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Of course, the second I finished writing that post, I found this picture which from my point of view looks like Fn+F8 is used to switch between the Wacom tablet and the trackpad. I think this would be most necessary anyway, to disable the tablet when you aren't using it, because it's right under where you would be resting your wrists when typing.

Both the Boy Genius Report and Engadget are fairly skeptical that this is the "final" Dream, mostly because the phone in this video isn't nearly as attractive as HTC's other recent phones.

I hope it's not final. Why would HTC release something that looks like the generic phone in this video for their first android handset when the company is perfectly capable of making something as attractive as the Touch Diamond?

Also, I know that Youtube comments are generally about as useful as catshit, but the uploader claims in the comments below his video, "i Think Semi-final but not Sure. And there is a black one. i'll upload the live demo of it."

Slashdot with the total Flame bait article that is not based in fact but FUD

Confirmed. It's a kill switch. http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/11/jobs-60-million-iphone-apps-downloaded-confirms-kill-switch/

Apple isnt screwing over the phone users...as much as you want to think they are.

No, I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Confirmed. It's a kill switch. What you've posted is pure conjecture. Read on! http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/11/jobs-60-million-iphone-apps-downloaded-confirms-kill-switch/

Couple of hours before this story got onto the /. front page, Engadget had this scoop:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/11/jobs-60-million-iphone-apps-downloaded-confirms-kill-switch/

Steve Jobs has confirmed the kill-switch, and defends it as a "responsible" way to make sure they can deal with it if a malicious app finds its way into the App Store.

Get with the times, editors!

Except that Nvidia is having, or at least helping get PhysX on ATi cards as well. http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/08/physx-on-ati-effort-gets-helping-hand-from-nvidia/

No, roaches already know they'll inherit the Earth, just a matter of time. Some people are even trying to speed the process.

Mine says not to leave *on top of* the microwave, or even the TV. So I do. It also says not to bend etc., I do that too.

Actually though, five seconds in the microwave should be enough to disable the chip.

There have been lots of discussions on the very point, see for example:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2006/09/renew_your_pass.html
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20832&page=2
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/wireless/how-to-disable-the-rfid-chip-in-us-passports-224321.php
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/26/how-to-disable-your-e-passports-rfid-chip/

Or you could do a search for disabling passport RFID or something like that.
(What I got out briefly reading those discussions is either a magnet (CRT computer monitor or TV I guess would be easiest), or else a hammer.

1. a netbook that will take a mobile phone sim card for web access.
2. to know if Asus actually brings the SplashTop to the Eee line,

IMHO both the Dell's and this Lenovo look much better than the Eee's, but that SplashTop would (for me) be the killer feature.

But given the speed with which these new models seem to reach Europe. I'll probably won't be actually getting one before December (when the West celebrates the Great Shopping Holiday :-S).

I don't understand why people have this fixation with long-term ownership of media.

...and just how long is the copyright period again?

When a disc begins skipping, or scratching, it is time to replace it.

You want to live in a "disposable" society, fine. For the rest of us, pardon if we try to fix something before getting rid of it outright.

Downloading the song/movie/etc is not appropriate, you must re-purchase the media.

Listening to Sony's lawyers again, are we?

Media is designed to have a certain life cycle, after a certain time, you should repurchase it.

You can say the same of ANY physical product. They all break down in one way or another. If you need new tires, do you purchase a new car?

Think of media as something consumable. you have a certain number of "views", and then it essentially degrades, and you should either discard it, or repurchase it if it is worth it to the consumer.

While the RIAA/MPAA would LOVE us to think of our media this way, it's a crock. Would you accept your car only taking a certain number of trips before you're forced to buy a new one?

This ensures everyone is fairly compensated.

Mighty interesting take on the meaning of "fair"....

Thing is... the blackberry's primary function is to serve as a business tool and it is designed that way. the iPhone is something that anyone who uses an iPod (there's a lot of em) will understand. You're comparing apples(pun intended) with oranges.

