Intel’s taking an interesting direction in marketing its latest Atom N2600 and N2800 processors, a.k.a. “Cedar Trail.” Sure, the company is talking up all the whiz-bang stuff its low-power, 32nm chips can do for consumers, like pump out 1080 video and stretch battery life for to up to 10 hours. But Intel’s also betting that healthcare […]
LG’s Huge OLED TV @CES 2012
Now LG, don’t go disappointing me… LG is so confident in its claim to the “world’s biggest” OLED TV (technically true for now, until it’s upstaged) that it’s giving the world a peek just ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show next month. The svelte, 55-inch beauty is just shy of 0.2-inches thick (5mm) and boasts […]
Digital Gift Guide 2011
This holiday, why not try giving more with less by dematerializing your gifts? Essentially, dematerialization is the digitization of items, mostly media like books, music and video games (that’s a hint of what to expect on this list). These works, now freed from physical media — at least on the consumer end since they still […]
Up to 70 energy savings for smartphones by proxy
A network proxy, actually. Researchers at Aalto University in Finland have devised a way to cut 3G smartphone power use by up to a staggering 74 percent. How? Rather than forcing phones to maintain a constant Internet connection, which can quickly deplete battery power, the tech uses a “bursty” approach via a specially configured network proxy. Between each of […]
Banned! Apple nixes conflict mineral-y, e-waste-y Phone Story app
Game maker with a message, Molleindustria (NSFW), may have stumbled on a sure-fire way to shine a light on the dark side of the electronics industry: create an iOS app about it and get it banned by Apple. Long story short, the company created a game called Phone Story based on the unsavory practices surrounding the […]
Intel’s mobile strategy hinges on Android
Poor Intel. (Insert sad emoticon.) Its energy-saving Atom chips helped fuel the rise of netbooks. But now, smartphones and tablets are all the rage and it’s ARM that’s reaping the rewards. So dominating is ARM in mobility that Microsoft’s touch-tastic Windows 8 OS will also run on the company’s processor tech. Now, after a seeming […]
Metro Vacuum’s DataVac Electric Duster Review
Never buy another can of compressed air again. That’s Metro Vacuum’s pitch for the DataVac ED500 Electric Duster. And at just over $40 at Amazon.com, I was more than willing to say good-bye to compressed or “canned” air. Design and Construction There are two words that describe DataVac’s design: nothing fancy. Exposed screws, off-the-self componentry, […]
Harry Potter coming to e-readers
Big e-book news today, though a little too late for the many, many trees that were claimed by J.K. Rowling’s best-selling series (450 million copies!). Harry Potter’s coming to an e-reader near you. And in a move that’s sure spark breathless analysis of the book publishing industry, Rowling is publishing the e-books herself. The buzz […]
Green gadget alert: Samsung’s solar netbook arrives in July
News that Russia was getting Samsung’s NC215S — a 10.1-inch netbook with a built-in solar panel — in August was great and a little disappointing at the same time. Don’t eco-conscious netbook users stateside deserve some love? It turns out Samsung plans to release the NC215S in the U.S. in a few short weeks, July […]
Sony’s Bloggie 3D: A gadget maker finally embraces the teardown
This is neat. Sony’s own blog, SGNL, has done something pretty unique for a consumer electronics company. It embraced the teardown (sub req’d)! Engadget observes that while the video smacks of publicity, it’s unprecedented for a top-tier electronics maker to sanction an on-camera teardown of one of its products, with a prominent member of the […]