We’ve all been there: fire up a clip from YouTube or a movie on Netflix and things start out great. But, then, after just a few moments, that LTE connection starts to give up the ghost and suddenly you’re faced with unbearable stutturing or a video that just dies mid stream. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications are looking to solve that conundrum with DASH, or Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP. The idea is actually surprisingly simple — files of different sizes and qualities will be available depending on signal strength and network load, and the stream will be able to seamlessly switch between them as these variables change. While this sounds like a win for both consumer and carriers, we’re sure there are a few of you out there who just want the highest quality possible, even if that means waiting forever for that HD clip of the all accordion cover of Take On Me to buffer. Full PR is after the break.

Continue reading DASH promises stutter free streaming video over LTE, hopes you don’t care about quality

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Taking the measure of the HP Color LaserJet 4650dn printer’s capabilities reveals a product from Hewlett-Packard that seems best suited for small and medium-sized workgroups. It is a very nicely-performing laser jet printer that can put out product in black-and-white and color just as easily and quickly, which is something a number of other manufacturers and their printers are not quite as capable of doing.

In looking at all that this printer is capable of, the first such capability that will be readily apparent is that it puts out sheets of paper at around 22 pages per minute. When it comes to a networked laser jet printer for a medium or small workgroup, this is bound to be a point in its favor. In all, it only takes 15 seconds from the time the print job is sent to the processor before the first sheet emerges.

Hewlett-Packard has also installed a decent processor within this particular model. At 533 MHz, this particular chip will be able to handle multiple print jobs coming from various points in the network with almost no stutter or hesitation. It is also a fairly durable printer, with the manufacturer claiming 85,000 pages of output per month in a normal duty cycle.

Print resolution is fairly standard in this printer and in keeping with other printers it competes against in its segment. At 600×600 dpi resolution, most every product will be sharp, clear and clean. There will be very little blur or smudge in even the most extreme cases, which is nice. It features two paper trays as standard equipment, which can be increased to four on an optional basis. A total of 1600 sheets can be held when all four trays are used.

Envelopes are also no problem when it comes to print jobs and this Hewlett-Packard handles up to 20 of them. There’s no automatic feeder, but that really shouldn’t be an issue in a small or medium workgroup. Manual duplex printing is also available, and performing a print job on both sides is fairly easy to do. Additionally, the 4650dn also comes with 160 MB of memory, which can be increased upwards to 544 MB with no trouble.

This Hewlett-Packard printer also — like most other HP printer products — works well with just about every Windows-based operating system and a number of Mac OS systems, as well. The office information technology specialist can interface it easily into a network, and there is a standard one-year warranty, which can be lengthened for just a small fee.

Conductivity with the 4650dn is also quite nice, and the printer itself comes with USB and parallel port capabilities as standard equipment. Additionally, there’s a nice 10/100 Ethernet input port internal print server and there are optional wireless capability functions that can be added. The most popular wireless types today are generally Bluetooth and 802.11g, both of which this machine can accommodate.

Understanding and appreciating all that the HP Color LaserJet 4650dn printer does will only take just a few minutes once one puts the printer through its paces. Any medium or small-sized workgroup getting this printer added to its network should consider itself fortunate because it will be getting a printer that can produce product at a nice speed, is durable and functional, and comes at a reasonable price. If you produce lots of documents, make sure to load up on toner cartridges. You will need to find HP Color LaserJet 4650dn replacement toners in specific. HP bulk toner can be found online or in stores, however, you’ll get the best deals online!

I hate it when a product like the Viliv S10 Blade looks so good as a concept but fails to live up to its potential. The S10 has a late-model Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a multitouch 10-inch screen. Should be solid, right? Wrong.

Features

• Multitouch resistive touchscreen
• Convertible design
• 32GB or 64GB SSD
• Intel Atom Z530 or Z550 CPU

Pros

• Battery life at around 7 hours with WiFi on
• Multitouch screen combined with Win7’s Touch Pack
• Great 3G modem

Cons

• Chintzy build quality
• Very weak screen hinge
• No way to lock the screen in tablet configuration

Review
The Viliv S10 Blade is the largest and latest model in Viliv’s growing arsenal. It’s essentially an S7 with a larger screen, with the same convertible touchscreen design and 3G modem. However the S10 adds a 7-point multitouch to the mix along with Windows 7. These two main additions make for a much more pleasing user experience.

Computer power-wise, the S10 is technically faster than the S7 with a 1.66GHz Atom rather than a 1.33GHz. But it doesn’t seem faster because it also uses Windows 7 instead of XP. Even with all of Windows 7’s fancy user enhancements turn off, there’s still some noticeable lag opening and closing programs. Things tend to stutter. But that’s a small price to pay for the goodies that come with Windows 7 Touch Pack.

While Windows 7 certainly isn’t a touchscreen-type interface, the Touch Pack makes it at least usable with a slightly modified pointer. The pack builds the touchscreen interface controls directly into the OS, rather than relying on 3rd party solutions that often didn’t work well.

