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The linked article is pretty bad. This link has a little more information. Apparently the saving they claim comes from filling the pages that already have valid data more completely rather than writing to new pages within the same block (the reduced fragmentation claim); then the garbage collector has fewer pages to relocate when erasing that block (the speed-up claim). Of course if the garbage collection happens in the background the savings are moot.

In the original-ish article here they go into a bit more detail but the "conventional scheme" they're comparing against appears to be just straight mapping. It would be interesting to see how this stacks up against some of the more advanced schemes employed in today's SSDs.

They have robots for this now:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/e...

It's basically a Roomba for solar panels

Sounds like a great idea, looks like NEC did it 3 years ago but never released it apparently.
Someone on this page had the same idea as you, maybe you could try contacting him and check the status of his project.

Forget the motherboard (looks pretty standard to me :-) http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20060119/112488/?SS=imgview_e&FD=-313234702) other things are issues with the design: like you have to use special tools to disassemble the screen in order to get at the harddrive. The only thing that is user maintainable is the RAM, you can get at that and replace it. But I had/have money pouring out of my asshole as at the time at least I was getting 100/hr as a contractor with a one year contract so wanted a nice machine but also wanted something I could fit in one checked bag for when/if I moved somewhere else. Doing linux based dev work on a 27" screen unix-like OS is a bit better than the 19" windows box HP was offering. Nobody else I looked at (Dell, Lenovo) seemed to have anything that was less of a piece of crap than the HP, they'd have 2GB of RAM, a underpowered (even for them) integrated video card, 500GB laptop format harddrive or whatever.

not for Google TV).

Intel chips are expensive and these days you would be very much be expecting a highly integrated chip with demuxes and decoders for digital broadcasts, video and audio processing elements to improve the quality. There would typically be a whole bunch of functional units for most functions all baked onto the silicon. The General Purpose Processor would typically be fairly weak but with a lot of support. Main processors may get somewhat more powerful to support browser type technology but I wouldn't expect them to reach Intel Atom speeds in most cases for some time. Which would you rather have, a TV with a fast web browser or good picture processing?

The current Sony Google TVs (the integrated screens) still carry the same main chip as the rest of the Sony range in addition to the Intel processor and graphics. I'm not certain of the extent to which this is absolutely technically required or whether it was needed to use the existing TV reception and processing software. This means that the cost of the to build Google TV was like building a normal TV and adding a bare bones Atom PC. Expectation of pure additional sales, marketing funds from Intel and an expectation of smaller margins for retailers were what made the business case I understand although I think there were also some unreasonable assumptions particularly if you had ever tried the product.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20101117/187451/
http://www2.renesas.com/digital_av/en/mpegdec_tv/emma3tl2.html

If Intel do back away from the highly cost sensitive TV chip business I would expect Google to offer support for ARM. I think most of the TV manufacturers on or moving to ARM although MIPS was is certainly used in current models. The newer high performance ARM chips are a probably significantly more expensive than the typical TV processors but probably make more sense than the Intel Atoms with the ability to custom specify the chip features and still be cheaper.

Features on such chips will be specified by major manufacturers but the feature set will probably be locked down at least 18-24 months before the TV ships ruling out some things after that date.

The TV business is hugely competitive market and there is no profit in it (possibly with the exception of companies that have their own panel manufacturing). The combination of falling prices, long parts lead times and the importance of volume to get component prices make it a very tricky business to make money in. But it is key to many companies positions in the Consumer Electronics area and can bring leverage into other businesses (by enabling retail space, offering full product suites and increasingly giving scale to over the top online video offerings.).

40" sheet by samsung. http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20110125/189014/

Sandforce has already announced its new sata3 controller. On paper it looks like it will have much faster sequential writes than Intel, but it sounds like it will also have a shorter lifetime and shorter data retention times due to the use of 25nm NAND. Intel is wisely sticking with 34nm. It may be more expensive to manufacture, but is superior tech. I can only hope that OCZ changes their mind and decides to at least offer a more expensive 34nm version. OCZ won't be shipping their Vertex 3 drives until Q2 so Intel will have a big head start in the market.

