Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Friday, March 28, 2008

Stretchy silicon circuits wrap around complex shapes, like your wife

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/259534468/

The first "completely integrated, extremely bendable circuit" was just demonstrated to the world. The team behind the research is led by John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The process bonds circuit sheets measuring just 1.5 micrometers (50 times thinner than human hair) to a piece of pre-stretched rubber. That allows the circuits to buckle like an accordion when pulled or twisted without losing their electrical properties. Unfortunately, the materials used thus far are not compatible with human tissue. In other words, no X-ray vision implant for you. X-ray contacts perhaps... quantum-computers now, please Mr. Scientists? Watch a circuit buckle in the video after the break.

[Via BBC, thanks YoJIMbo]

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Nokia N96 gets in-depth review months ahead of release

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/259560184/

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Mere mortals will need to wait until the third quarter of the year -- if not longer, depend on their region and tolerance for some probable price gouging in the early going -- to get their hands on the mighty Nokia N96. On the other hand, Mobile-review apparently knows the right hands to shake and eyes to wink to get hold of a prototype unit extraordinarily early, and they're taking full advantage of the opportunity. A few hours of your time devoted to the novella of a review will net you a deep understanding and appreciation for the N96's strengths and follies, but in a nutshell, the site seems to come away with a pretty ambivalent opinion of a device that should be knocking everyone's socks off -- especially for a sticker price that'll hover in the $800 arena. Problems included a penchant for picking up dirt and fingerprints (the price you pay for a beautiful glossy face, we suppose), a cramped nav key layout with the tricky touch-sensitive Navi Wheel front and center, audio performance that wasn't bad but was expected to be far better in light of the dedicated DSP, and a "shovel"-like feel in the hand, a symptom of the phone's generous dimensions. Everyone owes the production version of the N96 a chance to show its true form when it's released later this year -- and hey, at least Nokia's got a checklist of things that need improvement in the prototype now -- so we're keeping our chins up that this'll still make the N95 8GB a proud daddy when it comes time to hand over the crown to the Nseries kingdom.

[Via Tech Digest and NokNok]

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Crystal Watch

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/yankodesign/~3/259088851/

Inspired by Swarovski’s expertise in crystal and Signity’s brilliance in gems, the Luna Watch is made of crystal, stainless steel and a Spessartite Garnet. To tell time just touch the two contact points and time seems to magically float inside the crystal.

Simplistic in its function yet aesthetically complex therefore this is a fashion watch. You can expect to see it in a range of colors with coordinated Signity gems.

Designer: John Pszeniczny

John Pszeniczny

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Slides from wonderful "engineering climate change" talk

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/258795416/slides-from-wonderfu.html

Here's a slide deck to accompany Saul Griffith's incredible talk on engineering solutions to climate change from the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference earlier this month in San Diego. The talk was the highlight of the conference for me, dealing as it did with the engineering affordances of carbon, climate, and energy sources of all kind, and coming to a humane solution that invites us to live luxuriant high-quality lives that nevertheless massively reduce our carbon footprints to a sustainable level. Link (Thanks, Avi!)

AMD Quad-Core Phenom X4 9850 Reviewed (Verdict: Owned by Intel Quad Cores) [Amd]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/258760932/amd-quad+core-phenom-x4-9850-reviewed-verdict-owned-by-intel-quad-cores

The Phenom X4 9850 is AMD's latest quad-core chip. It's free of the performance-sapping bug that plagued the first batch of Phenoms, and AMD hopes it'll claw back some ground from Intel. Maximum PC stacked it up against two quad-cores from Intel—the mid-rangeish Penryn Core 2 Quad Q9300, as well as an older Core 2 Q6600. Ouchies for AMD, the Intel pair blew past it.

The Penryn-based Q9300 "owned the night," with the Q6600 trailing, and Phenom in back of both. It wasn't "so far behind as to be dead in the water" but "it doesn't quite go head-to-head with the Penryn lite." (They call the Q9300 Penryn-lite because it has half the cache of the higher-end Penryn quad-cores.)

The 9850 X4 is the fastest AM2 chip around, however, so if you're sticking with that board "it's a pretty good upgrade." The bigger problem is that AMD still has nothing to touch Intel's top quad cores, and won't for months, at least. [Maximum PC]