Month: May 2011

Xplore Technologies’ iX104C5 tablet PC is built for abuse

Sure, we all drool over the slender lines of the latest slates, but there’s no shortage of folks in the field who dig the tablet form factor and need a more durable device than anything running Android or iOS. Enter Xplore Technologies and its newest bombproof tablet, the iX104C5. This feshly minted model follows its progenitor PCs, the C2, C3, and the C4, in that it has a 10.4-inch XGA display and rugged good looks. Underneath that industrial exterior, the C5 improves upon earlier models with a 2.13GHz Intel Core i7 620UE processor and 2GB of RAM (expandable to 8GB) running Windows 7. It has dedicated GPS, Gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, and a Gobi 2000 mobile broadband card to keep you flush with 3G data out in the wild. There’s also a hot-swappable 10-cell Li-Ion battery and dual SSD drive capability with RAID support, so your data is as safe as the hardware housing it. Xplore’s not telling how much the iX104C5 costs, but we do know it can survive being thermally shocked, dropped, vibrated, and generally abused. All that’s left is a snowmobiling showdown with its spiritual soulmate to determine which rugged PC platform reigns supreme.

Xplore Technologies’ iX104C5 tablet PC is built for abuse originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bento Book by Rene Lee

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Modern life is full of portable digital devices, each with it’s unique interaction, chip-set, and form factor making it uniquely appropriate for it’s own set of use cases. Managing all of these devices can be a pain to say the least when it comes to syncing, transporting, charging, and most importantly sharing and creating content. In response to this, RISD ID student and former frog design intern, Rene Lee, has designed the Bento Book.

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The Bento Book is a system of devices that work together… kind of like Voltron. The phone, tablet, hard drive, and battery dock into the base of the laptop to essentially form half of it. The phone becomes the track pad, the tablet becomes a touch screen keyboard/input area, somewhat like a Nintendo DS. Content can be surfed on the tablet, and then say you want to modify that content, or interact with it more deeply, you dock the tablet into the screen to continue working with it in a more focussed way. Then you can pop the phone out to take it all on the road.

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The Bento Book is a nice manifestation of where the current trend of device convergence could go. Check out all the details on Rene’s site HERE

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Bento Book by Rene Lee

iFixit Tears Apart A FBI GPS Tracking Device — Really


Ever wonder what sort of space age technology the FBI tracks people with? Well, as iFixit found during a special teardown, space age sort of properly describes the equipment if the term space age refers to 1990-ish equipment. I won’t spoil all the fun (like the 20 year battery life) partly because I wanna get this story posted quickly and go give my car a thorough pat down for any such device.

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iFixit Tears Apart A FBI GPS Tracking Device — Really

GameCube Fusion portable brings Wii aesthetics, GBA design to Nintendo’s boxiest console (video)

GameCube Fusion portable brings Wii aesthetics and GBA design to Nintendo's boxiest console

It seems like there was a time, not that long ago, where we saw another new hand-crafted portable console every week, each one smaller and more impressive than those before. Those days are, sadly, gone and, whether you want to blame the short attention span of today’s youth or simply conclude that everyone’s too busy playing Angry Birds, it’s a sad fact. Modder Ashen is bucking the trend, creating what he calls the GameCube Fusion. It’s a hand-built portable GameCube that plays (hopefully legally acquired) titles from SD card via both WiiKey and Gecko, offering full controls on-board plus an external controller port, all kept cool by a laptop-sourced fan that sounds powerful enough to make the thing hover, F-Zero-style. It’s far smaller than 2009’s NCube, but the omission of a battery pack means it won’t be traveling far. For those who want to know more, every detail will be revealed in the 12 minute video embedded just below — if you can keep focused that long.

Continue reading GameCube Fusion portable brings Wii aesthetics, GBA design to Nintendo’s boxiest console (video)

GameCube Fusion portable brings Wii aesthetics, GBA design to Nintendo’s boxiest console (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 09:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA acquiring wireless chip manufacturer Icera, doubling-down on the post-PC era

NVIDIA looking to acquire wireless chip manufacturer Icera, doubling-down on the post-PC era

NVIDIA, a company once focused entirely on giant graphics cards for home computers, has already quite successfully re-positioned itself as a player in the mobile graphics world. Now it’s poised to really shake things up, announcing the acquisition of Icera. The UK-based company you’ve probably never heard of has a line of on 3G and 4G baseband processors used in wireless devices and USB modems — chips that are said to be smaller, more flexible, and more efficient than the competition from Qualcomm and ST-Ericsson. Icera seems to have been focused heavily on LTE of late, which puts NVIDIA in a good place to not only manage what happens to the data when its inside your next-gen phone or tablet, but to also control just how it gets there in the first place. A future Tegra SoC that handles wireless data too? Color us intrigued.

Continue reading NVIDIA acquiring wireless chip manufacturer Icera, doubling-down on the post-PC era

NVIDIA acquiring wireless chip manufacturer Icera, doubling-down on the post-PC era originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 10:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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‘Miraculous’ Aeros airship set to fly by 2013, thanks to DOD funding

Are you nostalgic for a time when the word “zeppelin” stood for leisurely intercontinental travel for the rich and famous, rather than bass-heavy portable sound and MotoBlur phones? Take heart, as Ukrainian entrepreneur Igor Pasternak claims to have solved the “buoyancy problem” that has long limited the usefulness of airships. The problem is that burning fuel or dropping cargo lightens the ship, which then needs to vent costly helium to return to earth; without a way to control buoyancy, take-offs and landings become complicated to the point of uselessness. Pasternak claims to have solved this sticking point by compressing the pricey gas, thereby conserving it for later use. The Defense Department (which loves its warblimps) has contracted his company, Aeros, to provide a working demonstration by 2012-13. Dubbed Pelican, it will only fly without a payload at first — but if the technology proves feasible, we might just see a new Era of Airships.

‘Miraculous’ Aeros airship set to fly by 2013, thanks to DOD funding originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 May 2011 05:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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