Tell You What Technology Can Do

11 Gadgets to Rock Your New Year's Eve

2009-01-10T06:24:00.000-08:00

By Priya Ganapati

What better way to welcome the new year than with a collection of bright and shiny party gadgets?

You can handle the basics: Flare pants. Sequin dress for the ladies (and some of the gentlemen). Hair gel. Beer. Breath mints.

But Wired's Gadget Lab has the electronic tools that will make this a truly 21st century event. Whether you will live it up on Times Square, throw your own block party or merely make a drunken nuisance of yourself in a subway car, here are 11 cool gadgets that can help you pass the last few hours of 2008 in high-tech style.

Alcohawk ABI Digital Breathalyzer
So your New Year's Eve resolution is to quit drinking (for the 10th year in a row) but you want to have a blowout before you give it all up. Too bad you had to drive to the party. Before you get back into the car at 4 a.m., fish out the $100 Alcohawk digital breathalyzer and do a quick test. Above legal limit? Taxi!

Pacemaker Pocket DJ System
This beautiful piece of hardware is pricey ($800), but it's all you need to create a mobile disco. The Pacemaker has two digital "decks" that let you scratch, bend and tweak your tunes to create a party and sell tickets. It comes with extensive mixing functionality, allowing you to change the pitch and cross=fade, and it has 120-GB hard drive.

Soundproof Microphone
Clearly karaoke is not your thing. That's why you may want to put a bag over your head when you sing, or do the digital equivalent of it and get a soundproof microphone. This rather uncool-looking device muffles your singing and lets you belt out Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" without letting everyone know you're more like William Hung.

Porta-Party
Shy guest coming to your New Year's Eve party? Rent this booth so they can party in private -- sort of. Los Angeles-based artist Nick Rodrigues has created an iPod-shaped booth called Porta-Party that you can walk into. Shut the door, crank up the music and start grooving. The best part is the exhibitionist aspect: The iPod-like screen on the booth shows a video of what's happening inside. Get ready to put on a show!

Remote Fireworks Launcher
Why risk starting the new year with first-degree burns? If you have a place to set off some pyrotechnics, get the remote fireworks launcher. With a wireless remote you can set off up to five different fireworks at one time. Burn, baby, burn!

DIY LED Mirror Ball
A disco mirror ball is a must-have for a New Year's Eve party. What else will you point your upraised hand toward when "Stayin' Alive" comes on? But ordinary mirror balls are so ... ordinary. Buy a mirror ball and soup it up with some LED to make your party even more disco-licious.

Cocktail Fountain
The name suggests a centerpiece shooting a fountain of Martinis or Manhattans high into the sky. The Cocktail Fountain is not quite that, but it promises to deliver cascades of alcoholy delight directly into cups, which is almost as good. It's the adult version of the chocolate fountain.

LED Throwies
Some people just talk about painting the town red. Others actually do something about it. LED throwies are little blobs of LEDs, stuck together with a battery and a rare-earth magnet that can be thrown and stuck to any ferromagnetic surface in your neighborhood. They're cheap and easy to make. Throw a few to see where they stick, and light up the city.

Mood Lighting Kalediosopic Critters
Party lighting could mean candles and Christmas lights. Better yet, how about some glowing creatures that look like cousins of Casper the Friendly Ghost? They come in four moods -- chipper, peppy, dizzy and gloomy -- which will probably reflect your mood cycles through the evening. So bring on the kaleidoscopic critters, add the mirror ball, the pocket DJ system and the cocktail fountain, and it will be one helluva party.

Sony Dancing Egg Rolly
Need a party attraction? How about a dancing egg that flashes and rolls to the beat of the music it's emitting from its own flapping speakers? The Rolly dancing robot from Sony may be entirely useless, but it's good for a few laughs. It could be an icebreaker, too: If everyone is standing in the corners, roll this out on the dance floor and watch the crowds follow.

Cobra XRS Radar/Laser Detector
New Year's Eve can see more cops per square foot in your town than a drug bust on a Baltimore street. Even going 55 miles an hour in a 50-mph zone is enough to get the red and blue lights flashing behind you. Before you hop into the car, turn the radar detector on and give yourself some advance notice about upcoming speed traps. A warning though: Radar detectors are illegal in some states.

Sajjadah 1426 - Illuminated prayer rug that guides towards Mecca!

2009-01-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

Illuminated furniture is quite a rage these days so, why not get yourself a lighted prayer rug. Britain-based Turkish designer Soner Özenç has created a lighted sajjadah or prayer rug. Hmmm...Technology intervened in the world of the spiritual too! Built on intricate technology, the Sajjadah 1426 (signifying 2005, which is 1426 according to the Islamic calendar), combines the best of Muslim culture, ingenuous art and electroluminescent phosphor printing technology. If you think all that the wonderful piece of art does is glow, think again. It not only creates a divine aura while a devotee is deep into his namaz, it actually guides him to determine the right direction towards the sacred Mecca. And how does it achieve this end? The lighted motifs of the rug turn brighter the closer the rug is turned toward the direction of Mecca! Though we might be tempted to believe so, this is not due to any divine intervention. The embedded compass module works surreptitiously behind this phenomenon. I would say it’s a beautiful idea. It looks pretty stunning in the dark.

Enjoy the virtual world with the Interactive Scape

2009-01-09T09:45:00.000-08:00

We recently wrote about a projection interactive table, Catchyoo iTable, where I lauded its interactivity, as well as its superiority to fixed interactive tables. Therefore, when I saw the Interactive Scape, the comparisons naturally continued, and I examined this new fixed interactive table to see how functional it is, as well as how it stacks against the iTable. I am pleased to announce that the Interactive Scape is an excellent interactive table. It performs just as well as the Microsoft Surface, except with a much larger surface (compare 58in with 30in), giving more room for group interaction. Just like the Microsoft Surface, it communicates with other devices using bluetooth and wireless interface.

However, against the iTable, its pretty much the same story: The portability of the projection-style interactive surface is just several times more viable in an age where the portable device is king. Think of it as having a laptop instead of a desktop. Laptop is fold-and-go, while desktop is more cumbersome. Let no one misunderstand me, every one of these interactive surface styles are revolutionary and progressive, so there is still a lot of good to be said about the Interactive Scape.

As a matter of fact, anyone who gets past the mobility issue will prefer the 1080 dpi HD display of the Interactive Scape to the projected image of the iTable, and will also love the multi-functionality of its inter-device communication.

Interactive Scape Picture Gallery

Toshiba's unbelievably tiny HD1 HDTV camera is world's smallest

2009-01-09T08:36:00.000-08:00

Toshiba Imaging (www.cameras.toshiba.com), a leader in advanced 3CCD color video imaging, will showcase the IK-HD1 3CCD HDTV Camera at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) in Las Vegas, NV, April 14-17, 2008 at Norpix Booth #SL10410 and Telemetrics Booth #C6933. The world’s smallest HD camera head (only 1.6 inches, weighing 2.3 oz.) plus the ultra-compact control unit makes the IK-HD1 ideal for broadcast applications and other imaging tasks where space is limited.

The sophisticated and affordable IK-HD1 HDTV system utilizes Toshiba’s proprietary 3CCD prism block technology, delivering true color, bright contrast and extraordinary detail from the small cam head. Features include 1920 (H) x 1080 (V) resolution at 30 frames per second making this system highly suitable for reality TV, specialty broadcast, sports, news, commercials and many other high definition video imaging applications.

A C-mount lens flange and RS232C serial interface and multiple outputs for HD-SDI (SMPTE 292M), analog RGB, or Y/Pb/Pr are standard. Accessories for the system include a 4 mm or 15 mm lens and camera cables in 3-, 6-, 10- or 30-meter lengths. Toshiba’s IK-HD1 HDTV cameras have been recently used on the New American Gladiators and Cash Cab TV shows. For more information, please visit www.cameras.toshiba.com.

