Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

We thought the RAmos V8 was looking pretty sleek in render form, but now that some real pictures of the black PMP with the 4.3-inch screen and 16GB of storage have surfaced, we’re really impressed — with how much this thing looks like an iPod touch. (We’ll be here all week, folks!) Of course, the V8’s codec support is way better, but without pricing info and a look at that UI we’re not ready to call this one a winner quite yet. Let us know if you hit China next month, okay?

[Via MP4nation]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

An anonymous reader writes “Websense Security Labs explains the spammer Anti-CAPTCHA operations and mass-mailing strategies. Apparently spammers are using combination of different tactics — proper email accounts, visual social engineering, and fast-flux — representing a strategy, explains their resident CAPTCHA expert. It is evident that spammers are working towards defeating anti-spam filters with their tactics.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

coondoggie writes “Turns out that the surface of Mars is stiffer and colder than previously thought. New observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter indicate that any liquid water that might exist below the planet’s surface and any possible organisms living in that water would be located deeper than scientists had suspected.NASA made the discovery was using the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument on the Orbiter, which revealed long, continuous layers stretching up to 600 miles or about one-fifth the length of the United States. The radar pictures show a smooth, flat border between the ice cap and the rocky Martian crust, NASA said. On Earth, the weight of a similar stack of ice would cause the planet’s surface to sag. The fact that the Martian surface is not bending means that its strong outer shell, or lithosphere, a combination of its crust and upper mantle, must be very thick and cold.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

Filed under: Cellphones

We’ll be frank — we really have no idea what Samsung’s getting at with its freshest Soul promotional video, but it’s certainly a fine piece of eye candy if nothing else. Put simply, the video shows a maniac darting about demonstrating ten optical illusions in just over two minutes, and in case you couldn’t guess, the Soul is saved for last. Should we have prefaced that bit with a spoiler warning? Too bad — vid’s still waiting after the jump if you’re interested, though.

[Thanks, Joel]

Continue reading Samsung Soul promo video shows 10 optical illusions in 136 seconds

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Original post by Darren Murph

Jay writes “Firefox 3 Release Candidate 1 is out now. If yours didn’t auto-update, then get it while it’s hot! The release came a bit early with Computer World noting ‘The appearance of Firefox Release Candidate 1 (RC1) came earlier than expected. As recently as last Saturday, Mozilla’s chief engineer said that although the company had locked down RC1’s code, it was planning to publicly launch the build in ‘late May.’” My copy just downloaded- restarting after I save this story. God I hope it’s better than the last beta.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by CmdrTaco

Filed under: GPS, Wearables

To be fair, we haven’t really noticed a GPS watch that wasn’t at least somewhat unsightly, but the Sport Genius Watch Tracker does a phenomenal job at exemplifying ugly. Reportedly, the conglomerate not only tells time, but the built-in GSM / GPS modules enable it to make and receive calls, track your movements and beam out your current location via SMS in case you find yourself in a pickle. It also provides the means for logging runs and points of interest, and you can supposedly upload the data to mapping software to get a visual on what you accomplished. Word on the street has it that this particular wristwatch should be available on the streets of China right now, but there’s no telling how many yuan you’ll be asked to fork over in order to publicly humiliate yourself.

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Original post by Darren Murph

coondoggie writes to tell us that congressional watchdogs have called on Congress to create a body within the FAA to oversee unmanned aircraft development and integration. The group cited the rapidly growing unmanned aircraft community and is worried about the possible repercussions. “The GAO also called on the FAA to work with the Department of Defense, which has extensive unmanned aircraft experience to issue its program plan. In addition, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) assesses the security implications of routine unmanned aircraft access to commercial airspace, the GAO said. Even if all issues are addressed, and there are a number of critical problems, unmanned aircraft may not receive routine access to the national airspace system until 2020, the GAO concluded.”

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Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Filed under: Cellphones

Seriously though, how many are surprised to hear that Motorola’s Chief Technology / Strategy Officer Richard Nottenburg is jumping off the sinking ship? Apparently dude “left to return to the New York area to be with his family and pursue other opportunities,” which is code for a) he was passed over for CEO of the new mobile devices company, b) he was fired, or c) he finally wised up to the direction the company’s taken. Either way, we can’t really blame him.

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Original post by Ryan Block

We’ve seen Sony shrink TVs to supermodel proportions with its cute Sony Drive XEL-1 OLED TV and, most recently, its almost invisible 0.3mm thin OLED telly, but now rival Samsung is injecting sex and skinniness into the laptop space.

