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Someone explains that they're an "emerging markets" partner which means nothing at all to us. The company (JP.ik, part of some corporate umbrella called "JP Group") is a marketing and design firm that basically sells package deals to education departments in places like Africa.

Kind of strange they'd brand the laptops as their own, but I guess "blank, featureless box ordered in bulk from China" is even less appealing.

No doubt, credit where credit is due and my hats off to MS in their browsers efficiency, however, it still doesn't change the fact that Microsoft's browser will always be seen as inferior like IE. I guess (sadly) the same as many people see Firefox as always bloated and inefficient compared to Chrome.

MS will no doubt use this to their advantage in ads as much as possible, but I don't think it will change the browser war - until perhaps they (like Google) also spend billions in advertising Edge all over the world in train stations to newspapers to billboards... all over the world! :)

But good news for the rest of us, hopefully it will force competition and hopefully get (especially) Mozilla to create a more efficient browser!

I'll give people the benefit of doubt, but it sounds like a whole ton of commenters here are going on with guesswork.

First of all, no, it's not easy in any way shape or form to create a rogue touch ID reader that would "send signals" allowing the iPhone 7 to be unlocked.
It'd already be plenty hard for someone to open up a phone and replace it surreptiously, let alone coming up with new hardware that would be compatible.

Do you guys even know how the TouchID reader works? Well, neither do I of course... it's proprietary. But here's an overview:
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12...
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09...
https://support.apple.com/en-u...

Basically, it works like a very specific and proprietary camera/microscope. It detects fine detailed fingerprint information, converts it into code and sends it to the SoC to be processed via software.
Nothing is processed on the button itself, and even if it was, you wouldn't be able to easily figure out what it did - or it'd be unsecure by definition.

But again, the hardware is very proprietary. You'd probably need insider knowledge of production to even come close to making something that would work like it, and it'd be expensive as hell to reproduce one. The companies that makes these things have secretive processes that not only would be incredibly hard to figure out, it'd be outright impossible to reproduce without proper technologies.

Do people even realize how much easier it'd be to just chop up someone's finger and bypass the whole thing anyways?

Even if you couldn't go to such extremes, it'd be easier for hackers and malicious actors to try to reproduce an entire detailed human finger complete with ridges, pores and whatnot (at it's current stage) than creating some rogue device that could bypass the security enclave somehow.
And you cannot retrieve information from previous fingerprints used for authentication because they are encrypted in the phone storage, not in the reader.

The only likely scenario where Touch ID could be used to steal fingerprints, depending a lot on how it works, would be to use an original unit modified to store readouts, and then creating new hardware that would send those into the system. But that's quite unlikely... if not outright impossible. Again, it depends on how exactly the reader works. Note though how no one every did anything like this, because it just doesn't make sense. iPhones will always have easier vulnerabilities to explore to retrieve data.

It's always good to note though that fingerprint sensors should NEVER be used as the sole authentication method if you have sensitive information inside the phone. Because, like I said, it's a matter of finding a way to make a very detailed reproduction of your finger. With 3D print technology and camera technology always improving, it'll be doable at some point in time.
It was already done for the iPhone 6, though not something that just anyone could do:
http://www.cultofmac.com/29688...

Apple is already facing a class action lawsuit regarding the so called Error 53, related to iPhone 6 bricking the phone if the Touch ID was replaced, so it really doesn't look good for them to repeat the whole deal for the iPhone 7.
https://www.macrumors.com/2016...
Australia's consumer protection agency also just filled a lawsuit:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2017/...

And you know, the company has backtracked because the very same excuses some commenters are making here were not enoug

>"If the idea sounds familiar, it's because Microsoft attempted to do this with its Microsoft Display Dock that requires a Windows 10 Lumia 950 or 950 XL with Continuum and a USB-C connector"

Nice try giving MS "innovation", but that is not the only example. This has been tried before in many various ways over the years. Here are just a few:

https://www.technobuffalo.com/...

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/d...

http://maruos.com/

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/...

Don't take his word for it

http://gizmodo.com/an-iphone-i...
http://www.cultofmac.com/29186...
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/...
https://www.cnet.com/news/ipho...
http://www.pcr-online.biz/news...
https://9to5mac.com/2014/02/22...
http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/02/...
http://bgr.com/2016/10/03/ipho...
http://bgr.com/2016/09/29/ipho...
http://bgr.com/2016/09/30/ipho...
http://bgr.com/2016/10/03/ipho...