The blackberry's primary function is to allow people to communicate. The iPhone's primary function ... is to make money, but that's unfair ... is, ostensibly, similar. The value of the interface is subjective. Of course some people will like it and some people will worship it to the exclusion of all else, but contrary to popular belief, not everybody.

Um... there are about 1000 apps in the appstore that can be installed and how they are the delivered via iTunes or directly to the iPhone is the most user friendly yet.

While there are plenty of apps available one of the top three iPhone complaints I hear on a daily basis is that an app that is available for jailbroken phones isn't available, or that Apple's draconian restrictions prevent an app from functioning in a useful manner. I'm sure it's very easy to use, but I believe that's all for nothing if what you get out of it is utterly insufficient.

Updates can only potentially brick iPhones if they have been jailbroken. If you're going to frick around with the firmware of a device using code from someone other than the manufacturer... well.. you're asking for trouble aren't you.

How soon we forget.

First quad-core laptop hits U.S.

Xtremenotebooks launches quad core laptop

Quad-core notebook

Dell launches new quad-core laptop

Build your own quad-core laptop

"succeed at once"? Not succeed, "once", or even "twice" in fact. See http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/12/scottys-ashes-crash-land-after-failed-flight/ for the first failed attempt. Well, maybe 3'rd times charm. Come on guys . . . boost that transporter signal.

Sadly, I think they were recovered...Which makes this the SECOND time the launch has failed.

Who wants to lay odds on them finding the little charred capsule of ashes and making a third go of it?

The PowerXCell 8i version of the Cell processor can do 102 GFLOPS double precision. However, the PS3 Cell chip only supports single precision natively.

the Cell chip in the PS3 does has a peak of around 200 GigaFLOPs single precision and 20 GigaFLOPs double precision

How about doing something like taking a BiQuad Antenna and those old Direct TV or 10 and 12-foot Satellite dishes and turning them into long-range 2.4GHZ transmitters/receivers? This is open desert area we are talking about, so line of sight is definitely available for such devices.

How-To: Build a WiFi biquad dish antenna
http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

By taking the technology and means of how it was done before (as seen the in above how-to), one could most likely expand the network by adding in the means of a Merski Wireless Mesh Network, thus keeping the costs down to a minimum (utilizing the ad-supported capabilities of the Merski solutions).

Get a mini projector.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/01/mints-v10-mini-projector-gets-price-and-release-date/

This one has 1GB of internal storage, so I guess you can put your presentation right onto it.

That sounds about right - the problems I've heard of (and the one I've experienced) were with the 8400M and 8600M series chips (see http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/10/all-nvidia-8400m-8600m-chips-faulty/ ).

I haven't heard of many non M chips failing, and I know several people with 8800GTs in their desktops.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/29/creatives-zen-x-fi-player-with-wifi-gets-a-lot-more-real/

No details on the type of outputs, but the Zen Vision series have composite a/v out at a resolution of 640x480. That'd be plenty enough for some presentations.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/31/figuring-out-which-nvidia-gpus-are-defective-its-a-lot/

GeForce Go 7000
6000 lines
Quadro NVS 135M
Quadro FX 360M

Something has gone terribly wrong, or right.

ATI must LOVE this. It is definitely helping
ATI's image.

A lot of nvidia chips are messed up.

It almost makes me want to go to ATI.

Almost.

But nvidia is admitting their mistake.

Probably because they can't lie about it, and

they don't want a mega lawsuit on their ass.

I seen this on TV. It's real. http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/25/gen-h4-personal-helicopter-is-for-realz-and-for-sale/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/27/keepin-it-real-fake-part-cxxvi-jointechs-99-jl7100-rips-eee/

engadget has a good pic and info at http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/28/virgin-galactics-white-knight-2-spaceship-carrier-gets-unveiled/

And who can blame them? I mean, /. posting stories from the Local6, where headlines are about as misleading as "Boy Eating Bear." I read about this last week, maybe two weeks ago, on Hack-A-Day I believe, hell maybe even here on /. (possible dupe-age), either way, why the Local6?

