Nokia N85 Pops Up On Amazon But Won't Arrive in Time for Christmas [Nokia]
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Homemade Backyard Digital Observatory's Spectacular Images Rivals Hubble's [Digital Cameras]
These images will be part of Star Vistas, a book that will be published next year and will collect all their photos of space, taken since they met online four years ago. The two alien Peeping Toms started to collaborate online in 2004. Neil—a Photoshop wizard with an astronomy inclination—helped Greg post-process his images of M33, which is a member of our local group of galaxies along with Andromeda (M31, who they also got in their book) and our very own Milky Way.
Greg uses a 28 cm Celestron NExtar 11 GPS reflecting telescope with Hyperstar lens, an optical assembly that attaches to the telescope secondary mirror, turning it from a slow f10 to an ultrafast f2 astrograph. This system is not designed for the human eye, so he got a matching Starlight Xpress SXV-H9C one-shot color CCD camera.
To increase the performance of the camera, he had to get rid of the noise in the sensor, which is produced by heat during long exposure times. This is achieved by installing a solid-state refrigeration system, which lo! wers the temperature of the CCD to 55ยบ F less than the ambient temperature.
In addition to this, there is a last ingredient in the recipe: Parker moves the dome in his observatory by hand ever half hour, to adjust to the rotation of the Earth, which results in a moving sky.
In other words: Magic. [Star Vistas via Daily Mail]
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite media streamer says hello to the FCC
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/28/netgear-digital-entertainer-elite-media-streamer-says-hello-to-t/
[Pictures via AVSForum]
Continue reading Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite media streamer says hello to the FCC
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Netgear Digital Entertainer Elite media streamer says hello to the FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsSamsung's X360 ultraportable reviewed: cheaper than competition, but not as good
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/28/samsungs-x360-ultraportable-reviewed-cheaper-than-competition/
[Thanks, Simon W]
Filed under: Laptops
Samsung's X360 ultraportable reviewed: cheaper than competition, but not as good originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | CommentsWindows 7 WARP system to allow for DirectX 10 CPU acceleration
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/11/28/windows-7-warp-system-to-allow-for-directx-10-cpu-acceleration/
We've already heard that Microsoft plans to make use of GPU acceleration in Windows 7, but it looks like the company is also going to be doing its part for the GPU-less out there, with the OS's new so-called WARP system promising to allow for DirectX 10 acceleration using nothing more than a plain old CPU. Among other things, that's apparently being done to avoid a recurrence of the Vista-capable debacle that happened last time around, when some systems that were said to be capable of running the OS were, in fact, anything but. According to Microsoft, WARP (or Windows Advanced Rasterization Platform) will work with as little as an 800MHz CPU, although it says it'll work better on multi-core processors with SSE 4.1. To really put it to the test, Microsoft apparently even went so far as to run a few Crysis benchmarks with the system, and managed to clock in a blistering 7.36 fps frame rate at 800 x 600 on a Core i7-equipped PC, which is actually slightly better than what Intel's current integrated graphics were able to eek out.Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
Windows 7 WARP system to allow for DirectX 10 CPU acceleration originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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