Samsung doing a 10-inch Chrome OS netbook later this year

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/13/samsung-doing-a-10-inch-chrome-os-netbook-later-this-year/

There's nothing to look at just yet, but Samsung's own Phil Newton apparently just confirmed that the company will be debuting a Chrome OS netbook in the near future, according to a report by Australia's Channel News. The laptop will be similar to the N210 (pictured), with a 10.1-inch screen, 3G, WiFi, 2GB of RAM, 64GB of flash storage and a purported 12 hour battery life. There are also rumors that it'll be running a 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor, but the amount of straight up information from Phil makes speculation almost feel silly at this point. The netbook is supposed to be introduced later this year.

Samsung doing a 10-inch Chrome OS netbook later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 21:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now Available [Now Available]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/WZquNe38CKM/now-available

Beauty, love, ingenuity, forgiveness, and duct tape. This week's Now Available showcases some colorful cameras, a brilliant and simple home networking solution, a redeemed 27" display, and a tripod that turns your iPod Touch into bizarro Spiderman.

Panasonic GF1 (Colors!)

In the micro-four-thirds class of cameras this sucker is hard to beat. While these new colors definitely take away from the subtle Leica charm of the black model they're still solidly built and reliable devices. Coupled with a nice list of compatible lenses and you have a pretty competitive system. For the time being these guys are your best bet in the nascent digital four-thirds camera genre. Oh, and look forward to more color options stateside since Japan just got these offerings. Check em' out here.

Joby Gorillapod for iPod Touch

This malleable tripod comes from a purebred pedigree of handy and easy to use ultra-mobile camera accessories. Granted, those are designed for taking steady photos in awkward areas, while this guy is mainly used to provide convenient screen viewing on whatever you can perch it on. We're big fans of Gorillapods here at Gizmodo, so the introduction of a model specific to the iPod touch is a nice addition to the product line—though not a must have day-to-day accessory. If you've been getting by rigging up a kickstand out of duct tape and your retainer it's probably best not to mess with what works. For non-MacGuyver's you can snare it here.

Belkin Home Base

With your ever growing list of tech peripherals it's great to see a device that can help manage some of the chaos. The Belkin Home Base is rather remarkable in that it can adapt to whatever you wish to plug into one of its four USB ports. Your clunky printer under the desk can finally be moved and accessed remotely, freeing up some much needed foot room. That pile of external hard drives can be somewhat less of a pile if you take the largest and bulkiest and tether them into the Home Base. Really, at around $65 this thing should be a welcomed addition to clutter management. Save yourself here.

Dell 27" UltraSharp U2711

Yes. This is the same monitor involved in our ongoing iMac saga. But as we've pointed out Dell's version uses a conventional CCFL backlight as opposed to the iMac's LEDs. Since the LEDs are the likely culprits in jaundiced iMacs it's safe to go ahead and embrace these beautiful monsters. The $1099 price tag seems a tad high considering you can get a base 27" iMac for $1700, but if a matte finish and beautiful 2560 x 1440 resolutions are your thing then grab it, here.

Addonics Bite-Sized NAS 2.0 Reviewed: Lightweight Contender [Nas]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/x3K1bJtd4t0/addonics-bite+sized-nas-20-reviewed-lightweight-contender

The good people at MobileMag got a chance to review the new Addonics pocket NAS 2.0 NAS2XU2, and they report that for the price and the size, it's worthy of your attention.

You guys showed some interest when we got our first look at the NAS2XU2 back in November, and MobileMag reports that by and large it lives up to its promise. The pocketable device sports 2 USB ports and now has gigabit ethernet, improving the slow transfer speeds that plagued the first model.

MobileMag had some trouble getting the built-in media sharing system to work, but the unit supports SMB and Samba so with some tinkering it will likely do fine as a media server. As a mini FTP server, a hub for USB devices, and Bit Torrent server, however, it worked like a charm.

The NAS 2.0 NAS2XU2 is available for $59.99 from Addonics. [MobileMag

Radeon HD 5870 Gloriously Abused By Asus, Made Super Overclocking-Friendly [Guts]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/DzlsNCb3OEU/radeon-hd-5870-gloriously-abused-by-asus-made-super-overclocking+friendly

The Radeon HD 5870, as shipped, is a very powerful graphics card—more than most people need, even, and at the very least, enough for anyone. Except, apparently, Asus.

