Gadgets
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How would you change the Motorola Droid RAZR?5 February 2012, 7:26 pm
Phones, phones, phones: the burden of autumnal launches for a raft of handsets is that it makes our post-mortem strand a little repetitive. This week's cellular telephone du-jour is Motorola's Droid RAZR, a "7.1mm thick" slab that hopes you neither notice nor mention that 10.6mm hump on the top end. Ludicrous claims about its waistline aside, it oozes materials quality, built from Gorilla Glass, Kevlar and diamond-cut aluminum. It wasn't the most comfortable to hold in our fleshy palm, but it ...
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Inhabitat's Week in Green: electric taxis, paper robots and a cathedral of 55,000 LEDs5 February 2012, 5:30 pm
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week Inhabitat saw the light as we reported on several spellbinding new projects around the world -- including an incredible cathedral made from 55,000 LEDs and a glowing prefab pod building modeled after the genetic structure of plankton. We also showcased a luminous forest of thousands of "Frozen Trees" and a high-flying F-Light made from a recycle...
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DASH promises stutter free streaming video over LTE, hopes you don't care about quality5 February 2012, 4:19 pm
We've all been there: fire up a clip from YouTube or a movie on Netflix and things start out great. But, then, after just a few moments, that LTE connection starts to give up the ghost and suddenly you're faced with unbearable stutturing or a video that just dies mid stream. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications are looking to solve that conundrum with DASH, or Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP. The idea is actually surprisingly simple -- files of different sizes and...
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Switched On: New World Recorder5 February 2012, 3:00 pm
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. When it comes to time-shifting television viewing, the conversation almost always comes back to premium streaming services -- namely, Netflix and Hulu Plus. But consumers routinely shell out more than they do for either of these services -- in fact, sometimes more than for both of them combined -- simply to have more convenient access to the television from their existing cable or satellite subscriptions. Not only ...
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Olympus OM-D E-M5 shots orchestrally maneuvers out of the darkness5 February 2012, 12:41 pm
Would you look at that? According to PhotoRumors, that chunk of retro beauty is purportedly a full-on snap of Olympus' new OM-D Micro Four Thirds shooter (from an Amazon Japan listing that's since been pulled) affixed with its optional battery grip (adding what appears to be a secondary shutter button). That, or someone knows exactly what makes us go "Oooh." The chunky '70s stylings make us fear we'd abandon our career to go become a war photographer if one of those was placed in our hands. 43...
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Micron appoints Mark Durcan as new CEO5 February 2012, 11:17 am
In the wake of last week's fatal plane crash that took the life of its CEO, Micron Technology has appointed a successor, Mark Durcan. The former CTO has been with the company since 1984, and has -- per company bylaws -- been serving as interim chief since February 3rd. Robert Switz, the company's previous Board Director, will assume the duties of Board Chairman and Mark Adams, formerly the VP of Worldwide Sales, has been named as the company's President. In a press release announcing the appoint...
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Corning looks to the future, mainly right through it (video)5 February 2012, 10:22 am
Need to take the edge off those winter blues? Perhaps Corning's, somewhat saccharine, vision of our technological future will be just the soporific tonic. Unsurprisingly, the Gorilla Glass maker sees a future where pretty much everything is a transparent touchscreen. While many of these ideas clearly appeal to our tech sensibilities, others are still very much high, high, up in the cloudy mists of concept land. Sure, a few of these ideas are starting to materialize back here in the present day,...
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Refresh Roundup: week of January 30, 20125 February 2012, 8:32 am
Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If...
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Sony PS Vita demo hardware drops in at US GameStop locations, lets you go hands-on (update)5 February 2012, 7:49 am
Live within the United State's borders? Fingers itching to spend some quality with Sony's latest portable gaming sensation before the First Edition Bundle lands on February 15th? Good news is here then, since GameStop has equipped "over 3,300" of its retail stores with PlayStation Vita demo kiosks. The rigs will you to score some quality hands-on time with many of its upcoming titles, including the likes of Uncharted: Golden Abyss and wipEout2048 -- perfect if you're not sure about reserving o...