Toshiba Imaging Systems Division (Irvine, CA) is world renowned for the best 3CCD video systems and its legendary and comprehensive tech support. More information about the advanced video imaging technology, high definition, high resolution color 3CCD video cameras and Toshiba’s remote head cameras is available at www.cameras.toshiba.com.

Meet Sony's KDL-40ZX1, The World's New Thinnest LCD HDTV With an LCD panel that's just 9 mm thick

2009-01-09T08:30:00.000-08:00

The title of world's thinnest LCD HDTV seems to have changed hands once again. After Hitachi held on to it for almost half a year, along came Sony and launched the incredibly thin KDL-40ZX1, whose panel is just 9 mm thick (while the device itself reaches just... 28.8 mm) but still capable of displaying high-quality images at full HD (1920 x 1080 pixels) resolution.

First and foremost, let's see what the most important features of the LCD panel are. Beside providing a total viewing area of 88.6 x 49.8 cm and a diagonal size of 101.6 cm (40 inches), the panel has some pretty OK viewing angles as well, namely 178 degrees on both horizontal and vertical directions.

The contrast ratio is of 3000:1, and the device also comes equipped with a LED backlighting system and 120Hz MotionFlow technology, as well as BRAVIA Engine 2 image processing. And just in case you were wondering, yes, this thing works with just about any type of video signals, whether we're talking about 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 480p or 480i.

The audio department is also pretty well represented, since the LCD HDTV from Sony has been equipped with two 5W speakers and one 10 W subwoofer, which will probably prove to be quite enough for most users (although true audio/video addicts will most likely add a Blu-ray home cinema as well).
The connectivity options of the KDL-40ZX1 are also extremely impressive. Thus, the device has several HDMI slots, Component video input, S-Video input, audio inputs and outputs, a USB port and, even more interesting, a built-in Ethernet interface (10 BASE-T/100BASE-TX) and a built-in modem (up to 2400 bps). As you've probably guessed already, the latest two options are designed especially in order to allow users to connect to the Internet and access various types of content from online services.

Sony's new ultra-thin KDL-40ZX1 will arrive in Japanese stores at some point in November for an estimate retail price of around 4,500 US dollars, but it's quite likely that the rest of the world will have to wait until early 2009 in order to be able to enjoy this technological wonder.

Nano-layered plastic sheet is strong as steel

2009-01-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

A new transparent, composite plastic as strong as steel and as thin as a sheet of paper has been developed by materials scientists.A new transparent, composite plastic as strong as steel and as thin as a sheet of paper has been developed by materials scientists.CHICAGO: A new transparent, composite plastic as strong as steel and as thin as a sheet of paper has been developed by materials scientists.

The plastic could be used one day to produce lighter, stronger armour for soldiers or police and their vehicles. It also has potential to reduce the energy required to separate gasses in chemical factories and improve microtechnology such as microchips or biomedical sensors.

The material, which is described today in the U.S. journal Science is already being developed for practical applications and could become commercialised within a year or two, said lead author Nicholas Kotov.

"We're still at the exploratory stage, but the machine is now being built in our lab to build pieces as big as one metre by one metre," he added.

Brick-and-mortar molecular structure

Producing a composite material out of nano-sized building blocks that can maintain its strength at such large sizes has long confounded scientists. The U.S. experts managed to do it by mimicking the brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells.

Kotov's engineering team, at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, built a robot that stacks the nanosheets like bricks in an alternating pattern and uses a glue-like polymer to create cooperative hydrogen bonds between the layers that can easily reform in another place if the bond is broken.

It takes a few hours to build up the 300 layers needed to make a thin sheet of the plastic as the robot's arm dips in an out of vials of glue and a dispersion of clay nanosheets.

"When you have a brick-and-mortar structure, any cracks are blunted by each interface," Kotov explained. "We've demonstrated that one can achieve almost ideal transfer of stress between nanosheets and a polymer matrix."

Made out of clay and a non-toxic glue similar to that used in school classrooms, the material is cheap, biodegradable and requires very little energy to produce, said Kotov: "It's as green as you can imagine."

Portable concept vehicle runs on zero emission electric motors

2009-01-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

Eco Factor: Portable concept vehicle runs on zero emission electric motors.

Like its name, Cherry, the concept is compact and portable. Hundreds of concept designs have flooded the market with foldable and compact features. However, the possibility of touching real roads seems very hard for most of them. Cherry is also foldable and eco-friendly as well. Powered by a zero emission electric motor with a plug-in battery, it might become the next-gen transportation medium. The battery is integrated with a padded seat that keeps it hidden. The direction controller is similar to that of a motorcycle and can be controlled by leaning.

To reduce the space and size, the whole engine is located inside the front wheel. You can also customize it with adjustable driving positions. The brakes lie below the rest provided for your arms. Well, the concept looks cool, but designer Alican Yilmaz should consider the design again. It doesn’t looks adorable.

The Dark Side: Some parts, like the wheel cover, include plastic that is no doubt hard on the environment. Moreover, information about the speed, battery back-up and electricity required for operation is not defined.

Husqvarna launches the world’s first automatic electric solar powered hybrid robotic lawn mower!

2009-01-09T07:28:00.000-08:00

Solar energy is spreading its wings and stretching those lazy limbs to finally answer the energy needs of the world. The world energy needs are growing at an exponential rate, much like its population and we need to make sure that our energy sources match up to the energy needs. Fossil fuels are not going to get us there, so we have to turn our attention to alternate sources of energy. What better direction to look at in this regards than the sun itself? It is for no small reason that it is being worshiped as a god since ages by all ancient cultures across the planet.

Husqvarna, the world’s largest lawnmower manufacturer, has launched the world’s first automatic electric solar powered hybrid robotic lawn mower in the UK on Thursday. The lawnmower offers users happy to pay the £2000 price tag the promise of never having to mow their lawn again. It has been designed for the busy people who want a professionally cut lawn but would not like to spend too much time on it. Working autonomously, the lawnmower will cut up to 2300 square meters of grass and can be programmed to come on at certain times or days of the week. Users can define the cutting area by laying a metal wire around the edge of their garden. The auto mower also has sensors in the device so it can avoid garden furniture.

Solving the problem of collecting the grass, the motor’s three sharp blades cut the grass short enough as to scatter it back on the lawn. The mower will cut for around 40 minutes, and then charge for 40 minutes in its charging station, however Husqvarna say that using the solar panels on a sunny day will mean the device will be able to stay out cutting for up to 50% longer. The device is indeed great as it not only finishes the job that you are expected to waste your time on once in a while, but also makes sure it conserves plenty of energy. Now, if entire world got one of these, then there would be no lawn-mowing guys to hire for those ‘Desperate Housewives’ and that means one less affair!

Bring Home the Hollywood Classics in HD

2009-01-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

Thanks to hi-def formats and painstaking restorations by Hollywood craftsmen, home theaters can now re-create the visual and aural glory of 35 mm film. (Photograph by Dan Saelinger)

The results were striking, with one slight hitch: “Because of the nature of the lighting, the green felt of the pool tables kept going blue,” recalls film editor Thelma Schoonmaker, a longtime Scorsese collaborator. “There was nothing we could do about it, because we wanted to make sure the skin tones were right, and the overall look of the film was right; so we let it go.”

