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The speed of light is the universal speed limit, so naturally, optical technologies appeal when trying to construct speedy computational devices. Fiber optics let us shoot data to and fro at top speed, but for the time being our CPUs still make their calculations using electronic transistors .
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Researchers build optical transistor out of silicon, provide path to all-optical computing
Maingear gave us a quick nudge to say something was coming. Now it can reveal that — alongside Intel’s third-generation processors inside all of its desktops and laptops — it’s further updated two of its tower models. The F131 ($1,049), the middleweight option, now houses the same vertical heat-dissipating design found on Maingear’s Shift model, alongside hot-swappable storage
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Maingear reveals more heat-dissipating desktops, keeps those new Ivy Bridge internals cool
The Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover: covers the front, but you’ll need a back shield. (Credit: Sarah Tew) (Updated April 26, 2012 with two new keyboard cases.) The one differentiating feature separating the iPad from portable computers such as Netbooks for many people, other than the OS, is a keyboard
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Keyboarding your iPad: Best keyboard cases
Google’s changing its search algorithm to punish sites that emphasize search-engine optimization over quality. Mountain View’s data centers will exclude sites that offer no useful content, have articles written in keyword-sprinkled gibberish or only link to sites within a cluster. If the computers find it, the site’s pagerank will be demoted, with the company expecting to affect around three percent of all English language queries when it goes live later this week.
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Google’s gunning for web spammers, bans us from mentioning Bieber
Ok, this is pretty clever. It’s called The Descriptive Camera and it’s the creation of Matt Richardson, an NYU student who says he was fascinated that digital cameras captures “gobs of parsable metadata about photos” including settings, GPS location data, date, time etc. but “they don’t output any information about the content of the photo.” The Descriptive Camera, in contrast, “only outputs the metadata about the content.” Or, in other words, when the button of the camera is pushed, a piece of paper comes out with words describing the scene, rather than an actual photo of the…
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The Camera Bag: The Descriptive Camera Churns Out Words Instead of Pictures
Welcome to Growing Up Geek , an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have our new reviews editor, Sarah Silbert
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Growing Up Geek: Sarah Silbert
A prototype of WristQue, a wearable sensor for connecting to smart building controls. (Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET) CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–An MIT Media Lab project called WristQue offers a way to interact with smart buildings and computers in an unobtrusive way. Researchers at the Media Lab recently completed the first prototype of WristQue wearable sensor and described some of its potential uses yesterday here
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WristQue wearable sensor connects you, digital world
Let’s face the fact that tablets and smartphones these days tend to hog the headlines when it comes to computing devices, and computers are not all that hot anymore. This does not mean that nobody is buying desktops, notebooks and workstations any longer, but rather, the more interesting bits of news and rumors all hail from the smartphone and tablet departments.
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Dell Precision tower workstations get redesign
Bill Buxton has spent most of his career getting between humans and computers. While his initial focus was on music and digital instruments, that eventually led to an interest in human-computer interaction, and pioneering work with multitouch systems and other user interfaces.
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The Distro Interview: Microsoft Principal Researcher Bill Buxton
Recently, Microsoft rolled out Skype for Windows Phone Beta at Mobile World Congress which happened this February at Barcelona, Spain, and we are proud to bring you word that the app itself will now be available in the Windows Phone Marketplace – not the Beta version, mind you, but the full blown app that has dropped the “Beta” tag, where it is now simply known as Skype for Windows Phone.
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Skype for Windows Phone is now official
While the main thing that would make Raspberry Pi’s diminutive $25 / $35 Linux setups better would be if we could get our hands on them faster , the team behind it is already working on improvements like this prototype camera seen above.
If you found yourself longing for the minor tweaks Samsung made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany earlier this year, you may be in luck: Apple’s filed for a preliminary injunction against the slate stateside.
Let’s face it, whether you’re down at the laundromat or feeding the meter on a busy street, you can never find enough quarters when you need’em. Know what effectively sidesteps that lack of foresight? NFC , that’s what
We here at Engadget tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol’ Federal Communications Commission’s site. Since we couldn’t possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there individually, we’ve gathered up an exhaustive listing of every phone and / or tablet getting the stamp of approval over the last week. Enjoy! Continue reading FCC Fridays: May 18, 2012 FCC Fridays: May 18, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 23:52:00 EDT
Ready for your latest tour through the dense and meandering wording of patent applications ? Well, dig in, because it’s Microsoft’s turn to confuse lawyers the world over with this latest USPTO doc, submitted in November of 2010. The filing describes a computer-based program that would, essentially, analyze a primary device’s installed applications, cross-reference it with a different device and then either migrate that software batch or suggest similar apps to download on a secondary unit
Having spent a little time with it, we’re impressed with how much capability the engineers managed to pack into the Canon SX150 , at such an affordable price. As you’d expect given the bargain-basement ~$179 street, it’s not without its limitations, but considering what you get, it’s pretty amazing: A capable, well-built 14-megapixel digital camera with an optically stabilized 12x zoom lens and a good assortment of features
There’s been hints of it coming as early as February , but we now have a smoking gun at the FCC: the Galaxy S III is coming to T-Mobile. A Samsung SGH-T999 has popped up at the agency sporting newly added 1,700MHz AWS support that’s the telltale sign of a T-Mobile device, along with the T999 name itself (the T989 is the network’s Galaxy S II ). It also totes 850MHz and 1,900MHz WCDMA bands being used for HSPA+ data rather than just voice, a clue that the phone is ready for refarmed GSM spectrum
Sony must stay on top of Android updates for its tablets to remain relevant to consumers. (Credit: Sony) One must wonder why Sony cannot get out of the habit of playing a fragmented and behind-the-curve Android release schedule for its devices.
(Credit: CNET) Everyone who uses Instagram , EyeEm , or other photo-sharing apps knows how easy it can be to add effects to photos and make them look even better than the original.
It’s safe to say that anticipation is high for the upcoming Windows 8 Release Preview , which will become available in the first week of June.
