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Oct 31

Sony to divide TV division into three-headed monster, looks to bounce back

Posted in: hdpostcross, samsung, sony, Television, Today's Chili, TV, vizio

Looking to make a rebound in the ailing TV business, Sony has announced that it will split its television division into three. According to Reuters, the company is looking to keep operations in check with separate departments for LCD TVs, outsourcing and next-gen TVs. The company is wasting no time, as the move will take place on November 1st. The announcement also comes in advance of Sony’s quarterly earnings report this Wednesday which is predicted to be a quite a few eggs short of the full basket that was hoped for — due in part to its inability to compete against Vizio and Samsung. There are also rumblings that the company could be looking to sell off its almost 50-percent share of a liquid-crystal display collaboration with the aforementioned Sammy. It appears moves are being made to stay in the TV game, but the real question is will Sony be able to stop the bleeding (or, perhaps more appropriately, melting)?

Sony to divide TV division into three-headed monster, looks to bounce back originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CNET | source Reuters | Email this | Comments

Oct 31

The House That First Inspired Steve Jobs

Posted in: steve jobs, Today's Chili, top

Like everyone else in the planet, I’m reading Steve Jobs’ biography. Finding the origin of his character and taste is truly fascinating. Like the influence of his very first home on his perception of what design for the masses should be. More »

Oct 31

China debuts homegrown supercomputer, hits one petaflop mark

Posted in: Today's Chili

China has already, however briefly, sat atop the Top500 list of supercomputers, but that was using silicon designed by American companies like Intel and NVIDIA. The country’s latest contestant though, is sure to be a much bigger point of national pride. The Sunway BlueLight MPP, which was installed at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan this September, is powered by 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 CPUs — the homegrown chips that come out of Shanghai. The Sunway’s one petaflop performance isn’t enough to make it the new king of the hill, but it should get it into the top 20. More impressively, the machine only consumes about one megawatt of electricity — roughly a quarter of the 2.5 petaflop Tianhe-1A. Now it’s up to researchers to crank these ShenWei cores up to a 11 and make a run at that 50 petaflop Cray.

China debuts homegrown supercomputer, hits one petaflop mark originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source New York Times, The Hindu | Email this | Comments

Oct 31

MyFive: Things We Wished the iPhone 3G Had

Posted in: Apple, Gadgets, iphone 3g, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

As we’ve mentioned, CyberNet’s iPhone 3G review will be coming within the next week or so. We decided not to post it right away so we could have ample time to test out all of the new features. In the mean time, we thought we’d fill ya in on five things we wished the iPhone 3G had. It sure is a nice device, but it isn’t perfect. Here’s what we’d like to see on a 3rd generation iPhone. Apple, are you listening?

1. More Than a 2 Megapixel Camera

The original iPhone came with a 2 megapixel camera so it would have been nice to see Apple upgrade the camera to say, a 5 megapixel camera. Their goal is to have you use one device instead of many (phone, iPod, GPS, camera, all in one), but we’re still not ready to ditch our camera in favor of a 2 Megapixel camera on our iPhone 3G. This leads us to #2…

2. A Flash for the Camera and Video Recording

Another big thing missing from the iPhone 3G is a flash for the camera and the capability to record video. Sometimes it’s impossible to take great pictures without a flash and video recording is slowly becoming a standard. Remember all of those rumors that the iPhone was going to have a camera on the front as well for video-conferencing? That would have been nice too.

3. Multimedia Messaging Service

Lots of phones out there have the capability to send and receive multimedia messages, but not the iPhone 3G. For those who were used to such a service and used it regularly to send media on other phones, switching to the iPhone 3G where there isn’t an option will probably be a let-down.

4. A Replaceable Battery

A replaceable battery was one of the biggest complaints we heard with the original iPhone and now it’s a big complaint again with the iPhone 3G. People like to have control over replacing something like the battery, and some people like to carry around an extra for those times when they won’t have an outlet available to them for charging. This is something that isn’t possible because Apple does not allow users to replace the battery themselves. Maybe the 3rd generation will finally include a replaceable battery?

5. 32GB Option

It seems funny to think that just a year ago, Apple introduced a 4GB iPhone. 4GB? That’s it? 4GB hardly seems like anything these days. And while 4GB isn’t much, 8GB and even 16GB doesn’t seem like a whole lot. They’ve got a 32GB iPod Touch, so why not a 32GB iPhone 3G? We’re thinking they’ve already thought of this and like last year, they’ll quickly discontinue the 8GB model and introduce the 32GB model.

We know many of you have rather large collections of music and photos, so storage on any device is a must!

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iPhone 3G Graces the Cover of Best Buy Ad Tomorrow

Oct 31

FARO Focus 3D scanner captures big 3D models from a tiny Lego trolly (video)

Posted in: lego, Today's Chili, video

Nothing catches our collective eye quite as easily as the combination of high technology and childhood toys. Making a play for our man-childhood inclinations today is a Lego-augmented FARO Focus 3D, purportedly the world’s smallest 3D laser scanner yet still able to detect surroundings up to 120 metres away. It can grab a cloud of points, then offer up a detailed three-dimensional model of the environment, with some extra details (thanks to those Lego wheels) that would have been obscured on a static 3D capture. Admittedly, it doesn’t quite have the wow-factor of an all-Lego 3D scanner, but its range (and possible use in forensic crime scene analysis) has kept us intrigued. Check out the video after the break to investigate how you could get your CSI on.

