Apple Juice: How to Charge Your Phone With Pocket Change and Fruit

Source: http://gizmodo.com/apple-juice-how-to-charge-your-phone-with-pocket-chang-510129312

Arthur C. Clarke wrote that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," but he was wrong. It's easy to tell the difference—technology works. For example, "remote-viewing" mentalists claim they can see events far away, yet they fail every test. In fact, remote viewing is simple: It's called TV.

Another example that recently circulated online was a fake video of someone charging his iPhone by jamming the end of a USB cable into an onion. How do I know it was fake? First, you need contacts made of two different metals, and second, you can't get enough voltage out of a single vegetable. What makes the ruse so disappointing is that it is possible to charge an iPhone this way, if you do it right.

Theodore Gray, the author of Popular Science's monthly column, "Gray Matter," is convinced that when kids and adults are introduced to science in its most exciting form, they, too, will get hooked. In his newest book Mad Science²: Experiments You Can Do At Home, But Still Probably Shouldn't, Gray wants to spark that curiosity with visually spectacular experiments that illustrate the principles, the beauty, and the power of science.

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Why It Works

A regulation vegetable battery, made by sticking strips of zinc and copper into a potato, generates about half a volt. The electricity comes from the oxidation of zinc; the vegetable is just an elecrolyte (conductive barrier), and the copper completes the circuit. Stacking alternating layers of vegetables, zinc, and copper is like wiring batteries in series, each set adding its voltage to the total.

After some 10 volts' worth of teary-eyed onion peeling, I decided to switch to apples using a fruit corer to cut out the apple rods and a cheese slicer to cut them into disks. Pennies with the copper plating sanded off on one side made a handy source of copper and zinc layers in one.

About 150 of these, arranged into six parallel batteries of 25 apple/zinc/copper layers each, yielded enough power to charge an iPhone, but only for about a second. (Much larger zinc plates and whole slices of apple would have provided more power for longer.) Around 200 of the layers went into one three-foot long apple battery, delivering much higher voltage. I was able to create a visible, and potentially fatal, spark with this battery. Yes, in the right configuration, you can electrocute yourself with an apple.

How I Did It

This was one of the most involved demonstrations I've done, due to the need to produce a couple hundred half-sanded pennies. Post-1982 pennies are made of copper-plated zinc, so if you sand off the copper plating on one side of them, and combine them with solid copper pre-1982 pennies, you have both metals needed to create a battery.

I mounted a short iron water pipe, whose inside diameter was just about the same as a penny, up against a small vertical belt sander, leaving a gap between the end of the pipe and the sanding belt that was just a bit thinner than a penny. Then I filled the pipe with a stack of pennies, and pressed them up against the running belt with a plunger. Each penny in turn was sanded down until it was thin enough to fit through the gap, at which point the moving belt threw the penny out of the machine, allowing the next one to advance into position. It worked surprisingly well as an automatic penny sander, plopping out a sanded penny every few seconds.

I first thought of using onions because I figured I could core them with a fruit coring tool (basically a very thin-walled metal tube with a sharpened edge, which you can use to cut plugs out of fruits), and then the layers would separate into lots of individual disks. Unfortunately onion didn't work very well, I think becasue each layer has a sort of membrane on one side that doesn't conduct electricity very well. So I switched to using apples instead, and had to manually slice the cores into disks.

With about two hundred sets of alternating penny/apple disks connected in series (stacked inside a clear plastic tube) the battery produces enough voltage (over 100V) to actually be dangerous. To charge an iPhone I had to rearrange the battery into six stacks of about 20 apple/penny slices each, with the six stacks connected in parallel to incrase the current capacity. Even so it charged the phone for literally about one second, just long enough for it to come on and display the charging symbol

Real Danger Alert: This experiment could damage your iPhone if done improperly.

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In his new book, Mad Science²: Experiments You Can Do At Home, But Still Probably Shouldn't, science enthusiast Theodore Gray illustrates the awesome power of science with illuminating behind-the-scenes tours of the potential of the world around us. His (often dangerous) experiments are sure to capture the imaginations of students and anyone interested in science or just plain old cool stuff.

Scientists Revived 400-Year-Old Plants That Could Help Us Live on Mars

Source: http://gizmodo.com/scientists-revived-400-year-old-plants-that-could-help-510691491

A recently uncovered, perfectly preserved, 400-year-old plant specimen might be the answer to our increasingly important colonization of other planets—and the preservation of the human race as a whole.

You probably already know that human stem cells hold a vast, wildly exciting potential—both in terms of furthering our understanding of the human body and in saving countless lives. But did you know plants have their very own version of the industrious little cells, called bryophytes, that could prove just as important in saving humanity? That's exactly what scientists have found, and what's gotten them so excited.

Lead by Catherine La Farge, a team of researchers from the University of Alberta was exploring mosses around the Teardrop Glacier in the Canadian arctic archipelago when they discovered that portions of the (now rapidly receding) glacier were tinted an incongruous green. After taking the sample plant material back to her lab, the team ground up the specimens, placed them in potting soil, and watched with awe as they successfully regenerated from their 400-year-old parent material.

