Lake Ellsworth lies buried under nearly two miles of Antarctic ice, cut off from the rest of the world since before the dawn of man. Who knows what sort of exotic life has evolved in the frigid darkness over those hundreds of thousands of years? A British exploration team aims to find out. And this drill will get them there. More »
In war-torn Syria, rebels are “MGexting”, that is, holding a machine gun in the right hand while the left hand is busy on a cellphone. Apparently Syrian rebels are relying heavily on SMS for their operations. As seen above, 20-year old Ahmed Sheikha is manning a 7.62mm PK machine gun while speeding towards the war-torn city of Aleppo. New York Times foreign correspondent C.J. Chivers said that Ahmed Sheikha defected from the Syrian Army six weeks ago and is now fighting for the al-Tawhid Brigade in Aleppo.
“Even as the war in Syria rages, large areas of the countryside have cellular phone coverage, and the fighters are constantly checking their phones. When they stop, many of them immediately look for ways to recharge their phone batteries. And, often as they move and enter an area with a strong signal, they commence texting back and forth,” Chivers wrote. We’ve also seen an almost similar type of implementation last when we learned how SMS alerts were being used in Israel to alert its citizens in the event of an incoming missile attack.
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: SMS alerts you of an incoming missile attack, Music2Text uses SMS as a music distribution platform,
If, for some reason, you need a laptop that can go toe-to-toe with the desktop big boys and handle games that aren’t even out yet, Origin’s new EON17-SLX might be the absurd fit for you. More »
Sweating is part of the summer. No matter where you are, especially with the heatwaves of this year, you’ve probably sweat quite a bit over these last few months. If you tend to sweat a lot from your pits, and would like it to stop soaking your clothes, you could always microwave them so that they completely stop sweating.
miraDry uses microwave energy to zap your armpits and kill off 22,000 to 30,000 sweat glands in that area, reducing the amount of sweat that you generate when you get hot. It’s supposed to work in 90% of patients and reduce sweating by 82%. The effect is supposed to last for a year, but you’ll need a couple of sessions for this to work well.
Aside from evaporating your sweat glands, it will also evaporate some of your cash as this procedure costs $3,000. For some reason, it doesn’t sound like a good idea to mess with you body’s biological processes this way. What happens if you overheat? Sweating is a nature’s way of cooling us down.
[via DVice]
The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is one of the more exciting tablets to be released in a while. In fact, it may even pose a small threat to the iPad, considering its top-notch specs and Ice Cream Sandwich-flavored operating system. But beauty is only skin deep, and it’s what’s on the inside that counts, right? So let’s not judge this book by its cover:
iFixit, the team that loves to tear our favorite gadgetry apart, has just conducted its teardown of the Galaxy Note 10.1, finding that it’s one of the more easily repairable tablets they’ve encountered in a long while. It scored an 8.1 for repairability, whereas the new iPad only scored 2 out of 10 points on iFixit’s scale.
The team found that almost every internal component of the Galaxy Note 10.1 is individually replaceable. Even the chintzy glass over the LCD is easy to remove and replace. However, iFixit isn’t all that impressed with the 7,000mAh battery used to keep the Note’s profile as thin as it is.
We were pretty impressed with the Galaxy Note 10.1 and its cute little S Pen, but at the same price point as the iPad, is a good repairability score enough to tempt consumers away from Apple’s undisputed champion of tablets? Time shall tell, my friends.
Intrepid 6-wheeler Curiosity perhaps protested too much when it tweeted “Yes, I’ve got a laser beam attached to my head. I’m not ill tempered; I zapped a rock for science.” NASA turned the rover‘s high-powered laser loose with 30 pulses of a million watts each, reducing a thin layer of the chosen stone, dubbed N165 “Coronation,” to plasma. The resulting spectrum was then analyzed by the on-board “ChemCam” to determine its composition, and the US/French team who developed the system said it’s working even better on Mars than it did on terra firma. The results are now being studied, but if we had a laser beam on another planet, we’d be firing it all over the place — in the name of “science,” of course.
Filed under: Science
Curiosity rover warms up its laser with basaltic rock blast originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 11:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Most HDTVs, tablets, smartphones, laptops, and monitors prominently list their display specs as a sales and marketing tool. Unfortunately, many of these specs are misleading, and are misunderstood by both consumers and professionals. This makes it harder to figure out which displays are really better. Below are many of the specs you’ll see together with brief explanations that will help you understand what they actually mean. More »
In an effort to keep the kids from going with all Apple everything, Microsoft has teamed up with a number of vendors to offer a new “Buy a PC, Get An Xbox” plan along with a $15 upgrade to Windows 8 when it lands later this year. Non-gamers get a $100 Staples gift card, which sounds like cold comfort.
Student buyers who spend $699 on a PC will get the Xbox and the upgrade if they supply a student ID. Given that many PC shoppers are holding off until Windows 8 is official, this seems like a good move. Grabbing an Xbox and an inexpensive upgrade ensures that the laptops now mouldering in inventory are sold while Microsoft gains another revenue stream thanks to game purchases and Xbox Live subscriptions. Buyers, in turn, get some state of the art hardware that’s Win8 ready when it’s time to move over.
Given that folks may find Windows 8 a cognitive burden and that first-gen versions of Windows OSes usually end up pretty rough, it’s probably a good move to stick with Win7 for at least a few more months after launch to see how the UX and bugs shakes out. However it seems like a great opportunity for an early adopting student to pick up a nice laptop at a fairly nice price and waste a bit of time on Skyrim between, during, and after class.
This brilliant shelf is perfect for anyone who loves to show off the tchotchkes they’ve amassed, but also keep the more embarrassing items out of sight. On top you can proudly display your collection of antique tea cups, while the secret drawer will easily hide all of your Pokemon trading cards More »
We’ve already deconstructed Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1 on a metaphorical level, and now it’s iFixit’s turn to go the literal route. The DIY repair outlet found the pen-friendly tablet to be one of its easier tablet teardowns in recent memory: just about everything inside that frame can be swapped out individually. It’s even possible to replace the relatively cheap glass that sits on top of the considerably pricier LCD, just in case the slate plummets face-first but leaves some chance at salvaging its screen. While largely coming back with good news, the investigation also explains Samsung’s decision to go with a modest 7,000mAh battery — stuffing all those components into a 0.35-inch thick frame doesn’t leave much room for the lithium-ion pack that gives them life. Still, if you’re itching to understand what defines a truly repairable tablet, or just want to get a peek at those Galaxy S III-derived roots, the full surgical procedure is available at the source.
Filed under: Tablet PCs
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 teardown shows easy fixes, skimpy battery originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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