Last summer, Schoonmaker was at New York’s Technicolor Creative Services staring at those blue pool tables again. When the film was first made, there was no fix for the problem, but thanks to digital technology, she could now correct it easily. “All we had to do was open digital windows on the pool tables and fill them in with green, without affecting the rest of the shot,” Schoonmaker explains. Why was a multiple-Oscar-winning editor concerned with color correction on a 20-year-old movie? Because, like many classics from Hollywood’s archives, The Color of Money is about to be reborn.

everybody knows, is green. The color of pool table felt in Martin Scorsese’s 1986 movie is ... blue? Wait a sec—rewind. That’s not quite right, is it? Actually, it’s wrong. The blue pool tables in

HOME THEATER, THE NEW THEATER

Picture Quality Comparison: Blu-ray vs. Apple TV vs. VUDU

The movie industry is at a technological turning point. The era of high-definition video, which has already transformed the broadcast and cable television industry, is just starting to make its impact felt in Hollywood. After a six-year format war, Sony’s Blu-ray hi-def disc emerged last year as the winner over rival Toshiba’s HD-DVD, paving the way for studios to jump onboard and release a library of beloved movies in HD. Some consumer skepticism is understandable. Didn’t we all just upgrade from VHS to DVDs a few years ago? The mass-market appeal of HD discs is still unproven—at around $20 to $30, Blu-ray discs are expensive and, although the prices of players are falling, they are only beginning to break the $200 mark. Yet if the sales of HDTV sets are any indicator (47 percent of American households now own one), there is considerable consumer interest in hi-def, especially among those who love movies and home theater. And the term home theater has never been more apt—HD source material for movies is currently available at resolutions up to 1920 x 1080 pixels (known as 1080p), six times the resolution of DVDs. Now a homeowner with a quality screen and audio setup can not only approximate the feeling of a movie theater, he can arguably improve upon it. After all, the home-theater environment is calibrated by and optimized for the guy on the couch who owns it. No long lines, bad seats, awkward viewing angles or sticky floors. And if anybody talks during the movie, it’s probably you.

The Navy's Fighter-Plane-Size UAV, the X-47B, Is Unveiled in California

2009-01-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

Yesterday at its Palmdale, Calif., manufacturing facility, Northrop Grumman unveiled its first completed X-47B Navy Unmanned Combat Air System. This giant UAV could soon be one of the most lethal unmanned aircraft in the U.S. military.

Northrop Grumman unveils the X-47B UCAS-D air vehicle. (Photograph by Jeff Swann)

The Navy's latest, biggest and baddest unmanned aerial vehicle has just been unveiled. Yesterday in California, Northrup Grumman showed off a completed X-47B Navy Unmanned Combat Air System, the first of two fighter-plane-size UAVs that the company will produce for the U.S. Navy. The second will follow in 2009. The Navy hopes to start flying the X-47Bs next year. The UAV is expected to have the ability to take off from and land on an aircraft carrier, and the Navy plans to start those trials in 2011.

The X-47 was designed to be adept at long-range surveillance because of its large range and high flight ceiling. And despite being a beast—it will have a 62-ft wingspan and weigh around 45,000 pounds at takeoff—the X-47B is designed for stealth. This aircraft shows the Navy's growing embrace of unmanned technology, including both unmanned underwater vehicles and aerial vehicles. But the X-47B would be a technological step forward—besides carrying stealth features, it is supposed to have the ability to execute some maneuvers, such as refueling in midflight, autonomously.

Dual-Junction Solar Cell Sets World Efficiency Record at 32.6 Percent at 1000 suns

2009-01-02T20:10:00.000-08:00

The III-V Semiconductors group of the Instituto de Energía Solar at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (IES-UPM) in Spain has set a new record for solar energy conversion efficiency of 32.6% for a dual-junction photovoltaic cell.

Designed and fabricated in a horizontal MOCVD reactor by IES-UPM’s III-V Semiconductors group, the lattice-matched dual-junction solar cell was independently measured at the calibration laboratory of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (FhG-ISE) in Freiburg, Germany. The 32.6% efficiency was measured under light concentration of 1026 suns (where one sun is the amount of light that typically hits the Earth on a sunny day), while at 2873 suns the efficiency is still 31.1%.

Professor Carlos Algora, director of the group, says that the new cell is an important advance for terrestrial concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) modules, which use lenses or mirrors to focus sunlight onto the solar cells.

IES-UPM says that its new solar cell differs significantly from the previous record holder, made by Fraunhofer ISE (which, in 2000, achieved 31% at 300 suns). It adds that the importance of the new record is not only the efficiency increase of 1.6%, but also the concentration level (1026 suns versus 300 suns). As a rule of thumb, the higher the concentration, the lower the resulting price of the generated electricity. IES-UPM reckons that, after about five years of development, the cost of solar electricity from CPV systems based on this type of solar cell would be about 5.5c€/kWh, while at present the cost of electricity in Spain (generated by all available sources: nuclear, oil, coil, gas, renewable etc) is about 7.5c€/kWh.

Algora stresses that this record dual-junction solar cell represents a step towards improving the efficiency of triple-junction solar cells, for which the efficiency record of 40.8% was achieved under concentration of 300 suns by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Researchers in the IES-UPM’s III-V Semiconductors group think that integration of its dual-junction structure into a triple-junction solar cell could result in a device with efficiencies of more than 41% at 1000-sun concentration.

by Jlbrice

iGala Wi-Fi Linux Based Photo Frame

2009-01-02T19:43:00.001-08:00

The photo Super-Genius frame, unlike other digital photo frames that just accept memory cards and show photos, the iGala has a brain inside its rectangular head. Use the touchscreen interface to configure the iGala to connect to your wi-fi network, then the iGala can do all kinds of smart things like login to a Gmail account and display any e-mailed photos on its hi-res 800x600 screen.

The iGala can pull your photos automatically from Flickr and you can connect to Windows Live FrameIt if you're looking for a free web based interface to automatically push photos, news and traffic to your frame. No PC is required because the iGala is essentially a mini touchscreen computer running Linux. It can pull photos from Gmail and Flicker and has touch screen interface for network configuration with no PC Needed for Setup. Power by Linux operating system. Connect via Wifi 802.11b/g with WEP, WPA and WPA2. Storage 1GB Internal Memory Stores that over 5,000 images and also auto synchronization with Flickr Photo Sets by access to Flickr Private Photos or Windows Live and more features.

Find your iGala Wi-Fi Photo Frame.

by Thanate

3D Printer Feeds On Paper and Glue

2009-01-02T06:48:00.000-08:00

By Charlie Sorrel

The two 3D models you see above are made from office paper. The one on the right cost $1 in parts to produce. The one on the left, just 37¢. They were spat out by a new 3D printer called the Matrix, from British company Mcor.

The principle is elegantly simple. The printer takes standard sheets of printer paper (A4 size) and deposits regular old PVA glue in a pattern determined by the design. Another sheet of paper is added, and a tungsten carbide blade cuts away the excess paper, like Michelangelo freeing a sculpture from a block of marble. In theory, a laser could be used, but Mcor chose a blade to keep costs down.

The machine should be available soon, but the price of the units is undecided. Whatever they cost, though, the inverted business model of the company is refreshing. Instead of the scam operated by the 2D printer industry, where the printer is almost free but the ink costs more than unicorn sweat, the Matrix runs on glue and paper, two cheap commodity items. Even a hefty up-front investment will appear cheap after enough time.

Two words: Do Want. This thing is awesome, and I'm going to use it to make fake iPhones and sell them down at the market. I imagine that some people might find other less practical uses for it, too.

Product page [Mcor via Hack A Day]

first hybrid-storage netbook

2009-01-02T06:38:00.000-08:00

MSI U115 Hyrbrid - the world’s first hybrid-storage netbook

by ketyung

MSI has unveiled the first in the industry hybrid-storage netbook - U115 Hybrid. This netbook comes equipped with both a SSD and a hard disk drive for the permanent storage, and both can be operated simultaneously.