The NAND industry seems to be doing its best to encourage ignorance on the disadvantages of smaller process sizes from the consumer POV and the ignorance seems to be widespread. Getting the facts on this issue can be a bit difficult. Here is a good thread on the topic.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2142742

The following post sums it up better than I could. Note his point about data retention times as well. That is a point that is often ignored when the focus is solely on write cycles.

As flash cells are shrunk, they become less good. This is a fundamental feature of the technology. The overall volume of the cell becomes smaller, so less electrons can be stored in the cell (so the signal picked up by the electronics is weaker and less clear, so you get a higher error rate) and the insulating barriers around the cell must be made thinner, in order to save space - allowing the electrons to leak out of the cell more easily (reducing power off data retention time). The thinner insulation also wears out more quickly (reducing life cycles)

It's difficult to define a 'fundamantal' limit for flash, because it may be possible to work around poor performance, and as yet unknown new manufacturing techniques and semiconductor materials may be developed. However, it has been suggested in the scientific literature that 18-22 nm, is the realistic limit. Beyond that, the performance/reliability/lifespan of the flash would be too poor, no matter how much wear levelling, and how sophisticated the ECC codes were.

Enterprise grade SSD flash, will need higher specifications than flash for toy cameras. Enterprise applications are unlikely to tolerate 18 nm flash with 100 write cycles and one lost sector per 100 GB of data stored. However, this probably would be acceptable for toys or throwaway devices.

Some more coverage of the topic:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20090528/170920/

NAND Flash memory quality is also beginning to drop. Chips manufactured using 90nm-generation technology in 2004-05, for example, were assured for about 100,000 rewrites and data retention of about a decade. As multi-level architecture and smaller geometry are introduced, quality is showing a sharp decline. The 30nm 2-bit/cell chips expected to enter volume production in 2009-10 may well end up with a rewrite assurance of no more than 3,000 cycles, and a data retention time of about a year. The first 3-bit/cell chips are hitting the market now, with only a few hundred rewrites.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1502663

Flash memory works by trapping electrons. Over time these electrons leak away, until the charge is too small for the data to be read any more. With smaller feature sizes (34 nm instead of 45 or 65 nm) this leakage is more significant and fewer electrons can be stored per bit, thus the time during which the stored value can be maintained is decreased.

http://www.corsair.com/blog/force25nm/

The target minimum data retention time for NAND flash is 10 years

From a prior discussion here it appears that the retention time will decrease significantly with the newer MLC cells. Rather than 100K rewrite cycles, the 30nm 2-bit/cells are expected to have no more than 3K rewrite cycles; 3-bit/cell chips will have less than 0.5K. http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20090528/170920/

This source also has some more technical details, like charging current, how much current the charging station will draw from the grid (20kW), that the charging station has twin batteries with different properties, that car makers need to adopt new battery types for it to work:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20100621/183598/

How can anyone post this when we have the exclusive deal confirmed? http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/10/confirmed-apple-and-atandt-signed-five-year-iphone-exclusivity-de/

Show me the signatures on that contract and the date it was signed. Their "confirmation" is a referral to general knowledge of an exclusivity deal because USA Today published wording to that effect. Basically they're using weasel wording so they don't have to disclose the actual contract--which suggests the whole truth is missing. Further, who's to say the 5 year exclusivity deal started the day the iPhone went on sale, and not 18 months earlier when Apple was looking to lock a network? You think they designed, built, and shipped a phone with a contract that didn't start until they reached customer's hands?

And the other is that the last time I checked, Verizon doesn't have GSM. Why would Apple manufacture two different devices, and one that can't be used in all the other world markets? I'm not trying to start a GSM/CDMA holy war, just acknowledging that Apple is doing just fine with AT&T and GSM. Why would they go through all that trouble just to get Verizon customers?

Especially since Verizon seems to insist on branding all phones they offer--I don't see how Steve would accept that either.

