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ASUS TOUGH 7-inch Honeycomb tablet lands in Japan ready for some corporate abuse

shaun — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:14:21 +0000

Not content with offering up merely modular Android tablets, ASUS has revealed a new seven-inch tablet that’s water and dust resistant — perfect for a spot of bath-time browsing or… desert rallying. The ASUS TOUGH-ETBW11AA has rubberized bezel and strips across the back, contributing to the substantial 22.2mm profile, but that hefty frame can survive drops from the heady height of 76cm. Aside from its tough-guy credentials, there’s a 1280 x 800 screen, five megapixel camera, Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor, WiMAX connection and the staple WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS medley. It comes with 16GB of well-protected storage, but there’s room for more via microSD. For those seeking a slate that’ll survive the bumps and scrapes of the business world — and not look ridiculous — it’ll be available to enterprise customers of Japanese carrier KDDI this November. No news yet on whether it’ll canoe its way across from the Land of the Rising Sun, but we can give you a few more photos of the rough and tumble tablet after the break.

[Image credit: Keitai Watch]

Continue reading ASUS TOUGH 7-inch Honeycomb tablet lands in Japan ready for some corporate abuse

ASUS TOUGH 7-inch Honeycomb tablet lands in Japan ready for some corporate abuse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Caption Contest: A heaping helping of wearable music

shaun — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 21:14:19 +0000

Is this the new musical Power Glove? Imogen Heap thinks so. The Grammy winner rocked the stylish hand warmers at a TEDGlobal 2011 event in Edinburgh, Scotland, creating gesture-based music during a four-minute demonstration, with the gloves wirelessly connected to a nearby laptop. Could this be the death of the theremin as we know it, or just another good excuse to do a caption contest?

Brian: “Imogen there’s no heaven.”
Terrence: “Ms. Heap hard at work on a sequel to the NES “classic” Bad Street Brawler, tentatively titled Street Corner Complainer.”
Darren: “Seriously? Wires?”
Brad: “Now if only I could find some oven mitts that would magically bake cookies for me, I’d be set!”
Jon: “Force enhancing gloves allow Imogen to one up Luke, raise X-Wing.”
Tim: “Do I look intense enough now? Too pensive? What if I tilt my head up a bit further?”
Amar: “And then they handed me the Grammy and I grabbed it like this and then — oh, have I already told you this story?”
Dante: “What do you mean they aren’t cashmere?!?!”
Joseph: “So I was holding Bjork’s leg up like this, but she still couldn’t get over Madonna’s gate.”
Sean: “To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub…”
Christopher: “Please sir, I beg you — don’t take my Flowbee away.”
Richard Lai: “Ceiling cat, come to momma.”

[Image credit: University of the West of England]

Caption Contest: A heaping helping of wearable music originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 16:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget

HP TouchPad parts analyzed, manufacturing cost similar to the iPad 2

shaun — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 19:14:25 +0000

We know what’s inside the TouchPad and we know just what it’s like to live with the culmination of those parts, and now Isuppli is doing its best to figure out just what those individual components set HP back each time one rolls off the assembly line. According to that firm’s analysis, the grand cost to build a single 9.99 MSRP, 32GB TouchPad is 8. That’s but more than the 16GB version, which of course retails for 0 less at 9.99. That 8 cost is quite comparable to a 32GB iPad 2, which tallies up at 6 in 3G form according to the source. In other words, HP seems to be maintaining similar margins to Apple, begging the question: can it afford to do so?

[Image credit: TechRepublic]

HP TouchPad parts analyzed, manufacturing cost similar to the iPad 2 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New radio wave technique could detect alien planets, receive interstellar tunes

shaun — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 07:14:21 +0000

Any experienced planet hunter will tell you: finding exoplanets is the real challenge, where hardened professionals go to test their mettle. These tricky bodies stymie conventional methods – like seeing a planet pass in front of its parent star – because exoplanets often have decades-long orbits, meaning you could spend a lot of lonely nights fruitlessly searching the skies. So scientists at the University of Leicester in England developed a new approach: looking for radio waves emitted when ultraviolet flares light up the atmospheres of planets like Saturn and Jupiter. The flares – auroras – even if invisible to ordinary telescopes, are detectable by radio telescopes like the European Low Frequency Array (or LOFAR, pictured above). The scientists hope those methods will help them discover planetary systems up to 150 light-years away, perhaps even some that can sustain life. And, of course, keep them one step ahead of Richard Branson.

