It's not expected until this fall, but Apple's already been giving the thumbs up to iOS 5-compatible apps. Mashable's app spells out "iOS 5 compatibility," while Camera+ skirts it with "compatibility with that upcoming OS That Must Not Be Named."
iOS 5's beta 4 has been available to developers since late-July, and the fact that Apple is already approving apps that support the new OS suggests that perhaps we don't have too much longer to wait. (Though obviously these app updates are based on iOS 4.3 rather than the iOS 5 SDK).
With the iPhone 5 expected to launch in either September or October (depending on which rumor you wish to believe), it wouldn't be unfeasible to hope that iOS 5 won't arrive too much later.
You can never have enough HDMI ports, what does that gaming rig you just put together have? Two? And that MacBook Pro of yours doesn't have any at all. But, if there's a DisplayPort hanging around, you can add a pair HDMI jacks with an adapter from Zotac.
This little dongle turns any DisplayPort or Mini Displayport into a dual HDMI hookup, with support for two 1920 x 1080 monitors -- provided your graphics card can handle it and the HDMI group doesn't kill the product first. Price $50.
That Qosmio F750 glasses-free 3D laptop has gotten minor makeover for its US debut, and is now the F755. Thankfully, the news doesn't end with a new name -- On August 16th you'll be able to pick up Toshiba's latest 15.6-inch media machine starting at $1,699. The notebook will hit Fry's, Best Buy, and Newegg all on the same day, sporting the same Core i7 processor, 6GB of RAM, 750GB hard disk, Blu-ray drive, and GeForce GT 540M GPU.
Sadly, it won't be able to convert 2D games to 3D out of the box, but Toshiba is working with Nvidia to deliver that feature by November. Now you'll just have to bide your time till this 8-pound, "portable" 3D rig starts shipping in about two weeks.
I usually shun anything to do with the over-hyped Angry Birds franchise, but this game-inspired undergarment was just too good to pass up.
Etsy is the place you'll find this hand-painted creation and $35 is the price you'll pay for adorning your gazongas in this jovial bird versus pig attire. Get it here.
I always thought it was so unscrupulous store assistants were forced to ring a $9.99 product through the till for the 1 cent change, instead of pocketing the note for a $10 item. But here are some more ideas:
According to the book Life's Little Mysteries: Answers to Fascinating Questions About the World Around You, the professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and Duncan Simester, the professor of management science at MIT's Sloan School of Management claim this is because "some retailers do reserve prices that end in 9 for their discounted items. Comparisons of prices at major department stores reveal that this is common, particularly for apparel." They argue that while $9.99 makes a product look more attractive than a straight $10, some chains feel that discount-style pricing is tacky, and beneath the higher-quality products they sell.
One opinion I love comes from Scot Morris' Book of Strange Facts & Useless Information from 1979, which purports that back in 1876, a Chicago newspaper was priced at a penny rather than a nickle was largely to get more pennies into circulation.
I think the more-obvious connection between an item costing $1 and .99 cents is why Apple chose their particular pricing for the bottom-tier of paid-for apps on the App Store. It's crazy, but .99 cents just seems like a more throw-away figure than a dollar.
Brace yourselves speed freaks -- Kingston Digital is now shipping its latest 2.5-inch HyperX SSD drives, equipped with 6Gb/sec SATA Rev 3.0 and everyone's favoriteSandForce SF-2281 controller. You want fast? You'll get fast, alright. This SSD's read / write speeds top out at 555MB/sec and 510MB/sec, which is surely enough to keep your rig zipping through those intense gaming marathons office workloads. You'll be able to pick up the drive itself with 120GB of storage for $270 or 240GB for $520, while the install kit -- which includes such goodies as a SATA cable, desktop mount, torque screws and more -- tacks on an extra $15 and $20, respectively.
Unveiled yesterday, the company's new lineup of 2.5-inch HDDs offers up to 1TB of storage capacity, thanks to an architecture that squeezes 500GB out of every platter. Standing at 9.5mm tall, the 5,400RPM drives also boast an areal density of 744Gb per square inch, and are designed to maximize energy efficiency, burning just 0.55 watts in idle mode.