SSDs (Solid State Drives) have the advantages of no moving parts, with much higher speed and comparatively lower power consumption. But to date, SSDs still stay far behind platter-disk hard drives for their storage capacity. The MSI U115 Hybrid allows the user to use the SSD for the sake of excellent read/write speed, and to have the battery to last much longer due to the lower power consumption of an SSD. Some more, due to it doesn’t have any moving parts and it’s shock-absorbent, it’s best used in a moving train or in a car that travels on bumpy roads.

When you need more storage for your files, you can then choose to store those files on the netbook’s hard disk drive. The MSI’s Exclusive Hybrid Storage Technology allows the hard disk drive to be disconnected temporarily while it’s operated in a “Eco on mode” that allows the battery to last longer. You have the option of choosing SSD system while operating with Windows, and selecting the hard disk drive for file storage.

The MSI U115 Hybrid netbook offers either a choice of an 8GB or 16GB SSD and either a 120GB or 160GB HDD. It also features a 10-inch LCD with a resolution of 1024×600. Some other goodies that can be found on this MSI netbook are those commonly found in today’s netbooks, such as Atom Z530, 1GB or RAM, 1.3 or 2.0 megapixel Camera etc.

Nintendo Thinking About Changing the Accelerometer in Wiimote

2009-01-02T06:12:00.000-08:00

Changing the Accelerometer in Wiimote
By Jose Fermoso

UPDATE 12/5/2008: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that STMicroelectronics was being challenged as a supplier of accelerometers to Nintendo.

At the heart of the success of the Wii is the accelerometer chip inside the Wiimote that detects motion in three dimensional space.

According to a report from Japan, Nintendo is now looking into improving the efficiency and sensitivity of the control.

This is a separate issue from the recently announced Wii MotionPlus controller, which adds extra position sensitivity and horizontal rotation (with the help of a gyroscope) to the Wiimote, while keeping the original control innards intact.

One of the two companies supplying accelerometers for the Wiimote is STMicroelectronics. That company and its main contributor, Italian physicist Benedetto Vigna, have already been recognized for their contribution to the innovative game system.

Before their findings that led to the chip inside the Wii, small accelerometer designs could only detect motion in two dimensions. For example, early airbag designs included accelerometers, but they only inflated in the same direction as a collision.

STMicroelectronics main contribution was the merging of a three-accelerometer panel design with an electronic circuit that, according to Vigna, could recognize 'the displacement of fewer than 10 electrons' and was good enough to detect sensitive motions from 'a flick of the wrist or a big movement of the arm' and could be built at a cheap price.

A couple of years later, the $3 sensors were born and were placed in the Wiimotes. When they were combined with the infrared system that determines a player's initial position and then added to the usual Nintendo quality gamesmanship, they made the magic happen. By 2007, the chips were a part of the biggest selling game system in America.

But even successful technology needs to improve to keep the pace. Future microelectromechanical chip systems are bound to get even smaller, more sensitive, and become even cheaper to build.

Maybe in three years the chip design will be so advanced that we'll be able to play Wii Bowling with super-small chips in each finger.

Source: IEEE, CEATEC Japan

ASETEK LIQUID COOLING

2009-01-02T06:05:00.000-08:00

ASETEK LIQUID COOLING ENABLES SAPPHIRE TECHNOLOGY’S ATOMIC HD 4870 X2 ACHIEVE BLAZING SPEED

Single-slot solution delivers exceptional PC graphics and gaming performance at cool temperatures and extremely low noise

Asetek announced today that its popular LCLC liquid cooling solution has been chosen by SAPPHIRE Technology to cool its new, high performance ATOMIC HD 4870 X2 single-slot graphics card. Believed to be the fastest graphics card ever, the limited edition ATOMIC is geared for the most extreme gaming, entertainment, and graphics enthusiast.

“Our single-slot ATOMIC HD 4870 X2 delivers the fastest PC graphics on the planet,” states Adrian Thompson, SAPPHIRE’s VP of Marketing. “This is an amazing product—the fastest card in the world which needs the best cooling system available. Asetek’s compact, low-noise liquid cooler makes the ATOMIC’s unprecedented performance possible!”

“Gamers are always seeking ‘king of the mountain performance’ and looking for ways to easily—and safely—upgrade their systems to that ultimate level,” notes Gary Baum, Asetek’s Senior VP of Marketing and Sales. “SAPPHIRE’s ATOMIC solution delivers this performance in an attractive, single-slot graphics solution that cools both the CPU AND the graphics card with virtually no audible noise. With Asetek liquid cooling, extreme gamers no longer need to tolerate loud fan noise nor maintenance headaches in order to achieve top gaming speeds.”

At the heart of the SAPPHIRE ATOMIC is Asetek’s closed loop liquid cooling system that brings workstation class thermal management to the PC. The LCLC enables faster clock speeds, outstanding graphics performance, and highly reliable, quiet operation—all without the maintenance typically required by traditional liquid cooling systems.

To achieve this performance, liquid coolant is circulated through the graphics card cooler, CPU cooler, and a chassis-mounted radiator by an integrated CPU cooler/pump that attaches onto the standard system CPU heat sink mountings (both AMD and Intel mounts are supplied). All cooling elements are connected via high-quality, minimum permeability Teflon tubing—minimizing fluid loss over the life of the product. The whole system is charged, factory sealed, and helium leak tested prior to shipment. No end user maintenance is required for the life of the product.

According to Baum, “We are extremely pleased to have been chosen by SAPPHIRE Technology as their thermal management partner. It is gratifying that leading systems integrators and premier OEMs throughout the world continue to recognize Asetek’s advanced liquid cooling solutions as the most efficient, quiet, and reliable on the market today.”

icon Dock

2008-12-09T00:52:00.000-08:00

Nanotech clothing fabric 'never gets wet'

2008-11-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

If you were to soak even your best raincoat underwater for two months it would be wet through at the end of the experience. But a new waterproof material developed by Swiss chemists would be as dry as the day it went in.

Lead researcher Stefan Seeger at the University of Zurich says the fabric, made from polyester fibres coated with millions of tiny silicone filaments, is the most water-repellent clothing-appropriate material ever created.

Drops of water stay as spherical balls on top of the fabric (see image, right) and a sheet of the material need only be tilted by 2 degrees from horizontal for them to roll off like marbles. A jet of water bounces off the fabric without leaving a trace (see second image).

Protective spikes

The secret to this incredible water resistance is the layer of silicone nanofilaments, which are highly chemically hydrophobic. The spiky structure of the 40-nanometre-wide filaments strengthens that effect, to create a coating that prevents water droplets from soaking through the coating to the polyester fibres underneath.

"The combination of the hydrophobic surface chemistry and the nanostructure of the coating results in the super-hydrophobic effect," Seeger explained to New Scientist. "The water comes to rest on the top of the nanofilaments like a fakir sitting on a bed of nails," he says.

A similar combination of water-repelling substances and tiny nanostructures is responsible for many natural examples of extreme water resistance, such as the surface of Lotus leaves.

The silicone nanofilaments also trap a layer of air between them, to create a permanent air layer. Similar layers - known as plastrons - are used by some insects and spiders to breathe underwater.

Self-cleaning suit

This fine layer of air ensures that water never comes into contact with the polyester fabric. It can be submerged in water for two months and still remain dry to the touch, says Seeger.

In addition, the plastron layer can also reduce drag when moving from water by up to 20% according to preliminary experiments conducted by Seeger. "This could be very interesting for athletic swimwear applications," he suggests, raising the possibility of future swimsuits that never get wet.

The new coating is produced in a one-step process, in which silicone in gas form condenses onto the fibres to form nanofilaments. The coating can also be added to other textiles, including wool, viscose and cotton, although polyester currently gives the best results.