And those are just the first two pages of Google links. It's not just Apple - all phones do this. All phones with lithium batteries have a chance of entering thermal runaway. It's inherent in the materials. That said, the Note 7 was close to two orders of magnitude above what a consumer device really should be in terms of spontaneous combustion. Still low probability, but too high for the disruptive nature of and heat generating device on an operating aircraft.

Not only is that illegal; but it flies in the face of Apple's iOS business model.

So change the law, and fuck Apple's business model.

Oh, so having an EMBEDDED device with the Hardware and Software designed by the same party is a BAD thing?

You're nuts.

Mr. Smarty-Pants Communist?

That's a comedy reference, you dolt. Look it up.

Meanwhile, your fanatical and slavish devotion to Apple blinds you to the fact that the new IPhone is completely broken for a common use case: listen to music for more than five hours (so you can't use wireless earbuds) and charge phone while listening to music (on train etc.).

Belkin has already fixed that.

So, not being able to use headphones and charge the phone is a real issue for them

Fortunately, Belkin has already fixed the problem. And knowing China, it will be about 5 nanoseconds before that is copied and sold for 5 Ruan locally.

Later this month, people stupid enough to give money to a crowd-funded project, and do it via PayPal, will be shit out of luck,

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2016/...''

PayPal offers customers Purchase Protection for things they buy, including payments to crowd-funded projects. PayPal has announced that effective June 25 they be changing their TOS and will no longer offer Purchase Protection for crowdfunding. If you donate to a project via PayPal and it fails or turns out to be a scam, PayPal will no longer guarantee you that you will get your money back.

Interesting information on the Nexus 6. Any links? My phone is a 6P. If you google "nexus 6p fm radio" there will be lots of webpages saying the 6P does not have an FM radio, including this one:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/produ...

I bought Nexus specifically so I can run stock Android and have all my features run smoothly. I don't really want to run cyanogenmod. But the option is interesting.

And comparing an iPhone with an Android phone on specs is pointless. We all know that you can get more for cheaper with Android, but you won't get an iPhone.

Well I'd say Apple gave itself a pretty damn huge bump here. It's hard to find benchmarks with the 5s, 6s and Sony Xperia Z5 compact (the only other mini-flagship, really) on one page but here and here and here combined gives some:

Basemark OS II:
iPhone 5s: 1180
Z5 compact: 1350
iPhone 6s: 2619

T-rex HD (offscreen):
iPhone 5s: 28.7
Z5 compact: ~55 (approximated from graph)
iPhone 6s: 80.3

Manhattan (offscreen):
iPhone 5s: 13.1
Z5 compact: ~25 (approximated from graph)
iPhone 6s: 40.1

Considering the 5se will have the same CPU, same GPU and hopefully same RAM as the 6s the 5se should be pretty close and that seems like an awful lot of power in a really small phone. Maybe even overkill to drive a 1136x640 display, but it should give applications a lot of leg room to work with and hopefully keep it performing well even on iOS 10-11-12 and unlike my low-end Android phone it'll actually get updates. Now there's rumors of a Samsung Galaxy S7 mini, but right now I'd say the iPhone 5SE looks to become the undisputed champion - if only in a particular niche. And for giving up the screen real estate a 5se is $150 cheaper than a 6s for the same storage, it's not cheap but it fits the lineup. Pretty sure this is my next phone...

The USB charging port is only 5V

False.

Quick Charge 2.0 chargers can support 5V, 9V or 12V (volts) and up to 3A (Ampere) and 60W.

That's got propellers, and its go tubes, but no wires so its not a drone, its crude mockup.

It might even be just a rendering of pipes and propellers even, certainly not an engineering rendering.

I assume they'll try to crowd fund it without a working prototype?

From this link Hycopter Runs Off Fuel Cells it has a wonderful little bit of design data:

The intelligent design involved in the Hycopter would allow it to stash 120 grams (4.2 oz) of hydrogen gas at 350 bar (5,076 psi) in its current structural tubing, and this means that there would be no need for any kind of separate canister.

5000psi?!?!??! Seriously?!?!? (and there is a religious joke in there as well) I'm not buying that until I see the damn thing fly. Oh and BTW

The refillable tubes will eventually be made from polymer-lined 5 mm-thick carbon fiber tubing as opposed to clear acrylic that is part of the pictured display model. It is touted that that amount of hydrogen ought to be able to deliver a similar amount of energy as 3 kg (6.6 lb) of lithium batteries.

