New Form of Touchscreen Displays Pioneered, Extremely Multi-Touch [Touchscreen]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/lm2IZMG0wb4/new-form-of-touchscreen-displays-pioneered-extremely-multi+touch

You've heard of resistive touchscreens, and hopefully you've been fortunate enough to own a capacitive touchscreen phone. But have you heard of Interpolating Force-Sensitive Resistance, or I.F.S.R touchscreen technology? Touchco hopes you soon will.

A bunch of scientists at New York University's Media Research Lab have grouped together to form Touchco, which is working on the aforementioned I.F.S.R technology. They want to create touchscreens which are even more multi-touch enabled than we've seen so far, capable of receiving simultaneous touch inputs. Apparently these touchscreens can be produced very cheaply, with Touchco hoping to sell them for $10 a square foot.

As you can see from the photo above, these touchscreens are very flexible, and don't require much power—making them ideal for ereaders, laptops and netbooks. [NYT Bits blog]

National Geographic shoves every morsel of its collection onto 160GB HDD

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/30/national-geographic-shoves-every-morsel-of-its-collection-onto-1/

Care to get up close and personal with Niihau? How's about an overview of Tuvalu? Surely you need a helicopter shot of Pakatoa Island to get your morning started right, yeah? If so, and you're too lazy to hit up the World Wide Web, there's a better-than-average chance that an older National Geographic magazine has exactly the elixir you're searching for. Problem is, sifting through every single issue since 1888 takes a fair bit of time -- time you'd rather be spending in an obnoxiously long security line as you await your flight to Ushuaia. Thanks to "modern technology" and "storage innovations," said quandary can now be resolved quite simply. Nat Geo is offering every last piece of information it has ever published on a portable 160GB HDD, and amazingly 100GB is free for you to manually add to the collection. Too bad this $199.95 device wasn't available before Christmas, but hey, at least you've now got something to blow those Santa Bucks on.

National Geographic shoves every morsel of its collection onto 160GB HDD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Dec 2009 03:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GSM call encryption code cracked, published for the whole world to see

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/29/gsm-call-encryption-code-cracked-published-for-the-whole-world/

Did you know that the vast majority of calls carried out on the 3.5 billion GSM connections in the world today are protected by a 21-year old 64-bit encryption algorithm? You should now, given that the A5/1 privacy algorithm, devised in 1988, has been deciphered by German computer engineer Karsten Nohl and published as a torrent for fellow code cracking enthusiasts and less benevolent forces to exploit. Worryingly, Karsten and his crew of merry men obtained the binary codes by simple brute force -- they fed enough random strings of numbers in to effectively guess the password. The GSM Association -- which has had a 128-bit A5/3 key available since 2007, but found little takeup from operators -- has responded by having a whinge about Mr. Nohl's intentions and stating that operators could just modify the existing code to re-secure their networks. Right, only a modified 64-bit code is just as vulnerable to cracking as the one that just got cracked. It's important to note that simply having the code is not in itself enough to eavesdrop on a call, as the cracker would be faced with just a vast stream of digital communications -- but Karsten comes back to reassure us that intercepting software is already available in customizable open source varieties. So don't be like Tiger, keep your truly private conversations off the airwaves, at least for a while.

GSM call encryption code cracked, published for the whole world to see originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's Pinetrail-boasting N220 netbook spied in France

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/29/samsungs-pinetrail-boasting-n220-netbook-spied-in-france/

We've been seeing a fair amount of netbooks equipped with Intel's Pinetrail processors since they were announced early last week, and it looks like we're going to be seeing at least one from Samsung in the very near future. This one -- the N220 -- was just spotted in France. The 10.1-incher packs (as you'd expect) an Atom N450 CPU, GMA 3150 graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth, plus a webcam and a 6 cell battery which should supposedly get around eleven and a half hours of battery life. It comes with Windows 7 installed, and as you can see from the photo, one of the available colors will be glossy green. It's going for 350 euros in France, so, if the price stays comparable when (and if it) hits North American soil, we can expect it to cost somewhere in the realm of $500.

