iFixit Cracks Open the Microsoft Surface Pro, Slowly.

Microsoft only launched the Surface Pro tablet a few days ago. It didn’t take long for the guys over at iFixit to get their hands on one of the tablets and proceed to take it apart. iFixit does this to show how repairable the tablet is if you should happen to damage it, or want to expand or modify it – and because they’re just as curious as you are about what it looks like inside.

surface pro teardown 1

I think we all know it’s just cool to see the parts that are on the inside of some the most desirable gadgets on the market. Unfortunately, cracking the Surface open required the removal of a veritable crapton of screws (90 to be exact) and a heat gun to melt the copious amounts of adhesive used to hold the tablet together. In fact, it took them over an hour to figure out how to get the screen out of the tablet. iFixit said, “We are starting to miss the old Surface, as we find a metric duckload of adhesive holding the screen in place.” The battery is also glued into place, behind the motherboard.

surface pro teardown 2

Removing the screen appears to have been the most difficult part of the delicate operation. After the screen was removed, all of the hardware on the inside can be seen, which is surprisingly minimal. Highlights include a Intel Core i5-3317U Processor, the Intel Mobile HM77 Express Chipset, 3x Atmel MXT154E Touchscreen Controllers, 4GB of Micron RAM, a teeny tiny 1.8″ Micron RealSSD unit, and a Wacom W9002 chip for pen-based input. It also features two of the tiniest cooling fans you’ll ever see:

surface pro tiny cooling fan

Overall, the Surface Pro tablet scored a miserable repairability rating of just 1 out of 10. That means if you break it, you probably just need to buy a new one. You can check out the detailed teardown over on iFixit.

pro tear

DropTag Bluetooth Sensor Checks if Your Parcel Was Actually Handled with Care

We’re seeing more and more tiny Bluetooth devices that are good at keeping track of useful information, such as your heart rate, electric consumption or the whereabouts of your wallet. The DropTag on the other hand tracks a closely guarded secret: whether or not a delivery package was mishandled before it got to its recipient.

droptag bluetooth sensor by cambridge consultants

Invented by Cambridge Consultants, the DropTag has an accelerometer that can sense, track and relay if the package was dropped or vigorously shaken. As you’ll see in the video below, it will work with mobile apps that could interpret the data in a simple way – it’ll just say if your package is in good or bad condition – as well as display more detailed graphs and timelines.

Cambridge Consultants is also looking at adding more sensors – such as one that measures temperature – to the DropTag to increase its functionality. But the company is also adamant in keeping its final price down, both for ordinary folks like you and me and for enterprise users, which is why they want to make the DropTag to last for weeks on a single coin-cell battery and be reusable. Delivery guys may have met their match.

[via Cambridge Consultants via OhGizmo!]

Opera Browser Transitioning To WebKit

Opera logoAfter reaching 300 millions monthly users, Opera decided that it was time to switch to the WebKit engine for future versions.

Tesla Model S Inventor Calls An Unfavorable Review ‘Fake’

Tesla Model STesla CEO Elon Musk versus the New York Times makes for an entertaining online battle.

Dyson Airblade Tap: Wash and Dry

While it’s been designed for use in public spaces, I’m pretty sure that I’d like to have a Dyson Airblade Tap at home. This water faucet is combined with a very powerful hand dryer, which will dry your hands in a matter of seconds.

dyson airblade tap

Anyone who’s ever used a Dyson Airblade knows that they dry hands very quickly, but there’s still the problem of all the water from people’s hands puddling on the floor of the bathroom as they walk from the sink to the dryer. So it’s definitely a smart idea to combine a hand dryer with a faucet, letting you dry your hands without dripping water all over the floor.

dyson airblade tap tech

The Airblade Tap’s fully-integrated 1400W motor is housed under the sink and draws in air through a HEPA filter before blasting it out. It uses photo sensors to detect when your hands are placed beneath the tap or under the drying jets. After washing your hands, it will dry them in just 14 seconds.

The Dyson Airblade Tap will retail for £999.99 (~$1,569 USD). Dyson claims that it can dry the hands of 15 people for the cost of only one paper towel. Now that’s efficient.