[Image credit: LOFAR / ASTRON]

New radio wave technique could detect alien planets, receive interstellar tunes originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget

The 404 Podcast 511: Where the more you ignore us, the closer we get

crave — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 18:37:00 +0000

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King-size thanks to Props Guy Jim! (Click for larger image.)

(Credit:
Jim Sleeth)

All the recent frenzy over the Apple iPad might be too much for the tech nerds of the world to handle. Tuesday, Josh Topolsky of Engadget reported on a disturbingly high volume of “ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening” comments on the Web site and took action by indefinitely closing all comments on the blog. We appreciate Josh’s wake-up call, although vocalizing one’s opinion through anonymous blog comments is just another extension of the Internet.

We definitely empathize with the site’s moderators, however, who must be tearing their hair out trying to protect Engadget visitors from trolls, predators, idiots, and all the other lobos on the Web. Good luck with that, guys!

In other tech news, TechCrunch gives us a first look at Google’s interpretation of a modern tablet device, as imagined by Glen Murphy, Google Chrome’s designer. The video you see on the site is just a mock-up, however, so don’t get your hopes up! At this point, we’ll take just about any tablet that doesn’t have an Apple on it.

We can’t thank our buddy Props Guy Jim enough for making the awesome “The 404 Bunch” poster you see to the left. Jim is the same gentleman who came through with 3k temporary tattoos, so thanks again! Look for a full-size poster coming to a 404 studio near you.

EPISODE 511

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Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

The 404 Podcast 503: Where everything was better in the ’90s

crave — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 18:30:00 +0000

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Click thumbnail for larger image.

(Credit:
Nicholas Marris)

In typical 404 fashion, this morning’s show started later than usual, mostly because we couldn’t shut up about all the things that made the 1990s one of the best decades ever.

Some of the conversation leaks into the beginning of the episode, including a chat about the evolution of video games since the ’90s. It’s hard to imagine a time before you needed a toy chest to hold all the plastic instruments you need play a simple game!

You can get your 404 fix every day of the week (thanks to Nick for the image above!), but the most random stories always end up on Friday. Today is no different, with Wilson’s first story about mysterious cookies that offer “natural supplemental endowment.” Called the F Cup Cookie, the treat is quickly gaining popularity in Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore, because of their promise to increase bust size in three weeks or less! Rest assured, we’ve already ordered three boxes to test the claims ourselves.

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No child was harmed in this stickering. (Click for larger image.)

(Credit:
Cheryl Dollar )

Should the film industry provide heart health warnings prior to showing movies with heavy 3D imagery? It might be worth the discussion, especially after a 42-year-old Taiwanese man died after watching “Avatar” in 3D.

The man started to feel uneasy during the screening of “Avatar” in 3D and was quickly taken to a hospital where a scan showed a brain hemorrhage. Sadly, the man died 11 days later. Doctors reported that “the over-excitement from watching the movie triggered his symptoms,” a claim that opens up our conversation about possible preshow warnings.

We’ve spent all week stuffing your SASEs full of 404 stickers, and if you already got yours in the mail it’s YOUR turn to do some work for US! Take a picture of where you stuck your 404 sticker(s) and tattoo(s) and send it to us at the404(at)cnet(dot)com. If you do, there’s a good chance we’ll show it on the air! Take a cue from Cheryl, the Official 404 Grandmother who sent us a picture of her grandson fully covered in them! Nice work, Cheryl!

EPISODE 503

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Originally posted at The 404 Podcast

BMW expanding its electric presence with Active-E leases

othertech — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 02:30:47 +0000

You’ve probably heard about the BMW Mini E lease program — 500 or so of the little buggers were let into the wild to be given real-life, long-term testing by regular people. It seems like the program was a success, because BMW is doing it again, this time with their Active-E (Activeeee!) concept, a more practical car for most people, but also mighty expensive.

The Active-E is a converted 1-series, yet weighs nearly 4000 pounds and as a result, acceleration and handling are probably nothing to write home about. Still, I’m sure it’d be a nice car to get around in, although you’ll be paying through the nose: $850/month, plus a grueling application process.

Like the Mini E, the Active-E is extremely pre-production, so all these specs are probably going to change, I suppose most notably the weight and range, as batteries get more efficient over the next couple years of testing.