Gamers and entertainment gurus, meanwhile, would benefit from the MQ01ABD's enhanced acoustics, which max out at 19dB in idle, and 24dB while seeking. No word yet on pricing, but the beasts are scheduled to go into mass production by the middle of this month.
Until now, mobile app developers have followed a pretty predictable MO: develop for iOS first, Android second, and everyone else after that. Since last year, many of you code monkeys out there have been tapping into Nitobi's PhoneGap, a project that makes it easier to churn out apps for almost every OS, all at once. It's been picking up steam, with about 40,000 downloads per month, 600,000 in total, and a steady stream of donations.
That all culminated this weekend with the release of PhoneGap 1.0, which lets devs use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to write and deploy apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, webOS, Bada, Symbian, and Windows Phone 7. Get it here
There are already plenty of sleep headphones out there, and Bedphones don't pretend to be the most high end out there. They're not supposed to be. It's the app that really sets it apart. It comes with three modes: basic mode; timer mode; and smart mode.
Basic mode turns your phone into a big play/pause button and timer mode sets a timer for when you want your music to shut off. But smart mode actually shuts the app down by detecting how much you're moving. Pretty cool. Check out the headphones for $30. The Bedphones app is free.
Still lookin' for that perfect 3D display, are you? ViewSonic would be absolutely thrilled to make your short list, with the 24-inch V3D245 making its debut this morning. Unsurprisingly, this one's arriving with a 1080p LED-backlit panel, and it'll be joined by an inbuilt NVIDIA 3D Vision wireless emitter and a pair of 3D Vision glasses.
You'll also get a 120Hz refresh rate, two millisecond response time, HDMI 1.4 socket and 300 nits of brightness, and the three-year limited warranty should help quell any fears about longevity. Of course, NVIDIA would prefer that focused on the 550 (and growing) 3D titles available on its Vision Live website, but at least you've got until "mid-to-late August" to determine if the whole shebang is worth your $499.
Nexus S users think they're so cool with their built-in NFC chips, but now there's an easy hack that anyone can do to enable NFC Payments on an iPhone 4 (among others).
Most of you have probably encountered an NFC-enabled credit card. Most major US banks employ this tech in their credit/debit cards. There may even be one in your pocket without you knowing it! (Just look for the little sideways Wi-Fi signal sign in the corner). The hack involves taking one of these cards and cutting it to fit into an iPhone between the rear casing and the battery.
As more companies adopt the PayWave technology, this hack will get more and more useful. For now, you can impress 7-Eleven and McDonald's employees across the country with your fancy phone's newfound ability.
Langone Medical Center in New York is streamlining the hospital check-in process with specialized scanners from Fujitsu that recognize the unique vein pattern of your palm.With these scanners, there's no need to flash your insurance card or fill out long forms when you enter the hospital. You don't even have to be conscious.
Each scan is saved as a numeric code and tied to your medical record, but it's not stored with the record. So relax, voyeuristic hospital personnel can't ogle your beautiful blood vein patterns.Besides efficiency, the hospital hopes these scanners will reduce medical errors which is a good thing. These mistakes cause almost 100,000 deaths and cost the medical profession almost $20 billion each year.
Apparently Bruce Wayne needed some shoes to go with his business-casual wardrobe. But when your business is being Batman, even "casual" has to be intense.
Okay, so these aren't actually a prop fromThe Dark Knight Rises or anything like that. They're actually a part of Puma Creative Director Hussein Chalayan's upcoming "Urban Swift" fall collection. Which makes sense if you think about it. From the looks of it, these kicks have been slightly melted and put in a wind tunnel at mach 3. Swift indeed. Check them out here.
Wall Street Journal has amassed a sizeable infographic containing all the ways top websites track your data. While nearly all websites send your data to third-party trackers, some are worse than others. Luckily the main offenders are websites that suck.
The worst website of them all is Dictionary.com, who send your browsing data to 234 different trackers. Other particularly invasive sites include Comcast.net, Photobucket.com and MSN.com.
What do these trackers do, exactly? Some just store your preferences or files or history so that things are easier to use or quicker to load. Others, however, send your information to marketers which they can use to spam your phone, email inbox or IRL mailbox with DEALS AND OFFERS.
