Month: March 2011

Turing machine built from wood, scrap metal and magnets, ‘geek’ achievement unlocked (video)

We take it for granted nowadays that thumbnail-sized silicon chips can crunch through the most complex of calculations, but early last century, mathematical tasks were still being carried out by humans. It was around that time that one Alan Turing, Enigma code breaker and general computer science pioneer, came up with what was essentially a thought experiment, a mechanical machine capable of simulating and solving algorithms just like a grown-up CPU. Well, you know where this is going by now, one British software engineer decided to build just such a device, out of old bits and bobs he had lying around his geek lair, producing a working model that was recently shown off at the Maker Faire UK in Newcastle. The only downer, as he points out, is that it’d take “months to add two numbers together,” but all good things start off humbly. Video after the break.

Continue reading Turing machine built from wood, scrap metal and magnets, ‘geek’ achievement unlocked (video)

Turing machine built from wood, scrap metal and magnets, ‘geek’ achievement unlocked (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vizio’s first 2011 Theater 3D TVs revealed, could ship for less than $500

The one detail we couldn’t wrangle out of Vizio about its upcoming 3DTV line at CES was the price, but now a few midrange models have popped up on the company’s website early with full information. The 47-, 42- and 32-inch E3D models sport $899, $729 and $549 pricetags and a date of “coming soon,” following the precedent of the 65-inch model released last fall. If that’s not cheap enough, one of our readers has provided information that Walmart expects to have the E3D320VX and E3D420VX available for $498 and $698, respectively, starting in April. All of these TVs are 1080p (at least in 2D), have WiFi and Vizio Internet Apps built in (with a new IR remote – Update: pictured after the break — instead of the old Bluetooth QWERTY one) and come with two pairs of passive 3D glasses. We’ve seen 3DTVs debut at under $1,000 before and more than a few of last year’s models have dipped to $800~ by now, but with a starting price this low and cheap accessories, we wouldn’t be surprised if Vizio is celebrating sales wins again next year.

[Thanks, xxontheedgexx]

Continue reading Vizio’s first 2011 Theater 3D TVs revealed, could ship for less than $500

Vizio’s first 2011 Theater 3D TVs revealed, could ship for less than $500 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 14:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sleep Deprivation Could Lead to Heavier Eating [In Brief]

If you eat a little more than you'd like to, getting more sleep at night might help curb your appetite, a new study shows. Researchers at Columbia University found that people actually consume more food when they're sleep-deprived—nearly 300 calories worth, which is enough to “lead to rapid and robust weight gain” if maintained, said Eve Van Cauter of University of Chicago. They aren't necessarily eating healthy foods, either. Most of the extra calories came from high-fat foods like ice cream or fast food, and the effect was greater for women than for men. Overall, it's just one more reason to reboot your sleep cycle and get the sleep you deserve. Hit the link to read more about the study. [American Heart Association via Consumerist] Photo by Deeleea. More

Researchers produce cheaper, ‘cooler’ semiconductor nanowires

Advances in nanowires may occur on a pretty regular basis these days, but this new development out of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems could have a particularly big impact on one all-important area: cost. As PhysOrg reports, manufacturing semiconducter nanowires at an industrial scale is currently very expensive because they need to be produced at extremely high temperatures (600 to 900 degrees Celsius), and the process used to manufacture them generally uses pure gold as a catalyst, which obviously adds to the cost. This new process, however, can use inexpensive materials like aluminum as a catalyst, and it can produce crystalline semiconductor nanowires at temperatures of just 150 degrees Celsius. Of course, that’s all still only being done in the lab at the moment, and there’s no indication as to when it might actually be more widely used.

Researchers produce cheaper, ‘cooler’ semiconductor nanowires originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 09:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI’s GX680 laptop gets GeForce GT 555M graphics, up to 16GB of DDR3

MSI's GX680 laptop gets GeForce GT 555M graphics, up to 16GB of DDR3

Mobile gaming rigs don’t tend to be particularly upgradeable, so it’s important to get all the horsepower you can up front. With that in mind, MSI‘s latest is delivering a little more oomph than its last lap-warmer. It’s the GX680 and it’s rocking an Intel Core i7 2630QM processor paired with GeForce GT 555M graphics, NVIDIA’s latest bid at laptop pixel-pushing supremacy. That card has 1GB of GDDR5 memory onboard, while the system itself can be configured with up to 16GB of DDR3 — rather a lot for a laptop. A 15.6-inch, 1080p display is available, along with dual 750GB HDDs, which can be configured in RAID 0 if you like living dangerously. Blu-ray is also on offer, along with a THX certified Dynaudio sound system that is said to deliver audio “heretofore found only in cinemas.” No price yet, but as always with MSI that kind of hyperbole comes for free.

MSI’s GX680 laptop gets GeForce GT 555M graphics, up to 16GB of DDR3 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Asus Eee Pad Transformer: Is It A Tablet, A Netbook? Both?

Asus has made its Eee Pad Transformer official. Never heard of the device? It’s been floating around for a few months now, including making a secretive appearance back at CES in January. To quickly describe it, it’s part tablet, part netbook. And here I thought tablets had replaced netbooks.

The Eee Pad Transformer’s biggest thing is that you can use it as a standard, Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablet. Surf the Web, fiddle about with apps, that kind of thing. But Asus decided that wasn’t good enough. “This isn’t good enough!” one of their engineers might have shouted once. So in addition to being a fully featured, as-you-like, tablet you can also use it as a netbook.

By setting the tablet in a small dock, you can then use the attached keyboard to use the device more like you’d use a netbook. Perhaps you find it’s easier to type when at as desk using a normal keyboard? That’s your call, I suppose.

The point is, it does both.

(No, there’s nothing stopping you from hooking up your iPad in similar fashion, but let’s not dwell on that for now.)

The hard specs aren’t bad: Tegra 2 dual-core processor, 10.1-inch display (Gorilla Glass, mind) at 1280×800, built-in 5-megapixel camera for recording HD video (or whatever else), HDMI output, etc.

It’s a tablet. You won’t be rendering video on it, but perhaps reading this or that forum, tweeting this or that bit of wisdom, etc.

Oh, and it has a 16-hour battery. So says Asus, at least. That’s fairly substantial.

It’ll be released in Taiwan today (or it already has, timezones being the pesky things that they are), and Asus says it should be around $400-$700 (depending on accessories) when makes its way around the world.

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Asus Eee Pad Transformer: Is It A Tablet, A Netbook? Both?

HOWTO hack frequent flier programs

In this video from OSCON Ignite, Evan “rabble” Hanshaw-Plath gives a five-minute primer on gaming frequent flier programs to get free flights, perks and bonuses. I actually met Evan on an airplane — we randomly had adjacent seats on a flight during my last book tour, and I noticed he was wearing a FOO Camp shirt and we struck up a long and interesting conversation.

Ignite OSCON 2010 – Hacking Frequent Flyer Programs

(via Joshua)