Space elevators are slowly making the transition from science fiction to science fact… but we’re not quite there yet. LiftPort, a group that already holds the record for tallest elevator, is taking a second stab at the technology after going into “hibernation” in 2007. Founder Michael Laine has resurrected the company and taken to Kickstarter to drum up interest (as well as a little cash) in his latest project — a lunar elevator. As Laine explains in the video, an elevator from the surface of the Moon to a rendezvous point between the Earth and its satellite is actually possible using current technology. And, thanks to its low gravity and lack of atmosphere, a much simpler construction site. The first step is a $1 million feasibility study that will involve a two kilometer tall elevator here on Earth. LiftPort has already far exceeded its Kickstarter goal of $8,000, but the point was never to fund the entire project. The hope was to garner some media attention and get people involved and invested (both financially and emotionally) by offering rewards. You could even pledge enough money to base jump from the top of the tethered research tower, which will be held aloft by helium balloons. For more info check out the video after the break and hit up the source link to pledge your hard earned cash.
The “Desktop Chair” is an iPad and MacBook stand designed by Moku Woodware, and looks like something that would fit in perfectly on your kitchen counter while cooking dinner and channeling your inner Emeril Lagasse. More »
In the aftermath of the Apple vs Samsung case whose verdict was read in full at the end of last week, the latter company is now fighting a ban sought by the former that would take out several of its hero devices in the USA. A set of 8 product bans have been sought by Apple after they won over a billion dollars in damages vs Samsung with patents upheld against the Android-toting devices. Samsung today let it be known that they intend to fight tooth and nail to make sure no bans occur.
Of course Apple already had one ban put in place via this same trial, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 still currently banned from sale here in the United States. This new set of bannings includes Samsung’s Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S2 (AT&T), Galaxy S2 Skyrocket, Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile), Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail. A couple of these devices are either no longer on the market or are nearly gone from stores anyway, but the Galaxy S II lineup would be a significant cut from Samsung’s current USA market offerings.
Samsung let it be known that they would make sure their collection of devices named would stay on the market in the USA:
“We will take all necessary measures to ensure the availability of our products in the U.S. market.” – Samsung
The company is also seeking to have its Galaxy Tab 10.1 released from the ban it’s currently under because it was not found to infringe on Apple’s products in the trial. It’s currently being banned with a pre-trial injunction set in place because Apple and Judge Koh agreed that it was significantly similar to the iPad to the point that it was likely to be ruled as hurting sales.
There could be some really awesome new products coming our way next month at Apple’s rumored September iPhone event. The Telegraph is reporting that Apple is going to release an update to AirPlay—dubbed “AirPlay Direct”— that would take away the need for a home Wi-Fi network. More »
A personal weather station that beams environmental data up to the cloud then down to a colorful smartphone app sounds like an awesome uber gadget. Exciting! But in the end the Netatmo Urban Weather Station just left us confused. More »
What does a photograph mean to you today? Maybe an Instagram pic shot with your iPhone. Or a Facebook group photo taken with a point and shoot. Or if you’re fancy, a DSLR-taken, Flickr-uploaded portrait. But what was it before? Kodak? Polaroid? This Facebook Timeline shows you the life of a photograph, from its invention (or birth) until now. More »
Acer first detailed their new Aspire V5 series earlier this year back in March, claiming to offer better laptops over previous generations all while managing to be around 30% thinner than previous models and other laptops in the price range. Now that Acer’s rolled out the lineup to retail stores we’re taking a look at the budget family member in their 11.6-inch Aspire V5. It might come at a budget friendly price but it doesn’t compromise on performance. Take a peek below.
Chassis
To be specific today we’re taking a look at the Acer Aspire V5 171-6867 with an 11.6-inch display. This well rounded little ultra-portable might look like the average netbook, but they’ve managed to pack in a pretty decent punch with the Ivy Bridge Core-i5 under the hood. As far as the chassis you’ll be greeted with a lightweight and rather cheap feeling plastic but the clear coat keeps it feeling smooth, and scratch resistant. That plastic pays off however as the laptop comes in at just 3.09 lbs. Making it rather fun to hold and wander to your nearest Starbucks with. It is 0.8″ thick at the thinnest point, and stretches to barely over 1-inch at the widest thanks to the 4-cell battery.
