Hasta La Gadget!

Firmly departing from the Stuff Of Dreams category, Duke University physicists have successfully tested an acoustic cloaking device that fools sound waves while looking nowhere near as scifi as you’d think. Layering nothing more than a bunch of hole-punched plastic sheets — known as meta-materials, for those curious — atop a ten centimeter long block of wood, highly-directed sound in the 1 – 4kHz range bounced right off the concealed object none the wiser. The cloaking tech owes some of its origin to the math behind transformation optics — and maybe to the Duke team, too. Besides allowing defense department bunkers to erupt into silent applause, the research should prove useful in the construction of future concert halls. DIY hobbyists, let us know what you can rig up with some trash bags.

[Thanks, Drew]

Duke University physicists test first air-based acoustic invisibility cloak originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jun 2011 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the latest shape-shifting slate, it looks like you’re just going to have to wait. Fujitsu’s just announced that it will postpone the release of the convertible TH40/D tablet — the Windows 7 slide-out was originally slated for a late June debut in Japan. Unfortunately, the outfit’s being rather tight-lipped when it comes to details, saying simply that the holdup is due to “development delays.” Of course, we’ll keep you posted with details if / when Fujitsu decides to open up.

Fujitsu delays TH40/D release, puts slide-out tablet dreams on hold originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jun 2011 13:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An awful lot has been happening in Nokialand over the past week. A few days ago, we spent our first real quality moments with the much discussed N9, and we were pretty blown away by the MeeGo smartphone. Fast forward a mere two days, and we catch wind of a pretty suspicious looking leak of “Sea Ray,” the company’s first Windows Phone handset where else but sitting firmly in the hand of CEO Stephen Elop. Just in case that brand of corporate subtlety didn’t quite drive the point home, the executive gave an interview with Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat this week, confirming the nearly universal suspicion that it will abandon the Linux-based OS. Elop told the paper that, even if the N9 proves a massive hit, Nokia is going to turn its attention to other, more Windows Mobiley things.

[Thanks, Vezance]

Nokia’s Stephen Elop is still over MeeGo, even if the N9 is a hit originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jun 2011 12:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on September 10, 2007 by CyberNet.

AOL’s decision to dump Kaspersky for McAfee was not accepted very well by the tech community. There was no official Vista-compatible version of Active Virus Shield (AVS) released before the switch had been made, but I had assumed that they would continue to provide support for at least the next few months for the XP version.

That turned out to not be the case as several readers have reported to me that as of last week they were receiving an "Update failed: Incorrect signature" error (the corresponding error codes were 0x8000005C and 0x8000005A). Netster007x was the first to notify me of the issue, and after looking around I began to think that the issue lied in the update server.

I managed to find a Google Group that had several other people complaining about the same error message in Active Virus Shield. One eagle-eyed commenter noticed that you could bypass the problem by removing the two AOL entries from the list of update servers. Here’s the quick how-to on doing that:

1. Right-click on the Active Virus Shield System Tray icon and close the program. Alternatively you could boot your computer into Safe Mode.
2. Open this file:
   C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\AOL\AVP6\Data\aol-updcfg.xml
3. Remove the top two lines from the file:
<site2 url="ftp://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/" diff_url="diffs" weight="10000001" region="*" />
<site2 url="http://download.newaol.com/avs/update/mirror/" diff_url="diffs" weight="10000000" region="*" />
4. Save the changes and restart Active Virus Shield (or restart your computer).

Now your Active Virus Shield should be back to normal, and updating regularly. Of course support for this application is extremely limited now that AOL isn’t using it anymore, but the last version is still available for download on sites like Softpedia, MajorGeeks, and CNet.

So it looks like there is a workaround for the time being, and for some of you it will be worth it since Kaspersky (which powers Active Virus Shield) is ranked as one of the best antivirus solutions. Although I prefer to just use the always free Avast! or AVG.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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Active Virus Shield Now Compatible with Vista 🙂AOL’s Free Active Virus Shield Ditches Kaspersky for McAfeeAOL Offers Free Antivirus Powered By KasperskyAnd The Best Antivirus Is…New Antivirus Rankings…Kaspersky Still on Top

Space nerds, get your browsers ready — UrtheCast will soon be streaming HD video of Earth straight from the ISS. The system will actually consists of a pair of cameras, one still and one video, that will be mounted on the Russian arm of the station. The still shots will be very wide, covering about 30 miles with a resolution of 18-feet per pixel. Much more exciting will be the three feet per-pixel stream of 3.25fps video that will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You probably won’t be able to see yourself waving as the ISS passes overhead, but you should be able to spot your cardboard box fort house. The feeds won’t be your typical boring NASA fare either — you’ll be able to search, rewind, and tag objects or events, and UrtheCast is providing APIs for developers to build upon the service. The project won’t be launching until June 28th, so bide your time by checking out the video and PR after the break.

Continue reading UrtheCast to stream live HD footage of Earth from ISS, like Stickam for space

UrtheCast to stream live HD footage of Earth from ISS, like Stickam for space originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Jun 2011 09:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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