Samsung's Pinetrail-boasting N220 netbook spied in France originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 17:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Apple Tablet's Name: iSlate (At Least, It Sure Looks That Way) [Rumor]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/mSxt1Mg2P7Q/the-apple-tablets-name-islate-at-least-it-sure-looks-that-way

Poking more at the info Apple secretly registered iSlate.com a couple years ago, TechCrunch found Apple's possibly setup a shell company called Slate Computing, which has a trademark on "iSlate." The signatory? Apple's Senior Trademark Specialist, MacRumors discovered.

Regina Porter most recently signed for the "iSlate" trademark for Slate Computing this past August—showing Apple's continued with "slate" beyond its initial registration for iSlate.com and the "iSlate" trademark in 2006. In Europe, a law firm Apple typically uses to register trademarks has also filed for major domains containing "iSlate," while another they use has filed for a trademark on ISlate in the European Union, registered to a corporation in Trinidad & Tobago, a country Apple's used to register European trademarks before, including for the iPhone.

Curiously, another trademark registered by Slate Computing in the US is "Magic Slate," which follows the same naming convention as Magic Mouse, obviously. MacRumors wonders if it might be something like a multitouch trackpad for computers, like with a screen (which we've wanted for a long time).

Whatever's going on, Apple's obviously gone through a lot of work to discreetly register a whole lot of "slate" stuff, which seems like a ton of effort for nothing, or simply a ruse to throw people off. It's funny, actually, that everybody "knew" what the iPhone was going to be called years before Steve Jobs took the stage to anno! unce it, but no one really knows the tablet's name. I've always figured that, whatever it is, it'll have just two syllables. iSlate fits the bill. And for now, it's the only one with any evidence. [MacRumors, TechCrunch]

Single Molecule Turned Into a Functional Transistor [Transistors]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nEVp5nhNAVA/single-molecule-turned-into-a-functional-transistor

Since the first transistor was demonstrated 62 years ago, researchers have tried to make the device smaller and smaller. Now they've finally achieved an extreme point in their quest: A single-molecule transistor. Yes, that's really, really freakin' small.

Apparently this itty bitty transistor "has a benzene molecule attached to gold contacts" and "could behave just like a silicon transistor." This is an incredible achievement because of the potential applications in nanomachines since a few atoms would be enough to "perform complex calculations." What I wonder is how long it'll take for these molecular transistors to go from being demonstrated to being put into research use to being something we see in consumer electronics. How much smaller could some gadgets get? [Wired]

Samsung's 14MP CL80 packs integrated WiFi, 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/25/samsungs-14mp-cl80-packs-integrated-wifi-3-7-inch-amoled-displ/

It's not impossible to find a camera with integrated WiFi out there, but your choices are unquestionably limited. Thankfully for those in the market for such a device, it seems as if Samsung is gearing up to release quite the formidable opponent. Without so much as an official press release, the CL80 has emerged on the outfit's website packing a 14 megapixel sensor, optical image stabilization, a 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen (capacitive with haptic feedback), a 720p movie mode (H.264), microSD expansion slot (groan...), USB 2.0 connectivity and an above-average 7x optical zoom. The Instant Upload feature enables users to upload their shots to Facebook, Flickr, Photobox or Picasa, and for those who prefer to capture motion clips, it'll also shoot your videos to YouTube when a hotspot is found. Nary a word has been spoken regarding price or release, but we're going out on a limb here and surmising that much more information will be revealed at CES.

Continue reading Samsung's 14MP CL80 packs integrated WiFi, 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen

Samsung's 14MP CL80 packs integrated WiFi, 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 04:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI teases Wind Top AP1920, Wind Box DE220 and DC500

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/25/msi-teases-wind-top-ap1920-wind-box-de220-and-dc500/

There ain't much to go on just yet, but one thing's for certain: MSI will be unveiling a trio of new machines at CES in just a few weeks. Over on the Wind Top side, it'll be introducing the all-new AP1920 all-in-one PC, which will measure in at 35mm thick and sport an 18.5-inch display, Atom D510 or D410 CPU and a power-sipping attitude. The nettop lovers will be thrilled to know that a new duo of mini PCs will also get unwrapped, as the Wind Box DC500 and DE220 step in with Intel's newest Pine Trail processors and a whole slew of companion components that we're still waiting to hear more on. Hey, we told you it was just a tease.