Durable invention

Experiments also showed that the new coating is durable. Unlike some water-resistant coatings, it remains more-or-less intact when the fabric is rubbed vigorously, although it didn't survive an everyday washing machine cycle.

For Steven Bell, director of the Innovative Molecular Materials Group at Queen's University Belfast, it is this durability that represents the really exciting aspect of this work.

"Although the textiles did show some degradation in the mechanical abrasion tests, their performance was very impressive," he says. "The era of self-cleaning clothes may be closer than we think."

Journal reference: Advanced Functional Materials (DOI:

IM Flash Starts Production on 34nm Flash Chips

2008-11-26T08:04:00.000-08:00

IM Flash Technologies, a joint subsidiary of Intel and Micron, has starting production on 34nm, 32 gigabit multi-level cell flash chips.

In a move that will increase storage capacity while reducing size in flash memory

, IT Flash Technologies has begun production on its 34nm line of NAND flash chips. Each chip will be able to hold 32 Gigabits (4 Gigabytes) of data. According to Electronista, the setup will likely be two layers, with each layer containing eight of the 32Gb/4GB cores, allowing for 64 GB of storage without the need for completely separate chips.

With no specific release date yet announced, many are expecting the chips to hit the market sometime in early 2009. This newest development would put IM Flash ahead of Toshiba, its largest competitor. Toshiba is expected to release a 32 GB chip based on a 43nm manufacturing tech on the same timeline as the 34nm from IM Flash.

Due to their size, the new chips will be targeted at handheld devices as well as netbooks, which traditionally use smaller flash-based hard drives instead of a form factor 1.8"/2.5"/3.5" drive like larger notebooks and desktops. Perhaps the biggest brand waiting for these new chips is Apple, who would likely use the new 64GB chips to upgrade capacities on their iPhones and iPod Touch devices. With the current design, Apple’s popular handhelds can take only one memory chip. With the new smaller offerings from IM Flash, expect to see the iPhone go beyond its current maximum of 16 GB and 32 GB for the iPod Touch.

Launched in 2006, IM Flash Technologies is a joint subsidiary of Intel Corporation and Micron Technologies. Micron is responsible for Intel’s foray into the Solid State Drive (SSD) market.

Hynix Announces World's Fastest, First 1 Gb GDDR5 Memory

2008-11-26T07:55:00.000-08:00

Hynix Semiconductor has announced the world’s first 1 Gigabit GDDR5 graphics DRAM. The chips are also the fastest yet, which should help to enable a new generation of high performance graphics cards.

The new graphics memory is built on a 54 nm process technology and is capable of operating at a record setting speed of 7 Gb/s. When used along with a 32-bit memory bus, the memory can process up to 28 Gigabytes of data per second and when used along with a 512-bit memory bus, a bandwidth of up to 448 GB/s should be possible.

For comparison, Qimonda had announced volume production of 512 Mb GDDR5 memory rated at up to 4.5 Gb/s back in May 2008 and Samsung had announced 512 Mb GDDR5 memory rated at 6 Gb/s late last year. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics card series of products were the first to ship using GDDR5 memory, which used Qimonda’s 512 Mb GDDR5 memory running at 3.6 Gb/s.

The new GDDR5 memory from Hynix is also is designed to be more energy-efficient than that of the previous generation of GDDR5 memory, requiring only a 1.35 V power supply instead a 1.5 V power supply. Compared to the currently popular GDDR3 memory, GDDR5 memory running at 1.5 V already offered an approximate 20-percent improvement in power consumption. A reduced power consumption could mean less generated heat and increased battery life for notebooks that use the memory.

The new Hynix graphics memory conforms to the JEDEC standard, with Hynix planning to start volume production in the first half of 2009. According to Samsung, it is expected that “GDDR5 memory chips will become the de facto standard in the top performing segment of the market by capturing more than 50 percent of the high-end PC graphics market by 2010.” Intel’s upcoming Larrabee GPU is also expected to use GDDR5 memory when it is released in late 2009 or 2010.

USC Lab Creates 3-D Holographic Displays, Brings TIE Fighters to Life

2008-11-20T04:56:00.000-08:00

In an impressive mix of visual sciences and sci-fi, the ICT Graphics Lab at USC has created a low-cost volumetric 3-D display that brings every kid's hologram dreams closer to reality.

The process is not simple but can be defined through a few key concepts: Spinning mirrors, high-speed DLP Projections, and very precise math that figures out the correct axial perspective needed for a 360-degree image (even taking into account a viewer's positioning.)

Different companies have been trying to create a viable 3-D technology for years, but have found several barriers in their way: Small viewing areas, high costs and the viewer disconnect with blurry optical illusions. The most recent attempts have included Helio displays that recreate 2-D projections into floating 3-D illusions, as well as Jeff Han’s Holodust, which involves infrared lasers 'lighting up' particles in space.

But the USC project is different and way more realistic. When projecting video frames into a rapidly spinning mirror, close to 5,000 individual images are reflected every second within the surface area and come together to create a real-space three-dimensional object.

Because the images projected from the mirror jump out "toward multiple viewpoints in space," the USC team created a formula that renders individual projections at different heights and traces each projected beam back to the display area to find the correct position of the viewer.

The system also updates itself in real time (at 200Hz), adjusting to the height and distance of the viewer, producing an image that will "stay in place," (or rather, that "adjusts its projected perspective.")

In this way, every person in a room will be able to have a correct POV of a holographic image, like that of the TIE fighters in the image above. It also allows for the correct image occlusion as well as the appropriate image shading necessary for each item. More importantly, it enables simultaneous viewing -- no one will need to use dorky, uncomfortable glasses to see them battle in mid air.

Ultimately, this breakthrough in 3-D holographs is another key push toward the technology’s inevitable conclusion. It's only a matter of time before our own Princess Leias tell us we’re their only hope.

A Bright Idea: Wireless Networking Through Light Bulbs

2008-11-20T04:47:00.000-08:00

Boston University researchers are devising a method to transmit data through light rather than a traditional Wi-Fi router.

The technology involves utilizing LEDs that flicker at imperceptible speeds, communicating with network-enabled devices at speeds from one to 10 megabits per second. That's a tad slow compared to the current 802.11g Wi-Fi standard, which transmits data at rates up to 54 megabits per second. But researchers are aiming the light technology at networking household appliances, such as refrigerators, photo frames or printers -- bringing us a step closer to the dream of a wireless household.

An LED wireless system would certainly eliminate clutter taken up by a traditional Wi-Fi or femtocell hub. But, as TechDigest also pointed out, I wonder if my shadow would interfere with wireless communication with a device? That would be slightly annoying, no?

Flexible Displays Closer to Reality

2008-11-20T04:21:00.000-08:00

Imagine a screen so thin, light and flexible that it can be rolled up and carried in your pocket, while consuming almost zero power.

That technology could become reality in two to three years, thanks to U.S. Army-backed research being done at Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center. According to Army researchers, the displays could be in field trials with soldiers as early as 2010 or 2011.

"The Army's motivation is to give soldiers the best situational awareness," says David Morton, U.S. Army research laboratory manager for the center. "Flexible display technology can enable us give soldiers information in ways we can't now."

These flexible displays have been the dream of science fiction authors, wearable-computing enthusiasts and the display industry for nearly a decade. LG Philips, Fujitsu and Sony have shown off prototypes of flexible-display systems, while startups such as Plastic Logic and E-Ink have talked about the possibility of putting their digital ink displays onto bendable backings. But so far the idea has remained more in the realm of Minority Report than the real world.

The research center, formed through a partnership between the the Army Research Laboratory and the university, has been working on creating flexible displays since 2004. So far, the U.S. Army has invested nearly $44 million toward the research.

