Bloomberg reports via Twitter that production of the next generation tablet is supposed to have started this month according to three people familiar with the situation. Rumors indicate it will have a high-density retina display, 4G LTE data radio, and a quad-core A6 processor. More »
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Bloomberg: iPad 3’s Rolling Off the Factory Lines With a Retina Display, Quad-Core A6 CPU and LTE [Apple]
Sure, we’ve seen digital instrument panels before, but the one outfitted for the upcoming Dodge Dart re-birth caught our eye. Instead of a regular ol’ speedometer in the center of the driver side dash, you’ll encounter a 7-inch instrument cluster that you’ll be able to customize based on your specific auto info needs. This of course will be the second screen on the dash, as the vehicle will also feature Chrysler’s 8.4-inch Uconnect infotainment system in the center. Just how useful is the new feature? We took it for a test drive of sorts, and hopped out with a few thoughts.
First, the amount of information that can be delivered to the driver’s screen was pretty comprehensive. You’ll be able to check gas mileage / fuel economy, odometer details, tire pressure, burned out lights, follow the navigation system and sort out your music choices. The color and image quality were both great, something that gets overlooked from time to time with on-board vehicle screens. While some simple animations take place on the screen for things like driving directions, the folks at Dodge affirm that the monitor won’t pose a distraction while you’re on the road. For a look at the new display in action and a quick refresher on the Uconnect system, hit the gallery below or the video on the backside of the break.
Continue reading 2013 Dodge Dart digital dash display hands-on (video)
2013 Dodge Dart digital dash display hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jan 2012 12:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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2013 Dodge Dart digital dash display hands-on (video)
Cory blogged earlier about the Missionary Church of Kopimism, Sweden’s newest registered religion. Now there’s a feature about it in the New Yorker, by Rollo Romig:
The Missionary Church of Kopimism picks up where Piratbyrån left off: it has taken the values of Swedish Pirate movement and codified them into a religion. They call their central sacrament “kopyacting,” wherein believers copy information in communion with each other, most always online, and especially via file-sharing. Ibi Botani’s kopimi mark—a stylized “k” inside a pyramid—is their religious symbol, as are CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Where Christian clergy might sign a letter “yours in Christ,” Kopimists write, “Copy and seed.” They have no god.“We see the world as built on copies,” Gerson told me. “We often talk about originality; we don’t believe there’s any such thing. It’s certainly that way with life—most parts of the world, from DNA to manufacturing, are built by copying.” The highest form of worship, he said, is the remix: “You use other people’s works to make something better.”
THE FIRST CHURCH OF PIRATE BAY (New Yorker)
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New Yorker on new Pirate Bay religion, the Missionary Church of Kopimism
Lucas123 writes “IBM researchers say they’ve been able to shrink the number of iron atoms it takes to store a bit of data from about one million to 12, which could pave the way for storage devices with capacities that are orders of magnitude greater than today’s devices. Andreas Heinrich, who lead the IBM Research team on the project for five years, said the team used the tip of scanning tunneling microscope and unconventional antiferromagnetism to change the bits from zeros to ones. By combining 96 of the atoms, the researchers were able to create bytes — spelling out the word THINK. That solved a theoretical problem of how few atoms it could take to store a bit; now comes the engineering challenge: how to make a mass storage device perform the same feat as scanning tunneling microscope.”
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IBM Shrinks Bit Size To 12 Atoms
Photo: Ferenc Szelepcsenyi / Shutterstock.com
The New York Philharmonic’s Tuesday performance of Mahler’s Ninth symphony was halted by an unwelcomed sound: someone’s ringing iPhone (using the marimba ringtone). It rang repeatedly in the fourth movement of Mahler’s final completed symphony. From Super-Conductor:
According to an eyewitness, the offending phone owner was in the front rows of Avery Fisher Hall when his phone went off. (A post by Michael Jo on the classical music blog thousandfoldecho.com specifies that the interruption happened just 13 bars before the last page of the score.) In other words, in the final moments of a 25-minute movement, that ends a 90-minute symphony.
“Mr. Gilbert was visibly annoyed by the persistent ring-tone, so much that he quietly cut the orchestra,” the concert-goer, music student Kyra Sims, reports. She related how the orchestra’s music director turned on the podium towards the offender. The pause lasted a good “three or four minutes. It might have been two. It seemed long.”
The original eyewitness story at thousandfoldecho.com. (Thanks, Miles O’Brien!)
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Ringing iPhone stops New York Philharmonic
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday, platform vendor Canonical unveiled a special version of Ubuntu that is designed for televisions. The platform has an integrated media library manager and will offer DVR capabilities. It includes a variant of the Unity shell that is intended to be operated with a television remote control.
