Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Geeks everywhere understand the concept of substance over style, or vice-versa. And the 10-cell 13000mAh (yes, thirteen-thousand) battery for the Asus Eee PC 901 is really all style and no substance.

But what’s the point, if said battery make the 901 much less portable? Ah yes, 10-14 hours of claimed battery life for a netbook is definitely a great thing, and surely that battery’s heft turns it into a deadly bludgeoning weapon. More pics for those who continue.

(Images from yomolo.com, via)

Tags: 901, Asus Eee PC 901, Asus Eee PC 901 batteries, Asus Eee PC 901 battery, eee pc

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Original post by Rico

Keynote Systems released their latest VoIP quality report with some interesting findings. For one, Comcast, a cable company dominated the voice quality rankings beating the closest competitor by nearly 300 points. As for reliability, to no surprise AT&T won this category, no doubt to their decades of experience in building reliable voice and data networks.

Keynote Systems measures VoIP quality (MOS scores), call completion, etc. by automatically placing calls from corporate apartments using residential VoIP services and network services just like a typical residential customer would.  Service Reliability scores are based on the key performance metrics of Service Availability, Average Answer Time and Number of Dropped Calls. Additionally,  Audio Quality is an aggregate of Audio Clarity and Audio Delay (latency, jitter) performance factors. The study compares the relative performance of PSTN (regular analog) service, Broadband VoIP providers (e.g. Vonage, Verizon VoiceWing, EarthLink trueVoice, AT&T CallVantage etc), and cable voice services (e.g. Time Warner Digital Phone, Comcast Digital Voice). Test calls were placed from residential locations in New York and San Francisco.

Keynote ranked VoIP Service Providers in two categories: Reliability and Audio Quality. The Service Availability, Call Completion, Average Answer Time, and Dropped Audio performance factors all contribute to the Reliability ranking.

In the summary report they only list the top 3 VoIP provider names and then have Provider D - I as anonymous. You have to purchase the full report to see the names. I′m guessing Packet8 and Vonage are somewhere in this anonymous list.

Provider                   Reliability Points    Rank 
AT&T Landline                    996                1
Time Warner Digital Phone        925                2
Verizon VoiceWing                872                3
Provider D                       859                4
Provider E                       793                5
Provider F                       687                6
Provider G                       643                7
Provider H                       408                8
Provider I                       374                9

Audio Quality
Provider                   Reliability Points     Rank 
Comcast Digital Voice            901                1
Verizon VoiceWing                609                2
AT&T Landline                    506                3
Provider D                       500                4
Provider E                       487                5
Provider F                       480                6
Provider G                       462                7
Provider H                       252                8
Provider I                       0                  9

General Observations
• The best providers always deliver dial tine and connect the call to the number dialed in a timely fashion.
• Only one of the providers in the study failed to provide dial tone 99.9% of the time or better.
• All providers had very small percentages of calls with dropped audio, but only two providers had zero calls with dropped audio.
• One VoIP provider required two seconds more than any other voice provider to connect calls after dialing.
• Most providers had slightly more audio delay and slightly lower MOS in Wave 6 as compared to Wave 5.
• Eight of the nine providers in the study had a better call completion rate in Wave 6 than was evidenced in the Wave 5 results.

What’s amazing is that Comcast has been adding a ton of new VoIP customers each quarter. In fact, Comcast has become the nation’s fourth largest phone company. The cable company has signed up four million VoIP customers in just the last two years. Relatedly, Forrester Research analysts have projected that Cable VoIP providers will claim up to 80% of the 28.4 million residential VoIP users by 2013. This forecast includes an expected growth from the approximately 19 million installed lines in 2008.

Check out the summary report.

Tags: AT&T, Comcast, Comcast Digital Voice, jitter, Keynote Systems, latency, MOS, Packet8, PSTN, Verizon VoiceWing, voip, Vonage

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Original post by nafiz

With oil prices in free-fall and the world′s economies in the toilet, short-sighted governments and ᨮ-denying GM execs will undoubtedly defer priority given to clean energies in the next round of fiscal budgets. Too bad, because Korea’s S&P Energy Research Institute has just issued a press release about a new discovery it claims puts the era of clean energy within reach. Dr. Sen Kim claims to have achieved the separation of Hydrogen with the same 90% (or greater) efficiency using just 0.1kwh of energy compared to the traditional 4 - 4.5kwh required using the ol′ electrolytic method. Dr. Kim postulates that “manufacturing the H2 by our method will lower the cost of H2 as much as 20 - 30 times″ compared to electrolytic H2. That makes SPERI’s method suitable for H2 fuel production from say, an in-home hydrogen fueling station. So is this the solution to all of our clean energy concerns? Perhaps, but we’ve heard these economical hydrogen-generation claims before. Let’s wait for the claim to be more thoroughly vetted by bigger brains than our own before getting too hopeful.

