OmniVision's new 12MP CMOS sensor shoots RAW pics and 1080/60p video, looks for smartphone home

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/omnivisions-new-12mp-cmos-sensor-shoots-raw-pics-and-1080-60p-v/

So what if Apple looks set to abandon OmniVision in favor of Sony with its next round of portable device cameras? The company that currently provides the none-too-shabby 5 megapixel imager inside the iPhone 4 has just announced a new 12 megapixel sensor and it's a bit of a beast. The OV12825 pairs the goodness of backside illumination with the ability to shoot RAW stills and 1080p video at a bodacious 60fps. Funnily enough, neither feature is a novelty for OmniVision, which has already given the world the option to shoot RAW and to crank Full HD video at 60fps, but nobody has yet been willing to maximize the previous sensors' capabilities. Now that we're finally seeing efficient dual-core solutions making it to smartphones, maybe the time has come? After all, there's gotta be something else to look forward to after 1080/30p, right? OmniVision is offering samples to interested companies right now and expects volume production in the second quarter of the year. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading OmniVision's new 12MP CMOS sensor shoots RAW pics and 1080/60p video, looks for smartphone home

OmniVision's new 12MP CMOS sensor shoots RAW pics and 1080/60p video, looks for smartphone home origin! ally app eared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 12:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI's Fusion-powered X370 laptop gets $579 price tag, hits Amazon and Newegg

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/msis-fusion-powered-x370-laptop-gets-579-price-tag-hits-amazo/

Our story about MSI's X370 ultraportable getting a dose of AMD Fusion ended on a cliffhanger -- the company stopped short of revealing just how much the thing would cost. Well, now we have our answer: this 13.4-incher comes with a $599 price tag and is up for grabs on Newegg. (Amazon already cut the price to $579, but isn't shipping it yet yet.) For the money, that sub-$600 sticker includes AMD's new Zacate E-350 APU, 4GB of RAM, integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics, a 500GB hard drive, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, HDMI and VGA output, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, and an 8-cell battery that MSI claims can last up to ten hours. While it earlier seemed that consumers would get their pick of hard drives and batteries, it's available in just one configuration for now -- not that you would have been tempted to downgrade to a 4-cell, anyway.

Continue reading MSI's Fusion-powered X370 laptop gets $579 price tag, hits Amazon and Newegg

MSI's Fusion-powered X370 laptop gets $579 price tag, hits Amazon and Newegg originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BMW and Siemens partnering for wireless-charging EVs, cutting the cord this May

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/14/bmw-and-siemens-partnering-for-wireless-charging-evs-cutting-th/

Back at CES we were dazzled by Fulton Innovation's vision of the future of wireless power, which included an inductively-charged Tesla Roadster. Now, someone's actually making it a reality. Siemens and BMW are partnering on a field trial for inductive chargers, with the device itself making its debut in May ahead of it being deployed in Berlin in June. In theory these can be installed into parking lots, taxi queues, and of course driveways, sunk right into the ground -- out of sight and mind. Neither company is saying which prototype car will be given the ability to catch the waves that these inductive chargesters will be throwing out, but we'd hazard a guess it'll be one of BMW's new i cars, which won't look nearly as futuristic as the invisible wheels above that look to have escaped from the Wonder Woman set.

[Thanks, Jason]

Continue reading BMW and Siemens partnering for wireless-charging EVs, cutting the cord this May

BMW and Siemens partnering for wireless-charging EVs, cutting the cord this May originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Send a Photo Postcard for $0.99 via Postagram [Photos]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/#!5791591/send-a-photo-postcard-for-099-via-postagram

Digital photo sharing is nice and everything, but nothing beats a printed memory delivered to your home. Postagram, from the makers of the popular photo sharing Instagram app, makes it easy to send photo postcards from your iPhone or the web.

The Instagram social photo app is pretty neat, and real-world photo sharing via Postagram sounds like a cool idea as well.

Postagrams are thick, high-quality photo postcards that can be delivered anywhere in the world (in the US, it'll take 2-5 business days; internationally, a bit longer). You can add an optional 140 character message and the Instagram photo can be popped out of the postcard by the recipient.

You can create your Postagram from the free iPhone app or the web app. It seems like an ideal app for sending customized vacation postcards or just a short and sweet message — one that your friend or loved one can actually hold and display. And it's just under a buck.

Update 2: Register for an Instagram account to use the web app (thanks computergeny!) — but you'll still need an iOS device to take the pics.

Postagram [via TechCrunch]

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What schizophrenia looks like on a molecular level [Brains]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5791852/what-schizophrenia-looks-like-on-a-molecular-level

What you're looking at are neurons grown from a schizophrenic person. An incredible study, published today in Nature, reveals how scientists grew schizophrenic brain cells to understand the inner workings of this still-mysterious neurological disorder.

A team of scientists from research institutes across the US collaborated to conduct this first-of-a-kind experiment. Schizophrenia is known to be an inherited, genetic disease in the majority of cases, and the researchers drew their samples from the skin of four people with clearly inherited schizophrenia. Three were from families where one parent and all their siblings were also schizophrenic, and one had been diagnosed with schizophrenia at the age of 6. Then they then "reprogrammed" these cells to become stem cells, then neurons, creating small colonies of cells whose genetic profile exactly matches schizophrenic neurons.

Find out what they discovered over at io9.

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