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Engadget Mobile Podcast 124 - 02.05.20125 February 2012, 6:10 am
There are Samsung phones, there are Motorola phones. There are BlackBerry Phones, there are Nokia phones. But you know what really gets us excited? KDDI phones with ten keys and heart of Japanese Gold. It's the Engadget Mobile Podcast.Hosts: Myriam Joire (tnkgrl), Brad MolenGuests: Joseph Volpe, Dante CesaProducer: Trent WolbeMusic: Tycho - Coastal Brake (Ghostly International)00:00:59 - Galaxy Nexus and other CDMA devices removed from Google Support pages00:03:58 - Motorola Droid RAZR Maxx rev...
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Slick Augmented Reality Demo Works On Any Object Without Special Markers [Video]5 February 2012, 6:00 pm
One of the (many) reasons augmented reality apps haven't caught on is because they usually require markers or special objects for their tracking software to work. Unlike this Obvious Engine system which can easily track anything in a scene. More »
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Heat Seeking Robot Absorbs and Shares The Warmth In Your Home [Video]5 February 2012, 5:00 pm
It's useless for keeping your floors clean, but those of us living in colder climates will certainly appreciate this concept Hagent robot that seeks out the warmest places in your home, absorbing the heat to share with you later. More »
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Stylish Pendant Tools Keep You Fashion Forward, And Alive [Tools]5 February 2012, 3:00 pm
That massive Gerber multi-tool on your belt probably comes in really handy during emergencies, but not on a catwalk. If you want to be prepared for whatever life throws out you and look fashionable, you'll want to consider Wenger's HypeX line. More »
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Recycled Air Bag Backpacks Save the Environment, Not Lives [Bags]5 February 2012, 1:00 pm
After an airbag deploys it's not like you can just cram it back into your steering wheel and carry on. They have to be cut out and replaced, which gives MariClaRo the materials it uses to create this lovely backpack. More »
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Watch OK Go's New Desert Orchestra Stunt Driving Music Video [Video]5 February 2012, 12:44 pm
Last week we showed you a quick preview of OK Go's new video for "Needing/Getting", and now here's the full monty, compiled from a literal drive-by of 1157 homemade instruments of melodic Rube Goldberg(ish) goodness. More »
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The Best Big Screen 3D HDTV [Battlemodo]5 February 2012, 12:00 pm
No, the Super Bowl is not going to be in 3D this year. Again. But that doesn't mean you don't want a 3D set. Here's the thing: The best 2D TV is a 3D TV. The burlier image processors required to render the third dimension make everything look better. More »
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Lego Lord of the Rings Sets First Look: They Are Awesome! [Lego]5 February 2012, 10:45 am
Rejoice fellows of the Lego ring, because we got the first close-up look of the Lego Lord of the Rings sets coming out this year. And they are amazing, from the Mines of Moria—cave troll included!—to Helm's Deep to Shelob! More »
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Hankie Notepads Keep Reporters Looking Dapper [Office]5 February 2012, 9:00 am
That Field Notes notebook you'll find in many a reporter's back pocket ensures they never miss a scoop, but it doesn't do a lot for their image. At least not as much as this clever faux-hankie notebook that complements a blazer. More »
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Tilting Table Somehow Makes Ping Pong Even Awesomer [Video]5 February 2012, 7:00 am
They said it couldn't be done, but Robb Godshaw has successfully found a way to make ping pong—truly man's greatest sport—even better. By introducing a rocking mechanism under the table, and high-powered flashes to throw off your opponent. More »
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The Good Wife, Where Computers...Save the Day. Just Like in The Good Wife [Video]4 February 2012, 7:00 pm
You might think the TV show The Good Wife is best suited to middle-aged women (so much so that my fiance enforces reference restraint when we're out with friends). Seriously though, it's one of the best shows on TV. Character Depth! Complex, contemporary issues! And tons of tech. Bear with me. More »
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A license to link? Lowe's has one5 February 2012, 7:00 pm
In the course of building a large framed mirror last month—a process which cemented my belief that doing pro-quality wood staining is a black art best left to necromancers—I visited the website for hardware giant Lowe's. While exploring the site, I came across something peculiar: a short Lowe's "customer care" statement on how other website operators can link to Lowe's.
I know what you're thinking: “there are instructions for this?” Indeed th...
