Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Panasonic HDC-HS350 allows you to record over 30 hours of HD

If you liked the HDC-TM350, then we can pretty much guarantee you'll be a fan of the HS350, unveiled by Panasonic today. Essentially identical to its elder brother -- but for the hard disk bump on its right side -- the new AVCHD camcorder ups internal storage from 64GB to 240GB and retains all other salient features: 10.6 megapixel 3MOS sensor, 12x optical zoom and SDHC expansion up to 32GB per card. The increase in storage allows for over 30 hours of continuous full HD recording, meaning that your battery will give out long before you need to fiddle with your storage options. No word on the when, where and how much questions, but if we had to guess we'd say soon, everywhere and plenty.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Panasonic HDC-HS350 allows you to record over 30 hours of HD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 07:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration

It's July 8th which means the white swirl and pink chic editions of HP's Mini 110 netbooks are available. Unfortunately, the addition of color over the base-black models will cost you an extra $20. More importantly, this commonly speced netbook with choice of Atom N270 or N280 processors and integrated GMA 950 graphics is also getting an HD video boost thanks to a $30 option for Broadcom's Crystal HD Enhanced Video accelerator. That should make HD video playback silky smooth without taxing the CPU (and battery) too much. Of course, it looks like you'll have to give up your favorite media player and use the bundled ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software if you want to take advantage of the acceleration. A small price to pay for portable, 10.1-inch LCD-backlit access to all your MKV, MOV, MP4, AVI, WMV, and TS/M2TS files -- or at least as many as you can fit on 160GB of HDD or 32GB of SSD storage. Pink and white models pictured after the break, for free.

[Via PortableMonkey, thanks David]

Continue reading HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration

Filed under: Laptops

HP Mini 110 netbook goes pink and white, adds Broadcom's HD video acceleration originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked

It may have some 48,000 or so to go before it catches the runaway leader in app choice, but doubling up its catalog after launching just 3.5 months ago ain't nothing to scoff at. As RIM suffers through the traditional growing pains with its fledgling BlackBerry App World, it has managed to amass around 2,000 programs for users to love, hate or feel completely indifferent about. According to Jeff McDowell, vice president of global alliances, that number is apt to rise when it goes live in Italy, France, Germany and Spain this month. Also of note, Mr. McDowell declined to say just how many downloads had taken place, but he did note that RIM was "very happy" with the response. Unfortunately, we're not so certain that the company is eager to raise that 2,000 figure to something much higher, with ole Jeff spouting off that "[it doesn't matter] whether it's 40,000 or 2,000 [apps], you've still got a broad range of choice." We're willing to bet the public sees that a bit differently -- right, public?

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

BlackBerry App World now home to 2,000 applications, RIM pretty stoked originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Limited-color OLEDs could operate with 40 percent less power, look just as stunning

You know that fancy flat-panels can display more colors than the human eye / mind can even interpret, right? Thanks to our hard-wired limitations, a certain facet of boffins across the way are developing a method that would scale back the amount of colors used in an OLED screen in order to shave energy usage even further. Johnson Chuang of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia has worked with colleagues in order to conjure up sets of colors that "slash the power consumption of an OLED panel by up to 40 percent, with minimal effect on how people perceive an image." In theory, at least, this breakthrough could lead to longer battery life in cellphones, PMPs and all manners of portable devices. As Chuang puts it: "Say you're running low on battery and you want to use Google maps to get home; switching to an energy-aware color set could make your battery last longer." Don't pretend that doesn't interest you.

Filed under: Cellphones, Displays

Limited-color OLEDs could operate with 40 percent less power, look just as stunning originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink ! ;| Email this | Comments