Asus' plans for their newest Republic of Gamers (ROG) Radeon HD 5870-based card cater to a specific breed—the overclock-everything-for-the-sake-of-it PC tweakers, who are dwindling along with their gaming platform—but really, anyone can appreciate them: by default, the card's GPU is cranked from 850 to 900MHz, and doubles the RAM to RAM to 2GB of DDR5 memory.

If that's not enough, you can dial your frequencies up using included overclocking software, which saves new settings directly to the card. And if you start to notice that delicious, telltale smell of melting silicon, you don't even have to navigate software to fix things: mashing a physical button on the back of the card reverts it to stock settings. Brilliant.

The ROG 5870 doesn't have a price or North America release date yet, but word is it's already hitting the streets in China, so full release details shouldn't be far off. [Zol via Techreport via SlashGear]

Ricoh CX3 reviewed, just marginally better than CX2

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/13/ricoh-cx3-reviewed-just-marginally-better-than-cx2/

Ricoh's CX2 seemed to impress a-many reviewer when it launched last autumn, so it's sort of odd to see the camera's successor hitting the market so soon after. The appropriately named CX3 recent sat down on the test bench over at Photography BLOG, and while critics were quick to point out how appreciative they were of the extras (a 720p movie mode, namely), they couldn't help but notice what a small step forward this was from the prior model. In fact, they found little to no good reason for existing CX2 owners to upgrade, though they did deem the image quality to be "excellent" and noted that newcomers shouldn't hesitate to give this one a whirl. Still, we were disappointed to hear that the low-light performance was underwhelming despite promises that it had been improved, and for $400, you've got a lot of other options in the point-and-shoot realm.

Ricoh CX3 reviewed, just marginally better than CX2 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Feb 2010 11:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Craft a Temporary Light Tent Out of Paper and Binder Clips [DIY]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/5nlnSEVb7Mc/craft-a-temporary-light-tent-out-of-paper-and-binder-clips

If you need a quick and dirty light tent but you don't want to shell out for a commercial model or spend time building a DIY version, this light tent can be built in a matter of minutes from office supplies.

Over at the blog Mostly Color—a blog focused on color theory, design, and photography—they have instructions for a simple-to-make light tent. The components are nothing more than folded paper and binder clips. It doesn't have the same versatile diffusing qualities as a commercial model made out of ripstop nylon and paired with a set of studio flashes but for simple product-style photography with natural light or a diffused overhead flash (the paper walls of the light tent are a bit thick for traditional through-the-side diffusion) you can't beat it for price and ease of construction.

Check out the link below for instructions or if you're in the mood to take a bigger DIY project make sure to check out how to make a light tent out of cardboard and tissue paper or K'Nex building toys. Have a favorite photography-related DIY hack? Let's hear about it in the comments.

Cheap, Green, and Diffuse: a Paper & Binder Clip Light Tent [via Make]

Fonolo Skips Automated Customer Service Phone Trees, Now on iPhone [Downloads]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/FAdnE6G7ofU/fonolo-skips-automated-customer-service-phone-trees-now-on-iphone

iPhone only: Fonolo is a clever webapp for bypassing automated calling trees when phoning corporate customer service lines. Now the service has an iPhone app with the same great features as the site, but with more in-your-pocket convenience.

We've mentioned Fonolo before, and we love it for how easy it makes it to skip through those annoying recorded customer service messages that make you press a bunch of numbers to get where you want to go. To use Fonolo on your iPhone, you need to first register on the service's web site. The account lets Fonolo keep a record of your past calls for quick access later, and add notes about things you want to remember. There's also an option to add account numbers, frequent flier numbers, or other numerical data you need when calling a company you're doing business with.

Once you fire up the iPhone app, just look up the number of the company you're calling from the alphabetized list. In addition to the main number, you'll also get a list of commonly called areas of the phone tree so you can route yourself to the right section in seconds. For instance, if the only reason you call your cell phone company is to check your minutes balance, Fonolo can navigate you right there without making you press 93 buttons (and the pound key!) first.

If you opt to furnish Fonolo with your phone number, the service will do all the dialing, waiting, and button pushing for you, then ring your phone when it's ready for you to pick up. The app also stores your favorite numbers so you don't have to hunt them down again later.