Motorola said it wasn't possible for the Google Xoom tablet to use KitKat 4.4.2, a developer showed it was http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/... making the old new again.

Handset manufacturers are just liars. Sony claimed they couldn't put ICS on the Xperia Play after they promised all Xperia devices would get ICS, but the community has done it since, too.

See now this is why Google is so successful.

I agree.

Google has had no problem in the past with people rooting (jail breaking) their product, once sending dev developers a soon to be released Android phone so they could have a head start.

It's a good bet to say if you own an Android tablet/cell phone and enter "about device" clicking 7 times on say the "Kernel Number" listing or one of the info blocks you will enter Developer mode, for the Samsung S5 it's the “build number” info block.

Once your in dev mode you can run ADB:
"ADB, Android Debug Bridge, is a command-line utility included with Google’s Android SDK. ADB can control your device over USB from a computer, copy files back and forth, install and uninstall apps, run shell commands, and more."
http://www.howtogeek.com/12576...

A requirement and first step to rooting (jail breaking (owning)) a device.

Motorola said it wasn't possible for the Google Xoom tablet to use KitKat 4.4.2, a developer showed it was http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/... making the old new again.

I got it recently, and it's got 4k at 60FPS, in a 28" size - great for programming.

Review link

Just to try it, I was able to get all the single-player PC Ultima games running in about half the screen real estate:

ALL THE ULTIMAS

It's around $600 when its on sale, so I think it just about matches the model slashvertised here.

Ryan Fenton

50 million users, dumb basement dwelling mouthbreathing dweeb, atleast update your bullshit. That's way more than desktop Linux.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/...

Point to point lasers work just fine.

It seems that the drm will still be there in some form though.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/07/forza-5-requires-download-before-it-can-run/

though they've been backpeddling from that too.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/18/forza-motorsport-5-install-offline-details-clarified

best case i could give them is a wait and see approach.

when i look at these factors:
the xbone fiasco.
the windows8 mess.
consumers seem to like apple now.
ms' abysmal presence on mobile devices.

it's seeming very plausible that consumers will realize there just is no good reason for microsoft to exist anymore. about the only customer they haven't alienated is the ms office user.

No that have POed the Office users too with the ribbons

It seems that the drm will still be there in some form though.
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/07/forza-5-requires-download-before-it-can-run/

though they've been backpeddling from that too.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/18/forza-motorsport-5-install-offline-details-clarified

best case i could give them is a wait and see approach.

when i look at these factors:
the xbone fiasco.
the windows8 mess.
consumers seem to like apple now.
ms' abysmal presence on mobile devices.

it's seeming very plausible that consumers will realize there just is no good reason for microsoft to exist anymore. about the only customer they haven't alienated is the ms office user.

The Ativ Q runs Android on top of Windows... and was anounced today with the same display. I don't know if it's using Bluestacks or something else, but it looks infinitely more topical for Slashdot than this thing is.

Sorry for comment hijacking.

Wow, I didn't think Slashdot could go lower but it just managed to do that.

Next headline: MS to abandon Windows, because Windows XP support Ends April 8, 2014?

Microsoft will make Windows Phone 9, in fact they even have people working on testing it.

http://msftkitchen.com/windows-phone-9-testing-begins-also-windows-9-gets-a-mention-from-microsoft

And Windows Phone 8 phones will be upgradeable.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2416002,00.asp

And Windows Phone is growing marketshare:

http://wmpoweruser.com/italy-shows-their-windows-phone-strength-already-15-of-windows-phone-market/
http://wmpoweruser.com/windows-phone-has-a-16-3-market-share-in-poland-one-of-the-highest-in-the-world/
http://www.fiercewireless.com/europe/story/analyst-windows-phone-sees-strong-growth-uk-and-italy/2013-01-23
http://www.wpcentral.com/long-queues-china-nokia-lumia-920-sells-out-two-hours [And yes, that's actually picture of people queuing for Windows Phone)

Picking up some loyal users who seem to like it :
http://wmpoweruser.com/pcmag-readers-choice-awards-2013-windows-phone-wins-mobile-os-category/
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/01/customer-satisfaction-of-windows-phone-on-the-rise-according-to-survey/

And winning some awards
http://www.wpcentral.com/nokia-lumia-920-struts-its-stuff-and-takes-prestigious-innovative-handset-award-2013
http://wmpoweruser.com/nokia-lumia-920-wins-engadget-smartphone-of-2012-user-vote/

And yet we have this bullshit FUD summary, headline and article? No wonder Slashdot is losing readership fast, with barely a few comments for stories compared to earlier.

