IBLOG SPACE

A new haptic touch system that can dynamically change the physical feel of a control surface beneath the fingertip has been developed, potentially revolutionizing touchscreens and portable devices. Swiss EPFLresearchers discovered that a piezoelectric surface that flexes at the micron level can create a textured panel a user’s finger can perceive. The piezoelectric material itself vibrates when a voltage is applied, and while that movement is imperceivable to human touch – being in the region of a one-hundredth of the width of a human hair – the resulting tiny air gaps are felt as a raised surface. By adjusting the voltage, the researchers at the Integrated Actuators Laboratory found they could create dynamically changing physical textures that related to the interface users were navigating through. Such a system could present a stepped scroll control for more accurate navigation through menus, a delineated onscreen keyboard for easier typing, virtual gaming controls that can be used w

One of the things that most people like so much about Android is that the OS is very open. One of the things that you can take advantage of on the Android platform is the open accessory protocol. A company called SparkFun Electronics has a new USB device called Electric Sheep that takes advantage of that open accessory protocol. Electric Sheep is able to allow the user dynamic access to the phone systems to allow the creation of apps and accessories of all sorts. The kit will allow the smartphone to interface with a microcontroller like Arduino. The Electric Sheep boards can be used with anything running the Android OS. The tech inside the electric Sheep boards is based on an ATMega2560 microcontroller and bootloader. The boards have a USB-host connector for on-board connection. The board supports Arduino IDEA and HandBag and is Arduino-shield compatible. The Electric Sheep board costs $79.95 each and are available now.

The Chinese are busy with their lines and shapes in the desert while someone in South Carolina has been busy racking up a massive collection of old tires to the tune of roughly 250,000 of them. The site where the tires have been dumped is on private land that is located between Highways 6 and 267. There is no address to the property according to officials. The only road leading to the pile is an unnamed dirt road. The investigation into the environmental concerns of having that many tires in one place was turned over to the state. The investigation resulted in an indictment for one man from Easley, SC. The local and state authorities fear that other than the concerns to the environment the tires could also be a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I can only imagine that there are hoards of snakes and other things that I don’t want to deal with living in the massive pile. A Florida company called Lee Tire has been contacted to remove the tires and they expect to have the place cleared by th

The first time we talked about the NASA Curiosity rover was back in 2010 when word got around that James Cameron was helping NASA design a 3D camera for the rover. That giant $2.5 billion rover is now ready to head to Mars and is on the launch pad tucked away on top of a giant Atlas V rocket. The launch of the new rover could happen on November 25 to December 18. It will take Curiosity nine months to reach the red planet once it launches. The trip is a total of 354-million miles. The Curiosity is a gigantic rover compared to the others we have sent to Mars in the past. The rover is 1,982 pounds and is the largest and most complex machine ever sent to another planet according to NASA. The giant rover will use a new method to make it through the atmosphere and land safely on Mars. The first part of the insertion will use a braking heat shield. After that heat shield portion, a high-speed parachute will deploy and finally a rocket-powered sky crane will put the rover down on the surface o

Boxee has officially revealed its Live TV plans, including a $49 Live TV dongle and a software update that will allow the Boxee Box to show free-to-air TV and unencrypted cable channels. Rumored last week, the Boxee Live TV update will be pushed out in January alongside the tuner, though it doesn’t – yet – turn the Boxee Box into a DVR. Instead, the company says it is focusing on live TV at present, putting broadcast content alongside the existing IPTV from Hulu Plus, Netflix, Vudu and others. That could change if enough people demand it, however; Boxee says “if we get enough users asking for DVR then we could take advantage of that other USB input on the back of the box and let a user connect a drive for recordings.” Boxee Live TV will only be available in the US and Canada initially, and those running a software installation of the app rather than the Boxee Box won’t be able to use it either; third party tuner support is also non-existent, so you’ll have to invest in Boxee’s own $49

