The Circular Periodic Table of Elements [Science]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/36Fe1gjDOwM/the-circular-periodic-table-of-elements

Researcher Mohd Abubakr says that his circular periodic table is better than Mendeleev's. I'd have given him the Nobel in chemistry—if Obama hadn't got it first for mixing himself a whiskey with Red Bull onboard Air Force One.

Abubakr—who works at Microsoft Research in Hyderabad—says that if you arrange the table in circular form it gives you an idea of the size of the atoms. The closer to the center, the smaller the atom element would be. That's why hydrogen and helium—with less atomic weight—are the nearest to its center. His table also preserves the periods and groups, and manages to look neat and pretty at the same time.

The Physics arXiv Blog at MIT's Technology Review disagrees. They said that the table is flawed because it can only be read by rotating it—which doesn't make much sense, since you can easily rotate an image on the screen. Their other criticism is valid, however: They say that the genius of Mendeleev's table is that it can "predict the properties of undiscovered elements," arguing that Abubakr's table is not as intuitive.

Whatever MIT people, you chemistry dorks you, I just like how it looks. [Technology Review]

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Tweetie 2 Review: The Best iPhone Twitter App, Period [Review]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/KcA9jfrozk0/tweetie-2-review-the-best-iphone-twitter-app-period

Tweetie 2 is so far ahead of every other iPhone Twitter app, it's astounding.

It's the most polished Twitter app yet, oozing slickness with every swipe. Yet, it's exploding with new features, and still really fast. It manages to cram in every possible feature you could possibly want in a Twitter app—offline reading!—without feeling too complicated or bloated. Truthfully, it's a brand new, totally different app from the original, down to the core. If you already own Tweetie and don't buy Tweetie 2 because you feel like you shouldn't have to spend another $3, Alyssa Milano, it's your loss.

Form, Oh Shiny Form

The main Tweetie 2 interface feels just like the original—awesome—with two big differences: The chat bubbles are dead, replaced by a solid stream of tweets, and glowing notification orbs tell you when new tweets, mentions or direct messages are waiting for you. That's a huge functional leap over the original Tweetie, where you had to click over to each section to see if you had new messages. Plus, the orbs just look cool, like they're cut off by the bottom of the screen. The one flaw here is that sometimes it doesn't register you've read a message, so you'll wind up clearing the orb for the same message twice.

How do you refresh? When you hit the top of a timeline and keep pulling down, an arrow pops into sight that tells you to pull down, and as you down, it smoothly spins upward, telling you to release to refresh. It's simple, but slick. There's also a search bar up there, so you can look through all the tweets you have pulled up for something that caught your eye.

S! o Much F unction

The greatest new feature in Tweetie 2 is its offline powers. They're great. Not only does it cache tweets to read offline, but you have other Twitter capabilities, like adding favorites, which are synced up the next time you go back online. A basic drafts manager lets you store and edit tweets to send later.

You can set up virtual push notifications so you can see whenever somebody you follow drops a Tweet bomb, like RealTracyMorgan. (They show up as a text message from 40404, i.e., Twitter.) Sadly, this doesn't extend to @replies, but it's for following a particular person (or persons, if you want a lot of messages about tweets). Other new functional awesomeness includes auto-complete for @replying and direct messaging people who have confusing-ass usernames you can't remember (though you have to go to the user, and then compose a message to them), the ability to link people with address cards, a very pretty nearby tweet search, and integration with multiple services like Instapaper and Tweet Blocker.

Buy It Now

If you've never paid for a Twitter app or even if you have, Tweetie 2 is well worth the measly three bucks it costs. It's fast, it's got full offline powers and it's so polished your iPhone will slip out of your hand while you're using it. It's not perfect, but it's the closest yet.

Super smooth UI, gushing with polish and animations

Exceptionally good offline powers

Feature-packed without feeling bloated

No real syncing with desktop app

No real push notifications

[iTunes, Atebits]

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Now Available [Now Available]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/paBP2q4AFpI/now-available

Archos 5 tablet models starts trickling out, Garmin's latest GPS is shipping, and best Buy rewards Zone members can get an HTC Hero on Sprint two days early.

• The 160GB Archos 5 tablet is leaving Amazon's warehouses now, but you'll have to wait if you want to pick up other capacities. The guys at T3 posted a review that out own Joanna Stern summarized. T3 called the Archos "pocketable" and "well-built," but the lack of a real app marketplace is a bummer. If that doesn't bother you, go ahead and grab one now for $390. [I4U]

• Garmin's nuvi 1690 is shipping, and comes bundled with 2 years of nuLink service. That gets you access to traffic, weather, and other internet connected goodies through AT&T's network. After the two years are up, though, you'll have to start paying $5 per month for the service. Keep that in mind as you stare down the 1690's steep $500 asking price. [GPS Track Log via Ubergizmo]

• A quick note to Best Buy Rewards Zone members: you can grab an HTC Hero on Sprint two days before the wide launch. (Thanks Charles!)

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This Week's 10 Best iPhone Apps [IPhone Apps]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nnW9U4kMn1w/this-weeks-10-best-iphone-apps

In this week's net-neutral iPhone app roundup: Wild Things, physics games, Photoshop!, Twitter again (but that's ok!), horse music, human music, and much, much more.