The partyline biased moderation, calling people with alternate viewpoints shills and chasing them away into karma hell can only last so long before the echo chamber gets tired of listening to itself and packs it up.

Reminds me of this story http://tech.slashdot.org/story/09/02/16/2259257/draconian-drm-revealed-in-windows-7

Even the mainstream tech media noticed that. Interesting read: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/02/oh-the-humanity-windows-7s-draconian-drm/

I doubt any one would care now, with most people having written off Slashdot as the hiding place of anti-Microsoft trolls and zealots living in their alternate reality. Posters like bmo, symbolset, tuple666, Zero__Kelvin, LordLimeCat, Jeremiah Cornelius, UnknowingFool, rtfa-troll, binarylarry, MightyMartian, drinkypoo, pieroxy and a whole bunch of others have ruined Slashdot beyond repair and seem to suffer from this affliction: http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/07/25/1757253/linus-calls-microsoft-hatred-a-disease

When Microsoft dominated the browser market by abusing its market power in the operating system market, that was an antitrust problem. Should we not be concerned when a group of competitors collude to dominate the HTML rendering engine market? It's a different kind of market than the browser market, but it is still a market, and a dominant player will cause problems for both competitors and consumers. For example, even though the WebKit browsers are generally free, WebKit's dominance is steadily leading to a lack of choice and a security monoculture. Witness the recent FillDisk exploit, which only affects WebKit browsers.

This is an example of how open source can allow competitors to collaborate in ways that might ordinarily raise more antitrust scrutiny. Here, several companies for whom an HTML engine is an input have collaborated to reduce the cost of that input. In doing so they have effectively pushed a competitor (Opera) out of the HTML engine market. Firefox and IE's usage share have also steadily been falling for years in favor of WebKit browsers. Will we wait until WebKit has a stranglehold on the market before taking corrective action, like we did with IE?

...Apple sought an injunction for claiming that it infringed on their iPhone design patent

Apple looking to add Samsung's Galaxy S3 to their injunction

Added back the part of the quote not supported by your link. So, let's sum up: you ask a question, answer it yourself - wrong of course, and then try to pretend you were right by pretending you were asking something else. Did I miss something?

...Apple sought an injunction...

Apple looking to add Samsung's Galaxy S3 to their injunction

That article is just talking about a few apps that happen to be useful for disabled people and including Skype because it lets you video conference and putting it under the same umbrella as real accessibility programs is reaching. Here's a little article describing some of the baked in accessibility in Android.

True.

Here's an example.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2009/01/mwv-natralock-offers-greener-packaging/

Casio G-Shock GB-6900 Bluetooth watch. Uses Bluetooth Low Energy with compatible devices (iPhone 4s, few newer Android phones) so it doesn't drain power like other past Bluetooth enabled watches. Sync to the time on your phone, lets you set phone alerts/alarms/ringtones/etc, read text messaging and email, etc. Good companion piece if you don't like take your phone out of your pocket.

And then they change it every few months. So it's still a secret.

http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/01/23/1242247/google-updates-algorithm-to-punish-websites-with-excessive-ads

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/04/google-to-penalize-websites-that-abuse-seo/

You beat me to it. Of course, someone's already implemented this using a Kinect

They've also shown flexible and transparent displays, so hopefully that 27" 8K display will come rolled up in a tube ready to hang on the wall.

When books can be copied for free, why pay 200$ for a physical version of the book?

I own every hardware iteration of the Nook (that's five, if you are counting), plus other devices on which the Nook app runs. I have a huge library, both electronic and physical. I read constantly. I even have some trade books in electronic form - but I also own the physical book for those. As much as I love ebooks, I need a physical textbook to get the most of out it.

Maybe I'm just an old fuddy-duddy. But to me, modern ebook navigation isn't up to the task of helping me mine textbooks. So much easier to just turn, and see this huge illustrated book next to me than to have to click "go to page" "387" to reference a second work.

Now... give me a desk like this, and a couple cheap 'huge ipad-like devices' and improve flipping back and forth between two disparate pages and I think I can make something work.