The other rappers probably spend a lot of time making fun of you when you don't have your own line of headphones. The Wu Tang's RZA can thankfully breathe a sigh of relief as he becomes a member of the not so inclusive club that already contains the likes of Dr. Dre, Ludacris, and 50 Cent.
The Gravedigga sometimes known as Bobby Digital is teaming up with WESC to bring the world Chambers, a line of over-ear headphones with flashing LEDs that light up in time with your music. Chambers will come in two versions -- one targeted at consumers and another aimed at pros. The line is set to launch on August 26th. It's not quite as awesome as that $500 Ghostface Killah doll from a few years back, but it's a start.
Starting today, Facebook will pay $500+ to anyone who exposes a vulnerability that could compromise user data. To qualify, you must be the first to report it and give them time to fix it before going public.
Travis Pastrana's devastating bone-breaking crash at the X Games last night was a COMPLETE shock to us -- because just hours before the wreck, Travis told TMZ he had been practicing the trick for 5 years!
Travis busted out the move -- which he dubbed the "TP Roll" -- during the "Best Trick" competition at X Games 17 in L.A. when he lost control on the landing and broke his right foot and ankle in the crash.
Even worse -- Travis was supposed to make his debut as a NASCAR driver this weekend -- but now those plans have been put on hold. Sucks.
Ori Levin designed a full sized canoe that's completely collapsable and can be stored in a bag that's only 5 x 9 x 28 inches big. Basically, you can have a boat in your backpack.
Called the Adhoc Canoe, it only weighs 9 pounds and takes 5 minutes to assemble. The frame of the canoe is made with carbon fiber and the hull is made of aramid (a synthetic fabric used in racing sails). The boat comes together in a "double wishbone-like structure" formed using telescopic poles. Probably not comfy but certainly clever. Sadly, Levin has no plans to bring the Adhoc Canoe to the mass market.
Apple reported last week that it had $76 billion in cash, that might be enough to buy Goldman Sachs or Facebook. Today, Steve Jobs' reserves match up with the world's largest sovereign entity.
That's right. Apple is currently more liquid than the U.S. government:
As Republicans and Democrats continue to work towards a compromise to the country's debt ceiling crisis, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Thursday that Washington now has a total operating balance of only US$73.768-billion.
Meanwhile, Apple currently boasts a cash reserve of US$75.876-billion, as of its most recent quarterly earnings report at the end of June.
Albino Nexus S, meet your better specced, bleached out, dual-core nemesis -- the mythical white Samsung Galaxy S II. The leaked snap is certainly timely, coming in only one day after a UK retailer promised the colorless beast would go on sale August 15th.
US peeps can now sign-up for "more info" on Sammy's website, so stateside GSII fans should be hearing more from the company soon. Will word come of the LTE-toting, ivory dream phone we've been lusting after? Probably not, but getting the baddest black Android on the planet is still pretty darn good.
Made for Nikon cameras, this waterproof case is created from polycarbonate so will keep your precious snapper bone-dry and corrosion-free, to depths of 200ft. There's just one small problem—it costs $1,400.
As you can see from the picture, it has two side-handles with buttons, for easy control, and an eye-magnifier so you don't have to compromise your favorite view just because you're underwater. Get it here.
Travel pillows are one of those objects that always pisses you off when your partner packs it for a trip, but then 10 hours and a stiff neck later you end up being really jealous of.
Cabeau's $35 pillows have little pockets for MP3 players, which shoul avoid those mid-slumber accidents when you get tangled amongst the wires. You can get them here.
It's not enough anymore to simply cram a single-octave keyboard into the bottom of a Nintendo DS, effective piano instruction requires at least twice as many keys -- and an iPad. The Ion Piano Apprentice (when coupled with a compatible iDevice and companion app) offers aspiring Tchaikovskys octave-selectable free play, lessons on reading sheet music, and even a view of award-winning piano instructor Scott Houston's handsome hands.
If those mitts are too distracting for you, just follow along with the light-up keys, you'll be fine. This mini keyboard / iPad dock will land this fall to the tune of $100 -- -- it's either that, a real instructor, or a pair of haptic robot gloves. Your choice, really.
You know you wanna be like Indiana Jones, unlocking the secrets of ancient manuscripts. Well, that is hard. But the Egypt Exploration Society and Oxford University are giving you the chance by uploading their ancient papyrus to the web.