The Best

Where the Wild Things Are: Promotional apps are normally garbage, and in a few areas, this is a little fluffy (though there's some neat media in here—it's fairly generous). But hey, the people marketing this movie know exactly whose heartstrings they're pulling at, and how to pull them. And the 3D monster toy is genuinely cool. Free.

iBlast Moki: A visually stunning physics-based platformer, with bombs. The levels are puzzles, but they don't feel like work at all. A very, very safe buy at a dollar.

Photoshop: This app bears almost no resemblance to the Photoshop we all know and steal love. That's fine though, because it's a serviceable photo-editing (on the iPhone, this means filters, cropping, and a few other tricks) app that is free, unlike virtually all of its competition.

Tweetie: Few people like Twitter as much as Matt, and Matt likes few things as much as Tweetie 2: The $3 app is described as

the most polished Twitter app yet, oozing slickness with every swipe. Yet, it's exploding with new features, and still really fast.

"Tweet tweet?" "Who's there?" "THE WORST JOKE YOU'VE EVER HEARD."

Weight Watchers: I've never thought about my diet too much, which means my life will be short, brutal and tasty. But I have seen people using WeightWatchers, and they seemed to sorta like it, and sometime get less fat! An iPhone app pretty much seems like the ideal tool for keeping a food journal, plus this one's free.

Pet Acoustics: Excuse me everyone, I've got an announcement: People write muzak for dogs. And cats. And horses! Then they put it in iPhone apps, so you can use it to soothe your stable of animals, uh, on the go? This makes me laugh, which makes me happy. (Though I have absolutely no idea if it works, because my Labrador only listens to gangsta rap.) Two dollars.

Command & Conquer: Red ! Alert: This one isn't out yet, but I defy you to name a game franchise that needs an iPhone title more than C&C. TouchArcade got an early hands-on, and they say it's fantastic—and surprisingly faithful to the original.

Rock Band: Another long-overdue addition to the store, Rock Band, the app, is kind of a jerk: While it was taking foreeever to show up, companies like Tapulous stepped in an made decent rhythm games to fill the void. Now that it's here, and it looks great—multiple instruments, a decent song list—it's going to poop on everyone else's party. It'll be here in a few weeks, price TBD.

MotionX Drive GPS: It's not brand-new, but it's too good a value not to mention here. $3 a month, or 25 per year is amazing for a turn-by-turn nav app, and Wilson enthusiastically deemed it to be fine:

I am not going to tell you this is the best turn-by-turn road navigation app in the world. The designers made some funny UI choices, there's no multi-destination or point-on-map routing, it doesn't have text-to-speech, and it only runs in portrait mode, taking up awkward space on my dashboard. Still, there's almost no reason not to get it.

Indeed.

iLickit: This app deserves more ! credit t han I can give it for being the first designed for use with the human tongue. Ho ho, you wacky app developers, what's next!? Wait, ugh, don't tell me. Not in the store, yet.

Honorable mentions

• Explore the New York City Which Could've Been With the Phantom City iPhone App

• PewPewPew (With Your iPhone): Ahem:

pewpewpewpew, bangbangbang boomPEW, swishpewpewpewpew.

Also, augmented reality. A dollar.

• iSheriff: It's a lot like that PewPew AR app above, rebalanced: It's free, which is cool; and it's not quite as playful: it puts people in zoomable crosshairs, and has gore effects, which makes it a little creepy.

• Good Things Do Come in Threes with Tap Tap Revenge 3

• MapQuest Stumbles Back Into the App Store With Budget Turn-by-Turn

• FHM: DUDE MAG, in an app. Lots of near-nakedness here, with daily updated FHM non-boob content too. $2.

• Let's Draw Some Sheep: No, really, let's draw some sheep! Because that's just about all you can do with this moderately charming little app. $1.

Other App News on Giz

• ChilliX, who makes all kinds of neat, usually paid iPhone apps, is giving away their entire ca! talog fo r free this weekend.

• Flash Apps to Come to the iPhone, But Not to Safari

• The iPhone App Store Gold Rush May Be Running Low on Gold

• Apocalypse Nigh, AT&T Opens Network for VoIP Over 3G on iPhone

This list is in no way definitive. If you've spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory. Have a great weekend, everybody!

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iriver's N20 DAP shuffles onto the scene, complete with PMOLED screen

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/09/irivers-n20-dap-shuffles-onto-the-scene-complete-with-pmoled-s/

We first caught sight of an N20 MP3 player from iriver way back in 2006, but it looks like the company is now back with another player that shares the same moniker, and thankfully boasts a few improvements over its predecessor. The biggest of those is a new greyscale PMOLED display, which is just big enough to display four lines of information, but small enough to keep the player for expanding beyond its 26 x 55.5 x 13mm dimensions. Otherwise, it looks like you can expect your choice of 2GB or 4GB capacities, a full range of supported audio formats (including FLAC and OGG), and even a built-in FM tuner despite its diminutive size. Still no official word over here, but it looks like folks in China will be able to pick this one up for 649 yuan or 749 yuan depending on the capacity, or roughly $95 or $110.

[Via PlayBites]

Filed under: Portable Audio

iriver's N20 DAP shuffles onto the scene, complete with PMOLED screen originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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