Verizon has nearly 93 million subscribers, a large percentage of which have expressed interest in an iPhone. Apple is expected to sell 16 million iPhones this year to AT&T's 83 million subscribers, which is nearly half of their total sales. Why wouldn't Apple jump at the earliest opportunity to further increase sales by another 50%? It's not a big technical feat for them to design a CDMA iPhone, other manufacturers with much less money at stake than Apple produce multiple models on CDMA, GSM, euro-specific frequencies, AT&T frequencies, and T-Mobile frequencies. After Apple's done with VZW, there's also China and Canada, along with Sprint, Cricket, and MetroPCS in the US all with decent numbers of CDMA subscribers. In all, world CDMA subscribers are something like 462 million, even if that's only 14% of the mobile market.

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/01/06/piper_15_8m_us_iphone_sales_in_2010_even_without_verizon.html
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20070215/127796/

What articles were you reading that said a battery tech would go from "in the lab" to "on the market" in 18 months? 5 years or so is more typical. And 500% battery improvement tech announcements are rare. There are a couple out there, like li-air, but not many. And many people confuse significant improvements on one part of a battery (say, the anode or cathode) with improvements on the cell as a whole.

Li-ion batteries have advanced about 40% since 2005.

There's a serious problem with the announcements making the news but the commercialization coming in under the radar. Remember back in 2007 when Slashdot covered that silicon nanowires had been determined to be an excellent anode for li-ion batteries? The reporting was crap, mind you -- they confused an anode density improvement "up to 10x" with being a whole battery improvement (even a 10x anode improvement would be an under 2x battery improvement if not paired with an equivalent cathode improvement, mind you). The researcher was looking to be "forming a company", but first they would have to deal with "cycle life" problems. The first batteries of this type were to hit the market as early as 5 years.

It's only 3 years later and it's already started. Mind you, these first versions are much more limited -- they start out. But as the tech is refined, they will continue to advance, just like the old graphite anodes did. Early li-ion cells really sucked compared to what we have today. Silicon will go through the same process.

You see the same thing with cathodes. And other anode materials. And separators, and electrolytes, and casings. And all in all, the tech marches on. But consumers don't even notice it because their devices just keep shrinking the batteries and consuming more power. The battery improvement isn't Moore's impressive doubling-every-1.5-years. But it's just as relentless.

I stand corrected: Toyota began offering in 2008 a Japanese only vehicle called the "Crown Hybrid" with optional "Night View". But good luck finding any vehicles with this system, but you can buy a 2000 DTS with Night Vision if you call Nick

According to Akihito Nishikawa, senior manager, Memory Division, SSD Application Engineering Dept of Toshiba, "The memory cell is assured for about 3,000 rewrites. If the target SSD capacity is 128GB, then the total bit capacity is 128GB times 3,000 cycles divided by 1.5 (our figure for rewrite efficiency), or 256TB. Toshiba research indicates that actual PC users generally don't rewrite more than 20GB, max, per day. If these numbers are used to estimate the SSD service life, it works out to 256TB divided by 20GB divided by 365 days, or about 35 years.

Source: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20090528/170920/

Two angles only, but maybe if you got cuddly and placed your head on someone else's you might have some luck. There is a diagram of the film here It seems to suggest that with larger screens, the edges of the screen will fade out due to light not reflecting cleanly off the ridges of the film. Maybe this can be fixed by using variable sized ridges, but that would require a special LCD with variable sized pixels, which introduces new problems, and you still only have one viewing spot.

The operation works as follows. Taken from here: "Sumitomo 3M utilized the directionality so that the light from the left LED light source comes to the right eye and the light from the right LED light source comes to the left eye. And the company enabled to view 3D images with the naked eye by synchronizing the lighting of the left LED light source and the display of the image seen by the right eye (and the lighting of the right LED light source and the display of the image seen by the left eye).

Furthermore, it is possible to show 2D images by using the right and left LED light sources at the same time and displaying the same image for both the right and left eyes. Therefore, it is easy to switch between 2D and 3D images.

It's not a typical lenticular display, exactly.