By visiting Oxford's Ancient Lives website, you and your fellow archaeologists can sit down and attempt to decipher the cataloged papyri from Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, discovered in the late 19th century. The find includes accounts of everyday life, an apocryphal gospel, and literature. You may want to go through the tutorial first, though. Or learn some Greek.
Eee Pad Transformer users don't have to wait much longer to get their Android 3.2 fix. ASUS has now confirmed that the update will be rolling out tomorrow, July 28th. UnlikeGalaxy Tab 10.1 owners, Transformer users shouldn't expect too many surprises in store here considering ASUS is sticking with stock Honeycomb, although there will hopefully be a few fixesincluded in addition to the more general Android updates.
So, you've finally accepted the reality that smartphones aren't a passing fad, but you're no less concerned that the special tech-hater in your life might get hip that you've abandoned reading books forflinging unhappy fowl. You're further concerned that you won't have space in your skinny jeans for both a wallet and an iPhone. Well, it sounds like Twelve South's BookBook iPhone 4 case has you and your ridiculous smartphone-conversion anxiety covered.
The little leather-bound sleeve not only masks your iPhone in what looks like a miniature Bible binding, but also acts as host to your wallet's contents. If you're looking to fool folks into thinking you're really reading a tiny tome titled BookBook, the case can be yours for $60 get it here.
The IS12T: Japan's first Windows Phone 7 device, and according to Microsoft prez Yasuyuki Higuchi, the world's first Mango handset. The sexy and IPX5 waterproof (!) 3.7-inch WVGA slate is powered by Qualcomm's MSM8655 CPU of undisclosed clock speed (which is running at 1GHz in the Incredible 2 and Thunderbolt), and goes on sale in "September or beyond" on KDDI's au network. The phone packs a 13.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and has a plentiful 32GB of flash storage for housing whatever content you'd fancy toting around. The usual Bluetooth (2.1 + EDR) and WiFi (802.11b/g/n) suspects are also onboard.
If you're the type to stock your walls with Lord of the Rings-style elvish daggers (or, you know, buildfull-scale Portal gun replicas), then you'll love this official Mass Effect 3 mockup commissioned by the folks at Bioware. Arduously crafted by self-proclaimed graphic design dork Harrison Krix, the N7 assault rifle replica made its facsimile debut at this year's San Diego Comic-Con.
With only a fortnight to work with, the DIY, prop-making hobbyist took the made-for-cosplay gun from a glued wood, styrene and PVC-detailed master concept to paint weathered, final collector's edition mold.
Should you find yourself preparing a massive spray paint project, you're probably going to need a massive amount of spray paint! Sure, you could juggle them, or throw them in a bag. Or carry this ginormous spray paint monster backpack.
The Black Ops Version 3, by Spraygrounds, has room for a staggering 22 cans of paint. That is a lot of paint. Perhaps you've been commissioned to redo the Sistine Chapel by a young new hip hop Pope. Perhaps you're venturing out into the desert, and are afraid of running out of spray paint, and are bringing 22 cans just in case.
At any rate, the padded bag not only offers ample room for paint, but a laptop sleeve, plenty of compartments, and is crafted from tough ballistic nylon. Alternately, you could only bring out one can of spray paint, and fill the rest with air freshener.Get it here.
The portable cassette players once nearly universally identified as the Walkman may have seen better days, but their spirit is still alive, so far as Sony is concerned. The company is apparently set to release the latest entry in the line, the slick-looking NWZA865B, a 16GB portable media player with wireless file sharing and music streaming capabilities.
The 16GB model is also likely one of a number of capacities to be offered, ranging from 8GB to 64GB. The device is available for viewing on UK retailer Buy.com with a £130 ($213) price tag and a July 31st release date.
For as much time as people spend on the toilet, you'd think someone would have rectified the glaring design issues with them by now. What? The Toilet 2.0 by David Hakkens did?
The Toilet 2.0 has been redesigned from the bathroom floor up. It's constructed of Corian, a composite material created by DuPont, that's lighter, thinner, and stronger than traditional porcelain.