"We are now at a point where we are making high quality tech demonstrative panels," says Gregory Raupp, director for the center.

The Army is interested in small displays that can be folded up, have very little weight and won't break. They will allow the military to send greater information to soldiers and replace many of the bulky devices that they carry currently.

For instance, a soldier in the field could get information about the surroundings, the position of enemies or the blueprint of a building he or she may be planning to enter. Other applications could include the use of the flexible displays as maps.

AMD To Have Netbook Chips in 2009, 32-nm Process in 2011

2008-11-19T10:47:00.000-08:00

On the heels of the launch of its quad-core server chips codenamed Shanghai that use the 45-nanometer process technology, AMD has laid out its roadmap for desktops and notebooks.

The company will have a 65-nm chip codenamed Conesus with two cores and 1MB cache for the ultra-portable and mini-notebook, or the netbook, market in 2009. In 2010 the Conesus chip will be succeeded by Geneva which will have twice the cache at 2MB.

For mainstream notebooks, the company will have a dual-core 45-nm chip codenamed Caspian with 2MB cache available next year, said AMD during its meeting with financial analysts Thursday.

AMD will also move to a 32-nm manufacturing process by 2011 with processors codenamed Llano for desktops. Llano will be an integrated CPU, GPU unit and will have four cores. For ultraportable notebooks, it will have dual-core chips codenamed Ontario with 1MB cache and integrated graphics processing unit.

Mare Nostrum, The Temple Of The Bit

2008-11-19T10:01:00.000-08:00

What you see before you is a supercomputer, MareNostrum. Named for Our Sea, the Mediterranean, it's one of the most powerful machines in Europe.

Stacked with 2,560 IMB blade computers, each with two 2.3 GHz dual core PowerPC processors, it connects a total of 10240 CPUs with a low-latency network and SUSE Linux. It's got 20 terabytes of RAM and a quarter of a petabyte of storage. Though supposed to be used for genome research and climate modelling and stuff, most of the time it just runs Colossal Cave Adventure and the occasional MUSH.

Any resemblance between this photo and a certain example of Renaissance interior design is probably not coincidental.

Mare Nostrum [Wikipedia via Gizmodo]

Pump Cools Chips with Liquid Metal

2008-11-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

Danish company Danamics has invented the coolest (in both senses) CPU cooler ever. It achieves this not with boring old moving air, or even dull H2O. No, the LM10 uses liquid metal: Think T1000 in your PC.

Danamics claims that the cooler is more efficient than just pumping water over the components. Unfortunately, the site only mentions "liquid metal" and not any specific kind of metal. The Wikipedia tells us that there are five metallic elements which are liquid at room temperature:

rubidium (melting point 39 °C, 102 °F)

francium (27 °C, 81 °F)

mercury (−39 °C, −38 °F)

caesium (28 °C, 83 °F)

gallium (30 °C, 86 °F)

For cooling purposes, it looks like mercury would be beast suited as it can get colder without solidifying. I dug into the specific heat capacities over at the Wikipedia, too, but my high school physics is all but forgotten. Can anybody tell us if liquid metal is both a better conductor of heat and also more able to suck up and store that heat?

The actual pump mechanism is interesting, too. Instead of propellers or impellers, the metal is moved by electromagnetic induction. Danamics claims, again without details, that its "patent pending multi-string electromagnetic pump" will use a lot less power than conventional electromagnetic pumps.

If the LM10 ever makes it into the shops, we'll see if it works or if it is just another fancy novelty device aimed at the overclocker market. Either way, it will probably be very expensive, but at least it will make your motherboard look like Arnie's Hog in Terminator 2.

Sony Faces Blu-ray Related Patent Lawsuit

2008-11-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

Sony's Blu-ray player continues to help pay the bills for patent lawyers.

Orinda Intellectual Properties is the latest to file a case alleging that Sony has violated some Blu-ray related patents, says gaming website Edge.

Sony has allegedly infringed on a patent that broadly describes "methods for recording and reproducing information via optical disc," according to the Aug. 20 lawsuit in the Texas Eastern District Court.

Orinda has named Sony Corp., Sony Electronics, Sony Computer Entertainment and Sony Computer Entertainment America as the defendants in the lawsuit.

In addition to royalty payments, Orinda has asked for an injunction on manufacturing, sales and distribution of Blu-ray devices from Sony, which would include the PS3, Blu-ray players and computers. The demand is a standard operating procedure by plaintiffs in most patent infringement cases, though it is up to the judge to make a decision.

This is the second lawsuit that Sony is facing related to Blu-ray. Last year Target Technology sued Sony for a Blu-ray patent infringement. The case was dismissed later.

Humanoid Robot To Be Ready For Prime Time In 2010

2008-11-19T09:43:00.000-08:00

Aldebaran Robotics' Nao robot has been a hit among robot enthusiasts who participate in the Robocup challenge, the annual humanoid robots soccer game.

Nao developed by the French company replaced Sony's Aibo dog as the standard platform for the competition last year and that has helped boost its popularity among a select crowd of enthusiasts.

But the robot still has a way to go before most general users can get near it.

The fully programmable robot is packed with features. With its humanoid appearance can be made to do any number of tasks and comes with x86 AMD Geocode 500 Mhz CPU, 1 GB flash memory, 256 MB SDRAM, two speakers, vision processing capabilities, Wi-fi connectivity and Ethernet port.

The robot has 25 degrees of freedom, which means it can do a lot more than just tilt is head, look right, left and take a few steps.

This makes it a very attractive machine for researchers and robot enthusiasts that want to take a blank-slate robot and program it themselves, says Chris Kilner, software engineer for Aldebaran Robotics, a Paris-based company.

It's also the reason Aldebaran says it is working to create a behavior exchange site where different programs written to manipulate the robot can be shared.

Aldebaran has shipped a little more than 100 robots since it launched in April. But the robots have been restricted to research labs and universities. Next year, the company hopes to expand distribution to some early adopters. But general users are unlikely to get it before 2010 as the company tries to create a version that will appeal to general consumers and manufacture it on a larger scale.

With the 10,000 Euros ($12,600) price tag on the robot, that may be out of the reach for most anyway.

For consolation, there's always the Femisapien robot from WowWee, equally charming but a lot less functional.

Apple may turn to carbon fiber for lighter MacBook Air

2008-11-19T09:25:00.000-08:00

Apple enthusiastically claimed ownership to the world's thinnest notebook earlier this year with the introduction of the MacBook Air, but is rumored to be unsatisfied with the system's weight, which it now hopes to drop below 3 pounds.

As such, people who've proven familiar with the company's portable plans say the Mac maker has been looking into substituting carbon fiber parts for certain structural components currently cast from heavier aircraft-grade aluminum.

Carbon fiber is an extremely lightweight material comprised of very thin fibers about 0.005–0.010 millimeters in diameter and composed mostly of carbon atoms. The atoms bond together in microscopic crystals that are aligned parallel to the long axis of the fiber and can thus be used to form exceptionally strong composites without requiring more material.

The high strength-to-weight ratio of carbon fiber has made it a popular choice for the aerospace, sporting, and racing industries, where it's used for aircraft parts, bicycle frames, and performance car bodies. More recently, however, its application has spilled into the computing industry, with vendors such as Sony and HP's Voodoo PC brand all using it to construct lightweight notebook enclosures.

For its part, Apple is reportedly looking to adopt the material for only a portion of Air's enclosure. The Cupertino-based firm is extremely proud of the notebook's precision unibody upper chassis, which it mills from a single extruded block of aluminum. While no changes have been proposed for this component, those familiar with ongoing R&D efforts say the company is hoping to replacing the Air's lower aluminum case, or bottom cover, with one constructed from carbon fiber.

