Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook: 8/17/08

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

NSF Tells The Story of The Birth of The Internet

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/OmMalik/~3/368239285/

National Science Foundation has put together a really great web site that tells the story of the birth of the Internet, using videos, presentations and documents from its archives. The history is divided into decades, and there is a special section devoted to Mosaic developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in the early 1990s. It should be on your things to do today. Awesome!

Get the Wall Street Journal Free on Your BlackBerry, Even If You Aren't Gordon Gekko [BlackBerry]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/369265324/get-the-wall-street-journal-free-on-your-blackberry-even-if-you-arent-gordon-gekko

I only read two sections of the WSJ, partly because it's behind a pay wall, though there are ways around it. Their new Mobile Reader for BlackBerry drops the entire paper for free, constantly updated, right to your phone in an interface that actually works. Silicon Alley Insider says it's the best newspaper app for any phone yet.

Click the headline once and you see a paragraph summary—click again to read the whole article, which only takes 10 secs to load on EDGE. And you can save stories for subway or air reading. No word on an iPhone version specifically, but the Journal told us that the reader is "currently in development" for "other smartphone platforms." It makes sense to hit BlackBerry first since that's what the suit-and-tie, richer-than-you crowd—the WSJ's audience—are toting by and large. If you've got a BlackBerry, there's no reason to not grab this. If you don't read the Journal, try it, it'll make you smarter (maybe not the editorial pages, but the rest of it will). [WSJ via Silicon Alley Insider]

Visa and Eight Banks Test Real-Time SMS Notifications For Transactions [Credit Card]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/369426825/visa-and-eight-banks-test-real+time-sms-notifications-for-transactions

Visas and eight banks ("PNC Bank, SunTrust Bank, U.S. Bank, Wachovia, and Wells Fargo in the United States, and Royal Bank of Canada, TD Bank Financial Group, and Vancity in Canada") are testing real-time SMS notifications whenever your card makes one of a few types of transactions. The 2000 pilot beta customers can pick alerts for ATM cash withdrawals, internet or telephone charge, an out-of-country charge or a charge that's over a pre-defined amount. You can choose to have these alerts go to your phone or your email (if you're cheap like us and don't want to burn up all your messages), which you can then immediately use to alert Visa to any fraudulent activity. Great idea or greatest idea? You be the judge. [Slashphone]

HYDRA System Lets "Vastly Different" Video Cards Work, Play Together [Pc Gaming]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/369601553/hydra-system-lets-vastly-different-video-cards-work-play-together

Lucid's HYDRA GPU pairing technology could soon allow PC builders to incorporate multiple video cards that - hear this, ATI and Nvidia - don't have to be identical. What this potentially means, among other things, is that gamers could leverage old hardware instead of just sadly setting it aside, though paired cards must be of the same brand. HYDRA differs functionally from Nvidia's SLI and ATI's Crossfire solutions, which split rendering by sectioning off the screen and alternating frames between cards, respectively, by intelligently distributing highly specific rendering tasks between the GPUs. Instead of divvying up all the tasks equally, HYDRA will only send as many polygons or shader calls as each constituent card can handle (see right of the above pic for an example of what one of two cards might be rendering).

The most irritating aspects of current twin-card configurations (well, aside from the fact that you had to buy two cards in the first place) are the high cost and disappointingly low performance gains. HYDRA, which Lucid claims could scale to up to handle four unique GPUs, could remedy both of these issues if it ever comes to market. The company says it'll be soon, but that's as specific as they're getting for now. Visual learners can check out a detailed diagram of the system below. [PcPer via Slashdot]

Info on Intel's Dual-Core Atom 330 Processor Hits Internets [Intel]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/369842622/info-on-intels-dual+core-atom-330-processor-hits-internets

Last we'd heard about dual-core version of Intel's tiny Atom processor it was delayed through supply problems... but now info on Intel's Atom 330 dual-core has arrived. It's a desktop chip, with a 533MHz frontside bus and based on the 45nm process, though there's no info on its clock speeds yet. It'll be compatible with Intel's upcoming D945GCLF2 mini-ITX motherboard, a 945GX chipset/GMA 950 graphics chip board due in September, which is presumably when the 330 hits the streets too. As yet there's no news on a mobile version, bearing the letter N in its numeric title. [Reghardware]