MSI teases Wind Top AP1920, Wind Box DE220 and DC500 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Dec 2009 10:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo set for January launch of Pine Trail-packing S10-3 netbook and S10-3t multitouch tablet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/lenovo-set-for-january-launch-of-pine-trail-packing-s10-3-netboo/

It's been awhile since Lenovo last updated its IdeaPad line, the S10-2 dropping over the summer, but we're hearing that the third iteration of the platform is set to be unveiled in the very near future. The model we spied at the FCC last month is confirmed to be the S10-3, possessing Atom N450 (Pine Trail) internals, a 10.1-inch screen, WiFi, 3G, and integrated GPS. More interesting is that there is an S10-3t model coming as well, a convertible tablet version which you can see the underside of above, thanks again to the FCC. It will feature a multitouch screen to make the most of its Windows 7 install, and hopefully won't be crippled by Starter Edition like another tablet we know.

Lenovo set for January launch of Pine Trail-packing S10-3 netbook and S10-3t multitouch tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple planning event for January, with high-res iPhone or small-sized tablet in tow? Maybe just hanging out?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/apple-planning-event-for-january-with-high-res-iphone-or-small/

Breaking news, everybody: Apple's working on some stuff. The rumors are flying in all directions today, starting out fairly innocently with word from the oft-innacurate DigiTimes of an iPhone-destined 5 megapixel camera sensor. Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster piled on with an investor note saying they're giving an Apple January event a 75% chance of happening, and the tablet is squarely at 50 / 50. The most interesting word, however, comes out of the Silicon Alley Insider, who is quoting a "plugged-in source in the mobile industry" who says that Apple is working with some select app makers on prepping high-res apps to demo on a "new, larger mobile device." The device would be shown in January but not available at that time -- presumably in wait for these redesigned apps to mature (at WWDC, perhaps?). While that rumor is being piled in with the ever-present tablet hubbub, if we were to read between the lines we'd say it sounds more like a higher-resolution iPhone in the style of Google's Nexus one or Motorola's Droid -- both of which are making the iPhone's 320 x 480 screen look a tad archaic. Certainly more likely than Apple releasing "several tablets" to match up with all the disparate rumors we've seen of the 7-inch / 9-inch / 10-inch unicorn device.

Update: Just so you know, The New York Times has it on good authority that Steve Jobs is apparently "extremely happy" with the current tablet design. The assumption here -- if true, of course -- is that he won't be killing this project like he did all the previous iterations.

Apple planning event for January, with high-res iPhone or small-sized tablet in tow? Maybe just hanging out? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Asus Eee PC T101MT revealed by the FCC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/asus-eee-pc-t101mt-revealed-by-the-fcc/

Asus' Eee PC T101 convertible tablet has been floating around in one form or another for quite a while now, but it looks like it's now finally cleared the FCC as the Eee PC T101MT, which seems to suggest that it might just be getting official at CES next month. While details on this particular model are pretty light, the FCC filing does confirm that it packs 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and the "MT" in the model name likely indicates that this one's a multitouch tablet -- the Eee PC T101 that we've seen previously was a 10-inch tablet with the usual unremarkable netbook specs, but an upgrade to Pine Trail seems a safe bet for this model.

Asus Eee PC T101MT revealed by the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 14:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Switched On: Multi-room music's rocket ride

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/23/switched-on-multi-room-musics-rocket-ride/

Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

Multi-room music has a long history as the province of the wealthy, the corporate, and those with the forethought to build or buy new construction with the structured wiring to support it. But over the past few years a number of companies have tried various wireless technologies to bring multi-room music closer to the masses. Some companies have used proprietary wireless systems while others have used WiFi, and yet others have tried both approaches in different products at different times.