The move would reportedly raise production costs but shave upwards of a 100 grams off the notebook, dropping its weight from a hair over 3 pounds (or 1363 grams) to 2.78 pounds (or 1263 grams). A pre-production unit showcasing the new part was said to look identical to the existing Air with the exception of the carbon fiber bottom, which appeared in the material's native black.

In our attempts to provide some color on the weight-related claims, we contacted the tear-down experts at iFixit for a breakdown of the Air's weight distribution. Indeed, it turns out that the notebook's bottom cover is the second heaviest structural component outside the unibody chassis (260 grams), weighing in at 152 grams. The rear bezel, or top cover with the Apple logo, weighs 211 grams.

A breakdown of the Air's weight provided by iFixit.

More than 35 percent of the Air's weight comes from the combination of its 287 gram battery and 210 gram LCD panel. The logic board, hard disk drive, and hard drive mounting brackets comprise another 10 percent of the unit's weight.

Asked about the rumored materials swap, iFixit chief executive Kyle Wiens said he wouldn't put it past the Mac maker, which is constantly pushing the manufacturing envelope, to make such a change.

"[Apple industrial design chief Jonathan] Ive's vaunted 'torsional rigidity' is a huge reason for the Air's success," he said. "The current machines feel extremely solid. Apple wouldn't want to sacrifice that at all, hence the willingness to spend more on carbon fiber."

The Air's bottom cover is one of the notebook's most simple components | Source: iFixit's MacBook Air Take Apart Guide

Although AppleInsider publishes the aforementioned information strictly as a rumor, it's believed the shift to a carbon fiber bottom is far enough along in its development cycle that it could appear in a revision to the MacBook Air sometime next year.

Top 500 supercomputer list out today, seven AMD systems in top 10, only one Intel

2008-11-19T09:04:00.000-08:00

The International Top 500 list of supercomputers for November, 2008, was published today. Only two computers exceed the Petaflop mark, with the max being 1.105 Petaflops, up from just one in June. The slowest computer in the top 500 came in at 12.6 Teraflops. For only the second time the Top 500 list contains power consumption information. And while the #1 computer is the most powerful, it is also nearly 3x more energy efficient.

Top 10 plus five

In 2007, the #3 computer today would've been #1. In 2006, the #8 would've been #1. And in 2000, the #500 computer today would've 255% faster than the #1 computer. AMD processors can be found in the #1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 slots. Intel comes in only at #3 in the top 10, however 379 of the top 500 systems published include Intel processors, including 222 systems with 45nm processors (32 of which were low-voltage models).

Rank	Machine	Cores	Performance TFlops	Power KWh	Processor
1	IBM BladeCenter QS22/LS21	129,600	1105	2483	PowerXCell and AMD64
2	Cray XT5 QC	150,152	1059	6951	AMD64
3	SGI Altix ICE 8200EX	51,200	487	2090	Intel
4	IBM eServer Blue Gene	212,992	478.2	2330	Power
5	IBM Blue Gene/P	163,840	450.3	1260	Power
6	Sun SunBlade x6420	62,976	433.2	2000	AMD64
7	Cray XT4	38,642	266.3	1150	AMD64
8	Cray XT4	30,976	205	1581	AMD64
9	Cray Red Storm	38,208	204.2	2506	AMD64
10	Dawning 500A	30,720	180.6	n/a	AMD64
100	Sun SunBlade x6250	3,440	27.4	n/a	Intel
200	HP 3000 BL460c	2,940	18.9	n/a	Intel
300	HP 3000 BL460c	2,520	16.6	281	Intel
400	IBM BladeCenter HS21	2,944	14.5	281	Intel
500	Dell PowerEdge 1950	1,584	12.6	n/a	Intel

The Top 500 list is published twice per year in June and November. It has been published since June, 1993, where the #1 computer was 18,500x slower than today's number one. This new list was released today to coincide with the Supercomputing Conference held in Austin, Texas. This conference is an annual event and continues throughout the week.

Intel officially launches Core i7, pricing

2008-11-19T02:46:00.001-08:00

Intel's next-generation microarchitecture has arrived. Officially.

Intel made the debut of the Core i7 processor official on Monday afternoon, launching the processor at an event in San Francisco. PC makers, including Dell and Gateway, quickly followed suit with announcements.

"The Core i7 processor speeds video editing (and) immersive games...by up to 40 percent without increasing power consumption," the Intel said in a statement.

Combining the i7 with super-fast solid state drives will lead to significant jumps in performance, according to Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group. "When you couple what is Intel's biggest leap in chip design with other incredible innovations like Intel's solid state drives, the Core i7 processor has redefined the computer of tomorrow," he said in a statement.

(Credit: Intel)

The i7 also packs a technology called Turbo Boost that accelerates performance to match a computer user's needs and workloads. Through an on-chip power control unit, Turbo Boost automatically adjusts the clock speed of one or more of the four individual processing cores without increasing power consumption, Intel said.

The new chip also has the latest Intel power-saving technologies, allowing desktops to go into sleep states formerly reserved for Intel-based notebooks.

And it ushers in the age of the "monolithic die" for Intel. (AMD has been doing this for over a year now.) The core i7 is one of Intel's first processors to put four cores on one piece of silicon, referred to as a monolithic die. Previous Intel quad-core chips cobbled together two dual-core die.

Other features include QuickPath, which doubles the memory bandwidth of previous Intel "Extreme" platforms, and Hyper-Threading Technology, which allows multiple computing threads to run simultaneously, effectively enabling the chip to do two things at once.

Each Core i7 processor features an 8 MB level 3 cache and three channels of DDR3 1066 memory.

Dell brings up the 80-core chip

2008-11-19T02:37:00.001-08:00

A Dell slide shown Tuesday was a reminder that 80-core processors may be coming.

Flash back two years to the Intel Developer Forum when CEO Paul Otellini pledged to deliver an 80-core processor in five years.

Otellini said at the time that the chips will be capable of exchanging data at a terabyte a second and that the company hopes to have these chips ready for commercial production within a five-year window.

Michael Dell referred to a slide showing an 80-core chip Tuesday at SC08, a conference in Austin, Texas, focused on high-performance computing.

The trend of packing more compute power into small supercomputing enclosures "is really driven by what's going on in microprocessors. The x86 revolution continues. You see more and more cores. Increased performance. But also without more power required," he said, speaking during the keynote.

Dell slide shown Tuesday at SC08 (Credit: Dell Computer)

In various venues, Intel has spelled out its intention to bring out many-core processors including its upcoming Larrabee graphics chip and future server processors that may reach 32 cores. Currently, Intel's Dunnington processor gets the prize (at Intel) for the most cores: six. Sun Microsystem's "Rock" processor will have 16 cores.

Finalized speedy USB 3.0 spec debuts

2008-11-19T02:25:00.001-08:00

25GB in 70 seconds. That's the torrid transfer rate consumers can expect with devices based on the USB 3.0 specification, which debuted Monday.

USB 3.0 SuperSpeed logo as shown at WinHEC 2008.

(Credit: Brooke Crothers)

As reported previously, the USB Promoter Group finalized the "SuperSpeed" USB 3.0 specification today and is doing a "comprehensive review" of the technology at a conference in San Jose, Calif.

Intel, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, and NEC are the leading players in the group.

Among the initial devices, external solid-state (flash) drives and hard drives are expected to be popular. "The first SuperSpeed USB devices will likely include data storage devices such as flash (solid-state drives), external hard drives, digital music players, and digitial cameras," the group said.

Products aren't coming until 2010, however. "It is anticipated that initial SuperSpeed USB discrete controllers will appear in the second half of 2009 and consumer products will appear in 2010," according to the group.