Touch the screen and the pointer turns from an arrow into a small round circle, which is better suited for a finger or the included stylis. Touch and hold brings up the right click menu along with the ability to drag and select multiple icons. Even the Microsoft Surface apps are included with the pack, although the graphically-intense programs do not run well on the low-power S10. Also, the handwriting app could use a little work. (see the pic to to the left)

None of this touchscreen fun is Viliv’s doing, though. It’s an official Windows 7 add-on pack. Viliv however opted for a nice mutlitouch touchscreen that full takes advantage of this pack. Everything from pinch-to-zoom works. It’s practical use however is still in question because right now there isn’t much taking advantage of it on the small, low-power device.

While the multitouch screen is cool, it’s also one of the S10’s main disappointment. It has a horrible viewing angle. It must be +/-10 degrees. Users cannot be at all off of center. Forget about folding the screen flat and laying the it on the table in slate mode. You can’t see it unless you’re directly above the screen.

Then there’s the screen hinge. This is where the S10 really starts to fall apart. It’s a bit on the loosey goosey side. A loose hinge is even worse on a convertable notebook as there’s nothing stopping the screen from twisting and turning at the slightest touch.

Generally convertable notebooks and netbooks have a little latch or a very strong hinge to prevent the screen from moving when in notebook mode. Then in tablet mode, there should be another latch that locks the screen in place. But the S10 doesn’t have either allowing the screen to move around way too much. This could be a dealbreaker for some power users coming looking to upgrade from older convertible models.

It’s not just the screen that looks and feels cheap. Even the slightly amount of pressure between the battery and the front lip causes the plastic to flex, revealing the hard edge of the battery. The keyboard is mushy and while the trackpad is fine, the mouse buttons are the single bar-type that rock between right and left click that require you to click on a small sweet spot rather than anywhere on the bar. The speakers are horrible, which is actually a bit of a surprise. The two previous Viliv’s I’ve reviewed, the X70 tablet and S7 netbook, both had speakers that were both loud and clear. Not the S10, though.

The computing power is on par for an Atom. It handles YouTube and Xvid videos fine, but chokes when it comes to Hulu and any of the included Microsoft Surface apps. GeekBench gave it a 793.

There is some good news, though. The 3G modem is great and I found the battery lasted around 7 hours under normal use with the WiFi on. (that’s it)

So while I love to tell you that the S10 is a viable slate alternative, I can’t. The bad screen hinge is that big of a deal in my mind. It not only contributes to the cheap feel, but also seriously limits the S10’s ability as a tablet as there’s no way to confidently keep the netbook in tablet mode without the aid of a latch or locking mechanism. It’s a fine netbook with the normal mediocre performance that an Atom CPU offers, but don’t think that the S10 is the best of both the netbook and tablet worlds.

Conventional wisdom regarding computer memory has for some time been that all RAM is created equal. Stated another way, it’s not really worth it to buy expensive ECC RAM because errors just don’t occur frequently enough to worry about. Even in server-grade products, designed to be running 24/7 in mission-critical environments, ECC RAM is often optional. Mainboards and RAM sold for consumer home use almost never even have the option of supporting ECC memory. A new study from Google indicates that this may be a problem.

A two-and-a-half year study of DRAM on 10s of thousands Google servers found DIMM error rates are hundreds to thousands of times higher than thought — a mean of 3,751 correctable errors per DIMM per year.

So starts a summary over at ZDNet. The study (PDF) is available for the reading. A large-scale analysis like this hasn’t been performed (at least publicly) yet, so the findings are pretty shocking. A hearty “thank you” goes to Google for taking the time to analyze this situation, and for publicizing the results.

Basically, the majority of DRAM chips on the market are far more error-prone than previously considered. And the consumer-grade mainboards are just as culpable — if not more so — for hard memory errors than the DRAM chips!

So what might a memory error look like? Darn near anything. Remember that inside your computer, everything is ones and zeros. If one of those ones becomes a zero, who knows what might happen? Maybe nothing, maybe a little stutter in your game, maybe a corrupted file saved to your hard disk, or maybe a complete system lockup.

It’s not all gloom-and-doom, though:

• Temperature plays little role in errors – just as Google found with disk drives – so heroic cooling isn’t necessary.
• The problem isn’t getting worse. The latest, most dense generations of DRAM perform as well, error wise, as previous generations.
• Heavily used systems have more errors – meaning casual users have less to worry about.
• No significant differences between vendors or DIMM types (DDR1, DDR2 or FB-DIMM). You can buy on price – at least for the ECC-type DIMMS they investigated.
• Only 8% of DIMMs had errors per year on average. Fewer DIMMs = fewer error problems – good news for users of smaller systems.

ECC memory usually commands a hefty premium, so it’s no surprise that many people choosing to save money cut that cost first. But maybe it’s time to think long-term about the value of your next purchase.

The Samsung Moment is the first Android phone trying to be special purely through hardware: It’s got a really rich AMOLED display, a gigantic keyboard, an 800MHz processor (the fastest yet for Android) and it’s on Sprint’s sturdy 3G network.