Fonolo's web-based service is free to use and the iPhone app doesn't cost a dime, so there's really no reason not to try it out. What tricks do you have for getting around automated phone trees? Let us know in the comments.

Fonolo [via CNET]

Giz Explains: Why ISO Is the New Megapixel [Giz Explains]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/m_FCHTFG9Q0/giz-explains-why-iso-is-the-new-megapixel

In 1975, the first digital camera took 23 seconds to record a 100-line black-and-white photo onto cassette tape. Today, a Nikon D3s takes photos with 12 million pixels at 1/8000 of a second. And it can see in the dark.

The conventional wisdom is that the romp-stomp-stomp of progress in digital imaging has proceeded on the mostly one-way track of ballooning pixel counts. Which wasn't always a pointless enterprise. I mean, 1.3-megapixel images, like you could take in 1991, aren't very big. The Nikon D1, introduced in 1999, was the digital camera that "replaced film at forward-looking newspapers." It was $5,000 and shot 2.7 megapixel images using a CCD sensor, large enough for many print applications. But still, there was room to grow, and so it did. Now pretty much every (non-phone) camera shoots at least 10-megapixel pictures, with 14 megapixels common even in baseline point-and-shoots. Cheap DSLRs from Canon are now scratching 18MP as standard. Megapixels were an easy-to-swallow specification to pitch in marketing, and became the way normal people assessed camera quality.

The now-common geek contrarianism is that more megapixels ain't more better. The new go-to standard for folks who consider themselves savvy is low-light performance. Arguably, this revamped arms race was kickstarted by the D3, Nikon's flagship DSLR that forsook megapixels for ISO. (Rumor had it that the D3 and D300 led Canon to shitcan their original, middling update to the 5D, pushing full-steam-ahead for a year to bring us the incredible 5D Mark II.) However it began, "amazing low-light performance" is now a standard bullet point for any camera that costs more than $300 (even if it's not true). Nikon and Canon's latest DSLRs have ISO speeds of over 100,000. Welcome to the new image war.

How a Camera Sees

The name of the game, as you've probably gathered by now, is collecting light. And in fact, the way a digital camera "sees" actually isn't all that different from the way our eyeballs do, at one level. Light, which is made up of photons, enters through a lens, and hits the image sensor (that boring looking rectangle above) which converts it into an electrical signal, sorta like it enters through an eye's lens and strikes the retina, where it's also converted into an electrical signal. If nothing else after this makes sense, keep this in mind: The more light an image sensor can collect, the better.

When a camera is spec'd at 10 megapixels, it's not just telling you that its biggest photos will contain about 10 million pixels. Generally, it's also telling you the number of photosites, or photodiodes on the image sensor; confusingly, these are also often referred to as pixels. Photodiodes are the part of the sensor that's actually sensitive to light, and if you remember your science, a photodiode converts light (photons) into electricity (electrons). The standard trope for explaining photosites is that they're tiny buckets left out in a downpour of photons, collecting the light particles as they rain down. As you might expect, the bigger the photosite, the more photons it can collect at the moment when it's exposed (i.e., when you press the shutter button).

Image sensors come in a range of sizes, as you can see in this helpful diagram from Wikipedia. A bigger sensor, like the full-frame slab used in the Canon 5D or Nikon D3, has more space for photosites than the thumbnail-sized sensor that fits in little point-and-shoots. So, if they're both 12-megapixels, that is, they both have 12 million photosites, the bigger sensor can obviously collect a lot more light per pixel, since the pixels are bigger.

If you're grasping for a specification to look for, the distance between photosites is referred to as pixel pitch, which roughly tells you how big the photosite, or pixel, is. For instance, a Nikon D3 with a 36mm x 23.9mm sensor has a pixel pitch of 8.45 microns, while a Canon S90 point-and-shoot with a 7.60 mm x 5.70 mm sensor has a pitch of 2 microns. To put that in less math-y terms, if you got the same amount of light to hit the image sensors the D3 and the S90—you know, you took the exact same exposure—the bigger pixels in the D3 would be able to collect and hold on to more of the light. When you're looking for low-light performance, it's immediately obvious why that's a good thing.