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Wireless

Not too keen on snatching your WiMAX via ExpressCard? Fret not, as ZTE’s TU25 (which was leaked early last month) is fast approaching. Hailed as the only USB modem available (and certified, no less) for the launch of the XOHM network, the TU25 presumably allows users to plug it into a spare USB port, wave a magic wand and begin surfing the mobile broadband superhighway in Baltimore (and a few other places, we hear). There’s a frighteningly small amount of details on this thing right now, but hopefully we’ll have some of the more crucial aspects (price, release date, etc.) sooner rather than later.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Robots

Riding a bicycle isn’t exactly easy, especially if you’re made of circuitry, wires, and a gyroscope. That was Murata Seisaku-kun’s one trick, and now he’s sadly obsolete. Meet Seiko, a 20-inch tall, 11 pound unicycle riding robot. Like her, uh, “cousin” Keisaku-kun, Seiko relies on a chest-mounted gyro to stay upright and uses Bluetooth to communicate with a PC that gives instructions. (Yes, she’s a PC.) Lucky robot lovers can watch the whole family of robo-carnies do its stuff at CEATEC Japan 2008, but even luckier you can check out the elder bot on his bike in motion after the break without having to leave your chair.

Continue reading Murata’s new balancing robot loses a wheel, gains a trick

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Original post by Tim Stevens

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

Two things: first off, craptastic pool cue Wiimote accessories are already widely available, and secondly, couldn’t you just duct tape a controller to your favorite real cue and achieve almost the same thing? Terrible ideas aside, RealMotion has just revealed that it will be shipping a RealMotion Pool Cue companion accessory for its upcoming title, American Pool Deluxe. Reportedly, the unit is a “meticulously crafted cue built specifically to take advantage of the Wii remote’s accelerometer technology for real precision and fun,” but we’ll have to envision it until the company gets smart enough to distribute a photo. Or is it really that embarrassing?

[Via IGN]

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Microsoft_officially_announces_new_Zunes’;

So much for that ta-da event tomorrow — Microsoft just confirmed the fall Zune lineup a little earlier than planned, and it’s almost exactly as leaked: capacity bumps to 120GB and 16GB, new WiFi music store, Zune 3.0 software with recommendations and pre-programmed theme channels, and two new games, Hexic and Texas Hold ‘Em. Oh, and that snappy blue flash Zune we just spotted. Pricing is similarly unsurprising, seeing as we’ve had it for a week: the 120GB Zune is $250, while the 16GB flash model is $199 and the 8 gigger is $149. Oh well, at least we still have those new mice and webcams to look forward to tomorrow, right? Certainly nothing else is going on.

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Microsoft_officially_announces_new_Zunes’;

So much for that ta-da event tomorrow — Microsoft just confirmed the fall Zune lineup a little earlier than planned, and it’s almost exactly as leaked: capacity bumps to 120GB and 16GB, new WiFi music store, Zune 3.0 software with recommendations and pre-programmed theme channels, and two new games, Hexic and Texas Hold ‘Em. Oh, and that snappy blue flash Zune we just spotted. Pricing is similarly unsurprising, seeing as we’ve had it for a week: the 120GB Zune is $250, while the 16GB flash model is $199 and the 8 gigger is $149. Oh well, at least we still have those new mice and webcams to look forward to tomorrow, right? Certainly nothing else is going on.

Update: The official PR is out, looks like Zune owners can look forward to the Zune 3.0 software update on September 16. Oh, and there’s new Audible support as well. Rock on, rockers.

[Via CNET]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Hey, is that the fabled blue flash Zune, all priced up and sitting on a Walmart shelf in Knoxville, Tennessee a whole day before it’s scheduled to launch? Indeed it is — let’s hope those rumored LifeCams are pretty spectacular, because we done just scooped every other product Redmond has on tap for tomorrow. You’re next, Stevie.

