Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Gaming, Networking

Finally getting the street cred that its creators have so long desired, the PlayStation 3-based, distributed computing network known as Folding@Home is to be recognized by Guinness World Records. According to the group, the network is now the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world. The system, which utilizes the power of more than 670,000 PS3s to crunch data, has overall computational capabilities greater than a petaflop (which is a ton of flops). The linked consoles tackle a number of tasks, and scientists harnessing the network’s power are able to study complex medical problems — such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s — much more quickly. Vijay Pande, Associate Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University and head of the Folding@home project says, “Without them [the Folding@Home users] we would not be able to make the advancements we have made in our studies of several different diseases.” Now that Guinness has recognized the system, it can proudly stand next to luminaries such as the man with the longest fingernails, and fastest land animal.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Joshua Topolsky

Verizon Wireless launched into a full-scale overhaul of their service plans today, and the results for consumers are mixed. Here are the main points:

• They’re now called “Nationwide Plans”
• Everybody now gets “Mobile Web,” which used to cost $5.
• Data connections that used to take minutes out of your bucket, no longer do.
• But you’re charged $1.99/MB for some data services.
• If you want to switch, you don’t have to re-up your contract

Downloading games or ringtones or using Mobile Web or e-mail trigger the $1.99 charge. (That’s the smallest division; 1025 to 2047 KB costs $3.98.) But downloading V CAST music songs, sending or receiving text or picture messages, or using VZ Navigator doesn’t trigger the charge.

The end effect is a slight reduction in prices for light users of Mobile Web (if you use less than 3 MB/month, you’re paying less than the $5 you used to) and a slight increase in prices for people who like to buy games or ringtones, which get at least $1.98 tacked on for the data use. (Verizon argues that it’s a wash because the new plan saves voice minutes, but I don’t know many people who use up their voice minute buckets.)

I don’t generally like charge-by-the-megabyte plans because no ordinary human knows how much a megabyte is in terms of Web surfing or downloading. It adds a stomach-churning element of uncertainty to pricing. Fortunately, you can dial #DATA (#3282) to find out how many megabytes you’ve used so far in the month, and stop when necessary.

Now obviously, this being a wireless carrier, there are a ton of additional options with confusing pricing adjustments. Here’s the plain-English rundown of some of the basic add-ons.

• $15 gives you unlimited downloadable video clips, plus no more megabyte charges (V Pak)
• $20 gives you unlimited text messaging (Select Plan) - there are other, cheaper messaging packs too
• $40 gives you both, plus unlimited VZ Navigator and Mobile E-mail.

Oh, and one other thing - if you travel to Canada frequently, the Canada plans are back. They cost $20/month more than domestic plans for that you get unlimited Canada/US roaming and long distance, along with a few other perks. I think $20 is a great deal for unlimited usage in Canada.

One big thing that hasn′t changed: Verizon’s expensive $45/month smart phone data plans. While Verizon is on par with AT&T, Sprint’s $15/month and T-Mobile’s $20/month plans are much cheaper.

Original post by Sascha Segan

Jeff writes in -

Carl and Jerry were Halloween Makers in the grand tradition. This story, from November 1960, explains how they built a very creepily effective severed hand for a seance, magnetically enabled so it can tap out messages by remote control on a glass tabletop.

A Carl and Jerry Halloween Story - Link (PDF).

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Cellphones

Verizon Wireless customers, you may want to sit down for this one. Samsung’s oh-so-sexy SGH-F700, which is currently thrilling quite a few Vodafone customers, could be headed to The Network — and soon. According to Phone Arena, the Verizon variant of the F700 will be dubbed the SCH-U940, but actual details beyond that are scant. We are told that the unit will boast a 440 x 240 resolution touchscreen, QWERTY keyboard and a two-megapixel camera, but beyond that we’re left to wonder. No worries though, as the phone will reportedly be landing “in a few months,” so keep your eyes peeled, cool?

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph

Online Voting writes “The U.S. Election Assistance Commission has published new voting systems testing and certification standards for 190 days of public comment. For all the critics of electronic voting, this is your opportunity to improve the process. This will be the second version of the federal voting system standards (the first version is the VVSG 05). To learn more about these Voluntary Voting System Standards see this FAQ.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by samzenpus

salutations channel 10. im psyched to be &nbspthis blog up here – the opportunity to join an interesting/varied/quirky community is awesome and I’m happy to be a part of.

a bit about me – im a recent college grad from Dartmouth College. the big green, the college on the hill, my little home in the middle of nowhere. i loved living out there. loved school, friends, even the dreadful weather.  if you know any Dartmouth grads you’ll probably agree with me when I say that our loyalty runs deep, and the college is always in your heart and soul.  ahhh trite perhaps but true:)

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i grew up in seattle so im happy to be home.  My family lives here and it holds all my childhood memories, but it is interesting to rediscover the city as a ‘grown-up’.  bar scene is not nearly as pitiful as people complain it is, and pacific northwest restaurants are awesome. i’m a big foodie and love to eat – am finally working on the cooking part. in my tiny new apartment with limited resources.. but its something.

rado facts – love the NYT, dig technology that is intuitive, am a travelling adict and spend millions of hours on social networking sites that allow me to stay in touch with people.

i work at Microsoft as an enthusiast marketing manager – basically sit in corporate here in Redmond and support our awesome Evangelists.  It’s a kickass job with a lot of room for growth and dreams and learnings. so far so good.. but ask me again in a couple months

so there’s a lot of ‘firsts’ going on in my life right now. First job, first apartment, first paycheck.. and first blog.  i plan to write about my life as it is - a graduate, an employee, a 20 something, a woman, a technology enthusiast.. so as I try and get this rolling I’d love to hear your  thoughts, comments, suggestions, lash outs, high fives, virtual nods.. yeeaaaa just talk to me.