As the glacier recedes at an astonishing rate of 3 to 4 meters per year since 2004, scientists have gained access to an increasing amount of centuries-old plant life frozen in time. Every discovery up until now, though, has been flora of the vascular variety. But it's this non-vascular sort that, though often overlooked, holds the key to understanding our past and our future.

What's a Bryophyte?

Vascular plants are primarily defined by the existence of a xylem and a phloem, or in other words, the parts that suck up water and nutrients and send them shooting throughout the rest of the plant. Non-vascular plants, as all you keen observers may have already guessed, don't have this system—they're a far more simple breed. Made to freeze and dry out, they're able to survive in conditions that vascular plants, what with their fancy leaf and stem tissue needing "water" and "food" all the time, could only dream of.

Bryophytes, which fall into this latter category, have to reproduce asexually since they often don't have access to water, which is key to fertilization. And because of this, depending on its environment, a single bryophyte cell can essentially reprogram itself to grow as an entirely different plant. But that's not even the exciting part. As La Farge explained:

This has been known forever by biologists who deal with bryophytes. Because if a moose goes through a forest, it might pick up moss in its toes and carry that material somewhere else. So when the plant tissue drops, it will be able to reestablish itself in its new environment and thrive.

It's as if you could drop a lion in the ocean and have it grow gills.

So... What's the Big Deal?

As glaciers retreat and a greater variety of plant life surfaces, it's essentially like peeling a blanket back over a perfectly preserved portion of the past. Dormant, yes—but alive nonetheless. And that's what makes this discovery so incredible. The knowledge that it's even possible for plant life to survive in such extreme conditions opens the door to a deeper understanding of this robust group's cell biology. Which in turn, could very well pave the way towards us figuring out how the hell we're going to grow plants on other planets—oh, say Mars, for instance.

Because unquestionably, before we can even begin to fantasize about sending people into the red abyss, we're going to need to test whether or not plants can survive in those kinds of conditions—harsh light, dryness, freezing, etc. And now it seems like we may have found just the plant for the job. Eschews water? Check. Ability to reproduce simply and all by its lonesome? Check. Doesn't mind the cold? Double check. Not to mention the fact that it can morph into other plants.

Which is part of the reason why bryophytes represent the second largest lineage of land plants in terms of diversity—10,000 different species diverse, to be exact. And various, disparate strains will happily live side-by-side; they don't compete in the way vascular plants do. Rather, they bunch as close together as possible, which allows them to retain the moisture that facilitates their entire biological life cycle. So there's a reason you'll always see moss growing in tufts. And though they might be virtually microscopic as single organisms, there's still plenty about them to find fascinating—especially if you're a bryophyte enthusiast like La Farge. As she explained to us:

It's mind boggling, because normally you walk through a forest, and you see green moss on a rock. So you might think oh, that's a nice moss and move on. But you never stop to think about what that green actually represents. How diverse is it? How many species are we really considering here? I mean, when you're up in the high arctic, if you pick up just a small packet, say a letter envelope size, you can often get 15 different species of bryophytes in one letter-size collection. It's pretty amazing.

The Next Stage

There's still many other organisms that could be lying peacefully under the still-frozen glacier. Scientists knew that fungi, yeast, and bacteria were all able to survive in ice, and they also knew that both vascular plants and mosses could live on the top of a glacier. But this is the first time we've really considered the possibility that the stuff peeking out from underneath the glacier just might be alive. Frozen specimens, then, won't necessarily be considered dead on arrival, leaving researchers with plenty of work ahead of them.

La Farge is particularly interested in moving into the lower latitudes, where the even more rapidly shrinking icecaps are exposing even older glimpses of past life. And all of this will only enhance our newly illuminated understanding of basic life systems—something we're going to need when we start planting biodomes on other planets.

Of course, tests like that may still be quite a ways off. But at least now, we have plenty of reason to hope. [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States]

Images via Catherine La Farge

How a Supercomputer May Have Finally Unlocked a Way to Beat HIV

Source: http://gizmodo.com/how-a-supercomputer-may-have-finally-unlocked-a-way-to-510672032

There's no easy answer for HIV; the sly virus uses our own immune cells to its advantage and mutates readily to shrug off round after round of anti-retrovirals. But thanks to the efforts researchers from the University of Illinois and some heavy-duty number crunching from one of the world's fastest petaflop supercomputers, we may be able to stop HIV right in its tracks.

The latest line of attack against HIV targets its viral casing (or capsid). Capsids lie between the virus's spherical outer coat, a .1 micron diameter, lipid based layer known as the viral envelope, and a bullet-shaped inner coat known as the viral core that contains the strands of HIV RNA. Capsids comprise 2,000 copies of the viral protein, p24, arranged in a lattice structure (a rough insight gleaned only from years of cryo-electron microscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, cryo-EM tomography, and X-ray crystallography work). The capsid is responsible for protecting the RNA load, disabling the host's immune system, and delivering the RNA into new cells. In other words: It's the evil mastermind.