There are few things that get my day off to a worse start than sitting down at my desk, waking my computer up, and realizing a security update has been applied that rebooted my computer. I also hate when I am working and the security update reboot notice pops up all the time. I know I am not the only one that has the same feeling of ire towards these things. Apparently, Windows 8 has been designed to make those security updates less disruptive to our collective days. Windows 8 has reportedly axed the pop up notifications and reduced the chances of the machine needing to be restarted to apply the updates. That is some very good news to my ears. According to the Microsoft Program Manager for Windows Update, the OS will put all updates that require a restart into one pile. That way they can all be run at one time with the normal releases that come on the second Tuesday of each month. That should presumably mean only one reboot a month. If you leave your rig on all the time or run programs

A new promo video has turned up today that shows off a different smartphone that hasn’t been announced yet. The phone in the video is thought to be the Nokia N900 otherwise known as the Ace. It appears to have a lot of Nokia 700 DNA in the design with the addition of a speaker grill on the bottom of the phone. This is an official Nokia video apparently so it’s a bit odd to see the firm teasing with an unreleased smartphone. In shots with the screen activated and the control buttons on it’s clear this is a Windows Phone. That is no surprise given the tie up with Nokia and Microsoft for Mango devices. The gang at MyNokiaBlog figures that the phone in the pics could have a screen as large as 4-inches from comparing icon sizes with the Lumia. Who knows what phone this really is, but it could well be the Ace. Check out the video below and see what you think.

If you are into streaming music to your PC or other devices like the Logitech Squeeze box you might be familiar with MOG. The music streaming service was recently added to the Squeezebox line and if you are already a Primo member at $9.99 a month and own certain BMW or Mini vehicles, you can get a new source of in car entertainment on demand from MOG. MOG has announced the first on-demand in-car integration of music for the US. The service will be offered in all 2011 BMW and Mini vehicles that rock the BMW Apps or Mini Connect system. With those systems in place, the user can access the MOG catalog of music with 13 million tunes available. The service in the car requires an iPhone, a Primo account, and the MOG app. With all those conditions met, the MOG link will appear in the Mini connected or BMW Apps infotainment systems in the car. The tunes it can stream are unlimited and ad-free. The user can browse, search, and skip tracks they don’t want to hear. The user can also set up playli

Qualcomm has been cramming its snapdragon processors into all sorts of devices for a long time now. The processor is well known and is the brains behind some of the smartphones on the market today. Qualcomm also intends to see that Snapdragon chip be embedded into even more devices in the future. One of the big goals is apparently to get the chip inside the TV. Smart TV has been around for a while now, but compared to things like tablets and smartphones the TV is lagging behind in what it can do and just how smart it is. Qualcomm’s Craig Barratt, Atheros President, has told CNET “We’re going to drive technology to more media devices in the home.” He also sees the chip landing on more set top boxes. I’ve long thought that a smart set top box from a satellite or cable company is likely where most people around the world will get into the Smart TV realm. I could certainly see Qualcomm being one of the major chip players in that market. Barratt also sees a future for devices in the home li

Back in September, we reported that Sharp had killed off its 10.8-inch and 5.5-inch Galapagos tablets. When the tablets were axed there was still a 7-inch version coming that Sharp hoped would be able to generate more interest than those other two tablets did. That new 7-inch tablet has now been spied and it has some nice features. The tablet is the Galapagos EB-A71GJ-B and it has a 7-inch screen and runs Android 3.2. The tablet also has WiMax support. The tablet is tipped to be launching on September 12. WiFi is built-in as well and the tablet can be used for WiMax tethering of other devices. The hotspot functionality will support up to seven other devices. The 7-inch screen resolution is 1024 x 600 and the chip inside is a Tegra 2 with dual-cores. The tablet has 1GB of memory and has a microSD card slot. Internal storage is 8GB and Bluetooth is integrated as well. Sharp also gave the tablet HDMI output for watching on TV as well. The rear camera is a 5MP unit and the front is 2MP. Th

Earlier this month we saw the Belkin LiveAction device cross the FCC for the approvals it needs to come to market. Belkin has now gone official with the LiveAction gear for the iPhone camera. The LiveAction Camera Grip is a contoured device with a soft touch grip to make shooting photos with the iPhone 4S easier. The grip has an external shutter button and will work with the iPod touch and iPhone models. The grip plugs into the charge connector of the device and has a tripod mount integrated. The grip has video and camera modes and is compatible with many cases. It works in conjunction with a free app called LiveAction app and the LiveAction Camera Grip sells for $49.99. The other accessory for the iPhone camera is the LiveAction Camera Remote. This is a wireless remote that uses Bluetooth to activate the shutter on your iPhone or iPod without having to touch it. It has buttons for photos and video and will work with a case on the smartphone. It sells for $49.99 and requires the LiveAc

