meaning that the crops also require no chemical pesticides or fertilizers to grow. The fact that the sheet can be laid down on almost any surface also means that crops can be grown in nearly any environment including concrete, ice or over the top of non fertile soils. Having already been implemented in a desert environment and producing positive results it was even recently taken into space by Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi who grew herbs using the “hydromembrane” on the international space station. Dr Mori commented how he sees this technology to be an answer to restoring the agricultural business in Northern Japan where the sea water deposited by the tsunami has left soils infertile. Another great example of innovation that could help drive Japan’s economy out of disaster.
This article was written on March 04, 2008 by CyberNet.
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.
None
–Pre-Releases (Alpha, Beta, etc…)–
The software listed here are pre-releases that may not be ready for everyday usage.
Mandriva Linux 2008.1 [Homepage] [Release Notes] [Mirror] Release: Release Candidate 1 Type of Application: Linux operating system Changes: 2008 Spring graphical theme included, new default applications for GNOME, and more
PSPad Editor 4.5.3.2309 [Homepage] [Release Notes] [Mirror] [Review] Release: Beta Type of Application: Text editor Changes: Added sessions support (save/reopen files state), C# code explorer, and bug fixes
VirtuaWin 4.0 [Homepage] [Release Notes] [Mirror] Release: Beta 3 Type of Application: Virtual desktops Changes: Bug fixes
DigiTimes has been canvassing its manufacturing industry sources again, and today it’s managed to extract some intel regarding Apple’s typically secretive supply chain. Steve Jobs’ team are said to have purchased between 200 and 300 glass-cutting machines, specifically in order to use them to slice up curved glass display covers for the iPhone 5. This move has apparently been in an effort to accelerate production, with glass makers reportedly showing a reluctance to buy the machinery themselves due to its prohibitive cost. Lest you think this sense of urgency might accelerate the iPhone 5 from its earlier-rumored September launch, DigiTimes also reports that yields of curved glass are not yet good enough to start using said fancy machines. So the iPhone may be headed for the same curvacious look as we’ve already seen on Dell’s Venue and HTC’s Sensation (or maybe even the concavity of the Nexus S), but as is Apple’s wont, it looks like that will be done with a tailor-made, custom solution. At least those Cupertino designers have a couple of generations of curved iPod nano screens under their belt, giving them a good idea of how to handle the atypical glass frontage. Now if we could just have a good idea of when this phone will actually be on sale…
We generally prefer to do our movie viewing in our own home theaters, but when we succumb to the temptation of public moviehouses we often choose digital projection hoping for a flawless viewing experience. Unfortunately, this report by The Boston Globe indicates that may not be the case. It is alleged by unnamed theater employees that theaters are leaving the 3D lens adapters on their Sony 4K digital projectors even when showing 2D. Just like viewing 3D, this cuts the light output and it’s worse for 2D films not made with that in mind, but theaters do it because removing the lenses is overly complex and many moviegoers don’t seem to notice or complain. The Globe suggests checking the digital projector yourself — if you see two beams of light from on high at a 2D flick then something is rotten in Denmark. Check the article at the source link for a rundown of many of the chains using these types of projectors and why that’s the case (money), but after this and Liemaxpremium VOD is starting to sound better and better.
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