The real innovation here is the 3M material, not the TI chips driving the display. The material requires that the image be illuminated alternately fro the right and left edges of the screen, the material deflects that light into the right and left eyes respectively. Unlike lenticular displays, there is only one viewing direction that works, but it won't diminish the spatial resolution of the display (only the temporal one.) It will work great for something like a game-boy or an iPhone. Even something as small as an iPad, though, might have problems because the difference in eye-to-screen angle from one side of the display to the other.

This slide tells you everything you need to know about the 3M film.

I learned something interesting about Google's javascript parser while evaluating various parsers as potential candidates for a scripting engine in an application. The reason it's so fast? It's got a JIT compiler, just like modern Java runtimes. This means that once things get going, JavaScript is going to approach native code speed. Unfortunately it also limits the platforms on which the engine can run. Google is targeting x86 (of course) and ARM (naturally, since they've got their eyes on the mobile market). Interesting times...

Rupert Murdoch and this Sony CEO are the same type of person. People like them don't get to become high up in corporations without being power seeking control freaks.

There are exceptions, however. This interview posted on the last story, for instance, with somebody who seems to be far above the management chain as this story's clown is far more level-headed and he actually seems to have a clue about what the Internet is all about.

I believe, however, that it's just that power seeking control freaks get noticed more. For instance, what is the name of IBM's CEO? yet we all know who Ballmer and Jobs are, same thing with Murdoch and, despite being merely the CEO of their movies division, it was this guy Lynton whose interview got posted on Slashdot (twice!) instead of that with Mr. Stringer. Controversy and stupidity sells and that's as true for businesses as it is for movie celebrities.

Lynton really should >listen to his own boss, Howard Stringer, now and again. From the _same_ _week_ that Lynton made is incredibly ignorant statement:

Consumers today are a lot different from how they were 20 years ago. They aren't passive any more. The spread of the Internet has given them the power to dictate how products are used, and an increasing number of people are discovering new ways to have fun, such as by creating their own content.

A diverse range of electronics will be connecting to the Internet in the near future, tapping Web-based services, and we have to think about what we need to do to make our customers - the king - like our products. I think the key to this lies in watching our customers. If a Sony employee were to ask me what a reasonable market price might be for distributing video to the home, I would tell him, "Don't listen to me; watch our customers." ...

Five years ago content companies were regarded as king in our industry, but that was wrong: the customer is king.

Sure, some people might say, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about." But I reached this conclusion after spending more time on the road, worldwide, than most executives. ...

That's right. Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. ...

Customers today want to be able to freely access content via the Internet, information technology. This requirement represents a threat to our content business, and to existing frameworks for rights management. I don't see that we have any choice, though. We have to create a sanctuary which provides customers an environment for their enjoyment. That is how we can change a threat to the content business into an opportunity.

Howard Stringer is. Also, he recently gave an interview where he talks about a number of things, including how badly he thinks Sony has screwed up in the past and what he thinks they need to change. Reading that interview, I don't see any indication that he thinks that nothing good has come from the internet. He actually seems eager to embrace it and all the possibilities.

Which would be great, considering how many times Sony has dropped the ball in recent years.

This guy should talk to his own people more often--Sony's CEO and chairman Howard Stringer said in a recent interview:

Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. I think the failure of AOL LLC of the US is good evidence of this. When the Internet was just beginning to spread, AOL boosted its subscriber base by providing special services only to its customers. After a while, though, customers began rebelling, complaining that they weren't children. Because AOL wanted to keep them locked up in a narrow portion of the immense Internet cosmos

Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.
  Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.

Previously, Lynton had worked extensively on internet related matters. He was President, AOL International, and CEO, AOL Europe starting in 2000, where he was responsible for AOL Europe as well as for AOL operations in Asia and Latin America.

Can't decide if this is hilarious or depressing :)

He is CEO of Sony Pictures, not Sony. The actual CEO of Sony looks like he has a brain and knows how to use it, judging from this recent interview: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20090427/169423/?P=2

'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.'

Well then I trust you personally don't use it at all.

It's become customary to expect a somewhat limited perspective on things from old-world entertainment companies.

Relax, he's just one voice of a thousand at Sony.