The lattice protein structure allows the capsid to open and close like a Hoberman Sphere.

As Dr Peijun Zhang, project lead and associate professor in structural biology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine explained to the BBC:

The capsid is critically important for HIV replication, so knowing its structure in detail could lead us to new drugs that can treat or prevent the infection. The capsid has to remain intact to protect the HIV genome and get it into the human cell, but once inside, it has to come apart to release its content so that the virus can replicate. Developing drugs that cause capsid dysfunction by preventing its assembly or disassembly might stop the virus from reproducing.

But until very recently, the precise structure—how the thousands of copies of p24 actually meshed together—remained a mystery. The capsid's (relatively) large size, non-symmetric shape, protein structure has stumped researchers' attempts to effectively model it. Earlier research had revealed that the p24 arranged itself in either a pentagon or hexagon shape as part of the capsid structure, but how many of each and how the pieces fit together remained out of reach because science simply didn't have the computational prowess to model this incredibly complex subatomic structure in atomic-level detail.

This problem required a petaflop-level supercomputer to solve, a class of machine that has only recently become readily available. The team turned to National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and its resident supercomputer, Blue Waters.

The team fed electron microscopy data collected in lab experiments conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt University into Blue Waters and let the $108 million, 11.5 petaflop machine do its thing: Crunch massive amounts of information with its 49,000 AMD CPUs. Blue Waters can handle one quadrillion floating point operations every second, so stitching together 1,300 proteins into an oblong molecular soccer ball was no sweat.

The team developed a novel shaping algorithm for the project, dubbed molecular dynamic flexible fitting. "You basically simulate the physical characteristics and behavior of large biological molecules, but you also incorporate the data into the simulation so that the model actually drives itself toward agreement with the data," said Professor Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois in a press release.

"This is a big structure, one of the biggest structures ever solved," Schulten continued. "It was very clear that it would require a huge amount of simulation — the largest simulation ever published — involving 64 million atoms."

The team revealed the complete capsid structure in a Nature report yesterday:

The mature human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) capsid is best described by a ‘fullerene cone’ model2, 3, in which hexamers of the capsid protein are linked to form a hexagonal surface lattice that is closed by incorporating 12 capsid-protein pentamers.

In all, the HIV capsid requires 216 protein hexagons and 12 protein pentagons to operate—arranged exactly as the predictive models said they would be. The new discovery reveals a stunningly versatile protein in p24. The protein itself is identical whether it's shaped into a pentagon or a hexagon, only the attachment sites between p24 proteins varies between shapes. How that works remains a mystery.

"How can a single type of protein form something as varied as this thing? The protein has to be inherently flexible," said Schulten.

New questions aside, this breakthrough illustrates precisely how the capsid works and how scientists can best attack that function to disrupt the virus' ability to replicate. By exploiting the capsid's structure, researchers theoretically could deliver a molecular padlock that prevents the viral core from opening and the virus from spreading. This discovery could lead to an entirely new suite of treatment alternatives and could finally outpace HIV's ability to rapidly evolve resistance to current enzyme-based medications.

"The big problem with HIV is that it evolves so quickly that any drug you use you get drug resistance which is why we use a multi-drug cocktail," Professor Simon Lovell, a structural biologist at the University of Manchester, said. "This is another target, another thing we can go after to develop a new class of drugs to work alongside the existing class."

It's only a matter of time until HIV goes the way of polio. And it's thanks in no small part to one beast of a computer. [BBC - CNet - Nature - University of Illinois - National Science Foundation - NIH - Top Image: CDC (public domain) - Trio and duo Images: Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group (www.ks.uiuc.edu), Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, UIUC - Blue Waters: kosheahan / Flickr - Pipes: UIUC - Illustration: NIAID]

Tetris creator launches Marbly, his first mobile-focused game

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/tetris-creator-launches-marbly-his-first-mobile-focused-game/

Alexey Pajitnov certainly has a presence on phones and tablets when there's a seemingly infinite number of Tetris ports. His newly released Marbly is his first game built with mobile in mind, however. The iOS puzzler isn't as action-packed as Tetris or even Hexic, but it's as deceptively simple as Pajitnov's earlier work: players have to think several steps ahead as they match like-colored marbles. The game is easy enough to try when it's free, with in-app purchases available when gamers need a helping hand. It's also just the beginning of Pajitnov's mobile efforts -- publisher WildSnake Software claims that he's working on more releases, which suggests that there's plenty of all-too-addictive gameplay in our future.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Mobile

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Via: Pocket-lint

Source: App Store

Intel to launch Celeron and Pentium chips based on Atom architecture

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/intel-to-launch-celeron-and-pentium-processors-with-atom-inside/

In recent years, Intel's Celeron and Pentium processors have been cut-down versions of more advanced counterparts. For the chips' next updates, Intel is taking an opposite tack -- it's bringing low-end Atom architecture into the big leagues. The company is confident enough in the speed and flexibility of the Bay Trail-based Atom platform that it's launching desktop and laptop versions (Bay Trail-D and Bay Trail-M) under the Celeron and Pentium badges. There isn't much more to share regarding the CPUs beyond their expected releases late in the year, although there's a good chance that we'll learn more at Computex next week.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Intel