Catch More Light, Faster, Faster

Okay, so that's easy enough: As an axiom, larger photodiodes result in more light sensitivity. (So with the 1D Mark IV, Canon kept the same photodiode size, but the shrunk the rest of the pixel to fit more of them on the same-size chip as its predecessor). There's more to an image sensor than simply photosites, though, which is why I called up Dr. Peter B. Catrysse from the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. The "ideal pixel," he says, is flat—just an area that collects light—nearly bare silicon. But even at a basic level, a photodiode sits below layers of other stuff: a micro lens (which directs light onto the photodiode), a color filter (necessary, 'cause image sensors are in fact color blind) and then a layer of gunk, like wiring. So one way manufacturers are improving sensors is by trying to make all of that as thin as possible—we're talking hundreds of nanometers—so more light gets through.

One major way that's happening, he says, is with back-illuminated sensors, which move the wiring to the back-side of the silicon substrate, as illustrated in this diagram by Sony. It's currently still more expensive to make sensors this way, but since more light's getting through, you can use smaller pixels (and have more of them).

In your basic image sensor construction, there's an array of microlenses sitting above the photosites to direct light into them. Previously, you had gaps between the microlenses, which meant you had light falling through that wasn't being directed onto the actually light-sensitive parts of the sensor. Canon and Nikon have created gapless microlenses, so more of the light falling onto the sensor is directed into the diode, and not wasted. If you must persist with the bucket metaphor, think of it as putting a larger funnel over the bucket, one that can grab more because it has a wider mouth. Here's a shot of gapless microlens architecture:

A chief reason to gather as much light as possible is to bring up your signal-to-noise ratio, which is the province of true digital imaging nerds. Anyways, there are several different sources and kinds of noise. Worth knowing is "photon shot" or just "shot" noise, which occurs because the stream of photons hitting the image sensor aren't perfectly consistent in their timing; there's "read" noise, which is inherent to image sensors; and "dark current" noise, which is basically stray electrons striking the sensor that aren't generated by visible light—they're often caused by heat.

Taken with a Nikon D3s at ISO 102,400
Back in the day, when people shot photographs on this stuff called film, they actually bought it according to its light sensitivity, expressed as an ISO speed. (A standard set by the International Organization for Standardization, confusingly aka ISO. The film speed standard is ISO 5800:1987.) With digital cameras, you also can tell your camera how sensitive to light it should be using ISO, which is supposed to be equivalent to the film standard.

The thing is, whether you're shooting at ISO 100 or ISO 1600, the same number of photons hit your sensor—you're just boosting the signal from the sensor, and along with it, all the noise that was picked up on the way. If you've got more signal to work with—like in a camera whose sensor has some fat photon-collecting pixels, you get a higher signal-to-noise ratio when you crank it up, which is one reason a photo taken D3 at ISO 6400 looks way better than one from a teeny point-and-shoot, and why a 1D Mark IV or D3s can even think about shooting at an ISO of over 100,000, like the photo above. (Another reason is that a 1D Mark IV-level camera possesses vastly superior image processing, with faster processors that can crunch complex algorithms to help reduce noise.)

Sensor Shake and Bake

There are two kinds of image sensors that most digital cameras use today: CCD (charged-couple device) sensors and CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) sensors, which are actually a kind of active-pixel sensor, but the way they're made have become a shorthand name. "Fundamentally, at least physics-wise, they work exactly the same," says Dr. Catrysse, so one's not intrinsically more awesome than the other. CCD sensors are the more mature imaging tech, so for a long time, they tended to be better, but now CMOS sensors are taking over, having almost completely crowded them out of cellphones and high-end DSLRs (Leica's M9 is an exception)—and Dr. Catrysse suspects the last place for CCD sensors is going to be in niche scientific applications.

A "CMOS sensor" is one that's made using the CMOS process, the way you make all kinds of integrated circuits—you know, stuff like CPUs, GPUs and RAM—so they're actually cheaper to make than CCD sensors. (The cheap-to-make aspect is why they've been the sensor of choice in cameraphones, and conversely, DSLRs with huge chips.) And, unlike a CCD sensor, which has to move all of the electrons off of the chip to run them through an analog-to-digital converter, with a CMOS sensor, all of that happens on the same integrated chip. So they're faster, and they use less power. Something to think about as well: Because they're made pretty much the same way as any other semiconductor, CMOS sensors progress along with advances in semiconductor manufacturing. Smaller transistors allow for more circuits in a pixel and the potential to remove more noise at the source, says Dr. Catrysse, bringing us closer to fundamental physical limits, like photon noise. And then we're talking about controlling light at the nanoscale.

