Archos 101 now shipping, Android tablet game really heating up

We were really digging this 10-inch Android tablet when we spotted it back in August, and now it's shipping for a totally palatable $300 pricetag. It's powerful enough to play 720p video, has a 1024 x 600 screen, HDMI out, 802.11n WiFi and even a front facing camera. Plus there's even the somewhat comforting notion that this isn't Archos' first time to the Android tablet rodeo. Of course, the big drawback is the lack of Android Market, but there are always hacks to solve that, and Archos preloads some good apps to get you started. The tablet is shipping with Android 2.1, but Archos pinky swears it'll be getting 2.2 by the end of the month. Can't handle 10 whole inches of Android? Try the 7-incher Archos 70 on for size. You can't say they aren't trying.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Archos 101 now shipping, Android tablet game really heating up originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet (video)

Hey Xbox 360 Kinect owners, want to spice up those family shadow puppet shows? Then check out the installation prototype created by Emily Gobeille and Theo Watson using an Xbox Kinect connected to a laptop using the libfreenect Kinect drivers and ofxKinect. The openFrameworks system tracks the elbow, wrist, thumb, and tips of the fingers to map a skeleton onto the movement and posture of an animated puppet. And get this: it was made in a day. So just imagine the Kinect homebrew we'll have around this time next year. See it in action after the break.

[Thanks, Pradeep]

Continue reading Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet (video)

Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PCI Express makes the 3.0 leap, doubles bandwidth over PCIe 2.0 spec

First Bluetooth, then USB and now PCI Express. It's clearly the era of version 3.0, and given that the PCI Express specification has been humming along at 2.0 speeds for over two years now, we'd say an update was definitely due. Thankfully, the PCI-SIG has announced the availability of the PCIe Base 3.0 specification to its members today, and the highlights are certainly notable. There's a new 128b/130b encoding scheme and a data rate of 8 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), doubling the interconnect bandwidth over the PCIe 2.0 specification. And since we're sure you're fretting it, we'll go ahead and affirm that it maintains backward compatibility with previous PCIe architectures. We're also told that based on this data rate expansion, "it is possible for products designed to the PCIe 3.0 architecture to achieve bandwidth near 1 gigabyte per second (GB/s) in one direction on a single-lane (x1) configuration and scale to an aggregate approaching 32 GB/s on a sixteen-lane (x16) configuration." A lot of technobabble, sure, but one thing's for sure: your next graphics card is bound to murder your current one if paired with a PCIe 3.0 motherboard.

Continue reading PCI Express makes the 3.0 leap, doubles bandwidth over PCIe 2.0 spec

PCI Express makes the 3.0 leap, doubles bandwidth over PCIe 2.0 spec originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lego Laser 3D Scanner Scans Lego Pieces to Make More Lego [Video]

There's no limit, no limit I tell you, to the power of Lego. This is a do-it-your-self 3D laser scanner made of Lego used to scan Lego pieces to use it in a Lego 3D design software to build more Lego.

The scanner uses a NXT controller, Lego pieces and modifications to connect the laser reader to the software. The results are incredibly good. These are the scanned pieces, in the 3D CAD software LDraw:

I love the idea of Lego scanning Lego to create Lego. You know where all this is going: It involves paradoxes, judgment day, bleeding goats and inter-dimensional portals. [Brothers Brick]

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LaCie's Newest Flash Drive Is Tiny and Supa-USB 3.0 Fast [FlashDrives]

LaCie's got their hands on what they say is the smallest current USB 3.0 flash drive—about the size of a pack of gum. (Clearly not Orbit gum!). Sizes up to 120GB, and speeds up to 260MB/s.

The AES 256 encryption-enabled FastKey is pretty chic looking too—encased in tough aluminum—and available in 30GB and 60GB versions as well, starting at $150. [LaCie]

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