The real question is whether we need a new edition every single year for every single subject in order for it to be financially viable. It's my understanding that for many publishing houses these things are a tax write off anyway.

If my job depended on me getting grants to study global warming, then there is going to be a big need to study global warming.

That is some nice circular logic there. The problem is that scientists studying in many different (and not just "global warming") have found evidence to support the theory because it has such widespread effects on the planet.

Also, think of the times where the science has been shown to be wrong. The IPCC repots have had a few mistakes in them, and every single time the mistakes were discovered and published by other scientists. They did this without losing their jobs.

Finally, if science really worked the way that you described, then virtually all science would be bogus. It would not just affect the climate science. But there is absolutely no evidence to support it.

As for your links, the /. post claimed "Since the 1998 El Nino peak (and the end of the series of Grand Solar Maxima of the 20th century) global temperatures have gone down (or held nearly steady)." Talk about comparing apple to oranges. 1998 was hotter than any year immediately before or after it. It was not hot due to global warming, but as rgbatduke admits, was due to El Nino. So why use it as a benchmark year? It was an anomaly that should be discounted because of the other forces involved. And as soon as you discount that year, the temperature graph shows that it is still getting hotter. Even without discounting that year, the fact that the recent La Nina year was about the same temperature when that phenomenon should have made it cooler shows that the warming is still occurring.

I looked at the first case study of the second link and found that once the journalists talked to other scientists Aidan Dwyer's so-called breakthrough was debunked a week after the original story broke. I didn't bother reading further when the first point was so easily proven wrong, especially just to respond to an Anonymous Coward in an aging /. story.

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/11/blackberry-playbook-native-email-calendar-and-contacts-app-spotted/

Most Playbook issues are software related; most Fire issues are hardware related. Next month, RIM will be releasing that email client update and other patches can follow, so the Playbook will be get better.

On the other hand, Amazon can't issue a patch that would add RAM, storage, bluetooth, a GPS or extra cameras; the Fire will always remain a very limited device, while the Playbook has far more potential even if RIM folds a couple of years from now.

This "multiplatform device management" BS is just another one of your mistakes. You are using publicly available API's for managing iOS and Android devices.

There are other companies which do this as well.

How are you differentiating yourself? You are not.

What are you doing instead? You are confusing the market by branding it along with Blackberry Enterprise Server and you're also diluting your brand value.

I am not the ( or one of the ) CEO's of RIM but I can summarize what you should do:

- Focus on getting BBX based phones out ( and change the name to something else )

- Focus on getting the Playbook OS 2.0 update out with native email and calendaring

- Don't focus on other side things that dilute your brand value further. You already tried with Blackberry connect for Nokia before and how did that help? It did not. It just helped Nokia's E series get noticed as a serious business phone

- With this MDM, you wont be able to make even the ( bungled-up) difference that you made with Blackberry Connect for Nokia.

Last and not the least for God's sake don't think that Blackberry Mobile Fusion will help sell more PlayBooks just because it works with iOS and Android.

Make sure you get PlayBooks to talk to BES/BIS.

Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Just your average 27 year old geek without an MBA degree.

Is anyone outside m$ really considering letting them define what a freaking file is from now on after this?. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Surely once Microsoft has bullied their shit into everything once again, we can all trust them and no one will end up having to pay any kind of extortion racket like this, and this, this, this and this.

I'm curious why they didnt how the other prototype... You know, the one that looks quite a bit like most Android phones today only in red.

Why not just screw the included recovery hook into the front bumper? Manuals are often wrong and/or overprotective.

That may well be the case, but I'll let someone else risk voiding the warranty.

The recovery hook is designed for a straight pull - usually onto a flatbed truck - not for towing which may have a lot of lateral forces that could damage the hook and the car. If you want to do it any way, nobody's going to stop you.

The heater is commonly active on any car when the AC is in use. Even one with manual controls: Select appropriate vents, turn AC on, adjust fan speed for a comfortable amount of artificial wind, and then add heat using the temperature knob. Doing it this way helps reduce humidity, and allows for effective bi-level cooling.

On most other cars, the heat is free as a waste product of the engine. On the LEAF, the heat costs drivable battery capacity - up to 5kW. Put into miles driven, that may be as much as 10% of potential driving range. While the reasons you cite for running heat and A/C together are valid, that doesn't mean that it's really optimal in all situations. Why is there no option to control it?

