Thursday, December 11, 2008

GotReception Maps Cellphone Coverage [Cell Phones]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/Jz55JTzayx8/gotreception-maps-cellphone-coverage


GotReception is a user driven map of cellphone reception strength. Users can login and submit reviews of the location they are at and the cellphone reception they are recieving there. GotReception then compiles the results of the thousands of user submissiosn into a cloud style map showing the clusters of good reception for the carrier you search for. The sample map in the screenshot above shows coverage for the five major carriers in Detroit. You can look at all of them to get an idea of where they overlap and which have the greatest reach, or par it down to just the carrier you are interested in. For another cellphone coverage tracking service, check out Signal Map.


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LimeWire 5 Alpha Adds Private Peer-to-Peer File Sharing, Integrates with Gmail [Early Adopter Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/my-wIMXom4Q/limewire-5-alpha-adds-private-peer+to+peer-file-sharing-integrates-with-gmail

Windows/Mac/Linux: Despite the rising popularity of BitTorrent, for many people there's still just one name in file sharing: LimeWire.

The widely used LimeWire actually does support BitTorrent these days, and yesterday, LimeWire released an alpha version of the new and improved LimeWire 5, adding private file sharing features that will allow user to privately share folders with friends. As Wired is quick to point out, LimeWire 5 still supports the downloading from strangers features that made LimeWire popular, but the new default settings publicly shares only files you downloaded from the public network. You can specifically set permissions for all the rest, including which files you want to share and with whom you'd like to share them. How does it know who your private contacts are? Through your Gmail account, of course!

Actually, as of this writing, LimeWire 5 supports Gmail (along with any other Jabber account) and LiveJournal. Once you log in with your Gmail account, you'll see your friends in your sidebar. According to Wired, LimeWire is looking into importing friends from Facebook and other social sites. You can chat with any of your friends from inside LimeWire 5, tell them to go download and install the alpha, and then it's sharing time.


Once you've found a friend you want to share with, just pick the files you want to share and go nuts (assuming your friend has installed LimeWire 5). Head over to Wired's review for an extremely detailed rundown, or download the alpha and start sharing with your friends. LimeWire 5 Alpha is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It's an alpha release, so you! should expect some bugs, but the homepage claims that the core LimeWire functionality is a-okay.


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Google Chrome Officially Leaves Beta [Featured Windows Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/s8KJHooYAIc/google-chrome-officially-leaves-beta

Windows only: Google's new web browser, Google Chrome, has officially left its beta tag in the dust, graduating to a full-fledged 1.0 release today (just 100 days after the initial release).

Yesterday we told you Google Chrome would be leaving beta soon, but we had no idea it would be this soon. According to the Official Google Blog:

We have removed the beta label as our goals for stability and performance have been met but our work is far from done. We are working to add some common browser features such as form autofill and RSS support in the near future. We are also developing an extensions platform along with support for Mac and Linux.

Good news all around for folks excited about what Google Chrome has to offer. If you've been waiting to try it out until Chrome dropped the beta tag, check out our power user's guide to Google Chrome. Still a Firefox die-hard but like a few of Chrome's better features? Here's how to enable Chrome's best features in Fireox.


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8 Machines That Can Assemble Themselves [Self-assembling Machines]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nouiPEGX0wU/8-machines-that-can-assemble-themselves

Ever find that "some assembly required" doesn't quite encapsulate the enormity of the task? Perhaps one day we will have gadgets that can assemble themselves, like the eight machines illustrated in this OObject list. [OObject]


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Nvidia GeForce GTX 295 Graphics Card Is Insane: Two GTX 260s Bolted Together [Gtx 295]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/UaqgyUD2Xts/nvidia-geforce-gtx-295-graphics-card-is-insane-two-gtx-260s-bolted-together

Tired of ATI ruling the uberidiculous end of the graphics card space, Nvidia is apparently striking back with its own super-stacked GTX295—it's basically two GTX 200 GPUs hot-glued together.

Expected to be unveiled at CES, the GTX 295 (nee GTX260 GX2) actually is made up of two print-circuit boards, and each one has a GTX 200 GPU, 240 stream processors, 448-bit memory bus and 896MB DDR3 memory. It's totally outrageous, in other words, and requires 289W of power, so I hope you've got a behemoth of a power supply.

The price, while unknown, will be proportionately juggernaut-sized, crushing your wallet. Since it's designed to beat ATI's Radeon HD 4870 X2, it'll likely fall in the same price range, probably around or slightly north of $500. It could swing cheaper though, since Nvidia's current high-end card, the GTX 280, is trending south of $400 at the moment. Guess we'll see, but I can't afford it either way.

Oh, and first person to ask "will it run Crysis?" is banned. I'm not kidding. [Expreview via X-bit Labs]


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