Nokia is trying to get some of that market share it has been bleeding to Android and iOS smartphones back. Nokia is still one of the largest shippers of mobile phones in the world, but most of its sales are low end and mid range phones, not the profitable smartphone category. Nokia hopes to change that with new devices like the Lumia 800 Mango phone. While that Lumia 800 is just now hitting stores in the UK, Nokia is looking ahead to future innovations and products to woo consumers back to the brand. We have been hearing rumors of a Windows 8 tablet coming from Nokia for a while now. Nokia’s head in France has now confirmed that a tablet is coming from the company. According to Paul Amsellem, the Windows 8 tablet from Nokia will land in June of 2012. That is a specific launch confirmation for something that has been rumor until now. Naturally, changes and delays are common in the tech world on both the OS side and the hardware maker side so a lot could change between now and June.

I’ve been piddling with tech since I was in grade school. Thinking back to that old Tandy computer I had as a kid and comparing it to the 6-core beast we have on desktops today it’s amazing how tech has changed over the decades. I often wonder what sort of tech my kids will be toting around 20 years from now. Intel has a new chip that hits at what the future will be like. The latest chip from Intel is a 1-teraflop beast that has over 50-cores. Intel is testing the processor inside a computer at the SC11 supercomputer conference in Seattle. The little chip that is pushing out so much performance is the size of a matchbook and called Knights Ferry. The architecture of the chip is called many integrated core or MIC. To put a bit of perspective on the teraflop number, that means that the chip is capable of a trillion floating-point operations per second. The photo above is of a slide from the presentation that sums things up nicely. The Knights Bridge chip needs a single PCIe slot to hit 1

A story was published recently by The Korea Times and was then pulled down not long after. Sometimes in the tech realm when you talk about Apple if a story is posted and then pulled down it could be because Apple set the legal ninjas on the site. Not always, but sometimes Apple forcing a story down is a very strong hint that there was some accuracy to the news posted. The Korean Times story was up long enough for other publications to run with it so we have the details. Apparently, the story reported that Apple is working on a smaller iPad with a 7.35-inch screen and a larger iPhone that will rock a 4-inch screen. Neither of those rumors is earth shattering. I think for sure Apple is working on other forms of its products. The iPhone screen is small by today’s standards with many Android devices using 4-inch or larger screens. The story also claimed that the maker of the panels that Apple was looking to use for the new products was LG. The source of The Korean Times story also claims t

It seems to me that over the last several months I have heard more about the Beats audio tech showing up in notebooks and smartphones that I have about the headphones the brand started with. Beats is getting back to its headphone roots with the latest product it has unveiled. The product is a set of headphones called Beats Executive. The headphones will be launched “soon” and are far from cheap with a price of $399.95. The website is up and offering a bit of detail on the headphones including some pics. Beats says the Executive headphones are high definition and they have a premium design. They appear to be clad in leather and have brushed aluminum accents. Beats promises deep bass and sound quality that allows you to hear the music just as the artist intended. Beats Executive also have noise cancellation to block out external sounds and an automatic turn off feature to save the battery life. With batteries inside the noise cancellation would be active, though that isn’t specified in t

It looks like just about all the credit card firms are jumping into the digital wallet realm trying to make it easier for consumers to rack up credit card debt and pay with branded debit cards. Visa has announced a new digital wallet service that is set to launch early in 2012. The new service will be called V.me and will apparently be able to offer PayPal some competition. I think PayPal desperately needs some capable competition and hope V.me can provide that. The V.me service will not be limited to use with Visa credit cards only. People using the service will be able to place money into their V.me account using a Visa, MasterCard, or even their own bank accounts. The V.me account can then be used to pay for things online using a user name and a password. Later in 2012 Visa will then roll out an expansion that allows the V.me accounts to be used to pay for things at the register using NFC tech. That sounds pretty good. The service digital wallet is in closed beta testing right now.

