Hasta La Gadget!

ASK Inc. Japan is set to launch a new graphics card ‘Radeon HD 7870′ from MSI that comes with a ‘DmC Devil May Cry’ free download coupon. Codenamed R7870-2GD5T/OC, the card sports 1280 Stream Processors, a 256-bit memory interface, a core clock of 1050MHz and a 2GB of GDDR5 memory set @ 4800MHz, and features 1x dual-link DVI-I, 1X HDMI and 2x mini DisplayPort outputs. The R7870-2GD5T/OC will become available from July 12th for 26,800 Yen (about $264). [Product Page]

Thought Samsung had the US market for 65-inch Ultra HD televisions cornered? Think again. Hot on the heels of its competitor, LG has announced that its 55- and 65-inch UHD sets will sell for $5,999 and $7,999, respectively. They also pack a new feature — a powered 4.1 channel speaker bar that appears / disappears beneath the front lip of the TV. The prices aren’t chump change by any stretch of the imagination, but they’re certainly more affordable than LG’s last UHD TV: an 84-inch monster that sold for a staggering $19,999. Still, getting your hands on one isn’t easy — like its 84-inch set, LG’s latest screens are making their debut exclusively in southern California, and will eventually roll out to stores nationwide. Sure, driving out to Santa Monica to pick up a new TV might not be convenient, but at least it’s closer than South Korea — if you’re not in the US, the company expects to roll them out in the UK, Russia and Australia soon. Check out the company’s official announcement after the break.

Filed under: HD, LG

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Typography is something most of us see almost everyday but only few of us really pay attention to the details. It’s all around us that it’s sometime easy to gloss over. This lovely little animation describes its importance and how we’ve had our fun with it, first by showing the basic rules of typesetting and then transitioning to how typography has evolved in movies.

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Optical engineering is something that we take for granted these days, with almost every smartphone packing its very own camera for our convenience. But if you take a look at the delicate structure inside a mobile camera module, you may appreciate the technology more every time you snap a shot. Like this cut-out diagram of the Nokia Lumia 1020’s camera, for instance: you can see how the six lens elements and other tiny parts are tightly packed together above the 41-megapixel sensor. The elements are actually a combination of five plastic lenses plus one glass lens, with the reason being a taller module would’ve been made if all the lenses were made of glass.

And to enable optical image stabilization, ball bearings are used to counteract hand movement — there’s one near the bottom right corner of the above image. Luckily, the module is also designed to withstand normal drops, so neither the bearings nor lenses would fall out of place unless you try really hard. One more shot after the break to compare sensor sizes.

Check out all the news from today’s Nokia event at our hub!

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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(Credit: Video screenshot by Michelle Starr/CNET Australia)

Since 1980, the American Helicopter Society has offered the Sikorsky Prize: a $250,000 reward for a functional, human-powered helicopter.

To win the prize, the helicopter must remain airborne for 60 seconds, with an altitude of 3 meters (a little less than 10 feet) to be reached at some point during those 60 seconds. It must also remain within a horizontal area no larger than 10×10 meters.

Last year, it looked like the University of Maryland’s Gamera II was gearing up to take the prize, but two Canadians have scooped it up from right under Gamera II’s nose.

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Cameron Robertson and Todd Reichert of the University of Toronto’s Vehicle Design Team and AeroVelo … [Read more]

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