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Source: PCWorld

Samsung Galaxy S 4 Active shown off with AT&T branding

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/samsung-galaxy-s-4-active-att/

The Samsung Galaxy S 4 Active isn't really much of a secret at this point, despite the fact that it's still unannounced. It's already been seen in its share of images and videos, and the I537 -- the AT&T-branded version -- has even been spotted passing through the FCC. Fortunately, @evleaks dug up some imagery of this particular variant of the rugged smartphone in black (though it will supposedly be offered in teal as well), complete with the trademark AT&T globe on the back. It's rumored to offer a 1.9GHz quad-core Snapdragon 600 chipset, HD display, 8-megapixel rear camera and water-resistant protection. What's more, we're being told that this is just one of many Samsung devices on its way to the large GSM operator this year, accompanying the Galaxy S4 Mini, Galaxy S3 Mini (oddly), Galaxy Mega 6.3 and Galaxy Note 3. Pricing is still unknown, but we have to wonder if the date on the phone's display above is an indication of what we can expect to see at Samsung's June 20th event.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile, Samsung, AT&T

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Source: TheUnlockr

ASRock announces M8 compact gaming rig in collaboration with BMW

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/asrock-m8-gaming-rig-with-bmw/

BMW and ASRock just announced the new M8 gaming PC, which will debut at Computex next week. The collaboration is ASRock's first rig with a small form factor, though it shares the sharp lines and edgy color palette of the hulking, BMW-designed Thermaltake Level 10 case. An OLED screen sits on the front of the case and displays stats such as fan speed and temperature, and there's a knob for adjusting the fan depending on the game at hand. Interestingly, the M8's semi-transparent side panels are attached magnetically rather than screwed in, so users should have no trouble accessing components. So far, the companies have only shared connectivity specs: 802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 are on board, as is a quad-core Creative SoundCore 3D audio processor. We're bound to find out more in Taipei, though, so hang tight.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

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Via: SlashGear

Source: BMW

Scientists capture images of molecules forming atomic bonds

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/scientists-capture-images-of-molecules-forming-atomic-bonds/

For most of us, molecular bonding only really exists as a classroom concept. Some scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory can now claim more tangible knowledge, however: they're the first to have taken truly clear snapshots of bonding in progress. While trying to create graphene nanostructures and observe them with an atomic force microscope, a lab team spotted molecules forming their individual, atom-level links during a chemical reaction. The resulting shots were nearly textbook material, too -- as the molecules were neatly placed on a flat surface, the researchers identified the order and nature of each bond. While the images will only be immediately useful for the nanostructure research at hand, they may add a welcome dash of reality to future chemistry lessons.

Filed under: Science, Alt

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Via: Phys.org

Source: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

ASUS unveils 31.5-inch 4K monitor ahead of Computex

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/asus-unveils-31-5-inch-4k-monitor-ahead-of-computex/

Taiwanese PC maker ASUS dropped this gem yesterday ahead of Computex 2013 -- the PQ321, a professional-grade 31.5-inch 4K monitor. It features a 3840 x 2160-pixel (16:9, 140 ppi) 10-bit RGB (one billion colors) IGZO panel with LED backlight, 176-degree viewing angles, 350 cd/m2 brightness and 8ms GTG response time. Beyond its Ultra HD capability, the monitor comes with built-in stereo speakers (2W) plus height, tilt and swivel adjustments. It's wall-mountable (VESA) and only 35mm thick -- according to ASUS, that makes it the thinnest 4K monitor on the market today. Connectivity includes DisplayPort, 3.5mm audio, RS-232C and, for US models, dual HDMI inputs with picture-in-picture support. There's no word on pricing yet, but the PQ321 will be available in North America at the end of June and ASUS is expected to show the monitor in Taipei next week along with a 39-inch 4K model.

Filed under: Displays, HD, ASUS

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Via: PC Perspective

Source: Asus, Hexus

The 360Hero Cameras Are All Shades of Mind Blowing 360° Awesome

Source: http://gizmodo.com/the-360hero-cameras-are-all-shades-of-mind-blowing-360-510600721

If we can agree on one thing, let's agree on this: 360° videos are unbelievably awesome because they completely immerse you into the video itself. Actually, video isn't even the right word for them because 360° videos fully capture everything around you, below you and above you—they're a recording of real life.

But the problem has always been the amount of work, money and time to get 360° videos right. It just took too much. 360Heros wants to make it easier. Maybe even too easy. 360Heroes has created a camera stand that allows you to simply slip in GoPro cameras into the right spot so you can immediately capture life at 360°.

Typically, one camera has a viewing angle of 170°, if you combine more, you get a wider viewing angle. But even most 360° camera rigs right now don't capture in full 360°, they're limited to 120° vertically. With 360Heros 360 Plug-n-Play holders though, you get a full 360° horizontally and 180° horizontally. You see everything.