While the specs might make you dizzy, there’s absolutely nothing unique about the software. It’s running a totally stock build of Android 1.5 (Cupcake) with some standard Sprint software tossed in, like Sprint TV, Navigator, apps for Nascar and football, and Exchange support through Moxier Mail. So, we’re mostly gonna talk about the hardware here, since otherwise it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.

800 Whole Megahertz

The single biggest expectation for the Moment, and its rip-roaring 800MHz processor, is some zoomzoomzip speed in Android, which ain’t known for being the fastest smartphone OS around—largely, you would think, because every Android phone currently on the market is strapped with basically the same 528MHz ARM11 processor (the Moment’s also using an ARM11 processor, though one built by Samsung, not Qualcomm).

Despite the extra clock speed, a turbocharged Android this is not. Some parts of the experience are smoother—transitions between apps stutter less, and less often, for instance—and it boots faster than any other Android phone I’ve used, but there’s no serious extra pep in the OS. In fact, a lot of the same slowdowns that’ve become a hallmark of Android are present: The app menu often (but not always) lags as pull you it up, and those random moments where the phone just won’t respond to keys your tapping or your finger madly pounding on the screen still happen, just like on other Android phones. I was hoping it would be more than a little better (seriously, hanging while I’m just typing in Google Talk?), especially since it’s running a vanilla build of Android without any fancy overlays on top of it, like the Hero or Cliq.

I suspect it would run faster and better on Android 1.6, which might take greater advantage of the bonus horsepower, but it’s not shipping from Samsung until sometime in 2010.

AMOLED Makes Me Blue

The AMOLED display is stunning in some respects—it’s incredibly saturated, blacks are gorgeous and it makes other Android displays look pale and washed out. There are two problems: It’s not very readable in the sunlight (just like the Zune HD, which used an OLED display), and it’s very blue. At first, I thought it was just a tendency of OLED displays to be this cool, but this is what it looks like compared to the Zune HD: Not a dealbreaker for the screen out of context, but I really wish I could adjust the color temp, since now that I’ve noticed it, it bugs me every time I look at it. I probably just ruined it for you too.

Hello, Giant Keyboard, Goodbye Trackball

The Moment is a gigantic phone. That’s because it has a big fucking keyboard. Tiny people with tiny hands might think it’s too big. The keys are sorta rubbery, and flat, separated in a kind of honeycomb design, but they’re big enough to easily tell them apart, and they make surprisingly deep satisfying clicks when you press them. Overall, despite the mediocre size and placement of the space button, it’s probably the best typing experience on Android.

Samsung ditches the classic trackball for a trackpad. It sucks. I tried to use it like 4 times, and then I just didn’t. The touch-sensitive buttons on the face of the phone are a mistake too—during a call, my face apparently rolled over the menu button and I muted myself, leaving Wilson to yell, “Hello? HELLO!? HELLOOOOOO!” for like 30 seconds while I tried to figure out what the hell just happened.

Why It’s the ED-209 of Android Phones

It’s massive, has theoretically superior firepower, and runs marginally faster than the Android competition. But in the end, it’s clearly stuck in the past, and Robocop blows it up by being smarter. In this case, that’s the Hero. Or Cliq.

The Moment’s disappointing not just because the Hero and Cliq actually do interesting things that make Android better, but because it’s running an older version of Android that’s likely limiting its potential, and it won’t get the chance to be better until everybody stops caring about it.

If you absolutely need an Android phone with keyboard, get a Cliq or wait for the Droid. If you want an Android phone on Sprint and were torn, just get the Hero.

AMOLED screen is pretty

Big ol’ keyboard

Big ol’ phone

Faster processor doesn’t mean faster Android

AMOLED screen is a little too blue

The more my games stutter and the more my HD content skips frames, the more I think about that wonderful day when I shall put together a beautiful new system with all new hardware. The trouble is that Intel’s got the processor thing locked down and AMD has the lead on graphics. I don’t really want to mix and match, but the pull of the Radeons might prove to be too strong. That new 5800 series is looking mighty fine, sir, mighty fine.

They didn’t drop all of a sudden as some hardware is wont to do, and the rumored specs have been around for a while, but of course, we don’t comment on rumors here at CrunchGear. Too much integrity.

The new flagship card runs at the same core clock speed as the old one, but it has twice the stream processors and texture units and a much-improved memory clock speed. Judging from the transistor count, it looks like the new 40nm process basically just allowed them to fit a huge amount more of the same stuff on the same card without worrying as much about heat or power draw. So this is less a revolutionary step and more a dangerously turbo version of the old 4800 series.

Of course, they’re also DirectX 11-compatible, and they’re at least working on making the most popular GPGPU protocols work with them as well. OpenCL and such, you know.

Anandtech’s review of the 5870 suggests that while this is certainly the fastest single GPU solution available today (for gaming and such at least), it’s not the leapfrog that was expected, and you can get more performance from putting a couple older cards into crossfire. At any rate, I’m not interested in the flagship models. The 5850 is the sweet spot: $260 MSRP for a huge improvement over the last flagship design, and you’ll probably be able to get it for much less once the novelty wears off and prices drop. Do I have my next video card picked out? Very possibly.

Update: The Inquirer has a pretty exhaustive list of reviews if you want to get dirty.