Steve Jobs explored establishing Apple as a WiFi-based carrier rival, wireless expert John Stanton has confirmed, aiming “to replace carriers” in the run-up to the launch of the original iPhone in 2007. Stanton – an operator chief turned venture capitalist – revealed his discussions with Jobs back in the years between 2005 and 2007 during a speech this week at the Law Seminars International event in Seattle, ComputerWorld reports, having “spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum.” That plan, Stanton says, was originally “part of [Jobs'] vision” for the iPhone, though the CEO subsequently shifted focus after 2007. It’s not the first time we’ve heard of Apple looking to marginalize or bypass carriers in its mobile plans; rumors that the company might set itself up as a carrier have been persistent for years, and the company’s recent iMessage launch – which replaces SMS and MMS messaging on iOS 5 devices with a web-based a

The  Nokia Lumia 800  has gone up for sale in the UK, the Finnish company’s new hope for smartphone relevance in a world obsessed with iPhone and Android. The black version of the Windows Phone is first to hit shelves, both Vodafone and Three confirming in-store sales begin today, with the cyan version up for pre-order. No sign of the magenta Lumia 800, though we’re guessing that will follow on in due course as well. Pricing is from free on a £36 per month, two-year agreement with Vodafone (including 500MB of data) or from free on a £37 per month, two-year agreement with Three (including unlimited data). Unlocked versions aren’t expected to be broadly available until January next year. Update:  Vodafone UK tells us the cyan Lumia 800 is expected to ship toward the end of November. Nokia Drive demo: The Lumia 800 has a 3.7-inch AMOLED ClearBlack display, 1.4GHz single-core processor, 16GB of internal storage and an 8-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera, all squeezed into a milled polycarbonate

Fuji‘s LX mirrorless interchangeable lens compact camera has apparently been sighted in the wild, with the much-rumored snapper expected to use an APS-C sensor. First tipped back in April as a prosumer version of the retro-styled Fuji X100, the new pictures and intel spotted by PhotoRumors suggest the camera will launch as the Fuji LX along with three lenses, including a pancake 18mm f/2 and a 35mm f/1.4. The third lens will supposedly be a zoom, yet to be detailed. A possible fourth lens, a 60mm, is also suggested, though unconfirmed. Style-wise, the camera keeps the retro theme of the X100, with plenty of physical controls – including a pair of settings dials on the top edge – and a hot shoe for accessories. There’s also an optical viewfinder along with the LCD display. Fujifilm confirmed back in October that it would be launching a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera in spring 2012, with the company later promising that prototypes would be on show at CES in January next year. No

Sony is reportedly scheming a web TV system intended to pull the rug out from under cable operators, delivering more affordable TV content via the internet to the PS3 and other Sony hardware. The company has opened talks with NBCUniversal, Discovery and News Corp, the WSJ‘s sources claim, though Sony’s apparent aim to license a smaller package of channels – to keep its own costs, and subsequent user fees, low – is said to not be going down well among content creators. Sony’s system, though not technically specified at present, would stream video via the internet to the company’s array of network-enabled A/V hardware. That includes the PS3 console, of course, but also smart TV sets, Blu-ray and DVD players, PVRs and other devices. Sony could also choose to open access to its VAIO range of computers. Media studios, however, are said to be reluctant to offer Sony a pared down selection of channels for its service, as currently cable and satellite providers pay handsomely for comprehensive

This week it would appear that  Facebook  was the victim of a rather unsettling security breach where loads of violent and/or ponro graphic images were strewn across users feeds, these attacks commented on late in the dar on Tuesday by the company. Facebook has sent out a statement which points to a browser vulnerability as the culprit and note that they’re currently investigating to find out who is responsible for the whole situation. Unsavory images, video, and links have flooded in on your average everyday friend’s streams and in most cases, they’ve got no idea. Currently Facebook is shutting down handfuls of malicious Pages and accounts that appear to have been taking part in the attack. In general it appears that Facebook users were in one way or another tricked into pasting and executing a Javascript code which then took their Facebook accounts for quite a ride down sharing lane. Of course users affected have only to change their password, run a virus scan on their computer if t

