Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video)

admin    IT News    

Augmented reality is swell, don’t get us wrong, but it’s no substitute for the real thing — especially when that thing is a badass tricopter equipped with a jury-rigged firework cannon to rain down miniature hell. Swedish R/C enthusiasts built this first-person flying contraption to carry out a single mission — destroy a series of hydrogen-filled balloons — which will hopefully be hard-coded into future automatons too. After all, balloons could serve as an excellent distraction when they inevitably come for you. Still, there’s no need to worry quite yet, so kick back and enjoy the video above while you contemplate humanity’s end.

[engadget]

Intel’s mSATA SSD 310 reviewed: a pint-size performer through and throughToshiba Dynabook Qosmio T750 laptop has a lid that changes color on both sides

admin    Gadget, IT News, Notebook, Toshiba    

MSI’s GT680 gaming laptop reviewed: potent at 720p, some battery life too

admin    Gadget, IT News, Notebook    

MSI is calling this GT680R the world’s fastest gaming laptop. Spoiler alert — it’s not — but if you drop $1,650 to nab one starting this week, you’ll certainly be getting some bang for those bucks. Trusted Reviews and Hot Hardware recently got their hands on the first Sandy Bridge-equipped portable monster of a gaming rig, and found the experience quite satisfying on the whole. Though Hot Hardware discovered that the 2.0GHz Core i7-2630QM chip and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics weren’t quite capable of playable framerates in the most demanding DX11 titles at native 1080p, lowering the resolution to 720 lines usually did the trick, and when it came to raw CPU benchmarks that Core i7 held its own against even last-gen desktop processors with little trouble to speak of. What’s more, equipped with a nine-cell battery Trusted Reviews managed to eke out three hours of life in a basic productivity test, practically unheard of for a laptop of this class, though we suppose you’re not likely to be carrying around this 7.7 pound beast for the sake of portable spreadsheets, eh? Hit up our source links for more details.

[engadget]

Mark Zuckerberg Kejutkan Aktor Pemeran Dirinya di Acara Saturday Night Live

admin    FB, IT News    

Sebuah momen menarik baru-baru ini terjadi di acara Saturday Night Live yang disiarkan di Amerika Serikat. Saat acara yang digawangi oleh Andy Samberg ini sedang membahas The Social Network, film tentang Mark Zuckerberg dan Facebook  yang dibintangi oleh Jesse Eisenberg, tiba tiba Mark Zuckerberg yang sebenarnya muncul.

Acara ini menjadi terlihat kaku ketika dua Mark Zuckerberg saling bertemu untuk pertama kalinya. Terlihat keduanya tidak siap untuk saling bertegur sapa namun tetap terlihat senyuman di antara mereka. Untunglah keduanya tidak bertukar peran di dunia nyata maupun saling bermusuhan.

Simak video berikut untuk melihat rekaman momen ini dengan lebih jelas.

[teknoup]

The State of the INTERNET

admin    IT News    

The internet! We’ve all spent enough time burrowing down the rabbit hole to know that it’s really, really big. But it’s not until you give its manifold parts some perspective that you understand how truly massive it is.

And this infographic from Focus isn’t just about general girth, either. More than one in ten people have uploaded video online! 20 million Facebook apps installed every day! 3,000 images up loaded to Flickr every minute! It’s a wonder the whole thing doesn’t just collapse in on itself.

[gizmodo]

Diamond shaped supercapacitors could result in faster-charging, higher capacity batteries

admin    IT News    

Superconductors pass electricity with zero resistance and make stuff float. Superfluids have zero viscosity and can climb vertical walls to escape containers. Supercapacitors? Well, they don’t do anything quite so dramatic, but they could result in batteries that charge faster and hold more charge than ever. Capacitors in general have to run a balance between capacity and fast charging, but these fancy ones with diamond-shaped nanopores in zeolite-templated carbon, developed at Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, are said to offer the best of both worlds. How good? Cellphones that charge in minutes, electric cars with longer lasting batteries, and free Superman Underoos for all. Naturally there’s no word on when these things might actually escape the lab and show up in real batteries, but you already knew that, didn’t you.