There certainly isn’t anything new in terms of specs or styling here, but for just over $500 we can’t be expecting anything revolutionary. The price however brings a pretty great laptop considering many in the price range feel flimsy and rather cheap. The Aspire V5 does have a lightweight plastic I’m not too fond of, but it doesn’t ooze of cheapness like some in the past. It looks fancy, but you’ll quickly recognize it’s plastic once you open her up. The rounded edges are nice and smooth, and the slightly textured feeling once opened is rather comfortable during daily use.
Ports
As you wrap around the curved plastic edges you’ll come to the left side full of useful ports. First you’ll notice the large venting system to cool that Core i5 dual-core processor. On the left we also have Ethernet, VGA out, HDMI, and a USB 3.0 port for added speed. Around front you’ll be greeted with the 2-in-1 SD card reader, and some LED notification lights for activity. Then to the right side is the rather bland female charging port, the other two USB 2.0 ports, followed by the micrphone/headphone jack.
Keyboard & Trackpad
Here with the Acer V5 we’ve been quite impressed by both the trackpad, as well as the keyboard. For being a compact 11.6-inch device the keyboard is one of the most impressive ones we’ve used as of late. The island style chicklet keys are comfortable, have a good texture, and the response is decent although a bit mushy. I instantly felt comfortable and was able to type with ease here when other 14-15 laptops have given me trouble. It’s safe to say this is one of the better 11-inch keyboards available to date.
The trackpad along with multiple newer laptops has a texture that I’d absolutely be fine without. It makes sliding your finger around for navigation irritating and doesn’t give you that smooth easy-going feeling. Considering the size of the laptop you get a decently sized trackpad, and usage was fairly acceptable. If you tried to click too high it wouldn’t register, as the lower end had the best response.
Overall the keyboard and trackpad can’t be considered great since we only have 11.6-inches to work with, but considering the circumstances this will do just fine and is certainly among the better options available. My only other main area of concern is the tiny arrow keys that double as volume controls or brightness, and wish they’d be larger. In all other regards this was smooth sailing.
Display & Sound
Here Acer has outfitted the V5 with their 11.6-inch 1,366 x 768 display surrounded by an extremely glossy and fingerprint prone bezel — but what’s new. You do get a 1.3 megapixel webcam, but it wasn’t too great. The Acer CineCrystal LED display was decently crisp although we’ve certainly seen much better in this size range. Again considering the price, the screen is crisp and decent although a bit lacking in the brightness department. We’d love to have a bit more brightness as well as better colors as they felt a bit dull and lifeless at times.
The same could also be said about the sound — dull and lifeless. A good way to explain it would be that usual tin can sound we get in basically every laptop available, but with a bit of a distance and fade to it. Sadly even at max volume the sound was nothing special, although it did get plenty loud for those wanting to blast away. Aiming down the sound was also muffled when using anywhere aside from a computer desk.
Performance and Benchmark
This laptop is running on Windows 7 x64 and as we mentioned above is rather sneaky in the fact that this small size still rocks a 1.7 GHz dual-core Core i5 Ivy Bridge processor. To be specific we have the Core i5 3317U on board. Along with 6GB of slow DDR3 RAM and a 500GB hard drive. I’m used to SSD’s and always enjoy the good ol sound of spinning hard drives these days. Obviously the Intel HD Graphics 4000 won’t be getting you any extreme game performance but as I mentioned in my video above it was enough for some quality video output through HDMI for some Pre-season NFL gametime.
As usual it all comes down to the benchmark performance and we’ve ran a quick Geekbench to take it through the paces, as well as posted up the Windows scores too. While it didn’t perform as good as the recent Aspire S5 we reviewed, it handles its own extremely well. Especially when considering the $500 price segment.