The 360Heros 360 Plug-n-Play holders are made from aircraft grade flexible nylon that house 6 different GoPro cameras to create the all-seeing eye. The stand has various mounting points for tripods and even tiny fish line holes to suspend the housing in the air (like with a drone). It's starting as a Kickstarter project right now. You can support them here.

360Heros gear was used to make the absolutely mind blowing Beck video we saw earlier this year (you should watch it) and can be used anywhere: sporting events, concerts, a day at the park with your kid, a beach day and so on. Just check out some of the sample footage they've shot here. It's amazing. [360Heros Kickstarter]

IK Multimedia intros AmpliTube 3.0 with timeline editing, ships iRig HD

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/30/ik-multimedia-intros-amplitube-3-0-ships-irig-hd/

Artists going all-out on mobile music editing have relatively few options -- GarageBand won't always cut it for the pros. IK Multimedia thinks its newly launched AmpliTube 3.0 could be the solution for those producers on the move. The $20 iOS app introduces a full, multi-track audio editor that can create a final masterpiece. With the help of a guitar rig and customizable drum loop, the suite is theoretically good enough to keep computers out of the studio. Even if musicians don't want to go that far, they may be happy to hear that IK Multimedia has shipped the iRig HD. The $99 interface gives iOS and Mac users a preamped adapter for instruments with quarter-inch plugs. While we're sure some performers would rather stick to traditional recording methods, those who've embraced digital with open arms can check out both AmpliTube and iRig HD at the source links.

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Tablets, Software

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Source: App Store (1), (2), IK Multimedia

Samsung's 65- and 55-inch 4K TVs launch next month in Korea for less than $8,000

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/30/samsung-65-55-inch-4k-price/

Samsung's first 4K TV came with an eye catching 85-inch frame design and an eye popping $39,999 MSRP, but its next two will apparently be much more reasonable. The 65- and 55-inch versions have just been given a release date and pricing information in Korea and while still expensive, they've followed Sony's lead to a sub-$10,000 price point. The machine translated press release indicates pre-orders should start June 1st, with the 55-inch model available for 6.4 million won ($5,670), and the 65-inch version for 8.9 million won ($7,913). Naturally, they include Samsung's upscaling technology and support for the Evolution Kit CPU upgrade as well, and as seen in the pics (above and one more after the break) feature a more standard frame design. As an additional bonus, pre-orderers will get a free coupon for the 2014 upgrade kit (we wonder if that will include any potential new HDMI standards) and a fitness bike exercise game app.

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD, Samsung

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Source: Korea Newswire

CNET: Acer will release a $400 Android AIO PC running Intel's Haswell CPU

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/cnet-acer-android-intel-aio/

Acer will soon release an Intel Haswell 3GHz, Core-i5-powered AIO at that cuts Windows out of the PC picture altogether by running Android, according to an un-sourced rumor from CNET. The PC maker has already dipped its toes into the Android AIO waters with the 21.5-inch ARM-powered Smart Display DA220HQL (shown above), but if the rumor pans out, it would mark the first Intel powered AIO we've seen from anyone packing Google's mobile OS. The lack of a license fee to Microsoft means the unit would cost around $400, and thanks to Android's lower hardware needs, would come with a mere 1GB RAM and 8GB ROM at a minimum. If true -- and that's a huge "if" -- it makes some sense considering Acer's desire to avoid Microsoft's Windows RT OS at all costs, but we're not sure how an Android-based tablet with pricier Intel underpinnings would go down with the public.

Filed under: Desktops, Acer

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Source: CNET

Samsung's next Galaxy Tab will have Intel inside, says Reuters

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/samsung-intel-galaxy-tab/

This particular rumor has been swirling for a while already, but Reuters says its own sources are now backing it up: Samsung will switch from an ARM-based design and use Intel as the supplier of the processor inside at least one version of its next 10-inch slate, the Galaxy Tab 3 10.1. Word is that Samsung will run Android off Intel's latest x86 Atom architecture, Clover Trail+, which we've so far seen in just a handful of smartphones including the Lenovo K900 and ZTE Geek.

By way of corroboration, Korea Times is reporting the exact same Galaxy Tab 3 rumor and has also quoted an anonymous Intel employee who claimed that the number of Atom engineers based in Korea has ballooned from six last year to as many as 50 personnel today. They're said to be working on "Samsung-related projects with a mission to customize circuits for adaptation in Samsung products" -- which certainly doesn't sound like typical Intel behavior. Korea Times specifically says that Samsung is looking to reduce its reliance on the tricky supply of its own ARM-based Exynos processors, while Intel is offering the Korean giant good prices and cooperation in order to build its mobile market share. This all tallies with the idea of Atom coming to some high volume Android products -- and it's very possible that we'll see proof of that at Computex next week.