 

-new kid

Original post by ambika

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Features, Peripherals, Wireless, Networking

You may have seen the Eye-Fi, launched this week, nearly a year and a half since we first heard about it. If you’re just catching up on the news, it’s basically a WiFi-enabled SD card (and accompanying web service) used to transparently and wirelessly transfer photos from your camera to your computer and/or a variety of photo sharing sites. Sounds like a great idea in theory, it turns out that the Eye-Fi is, in its current release, an answer seeking a question. Read on.

Continue reading Eye-Fi hands-on, impressions

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Ryan Block

An anonymous reader writes “A recent unfortunate casualty of anti-terrorism laws is the home chemistry set. Once deemed the gift that saved Christmas, most Slashdotters probably remember early childhood experimentation with one of the many pre-packaged chemistry sets that were on the market. Unfortunately the FBI has decided that home chemistry sets are a threat to national security and they are rapidly disappearing from the market entirely. Those that remain are shallow boring versions of the old kits.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by samzenpus

Filed under: Wireless

There’s nothing fun about wearing a medical device on your person 24/7, so Belgian nanotech specialist IMEC is trying to minimize the discomfort of those folks with heart conditions who require constant monitoring. Still several years away from a commercial release, the company’s flexible, wireless electrocardiogram patch — also capable of serving as a dedicated heart rate monitor — sends ECG or EMG (muscular) data in a continuous stream to either a PC or data logger for later downloading. The 175mAh battery is said to last an entire day in regular mode or several days when collecting only heartbeat data, a boon to the active lifestyle crowd for which this product is intended.

[Via Medgadget]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Evan Blass

This is it gang, it’s Halloween - We have a MASSIVE DIY HALLOWEEN contest this year! Makers and Crafters, enter our 2nd annual ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere, can enter all or just some of the contests. MAKE, CRAFT, Instructables and Popular Science have teamed up and there’s plenty of time to win! Here’s how to enter and here are all the great prizes!!!. If you′re in a hurry just add your photos to the MAKE DIY Halloween photo pool!

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

As you may have known, Etsy has also been putting on a Halloween costume contest and they too have had many brilliant entries. But, as with any competition there can only be one (or a few in this case) winner.

Etsy costume contest winners - Link.

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Handhelds

Although it hasn’t had the buzz of some other longstanding rumors, we’ve been heard a lot about Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader over the past year — everything from shady pics to tagged content to a supposed October 15th ship date, which came and went with nary a peep from the etailer. Now Brad Stone at the New York Times — who predicted that ship date to begin with — says that his sources have told him that the Kindle has been delayed (shocking), but will still make it out by the end of the year. Stone also says Amazon is still perfecting the service and wants to have as much Kindle-ready content (Kindling?) available at launch as it can — and that the built-in EV-DO modem will pull down content over Sprint’s network. That’s news to us, but until we actually see this thing we’re going to take our Kindle with a large grain of salt.

[Via mobileread]

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Nilay Patel

mattnyc99 writes “PopularMechanics.com takes a peek into the growing world of high-tech piracy on the open seas, which the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard are looking to cut off by investing in a new fleet of superfast, gun-mounted unmanned surface vessels (USVs). From the article: “The Interceptor is available now. But the USV market is just getting started: Two months ago, British defense firm Qinetiq debuted its own robotic vessel, the jetski-size Sentry. Among its potential duties is intruder investigation, which could include scouting out unidentified boats, along the lines of the raft that detonated alongside the USS Cole in Yemen, as well as offering a first look at a possible pirate-controlled vessel.”"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Original post by samzenpus

Here’s a commercial product (from FrightProps) that uses a blast of compressed air on a person’s ankle to separated them from their skin. If you have an air compressor, you could probably bodge up your own without too much trouble.

Ankle Blaster Air Cannon - [via] Link

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Original post by Popgadget: Personal Tech for Women

Filed under: Cellphones

Unfortunately, we’ve no idea exactly what mobiles are compatible with ConnectLand’s USB Ferris Wheel Phone Stand (aside from the HTC Touch, obviously), but we′re all probably better off that way. This undoubtedly bizarre device can be powered via USB or a pair of AA cells, and it sports an incoming phone call alarm in the form of… wait for it… a spinning Ferris Wheel. That’s right kids, whenever your handset receives a call, the wheel starts to spin and LEDs begin to flash, giving you plenty of motivation to hand out your number to anyone who will call it. Those with money to burn can snap one up for $27, but if you’re that curious to see how this thing works, why not save your dough and peek the (intensely boring) video after the jump?

Continue reading USB Ferris Wheel Phone Stand shocks and awes

 

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Original post by Darren Murph