The Point

We've reached, in many ways, a point of megapixel fatigue: They're not as valuable, or even as buzzy as they used to be. Not many of us print billboard-sized images. But the technology continues to progress—more refined sensors, smarter image processors, sharper glass—and the camera industry needs something to sell us every year.

But that's not entirely a bad thing. Our friend and badass war photographer Teru Kuwayama says that while "increasing megapixel counts are mostly just a pain in the ass, unless you happen to be in the hard drive or memory card business, skyrocketing ISOs on the other hand, are a quantum leap, opening up a time-space dimension that didn't exist for previous generations of photographers. I'd happily trade half the megapixels for twice the light sensitivity."

Better images, not just bigger images. That's the promise of this massive shift. The clouds to this silver lining are that by next year, ISO speeds will likely be the headline, easy-to-digest spec for consumers. And like any other spec, just because the ISO ratings go higher doesn't mean low-light performance will be better. Remember, "more" isn't more better.

Still something you wanna know? Send questions about ISO, isometric exercise or isolation here with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Christopher Tarnovsky hacks Infineon's 'unhackable' chip, we prepare for false-advertising litigation

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/christopher-tarnovsky-hacks-infineons-unhackable-chip-we-pre/

As it turns out, Infineon may have been a little bit... optimistic when it said its SLE66 CL PE was "unhackable" -- but only a little. The company should have put an asterisk next to the word, pointing to a disclaimer indicating something to the effect of: "Unless you have an electron microscope, small conductive needles to intercept the chip's internal circuitry, and the acid necessary to expose it." Those are some of the tools available to researcher Christopher Tarnovsky, who perpetrated the hack and presented his findings at the Black Hat DC Conference earlier this month. Initially, Infineon claimed what he'd done was impossible, but now has taken a step back and said "the risk is manageable, and you are just attacking one computer." We would tend to agree in this case, but Tarnovsky still deserves serious respect for this one. Nice work, Big Gun.

Christopher Tarnovsky hacks Infineon's 'unhackable' chip, we prepare for false-advertising litigation originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IBM specs out Power7 systems, starts shipping them to your local server farm

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/ibm-specs-out-power7-systems-starts-shipping-them-to-your-local/

Sure, there's not much chance of popping down to your local hypermarket and picking up something with a Power7 roaring inside, but there's also nothing stopping you from a bit of vicarious investigation, now is there? IBM's eight-core, 1.2 billion-transistor Power7 chips have begun shipping as promised, with the entry-level Power 750 Express starting at a few bucks over $34,000. That offers you some truly supreme computing power, as each of the eight cores can run four simultaneous threads for up to 32 parallel tasks, with 8MB of embedded DRAM (acting as L3 cache) per core. The top-tier POWER 780 system maxes out with either eight 3.8GHz eight-core chips or eight 4.1GHz quad-core units, allied to a maximum of 2TB of DDR3 RAM and up to 24 SSDs -- though you'll have to call IBM to find out the price (presumably so that a trained professional can counsel you after hearing the spectacular number). Watch the video after the break while we try to cajole IBM into sending us one for benchmarking.

Continue reading IBM specs out Power7 systems, starts shipping them to your local server farm

IBM specs out Power7 systems, starts shipping them to your local server farm originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nanofiber lighting promises to be better, safer than incandescent or CFL bulbs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/nanofiber-lighting-promises-to-be-better-safer-than-incandescen/

Well, it looks like you can add another contender to the great light bulb debate -- a group of researchers from RTI International now says that nanofiber lighter is more efficient than incandescent light bulbs, and safer than compact fluorescents. The secret to that, it seems, is a combination of nanofiber-based reflectors and photoluminescent nanofibers (or PLN), which together are able to form a lighting device that pumps out more than 55 lumens of light output per electrical watt consumed. That's five times more efficient than a regular incandescent light bulb, and since there's no mercury, the researchers say it's far safer than CFL bulbs. What's more, it's also apparently able to produce more natural light than CFLs, although there's noticeably no mention of potential pricing -- they do say that the first products using nanofiber lighting could be available in three to five years, though. Video after the break.