(*The heater is variable output, of course, but that's no excuse for not having an option to disable it)

Meanwhile, the Leaf uses water cooling for some of its electronics. As long as this is the case, using the waste heat to warm up the passenger compartment is free, since the pump was already running anyway for cooling purposes.

False. The fluid in the heating system and the fluid in the motor/inverter/charger cooling system never mix while in operation. There is a common overflow tank, but they each have dedicated degas tanks and circulator pumps. This is another possible design flaw since even with the efficiency of the motor and electronics - if they get hot enough to need active cooling, they get hot enough to assist in cabin heating. Even if they might not get hot enough during a short drive, you have the electric heater element as a backup.

If you don't believe me, drop $20 on the service manual like I did and have a look at the system description and removal instructions.

And setting up a schedule is pretty plainly documented on page CH-18 of the manual, though it looks rather self-explanatory to me: It's all GUI-based.

Here's the full extent of the problem:

If you want to automatically charge to 80% ("long life mode") you must use the timers. There is no way to select 80% charge level if you use the "immediate charge" button. The only way to utilize the "long life mode" function and have immediate charging by default is to configure the timers in an undocumented fashion.

Why couldn't the maximum charge level be set independently of the timers? Why are the only choices 100% or 80%? Some people want to baby the battery but 80% isn't enough, so why not an option for 90% or configurable in increments of 5%? Why not fully configurable so if someone only needs 60% of their battery they can charge to that?

Further, if you have timers set at all, the LEAF will never charge immediately unless the button is pressed. This is a problem for some people since public charger sharing is common practice - so if someone comes and unplugs your car for a bit, and plugs it back in later, it won't continue charging. The car knows when charging is interrupted so you'd think an option to resume interrupted charging would be a no-brainer.

The above also applies if there's a power outage. Charging overnight and you lose power for a few seconds at 1AM? You'll never know it didn't charge until you're leaving for work the next morning.

Is there anything else that you think the smart folks at Nissan got wrong other than the range indicator (which, as I mentioned previously, I don't think is wrong)?

Not

Good luck towing the LEAF with a strap or chain - the entire undercarriage is covered in plastic for aerodynamics. Unless you decide to hook up to the suspension arms which is a good way to ruin your alignment. There's also no mechanical neutral so towing the LEAF with the drive wheels on the ground may cause serious damage (so claims the manual, anyway).

Why not just screw the included recovery hook into the front bumper?

Manuals are often wrong and/or overprotective. I don't expect everyone to be able to get this stuff right, but this is Slashdot, not the editorial section of the local news rag. Towing a Leaf a few miles is no different, electrically, than driving a Leaf down a very long hill.

The same smart people who designed the heater to draw power even when the climate control is set for A/C (Not to mention the fact the heating system uses coolant and a heater core instead of heating the air directly, requiring a degas tank, pump and hoses)?

The heater is commonly active on any car when the AC is in use. Even one with manual controls: Select appropriate vents, turn AC on, adjust fan speed for a comfortable amount of artificial wind, and then add heat using the temperature knob. Doing it this way helps reduce humidity, and allows for effective bi-level cooling.

It's not the same arrangement as a common home HVAC system, but it doesn't have the same requirements either.

As another poster pointed out, the opposite is very useful in cold and/or rainy weather: Using the defroster vent with heat and the AC on (some cars do this irrevocably in the defrost position, while others have a manual switch for the compressor) rapidly removes condensation from the inside of the window glass.

Meanwhile, the Leaf uses water cooling for some of its electronics. As long as this is the case, using the waste heat to warm up the passenger compartment is free, since the pump was already running anyway for cooling purposes.

As to your 30-second song and dance, I think you meant to say that you have 15 minutes to connect the charging cable, at least according to Nissan. Furthermore, if you don't have a schedule set, it charges immediately as soon as you connect it without pushing a button, as long as the car is off.

About the only way to improve on that behavior is to make it telepathic.

And setting up a schedule is pretty plainly documented on page CH-18 of the manual, though it looks rather self-explanatory to me: It's all GUI-based.

Is there anything else that you think the smart folks at Nissan got wrong other than the range indicator (which, as I mentioned previously, I don't think is wrong)?

Also, check out Smile For The Grenade! "Camera Go Bang!" Vlad Gostom and Joshua Marpet have been at Derbycon, Defcon, etc their work toward a flare-gun-launched camera. When they presented their 'Firefly' at BSides LV this year, they acknowledged they're still struggling against acceleration-related problems, and consider their work at version 0.1 level.