If you ladies and gents have been waiting for HP to hurry up and update their Envy laptop line, then you’re in luck. Say hello to the new HP Envy 15 and 17, entirely redesigned inside and out. With an almost, dare I say, Macbook-esque flair, the new models retain their sexy brushed aluminum exterior. However, that’s, uh, pretty much it. The chassis gets a brand-new facelift with matte black lids, silver palmrests, and, surprise, more Beats by Dr. Dre branding via a logo on the newly added analog volume dial and neat red border around the backlit chiclet keyboard. Like its predecessors, the new line comes in 15.6-in and 17.3-in flavors, but take note, these aren’t just your everyday LCD screens. They’re the Radiance Infinity displays that HP has brought back once again, that are much brighter than typical screens. However, while the 17.3-inch Envy 17 will come standard with a 1080p Radiance screen, it’s only a TN panel, whereas the Envy 15, which comes stock at a lower-res at 1366×768 (

High-end audio maker ACS Custom‘s partnered up with Etymotic before to create earphones, but this time, they’re taking up Altec Lansing‘s offer to team up to build something new in the audio space, in the form of a trio of “Custom Series” in-ear-monitors. An eye-raising partnership, to say the least, since Altec Lansing has generally been consumer-facing, and ACS, not at all. Nevertheless, according to Altec Lansing, these will be hand-crafted, armature-driver based in-ear-monitors that will aim to slake the high-fidelity thirst of audio enthusiasts and professionals alike. The new Custom Series in-ear monitors are custom handcrafted from “advanced, medical-grade silicone that is extremely soft”. The silicone will naturally adapt to a listener’s body temperature, and allow it to form a flexible yet uniform seal that guarantees comfort for long listening durations and also passively isolates noise up to -27db. All three new models have a impressive frequency response range of 16Hz ~ 20K

Phosphor’s delivered us E Ink watches before, by way of the World Time Curved E Ink Watch. But this time, they’re giving us the latest and greatest, the E Ink World Time Sport, which introduces a state-of-the-art button-free touch interface that allows the user to switch modes with a simple swipe across the case. The new World Time Sport also boasts a high-contrast E Ink display that is naturally a piece of cake to read in sunlight, much like the screen of the Kindle and other E Ink e-readers. E Ink has the incredibly advantageous nature of extending battery life as none of the backlighting or power that is usually needed for conventional displays is needed for the World Time Sport watch’s E Ink display. And the fact that your watch usually goes with you everywhere, either inside or outside, all the time, makes the application of this technology even more relevant and useful. The World Time Sport makes it Phosphor’s second commercially available E Ink digital display watch to date. Fur

If you’re an extreme sports enthusiast (or if you’re just looking for the toughest case possible) and you own aniPad , then G-Form’s Extreme line of cases are made just for you. A snugly fitted iPad in one of the G-Form cases barely sees a scratch of any sort while being dropped from 1300 feet, according to their video demos. Check them out after the break. And while you’re enjoying these videos, consider how often you’ve almost had a heart attack after dropping your favorite device, 3 feet from the ground – then imagine dropping it from an airplane, at 1300 feet. The two cases in G-Form’s lineup; the Extreme Portfolio and Extreme Edge, are mostly made using proprietary G-Form technology, along with composite PORON material. The proprietary technology has the ability to absorb an astounding 90% or more of the impact of the collision, and simultaneously stiffen instantaneously to protect your beloved iPad from becoming, well, a pile of metal. If you think about the mere physics of it, i

Details of the HTC Zeta have just been outed, and it looks to be a veritable monster of a phone. It’s purported to pack an impressive 2.5 Ghz Snapdragon quad-core CPU, as well as 1 GB RAM, and all that on a 4.5 inch 720p high-def display. To add icing to the cake, it’ll also come with Ice Cream Sandwich on board on the software side of things. Along with Ice Cream Sandwich, the HTC Zeta comes naturally with HTC’s own Sense UI, as well as an ample 32GB of internal storage, a 1830mAh battery, Bluetooth 4.0, and proprietary Beats Audio. On the media capture side, it also comes with a uniquely shaped 8MP camera with dual LED flash and a 1.3MP front-facing camera. All that’s wrapped in a strangely shaped body of 9.8mm thickness and 5.15 ounces weight. No pricing or availability information revealed just yet. This one’s totally from the rumor mill coming from Engadget, so take everything with a grain of salt. That’s a ridiculously powerful Snapdragon CPU, something not entirely seen in the c