Those approaches, though, now face competition from a new ingredient brand called Rocketboost. While it may sound like a powdered nutritional supplement that Jamba Juice adds to smoothies, Rocketboost uses the second generation of a wireless audio technology dubbed AudioMagic 2G, which developer Avnera claims is the first multipoint to multipoint HD wireless audio platform. Indeed, AudioMagic 2G can support up to five sources and nine receivers -- significantly shy of Sonos's 32 zones, but enough to cover many homes. Each Rocketboost receiver has, at minimum, a button to cycle through active sources, and the standard also supports displays that would enable more flexibility in source selection, particularly AudioMagic 2G has a data channel for sending information about a source and the content it is playing.

Continue reading Switched On: Multi-room music's rocket ride

Switched On: Multi-room music's rocket ride originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/24/viewsonic-vot132-nettop-review/

You don't need booming sales figures to tell you that netbooks have taken over the world -- the mobile computing world, at least. Their screenless and battery-free brethren, however, have yet to find quite the same success. Nettops are great tiny little machines but in general they've been under-powered and, while people love eking out another hour or two of battery life on the road, few sadly care whether their desktop computers pull down 17 or 71 watts of juice. Still, it's hard to deny the appeal of a fully-functional computer that's half the size of a Wii -- especially when it can manage 1080p output over HDMI. Viewsonic's VOT132, with its Ion graphics and trick magnetic DVD drive, is tiny, efficient, and powerful. The perfect media PC? Read on to find out.

Gallery: Viewsonic VOT132 unboxing

Continue reading Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review

Viewsonic VOT132 nettop review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Archos 9 reviewed: too big, too slow, too 'Starter'

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/12/24/archos-9-reviewed-too-big-too-slow-too-starter/

We hate to be the bringers of bad news, but it looks like the Archos 9 might be serving as a bit of a morality tale, showing why and how PC hardware and software might not be quite ready for the large form factor tablet experience. That's not to say there aren't some plusses to the device pointed out by UMPC Portal in its review, like the great build quality and style of the tablet, the sensitive, flush touchscreen, and some great connectivity, but the sum seems less than its parts. The primary blame can be laid at the feet of the 1.1GHz Atom Z510 processor, which is sluggish and single-threaded, and Windows 7 Starter, which is lacking in the standard Windows 7 tablet functionality. We don't know all the reasoning at play here, but the result is a slow computer with a hacked-on touchscreen keyboard at a $550 pricepoint that doesn't the hit handheld UMPC size sweetspot and can hardly stand against a netbook in cost or utility. Sounds kind of mean when we say it like that, doesn't it?

Archos 9 reviewed: too big, too slow, too 'Starter' originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Botnet Baddies Setting Up Own ISPs For Unfettered Spamming [Spam]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/gJztfE7kJgQ/botnet-baddies-setting-up-own-isps-for-unfettered-spamming

Well, this is equal parts frightening and annoying: malware writers and their lot have been buying up data centers and getting approved for large blocks of IP space. What's that mean? That they can pretty much run rampant.

While local registries are supposed to screen IP applications, in some parts of the world *cough* Eastern Europe *cough* there's not much of a vetting process. The result is that criminals can spam away while victims have no hosting provider or ISP to complain to. And when the tainted IP finally does get shut down—by being effectively quarantined by other ISPs and security folk—the bad guys just walk away, leaving it to rot until a legitimate business can come in and start it back up again.

The fight against botnets and malware is one where we're outspent and undermanned, and if we don't hurry up to evolve with the other team's strategies, we're all in a heap of trouble. [Threat Post via Boing Boing]

Swann DVR4-2500 Home Security System Has Four Cameras and iPhone Streaming [Swann]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/0w3pGZUvGY4/swann-dvr4+2500-home-security-system-has-four-cameras-and-iphone-streaming

Do you enjoy dominating your house like the Trinity killer on Dexter, knowing exactly what each of your family members are doing at all times? Then Swann has the four camera security system for you.

The $700 setup has four cameras, a remote, a 500GB hard drive to record continuously for 30 days, a USB port for backing up said video and even 27 infrared LEDs to enable nighttime viewing.

What's special bout this model is the iPhone support, which you can use to stream live and recorded video from any of the cameras to your handheld screen. I would put one in the fridge so I could know exactly what to get from the supermarket on the way home from work. [Swann]