[Thanks, DeFlanko]

Continue reading Nanofiber lighting promises to be better, safer than incandescent or CFL bulbs

Nanofiber lighting promises to be better, safer than incandescent or CFL bulbs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marvell's Pantheon platform to bring $99 smartphones, Armada 618 to dominate HD clips

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/marvells-pantheon-platform-to-bring-99-smartphones-armada-618/

In a presumed effort to get its news out before the whirlwind that is Mobile World Congress officially begins, Marvell has just shot out two vital pieces of information that may very well impact the price and performance of your next smartphone. First off, we've got the new Pantheon platform, which is designed to "provide breakthrough levels of integration that lower the bill of materials for mobile devices while offering consumers excellent performance, connectivity, and a compelling user experience." In other words, this is said to be the core ingredient in a future wave of "$99 smartphones" that can handle 3D gaming, HD media and some random thing called "calling." Next up is the latest member of the Armada family, the 618. Packed with a 1GHz clock speed and the ability to chew through 1080p content, 3D graphics and pretty much anything else you can throw at it, there's a halfway decent chance we'll see this under the hood of a few upcoming tablets, e-readers and bodacious smartphones. Hopefully we'll learn more at MWC next week, and we'll be sure to share it as soon as we get it.

Marvell's Pantheon platform to bring $99 smartphones, Armada 618 to dominate HD clips originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kanex shows off HDMI to Mini DisplayPort adapter, your iMac celebrates

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/kanex-shows-off-hdmi-to-mini-displayport-adapter-your-imac-cele/

It ain't the first HDMI-to-Mini DisplayPort adapter that we've heard of, but there's nothing like a little competition in a market that Apple's own closed mindset helped create. Bitterness aside, we're pretty stoked to hear that Kanex -- the same company responsible for that oh-so-handy Mini DisplayPort Adapter for Mac mini -- has introduced its own solution for piping Blu-ray, Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 signals right onto that gorgeous 27-inch panel that resides in your iMac. Our BFFs over at TUAW stopped by the outfit's Macworld booth in order to give it a look, and they said that every pixel looked absolutely fantastic. Sadly, it looks as if you'll have to wait until April to drop your buck-fifty (not including cables), but hey, it's not like using that 13-inch CRT for a few more months will kill you. Or maybe it will, on second thought.

Kanex shows off HDMI to Mini DisplayPort adapter, your iMac celebrates originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's 3D HDTVs arrive February 26, starting at just under $2,000

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/samsungs-3d-hdtvs-arrive-february-26-starting-at-just-under-2/

Following the company's 2010 Blu-ray player lineup, the first of this year's 3D HDTVs from Samsung are available for preorder at a few internet retailers. The edge-lit LED and 1.1-inch thin C7000 series hits in 40- 46- and 55-inch sizes, with plenty of other features to go along with their 3D and 2D-to-3D conversion abilities. There's access to Samsung Apps & Internet@TV, Skype, AllShare DLNA media streaming, and tweaks that promise to automatically adjust picture and sound for any content source, from a thumb drive to a Blu-ray player. Best pleasant surprise? Price. The UN46B7000 model we reviewed last year started with a $2,999 MSRP (currently down to $1,929 on Amazon), while this year's UN46C7000 (shipping April 16) has a preorder price of $2,599. The 40- and 55-inch versions are similarly priced, at $1,999 and $3,299, respectively, though those necessary 3D glasses are left out of the package as an optional and as yet unpriced accessory that will likely eagerly claim any remaining room in your budget.

Gallery: Samsung LED 7000 series HDTV

[Thanks, Jason]

Samsung's 3D HDTVs arrive February 26, starting at just under $2,000 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google exhibits Liquid Galaxy installation at TED, we toss back a Dramamine

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/12/google-exhibits-liquid-galaxy-installation-at-ted-we-toss-back/

You know you've wondered what Google Earth would look like across a curved, eight-display installation, and now your most stupendous dreams are a reality thanks to Liquid Galaxy. That's the moniker that's been given to Jason Holt's 20 percent project, which he's just now getting to showcase to the world at the TED conference in San Francisco. Reportedly, eight Linux machines are tied to the process, and he's able to fly through the digital skies via voice commands and sheer mental strength. Or maybe it's just voice commands. Head past the break for a cockpit view, but be sure to close one eye if you're prone to motion sickness.

[Thanks, Camron]

Continue reading Google exhibits Liquid Galaxy installation at TED, we toss back a Dramamine

Google exhibits Liquid Galaxy installation at TED, we toss back a Dramamine originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 21:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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