[via Uncrate]

Vuzix Wrap 1200AR Augmented Reality Glasses Now Shipping

If you have a serious need to own your own pair of augmented reality glasses so you can pretend you’re Sergey Brin, Vuzix has a new set of AR glasses that are now available.

vuzix wrap 1200ar glasses

The Vuzix Wrap 1200AR glasses offer two small screens that combine to create a 75-inch virtual screen as viewed from 10 feet away. The glasses support both 16:9 and 4:3 aspect ratios and support display resolutions of up to 720p (though the actual display panels are 800×480 WVGA resolution). The displays have 60 Hz progressive scan update and a 35° diagonal field of view. The little screens also support 24-bit true color.

The glasses themselves weigh about 3 ounces and are highly adjustable allowing users to adjust the diopter and eye separation. They also have display angle adjustment and a pair of discrete 640×480 video cameras which can capture video at 30 frames per second. They’re loaded with a number of sensors including magnetometers, accelerometers, and gyros, allowing for full head tracking.

Despite being lightweight, this isn’t exactly a portable rig – they’re designed to connect to a computer via USB and VGA connections, and you’ll need some augmented reality applications in order to take advantage of them. But assuming you do all of this, you’ll soon be seeing stuff like this right before your eyes (and nobody else around you will.)

You need to have fairly deep pockets if you want to play with a set of these, because they sell for $1499 (USD). But then again, you don’t have a whole lot of cheaper choices unless Google actually releases their Google Glasses to the public.

Star Wars Traceroute For Geeks

Star Wars logoThe Star Wars opening text is visible through an Internet traceroute. Geeks and techies rejoice as the opening crawl appears on your consoles.

Tech Deals of the Day: 2/12/2013

Our friends at TechBargains.com compile a list of daily deals to help you save money. Keep in mind that as with any good deal, products are limited in quantity and can sell out quickly – so don’t hesitate to check them out now.

If you’re looking to buy a product from a specific store, save money with updated and verified coupon codes here.

Computers & Peripherals

Home Entertainment

Personal Electronics:

Sonic Wallets Sound off When You Spend Cash

While it’s always fun to buy things, it’s not always fun that you have to deplete your funds to make it so. These new wallets serve as a not-so-subtle reminder to think about how you’re spending your precious cash every time you open them up.

scream sonic walletEach of the Sonic Wallets offer a variety of unique sound effects to accompany the imagery on its outside. For instance, the Edvard Munch-inspired “The Scream” wallet lets out a horrible variety of blood-curdling screams whenever you open it to take out your cash or credit cards:

There are a total of eight designs available, including an American flag, baseball, Buddha, drum machine, Jesus, Moolah the Cow, and my personal favorite, the Shakespearean insult wallet:

Though I’m not sure if the wallet is tossing barbs like “You are a tedious fool” and “Out of my sight, though dost infect my eyes!” at the snot-nosed punk cashier or at the owner of the wallet.

sonic wallets

Each wallet is made from durable Dupont Tyvek, and sells for $19.95(USD). Check out all of the different designs and sounds over at Gadgets & Gear.

Sure, these could get annoying after a while, but maybe that’ll teach you to spend less money – or the battery will eventually die (after a few thousand uses.)

Holograms to preserve Holocaust survivor stories

The Holocaust is one of the most well-known events in history, and while there are still a handful of survivors out there, that number is quickly dipping. So, in order to preserve stories from survivors of the Holocaust, USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies and the USC Shoah Foundation Institute have begun working on full-body interactive holograms that feature the survivors themselves.

holocaust-hologram

The man featured in the image above and in the video down below is 80-year-old Pinchas Gutter, who spent his childhood in a Naxi concentration camp in Poland, and was about to turn 14 years old when World War II ended in 1945. Gutter was interviewed and recorded in 3D inside a 26-foot-wide dome lit by 6,000 LEDs with a green screen backdrop.

The recordings from the interview were then converted into a hologram that is meant to be shown in museums and other exhibits. The team behind the project are definitely on a time crunch, and are trying to get as many Holocaust survivors interviewed and recorded before most of them pass away. It’s an undertaking that involves a lot of fast acting.

Of course, holograms aren’t anything new. Last year, the late Tupac Shakur was turned into a hologram and performed live at the Coachella music festival back in April. However, the team putting together the Holocaust holograms say that the process is a bit different. Whereas holographic Tupac used stacked 2D images projected onto a nearly-invisible screen, holographic Gutter are projected onto open space to make it look more accurate.

[via CNET]


Holograms to preserve Holocaust survivor stories is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
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