Bounce WiFi Enhancer

So you have a Wi-Fi router in your home, but somehow due to some kind of arcane magic in the vicinity, your room seems to be the only one that fails to receive any signal. Well, fret not – instead of moving your work place to the living room, here is the $24.99 Bounce WiFi Enhancer. Basically, it can transform your regular router into one that runs on steroids – as it basically boosts your Wi-Fi signal strength up to three times the original. Bear in mind that the Bounce WiFi Enhancer will only play nice with routers that have external antennas.

How does it work? All you need to do is place this egg-shaped device right on top of your home’s router, followed by pointing it in the right direction, sort of giving a nudge to the place where you need additional coverage, and see the “magic” work in the previously blind spot. Targeting 802.11 a/b/g routers, it takes just seconds to install, and comes with a one year manufacturer’s warranty. Has anyone given it a go already, and do you think it will work as advertised?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Free AT&T Wi-Fi at Bank of America Stadium, Private WiFi beta 3.2 Hands-On,

NASA plans Curiosity’s path using gaming technology

NASA is busy planning missions for its Curiosity Rover vehicle which is currently on Mars. Because the robot is millions of miles away, it can take anywhere from 3mn to 30mn for a radio signal to go from Earth to Mars – this depends on the position of both planets on their respective orbits. This makes it unpractical to “remote control” the robot like you might do on earth, where things can be controlled in real-time.

To save time, NASA has created a technique where they use the robot’s sensors to retrieve 3D imaging of the its surrounding. From there, they can inspect the potential obstacles and prepare a sequence of motion that will direct the robot to do a particular task ranging from moving around to analyzing stuff on the soil. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Curiosity rover on Mars receives software update, Curiosity makes Mars landing,

Google+ vanity URL introduced

When it comes to owning a URL, I guess you can say that the impact of the right URL can be more effective than a vanity license plate, don’t you think so? After all, don’t you think that TheFacebook.com (which redirects to Facebook, btw) is far less cool compared to just facebook.com? So folks, brace yourselves – apart from winter being halfway here soon, you will soon be able to enjoy your very own Google+ vanity URL assuming you are famous enough, of course, instead of having to plug your Google+ account with a seeming bunch of gibberish.

Listen to what Google has to say about the situation, “At first, we’re introducing custom URLs to a limited number of verified profiles and pages. But over time we plan to offer custom URLs to many more brands and individuals, so please stay tuned!” That is a very nice way of saying that if you are not famous enough, then you can forget about having your very own Google+ vanity URL. I guess in this case, only celebrities as well as large, well oiled companies and brands need to apply.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google sheds 20% of Motorola Mobility’s workforce, Google reportedly testing new log-in page that can manage multiple accounts on Gmail,

XBMC for Android starts to receive nightly builds

It seems that the word has gotten out from developers of the popular open source XBMC media center application, where they have managed to port this particular software to have it play nice with the Android operating system from Google. While the app itself cannot be downloaded from the Google Play Store at the moment, the source code is already readily available, and this did lead to some folks to make a compilation, which logically results in an installable pre-release version of XBMC for Android.

For those of you who absolutely need to remain abreast with the latest developments, there are unofficial nightly releases available for the XBMC for Android, thanks to XDA Developers forum member “kemonine96” who is behind this nightly versions. Folks who want to perform a download will need to take note that there are a couple of XBMC for Android versions at the moment, so it bodes you well to peruse the list of supported devices beforehand so that you can know whether you should use the build for NEON or non-NEON devices.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: XBMC announces Android app, LG Optimus 2X to receive Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich?,

Dospara Diginnos GIGABYTE Z77/TB Concept Model Desktop PC

Dospara-Diginnos-GIGABYTE-Z77_TB-Concept-Model-Desktop-PC

Dospara has come out with a new desktop PC namely the Diginnos GIGABYTE Z77/TB Concept Model. Powered by a 3.50GHz Intel Core i7-3770K processor, the system is equipped with an Intel Z77 Express Chipset (GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP5TH motherboard), a GeForce GTX 680 2GB graphics card (GIGABYTE GV-N680OC-2GD), an 8GB DDR3 RAM, a 1TB hard drive, a DVD Super Multi Drive, a 750W 80PLUS certified power supply and runs on Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OS. The Diginnos GIGABYTE Z77/TB Concept Model is priced at 164,980 Yen (about $2,108). [Product Page]