As pointed out by numerous posters, the FAQ clearly states that this is not a spray, but rather a procedure of sorts. Engadget has a slightly better writeup of the technology here. From Engadget:
"...the process involves applying the coating to your precious toys inside a vacuum, after which they're basically impervious to all liquids -- in one test, a coated device spent over 450 hours powered on and functional underwater"

It's been done, or at least proposed in several places. The CCDs in video cameras pick up IR light and display it. (That's a security camera, but video cameras work on the same principle; imagine a ring of those surrounding the screen.)

Of course, a simple filter over the lens would fix that problem instantly, which is probably why no one has bothered with IR lights in theaters as far as I know.

Jonathan Ive

Responsible for look and feel of virtually all Apple products for the last ten years, is as much responsible for Apple's resurgence as the man Jobs himself.

Old news though is that he himself is already positioned as a possible successor to the big man.

Jonathan Ive groomed to take over from Jobs

If that happens, I'd feel pretty confident about Apple and their continued ability to innovate in create great products.

No company address, phone number, and web site /.ed.

Anyway, here's some snapshots grabbed by endgadget.

No, it's because they're very expensive and for most people do not deliver benefits even remotely close to justifying it.

Emerging technologies are always a little extra expensive, except when their monetary cheapness is their main feature. Just saying that it's expensive alone isn't a good enough reason.

And even then, not too much more expensive: Last year or This year

No, it's because they're very expensive and for most people do not deliver benefits even remotely close to justifying it.

Emerging technologies are always a little extra expensive, except when their monetary cheapness is their main feature. Just saying that it's expensive alone isn't a good enough reason.

And even then, not too much more expensive: Last year or This year

You mean mineral oil immersion?

linkage: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/12/puget-custom-computers-mineral-oil-cooled-pc/

Hello, by 'reasonably modern hardware' do you mean those newfangled silent,fast SSD drive thingies? I think I read somewhere that Vista doesnt play nice with them.

Maybe you mean the latest CPUs comming out the Fabs, like the Atom and Via low power chips. I may have read a story about a hardware company (I think is was Asus) producing a low power device (the Eaaa PC?) that runs the latest Linux, but for the Windows version, they chose Windows XP over Vista for performance reasons.

Perhaps you mean new hardware designs like the Cell architecture and other SMP designs coming to a Blade Center near you. The NT base for Vista has a shitty scheduler, and appears to require 1 NIC per CPU for good performance, which is going to make 32-way CPUs rather expensive if you want to run Windows.
I was going to mock Windows for not being able to run on Cell based machines like the PS3, but it looks like somebody has managed it, pffft.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with not having a head full of useless celebrity trivia.

I had to look it up, and I'm not ashamed.

http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/31/naomi-campbell-in-court-for-chucking-another-phone-at-maid/

And it is faster than trying to enter text on a phone keypad...

Jay Leno did it
And a more impressive win...

Custom hacked firmware that allows backups and homebrew to boot now? No mod-chip required.

Sources: Engadget
DCEmu

So this here may have caused an influx of sales.

Yeah, but at least they're becoming way more usable. The small low-res screen, shitty keyboard, low storage and relatively poor battery life made sure I wasn't getting myself the EEE 4G/700. Now Dell is coming up with the $299 "E" laptop which appears to be what the EEE should've been all along, and I'm rather interested.

No matter how many unpaid overtime hours the Chinese kids work, there still is a certain price floor at the current technological level. I'd be quite satisfied if they just kept improving the product at the current price range until it's feasible to go lower without producing something completely useless.

I also heard that someone got some custom firmware running on the Wii!

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/18/wii-gets-custom-firmware-purported-psp-emulator/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/10/the-ps3-laptop-from-ben-heck-to-engadget-with-love/

Call it what you like, but handheld multitouch is fairly novel, and the automatic screen-turning isn't too shabby either.

These things aside, with other nearly-iPhones that are around (such as by LG and Meizu), Apple still seems to be doing quite well on that end. Maybe there's something to be said about brand name (and, as some say, attention to detail)? By restricting the realm of what is an Apple device, this can be seen as an attempt to guarantee consistent quality.