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Over 3 years later, "deleted" Facebook photos are still online5 February 2012, 5:00 pm
Facebook is still working on deleting photos from its servers in a timely manner nearly three years after Ars first brought attention to the topic. The company admitted on Friday that its older systems for storing uploaded content "did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site," but said it's currently finishing up a newer system that makes the process much quicker....
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Microsoft publishes fancy-pants heterogeneous parallel GPGPU C++ AMP specification5 February 2012, 3:00 pm
Microsoft has published the specification for C++ AMP (Accelerated Massive Parallelism), its new system for heterogeneous parallel processing in C++. When Microsoft first announced C++ AMP in June last year, it said that it wanted to make the AMP specification open to all.
AMP has been developed by Microsoft with input from AMD and NVIDIA. Microsoft's implementation allows AMP programs to use both the main CPU and Direct3D video cards (via the company's DirectComput...
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Weekend Time Waster: Solitaire Blitz brings excitement to lonely card clicking5 February 2012, 1:00 pm
Digital forms of Solitaire have been included with Windows since it reached version 3.0, and they may well represent the most widely played video game series this side of Angry Birds, enjoyed by bored cubicle workers and bored, procrastinating students alike. While most serious gamers probably wouldn't put these games top ten picks of all time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single PC owner that hasn't put in at least a few hours on a machine that has nothing e...
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In annual tradition, advertisers cowed by NFL trademark bullying5 February 2012, 9:00 am
Every year in late January or early February, two teams take to the field to play a football game that's watched by tens of millions of Americans. And every year, businesses launch ad campaigns to sell a variety of products—televisions, pizzas, soda—in conjunction with the game. And the overwhelming majority of these businesses avoid calling it the "Super Bowl."
Why? They're afraid of getting sued by the National Football League, which holds the trademar...
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Week in Apple: post-Macworld|iWorld edition4 February 2012, 2:00 pm
This week, we wrapped up our coverage of the 2012 Macworld|iWorld conference in San Francisco just as Apple issued an update to Final Cut Pro X and gave the AirPort Utility an iOS makeover. Additionally, Tim Cook offered some strong words in response to doubts about Apple's attitude toward worker conditions in China, Neil Young recounted stories about Steve Jobs working towards higher-quality music downloads, and more. Need a recap? You're in the right place.
Rethinking i...
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Week in Gaming: Misleading game trailers, Online Passes and cat MMOs4 February 2012, 12:00 pm
This week, an animated trailer for an imaginary Zelda game got us wondering why exactly games often can't live up to the thrilling scenes we're shown in pre-release videos. We also looked at the slow redefinition of what an Online Pass can be used for, examined the legality of blocking used games sales, and spent a massively-multiplayer hour as a cat.
Madden NFL and Tecmo Bowl both agree that the Giants are going to win the Super Bowl this weekend. Personally, I'm rooting...
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Week in tech: acting out over ACTA, Firefox 10, and a new KDE tablet4 February 2012, 10:00 am
Kindle Fire dwarfs other Android tablets in market share after just three months: After three months, the Kindle Fire has an equal share of the Android tablet market with the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and has already outstripped the Motorola Xoom, Asus Transformer, and Acer Iconia Tab.
Firefox 10 arrives with new dev tools and full-screen API: Mozilla has released version 10 of the Firefox Web browser. The update includes improved development tools and a new API for displaying p...
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Week in science, with unusual amounts of insanity4 February 2012, 8:00 am
It was a crazy week for science. Normally, when we say that, we mean there was a lot of important news going on; this week, some of the actual stories involved a fair degree of nuttiness. These included an overt attempt to inject religion into science classes and a theory that attempts to explain everything without even bothering to deal with most of the fundamental particles identified by physics. Still, there was some good science, including a very selective gr...
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Kelihos botnet remains very much dead after all3 February 2012, 6:55 pm
A spam botnet brought down four months ago, which was once capable of pumping out almost four billion spam messages a day, remains very much dead, two of the companies behind the takedown said.
That determination, announced late Friday by Microsoft and Kaspersky Lab representatives, contradicted published reports, including one from Ars, that claimed the network of infected computers had been resurrected. There's no evidence that control of Kelihos, which also went by...
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