Filed under: Tablets, Mobile, Samsung, Intel

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Via: Android Beat

Source: Korea Times, Reuters

Oppo Ulike 2S coming soon with improved 5MP front camera, larger 5.5-inch 720p display

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/31/oppo-ulike-2s/

Even though Oppo's Ulike 2 won't be leaving China any time soon (if ever), there's still hope for its larger follow-up, the Ulike 2S. Announced in Shenzhen yesterday, this new device still boasts a combo of a 5-megapixel front-facing camera plus an 8-megapixel imager on the back, but both are said to have improved performance and beautification effects. The more obvious difference is the larger 5.5-inch 720p display -- a big jump from the old 4.5-inch 960 x 540 version -- with a pretty slim bezel. On the back, the Ulike 2S has a cover that gives you access to the removable 3,000mAh battery (instead of the old built-in 2,020mAh cell), as well as the dual micro-SIM slots.

There's no word on the detailed specs or price just yet, but stay tuned for its launch within the next two months. Alternatively, there's always the smaller MeituKiss with its 8-megapixel selfie camera, if you dig the extra pixels.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Source: CNMO (Chinese)

How to Clean Out Your Overflowing Hard Drive and Get Your Space Back

Source: http://lifehacker.com/how-to-clean-out-your-overflowing-hard-drive-and-get-yo-510511720

Hard drives get messy. You save files and forget them, download huge chunks of data that pile up, and change your naming schemes a hundred times. It's spring, though, so why not do a little tidying up?

To make things simpler, we're going to look at this from the perspective of cleaning up a secondary drive that doesn't have an OS installed on it. You can use these same tactics for any drive, but there are other ways to save space on a system drive including clearing caches, eliminating old temp folders, etc. Right now, though, we just want to focus on your junk.

Find the Really Big Files

When you need to clear up hard drive space in a hurry, the first thing you want to do is find out just what's taking up all that space. WinDirStat is a crowd favorite for scanning a drive and finding out what you can get rid of to get a little extra leg room in a hurry. The results are even color-coded to let you know what are important, system files that you shouldn't delete, and what's cat GIFs and videos of your friend's wedding. If you're on a Mac, our favorite analyzer, Disk Inventory X, has a lot of the same features for the same price (free!).

Get Rid of Duplicate Files

Whether they're big or small, duplicate files take up unnecessary space. Windows, Mac, and Linux users can all use the handy Duplicate File Searcher to track down any files that you've downloaded more than once. Windows users can also use Duplicate Commander to remove the extra copies and replace them with hard links. This clears up the space while still making sure that any apps referencing the files are able to continue to operate without interruptions. Duplicate Cleaner Free also offers a nice, three-tabbed interface for finding duplicate files without all the mess.

Find the Really Old Files

Finding the big stuff isn't always helpful. After all, you probably downloaded those giant videos for a reason. If you'd rather just find the old stuff, you can do that with simple search operators in the search box for Windows 7 and up. You can search for the last date modified, accessed, or when a file was created, and further sub-filter by size or type. Unfortunately this method lacks the nice visualization of file size that WinDirStat has, but it can go a long way in whittling down the stuff you don't need or use anymore. There are bunch more search operators you can use to narrow down your searches here.

Rename Your Files

Okay, so you definitely want to keep those 12,462 wedding photos, but wouldn't it be nice if they were named something better than IMG01827.jpg? Batch rename apps allow you to bring a more uniform sorting scheme to your collections. Apps like Rapid Streams (Windows) or Name Changer (Mac) are straightforward utilities for doing simple renaming tasks. However, if you want to crank it up a notch or ten, Bulk Rename Utility for windows has more options than you could ever use. On OS X you can use the built-in Automator tool to accomplish many of these same tasks as well.

Move Your Files

Now that all your files have meaningful names, put them somewhere equally meaningful. Apps like TeraCopy will allow you to quickly move a bunch of files around and set batch settings for overwriting or renaming duplicate files. Ultra-copier is a cross-platform solution that works on Windows, Mac, and Linux and is frequently much faster than the built-in solutions you find on most OSes.

Keep Your Private Files Really Hidden

Most of us have something that we'd rather not share with the world. Sensitive work documents, birthday gift ideas, etc. You can hide files in both Windows and OS X, but this only really makes your folders slightly nicer to look at. There's no real security there. You can use apps like TrueCrypt to lock down files, or even simple zip applications like 7-Zip to keep a collection of files under lock and key from anyone who may stumble on to your machine. These only really help protect against casual access to your machine, of course. If you want more powerful protection in case your hardware is ever seized or stolen, you may want to create a hidden, encrypted partition to store sensitive files on, using your main volumes as a decoy.

If you're like me, you probably have years and years worth of files laying around on your system that need to be cleared out, but it's not necessary to go through them by hand to clean them up.

Electronic Bricks Means the Future Of Lego Is Even More Wonderful

Source: http://gizmodo.com/electronic-bricks-means-the-future-of-lego-is-even-more-510488026

At Sony Computer Science Laboratories' recent open house in Tokyo, the company gave the public a glimpse of some of the innovative research its team has been working on. Including a project called Toy Alive: a joint venture between Sony and Lego to develop microchip-embedded bricks that add a new level of electronic interactivity to the popular building toy.

