Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Nielsen data: you're probably watching too much teevee

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/nielsen-data-youre-probably-watching-too-much-teevee/

Nielsen's just released some zingers (also known as statistics) for you to chew on while you listen to a YouTube clip (something about Obamacare) drone on in another tab, tell your significant other to "hold on" and track your Domino's pizza in a completely different tab. The annual Three Screens report, as it's called, has some choice data on American habits, such as the fact that television consumption (average number of hours watched per day) has increased to nearly 35 hours per week per person. What else can we glean from this treasure chest of minutiae? Well, about 59 percent of Americans now multitask in front of the teevee with their laptops for an average of three and a half hours a month. A final interesting tidbit here -- flying in the face of popular wisdom, it seems that the older you are, the more television you're likely to watch -- so keep your eye on your great Aunt Dot, folks: it's possible she might be addicted to Gossip Girl. Hit the source link if you want to download the entire report (it's a PDF).

Nielsen data: you're probably watching too much teevee originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with T-Mobile webConnect launches tomorrow, $199.99 on contract

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/dell-insprion-mini-10-with-t-mobile-webconnect-launches-tomorrow/

T-Mobile's selected CTIA 2010 this week as the venue to launch its customized version of Dell's Mini 10 netbook that's been infused with -- you guessed it -- T-Mobile-compatible 3G service. It's got a 10.1-inch WSVGA display, 1.3 megapixel webcam, three USB ports, VGA port, Windows 7 Starter Edition, and an Atom N450 core humming along at 1.66GHz with a claimed battery life of "up to" eight hours using a six-cell 56WHr pack. In terms of frequencies, you've got quadband EDGE alongside quadband (yes, quadband) 3G with support for Bands I, II, IV, and V, which means you'll be able to roam in 850 / 1900MHz markets and internationally. It's available starting tomorrow in "select T-Mobile retail locations" in Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and Los Angeles as well as through the carrier's site and sales hotline for $199.99 on a two-year deal.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with T-Mobile webConnect launches tomorrow, $199.99 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile USA reiterates that 'breadth' of 3G footprint will get HSPA+ this year

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/t-mobile-usa-reiterates-that-breadth-of-3g-footprint-will-get/

It's easy for something as grandiose as a national wireless network upgrade to get delayed ad nauseam, so we're happy to hear here in March of 2010 that T-Mobile is still looking to blanket the "breadth" of its existing 3G footprint with 21Mbps HSPA+ service by the end of this year, covering over 100 market areas and about 185 million peeps. That's an extraordinarily aggressive timeline for a carrier that was way, way late to the 3G game, and realistically, it's exactly what they needed to stay competitive in the face of 4G deployments coming down the pike from all of its national competitors -- in fact, they're specifically calling out the deployment as being "4G-like" and touting the fact that they'll be hitting way more pops this year than Sprint's WiMAX network will. Them's fightin' words to be sure, but hey -- competition is extremely healthy when it comes to fast, widely-deployed wireless, isn't it?

T-Mobile USA reiterates that 'breadth' of 3G footprint will get HSPA+ this year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA's Optimus uncovered in Sony VAIO Z, along with TRIM support?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/nvidias-optimus-uncovered-in-sony-vaio-z-along-with-trim-suppo/

Sony's illustrious VAIO Z may have a so-called "Dynamic Hybrid Graphics System," but NVIDIA's Optimus it is not. Or is it. Notebook Review's own igorstef started digging deeper within the laptop's switchable GPU setup, and lo and behold, it sure looks as if Optimus is underneath. He went through the painstaking process of installing a slew of new drivers and tweaking some code within select .inf files, and in the end he seemingly found a way to get Optimus drivers working on the new rig. Of course, the debate has been raging on for five pages now, and it still seems inconclusive as to what's really going on behind the scenes. In related news, ZoinksS2k seems to have discovered a way to get Windows 7's TRIM feature working on his SSD-equipped VAIO Z, and if you're interested in doing some tinkering of your own in either case, you know where to dive in.

[Thanks, Bill]

NVIDIA's Optimus uncovered in Sony VAIO Z, along with TRIM support? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Mar 2010 21:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kyocera Zio M6000 joins burgeoning Android ranks with high-res affordability

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/kyocera-zio-m6000-joins-burgeoning-android-ranks-with-high-res-a/

You know your mobile OS is going places when people start resurrecting their smartphone divisions just to throw out their own spin on it. Kyocera's approach with the new Zio M6000 has been to marry an 800 x 480 display to some rather middle of the road components and to sell that package at a significantly lower price point (between $169 and $216 unsubsidized) than most Android-infused communicators on the market. You know, for the people that like to have a handsome high-res phone, but don't need it to have the firepower to run Quake. It's still not a terrible slouch, coming with a 600MHz MSM7227 CPU from Qualcomm, 512MB of onboard app memory, and 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Look out for its US arrival in the second quarter of this year.

Gallery: Kyocera Zio M6000