Tech Today w/ Ken May

It’s already clear that you’re selling everything you own in an effort to purchase a 2013 DeLorean DMC-12 EV (and in turn, apply for a home tax deduction when you begin to live out of it), but what hasn’t been clear is exactly how it’d perform on the wide open road. Truthfully, we still aren’t entirely certain of that, but thanks to a raucous new video of a prototype on the track, we do know that it looks like the most (PG) fun you can have while sitting atop four wheels. We aren’t going to hold you here any longer — hop on past the break and mash play. 60mph in 4.9. 88mph in however long you want.

Continue reading Electric DeLorean DMC-12 prototype goes round and round (and round) in test drive video

Electric DeLorean DMC-12 prototype goes round and round (and round) in test drive video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you have a digital safe with a passcode entry, a few things could go wrong. You could forget the code, the electronic mechanism could fail, or someone could change the code without you knowing. In the event you need to break into your own electronic safe, here’s how to do it. More

RIM faces class-action lawsuits for its extended service outages last month, with the first already filed in California and Canada. [Ars Technica]

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Those who own 2011 iMacs now have the option of reinstalling Lion via the Internet thanks to a firmware update issued late Wednesday. The iMac EFI Update 1.7 gives current-generation iMacs the ability to use Lion Internet Recovery, which Apple first introduced as a Lion feature for MacBook Airs and Mac minis released in July.

Lion Internet Recovery enables Lion users to download and reinstall Lion from Apple’s servers when they experience an operating system meltdown, as long as they have a broadband connection. The feature mimics that of Lion’s built-in recovery drive that is installed on your Mac when you install Lion, but the advantage is that the computer is able to retrieve the data remotely in the event that your entire storage disk is experiencing problems. Take it from us, though: the faster and more reliable your Internet connection, the better, because this isn’t a tiny download.

It was only a matter of time before the 2011 iMacs gained this feature—early 2011 MacBook Pros also gained this feature recently via their own firmware update. In addition to Lion Internet Recovery, the EFI Update 1.7 also fixes compatibility problems with Apple's Thunderbolt Display and improves performance when the machine is in Target Disk Mode.

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Firmware update enables 2011 iMacs to reinstall Lion from the Internet

Battlefield 3 is an amazing, bar-setting online shooter. It’s also one of the first games of its kind that has had me ping-ponging back and forth between computer and console to play. More

Michael DeGusta has done an amazing job charting the fragmentation of Android by visualizing the history of operating system updates on Android smartphones for sale in the United States.

Compare this to iPhone updates (which DeGusta did), and it paints a telling picture.

Writes DeGusta:

I went back and found every Android phone shipped in the United States up through the middle of last year. I then tracked down every update that was released for each device – be it a major OS upgrade or a minor support patch – as well as prices and release & discontinuation dates. I compared these dates & versions to the currently shipping version of Android at the time. The resulting picture isn’t pretty – well, not for Android users.

Other than the original G1 and MyTouch, virtually all of the millions of phones represented by this chart are still under contract today.

If you thought that entitled you to some support, think again:

– 7 of the 18 Android phones never ran a current version of the OS.
– 12 of 18 only ran a current version of the OS for a matter of weeks or less.
– 10 of 18 were at least two major versions behind well within their two year contract period.
– 11 of 18 stopped getting any support updates less than a year after release.
– 13 of 18 stopped getting any support updates before they even stopped selling the device or very shortly thereafter.
– 15 of 18 don’t run Gingerbread, which shipped in December 2010.
– In a few weeks, when Ice Cream Sandwich comes out, every device on here will be another major version behind.
– At least 16 of 18 will almost certainly never get Ice Cream Sandwich.

I don’t want to steal the guy’s thunder by reblogging the whole thing, so go check out his chart and solid analysis of what’s going on DeGusta’s his Tumblr blog.

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Charted: Android Fragmentation

Remember that Sandvine report published five months ago that called Netflix the “king” of North American fixed download Internet data? That survey estimated the online video company’s share at 29.7 percent of all peak download time, a 44 percent boost in Netflix’s share of traffic deployment from 2010.

