Hasta La Gadget!

Those of you who want the latest and greatest iPhone (although not necessarily the best smartphone out there, depending on who you talk to) could always purchase one while being tied down to a 2-year contract, although AT&T customers who are in good standing with the carrier will be able to get the iPhone 5 unlocked for free after forking out $649 for it, but the process is not all that straightforward since you will still need to go through the hassle of filling up a web form, faxing a form over, and perhaps to wait for over a week. Just as how there are many roads to Rome, so too, can one find a different way to unlock an unsubsidized iPhone 5 – through restoring the device in iTunes. It is that simple, really.

TechCrunch confirmed that this process is possible, where they tried it successfully with a T-Mobile SIM card. Once the device is restored in iTunes, the user will be prompted with the usual unlocking message: “Congratulations, your iPhone has been unlocked.” Have you given this process a go, and did you meet success with it? Just make sure you do not let a particular rabbi know that you own an iPhone 5, otherwise you might have to burn it.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Siri shows incorrect weather forecasts for New Yorkers, Alleged iPhone 5 teardown,

Being the industry underdog means you’re always in need of a punchy pitch. Fortunately, AMD’s latest briefing to journalists in London yesterday contained exactly that: for something like the cost of an Intel Core i3 you’ll be able to pick up an overclockable Trinity A10-5800K which, we’re told, belongs in the same weight class as a Core i5 with HD 4000 graphics. Exact pricing won’t be revealed until the full stack of A10, A8, A6 and A4 processors hits shelves next week, but the top-end A10 will likely cost around $130, based on recent leaks and a glance at what Newegg currently charges for an i3. Unluckily, however, whereas Ivy Bridge was compatible with some previous-generation motherboards, Trinity will require the purchase of a new Socket FM2 motherboard.

The claim of performance parity with the Core i5 just cries out to be tested, but we’ll have to wait until early October before we can round up verdicts from full reviews on specialist sites. In the meantime, check out the More Coverage links below for some early previews. Also, if you require something more directly head-to-head with an Intel chip, then that’s exactly what you’ll find in the video after the break, albeit under AMD’s auspices and solely in relation to a single game, Sleeping Dogs. As you’ll see, there’s nothing to turn hardcore gamers against discrete graphics cards, and there are no clues about non-gaming performance (which is arguably more relevant on an APU-powered system). But the quad-core A10-5800K does offer plenty of scope for escapism on a low-power HTPC or all-in-one. Indeed, the more expensive Core i5 is left for dust, not least because it’s locked — unlike AMD, Intel charges a premium for its overclockable K-denoted chips. We’ll add further preview links as they become available.

Update: Just added HotHardware‘s preview, which shows that the A10 really does game as well as our video suggests in addition to providing a mostly fluid computing experience. As mentioned, however, it’s impossible to reach a final verdict until AMD allows sites to publish full benchmarks next week.

Continue reading AMD Trinity desktop chips due next week, promise Core i5-matching power at Core i3 price

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

AMD Trinity desktop chips due next week, promise Core i5-matching power at Core i3 price originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Sep 2012 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Developments in CGI and animatronics might be getting alarmingly realistic, but the audio that goes with it often still relies on manual recordings. A pair of associate professors and a graduate student from Cornell University, however, have developed a method for synthesizing the sound of moving fabrics — such as rustling clothes — for use in animations, and thus, potentially film. The process, presented at SIGGRAPH, but reported to the public today, involves looking into two components of the natural sound of fabric, cloth moving on cloth, and crumpling. After creating a model for the energy and pattern of these two aspects, an approximation of the sound can be created, which acts as a kind of “road map” for the final audio.

The end result is created by breaking the map down into much smaller fragments, which are then matched against a database of similar sections of real field-recorded audio. They even included binaural recordings to give a first-person perspective for headphone wearers. The process is still overseen by a human sound engineer, who selects the appropriate type of fabric and oversees the way that sounds are matched, meaning it’s not quite ready for prime time. Understandable really, as this is still a proof of concept, with real-time operations and other improvements penciled in for future iterations. What does a virtual sheet being pulled over an imaginary sofa sound like? Head past the break to hear it in action, along with a presentation of the process.

Continue reading Fabricated: Scientists develop method to synthesize the sound of clothing for animations (video)

Filed under: Science, Alt

Fabricated: Scientists develop method to synthesize the sound of clothing for animations (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Sep 2012 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When it comes to the Android operating system, many people do talk about the issue of fragmentation. While it is not that serious, it is still a problem that should be addressed by Google as well as the slew of hardware manufacturers who release products that run on Android. Well, Asus has their fair share of Android-powered devices, where they have just teased the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update to arrive on the Transformer Prime as well as Infinity in a matter of 3 days.

That would translate to approximately 72 hours of patient waiting, so owners of the Transformer Pad Prime TF201 (otherwise known as the Eee Pad Transformer Prime) and the Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 might want to grab some popcorn and enjoy the waiting period. All good things come to those who wait, after all, so if you have waited this long, what is a few more hours between good friends, right? Better late than never should be taken as a consolation this time around. [Facebook Page]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Asus Transformer Prime Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update rolls out in Sweden, Original ASUS Transformer to receive Jelly Bean,

According to Freedom House, they have ranked Estonia as the world’s number one in terms of Freedom for the Net. Now, this is not a particular achievement that happened for the first time this year, but rather, for the third year in a row, Estonia picked up the gong for being the world’s number one country for Internet and digital media freedom.

NGO Freedom House (@FreedomHouseDC) conducted their third in a series of a comprehensive studies of Internet freedom in 47 countries worldwide, ranking them using various criteria such as Obstacles to Access, Limits on Content, and Violation of User Rights. It does seem as though Estonia has a blueprint that many other countries could use to follow if they want to climb up the rankings, but I believe that North Korea and Iran would be pretty happy being right smack at the bottom of the list. Hey, if you are going to block YouTube, Google and Gmail, there should not be any reason for even a consideration on this particular list. Will there be other countries that aspire to knock Estonia off their pedestal next year? We will be watching closely.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Facebook bug results in messages on friends’ walls that cannot be deleted, Zombie Facebook fans hacked down, zombie apocalypse staved off for now,