[Thanks, Christian]

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Original post by Nilay Patel

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Shortly after Samsung unveiled its summer stable of cameras, along comes Panasonic with a new trio of its own. Kicking things off is the zoom-infatuated DMC-FZ28, which features a remarkable 18x optical zoom, 10.1-megapixel sensor, Intelligent Auto Mode, Auto Focus and a 27-millimeter wide-angle lens. Moving on, we see the DMC-LX2’s rightful successor — the unimaginatively named LX3 — which lands in August alongside the aforementioned FZ28. Said shooter packs a 10.1-megapixel sensor, F2.0 24mm LEICA DC VARIO-SUMMICRON lens and the ability to capture 720p movies at 24fps. Bringing up the rear is the pocket-friendly LUMIX DMC-FX37 (due in September), which touts a 25mm ultra wide-angle LEICA DC lens, 10.1-megapixel sensor (are you sensing a trend?), a 5x optical zoom and 720p movie mode. Ready for the sting(s)? Try $449.99, $499.95 and $349.95 in order of mention.

[Via LetsGoDigital]

Read - DMC-FZ28
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Read - DMC-FX37

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Wearables

Never before has headgear been so intrinsically linked with actual brain waves. Thanks to a team of researchers looking to create a method for “continuously monitoring high-temporal resolution brain dynamics without requiring conductive gels applied to the scalp,” a new baseball cap has been created to do the trick. Said hat conceals five embedded dry electrodes which contact the wearer’s forehead, while a single electrode behind the left ear acquires EEG signals. From there, the data is transferred wirelessly and can be processed in real-time to determine a driver’s level of drowsiness, for instance. The gurus behind the invention have high hopes for its future, and they’ve already envisioned it being used in a plethora of medical scenarios and for controlling home electronics. To those about to rock this — prepare for some serious hat-hair.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Cellphones

Just in case you haven’t learned enough about the forthcoming Samsung Instinct from our hands-on gallery / UI video walkthrough, Sammy has launched a promotional website designed to give you the skinny. Within the site, you can peer at a handful of press shots, get schooled on all of its features and sign up to be notified when it’s ready for your hands to be wrapped around it. Nothing too exciting, but those with the Instinct high on their list of next mobile to own will surely find it worth the click over.

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Original post by Darren Murph

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Intel’s already made some fairly bold promises at its Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai this week, and it now looks like it’s getting into the prediction game as well, with one representative from the company telling TG Daily that people “probably won′t” need discrete graphics cards in the future. That word comes from Intel Graphics and Gaming Technologist Ron Fosner, who was showing off a graphics demo running on a multi-core Nehelam system that, as you can see in the video at the link below, likely won’t have NVIDIA or AMD rethinking their strategy just yet. Fosner also curiously looked to the past to back up his argument, saying that “if you look back into the mid 80′s, there were no discreet graphics cards.” Of course, all of this is all the more puzzling given that Intel is itself dabbling in discrete graphics with its Larrabee project, albeit under the guise of a CPU / GPU hybrid.

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Original post by Donald Melanson

Filed under: Storage

Reader John V. just reminded us that Samsung′s 500GB SpinPoint M6 is now overdue. Sure, companies miss deadlines all the time — but this time, it’s different. For one thing, Samsung is notorious for issuing world’s first, biggest, pinkest, (you name it) press releases. And when it’s as important as a 2.5-inch, 500GB disk spinning at 5400rpm that fits in a 9.5-mm enclosure, well, someone’s gotta be held accountable for our disappointment… 320GB just doesn′t cut it anymore. We′re not pinching pennies for nothing Sammy. Update please?

[Thanks, John V.]

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Storage

Samsung promised it was coming in March, and here she blows. The Spinpoint M6 is the first standard-height 500GB 2.5-incher available, at a lean 9.5mm, meaning you can cram it into most existing laptops unlike the 2.5-inch 500 giggers from Fujitsu and Hitachi. Samsung’s using some Perpendicular Magnetic Recording tech to cram everything in, stuffing three 167GB platters into the 5400rpm drive. The M6 goes for $299 and is shipping now. If DVD burning is more your pace, Samsung also just announced an “industry fastest” 22X DVD burner, the SH-𔔗. The SATA drive can stamp a 4.7GB disc in 12 minutes, and does dual-layer discs at a respectable 16X. No word on price yet for that one.

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Original post by Paul Miller