This concept laptop sports a 12.1in AMOLED display with a 1280 x 768 resolution and a cool – although not sure how functional – touch-sensitive keyboard. As you can see it’s very thin indeed and would probably make even the anorexic MacBook Air look fat.

There’s not a lot of detail as to what’s under the hood but you can probably bank on a solid state drive (SSD).

Although this is not in production, Samsung is planning to launch laptops using OLED displays up to 15.5in in size from next year. This one goes on show at the Society for Information Display (SID) Show next week in Los Angeles.-Martin Lynch

[Engadget]

Original post by nafiz

deglr6328 writes “The OMEGA EP laser at the University of Rochester’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics was dedicated today at the Robert L. Sproull Center for Ultra High Intensity Laser Research. The new laser, which has been in design since ~2002 will, at 1 kilojoule per 1 picosecond pulse, be the highest energy petawatt scale laser ever created by far. For a fleeting fraction of a second, it will deliver a beam of infrared light at 1054 nm that is more powerful than the total energy consumption of all human activity on the planet, to a tiny spot the size of the head of a pin. Previous petawatt scale lasers such as the one created at Lawrence Livermore labs in the late 90’s (and dismantled in 1999) were capable of only several hundred joules per pulse. The new OMEGA EP laser will be able to manifest power densities sufficient to examine Unruh and Hawking radiation-like phenomena in the laboratory and will have the capability to directly produce nuclear reactions through ultra high electric field initiated photodisintegration.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio

We fully expected that Ferrari logo and lacquered paint job to add a stuff premium to Meridian’s F80, but this is undeniably insane. The “transportable home entertainment system,” which has been hovering about since last March, is at long last ready to be purchased. Finding prospective buyers, however, will likely be challenging. The unit is now available in silver, yellow, white, black and the obligatory red, and each one will set you back a dumbfounding $2,995. We’re thinking the unit itself would go for around three bills sans branding, but apparently Italian ponies aren’t cheap.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Nice gallery of a microwaved CD - so you don’t have to… You can see the current vaporizing the aluminum in the CD as well as the arcs of microwaves, from what I understand the patches of aluminum become antenna-like.

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Original post by Phillip Torrone

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Apparently HP’s gotten so desperate to connect with the youth market that they’ve actually hired on a “teen council” to help design a new line of products — likeliest PCs — from top to bottom. Will it be another bomb like the hip-e? Guess we’ll find out when the line launches this fall.

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Original post by Ryan Block

DesScorp writes “Popular Science has a piece on some outrageous ideas for weapons; some came to fruition, and other’s didn’t. And while some of the weapons (atom bombs, chemical weapons, bats with bombs strapped to them that seek out homes and buildings at night) are truly frightening, some of them are also kind of silly, such as the Gay Bomb, and the Frisbee bomb that was labeled the ‘Modular Disc-Wing Urban Cruise Munition.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by ScuttleMonkey

alphadogg writes to tell us that the NSF is researching chain letters and how they travel. The results aren’t quite what one might expect, showing a pattern of more selective and circuitous travel. “One surprising finding was that messages often took meandering routes between people who knew each other, often through as many as 100 intermediaries. Many email users also received copies from multiple social groups. The researchers concluded that because messages come from many directions, there’s ample opportunity for the messages to be edited along the way.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Filed under: Wireless

Wondering what kind of radios are inside all those WiMAX-enabled laptops, ultraportables and MIDs (and, uh, sheets) we’ve been seeing lately? We’ve got a hunch they’ve all got something a lot like Intel’s 5350 WiMAX / WiFi card tucked away in there, and now that it’s hit the FCC, we’re being treated to some class-A photography of the lil’ bugger. Yep, still useless without a network — but if that $12B Clearwire deal pans out, you might get to get familiar with the user manual located just beyond the read link.

[Thanks, Stephen]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Peripherals

iKey’s done this whole rugged keyboard thing a time or two before, so when it builds one meant to operate like a champ around environments laden with grease, you know it means business. The new line of Membrane keyboards — which arrives in a trio of flavors — boasts a stainless steel enclosure, or customers looking to integrate can snag the OEM edition and do as they please. The board possesses a “hard-coated, textured, polyester film that is more rugged than industrial silicone rubber keypads,” and it’s designed to withstand “directed hose water, disinfectants and environmental contaminants.” Seems as though you’ll have to phone up iKey to find out what this Apocalypse-approved device will run you, but it should get along quite well with that impenetrable Iron Drive of yours.