Continue reading FARO Focus 3D scanner captures big 3D models from a tiny Lego trolly (video)

FARO Focus 3D scanner captures big 3D models from a tiny Lego trolly (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | source ATS Suppliers | Email this | Comments

Oct 31

Keepsy Prints Instagram Calendars, Just in time For Christmas

Posted in: Today's Chili

Recursion: An Instagram photo of a calendar printed from my Instagram photos. Try not to get dizzy.

Keepsy is yet another service that lets you print books and albums containing your Instagram photos, and it has just added a calendar-printing service, just in time to force all your photos of your breakfasts and pets on unwilling family members this Christmas.

However, there’s a twist. Keepsy will let you use your friends’ Instagram photographs in the calendars. Thus, you can surprise them with a calendar containing their photos as well as yours.

The service works like any other. You grant Keepsy access to your Instagram account, and then pick the pictures, choose a layout and generally while away many hours having fun. A message can be added on the back cover, and you can pick the region the recipient is in so that the holidays and dates are correct.

But what about stalkers? The folks at Keepsy have thought of that. You can only access the photos taken by people who are following you. The thinking goes that if they follow you, they’re likely enough a friend. Blake from Keepsy puts it best:

This limits the scope of givers and receivers to close friends and relatives — which is perfect for the gift scenario — but doesn’t allow, say, Justin Bieber or Snoop Dogg fans to go create celebrity fan books, or for errant creeps on the service to just highjack your photos without permission

Quite. Keepsy sent me a calendar and it’s pretty cool. The paper is more like heavy card, the calendar part is clean and non tacky-looking, and the photos are — of course — amazing. It has holes top center of each page for hanging, and is spiral bound like all calendars, ever.

A calendar will cost you $20 for 12 months, and $26 for 18 months, plus shipping (available internationally). For a truly original calendar, I suggest taking photos of kittens in fishbowls, or the local firefighters dressed only in their helmets, with their axes hiding their choppers. Classy.

Keepsy books and calendars [Keepsy. Thanks, Blake!]

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Oct 31

Concept Pen Measures Its Own Lines, Makes Its Own Power

Posted in: Accessories and Peripherals, Today's Chili

The Electronic Pen measures the rotation of its ball to determine line length

The Electronic Pen tells you just how much ink it has laid down, by distance. While it might be fun to know that your signature is exactly 13.37cm long, there are more practical uses, too.

For instance, you could use Jang Hyung-Jin’s concept pen to measure lines as you draw them, effectively turning any straight edge into a ruler. Better, you can measure around corners.

It could also be fun for learning. Everybody knows that the circumference of a circle is the diameter times pi, but it’s pretty cool to use this pen to draw that circle and have the math confirmed.

The pen even has a few neat physical design features. One is the curved side which protects the LED screen inside a concave cranny. The other is some mysterious interior mechanism that powers the whole thing as it moves.

And no, this pen may never make it into the real world, but that doesn’t mean its not worth clicking through to the project page and seeing the rather suggestive diagram showing just how to charge it.

Meter Pen [Yanko]

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Oct 31

AMD Bulldozer breaks own world record, overclocked to 8.46GHz

Posted in: AMD, Today's Chili

Advanced Micro Devices is probably feeling a bit silly right about now. To show off how powerful the Bulldozer chip really is, it drafted in the world’s most elite overclockers, set them up in a room with whatever was required (including a vat of liquid helium) and broke the chip-speed world record. With a verified speed of 8.429GHz, the company collected its Guinness world record and sat back, thinking that no one could ever best it. Less than two months later and Andre Yang (who we can assume does not have his own military complex to run his experiments in) managed to get his Bulldozer running at 8.46GHz, 30MHz faster than the chip’s own parent could manage. We wouldn’t dare suggest that anyone stand outside AMD’s Sunnyvale HQ whilst playing the sad trombone — but if anyone deserves that chance, it’d certainly be Mr. Yang.

Update: AMD got in touch to say that it’s expecting others to beat the record and is excited to see how many records the chips are gonna set. So what are you waiting for?

AMD Bulldozer breaks own world record, overclocked to 8.46GHz originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink AnandTech | source CPU-Z | Email this | Comments

Oct 31

Cute Japanese Robot Rides Bike, Plans Human Conquest

Posted in: Japan, R&D and Inventions, Robots, Today's Chili

Two arms, two legs, two wheels and one diabolical, merciless robot brain

It would seem that putting a robot onto a bike would be a pointless exercise akin to putting gas-powered horses before a carriage. But the impracticalities of this little Japanese bike-bots are easily outweighed by its charm.

Lest you think that this is just a remote controlled bike with a dummy perched on top, watch until the 45-second mark. Here you’ll see the little fellow take his hand off the bars to wave, and put both feet down on the floor.

The robot is called PRIMER-V2, and was built by Dr. Guero of the website AI & Robot. He pedals to move forwards, and he balances like a human rider, by turning into any falls. The balance in this case is provided by a PID (proportional integral derivative) controller which uses feedback loops to adjust for error.

However the PRIMER manages to stay upright, Dr. Guero has given us a valuable insight into how the robot apocalypse will inevitably unfold. It will come from Japan, and it will come — unstoppably — on two wheels.

Biped robot riding a bicycle [AI2000 via Kottke]

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Oct 31

Who Really Is the World’s 7 Billionth Person?

Posted in: Today's Chili, top

The world’s 7 billionth person was a tiny little girl named Danica May Camacho who is born today in Manila, the Philipines, and weighed just 5.5 pounds (she was one month premature). More »

Hasta La Gadget!

Sony to divide TV division into three-headed monster, looks to bounce back

The House That First Inspired Steve Jobs

China debuts homegrown supercomputer, hits one petaflop mark