Is this when we all give up hope that companies like Sony Pictures can adapt?

Frankly, I've got enough problems of my own to be concerned with their problems. It is and has been for quite sometime an adapt-or-die scenario for these guys. If they haven't figured it out, you won't see me shaking my fist up at the sky screaming "WHY!? Why couldn't you take me instead of Sony Pictures!?"

This guy should talk to his own people more often--Sony's CEO and chairman Howard Stringer said in a recent interview:

Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. I think the failure of AOL LLC of the US is good evidence of this. When the Internet was just beginning to spread, AOL boosted its subscriber base by providing special services only to its customers. After a while, though, customers began rebelling, complaining that they weren't children. Because AOL wanted to keep them locked up in a narrow portion of the immense Internet cosmos, open technology was created. Sony hasn't taken open technology very seriously in the past. Its CONNECT music download service was a failure. It was based on OpenMG, a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology. At the time, we thought we would make more money that way than with open technology, because we could manage the customers and their downloads. This approach, however, created a problem: customers couldn't download music from any Websites except those that contracted with Sony. If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc of the US.

Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.

Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.

Brad Wardell of Stardock and Ron Carmel of 2D Boy

I don't know who that is but a few days ago I submitted a story on an interview with Sony's CEO:

In an interview with Nikkei Electronics Asia this month, Sony CEO and chairman Howard Stringer revealed an interesting point about open technologies: 'Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. I think the failure of AOL LLC of the US is good evidence of this. When the Internet was just beginning to spread, AOL boosted its subscriber base by providing special services only to its customers. After a while, though, customers began rebelling, complaining that they weren't children. Because AOL wanted to keep them locked up in a narrow portion of the immense Internet cosmos, open technology was created. Sony hasn't taken open technology very seriously in the past. Its CONNECT music download service was a failure. It was based on OpenMG, a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology. At the time, we thought we would make more money that way than with open technology, because we could manage the customers and their downloads. This approach, however, created a problem: customers couldn't download music from any Websites except those that contracted with Sony. If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc of the US.' He then mentions that Sony has a chance to provide something that Apple can't. Sounds like somebody should inform him of DRM-free iTunes. However when asked about customer confusion over too many open technologies, he claims that the customer will always like choice so the more the better.

Didn't get published so I thought I'd post it here as evidence that even the music distribution companies are saying, "Why bother with DRM?" Not surprising now that Amazon and iTunes are doing it though. I predict everyone will eventually pull their heads out of their asses, it just will take some longer than others.

I am not convinced that switching to a MIPS CPU would make that much difference. An entry level Atom CPU starts at $20 or $45 including chipset [2], so the price of an atom is smallish even in a comparison to the price of the $250 netbook. Depending on the atom in question, the atom may take up to 2.5 watts at 100% CPU usage, about as much as a single desktop DIMM of ram, much less than the 28W a 10" monitor could draw [3]. A low power atom would draw just 0.65 watt [2]. It seems that one you start looking at a machine with decent specs, you'll want to spend a few extra dollars and a couple of extra watts (up to 1W idle [1]) to get an Atom that has double [1] the performance of the fastest ARM11 based CPU.

[1] http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/HONSHI/20080529/152586/
[2] http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/36795/118/
[3] http://www.planetomni.com/MSLCD_SHRP_lc-10a2ubp_DTL.shtml

English version

Nikkei Microdevices has an interesting write up (in english) here: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090128/164717/

A) you only save it on one side (the laptop case does not generally extend below the battery case - the bottom of the battery case is part of the laptop case.

1) On some laptops yes, on others no. I have several laptops where that isn't true; including from Apple. And of course, Apple's marketing department is going to go with the relative comparison that makes the numbers as impressive as possible.

2) The numbers were hypothetical to make the point (and I said so up front), not actual.

My tablet PC, which has the thinnest laptop battery I've ever seen (and runs for 5 hours on it) has a battery at least half an inch thick, including case. Take out the case and it's still going to be 10mm or so.

Take a look at the battery in the macbook air. The new MBP probably has a very similiar design.

