Hasta La Gadget!

It’s hard to get into the habit of exercising unless you’ve got some sweet incentives waiting for you at the finish line. That’s probably what Janko Hofmann and Fabian Pammer were thinking when they came up with the Arduino-powered Personal Energy Orb. It’s basically a device that measures your ‘virtual energy level,’ which gauges how much time you spend in front of your computer versus other activities that will actually require you to move.

This energy level goes down with every minute you spend using your computer, but you can push it back up by going out for a ride on your bike. Aside from turning red when your virtual energy is dangerously low, the orb works in conjunction with an app that’ll decrease your cursor speed until it barely cross across your screen.

So if you want to keep using your computer, you can’t really do anything except go for a ride so your cursor will go back to its normal speed.

[via The Verge]

I don’t know why but I always want to have the fastest components in my computer that I can find. It’s not like I can drag race my computer against the guy across the street in some sort of grudge match, but I still have this unnatural desire for the fastest computer hardware around. Western Digital has unveiled a new external hard drive that really speaks to the computer geek in me.

The drive is called the My Book Velociraptor Duo and it packs a pair of 10,000 RPM 1 TB hard drives. That gives you data access speeds similar to what you’d find in an external hard drive with SSDs inside while getting 2 TB of total capacity. The speed isn’t only from the 10000 RPM internal drives either.

Western Digital also fits the external storage device with a pair of Thunderbolt ports. The company says that the external storage device is capable of real-world data transfer rates of up to 400 MB/s. The dual Thunderbolt ports allow you to daisy chain other devices to get even more storage. The system also supports RAID 0 and RAID 1. All this performance isn’t cheap, though – the Velociriraptor Duo lists for a penny less than $900(USD), though it’s likely to retail for a little bit less.

Sony just threw itself fully into the touchscreen Windows 8 arena — it’s introducing the VAIO Duo 11 slider tablet and the Tap 20 combination desktop and tablet design at its IFA 2012 press conference. The Duo 11 is a noticeably amped-up realization of the Hybrid concept we saw at CES. Its 11.6-inch, 1080p touchscreen is joined by a proper digitizer stylus for low-lag handwriting as well as some seriously powerful innards for a convertible PC its size: we’re talking an Ultrabook-level Core i3, i5 or i7 as well as a 128GB or 256GB SSD, NFC wireless, GPS, and HD-capable cameras at the front and back. Sony is hoping for a late October release for this beast of a slate, although we haven’t been given that all-important price.

The VAIO Tap 20, meanwhile, is more than just a tilting all-in-one desktop in the vein of Lenovo’s IdeaCentre A720. Despite carrying a 20-inch, 1,600 x 900 touchscreen, it’s still very much battery-powered — you can lug the 11.4-pound PC into the living room and treat it like a tiny multi-touch table, if that’s your inclination. It’s sharing the same processor picks as the Duo 11, but it turns to more conventional 750GB or 1TB hard drives and puts the emphasis on shareable apps like Family Paint and the Fingertapps Organizer calendar. Not surprisingly, there’s only one, front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera here, although NFC does make the cut. The Tap 20 is due to arrive at about the same time as its smaller Duo 11 sibling, although we’re once again without details of how much it will cost.

Continue reading Sony unveils VAIO Duo 11 slide-out tablet, Tap 20 portable touchscreen all-in-one

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets

Sony unveils VAIO Duo 11 slide-out tablet, Tap 20 portable touchscreen all-in-one originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not too long ago it seemed like every time we turned around Shuttle was unveiling a new small form factor computer or mini PC. It’s been a while now since we heard from Shuttle, but Giada has been picking up the slack with what seems to be a never-ending stream of mini PCs for customers to choose from. The latest to come from Giada is the new A51 mini PC series powered by an AMD processor.

The CPU inside the A51 is an AMD T56N, and the machine uses AMD’s 850N FCH chipset. Graphics duties are handled by an integrated GPU. Typically, enthusiasts frown on integrated GPUs, but in the case of this computer, destined for home entertainment use, the CPU and GPU team to support 1080p video streaming, and 5.1 surround sound. That’s all you really need out of a mini PC likely to spend its life in the living room.

Giada says that this little computer has plenty of power to become your secondary home computer. It’s roughly the size of a book measuring 192 x 155 x 26 mm and is offered in black or white colors. The computer consumes only 35 W of power in use and has integrated Wi-Fi.

Along with integrated Wi-Fi, the machine also has Bluetooth, one USB 3.0 port, four USB 2.0 ports, a memory card reader, HDMI output, VGA output, and S/PDIF optical audio out. The computer also has a gigabit LAN port for wired networks. Rounding out the hardware is 4 GB of DDR3 RAM and 320 GB of storage. The machine is designed to run Windows 7 Home Premium, but the operating system is optional. Pricing is unknown at this time.

Giada offers AMD-powered A51 series mini computer is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Apple IIGS? Of course. Commodore 64C? You betcha. NeXTstation Turbo Color? Booyah! These three classics are just part of Blake Patterson’s tricked-out technology den that’s known as the Byte Cellar — and yes, we’re seething with jealousy. Take notes, folks, because this is how it’s done. In all, the Byte Cellar currently plays home to 69 computers, video game consoles, PDA’s and other noteworthy gadgets. Need to switch between the Atari and the Amiga? Not a problem, as each system is thoughtfully laid out on a workbench that allows one to easily scoot between rigs. Even the walls bleed vintage cred with a Space Invaders motif, rare posters and hardware components from bygone eras.

Be sure to take it all in with a panorama photo that’s been linked up below, along with a complete list of the equipment currently in Blake’s collection. Regardless of whether you agree with his taste in hardware, one thing is for certain: the man must go through a lot of compressed air.

Filed under: Desktops, Misc. Gadgets, Handhelds

Blake Patterson’s Byte Cellar: the ultimate man cave for aspiring geeks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Aug 2012 20:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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