Led by Alexis Andre, the project has already resulted in custom Lego bricks that allow creations to be controlled by a PlayStation controller, but that's just the beginning. LED-embedded bricks can be programmed to glow in unison when combined, so a model of a house can flicker like it's on fire. The new Lego pieces can also interact with a computer, allowing them to be remotely controlled or triggered with some basic Mindstorms-like programming. The researchers are even working on embedding bricks with tiny wireless cameras for an awesome minifig's eye view of a playset.

Sadly, the enhanced Legos are still a few years away at best. The crappy state of batteries means playtimes are currently very limited. But thankfully, in the meantime, good old-fashioned imagination is still perpetual. [Japan Times via Gizmag]

Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M: The New Best Graphics Card For Your Laptop

Source: http://gizmodo.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780m-the-new-best-graphics-card-for-510469807

Intel's new integrated graphics are better than ever, and AMD's are nothing to shake a stick at either, but if you really want to game on a laptop, nothing's gonna beat discrete. And Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 700M series just rolled into town with the best graphics you can put in your laptop.

The new GTX mobile cores come in 4 different flavors—760M, 765M, 770M, and the beastly 780M—and unlike last years GTX 600Ms which had a pair of Fermi stragglers, this year's batch are all the latest and greatest Kepler architecture, through and through. All four boast the full suite of Nvidia graphical enhancements like PhysX and GPU Boost 2.0 for overclocking, and they'll snap right into GeForce Experience for auto-customization and auto-driver downloading goodness.

On the whole, the crew of cards boasts (on average) a 30 percent performance increase over their respective 600M predecessors, with the new low-end 760M able to tackle beasts like Far Cry 3 and Bioshock Infinite on high settings at 1080p, and the high-end 780M able to rock those suckers on ultra/max settings with that same high-resolution. You know, real gaming.

You can expect to start seeing these bad boys rolling out from OEMs in the onslaught of laptops that'll be running Intel's upcoming 4th generation Haswell chipset, like that dope new Razer Blade. Your laptop still won't (ever) be a perfect substitute for a classic, upgradable gaming desktop, but these should be pretty killer.

Hell Yes, Razer Made the World's Most Powerful Small Windows Laptop

Source: http://gizmodo.com/hell-yes-razer-made-the-most-powerful-small-windows-la-510358373

Yep, this might be incredible. The new Razer blade is a 14-inch monster... ultrabook. With a discrete Nvidia GTX graphics card. Basically, this is the smallest, most badass gaming laptop-cum-ultrabook we've seen.

It's Razer, so obviously this is expensive. The new 14-inch Blade starts at $1800, and scales up from there if you want to upgrade the 128GB SSD to 256 or 512GB. The full specs include next-gen Haswell Intel processors; 8GB onboard DDR3 RAM; Nvidia GTX 765M (2GB GDDR5 memory) & Intel HD4600 graphics; 14-inch 1600x900 display; and 3 USB 3.0 ports. It's claiming six hours of battery life, but good luck with that; we'll let you know what the number looks like under a gaming load once we get our hands on a review unit. Overall, there's nothing unexpected in the specs, really. The real news comes from Razer's well-made Blade sizing down to 14 inches.

There are other 14-inch gaming laptops, of course. But like the original 17-inch Blade, this one is a good deal slimmer than its predecessors. The Alienware M14x, for example, is 14 inches and 6.5 pounds (and comes with a 1.3-pound power block—Razer's always had nice power supplies).

Comparing it to non-gaming laptops and ultraportables, the 14-inch Blade's tininess holds up, more or less. The Blade weighs 4.135 pounds and is 16.8mm thick. The Aspire S7, one of our favorite ultrabooks, has a 1080p 13-inch screen is weighs just 2.86 pounds (11.9mm); the 13-inch Yoga is 3.4 pounds. A 13-inch MacBook Pro is 4.5 pounds (24.1mm), and the Retina 13 is 3.57 pounds (19mm). So it's is brawny and trim—thinner than a retina MBP 13, even—but not exactly an ultralight.

Until now, anyone who wanted a nicely made and designed but still powerful laptop was mostly looking at a 15-inch MacBook Pro. Nothing wrong with that, really, but some people like Windows. And Windows manufacturers have been sticking their A-team designers on less robust ultrabooks for a few years now (and didn't even have A-team designers before that, really).

Add in the fact that Razer's keyboards have been great on the past two Blades, and that the 14-inch drops the gaudy Switchblade keys on the right-hand side, and this should be a pretty awesome Windows laptop, and the best small one with a real graphics card.

The old 17-inch Blade, now the Blade Pro, also got bit of a makeover. It's mostly the same as last year's updated model, and shares the same specs as the 14-inch, except for that bigger 1080p screen. But now its Switchblade macro keys are updated to work better with professional uses. To that end, it also comes stocked with full versions of nice apps like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, and Maya. It starts at $2300.