But the ideas have promise, and a flaregun launcher design offers greater range than throwing, uses tech already in nonmilitary use, has search-and-rescue and other nonmilitary uses, and will be much cheaper than the military devices (if memory serves, down from $2000 per round single-use, down to $200 and a possibility of reuse). And making it into a throwable device that lands upright would be child's play compared to the 'survive being fired out of a gun' logisitical challenges.

Unenforced? You haven't heard about Australia?
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/08/samsung-galaxy-tab-10-1-delayed-in-australia/

i found myself reminded of this concept:
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/02/art-lebedev-cardboard-usb-flash-drives-concept/

Also, i think Windows have had built in ability to write cd-r since XP. Tho this is a easy to overlook feature as it involves dropping files onto a "empty" optical drive.

WebOS Devices have a great homebrew community that HP supports. HP donated servers and help them port some of the homebrew only apps. (One example: http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/06/hp-soothes-homebrew-crowd-by-reaffiming-support)

I've blogged about it before as well ( http://bryanquigley.com/uncategorized/hppalms-webos)

From the webosinternals wiki: ( http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Portal:Accessing_Linux)
"In general, simply installing the Palm SDK gives you everything you need for full access to the Linux operating system on the Pre or Pixi. There is no special "rooting" or "jailbreaking" process. Simply installing the SDK provides you with unlimited access to the Linux operating system logged in as the root user. Palm does not see this as a bad thing. Palm provides all these tools for download by anyone, anytime, for free."

FYI. Here is a screenshot of Angry Birds on Blackberry.

There is a hipster resurgence for vinyl yes, but that is rather niche. I think music is an interesting example though. Because a lot of people I know, including myself, who swore they would never get rid of their physical CD collection and replace it with only digital music, have actually ended up doing so. And with the current sales trend I see that accellerating. I'm not at the stage where I see myself dropping my book shelves for my Kindle anytime soon, but as I said that about music too and turned out proving myself wrong - a couple of more apartment moves and they might be left in the moving boxes like the music and DVD collection finally did.

Until I can scan my physical books into an e-reader (for free), I won't be replacing my current library. I didn't have to repurchase the 300 CDs or so I own to put them into a digital format.

They said that about vinyl records years ago, but there's still plenty of them being pressed - and there seems to be more and more each year.

There is a hipster resurgence for vinyl yes, but that is rather niche. I think music is an interesting example though. Because a lot of people I know, including myself, who swore they would never get rid of their physical CD collection and replace it with only digital music, have actually ended up doing so. And with the current sales trend I see that accellerating. I'm not at the stage where I see myself dropping my book shelves for my Kindle anytime soon, but as I said that about music too and turned out proving myself wrong - a couple of more apartment moves and they might be left in the moving boxes like the music and DVD collection finally did.

So the Apple TV becomes your console and the iPad becomes your controller.

AppleTV is unneeded when the iPad already has more horsepower.
There's already a dock -> HDMI adapter.

You wouldn't play your typical games on it but with a bit of creativity I could see some rather interesting games coming out of it. Board games could work really well under this scenario. Especially quite complex ones.

Why wouldn't we play typical games?

I want my AtomChip Quantum 2!

have you heard of the upcoming TI-Nspire CX? when Casio released the PRIZM, TI realised that they could no longer keep their sway on the market while selling twenty-year-old hardware. this new model includes: "a full-color, backlit screen, thin sleek design and includes TI-Nspire rechargeable battery. Use images including your own photos. Explore real-world concepts using the handheld's Notes, Graphs, Geometry, Data & Statistics and questions apps. TI-Nspire Teacher Sofware or TI-Nspire student software is required to add images into TI-Nspire documents. Graph and rotate 3D functions. Change the wire or surface color of your 3D graph. Clam shell. " additionally, there will supposedly be an attachable accessory to allow WiFi connection. http://www.ubergizmo.com/2011/01/texas-instruments-brings-wifi-to-ti-nspire-calculators/

It still remains to be seen whether Android will be able to contribute significantly to the company's revenue growth.

um...where have you been?

http://www.businessinsider.com/android-revenue-2010-8

http://www.ubergizmo.com/2010/10/googles-android-starts-paying-for-itself-via-ad-revenues/

its 2011 now, and google own the worlds dominant smartphone platform...are you with us or what?

You can find more info from either Intel or Ubergizmo.

In before the "google it" stampede.