ASUS kicks out four new XP-based Eee PCs for Taiwan

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/369127460/

Filed under: Laptops

We know it's been a tough few days since the last Eee PC launch, but ASUS has now thankfully come through with four more ever so slightly different models to feed your questionable appetite, this time for Taiwan. Those include the 1000HD XP, 904HD XP, 901 XP and 900 XP (16G), each of which, obviously, run XP, and at least two of which (the 901 and 900) come in some of the same eye-catching colors that Korea got a taste of the other day. Somewhat curiously, only the 901 XP is listed as having an Atom processors, while the others are simply described as packing an "Intel Mobile" processor. Otherwise, you can expect the usual range of specs found on countless similar models, with prices coming in at the local equivalent of $444 to $539.

[Via Slash Gear]

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Google lays out Android roadmap, devs scheduled to get more love

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/369172310/

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Google feels really badly about that several month-long stretch where it kept any and all updates to its Android SDK out of the public limelight, developers, honest, but it wants to make it up to you. It seems that yesterday's 0.9 release, which represented the first official SDK available with a platform even remotely resembling what Google intends to release on retail devices this fall, was just the first in a string of goings-on leading up to the grand 1.0 launch in the coming months according to a new roadmap published on the Android site. To start, there'll be "additional Android 1.0 (pre) SDK releases made available, as necessary" in September, followed by the first 1.0-compatible release in the Q3 to Q4 timeframe (that's any time between now and the end of December, for you calendar-disadvantaged folk). Finally, the Android source will leak out in the fourth quarter along with the first "Android 1.0 devices" -- pay special attention to the plural "devices" there -- and an announcement about Android Developer Challenge II. It gives us a warm fuzzy to see that Google's interested in keeping its devs engaged with these contests on an ongoing basis, because let's be honest: "prize money" has a much nicer ring to it than "VC money" ever will.

[Via Talk Android]

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Archos 5, 5g and 7 "internet media tablets" are here to slap your puny PMP upside the head

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/369183712/

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

So Archos still seems to be struggling a bit matching the design curve of the industry, but boy oh boy can they pile on those specs. The new Archos 5 and Archos 7 "generation 6" players offer capacities as high as 320GB, well-res'd screens and just about every codec we'd ever need -- plus available plug-ins to cover the rest. But that's not even the exciting part. The Archos 5g adds in that 3.5 HSDPA data we were hearing about, providing true on-the-go surfing, and all three players sport WiFi as well. Sizes start off at 30GB for the Archos 5g, which runs a 800 x 480 4.8-inch touchscreen. The Archos 5 bumps that up to 60-250GB, while the Archos 7 does up 160GB and 320GB, with a 7-inch touchscreen that sadly matches the 5 series' resolution exactly. All three players can record VGA video through an optional DVR Station dock or the DVR snap-on accessory, and Archos will have plenty of other accessories in the offing as well. As for player design, Archos has made considerable strides in thinness, with the Archos 7 at 0.63-inches thick, and the Archos 5 as slim as 0.5-inches, depending on drive size, but we're not crazy about the new look -- though we're sure opinions will vary. No word on price or availability just yet, but stay tuned.

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Archos 5 gets the hands-on treatment

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/369332649/

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Archos has only just taken the wraps off its new Generation 6 "internet media tablets" but, right on cue, the folks at Generation MP3 have already turned out a pretty extensive hands-on with one of 'em, the Archos 5. One thing that was immediately apparent to them is that the device's shiny new black casing is a lot more prone to fingerprints than the metal casing of the Archos 605 that it replaces but, as they point out, the near lack of buttons (just three on top) at least means there's less of that casing to get smudged up. They also found that the screen is not as "soft" as the 605 but, unfortunately, it's not multi-touch, and there's no accelerometer to allow for quick changes of orientation. Of course, if it's pics your looking for, they've also got plenty of those, and you can find 'em at the link below.

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