Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
That great perpetrator of worldly ills, the cosmic ray, has at last met its match. Intel has patented the concept of an on-chip detector of cosmic rays which would auto-correct for soft errors caused by the cosmic ray’s interference. Apparently Intel is concerned that cosmic rays — those perky particles from space that blast through the Earth’s atmosphere and tamper with your precious bodily fluids — are going to become “a major limiter of computer reliability in the next decade” as chips get smaller and smaller. The rays have already been proved to interfere with electronics in small ways, so while Intel doesn’t have method for building an actual cosmic ray detector yet, they’re certainly getting a jump on the problem with this patent. We know we’ll certainly be sleeping better at night.
[Via Slashdot]
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Filed under: Cellphones
It’s a crazy, mixed-up world we live in. If we aren’t worrying about global warming or peace in the middle east, we have to be on the lookout for scorned women setting large quantities of mobile devices on fire. A certain Mrs. Wang is guilty of that latter offense. The 37-year-old Chinese woman wasn’t particularly stoked about her husband walking out on their marriage, so she did the only reasonable thing that presented itself: rounded up the entire stock of more than 400 phones the couple had at their joint-owned cellphone shop, and set the entire lot ablaze — inside her home. The collection was valued at roughly 300,000 yuan, about $42,000 US. You might want to take this time to inform your significant other how sane, rational and sexy he or she is, while simultaneously removing all lighter fluid from your home. No gadget is safe!
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Filed under: Cellphones
We’re sure there have been some really great Java Micro Edition apps developed over the years, we just haven’t been fortunate enough to find any that aren’t a Bejeweled variant run into many of them. But that could very well change with the news that Sun is using that fancy new SDK to develop a Java Virtual Machine for the iPhone, which it expects to have ready “some time after June,” and which will allow iPhone users access to the vast libraries of existing JME apps. We suppose the real conundrum now is which Java ME app we’ll grab first: Harry Potter, or MapQuest Mobile. These choices, they overwhelm us.
[Via Mac Rumors]
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Automating Etch A Sketch units to pull off all sorts of mesmerizing tricks is certainly not new, but angelabuilds’ beautifully created Etch A Sketch clock truly is a notch above the rest. Reportedly, it was built upon the Arduino platform and obviously references a few other EAS masterpieces, but we really can’t think of a better wall clock for the true geek. Click on through to check out a video of the unit drawing 11:41 and moving on to 11:42 — seriously, watching the seconds tick away has never been more riveting.
[Via MAKE, thanks Nick]
Continue reading Etch A Sketch clock automatically draws, redraws time
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The summer movie season is right around the corner and for most of us here that’s prime time to get our fill of super-heroes, science fiction, fantasy, and super-heroes I know I said super-heroes twice but this year there’s twice as many to go around. Out of this year’s crop of summer blockbusters, I already see two or three likely candidates for purchase on hi-def this fall. You really couldn’t ask for a better film to kick it all off with than ‘Iron Man’ on May 2nd. Ever since seeing the Comic-Con trailer from last year; this has been my most anticipated summer movie, and given 2008’s contenders that’s saying a lot. Just one week later (May 9th) ‘Speed Racer’ hits the screen and while I was initially pessimistic on how this would play on the big-screen, one look at the trailer put all those fears to rest. May…
Filed under: Networking
CeBIT and Powerline seem to have a thing for one another, and sure enough, this year we’re seeing yet another firm storm onto the scene in an attempt to advance the flagging technology. London-based En-Twyn set up shop in Germany to showcase its En-Compass, which doesn’t require any special wall cutouts and differs from most other Powerline systems by packing its electronics on the backside. In other words, you won’t have any unsightly adapters protruding from the front. Beyond that, everything else works as expected — Ethernet signals travel over your existing home wiring setup — but unfortunately, the product is still stuck in prototype stage at the moment.
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Filed under: Laptops
In case you missed it, it was Eurocom’s Phantom-X that managed to swipe that “fastest tested laptop” mark from the MacBook Pro last year — and totally ruin a perfectly good commercial. Now the company is back for more with the M860TU Montebello 15.4-incher. We’ll have to wait for the benchmarks to see how this one stacks up against the recent crop of Penryn laptops, but what’s new here is that the Centrino 2 “Montevina” chipset is under the hood, which should support faster Penryn processors, lower power consumption and some new fancy security features. Other specs on the M860TU include a 15.4-inch 1920 x 1200 LCD, 512MB NVIDIA 8800M GTX graphics (with a future option for 9xxxM GTX chips once they’re announced), 4GB of RAM, HSDPA and external eSATA and HDMI plugs. Yeah, pretty hot. No word on price, but the laptop is slated to ship May 1st.
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Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment
If you’re all broken up about Pioneer’s seeming exit of the plasma business, take heart. Pioneer Executive Vice President Russ Johnston claims Pioneer’s plans aren’t to abandon Kuro-quality plasma displays in any way. The move to an outside manufacturer (Matsushita, parent company of Panasonic) is designed to cut cost in plasma production, but Pioneer still plans to maintain its premium edge over competitors. “The number-one goal is to make sure we can maintain our differentiation,” said Russ, “and specifically our Kuro difference in the marketplace.” Apparently Pioneer will be still be responsible for the video circuit and processing, the color filter strategy and other such secret sauce, and the company is confident Matsushita can step up to the Pioneer level of panel production — even if it might involve sharing a few trade secrets along the way. Apparently Matsushita is slated to start providing the modules by 2009.
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Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen a product proudly designed in Cupertino erupt, but it’s pretty safe to say this story could have had a much more tragic ending. Reportedly, an iPod nano owner recently awoke to a blaring fire alarm around 2:00AM, only to find his beloved PMP wrapped in flames on the bedroom floor. Thankfully, the fire was tiny enough to be extinguished without any major trouble, and no substantial damage of property or human flesh was tallied. As of now, we’ve no idea if the unit simply exploded or if surrounding circumstances are at least partly to blame, but you can bet your bottom dollar that be sleeping with one eye open (and on our media players) tonight.
[Thanks, Sandy]
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Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Over a year (yeah, really) after this thing was originally announced, Nyko has finally slid the final piece in place in order to offer up the rumbling, bumbling Zero Wireless PS3 controller to end users. Granted, the version hitting shelves as we speak does include rumble, but since you’ve waited this long, you’re probably better off getting the real deal when it lands in April — for $5 less. Still, those who actually prefer 3rd party kit can look forward to being $59.99 poorer and receiving 25 hours of play on a full charge, LED-backlit buttons, “heat-dissipating aluminum panels (saywha?),” and your choice of black, white or silver.
[Via Joystiq]
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