ASUS Maximus V Formula E-ATX Motherboard

ASUS-Maximus-V-Formula-E-ATX-Motherboard

ASUS has released another E-ATX motherboard ‘Maximus V Formula’ in Japan. Based on Intel Z77 Express Chipset, the board supports for LGA1155 processors and features four DDR3 DIMM memory slots (up to 32GB RAM), three PCI-Express 3.0/2.0 x16 slots, one PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot, three PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots and one PCI-Express x1 Mini Card slot. It also comes with a number of connectivity ports including six SATA 6.0 Gbps, two SATA 3.0 Gbps, two eSATA, one mSATA, six USB 3.0 and eight USB 2.0. The Maximus V Formula retails for 30,000 Yen (about $383). [ASUS]

The Ubi Kickstarter project wants to bring voice activated computing to your home

While our smartphones or tablets are perfectly capable of listening to voice commands and performing actions based on them, it would also mean that we will need to carry them with us all the time. If you like the idea of hands free computing around the house, then this Kickstarter project dubbed Ubi might be worth taking a look at. It plugs into your wall outlet and will connect to your home’s WiFi, letting you dictate voice commands while reading your book or while watching television, or even better while cooking so you don’t have to pause and look at your recipes.

Some of the features that its creators are planning to ship with Ubi includes a speakerphone, home speaker system, a virtual assistant, voice memos, an alarm clock, intercom system, a baby monitor and even the ability to control your home’s climate (although it might need web enabled thermostats like Nest). Ubi will be based off Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and will be powered by an 800MHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor with 1GB of RAM. It will sport an omni-directional microphone, Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity, temperature, humidity and air pressure sensors and an ambient light sensor as well. If Ubi sounds like something you wouldn’t mind hooking your home up with, then head on over to its Kickstarter page for the details or to pledge your donation.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Chameleon Kickstarter project aims to change the home screens on Android tablets, BlueDrone RC car lets you control it via your Android device,

Possible 13″ Retina Display MacBook Pro spotted in benchmarks

It wasn’t too long ago that Apple launched the 15” Retina Display MacBook Pro. While 15” might seem like a decent size as far as portability is concerned, there are some who might prefer something smaller than they can just slip into their bags, like a 13” model for example. Well if you’re wondering if Apple has plans to launch a 13” MacBook Pro with Retina Display, you might not be disappointed thanks to benchmark results which has some speculating that it could be the 13” laptop. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Blizzard to optimize Diablo 3 further for the Retina Display MacBook Pros, MacBook Pro to Feature Retina Display?,

Demonoid domains up for sale

There was quite a bit of news bytes floating around recently concerning popular BitTorrent site Demonoid which was recently shut down, as the authorities cited that to be a gift to the US. Well, it seems that more developments have happened since then, where a trio of Demonoid domains have gone up for sale, just a couple of weeks after it was taken down in a coordinated, concerted effort. The site is based in Ukraine, and a trio of its domains – demonoid.me, demonoid.com, and demonoid.ph, can now be purchased on domain marketplace Sedo. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Popular torrent site Demonoid shut down as gift to the United States, Demonoid brought down by a severe DDoS attack,

Samsung Exynos 5 announced

Samsung recently announced the long awaited Exynos 5 SoC (read more about SoCs and what they are all about in our primer here), which might just help usher in the next generation of mobile computing upon the masses. There were some demonstrations performed with the Samsung Exynos 5 in the past, and at long last, it has received an official announcement by the South Korean conglomerate. You can expect the Samsung Exynos 5 to feature a dual-core 1.7 Ghz Cortex A15 CPU, a Mali T604 GPU, Wi-Fi display support, 12.8 GB/s memory bandwidth with 2 port 800 MHz LPDDR3 RAM support, 1080p 60 FPS video performance and VP8 codec decoder, in addition to USB 3.0 support, now how about that?

The Mali T604 GPU is no pushover either, where it is capable of handling resolutions of up to WQXGA (2,560 X 1,600 – take that, Retina Display!), handle stereoscopic 3D with aplomb, deliver OpenGL ES 3.0, OpenCL 1.1 and DirectX 11 support in the process.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Lenovo LePhone K860 gets Samsung Exynos quad-core chip and Android 4.0, Samsung officially announces the 1.4 GHz Exynos 4 quad-core processor for the GS3,