[image credit: Chuck Squatriglia/Wired.com]

It’s my bee in a box

othertech — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 04:11:52 +0000

(Image credit: Louise Murray, Rex Features)

Next time you head through security, you may be getting more than pat-down. If you’re lucky, you might just have your bags and person exposed to bee arrays. These specially-trained (and just plain special) insects will stick their tongues out if they smell whatever the nice TSA person is looking for. TNT, crack, pirated music, it’s all the same to bees, who know they get a treat whenever they smell their special smell. They’re trained by Inscentinel, a company which has one too many portmanteaus in its name.

I’ve heard of this kind of thing for years, but this is definitely the first bee-in-a-box I’ve seen.The story and more images can be found at the Daily Telegraph.

“Megaframe” camera is so small it can go inside neural pathways (oh, and it shoots at 1,000,000FPS)

othertech — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:57:12 +0000

Your average “compact” camera today can record 30 frames per second at 640×480. What would you say, then, to a camera so compact it could sit inside one of your cells, so sensitive it can detect a single photon, and record at a million frames per second? Well first, you might say “keep that camera out of my cells, by god!” —But after that, the applications start occurring to you. Want to watch proteins unravel in slow motion? Go for it. Want to watch ATP shed an atom? Sounds good! Just don’t expect to get it in HD: the Megaframe photon detector array, at 128×128 photon wells, is only 16 kilopixels.

Megaframe is an EU-funded project aimed at miniaturizing a CMOS sensor to the smallest possible level. One can only acknowledge they have done to a ridiculous extent. Each well in that picture at the top can detect a single photon, and is capable of doing so up to a million times per second. Now that even puts the D3s’ 102,400 ISO to shame. Its 50-picosecond margin of error may not be short enough for some stuff, but hey, it’s better than anything I’ve got.

This kind of imaging isn’t actually new, and research has been going on for a few years, but they’ve only relatively recently ended its research phase and is now in execution, if I read correctly. That means that there are labs around the world giving this sucker a spin.

Seriously, this technology has the potential to really change the way molecular biology is done, among other things. If it’s interesting to you, visit the project’s page, or the ICT Results summary.

[via Science Daily; image credit: H.R. Petty]

The 404 429: Where we’ll never use that one again

crave — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:32:00 +0000

(Credit: Blake Stevenson)

Now that I’ve moved into a new mouseless apartment, I can finally settle down and live the dream of digital cable television. First things first, though: I need a new TV. Since it’s been eights years since I’ve even considered buying a new box, needless to say I need all the help I can get. Luckily I’ve got Jeff, Wilson, and CNET’s HDTV World to help me decide on a size, resolution, and brand! Feel free to send me your shopping advice or hot deals at the404(at)cnet(dot)com or @the404 on Twitter.

Everyone’s talking about the latest gossip: Attack of the Show stole our show motto! In light of this controversy, our buddy Blake Stevenson drafted the amazing fight announcement poster you see to the left.

With so many awesome fans like Blake on our side, we’re sure to win this Battle for the Brow. And if you think that Kevin Pereira and Olivia Munn can even occupy the same air as our low brow-itude, you’re on the wrong side of the ring. D-Topping, pearl necklaces, bean bag chairs, buzz-outlouding!? We DARE Attack of the Show to step to us and find out what happens when you mess with the Nerdy Dirty (please don’t steal that one).

Click thumbnail for larger image.

(Credit: Brian from Pittsburgh)

Jeff brings a great first story to the table about Best Buy’s Geek Squad charging $130 to set up a PlayStation 3! This story is so ridiculous that it actually prompts Jeff to bring back the classic “ARE YOU KIDDIN’ ME!?” and sadly…they aren’t. Neither Best Buy nor Geek Squad have the best customer service reputation, but this might as well be a crime. We understand that there are some fairly techno-inept folks out there, but setting up a PS3 literally requires one plug. Save your $130 and buy some games.

Finally, much thanks to Brian from Pittsburgh–the first winner of our “Take-a-photo-of-yourself-in-a-hockey-rink-with-a-404-sign” competition! Click on the thumbnail over yonder to see him in all his hockey-garb glory. A copy of NHL 10 is on its way to your doorstep, Brian! There’s still time left to submit YOUR photo to the404(at)cnet(dot)com, so don’t sleep on your chance to win!

EPISODE 429

Listen now:
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Originally posted at The 404