If you are one of those who appreciates interesting old technology, this video should be right up your alley. I always actually wondered how black box recorders worked before the digital age (indeed, I still wonder how many survive crashes), and this great explanation from the Engineer Guy makes a lot of sense.
The way it records is reminiscent of a seismograph, as it is direct analog sensor to analog medium, via a single arm for amplitude and steady rate of advance. I only wish the video could have shown what the data looks like on the Inconel magazine — and how it’s read off.
[via Make]
Looking like something that escaped from the bridge of the U.S.S. Palomino is Eizo’s DuraVision FDF2301-3D, a dark, menacing visage containing a 23-inch LCD. It sports a full HD resolution and can display content in 3D, but its real trick is that it can do so without glasses. Yes, deep within that dark and angular exterior is the necessary set of hardware to ensure that two eyes see two separate images, supposedly without any of the weirdness we’ve seen with other glasses-free displays. The penalty is of course its imposing bulk and what will surely be an imposing price. No cost has been set, but indications are that it will cost many thousands of dollars — not that it’ll ever hit retail.
Eizo’s DuraVision LCD does glasses-free 3D at 1080p, is totally bezelriffic originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 00:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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…in Canada so a lot of sites are blocked but I'm happy to report they have linked to the Canadian versions of TV sites so I can watch things (CBC, CTV, Global). I hope they will be adding more – like Space.
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We saw some really interesting convertible touch device patents back in August, but they mainly pertained to a sort of “kneeling” iMac and the transitions between OS X and iOS. Now, in a new bevy of patents granted to Apple (including some I examined) we’re seeing a new, interesting sliding-screen design for a MacBook-tablet hybrid.
Back at the Apple event in October, Jobs mentioned that touchscreens like to be horizontal. A “standing” touchscreen attached to a laptop is a bad idea, something ergonomics experts have already determined. But this design allows for a device to be both a horizontal tablet and a vertical screen for touchpad and keyboard input. To be honest, though, I’m not sure it could be executed in as attractive and lightweight a way as would be necessary for it to be a success.
Dell is already exploring this space with the Inspiron Duo, but I think they might have undershot as far as quality goes. A device like this can command a premium, and shouldn’t cut corners, as the touch interface on the Duo seems to do.
It may also be that an Apple engineer found a clever way to do this kind of thing, and Apple just wanted to reserve it for themselves should they ever feel the urge to put one out. No way to tell right now, but don’t expect one of these to come out in January.
[via TUAW]
A good roadie can be identified by two things: a wardrobe composed entirely of darks and bulging pockets full of batteries. Sanyo would like to let those tireless workers downsize to some slimmer black jeans with its new Pedal Juice battery pack, which is rocking a little Eneloop technology inside and can power a whole slew of daisy-chained devices. Charge it up for 3.5 hours and it’ll provide 9V DC of output to whatever you like, powering a 10mA effects pedal for a whopping 50 hours. That’s about 10 times longer than a simple 9V battery and, unlike one of those, the Pedal Juice will provide a constant 9V right up until it’s dead. It even promises less electrical interference than using an AC adapter. All that for $ 149.99, which may sound like a lot for a battery pack, and it is, but real musicians know that success doesn’t come cheap.
Gallery: Sanyo Pedal Power
Sanyo Pedal Juice battery pack powers your wah-wah without distortion originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 22:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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- Smart Phone Horizontal Cellet Leatherware Holster!!!
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I’m not really sure this research is as revealing as it seems to be. Take a look at the above diagram. The take-away is that since the introduction of the iPad, the Kindle’s share of the e-reader market has dropped from 68% to 40%. This suggests that sales of the Kindle are dropping, or that Amazon is losing ground to Apple. But the simple nature of the study by ChangeWave suggests a different conclusion.
Think about it. The iPad comes out, and millions have sold. Percentage is zero-sum; a new competitor on the market will almost always decrease the points owned by the market leader, but that doesn’t mean that people are buying it instead of the market leader. The Kindle is selling like crazy, and so is the iPad; it’s become, as Ars Technica puts it, a two-horse race for now.
As we so often have to point out, the differences between the Kindle and the iPad are enormous. Comparing the two is a foolish game, as they exist in and appeal to different markets. Very few people said to themselves “the Kindle is a nice device, but I think I’ll spend the extra $ 400 and get an iPad.” They don’t compete the way the Kindle and the Nook or Kobo compete. And within the Kindle’s real realm of competition, they reign supreme.
The iPad has simply added to the total number of people who identify as owning an e-reader, and because of its immense success (which I am in no way trying to deny), it has skewed the numbers.
One of the world’s top suppliers of cellular infrastructure, Nokia Siemens, has dropped some juicy knowledge today that Apple’s new iOS 4.2 update supports a technology called network-controlled fast dormancy that better optimizes how the phone connects to the network. The company touts that it’s a win-win — better battery life, less unnecessary network utilization — and also points out that Nokia implemented the technique in all of its smartphones starting earlier this year. Since network-controlled fast dormancy is a feature that benefits the network itself as much as it benefits the individual user, knocking out two power players like Nokia and Apple (over half of new smartphone sales, NSN points out) should make a big dent.
Interestingly, NSN seems to have arrived at this discovery through “tests” it conducted, not by working with Apple on implementing it. Sure, we don’t pretend to know all the interactions that occur between manufacturers, carriers, and suppliers during a phone’s development, but it certainly seems to us that Apple would benefit by engaging infrastructure companies early and often as these baseband updates come together — particularly as it seeks to keep a tight lid on the very congestion issues that network-controlled fast dormancy is designed to help eliminate. Either way, it’s interesting to see how quick Nokia Siemens was to probe for the change this time around.
iOS 4.2 supports new tech to reduce network congestion, Nokia Siemens says originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’ve got word from one loyal reader that his HP Slate is en route from Shanghai, and he even provided us PDF proof of that fact, just to quell any doubts. We’re not sure if that’s some little slip on HP and FedEx’s part, or a sign of larger things to come (be sure to let us know in the comments if you’ve received similar notice), but for now all we know is that something enterprisey is scheduled to show up on one Dave P.’s doorstep on December 6th. Godspeed, dear tablet. Godspeed.
[Thanks, Dave P.]
HP Slate beginning to ship? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Related Posts:If the iPad 2nd-gen gets a Retina display, what will the resolution be?
I've been thinking about the idea of the iPad 2nd-gen getting a Retina display for a while now, specifically because it presents some distinct technological challenges for Apple to overcome. Doubling the dimensions (and quadrupling the number of pixels) of the iPhone was a huge step forward, but was well within the range of technological feasibility:
Original iPhone: 480 x 320 = 153,600 pixels at 165 PPI
iPhone 4: 960…
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