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080215/147525/

Scroll down to the 5th or 6th picture, where they look at the battery. The actual cells might well be ~3mm thick; especially if you factor in that the "battery" there still includes some minimal plastic packaging and cushioning.

Aside from the RSS feeds of Slashdot and the main UK dailys, I like to read semantically or search engine generated feeds:

Delicious popular tag 'politics':
http://del.icio.us/rss/popular/politics

Delicious popular tag 'science':
http://del.icio.us/rss/popular/science

Google News search 'biodiesel', an endless stream of positive news:
http://news.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&q=biodiesel&ie=UTF-8&output=rss

I'm hoping that Delicious may eventually allow combinations of tags, e.g. popular uk+politics.

Plus a few other plain RSS feeds:

BBC Technology:
http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_uk_edition/technology/rss.xml

XKCD A webcomic of romance and math humor.
http://xkcd.com/rss.xml

Tech-On Asian Technology News:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/index.rdf

The Guardian's 'Comment is Free' article stream with comment section:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/rss

Buffalo Beast, US political satire:
http://interglacial.com/rss/buffalo_beast.rss

Fabians political society:
http://fabians.org.uk/index2.php?option=com_ds-syndicate&version=1&feed_id=1

"Kiyoshi Hirasawa, president of Genepax Co Ltd, unveiled part of the reaction mechanism of the company's new fuel cell system called "Water Energy System" in an interview with Nikkei Electronics." http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080616/153301/

of the inside of the box.

FYI the video that's been going around is a bit misleading. The guy talking in Japanese doesn't say the car ONLY needs water. He says with water, the car can keep running, not denying there are other factors. The translator made news where there really wasn't any, and the company obviously benefited from the mistranslation. They were probably even counting on it.

Any claims from the company carefully state their system, WES, uses water. And they never say WES doesn't need maintenance.

The company does repeatedly emphasize how the car doesn't need gas, and they basically lead anyone to think that: no gas + water = water powered car. Although, like many here have noticed, they never claim water itself is powering the car.

I don't have time to look for them, but apparently, like all inventions made public, there are already patents on file regarding this technology. And they are along the lines of using aluminium.

Hopefully there is innovation here in performance or efficiency, although it might be the case where they put some previous invention in a car for the first time.

I do like the idea of having the main tank only needing water though. Like maybe have aluminium powder cells recycled every few weeks, while filling the tank every few days with water. Assuming the cells take less space, we could have them shipped to us, and stack them in our basement. That would end the need for gas stations and gas to hydrogen station conversions (which I doubt will ever happen).

Here, read this, which has been posted here already, somewhere above.

Another article that has been posted here. It has a more in-depth description than TFA.

Yes, it's the same thing. From an article posted here

Apparently, physics don't apply, but chemistry. They apparently use a chemical reaction to separate hydrogen from water. From an article that was posted here.

I found a better "TFA" than a lame Reuters vid. There's actually a few more details about the system.

Yes, it is a fuel-cell. Here's an article some pictures as well.

That article also made conflicting statements, like mentioning "requires no special catalyst" and then a few lines down talkng about longevity of their system "catalyst degradation (poisoning) caused by CO does not occur on the fuel electrode side". So which is it? Catalyst or no?

There is some hidden magic to this thing, some consumable other than just water powering it. It might not be as bad as metal hydrides to split the water, but until they come clean and go into detail of the process, its just another one of those perpetual motion machines: splits water to h2+o2, burns h2 w/o2 into water, rinse, repeat.

Tm

I'm no expert and I don't know if this helps any, but there definitely is more info out there on how this supposedly works. It's not some big mystery. Maybe some of you guys can deconstruct whether or not this is possible from the info at this link: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080613/153276/

It is basically a water-based fuel cell, and it's supposedly using technology that already exists - it's just able to produce energy for a longer time than current fuel cells.

It doesn't seem like "free energy" - there are obviously costs involved with a fuel cell system - but it would be a major improvement in all areas over a standard combustion engine. Whether it would compete with plug-in electric cars, I don't know. Whether it's even possible, I don't know either, but the point is there are a lot more details out there to look at than just what's in the "non-critical" Reuters summary that we're all being pointed to here.