"The USB 3.0 Promoter Group is now accepting adopters of the USB 3.0 specification, which has been finalized at the 1.0 level," the group added.

As its name (SuperSpeed) implies, USB 3.0 is all about speed. About 10 times more speed, to be exact, than the 2.0 specification.

Here's data from a slide that Microsoft showed at WinHEC 2008 on November 6:

Transfer of a 25GB HD movie:

USB 1.0: 9.3 hours
USB 2.0: 13.9 minutes
USB 3.0: 70 seconds

But the new specification is a long time in coming. USB 2.0 was launched almost eight years ago. At WinHEC, Microsoft expressed caution about USB 3.0 because finalization has taken so long. Because of delays, "we're challenged and we won't have support for USB 3.0 in Windows 7 at RTM (release to manufacturing)," Lars Giusti of Microsoft said earlier this month.

"If you look at the USB 3.0 industry timelines and checkpoints, it really has been a very long, difficult and challenging three-year effort," he added.

Currently, Microsoft is trying to figure out whether it should support USB 3.0 in Vista or just later operating systems.

Killing FireWire

USB 3.0 is likely to signal the death of FireWire/IEEE 1394, a competing interface standard also known as i.Link and Lynx. Today, the industry is bifurcated between IEEE 1394 and USB 2.0. Many devices support both, though a single standard would be optimal.

"If we are all aligned, we are saving money and development time for the industry," says Moorhead.

With Apple seemingly taking step away from FireWire, it seems like USB could gain the upper hand. Apple's newly introduced MacBook computers lack a FireWire port and instead has USB. MacBook Pro still sports FireWire 800.

That leaves Sony as one of the few remaining proponents of the standard.

"FireWire stably declining in most markets and USB 3.0 will continue that trend," says O'Rourke. "We could see USB emerge as the standardization of a high-speed interconnect."

Monday's first USB 3.0 developer conference will be a big step towards that, say experts. "It's for everyone in the USB value chain, from chipmakers to software makers to learn the new USB standard and get on it," says O'Rourke.

At a glance:USB 3.0
Faster: 10 times faster than USB 2.0 and six times faster than FireWire 800
Greater power efficiency: New interrupt driven protocol optimizes power management.
Better Power Output: Power output bump to 900 milliamps from 100 milliamps allows more devices to be charged faster via USB.
Backward Compatible: New connectors and cables will work with work with devices running the older USB 2.0

Dell taps game box, Nvidia for supercomputing

2008-11-19T02:19:00.000-08:00

Democratize IT. A banal catch phrase until you see off-the-shelf gaming boxes from PC maker Dell being used for visual supercomputing.

CEO Michael Dell showed the "Stallion" Visualization Cluster at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) running on standard Dell XPS gaming machines during his keynote Tuesday at SC08, a conference in Austin, Texas, focused on high-performance computing. (The keynote was streamed over the Web.)

The Stallion "visualization wall" uses XPS boxes to power 30-inch Dell displays. "The largest display of its kind in the world, at 307 million pixels," Michael Dell said.

"Literally these are gaming systems. We just leverage what was going on the commodity technology market," said Kelly Gaither, associate director at TACC, speaking as part of Dell's keynote address.

Dell is also looking to Nvidia to democratize supercomputing and bring it down to the desktop. "Advances in graphics technology are actually creating some new opportunities in supercomputing," Dell said. "We announced today that we're extending our partnership with Nvidia to advance their CUDA architecture in Dell's precision workstations," he said.

"So this really is the supercomputer on your desk. Adding one (Nvidia) Tesla card to Dell Precision workstations delivers a theoretical performance of 1 teraflop," he said. "That's seven times higher than (a high-end) Thinking Machines (supercomputer) back in 1993." (A teraflop is one trillion floating point operations per second.)

Dell also announced Tuesday that it has teamed up with Intel and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to build the Hyperion hyperscale computing environment at LLNL. The National Nuclear Security Administration's Advanced Simulation and Computing Program at the facility expects Hyperion to speed the development and reduce the cost of powerful high-performance computing clusters vital to U.S. Department of Energy and National Nuclear Security Administration missions, including climate change, and other global challenges.

"Hyperion is a test bed that will share those breakthroughs with the entire open-source community," Dell said.

Dell Precision workstation becomes supercomputer with Nvidia Telsa technology

(Credit: Dell)

But Dell's big message was how mass-market and standard commercial computing technologies have invaded the supercomputing space. "429 of the top 500 supercomputers are based on the x86 architecture," Dell said, referring to the computing architecture being used in laptops and desktops today. "What you see here is some of the things from the commercial world in managing large data centers really penetrating very heavily (into high-performance computing)."

"Three years ago, using our blade chassis, we put 240 cores in a full-size 42U rack with 2.8GHz CPUs, and that was 1.3 teraflops of theoretical peak performance per rack. Today, we get 512 cores in a 42U rack with 3.3GHz CPUs, and that's 6.82 teraflops per rack," Dell said. ("U" is a unit of measure that describes the height of equipment used in a rack computer. Typically, 1U equals 1.75 inches.)

More addressable memory space--critical for high performance computing--will come with Intel's Nehalem processor, he said. Nehalem will support memory spaces of up to 1 terabyte (trillion bytes) of system memory, Dell said. Most PCs today support 4 gigabytes (billions of bytes).

In related news, Nvidia announced that Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) will use Nvidia Tesla GPUs to boost the computational horsepower of Tokyo Tech's Tsubame supercomputer.

Through the addition of 170 Tesla S1070 1U systems, the supercomputer now delivers nearly 170 teraflops of theoretical peak performance, placing it among the world's Top 500 Supercomputers.

"Tokyo Tech is constantly investigating future computing platforms and it had become clear to us that to make the next major leap in performance, Tsubame had to adopt GPU computing technologies," said Satoshi Matsuoka, division director of the Global Scientific Information and Computing Center at Tokyo Tech in a statement.

Yahoo to make BrowserPlus open-source

2008-11-19T02:15:00.000-08:00

It was probably inevitable given what Google did with Gears, but Yahoo said Tuesday it's releasing BrowserPlus software as open-source software.

BrowserPlus and Gears are aimed at improving browsers' native abilities so Web applications can better match those running natively on a computer's operating system, and Gears already is open-source software. Yahoo announced its intent to make BrowserPlus open-source software on its Yahoo Developers Blog on Tuesday.

"Openness is a key initiative and a major theme for Yahoo this year and beyond, and open-sourcing BrowserPlus is part of that commitment," said team member Lloyd Hilaiel. "This will allow developers to rapidly extend the platform in a distributed fashion. Our hope is that community contributions and review will ensure BrowserPlus stays a secure, robust platform running on all popular operating systems and browsers. I'd like to see BrowserPlus become a valuable piece of Internet infrastructure."

Hilaiel also pointed to a number of feature ideas people have suggested.

"Folks on the forums are talking about peer-to-peer support. People are suggesting screen capture technology for better bug reporting. Webcam integration! Easy import of calendaring data! Drag-and-drop of Word documents! BitTorrent! There's no shortage of ideas. Mainly I'm excited to see what the community creates in the coming weeks and months," he said.

He also drew some distinctions between BrowserPlus and Gears. "Gears is attempting to accelerate the evolution of the Web by enabling features with wide appeal that can be implemented everywhere. BrowserPlus is more interested in fixing the Web plug-in environment, making rapid experimentation possible," he said.

BrowserPlus is a framework with a variety of plug-ins; a new version released earlier in November debuted a plug-in computer's motion sensors, for example. The plug-in architecture is designed to let Web site designers add new abilities to Web pages without requiring people to restart their browsers. With the new version, anyone may use BrowserPlus framework, which previously had been confined to some Yahoo Web sites.