For those of you that love to digitally scan paper products into your computers but don’t have any use for a size larger than 8.5 x 11 inches, but do also want a separate module just for business cards, Canon‘s got just the product for you! This week Canon announced their imageFORMULA P-215 Personal Document Scanner made specifically for the image capture user on the go. This compact device adds to Canons already successful personal scanner line, one that also includes the just-as-cute P-150 Scan-tini. This little monster is small enough to fit in your briefcase (or backpack, whatever the case may be), and has a folded-down size smaller than a footlong sub sandwich. Unless you get a lot of toppings, of course. A mister Jom Rosetta, vice president and general manager of Imaging Systems Group, Canon USA, had the following to say about the scanner, noting its double use and tiny size: “The combination of simple use, high-image quality and a built-in card scanning capability in such a comp

A study group of the International Academy of Astronautics in Paris this week has published a study which notes that in as little as 30 years we could be meeting our global power needs by harvesting the sun’s solar energy with satellites. This group notes that with seed money from the government, orbiting power plants will be “technically feasible” within a decade or two, each plant able to beam solar energy back to Earth for use by citizens across it. Of course all of this is without a specific road map or exact scientific architecture it seems, but it seems like a good time! The study on this proposed solution to all of our energy problems was billed as “the first broadly based international assessment of potential paths to collecting solar energy in space and delivering it to markets on Earth via wireless power transmission” – quite a mouthful! This study noted that government funding would be needed to get the project activated and sustained as private-sector funding doesn’t work s

Apple began seeding Mac OS X 10.7.3 to developers today. This latest update is the company’s third maintenance update for Mac OS X Lion, which was launched back in July. Version 10.7.3 mainly focuses on new improvements for iCloud document storage as well as the AddressBook, iCal, and Mail. This delta update comes in at 633MB and currently has no known issues. Developers are warned as usual that once the update is installed that they will not be able to revert back to a previous version. Systems used for the installation should be ready to be erased if needed. An OS X Server 10.7.3 update was also issued today with the same build number and focus area of iCloud storage, AddressBook, iCal, and Mail. If you haven’t updated to OS X Lion yet and would like to find out more, be sure to check out our full review.

The Biscotti TV Phone has gone on sale today and offers an easy solution for folks wanting to use their TVs for video conferencing. Sporting a camera and microphone, the device works with Google Talk for free internet voice and video services over a WiFi connection without the need to connect to a computer. The slim set-top device is designed to sit on top of your television set and hooks up to it via an HDMI cable. The camera in the device features a 5-megapixel resolution and can digitally tilt, pan, and zoom. Given enough bandwidth, videos can be viewed in up to 720p resolution, while audio is 16KHz wideband. The 802.11n WiFi connection supports download and upload speeds of up to 1Mbps and requires at least 256Kbps for both. Calls can be made to another person who also has a Biscotti TV Phone or has a smartphone, tablet, or computer that can use Google Talk. Since Google Talk is a free service, this means no monthly subscription charges. You pay just one time for the device, which

Today it would appear that there’s a new social network in town by the name of Microsoft socl, one where having the same basic bone structure as Google+ doesn’t seem to bother the developers behind the project – is it real or is this just an internal design project as Microsoft Research claims it is? What we’ve got here are two opposing sides of a coin. One has http://www.socl.com/ noting that the site was published by mistake by Microsoft Research, the other has Thomas Houston of The Verge showing off screenshots of the site describing it as a project that will indeed be moving forward soon. The message on Socl.com is one that’s been up since July of 2011, it followed up by an official statement from Microsoft that sounded just like it: “Socl.com is an internal design project from one of Microsoft’s research teams which was mistakenly published to the web. We have no more information at this time.” As the image below shows, the project was originally called Tulalip and you could eithe