*Sighs*

Anyway, the most important thing is that we have one HD format now, so new HD consumers don't have to be afraid to cut themselves with the wrong format. I'm glad it's Blu-Ray, but HD-DVD would've been acceptable as well.

• Better article
  
• Research paper, about data storage in acteria which can only be accessed if you have a log in, (or site license, whee)
  

Waiting for a SED sounds like a dumb idea. Toshiba want to keep them expensive and exclusive.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20061 225/125850/

Strange concept. Perhaps this suggests that they don't think they will be able to get the price down enough to compete.

OK, this may even sound a bit un-American, but dont worry about the iPhone. The Chinese will copy it. It's a cool form factor, and just like other Apple products, they will clone it. They have already done this with similar phones. It will probably have a better screen,, run Linux, and be easily available unlocked at half the cost in guangzhou, shenzhen or the other Far East tech markets. From there, they'll make it to eBay. Those guys are fast too. There's a fair chance it will be available before the iPhone is even available.

I've never been impressed with the black levels on either LCD or Plasma panels - they both suck, although Plasma is (usually) better.

It's said that Plasma panels no longer suffer from burn-in, but they have too-short a warranty for me to take that gamble. HDR LCD panels should be coming out in 2007, and will certainly give Plasma a shot to the head. Panasonic is panicking and trying to clear-out their Plasma stocks because they perceive the impending threat.

For my money, I'm holding out for SED (Surface-conduction Electron-emitter Display) panels. Millions of CRT's in a flat panel - neither LCD nor Plasma will be able to match its colour gamut, tonal range nor its power consumption. Now if only Canon and Toshiba (the SED research and production partners) would get off their butts and launch them to markets outside of Japan, instead of cancelling US demonstrations, I'd actually go out and buy one. Although I'd probably settle for a HDR LCD if SED never arrives.

According to other sources, the power consumption of the PS3 is somewhere between 180 and 205 watts.
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20061 113/123458/
That is probably worse than your space-heater Athlon XP.

Im more impressed with the power supply the PS3 comes with, the site shown here doesn't display it, but here is the image...Powersupply

Truley remarkable as to how small it is, and can power up the PS3. You can see other images here

The site referenced in the vid has pictures of the motherboard.

Here's the translated text of the announcement:

Exhibition schedule title booth contents 2nd feature announcement

2006/09/12

We announce the game software, and booth contents 107 it has the notification to September 1st. Unpublished amount is included and the number of present exhibition schedule titles (the peripheral device and the like it includes), they are 573 titles. Among those, the game of online correspondence becomes 133 titles. Both the quantity of advanced registration and the number of online corresponding games, the previous opening time when past it is highest (the quantity of advanced registration: 516, the number of online corresponding games: 80) It reaches the number of registers which are exceeded. The number of titles classified by genre and classified by platform is as follows.
* As for details annex PDF (exhibition schedule title summary booth contents summary) please refer to.

<Exhibition schedule title several summaries>

Genre The number of titles

Action 129
Roll playing 76
Simulation 49
Puzzle 35
Adventure 33
Sport 28
Shooting 23
Racing 16
In addition 184

Platform The number of titles

Personal computer 127
Portable telephone 125
Play station 2 100
[nintendo] DS 52
[pureisuteshiyon] Playstation portable 33
Xbox 360 20
Play station 3 18
Wii 5
Game boy advance 2
Xbox 1
[nintendogemukiyubu] Nintendo Gamecube 1
Play station 1
In addition 88

About the test playing of game title of part

From latest "Tokyo game Shaw 2006", attendant upon the use of the CESA ethical stipulated CERO ethical stipulated new rating system, "the Z division" work or to test playing of the work which includes the expression which is suitable "Z division" makes only 18 years old or more. When test playing of the game title which has age restriction it is desired, the document which can do age verification () presentation such as driver's permit passport student's card becomes necessary. As for 18 years old or more carrying, the fish you ask the above-mentioned document.
* It does age verification with each booth.