The launch of Ubuntu TV fits with Canonical’s efforts to bring its popular Linux distribution to a variety of mobile and embedded form factors. These include an Ubuntu smartphone operating system due to arrive by 2014. The decision to launch a platform for televisions was unexpected, but seems like a natural step for Canonical’s evolving consumer electronics strategy.
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Hands-on with Ubuntu TV, above and under the hood
Back in May, we heard about Qualcomm’s plans to hammer out details for an X PRIZE competition to invent a Star Trek-style tricorder. Now, reader Sven-Erik sends word that the requirements have been finalized and the competition has launched.
“As envisioned for this competition, the device will be a tool capable of capturing key health metrics and diagnosing a set of 15 diseases. Metrics for health could include such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature. Ultimately, this tool will collect large volumes of data from ongoing measurement of health states through a combination of wireless sensors, imaging technologies, and portable, non-invasive laboratory replacements. Given that each team will take its own approach to design and functionality, the device’s physical appearance and functionality may vary immensely from team to team. Indeed, the only stated limit on form is that the mass of its components together must be no greater than five pounds.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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$10M Tricorder X PRIZE Kicks off
So you’re going to a costume party in a bad neighborhood. You want to be safe, but you don’t want to break out of your historical character. Take this quick tutorial on how to make a jar, invented in the 1700s, that stores up enough static electricity to disable, or even kill someone. More »
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Build an Eighteenth Century Taser [Video]
Believe it or not, we just spent 45 minutes with two of Origin PC’s founders and weren’t treated to a gaming demo. Then again, the company isn’t here at CES to brag about 3DMark11 scores. Instead, it’s showing off its new freon-based Phase Change cooling technology, which enables the Genesis desktop to be overclocked to 5.7GHz, and which pushes that desktop’s starting price from $1,337 to $4,499. So how does that $3,000 feature work? As it turns out, not unlike an air conditioner. The setup relies on a compressor to compress gas, which liquifies first and then evaporates, absorbing heat along the way. The Little Devil chassis used for the purpose of this demo has an LED screen displaying the -40-degree operating temperature, but you won’t need it: the system automatically shuts down if it gets too cold, and it won’t boot into Windows until Phase Change is up and running. In addition to all this, the Genesis uses liquid cooling around the motherboard, and an air-based system on the video cards.
While we were there, we also checked out the EON15-S and EON17-S laptops, which will be available with an updated design sometime this quarter. Though the interior should look familiar to anyone who’s ever laid eyes on a Clevo, Origin remodeled the lid, adding a matte finish option and race car-inspired molding (to evoke the idea of speed, natch). As for specs, Origin’s founders directed us to the company’s website, which suggests the internals won’t change along with the design (certainly, the prices remain the same). Expect these to start at $1,539 for the 15-incher and $1,590 for the larger model — prices that now include 24/7 free lifetime support. Find some photos below and continue on past the break for a video where you can see (and hear) that Phase Change setup in action.
Gallery: Origin PC EON15-S hands-on
Gallery: Origin PC EON17-S hands-on
A closer look at Origin PC’s Phase Change cooling system (and its new gaming laptops too) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A closer look at Origin PC’s Phase Change cooling system (and its new gaming laptops too)
The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced this week that its $35 Linux computer has entered the manufacturing stage. The system, which is an open board with a 700MHz ARM11 CPU and 256MB of RAM, could be available for sale within a matter of weeks.
The foundation, which is located in the UK, was originally founded in 2009 with the aim of developing an affordable computer that children could use to learn computer programming. The organization produced two batches of sample boards last year for testing purposes prior to the recent transition to full-scale manufacturing.
Raspberry Pi intends to offer two separate models with different hardware specifications. The initial manufacturing run is focused on the “B” model, which is the higher-end $35 configuration. They will follow it up with an “A” model for $25 that will have half as much memory and lack hardware features like an ethernet controller.
The Raspberry Pi computers have RCA and HDMI outputs that allow them to be plugged into a television. Input devices, such as mouse and keyboard, can be plugged in via a USB port.
The foundation discussed its manufacturing plans in a statement published on its official blog. The organization had originally hoped to have all of the manufacturing done within the UK, but eventually decided to rely on foreign manufacturers for reasons of cost and timeliness. It hasn’t decided yet whether it will wait for the initial 10,000 unit manufacturing run to complete before beginning sales.
Chip makers like TI have offered relatively inexpensive ARM systems for hobbyists over the years, such as the popular BeagleBoard. Raspberry Pi has gone further by developing an even more affordable board that is priced to be accessible to a larger audience.
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Raspberry Pi’s $35, 700MHz Linux computer enters manufacturing
