Samsung readies the Bang & Olufsen Serene II and F330 music phone
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Fujitsu gets official with U810, T2010 tablet PCs
Researchers develop bendable, paper-based battery
Nah, the researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute won't be crowned the first to develop a flexible (or paper-based, for that matter) battery, but their minuscule prototype "is an integrated device, not a combination of pieces" as others typically are. The battery uses "paper infused with an electrolyte and carbon nanotubes that are embedded in the paper," and could eventually be utilized in combination with solar cells or "scaled up and shaped into something like a car door, offering moving electrical storage and power when needed." Currently, however, the wee samples can release just "2.3-volts, or enough to illuminate a small light," but the idea of using these things to power pacemakers and the like isn't that far fetched.[Via BBC, thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Philips to launch Ambilight successor Aurea
Consumer electronics manufacturer Philips will demo their successor to Ambilight -- the ambient lighting technology that generates light effects on the sides of a television -- at European expo IFA on August 30. The new technology, named Aurea, will be featured using a film by director Wong Kar called Seduction by Light. From early photos, the new sets incorporate the lighting directly into the frame, instead of using the previous method of a glass frame around the set.
Fiire's Linux-based media center ties it all together
A clever group of whippersnappers have got the right idea when it comes to home entertainment, namely, LinuxMCE-based systems that don't break the bank but offer a pretty stacked feature set. Fiire, a company which manufactures and sells modular media boxes and remotes aimed at unifying your media center has a few items it'd like you to see. The whole shebang is based around the FiireEngine, a $799 box that acts as a central hub to your media world, and features an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, RAID support for six eSATA drives (for a total capacity of 6TB), and an NVIDIA 6200 graphics chipset. The system has DVI, VGA, component, and S-Video outs, but strangely no HDMI -- which might be a deal-breaker for some. The Engine is meant to be accessed through the company's FiireStations ($499-899), set-top boxes or wallmount units that stream media from the FiireEngine to any location you want, using low voltage processors and a frugal selection of hardware. Finally, to control the open-source system, the company offers the FiireChief ($149), a multi-function remote which can "follow" a user from room to room, allowing you start a video in one spot, move to another, and have the players automatically switch locations. All in all, a fairly interesting package from a somewhat unknown company, though how integrated the system is remains to be seen, and the lack of HDMI support is a little troubling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
