Trip the light fantastic with Acer's 11.6-inch Aspire One 725 Netbook

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/08/acer-aspire-one-725-11-inch-netbook/

Ivy Bridge might be the belle of the ball in laptop-land, but small and nimble will always be on the dance card, too. Despite its petite 11.6-inch 1366x768 screen and 2.6-pound frame, Acer's newly announced Aspire One 725 can still pirouette with a dual-core C-60 AMD processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, Radeon HD 6290 graphics, and choice of two colors. Along with the 320 or 500GB hard drives and HD output, those specs should allow you to edit the odd video while still doing the emailing and surfing it was made for. Acer's confirmed the unit will land in Europe in July for 359 euros, but stateside dates and price are still unknown. It's not as flashy as those ingénues, but it should be a cheap, light date.

Trip the light fantastic with Acer's 11.6-inch Aspire One 725 Netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 May 2012 11:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T Introduces Digital Life: IP-Based Home Automation And Security System With 24/7 Monitoring Centers

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/06/att-introduces-digital-life-ip-based-home-automation-and-security-system-with-247-monitoring-centers/

AT&T has just announced a new security and home-automation system called Digital Life, which will be an IP-based platform that allows users to monitor and detect activity throughout their house remotely, and “take action” (as AT&T put it) on devices like PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

AT&T actually goes so far as to say “there are no capacity limits to the number and variety of devices [they] can connect to and integrate,” since it’s an all-digital system.

Functions include access to automation, energy and water controls, and security systems. AT&T will thus be introducing a new branch called the Digital Life group, which will work in “AT&T owned-and-operated 24/7 security monitoring centers.”

You’ll be able to “try before you buy” at an AT&T store or through other unspecified AT&T distribution channels, and no matter your current wireless provider, you’ll still be able to get in on the service. That is, of course, if you live in Dallas or Atlanta, where the first round of trials will begin.

Just a few weeks ago, we got a chance to check out the AT&T Research Labs, and it’s clear that AT&T has high hopes for pushing itself into every corner of your life. They already have a major share of the pie when it comes to wireless subscribers in the US, but then there’s AT&T U-Verse and now AT&T Digital Life.

In the labs, developers are already working on ways of registering who’s approaching a home through bio-acoustical transmission (the detection of vibrations in the bones through sensors in a phone or wrist watch) and having the home automation system decide whether or not to automatically unlock the door or announce a guest.

And AT&T wants access to your car, too. We saw prototypes for Got My Stuff, a system that scans the car for a list of pre-determined and RFID-tagged items to see if you’ve remembered them. The idea is that a customizable dashboard would be available via an app across multiple devices.

AT&T is already working on “the car of the future” in collaboration with Porsche, QNX, and Panasonic, so a push into the home right now only makes sense in preparation for a push into our automotive lives.

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Verizon officially announces HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/07/verizon-htc-droid-incredible-4g-lte/

Well, this isn't a surprise. Verizon has now gone official with its mouthful of a smart phone, and it does exactly what it says in its name: that is, LTE connectivity. Alongside it, you'll find Sense 4, Android 4.0 and a 4-inch Super LCD qHD screen. Rounding off those digits is a dual-core Snapdragon S4 that's clocked at 1.2GHz, matching its just below its sibling, the 1.5GHz One S. Power-wise, the Droid Incredible 4G LTE packs a 1,7000mAh battery, which should provide ample power to shoot away with the rear-facing 8-megapixel shooter. Storage for all those photos, meanwhile can be increased by up to 32GB through microSD, although we haven't been given specifics on built-in storage yet. Verizon's press release is right after the break, while you can expect the phone itself to appear in stores over the next few weeks.

Update: The One S runs on a dual-core 1.5GHz processor. Apologies for the confusion.

Continue reading Verizon officially announces HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE

Verizon officially announces HTC Droid Incredible 4G LTE originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 May 2012 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD Radeon HD 7970 could get 'GHz Edition', put the hurtz on NVIDIA

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/07/amd-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/

AMD's Radeon HD 7770 and 7870 reference cards already sport 1GHz clock speeds, but so far the high-end flagship 7970 has been stuck at 925MHz. That'd be no big deal, perhaps, were it not for rival NVIDIA's benchmark-stealing GeForce GTX 680, which autonomously adjusts its clock speed on the fly and easily hits 1.2GHz under the right conditions. But while NVIDIA has yet to roll out its full stack of 28nm cards, AMD is finding plenty of time to play catch-up. According to Australian site Atomic MPC, the company has revealed that the manufacturing process of its next-gen GPUs has improved to the point where the same average voltages can yield much higher clock speeds. Recent chips can reach 1.25GHz without struggling, which means a conservative "GHz Edition" of the 7970 can now safely be rolled out, of course with scope for much higher overclocking on third-party boards with more robust coolers. By the time the battle between Red and Green reaches full-swing, it might not be so easy to call a winner.

AMD Radeon HD 7970 could get 'GHz Edition', put the hurtz on NVIDIA originally appeared on Engadg! et o n Mon, 07 May 2012 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Augmented Reality Sand Box Is More Fun Than Anything You Had as a Kid [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5908142/this-augmented-reality-sand-box-is-more-fun-than-anything-you-had-as-a-kid

Technology is transforming the way kids play and learn. But this new sand box is a complete revelation: using Kinect to gather depth information it teaches kids about topography and can even simulate water without making a mess.

Put together at the Tahoe Environmental Research Center, which is part of UC Davis, this pit uses a Kinect and a projector to overlay interactive topographical maps and real-time water simulations depending on the height of the sand.

Kids can use their hands or shovels to play in the sand, and then a color-coded map of the varying height appears. Open your hand out over the sand, and simulated rain pours down, before gently flowing depending on the surface geography and settling in the lowest-lying areas.

The sand box is expected to turn up at the ECHO Lake Aquarium and Science Center in Burlington, Vermont, which was one of the collaborators on the project. [UC Davis via Reddit via The Verge]

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