The master stroke is the design of the bowl itself. The shallow-bottom, wide-body, lipped design not only aids in self-cleaning but it keeps you from experiencing the dreaded "impromptu bidet" action of a seated flush. The system will even reuse grey water from your sinks and dishwasher to flush its lines behind the wall (fresh water is still used to clear the bowl). The Toilet 2.0 is still in the design stages, so you'll have to keep shelling out $6400 for your game-changing cans for now.
Jealous of Comcast customers with their 105Mbps cable hook ups or those lucky residents of the Kansas cities relishing in Google's 1Gbps service? Well add Londonites to the list of people that drive you to indulging in one of the seven deadly sins. Virgin Media has finally started testing its DOCSIS2-powered1.5Gbps network in the heart of merry ol' England. Right now it's being enjoyed by a group of test sites around Old Street that also get a 150Mbps upload connection.
Virgin claims it's the fastest broadband in the world, which may be true if you're not counting lab experiments. The really good news is that it's based on the same tech already delivering 100Mbps to residents across the country so, if the trial goes well, it should be trivial to deliver these mind numbing speeds to the rest of its customers.
It's not the first universal remote adapter we've seen for the iPhone and, unlike the Surc IR case, you probably wouldn't want to leave this bulky add-on attached to your handset when not in use. But, the app does have some convenient features, like the ability to create custom layouts that can easily be switched based on the devices in a particular room.
So you can setup a living room profile to control your big screen and cable box, and a separate bed room one for your more modest set and a stereo. You can also create command macros that fire up multiple devices with the tap of a single virtual button. The Voomote app is available for free in the app store, but the actual IR-blasting sleeve will set you back $99.
With point and shoot cameras apparently now up against a megapixel wall, manufacturers are focusing on adding quirky new features to keep you hooked on the upgrade cycle. Sony's new Cyber-shot TX55 includes several such additions, such as 'amazing' 3D image capture, 'extremely low' noise, and a new digital zoom technology, which promises to double the camera's 5x optical zoom range while still capturing 16.2-megapixel images at full quality.
If the $350 camera really can deliver on its promise, then we may just have a winner. Sony says there's also high-speed autofocus that can lock onto subjects in 0.1 seconds, optical image stabilization, a 3.3-inch OLED touch-screen, and 1080i AVCHD video. It also includes some features found on the higher-end NEX-C3, such as Picture Effects, and a Panorama mode. Sony has yet to completely nix the Memory Stick slot, including one with the TX55, though there's also MicroSD support for those who prefer to take advantage of that more affordable memory card standard.
Zeki Ozek wants to complement your current camera with an iPhone and eliminate SD cards, clunky factory-installed interfaces and whatever else attaching Apple's smartphone to the back of your rig might accomplish.
He proposes we do it with iCam, a camera with a dock in the back that syncs up with an iPhone courtesy the 22 pin connector. The concept won a Red Dot Design Concept award this year, based on the design's incredibly broad potential. Strapping a powerful, portable touchscreen computer to the back of a custom-built camera can do that for you. Plus, wireless connectivity. Cannot understimate the convenience of that.
Cameras will be wireless, hyper-connected, uber-customizable devices in the near future anyway, but there's no denying the iPhone's potential in this early, specific case.
If you shelled out 600 clams for an unlocked Nexus S, buyer's remorse starts now: the subsidized AT&T version is out today.
Available exclusively from Best Buy (and exclusively in black), the AT&T Nexus S will set you back only a paltry $99 with a two-year contract. Is the loss of color choice (and that whole "SIM-locked to AT&T" thing) worth the savings? We'll leave that up to you and your (Google) wallet.
These cylindrical, bullet shell looking like device is actually an mp3 player that can double as a speaker. It's about 3 inches tall, 1.3 inches in diameter, supports microSD and plays MP3, WMA, APE, etc.
The speakers that come in the Singbox SV-606 are just mono, so you're not going to get any real punch behind it (which is not unexpected given the size, I guess) so you'll probably have to plug in some headphones. I wish it looked more like a bullet shell though. Get them here.
Yep, that's right. Justin Bieber has joined Instagram and tweeted his first image. Yay? Within minutes, Bieber started gaining 50 followers a second and six comments a minute. And yeah, this first photo already accrued 300 likes.
