Filed under: Displays
Got OLED on the brain? What about FED? Holograms suit your fancy? Regardless of how you feel about the world’s latest and greatest up-and-coming display technologies, we’ve got one more that you should probably keep an eye on. Funai has just announced the development of a swank new panel that consumes just 0.16-milliwatts of electricity per square centimeter, or around 1% as much as traditional LCDs. The Dynamic ECD is made of a reflective display that uses color-changing dyes that light up and morph as electricity flows through. In other words, there’s no need for a backlight, and it even boasts 80% reflectivity (compared with 50% on reflective LCDs) for easier viewing in broad daylight. The real kicker? It should cost around one-third as much as an LCD to manufacture. Expectations are to have 7- and 14-inch units out in 2009, though ultimately it hopes to completely dominate the mobile phone and e-book market.
[Via SlashGear]
Power-sipping Funai Dynamic ECD display don’t need no backlight originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Lego safe is made from robot parts, will guard your mint condish Robocop figurines just nicely
Posted by Jo
Filed under: Household
[Via Digg]
Lego safe is made from robot parts, will guard your mint condish Robocop figurines just nicely originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 06:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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NASA is reporting the first successful tests of its Deep Space Network modeled after Earth’s own Internet. Instead of using TCP/IP, however, the interplanetary communication network relies upon DTN (Disruption-Tolerant Networking) co-developed by none other than Google’s Vinton Cerf. As such, NASA’s network does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection — if a link is lost due to solar storms or a planetary eclipse, the communication node will store the information until the connection is re-established. So, what’s the big deal you rightly ask, after all, we’ve been (purposely) transmitting data to and from space for a half-century. As Leigh Torgerson, manager of NASA’s DTN Experiment Operations Center explains it:
“In space today, an operations team must manually schedule each link and generate all the commands to specify which data to send, when to send it, and where to send it. With standardized DTN, this can all be done automatically.”
Testing of the Deep Space Network began in October with twice-weekly communications between NASA’s Epoxi spacecraft (on a mission to rendezvous with Comet Hartley 2) and nine ground-based nodes meant to simulate Mars landers, orbiters, and operation centers. The International Space Station is scheduled to join the testing next summer. Although the nature of the data transmitted wasn’t specified, we can only presume that it was laced with Google ads for Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong.
NASA’s interplanetary Internet tests a success, Vint Cerf triumphs again originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 05:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Video: Rise and Shine alarm hack is sheers genius
Posted by Jo
Filed under: Household
Few devices receive as much attention to re-design as the mousetrap and alarm clock. Regarding the latter, Anupam Patahak, a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Michigan, takes a natural light approach with his Rise and Shine Alarm Shades. At a predefined time, the modified alarm clock silently (or noisily) kicks off a servo to wind open the shades. Nothing like the deep, battleship gray skies of mid-western suburbia to rouse a young mind from sleep. Video after the break.
[Via Hack A Day]
Continue reading Video: Rise and Shine alarm hack is sheers genius
Video: Rise and Shine alarm hack is sheers genius originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Laptops
It’s been forever and a day since we heard from Dospara, but as it typically does, it’s just hanging around and waiting to see what catches on before it dives in. Case in point: here we have the Prime Note Cartina UM, an 8.9-inch netbook that’s hitting alongside the second and third iteration of everyone else’s. You could likely guess the specifications in your sleep, but we’ll humor you anyway; we’ve got a 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, 120GB hard drive, a 1,024 x 600 panel, 802.11b/g WiFi, a battery good for two hours and a mysterious Linux build pre-installed. You won’t find an optical drive bundled in, but you will find a ¥39,980 ($413) price tag should you venture over to Japan.
[Via Liliputing]
Dospara doles out Atom-powered Prime Note Cartina UM netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple: Snow Leopard release in Q1 2009
Posted by Jo
Oops. Jordan Hubbard, Director of Apple’s Unix Technology Group, made a boo boo. The slide above was pulled from the deck presented last week at the LISA (Large Installation System Administration) conference. Up until now, Apple had only been willing to say that OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard would be ready “in about a year” — that was back in early June at WWDC. You just know that this will have Steve fuming given Apple’s tight control over information. One thing is perfectly clear: the race is on for both Redmond (rumored to be shooting for a mid-2009 Windows 7 launch) and Cupertino, nobody wants to be second with their next gen OS release.
[Via MacRumors]
Read — Presentation [Warning: PDF]
Apple: Snow Leopard release in Q1 2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Transportation
That’s not really a “your mom” joke, more of a statement that your mom is pretty neat and has good taste in electric cars — like this here MINI E. BMW just unveiled the first production MINI E to roll out of its magical electricity-imbuing factory, the first in a limited series of 500 for lease in California and metro New York to people way better looking than you. The bad news is that the all-electric MINI is part of what BMW is calling “Project I,” a test of sorts to see how well electrics hold up to real world abuse and to figure out usage patterns of real-life photogenic people — there’s little indication that the car in its current incarnation will be distributed any more widely than this 500 car run. Check out a plethora of sexy unveiling pictures at the read link to help offset the pain.
MINI E ‘unboxed’ in LA to the delight of car nerds, your mom originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Storage
Oh hey, welcome to 500GB laptop drive announcement party Toshiba. Shame you had to come dressed in the same 9.5-mm slab, 2.5-inch 3Gbps SATA interface, 1.4 watt idle power draw, 5,400rpm spin, and 25dB hum as everyone else in the room. Pretty, but still embarrassing. No full-disk, hardware encryption but at least you can take comfort at besting some (but not all) of your competition by actually shipping your drive in December.
[Via Impress]
Toshiba’s 500GB laptop drive is ready for the Christmas ball originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Cellphones
Not that it wasn’t official already or anything, but nothing demonstrates dedication to a product like an exclusive home on the web. Yep, LG has just launched a standalone microsite for the altogether sexy Prada II, and while you already know about the specs — HSDPA, WiFi, 5-megapixel camera, 3-inch 400 x 240 pixel capacitive multi-touch display and quad-band GSM connectivity — you probably weren’t aware of the matching Prada Link Bluetooth watch. As you’d expect, the timepiece syncs with your Prada II and shows your incoming calls / texts, and we’ll go out on a limb and presume that it tells time, too. Sadly, the tidbits we’re most interested in (a release date and pricing) aren’t clearly available on the site, but we’ll be refreshing like madmen hoping for that to change.
[Via UnwiredView]
LG launches Prada II teaser site, matching Bluetooth watch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs
While HP mistakenly claims that its sparkly new TouchSmart tx2 is the world’s first multi-touch consumer notebook, we’re still decidedly stoked about this here convertible tablet. Boasting a 12.1-inch swivel display (LED-backlit) that’s just dying to have your prints all over it, the tx2 will come loaded with Windows Vista, a bezel-mounted fingerprint reader, integrated webcam with microphone, Bluetooth / WiFi, stereo speakers, a 5-in-1 multicard reader and a LightScribe SuperMulti DVD burner. HP’s also delivering the oh-so-stylish Reaction Imprint exterior, an AMD Turion X2 dual-core processor, the firm’s own MediaSmart 2.0 software, a VGA output, Ethernet and at least one USB port from the looks of things. You’re supposed to be able to add one of these to your digital shopping cart right now via HP’s own webstore or Amazon.com, but both links currently lead to sections of the intarwebz you don’t ever, ever want to see. Hold tight — we’ve a feeling HP will be getting really official with this one momentarily.
Read - TouchSmart tx2 microsite
Read - Hands-on with TouchSmart tx2
HP reveals multi-touch TouchSmart tx2 convertible tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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