Benchmark Score – Acer V5-171
Section
Description
Score
Total Score
Windows x86 (64-bit) – Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Integer
Processor integer performance
5331
7274
Floating Point
Processor floating point performance
9655
Memory
Memory performance
6850
Stream
Memory bandwidth performance
6598
System – Acer V5-171
Manufacturer
Acer
Product Type
Notebook
Operating System
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Motherboard
Acer Mimic
Processor
Intel Core i5-3317U
Processor ID
GenuineIntel Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9
Processor Frequency
1.70 GHz
Processors
1
Threads
4
Cores
2
L1 Instruction Cache
32.0 KB
L1 Data Cache
32.0 KB
L2 Cache
256 KB
L3 Cache
3.00 MB
Memory
6.00 GB DDR3 SDRAM 666MHz
FSB
99.8 MHz
BIOS
Acer V1.02
Wrap-Up
All things aside if you are in the market for a quality 11-inch notebook this is certainly one of the better options available. Given the impressive price/performance ratio and specs you’d expect to see in a larger notebook you’ll love the Aspire V5. Of course all that in a tiny package gets quite hot, and if you’re going for an Ivy Bridge and 500GB hard drive you might as well pick up something with a 14 or 15-inch display.
For those that want some top of the line performance while not suffering in the portability and ease of use department — you could certainly do worse. The battery life barely managing 5 hours no matter the task was a problem with the small battery however. For a few more dollars you could get a bigger screen and better battery life with similar performance. Do you need the lightweight and small size? If so this is the notebook for you.
Just this afternoon Nokia released a significant software update to their Symbian collection of devices going by the name of Nokia Belle Refresh. This update will affect a whole batch of Nokia smartphones including the Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia X7 and Nokia Oro. The Nokia E6 will also be updated later this week while the Nokia 500 is set to pop up within a few weeks from now.
This update to Nokia devices working with Symbian software is bringing on several rather fabulous upgrades including, first of all, a brand new web browser. This new web browser comes with HTML5 support for web apps of all kinds, and the release comes right alongside a brand new set of homescreen widgets as well. This update is also bringing on the previously released Microsoft Office Mobile App and Nokia Maps Suite 2.0 in one handy package.
With this update also comes a selection of new apps dedicated to imaging. You’ll get the update in one of several rollout phases that will be popping up very, very soon. Vanilla versions of devices will be coming first, those being the devices with no software variants depending on country or mobile carrier. After this software rollout is complete, the country and operator variants of the software will appear inside the next few weeks.
Users should be prepared – however one might prepare – for the possibility that certain 3rd party apps will not work immediately after updating to Nokia Belle Refresh. Nokia notes that “Just like after updating from Nokia Anna to Nokia Belle, some apps may not work due to compatibility issues. If you need more information on available apps, please contact your local Nokia Care support. Furthermore, you can also contact the respective App developer to enquire about the compatibility.”
Go ahead and put a bow on it, as Verizon Wireless and Leap Wireless (the parent company of Cricket), have announced a successful spectrum swap. The agreement follows the recent stamp of approval from the FCC, which was issued as part of a larger deal between Verizon Wireless, SpectrumCo and Cox. For its part, Leap will divest itself of excess AWS and PCS spectrum across the US; in exchange, Verizon will pay $120 million to Leap and provide it with 12MHz of A Block 700MHz spectrum in Chicago. Leap will use the new holdings to supplement its existing 10MHz of the A Block within the Windy City, and will use the cash to build up its LTE infrastructure across the US. The company currently expects to provide LTE coverage to at least two-thirds of Cricket’s current footprint over the next three years — or, maybe sooner. Just check the PR to watch the company waffle.
If you didn’t get enough of the world’s greatest tennis players demolishing their competitors at the Olympics, the U.S. Open is another opportunity to watch these titans of tennis smack around fuzzy green balls. More »
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
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