Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

IBM's New Processors Go Comatose [Ibm]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5620509/ibms-new-processors-go-comatose

IBM's New Processors Go Comatose IBM's adding a new lower-low-power option to future Power processors that's one step beyond its current nap, sleep and heavy sleep options—the ability to put the processor into "deep sleep". It'll feel very refreshed in the morning.

Cutting power to the processor by a bigger margin than before, the planned new option will allow future chips to draw "almost no power" when not being heavily used, although putting your processor into this new persistent vegetative state has its drawbacks—there'll be a 10-20 millisecond wake up time to bring it around again. [PC World]

Send Links From Chrome to Your iOS Device [Chrome To Phone]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5620782/send-links-from-chrome-to-your-ios-device

Google's Chrome to Phone extension lets you send links, Google Maps, YouTubes, plain text and even phone numbers direct to your Android. Now there's a slightly gimpier one for iPhones that can only send links. Still, it works!

You install the extension to Chrome (please make a Firefox one), and then visit a URL on your iPhone or iPad or iPod touch browser. You save that URL to your home page as an icon, so that every time you do a "Chrome to phone", you can hit that URL and it'll redirect you to whatever it is you were viewing on the browser.

It's a very simple concept, and if you want to host the redirect scheme yourself because you don't want other people knowing what sites you browse, it shouldn't take very long to code this yourself (provided you know how). [Chrome Extensions]

Lung-inspired hydrogen fuel cell skimps on platinum, sees efficiency boost

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/lung-inspired-hydrogen-fuel-cell-skimps-on-platinum-sees-effici/

For as spectacular as hydrogen fuel cells are on paper, they haven't been able to replace combustion engines in vehicles. Or much of anything else, really. But thanks to Signe Kjelstrup at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters in Oslo, the tried-and-true fuel cell is getting a serious boost. Kjelstrup's crew determined that by using less platinum in a cell, a substantial increase in efficiency and a significant decrease in cost could be achieved. The new design relies on an architecture that's "modeled on the bronchial structure of the lungs to supply hydrogen and oxygen gas to their respective electrodes," which is said to help "spread the gases more uniformly across the catalyst than current channel designs and provides a greater surface area so less platinum is needed." It's still early on in the discovery process, though, and there's certainly no solid word on when this will reach a point where widespread implementation is feasible. Seventh-generation Prius, perhaps?

Lung-inspired hydrogen fuel cell skimps on platinum, sees efficiency boost originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy S sporting Gorilla Glass to protect that precious AMOLED

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/samsung-galaxy-s-sporting-gorilla-glass-to-protect-that-precious/

Remember this horribly painful video? The Gorilla Glass protection on the Dell Streak is undoubtedly a selling point, and now Corning, the maker of said glass, has announced that the Samsung Galaxy S (which includes the Vibrant, Captivate, Fascinate, and Epic 4G in its brood) employs the same alkali-aluminosilicate glass shield. The glass is similar to the "helicopter windshield" stuff Apple uses on the iPhone 4, which was rumored to be Gorilla Glass at one point, and while neither tech is impervious to shattering, they certainly can take a beating -- but just try and do that pen stab torture test while we're not looking, alright? We don't have the stomach to witness another beautiful Android handset so roughly handled. PR is after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Galaxy S sporting Gorilla Glass to protect that precious AMOLED

Samsung Galaxy S sporting Gorilla Glass to protect that precious AMOLED originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell Aero available today for $100 with AT&T contract

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/24/dell-aero-available-today-for-100-with-atandt-contract/

We'd actually kind of assumed this thing had been deep-sixed as faster, better phones have passed it by all summer long, but nay: Dell's Aero is finally in the land of the living. You can score the 3.5-inch 640 x 360 Android phone today with two-year AT&T contract for $99.99, though only through Dell's interwebs -- it's still "coming soon" to AT&T's site. Features include 2GB of onboard storage with microSD expansion, triband 3.6Mbps HSDPA and quadband EDGE, a 5 megapixel cam, and a 3.67-ounce claimed weight that makes it "one of the lightest" Android devices money can buy. Follow the break for the full press release.

Update: After checking with Dell, we've learned that the Aero is indeed still running Android 1.5, though the company is quick to note that it's actually a "superset" with a "tremendous amount of customization" with features like handwriting recognition and Facebook baked into the platform. We'd argue Dell still has a bit to learn from HTC on how to iterate its customizations as quickly as Google can pump out Android versions -- but maybe they'll figure it out by the time the Thunder comes out.

Continue reading Dell Aero available today for $100 with AT&T contract

Dell Aero available today for $100 with AT&T contract originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 11:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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