Hasta La Gadget!

It’s rare that hot booze does anything more than get you drunk, and possibly make you sick, but according to Dr. Yoshihiko Takano, the drink you’re sucking on could facilitate the levitation of a train. After a party for a colleague, the Japanese scientist found that FeTe0.8S0.2 (composed of iron, tellurium, and tellurium sulfide), when soaked in warm booze overnight, shows signs of increased superconductivity — another in a long line of liquor-enhanced discoveries that could have far reaching effects on everything from consumer electronics to public transportation. Dr. Takano decided to test the material (known to become a superconductor after soaking in water) in the leftover alcohol from the party: beer, red wine, white wine, sake, shochu, and whiskey. As it turns out, red wine has the highest superconducting volume fraction at 62.4 percent — nearly four times higher than the ethanol-water control samples. Dr. Takano and his colleagues speculate that the ease with which wine and beer oxidize could be play a key role in the increase in superconductivity. We speculate that even a superconductor gets a little hopped up after soaking in a bottle of wine.

Japanese doctor turns hot toddy into superconductor catalyst originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Physorg  | Email this | Comments

While its original OS might be yesterday’s news, the 4.3 inch HTC HD2 with 1GHz Snapdragon processor still has plenty of life in it thanks to the industrious efforts of the global development community. A new Windows Phone 7 ROM has just been released by DFT (Dark Forces Team) for your flashing pleasures. While it’s said to be working at nearly 100 percent, it does come with the caveat of lacking access to any Windows Live services. As such, you won’t be downloading apps or media from Marketplace or setting up your avatar on Xbox Live — pretty serious omissions for a WP7 device. Nevertheless, if you’re an HD2 owner just aching for a taste of Microsoft’s newest OS then now’s your chance. Video of the ROM in action after the break.

Update: Well, that was fast. A video and instructions showing hacked access to Live services has now been posted. See the proof after the break.

[Thanks, br0adband]

Continue reading HTC HD2 gets its very own Windows Phone 7 ROM (video)

HTC HD2 gets its very own Windows Phone 7 ROM (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink XDA-Developers  |  mwangDFT (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments

Try as it might to act hip and young, Volvo is still a company that’s associated with the name “safety,” and that’s really not a bad thing. Demonstrations like this help to reinforce that, with the company taking great pride in its C30 EV holding up as well as it did in a crash. It was subjected to a 40mph offset and, while it’s looking mighty deranged, no portions of the electric drivetrain were compromised. In other words: no battery goo leaked and no first responders would have been zapped. If that’s all a little too ghastly for you, fear not: there are plenty of pictures of a beautiful E30 with nary a body panel askew, including a peek into its trunk, which doesn’t appear to have been nearly as negatively affected as the poor Focus Electric.

Filed under: Transportation

Volvo crashes C30 EV so you don’t have to, doesn’t spill a drop of battery juice originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 07:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Along with the restoration of the hardware screen-orientation lock, the new iOS 4.3 beta for iPad adds new multitouch gestures to quickly switch between apps. Using four or five fingers, you can now swipe up to show the multitasking bar, and swipe left or right to switch between apps.

But it is a third gesture which is fueling speculation. If you pinch with your whole hand, you return to the home screen, no home-button press required. This, along with rumors supplied to the Boy Genius Report, has people wondering if the home button will be removed from iPad 2 and iPhone 5:

[We] are told that Apple, at some point in time, will remove the home button from the iPad’s design. Instead of button taps, you will use new multitouch gestures to navigate to the home screen and also to launch the app switcher.

Think about that for a second. With the current iPad (or iPhone), you can hand it to Aunt Flora and she’ll work out how to use the thing in a few moments. The single button does one thing* – returns you to the home screen, providing a notional reset for the user. At the very worst, if Aunt Flora gets stuck you can call across the room “Press the button. The only button.”

Compare this to a buttonless design. How will Aunt Flora work out how to get back to the home screen? Who would ever think to try a five-fingered pinch? And how would you even do that one-handed on an iPhone? I’ll bet that even you, tech-savvy reader that you are, has never tried a five-finger pinch on your iPad.

My guess is that the button will stay, despite Apple’s obvious hatred for buttons in general. I can’t wait to try those gestures, though.

*Sure, the home button also pulls up the multitasking bar, and helps with screenshots, but Aunt Flora will probably never use those, either.

Video of New Multi-Touch Gestures on iPad iOS 4.3 [MacRumors]

Apple will remove home button on next iPad and iPhone [Boy Genius Report]

In yet another sign that Spotify has gone mainstream the company has just announced a partership with Shazam — the ubiquitous mobile music identification service. Under the deal, Shazamers will now be greeted with a “Play in Spotify” feature for all music discovered. The feature will be fully integrated in Shazam’s free app “soon” and is available now for the premium apps on Android and iOS wherever Spotify is available, namely, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

Continue reading Shazam and Spotify team up on iOS and Android apps

Shazam and Spotify team up on iOS and Android apps originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Jan 2011 05:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Spotify  | Email this | Comments