Smartphone and laptop batteries could soon see a ten-fold increase in both the charging speed as well as battery life. Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a lithium-ion electrode that enables conventional lithium-ion batteries to get ten times more capacity and would still run five times as efficient as current batteries after 150 charging cycles or about a year of use. The boost comes from an adjustment in the charging materials used. Traditional lithium-ion batteries charge by moving electrons from the electrolyte into the anode, which is usually made of graphene. An alternative and more efficient material is silicon, which allows four lithium atoms per one silicon atom while the graphene allows only one lithium atom per six carbon atoms. Although superior, silicon has a tendency to expand and contract during charging, causing damage to the battery. Hence, to address this, the Northwestern University research team sandwiched clusters of silicon with graphene sheets

It appears this week that HP is set to release the next entry into the Ultrabook classification of notebook PCs with the Folio, a 13.3-inch ultraportable laptop made to be rough. Mister Ritchie Djamhur, retail buyer and trainer as well as host of the lovely blog Ritchie’s Room has the exclusive first look at this device in a set of photos complete with details that include an ever so slightly re-branded Pavilion dm3 chassis, lovely silver exterior, and two choices on innards. Is this your first Ultrabook, you HP loving users you? The two models that exist on this Folio machine are in the cores: first there’s a 1.4GHz Core i3 for you low-enders, then there’s the 1.6GHz Core i5 that maxes out at 2.3GHz with Turbo Boost enabled. Pop this notebook open and you’ll find a backlit keyboard above a standard three-button touchpad while the left side has power, Ethernet, HDMI, memory card slot, and a USB 2.0 port, these alongside two tiny LED lights showing hard drive use and power on. Inside yo

T-Mobile today announced a special sale which the carrier is calling its “Magenta Saturday Sale.” The promotion will take place a week ahead of Black Friday for one day only this Saturday, November 19. T-Mobile will be offering almost all its smartphones and tablets for under $49.99 after a mail-in rebate. The promotion is available to new customers that sign up for a two-year service agreement on any Unlimited Value plan with a 2GB or higher data plan. Existing customers that are eligible for an upgrade can also make the switch from a Classic plan to a new qualifying Value plan. To be eligible, you will have already had your current T-Mobile plan for at least 18 months or more. Some of the qualifying devices include the HTC Amaze 4G, Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Radar 4G, and the T-Mobile myTouch Q smartphones as well as the Dell Streak 7 and T-Mobile G-Slate tablets. For the full list of eligible devices, you can check out T-Mobile’s promotion page here.

Researchers at MIT have unveiled a computer chip that mimics the human brain. Its purpose will be for studying how the brain’s neurons respond and adapt to new information, a phenomenon known as plasticity. This process is believed to underscore many human brain functions such as learning and memory. The computer chip uses about 400 transistors to simulate the activity of a single brain synapse, which connects two neurons and is what allows information to flow between them. There are close to about 100 billion neurons in the human brain, each forming synapses with many other neurons, through ion channels that control the flow of charged atoms. The computer chip mimics the ion channels using an analog method instead of binary so that parameters can be tweaked to match specific ion channels of the brain. Circuits have been built previously that fire off actions but did not take into account the differences in the intracellular processes involving ion channels. Dean Buonomano, a professor

When you want to see what a product looks like in the space you live in, on your doorstep, in your yard, or in this case, on the baseball field, you use augmented reality – and that’s just what Ford has done in collaboration with the folks at GoldRun to promote their new 2012 Ford Escape. What they did was promote the vehicle with what they so plainly called “the Campain,” one in which users were invited to participate in either an L.A. Adventure or a Nationwide hunt. Users on the L.A. Adventure took part in a 3-day scavenger hunt through downtown Los Angeles during Blog World Expo 2011, capturing unique AR objects as they went, secret messages and content included, prizes in the wings! The L.A. adventure had people winning prizes each of the three days with a final contest coming up after, the entire process working with the iOS-based GoldRun app. This app uses your iPhone or iPad 2′s camera to allow you to see the world and in this case superimpose images on top of everyday objects.

