Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Do You Know When Fedex Drops Your Package? Senseaware Does [Tracking]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/bl9UZkz66So/do-you-know-when-fedex-drops-your-package-senseaware-does

Package-tracking sensors aren't super new, but Senseaware is one that's unique because it tracks multiple criteria—temperature, location, drops and light exposure—and updates those to the web constantly. Useful when you're transporting organs and not MP3 players.

Senseaware is going to be using these sensors in the medical transport field, who distribute organs on a regular basis, and offer it as a simple drop-in addition to the package. How this affects you is that Fedex is working on lowering the price so that not-so-essential packages can also get the same detailed tracking. [Fast Company]




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Nokia X6 coming to Finland and the UK this Friday, other countries soon

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/24/nokia-x6-coming-to-finland-and-the-uk-this-friday-other-countri/

Nokia's just confirmed on its official blog that the X6 will hit shelves in Finland and the UK starting next week, with other countries to follow soon after. After hearing a while back that the touchscreen, Comes With Music-lover would be shipping around November 12th -- well, we didn't want to falsely get anyone's hopes up again. But now that the word is official, we can all sit back and behold the beauty that is the X6 -- with its 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera, and 32GB of onboard memory. The S60 (that's the 5th edition) device will be available in Nokia stores this Friday, retailing for £449 (about $742) free of contract.

Nokia X6 coming to Finland and the UK this Friday, other countries soon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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US Air Force orders up 2,200 more PS3s, says they help it think

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/25/us-air-force-orders-up-2-200-more-ps3s-says-they-help-it-think/

We were as surprised as anyone when the USAF threw down the cash for 300-odd PlayStation 3s back in March of last year, but what's more shocking is that it's now back for more -- seven times more, in fact. Already employing its PS3 cluster for research into high-def video processing, the Air Force Research Lab wants to expand its capabilities significantly and it seems that Sony's Cell processor is still its weapon of choice. We would use this opportunity to make a few jibes about lazy engineers upgrading their setups in time for Modern Warfare 2, but we're better than that. We'll also totally avoid noting that the US government's skimping on costs now is leading it to commit to an instruction set tailored specifically to the Cell processor, which contrary to the latest Xeons -- pricier though they may be -- is not guaranteed to keep updating in pace with the USAF's needs. Those are things we'll leave for someone who isn't afraid of death lasers and autonomous attack drones to say.

US Air Force orders up 2,200 more PS3s, says they help it think originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Nov 2009 05:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Sony Insider, Information Week  |  sourceUS Air Force  | Email this | Comments

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Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Google Chrome OS Benchmarked Against Ubuntu and Moblin, Comes Up Slow [Chrome Os]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/tKQKHVBsIuM/google-chrome-os-benchmarked-against-ubuntu-and-moblin-comes-up-slow

Chrome OS dev code only just went public, but Phoronix has already thrown it on a Samsung NC10 netbook to test its performance and battery-life against Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10, Moblin 2.1, Fedora 12, and openSUSE 11.2. Interesting results ahead.

Ultimately, Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 did the best, and openSUSE 11.2 also did well. But Chrome OS performance was far from spectacular. That shouldn't be a huge surprise, though. It's not slated to ship for like a year, and its performance should pickup as builds continue. The main surprise looks to be Moblin 2.1's comparatively slower speed, despite Intel's efforts to optimize it for netbooks. It looks pretty, though.

All distros were tested with default configurations/packages, except for Chrome OS. They "needed to remount the root file-system in a read-write mode and add in the standard Ubuntu Karmic package repositories for which Google's operating system is based."

The Phoronix test suite included H.264 video playback, OpenArena, LZMA and 7-Zip file compression, IOzone, PostMark, WAV to OGG audio and H.264 video encoding. Full test results at: [Phoronix via Sla shdot]




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Offline Gmail Gets Attachment Support [Gmail]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/nJtORN50T_w/offline-gmail-gets-attachment-support

According to Google, one of the most requested features for offline Gmail users was the ability to include attachments in emails. Well, that problem has been solved.

Starting today, users can attach all types of files—except images embedded in the body of the email. These messages now go through the outbox when you're online or offline, allowing Gmail to capture the attachment either way. [Gmail Blog via TechCrunch]




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