One piece of good news for the geek crowd — Instagram is holding up under the strain of thousands of pre-teen girls flooding the service. That's something worthy of a good ole pat on the back.
While using the Space Invaders multi-tool you may think you are the master, bending it to your will, but think again. The Space Invader is crafty and patient. Methodical. It is gathering intel. It is only a matter of time.
In the meantime, though, this is a pretty geektastic way to screw things in (or up, depending on skill level). Just remember it is you who will be screwed in the end. Perhaps literally. These are aliens we're talking about. LINK HERE:You can get it here for $24.
Google's quietly pitter-pattering its acquisitive ways back into the controversial realm of facial recognition technology. To do that, the company busted out its oversized wallet to fold Pittsburgh-based PittPatt into the Mountain View borg. Founded by a trio of PhD's from Carnegie Mellon University, this three-man strong outfit specializes in the sort of object recognition software you've come to know as "tagging." Is this a reversal of the Do No Evil tech giant's prior waffling on the dubious visioning tech, or just another massive weapon in its social networking crusade against Facebook?
The company's new employees aren't exactly playing their cards for us to see. A brief statement on the triumvirate's site makes vague mention of "computer vision technology" being core to Google's products and points to the tech's planned integration in photo, video and mobile applications. So, basically, expect to see Picasa, Goggles, YouTube and Google+ watch you as you flaunt your internet celebrity ways to that front-facing camera.
The compass-in-a-watch concept isn't exactly a breakthrough in functionality, but my goodness is Porsche Design's P'6520 compass watch pretty. Its black titanium case splits in two, with the Swiss movement timepiece on the top half and a removable liquid compass on the bottom.
The compass is viewed through mirrors on the compass face and the bottom of the watch half, and it works in both hemispheres. It's also waterproof to 50 feet. No word on the pricing just yet, but expect it to cost about what you paid for your car.
A cool one million downloads of Lion have been registered in the first day of availability. That's faster than any other OS release in the company's history, which lends perhaps a bit more weight to Apple's "best OS we've ever made" claim.
Look at the chart above and you'll see two things happening. First, Apple has overtaken Symbian to become the top smartphone platform in the UK (with a 27 percent market share). And secondly, Android has grown 634 percent year-over-year to shoot into second place, with less than half a percentage point keeping it from the top spot (other reports already place it ahead).
As you might expect, much of that growth isn't coming from folks switching from one smartphone to the other, but from new smartphone users -- Comscore found that 42 percent of all mobile users in the UK used a smartphone in May of this year, compared to just 27 percent a year ago. Of course, that also means that 58 percent of UK cellphone users are still potential smartphone users (to say nothing of those that still don't have a cellphone at all), so there's certainly still plenty up for grabs for all involved.
Today's Google Doodle is a mesmerizing geometric mobile that slowly spins above the search box. The Doodle commemorates the 113th birthday of Alexander Calder, an American artist and sculptor famous for inventing the mobile sculptures.
Calder was a life-long artist who studied in New York and Paris. As his artistic talent flourished in the early 1930s, he became interested in wire sculpture and kinetic art. These two interests merged to create what would be called "mobiles," a French term that refers to both "motion" and "motive."
Originally these kinetic structures were moved by cranks and pulleys, but Calder developed a delicate touch and harnessed the natural air flow of a room to spin his creations. Calder's largest moving sculpture, a 76-foot-long mobile, hangs from the ceiling of the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
Calder continued to develop sculptures both large and small, mobile and stationary until his death in 1976 at the age of 78.
Google+ is hot, hot, hot. The social network has pulled in 20 million unique visitors in a mere three weeks. Leading the way is the US with 5 million and India with 2.8 million uniques.
It'll be interesting to see if Google can expand the service fast enough to keep up this momentum. I like chatting it up in 140 characters or more and Google+ is just so light, fresh and fun. It's like Happy Hour all day long.
Watches are one accessory that's crying out for some green love. They're worn daily, changed often and killed frequently with an accidental bump. Sprout understands and has developed a line of fashionable timepieces that can be tossed away without remorse.
These watches are great. They are good-looking, colorful and 80-93% biodegradable. They are made of wonderful materials such as bamboo, organic cotton, mineral crystal lenses, and mercury-free batteries. Sprout has even managed to sell them at a reasonable price. The entry-level model starts at $30, while the top-of-line model climbs to a pricey, but not exorbitant $75.