HP has quietly begun shipping its X7000 Wi-Fi Touch Mouse a tad earlier than the expected launch later this week. The X7000 Wi-Fi Touch Mouse connects to your computer or laptop via its built-in Wi-Fi receiver and doesn’t require a wireless router. This way the Wi-Fi-enabled mouse also doesn’t take up one of your USB ports with a dongle, such as is needed with corded or Bluetooth mice. The X7000 Wi-Fi Touch Mouse features a sleek black finish and an ergonomic design with a rubber side grip, but appears to be shaped and contoured only for right-hand users. It has a touch-sensitive scroll button instead of a scroll wheel and also sports 6 customizable buttons, including one dedicated Facebook button. The mouse can work on almost any surface and can be used at a range of up to 30 feet away. It also offers up to 9 months of battery life, which is twice the battery life of Bluetooth alternatives. However, the X7000 Wi-Fi Touch Mouse will only work for PCs running Windows 7. It is available

For those of you just joining us, your humble narrator has a known love for both pinball and pinball games released on mobile devices, and because the team at Gameprom are still the reigning champions when it comes to creating pinball apps for all platforms right this moment, a new release by them tied to the classic rock band AC/DC is certainly a must-see for me. This game is put out by Sony Music Entertainment but is indeed made by the same team that brought you such games as Pinball HD and the greatest pinball game of all: Slayer Pinball Rocks HD. Let’s have a peek at this newest release. What you’ll see here is a high-definition table strewn with references to AC/DC tunes including a tiny Highway to Hell on the right, a Hells Bell up at the top complete with BONNNG noise when you hit it, and plenty of electricity throughout. There’s mini-games up the wazoo on this table including one where the bottom 1/3 of the table is blocked off and you have to hit metal bars that pop up from th

This week the next Google hero phone Galaxy Nexus, as manufactured by Samsung, can be seen passing through the FCC with 4G LTE capabilities, this signaling that the impending launch of said phone might not be too far off. As you know we’ve gotten more than one hands-on experience with this device already, once in Hong Kong and another time in London where we got to compare it to the other Samsung hero coming up: the Galaxy Note. We can expect a release date for this device to be something soon, more than likely inside November. Of course the so-called delayed release of this device has been attributed to several factors, one of them the seemingly ill-prepared face-unlock sequence, another the release of the current hero phone for Verizon, that being the Motorola-made DROID RAZR. Word has it that this Galaxy Nexus device will be dropping inside one of three dates: November 17th, November 21st, or somewhere inside December. All you need to know is that it’ll be out inside 2011 : that’s n

In the world of tiny yet powerful speakers, there can be no doubt that there’s quite a bit of competition when it comes to the right combination of features to make just that perfect hit – and that perfect hit, according to Spar, is charging the device that it uses to shout out the tunes via Bluetooth. So while competing devices have you bumping your tunes out with fabulous sound wirelessly, you’ll still have to charge with some extra device or a wall plug if you want to play all day – here that’s no trouble. The folks at Spar appear to be shouting directly at the Jawbone JAMBOX creators as this device sits right in at the same size and shape. You’ve got 12 hours of playback on a single charge, the ability to play tunes via Bluetooth OR use the whole thing as a big speakerphone, and of course there are several models. There’s the Zephyr 300 (the one with 12 hours of playback), the 500 and the 550, the former having 18 hours of battery life, the latter having a whopping 30. What the fol

This week Sony Ericsson lets known that two of their newest smartphones, the Xperia arc S and the Xperia neo V, are available for purchase here in the USA, both of them running Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread and custom Xperia user interfaces. Sony Ericsson is dipping into the US market gradually with Android – notice our review collection and find that the majority of the Xperia devices are based in the UK – and with these two new additions, the team may well have a competing set to show off with. One of these devices is on the high-end, the other is in the mid-range, see if you can guess which is which – here’s a hint: peek at the displays! First have a peek at the Xperia arc S, a device running Gingerbread and popping out the gate with a single-core processor at 1.4GHz. The big deal with this device is its 4.2-inch Reality display complete with Mobile BRAVIA Engine, while the back-facing 8.1 megapixel camera with Exmor R for mobile image sensor promises to be a must-see as well. You’ve go