Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Monday, April 27, 2009

NVIDIA's GT300 specs outed -- is this the cGPU we've been waiting for?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/26/nvidias-gt300-specs-outed-is-this-the-cgpu-weve-been-waitin/

NVIDIA's been dabbling in the CPU space behind closed doors for years now, but with Intel finally making a serious push into the GPU realm, it's about time the firm got serious with bringing the goods. BSN has it that the company's next-generation GT300 will be fundamentally different than the GT200 -- in fact, it's being hailed as the "first truly new architecture since SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data) units first appeared in graphical processors." Beyond this, the technobabble runs deep, but the long and short of it is this: NVIDIA could be right on the cusp of delivering a single chip that can handle tasks that were typically separated for the CPU and GPU, and we needn't tell you just how much your life could change should it become a reality. Now, if only NVIDIA would come clean and lift away some of this fog surrounding it (and the rumored GTX 380), that'd be just swell.

[Thanks, Musouka]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

NVIDIA's GT300 specs outed -- is this the cGPU we've been waiting for? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Omnia Pro with landscape QWERTY coming this summer?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/26/samsung-omnia-pro-with-landscape-qwerty-coming-this-summer/

This is totally unsubstantiated, but also totally plausible -- likely, even -- so we wanted to pass along a hot rumor out of Italian site hdblog.it claiming that there'll be a QWERTY-equipped Omnia Pro hitting the market in the coming months, and they've even crafted a mockup looking like the offspring of an F700 and an original Omnia to illustrate their point. Specifically, the rumor suggests that the Omnia Pro will run Windows Mobile 6.1 upgradeable to 6.5 -- which might explain Sammy's decision to back off the OmniaHD branding for the Symbian-powered i8950 -- along with a 5 megapixel cam and sweet 3.5-inch WVGA AMOLED display. Considering that the old Omnia is widely considered to be one of the company's better (and more successful) smartphones in recent memory, it certainly stands to reason that they'd want to carry on the legacy -- and slapping on a sliding landscape keyboard seems like a no-brainer way to do it. To top things off, gossip has this sucker launching this summer for something in the range of €500 ($662), which throws it face-first into this summer's superphone smackdown alongside the N97, the GSM Pre, and whatever Apple has up its sleeves. Fun time to be alive, isn't it?

[Via Slashphone]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Samsung Omnia Pro with landscape QWERTY coming this summer? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GE microholographic storage promises cheap 500GB discs, Blu-ray and DVD compatibility

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/27/ge-microholographic-storage-promises-cheap-500gb-discs-blu-ray/

Ah, holographic storage -- you've held so much promise for cheap optical media since you were first imagined in research papers published in the early 60s. Later today, GE will be trying to keep the dream alive when it announces a new technique that promises to take holographic storage mainstream. GE's breakthrough in microholographics -- which, as the name implies, uses smaller, less complex holograms to achieve three-dimensional digital storage -- paves the way for players that can store about 500GB of data on standard-sized optical discs while still being able to read DVD and Blu-ray media. Better yet, researchers claim a price of about 10 cents per gigabyte compared to the nearly $1 per gigabyte paid when Blu-ray was introduced. The bad news? We're talking 2011 or 2012 by the time microholographics devices and media are introduced and even then it'll only be commercialized for use by film studios and medical institutions. In other words, you'll likely be streaming high-def films to your OLED TV long before you have a microholographic player in the living room.

Filed under: Storage

GE microholographic storage promises cheap 500GB discs, Blu-ray and DVD compatibility originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 02:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inventors develop transistor to change color of any surface, your face notwithstanding

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/27/inventors-develop-transistor-to-change-color-of-any-surface-you/

Color shifting has been a pipe dream for about as long as alchemists have claimed their studies to be legitimate, but now a brilliant team from the New University of Lisbon can finally say a breakthrough has been found. Essentially, these inventors have conjured up a transistor that changes the color of practically any surface (paper, glass, plastics, ceramics and metals, just to name a few). For what it's worth, this same team already has quite a bit of display cred, as it has developed technology currently used within Samsung panels. With the help of a few good men and woman at the University of Texas at Austin, the team was able to register for a patent right here in the US, and with any luck, they'll be giving OLEDs and e-paper a run for their money before we can snap our fingers twice and run around the block. Check a video (narrated in Portuguese) after the break.

[Thanks, Nelson]

Continue reading Inventors develop transistor to change color of any surface, your face notwithstanding

Filed under: Displays

Inventors develop transistor to change color of any surface, your face notwithstanding originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung I7500 with OLED touchscreen powered by Android, dreams

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/27/samsung-i7500-oled-handset-powered-by-android-dreams/

Anticipated for months, Samsung's first Android phone is finally a (paper) reality after being flushed through the rumor mill just hours ago. Launching "in major European countries from June," the 11.9-mm slim quad-band GSM, tri-band 7.2Mbps HSDPA (900/1700/2100MHz) candybar packs a 3.2-inch, 320 x 480 pixel AMOLED touchscreen, WiFi, GPS, 5 megapixel camera with Power LED, 1,500mAh battery, 8GB of storage (plus MicroSD expansion for up to 32GB more), and a standard 3.5mm heasdset jack. Step aside HTC, you had your chance, let's all welcome Samsung to the Android party. Another picture and full press release after the break.

P.S. Although no US announcements have been made, that 1700MHz HSPA frequency could make T-Mobile USA customers very happy.

Continue reading Samsung I7500 with OLED touchscreen powered by Android, dreams

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Samsung I7500 with OLED touchscreen powered by Android, dreams originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 05:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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