[Via Coolest-Gadgets]

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Original post by Darren Murph

A group of U.S. Senators are asking the FBI to explain a recent controversial National Security Letter sent to the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive was able to defeat the request with help from the EFF and the ACLU this past April. “The Internet Archive’s case is only the third known legal challenge to NSLs, despite the fact that the the FBI issues tens of thousands a year — more than 100,000 such letters were issued in 2004 and 2005 combined. But despite the lack of legal challenges from recipients at ISPs, telephone companies and credit bureaus, successive scathing reports from the Justice Department’s Inspector General have found illegal letters and a willy-nilly culture within the bureau towards tracking their usage.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Cool long-exposure photography using a two-wheeled Picaxe-powered robot as the light-source. I like the use of the CD jewel case as a bot body.

Lenny’s Blog

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Original post by Gareth Branwyn

Filed under: Laptops

With its minute keyboard, the Eee PC can be tough to use in the dark. Imagine, then, if yours had a backlit keyboard. The folks at Popsci have come up with — and explained — a way to add one of your own. And get this: you can do it in 3 hours for just $13.50. But before you go ripping apart your new Eee PC, mind this: this isn’t the easiest mod in the world. You have to be cool with removing the keyboard, slipping some wires, and doing some light soldering. In addition, the hack plops a Techno Flash luminescent wire inverter on the outside of the case, so if you’re big on minimalism, this might be a skip.

[Via Pimp My UMPC]

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Original post by Joshua Fruhlinger

esocid writes to tell us that researchers from Taiwan have created a new baseball cap complete with embedded -bio-signal monitoring system. The purpose was to give a neural interface that could be useful in everyday life. “The cap contains five embedded dry electrodes on the wearer’s forehead, and one electrode behind the left ear, that acquire EEG signals. Then, the EEG signals are wirelessly transmitted to a data receiver, where they are processed in real-time by a dual-core processor. The BCI system includes Bluetooth transmission for distances of 10m or less (e.g., for driving applications), as well as RF transmission for distances up to 600m (e.g., for potential sports applications). Next, the processed signals are transmitted back to the cap, where the data can be stored, displayed in real-time on a screen, or be used to trigger an audio warning, if necessary.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by ScuttleMonkey

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Dell’s plans for Alienware and the XPS line are getting a little clearer, even as rumors swirl — a post on the company’s Direct2Dell blog today says that the XPS and Alienware dev teams are going to be integrated, and that the XPS line will go in “new directions,” hinted at by the m1330 and XPS One. Furthermore, you can now buy the Area-51 m9750 gaming laptop direct from the Dell website in addition to the Area-51 m15x, which doesn’t seem all that wild to us — we’re more interested in why Dell picked the super-geeky XPS brand to be its “premium” line. Ever heard of friendly, guys?

[Via CNET]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Like pretty much every other Digital ELPH preceding it, Canon’s flagship SD1100 IS garnered nothing but the utmost praise in a recent Imaging-Resource review. Okay, so maybe critics did kvetch about slight noise at ISO 800, a somewhat confusing interface, and a not-particularly-useful digital zoom, but this point-and-shoot managed to get it right in the areas that matter most. Build quality and design were both smiled upon, the image stabilization performed as advertised and the image quality was deemed “excellent.” Of note, they did find very minor chromatic aberration in the wide angle shots, but considering the size of this shooter, results were seen as fantastic. Overall, it looks like Canon has produced yet another winner in the pocket-friendly camera department, but feel free to take a gander at the in-depth review waiting in the read link below.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Just don’t stick yourself!

The tip is razer sharp, easily digging far enough into a pin to hold its place. A finger’s weight on the plunger keeps the probe in place; it has never once slipped to short two pins, as my multimeter’s probe is wont to do.

Syringe Logic Probe [via]

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Original post by Gareth Branwyn

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Just like that obscure Burt Bacharach album, some DAPs just need a little time to grow on you. Now that SanDisk’s comparatively inexpensive Sansa Fuze has been out and about for a couple of months, we’re imploring you dear readers to cast out your opinions on the minuscule device. Are you satisfied with the interface? Have you been disappointed by the sound quality? Was this thing just one feature away from being perfect? ‘Tis a shame SanDisk didn’t phone you up before mashing the green button and sending these on their way, but here’s your shot to tell all who will listen what could be done better in revision two.

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Original post by Darren Murph