Samsung are now mass producing 128gb SSDs
http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/09/samsungs-low-power-128gb-ssds-go-mass-production-on-the-cheap/

Satellite dishes make excellent directional 802.11 antennas.
Just remove the existing LNB from the dish and replace it with a homemade antenna, like a biquad, tuned for your band-of-interest (i.e. 2.4GHz ISM for wi-fi). Make sure you get a powerful (high RX sensitivity & high TX power) wireless card with an external antenna jack

Here is one project write-up, though I'm sure there are many others:
http://www.engadget.com/2005/11/15/how-to-build-a-wifi-biquad-dish-antenna/

Alternatively, keep the LNB, get a DVB capture card (PCI models go for $20-$80+ new), and use the dish to get FTA (free to air) satellite TV.
There are many communities for this kind of thing exactly, just search google for: FTA forum

I'd also take apart that digital receiver and reverse engineer the hardware as much as I could, just for kicks.
When you've gotten your hour of fun out of it, gut it for parts and move on to the next interesting project.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/09/toshibas-10-new-regza-lcds-3x-ethernet-built-in-dvr-and-much/

That one may be new but they've had them since at least 2006

If it were about protecting AT&T's SMS cash cow, then why would Apple be offering a free push notification service in September? That'll work well for notification capability of lots of apps, not just IM.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iphone-push-notification-service-for-devs-announced/

This will change in September when Apple's free push notification service launches.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/09/iphone-push-notification-service-for-devs-announced/

As posted on Engadget, they are clearing out the 20GB model to be replaced by a 60GB model.

I don't want to have to consult a spreadsheet for a sub-compact laptop that was initially touted as a $200 gadget/toy.

Only if you can afford $37,000.00+. That would buy a lot of film and developing solutions... I know that the larger the format when doing black and white, the better the tonality... I wonder how that translates in digital, given you have way less latitude than b+w film. But if you have the bucks, why not? Whoever who has the best toys when they die wins, right? And hey, it is environmentally more friendly than wet photography.

suggest Korean?

http://www.engadget.com/2005/10/05/new-songdo-the-south-korean-ubiquitous-city-of-the-future/

http://www.idtechex.com/products/en/presentation.asp?presentationid=272

With Korean, you only have to learn some 41 "characters", tho it can be daunting stringing together a number of verb endings.

Also, see:

http://www.linkroll.com/computer-programming/on-the-way-to-learning-computer-programming-in-nano.php

http://www.learn-korean.net/

http://www.learn-korean.net/learn-korean-classes-listarticles-1.html

Let's recap, so that's: invisible (1), silent (2), mind reading (3) with ray guns that make you hear voices.

George Orwell was an optimist.

1.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/20/researchers-develop-metamaterial-with-negative-refractive-index/
2.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109104244.htm
3.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1172900547;fp;16;fpid;1

I saw this last week in New Scientist. You're jumping to some very flase conclusions. It has nothing to do with subliminal messages. From the linked article:

The device - dubbed MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) - exploits the microwave audio effect, in which short microwave pulses rapidly heat tissue, causing a shockwave inside the skull that can be detected by the ears. A series of pulses can be transmitted to produce recognisable sounds.
<snip>
MEDUSA involves a microwave auditory effect "loud" enough to cause discomfort or even incapacitation. Sadovnik says that normal audio safety limits do not apply since the sound does not enter through the eardrums.

"The repel effect is a combination of loudness and the irritation factor," he says. "You can't block it out."

Am I the only one who finds it very, very scary that the "It's not torture if WE do it" Bush Administration(*) is working on technology that could be used to torture people and leave absolutely no physical evidence behind, ever?

This and the pain gun have me very, very scared for the future of our liberties.

*: To say nothing about the "It's not illegal if WE say it's not" and "You don't have the right to a free trial if WE don't say you do" and "We don't have to give up evidence unless WE want to" crap the retard king has pulled since his daddy's friends put him in power.

This, together with the device that translates subvocal sounds, I for one welcome the Coinjoiners