Well, Sandvine has issued another estimate. Netflix now accounts for 32.7 percent of all North American peak fixed access downstream content. That's a relative increase of almost ten percent since the spring, and way beyond the other three top Internet protocols or services by daily volume—approaching double HTTP (17.48 percent), just shy of three times YouTube (11.32), and nearly four times BitTorrent.

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Internet bandwidth report: Have we reached “Peak Netflix?”

Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock were both unavailable for comment, but we’re guessing the pair would be quite pleased to see that the tech world’s Need For Speed is hardly fading. Maingear and Origin PC have both announced this week that their high-end gaming desktops are now available with Intel’s Core i7 2700K — a beast of a processor that’s clocked from the factory at 3.5GHz. Maingear’s shoving this guy into its SHIFT (starting at $1,985) and F131 (starting at $1,228) rigs, with factory overclocking options pushing it beyond 5GHz. Origin is hawking its Genesis desktop with a factory speed of 5.2GHz, and yes, gratis warranties are thrown in for the paranoid. Hit the links below to give your wallet the dent it’s been asking for.

Continue reading Maingear and Origin PC shove Intel’s Core i7 2700K into gaming rigs, overclock it beyond 5GHz

Maingear and Origin PC shove Intel’s Core i7 2700K into gaming rigs, overclock it beyond 5GHz originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 16:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google has rolled out version 15 of Chrome to its “stable” channel. The update brings some minor cosmetic changes, including a slightly cleaner new tab page, and Google has also redesigned the Chrome Web Store with a simpler layout.

The “new tab” page, which is displayed by default for blank tabs, currently shows a thumbnail grid of the user’s most-visited websites and provides shortcuts to the user’s installed Web applications. The new version is functionally identical, but the layout and behavior have been tweaked.

Users can page between the application shortcuts and page thumbnails by clicking an arrow or by using the navigation bar at the bottom of the page. They can also create multiple pages for the application icons. The ability to “pin” a thumbnail to the grid is no longer available, but it’s possible to drag a thumbnail to one of the application pages. Right-clicking an application icon allows users to specify whether the app should open in a regular tab, a pinned tab, or in full screen.

Alongside these changes, Google also overhauled the Chrome Web Store. The design has been greatly simplified with a design that feels more application-like. The main content area displays a grid of installable extensions, applications, and themes. It will dynamically load more as you scroll down. A sidebar on the left lets you search or filter by category, while a navigation bar at the top shows bread crumbs indicating your current location in the navigation hierarchy.

The new version is currently being rolled out to end users, but it can also be downloaded manually from Google’s website.

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Chrome 15 released with… improved start page

Citrix is touting new technology to make the up-front cost of virtual desktops cheaper for businesses than physical desktops within six months, while ensuring that virtual desktop performance doesn’t lag too far behind traditional PCs. While advances in XenDesktop software and the ability to pack ever more virtual desktops onto a single server factor into the equation, a key piece is a new partnership with virtual desktop software vendor NComputing and hardware vendor Texas Instruments to create a system-on-a-chip architecture that incorporates Citrix’s own HDX high-definition virtual desktop technology directly into the silicon.

The first devices using HDX system-on-a-chip technology will be sold in early 2012, and will eventually lead to client devices that cost less than $100, Citrix claims.

“For the first time ever, nontraditional devices like network monitors, phones, smart keyboards, consumer set-top boxes, shop floor equipment, kiosks and hospital workstations-on-wheels will be able to display virtual apps and desktops directly, without the need for an a full PC at the endpoint,” Citrix said.

The HDX system-on-a-chip architecture is initially designed for ARM-based chips but will be expanded to x86. To enable access to virtual desktops, these devices would connect to customer data centers outfitted with Citrix’s XenApp and XenDesktop software. Citrix says the average first year cost for deploying physical desktops in a business setting is roughly $1,000 per device, and that virtual desktops are on the verge of dropping below that mark and will continue to decline in price while physical desktops stay steady.

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Citrix claims it will make virtual desktops cheaper than real ones