Hasta La Gadget!

Remember the unmodified Nissan Leaf that dared to take on the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb? No, it didn’t win the electric vehicle class, but it did have the honor of playing second fiddle to a new paladin. By pairing the motor they used to set last year’s EV record with a new high-performance cooling system, Team Yokohama managed to shave nearly a minute off of their previous record-setting time, completing the course in 12 minutes and 20 seconds. The Leaf? It leisurely drifted through the finish line at 14 minutes, 33 seconds. Not the quickest way to the top, but let’s be fair — if it’s a choice between being comfortable or being king of the hill, we’ll stretch our legs, thanks.

Yokohama EV sets new Pikes Peak Hill Climb record, leaves Leaf blowing in the wind originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Are you ready for a 13-inch laptop with an external AMD graphics card?

There’s a heated debate going on in the exciting world of mathematics that pits notoriously irrational pi against relative newcomer tau. Wherever side of the fence your math club’s allegiance may lie, a quick listen to Michael Blake’s newest nerd composition could have your circle singing a different equation. Perhaps spurred by the copyright brouhaha that yanked his earlier musical extrapolation — What Pi Sounds Like — from the YouTubes, Blake set this interpretation of the controversial constant to 126 decimal places and let’er rip at 125.6 bpm. What follows is a not-unpleasant symphony that should have Bjork’s producers calling for a collaboration. Full video for the prog-rock nation after the break.

Continue reading Nevermind the Pi music, here’s what Tau sounds like (video)

Nevermind the Pi music, here’s what Tau sounds like (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Turns out those leaked shots we saw of Sony’s new VAIO Z laptop were right on the money as the company showed it off officially today for the European press. The specs reveal a 13.1-inch “ultramobile” notebook that comes in at under 1.2kg with a 2.7GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 256GB SSD, 8GB RAM, 1600×900 screen and sheet battery borrowed from the earlier VAIO S for up to 7 hours of computing. Onboard it features only Intel’s HD Graphics 3000 solution but the VAIO Z beats other ultralights with its Power Media Dock, which contributes the power of an AMD Radeon 6650M GPU with 1GB of dedicated memory connected via “the architecture codenamed Light Peak” — Sony can’t call it Thunderbolt — when more polygons have to be pushed. The dock sports one USB 3.0 hookup plus additional USB, VGA and HDMI ports, and a slot for either a DVD or Blu-ray drive. There’s no word on a price yet, but it is promised to ship by the end of July in Europe so if the full specs (included after the break) are appealing then you don’t have much time to save up.

Update: Head over to the Sony UK site to configure one yourself — pricing starts at £1,434 ($2,294) with a Core i5 CPU, 4GB of RAM and no PMD. The dock is a £400 ($640) option with no optical drive included, while upgrading to a 1080p 13.1-inch LCD is a mere £40 extra.

Continue reading Sony’s ultraslim 13-inch VAIO Z laptop revealed in Europe, packs external GPU for power on demand

Sony’s ultraslim 13-inch VAIO Z laptop revealed in Europe, packs external GPU for power on demand originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 23:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Expected around Thanksgiving, the next Pure Google handset should be another significant step forward for Android.

Originally posted at Android Atlas