Archive for April, 2011

Gadgets

SIM-sized satellites to lift off with Endeavour this afternoon

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

They won’t be beaming GPS or radio signals back to Earth anytime soon, but these one-inch-square satellites could one day travel to distant planets — without fuel. Developed over a period of three years by a team of undergraduates at Cornell University, the Sprite chips could eventually be used for communication, flying in clusters like [...]

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Gadgets

Xcom Global’s international MiFi rentals getting cheaper, Eurotrips making a comeback

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

No sense in beating around the proverbial bush — we’re huge fans of Xcom Global’s business model, and frankly, we’re saddened that every single nation in the world isn’t yet included in its list of supported countries. For those hearing the name for the first time, you’ll be doing yourself a solid by catching up [...]

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Gadgets

Sprint reports Q1 2011 results, adds 1.1 million subscribers

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

It’s financials time and the word hasn’t always been rosy for Sprint of late, but this time the company has some good news to share. In this, the first quarter of 2011, Sprint added 1.1 million total subscribers, 846,000 of those were prepaid, the other 310,000 postpaid. Churn was down too, 4.36 for prepaid and [...]

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Gadgets

Alpha Bike concept: free-wheeling fixie for flip-floppers

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

So Philliebot was a fail, but this chainless bicycle serves as proof that UPenn doesn’t always come up short. The Alpha Bike, designed by a group of engineering students, contains an entirely internal drivetrain that allows riders to switch between fixed-gear and multi-gear setups. The simple switch is enabled by an electronically controlled clutch, part [...]

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Gadgets

NPD credits Verizon iPhone with stemming the Android tide in Q1 smartphone sales

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

As much as we were hoping to get some definitive statements from AT&T and Verizon’s Q1 2011 financials about the Verizon iPhone’s impact on the smartphone market, none were really forthcoming. It’s left to analyst outfits like the NPD, therefore, to try and parse the data for us and read between the official lines. The [...]

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Gadgets

Panasonic Viera AR Setup Simulator app augments the reality of your TV dream (video)

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

A cardboard cut-out, really? You pasted a 50-inch rectangle of stiffened paper to the wall in order to preview the flatscreen of your dreams within your new Vitsoe shelving system? For shame. A true nerd, nay, a real man would have cast aside those arts and crafts for Panasonic’s new Viera AR Setup Simulator app. [...]

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Gadgets

Formula 1 cars set to go all electric in the pit lane from 2013 onwards, racing purists outraged already

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

Formula 1, the pinnacle of gas-powered racing, is more often at odds with the eco-conscious electric car movement than in tune with it, but here’s an exception to that rule. The FIA, the sport’s governing body, announced back in December of last year a move to a hybrid four-cylinder turbocharged engine, which is still on [...]

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Gadgets

Intel touts 50Gbps interconnect by 2015, will make it work with tablets and smartphones too

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

Woah there, Mr. Speedy. We’ve barely caught up with the 10Gbps Thunderbolt interconnect, debuted in the new Macbook Pro, and now Intel’s hyperactive researchers are already chattering away about something five times faster. They’re promising a new interconnect, ready in four years, that will combine silicon and optical components (a technology called silicon photonics) to [...]

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Gadgets

Details of Samsung’s ‘Alex’ Chrome OS netbook leaked, Atom N550 in tow

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

As we approach the expected mid-2011 launch for a few Chrome OS devices, it seems inevitable that some details are bound to slip out ahead of time — here’s looking at you, Acer ZGB and Seaboard. The latest victim outed by a Chromium bug report is the Samsung “Alex,” which sports a 1280 x 800 [...]

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Gadgets

White iPhone 4 thickness creates issue for case makers, owners

April 30th 2011 | Posted by admin

By now you’ve probably seen the latest spectacle to consume the white iPhone 4: it’s thicker than the black model. The image above illustrates the point using a piece of lead from a mechanical pencil. So what, you say, in righteous indignation to a device that shipped ten months late. Well, the size difference creates [...]

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