My eyes love the geometric nature of the Elecom Orime mouse. Something tells me my hands would not. Complete with five buttons (concealed by the mouse's design) and laser tracking, this RF wireless mouse is available for $85.
Sure, these days nearly all digital cameras can shoot video, but only a small handful give you the power to manually select aperture and shutter speed while doing so. The Lumix FZ47 is Panasonic's latest high-end point-and-shoot to sport this functionality, providing full control over both video and still photo capture with its Creative Control mode. The 12.1-megapixel superzoom can shoot 1080i HD at 30 fps, though it's notably lacking in the 1080p department.
There's also a 3-inch LCD, 24x Leica zoom lens with a 25mm wide-angle focal length, and an option to shoot 3.5-megapixel stills while recording video. For photographers wiling to settle for a good deal less power, Panasonic also just announced its entry-level Lumix LS5, which includes a 14.1-megapixel sensor, optical image stabilization, and 720p video, all powered by a pair of AA batteries. The $400 FZ47 will ship next month, while the LS5 hits stores in November.
Bill Gates, nowadays basking in the accolades his philanthropy provides, noticed that toilets kind of suck in the developing world. Wanting to help stop the spread of communicable diseases, he's ready to put down $41.5 million for potty advancements.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is prepared to give that huge sum of money to universities that push poor nations' toilets into the modern era. They don't have to have ambient lights or mini-tablets. Rather, they should reinvent the concept by being sustainable, not relying on a sewer connection or electricity. Proposals have drawn up toilets powered by heat, microwaves, or solar panels, all to help prevent bacterial and parasitic infections.
I can't imagine what a microwave powered toilet would even look like, but any idea that shields you from diarrhea is a good one.
How do you build a mouse that can run six-times farther than its average bretheren? Take away all its fast-twitch muscle fiber, along with its ability to contract its muscles.
According to ScienceNow, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found the gene receptor that controls the protein responsible for muscle contraction. When they engineered mice to lack that protein, all the muscle in their body converted any fast twitch muscle (which is more powerful, but fatigues quicker) to slow twitch muscle fiber, which provided endurance gains.
But these behavioral quirks weren't quite enough to convince Khurana of the effect on muscles. Lack of the IL-15Rα gene could just be making the mice jittery or giving them extra energy. So the researchers dissected muscles from the longer-running mice. The muscles sported increased numbers of energy-generating mitochondria and more muscle fibers, indicating that they tired less easily. And when the researchers stimulated them with electricity, the muscles continued to contract for longer than normal, taking longer to use up their energy stores, the team reports in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
The discovery of this gene could explain why some people are better endurance runners than others, and if discovered in humans (or any other animal, for that matter), could be used to create a human that could run and run and run and run. Although, the absence of speed and power might not be worth it.
They say Apple updates its products like clockwork, releasing something new at the same time in the same place every year. Not so with MacBook Airs anyway. The outfit's gone and freshened up its 13-inch and 11-inch ultraportables -- the second such update in nine months. Although the industrial design hasn't changed much since the last generation, both models step up to Sandy Bridge Core i5 and i7 processors, Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards, and, of course, OS X Lion.
The 11.6-inch flavor starts at $999 with 64GB of solid-state storage, 2GB of memory and a 1.6GHz Core i5 processor. The higher-end of the two configurations costs $1,199, with the extra two hundred dollars doubling your RAM and storage. The 13-inch Air, meanwhile, starts at $1,299, with a 128GB SSD, 4GB of RAM, and a 1.7GHz Core i5 CPU. Step up to the $1,599 model and you'll get a 256GB SSD instead. Regardless, you're looking at Intel HD 3000 graphics across the board, along with FaceTime webcams, and two USB ports (plus an SD slot on the 13-inch version). The two differ when it comes to resolution and battery life: the 11-incher has a 1366 x 768 panel and is rated for up to five hours of battery life, whereas the 13-inch model has a 1440 x 900 screen and promises up to seven hours of juice. As for that 1.8GHz Core i7 CPU, it'll set you back an extra $100, and is only available on the higher-end 11-inch and 13-inch configurations.