We'll have full hands-on impressions shortly, so check back for that, but for now, going by the specs, this looks like it could be incredible. Assuming you've got the coin.

Pioneer announces XDJ-R1 all-in-one digital DJ deck with MIDI, iOS control features (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/30/pioneer-announces-xdj-r1/

Sure, DJ controllers might be the emerging force in spinning, but CDJs are still largely the club standard. Pioneer has always had thumbs in both of these pies, of course, but the new XDJ-R1 sees the brand uniting them for the first time. The all-in-one unit offers two CD players, USB media playback and MIDI controller functionality. Additionally, you can keep things moving wirelessly via an iOS device thanks to a new dedicated "remotebox" app. Wireless direct means that you won't need to worry too much about flaky connections while you wander into the crowd with your iPhone. You'll still be able to control almost everything directly in the app. Back on the physical (and built-in) two-channel mixer you can spice things up with the usual loop, sync, hot cue and sampling features, plus a choice of color effects. The inclusion of XLR outputs and booth out shows that Pioneer wants to see this in the DJ box, and at $1,099, it should appeal to anyone who'd been eyeing up the component parts. It's available in June, but in the meantime there's a video tour cued up past the break.

Filed under: Misc

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NVIDIA reveals GeForce GTX 700M series GPUs for notebooks, we go eyes-on

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/30/nvidia-geforce-gtx-700m-gpus-eyes-on/

We've already seen a couple of new desktop GTX cards from NVIDIA this month, and if the mysterious spec sheet for MSI's GT70 Dragon Edition 2 laptop wasn't enough of a hint, the company's got some notebook variants to let loose, too. The GeForce GTX 700M series, officially announced today, is a quartet of chips built on the Kepler architecture. At the top of the stack is the GTX 780M, which NVIDIA claims is the "world's fastest notebook GPU," taking the title from AMD's Radeon HD 8970M. For fans of the hard numbers, the 780M has 1,536 CUDA cores, an 823MHz base clock speed and memory configs of up to 4GB of 256-bit GDDR5 -- in other words, not a world apart from a desktop card. Whereas the 780M's clear focus is performance, trade-offs for portability and affordability are made as you go down through the 770M, 765M and 760M. Nevertheless, the 760M is said to be 30 percent faster than its predecessor, and the 770M 55 percent faster.

All of the chips feature NVIDIA's GPU Boost 2.0 and Optimus technologies, and work with the GeForce Experience game auto-settings utility. The 700M series should start showing up in a host of laptops soon, and a bunch of OEMs have already pledged their allegiance. Check out a video with NVIDIA's Mark Avermann after the break, where he shows off a range of laptops packing 700M GPUs, and helps us answer the most important question of all: can it run Crysis? (Or, in this case, Crysis 3.)

Gallery: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 700M slide deck

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops, Peripherals, NVIDIA

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Razer reveals the Blade Pro and 14-inch Blade gaming laptops (update: $999 Pro for indie game devs)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/30/razer-blade-pro-14-inch-models/

Razer promised it was aiming to iterate its Blade gaming laptop on a yearly basis, and despite the company's recent focus on tablets, it appears to be keeping its word. Today, a mere eight months after releasing the second-gen Blade, Razer unveiled two new members of the Blade family: the 17-inch Blade Pro and its 14-inch sibling. As you might expect, the Pro tops its elders with new silicon and storage options. It's exchanging third-gen Intel Ivy Bridge silicon for a fourth-gen Haswell chip and upgrading from an NVIDIA GTX 660M to a GTX 765M GPU. Oh, and Razer's nixed the HDD options from the big Blade's menu -- the Pro packs a 128GB SSD standard, with optional upgrades to 256 or 512GB. That new hardware is evidently smaller than what it's replacing: though the Pro shares the same size chassis as its predecessor, it packs a 74Wh battery (the older Blade has a 60Wh cell). Other than that, the Blade Pro comes with Razer's Switchblade interface, a trio of USB 3.0 ports, 802.11 a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and a 1920 x 1080 display, just like the prior Blade.

Meanwhile, the new 14-inch Blade will come with mostly the same hardware as the Pro, meaning it's got a Haswell chip and GTX 756M graphics along with a buffet of SSD choices. Those components are stuffed inside a chassis that measures 13.6 x 9.3 x 0.66 inches, and weighs 4.13 pounds. Naturally, given its smaller size, it lacks the Switchblade LCD and buttons, has a 1.3 megapixel webcam (as opposed to the Pro's 2 megapixel unit) and a 14-inch 1600 x 900 display. And, despite its relatively svelte dimensions (for a portable gaming rig), the baby Blade still has a 70Wh battery inside. The Pro starts at $2,299, or $200 less than prior Blades and the 14-inch model will set you back a minimum of $1,799. Each will be available in North America in Q2, with a worldwide rollout of the Pro coming sometime later this year.

Update: Good news, Indie game developers! Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan just announced that those devs with a successfully funded Kickstarter can get a new Blade Pro for just $999.

Gallery: Razer Blade Pro and 14-inch Blade press shots

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

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