[engadget]

BlackBerry Curve Touch leaks out

admin    BB, Gadget, IT News, SmartPhone    

The BlackBerry Curve has always been our favorite ‘berry because of its solid keyboard and lack of pretension to any functionality beyond great messaging, but it looks like things are about to change fast: you’re looking at a leaked image of what CrackBerry says is the Curve Touch, codenamed “Malibu,” and it’s all touchscreen — unlike the rumored Apollo, there’s no keyboard in sight. We’ve only got specs on the CDMA version, and they’re right in line with what you’d expect for a midrange device due out in late 2011 / early 2012: 800MHz Qualcomm MSM8655 processor, 3.25-inch HVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera with HD video, 1GB storage with microSD expansion and 512MB of RAM, GPS, and NFC. Of course, CrackBerry says those are just “proposed specs,” so anything could change, but man — are we crazy for thinking an all-touch Curve definitely seems to redefine everything about what a BlackBerry is and is not?

[engadget]

Microsoft Grows Revenues 5% In 2nd Quarter To $19.95 Billion [Slides]

admin    IT News, Microsoft    

Q2-FY11Slides

Microsoft just released positive earnings for the fifth quarter in a row, with second quarter revenues of $19.95 billion, a 5% increase from last year. Diluted earnings per share were $0.77 per share. The company beat the street as analysts expected revenue to come in at $19.14 billion and diluted earnings per share of $0.68. Operating income and net income for the quarter were $8.17 billion and $6.63 billion, a decrease of 4% and 0.4%, respectively, over the same time last year.

Some highlights from the quarter:

• Revenues for the Windows division were down 29.7 percent to $5 billion. Operating profits were also down by about $2 billion.
• More than 20 percent of PCs worldwide (300 million) are now running Windows 7.
• Microsoft’s business division (powered by Office) grew 24 percent to $6 billion in revenues, and operating profits were a very healthy $3.97 billion.
• The online division grew 19 percent to $691 million in revenues, but losses widened to $543 million.
• Online advertising revenues were up 23 percent.
• Xbox Kinnect sold 8 million units in 60 days, driving the entertainment division’s revenues up 55 percent to $3.7 billion.

Below is a breakdown of Microsoft’s revenues and operating profits by business (You can read the entire report here):

MICROSOFT CORPORATION

Segment Revenue and Operating Income (Loss)
(In millions) (Unaudited)

[techcrunch]

Inilah 10 Fitur Android 3.0 Honeycomb Terbaru

admin    Android, IT News    

Google baru saja merilis SDK dari Android 3.0 Honeycomb yang ditujukan untuk pengembang/programer perangkat lunak. Meski belum dirilis untuk publik namun dengan adanya SDK ini bisa memberikan gambaran mengenai kemampuan OS mobile yang dioptimasi untuk tablet ini.

Berikut 10 fitur baru yang ada di OS dengan gambar lebah biru ini.

• Ada efek grafik 3 dimensi yang bisa bekerja dengan mulus walaupun untuk aplikasi dengan kebutuhan kinerja grafis tinggi. Efek 3D ini juga tersedia untuk aplikasi, wallpaper, dan grafik lainnya.
• Antarmuka pengguna (UI) Honeycomb didesain ulang khusus untuk tablet dengan mememperhitungkan ukuran layar yang lebih besar daripada OS Android sebelumnya yang didesain untuk layar smartphone ukuran maksimal 4 inci. Layar muka Honeycomb juga memakai papan menu yang selalu nampak di bagian bawah layar. Papan ini berisi notifikasi, status sistem, dan navigasi di layar selain tampilan jam, mode redup, dan lain-lain. Sementara itu tampilan papan aksi di bagian atas akan tergantung pada aplikasinya.
• Multitasking yang lebih mudah dengan adanya peluncur aplikasi yang baru dijalankan (recent apps). Tool ini terdapat di sistem bar sehingga selalu terlihat dan memudahkan untuk berpindah antaraplikasi tanpa perlu masuk ke dalam menu.

• Papan ketik virtual yang bersahabat dan mudah digunakan. Layarnya lebih alami dan lebih besar dengan meniru tampilan papan ketik notebook/laptop dan bukan seperti papan ketik ponsel.

• Copy/paste yang lebih baik dengan tambahan opsi menu untuk operasi manipulasi teks. Papan menu di bagian atas akan menyediakan berbagai opsi seperti cut, copy, copy ke clipboard, share, paste, pencarian ke web, hingga pencarian lokal.
• Peningkatan koneksi termasuk wifi dan Bluetooth untuk tethering. Pemindaian atas wifi ditingkatkan sehingga bisa mempercepat penyambungan koneksi sementara dengan Bluetooth pengguna bisa melakukan tether dan membagi koneksinya dengan perangkat lain termasuk dukungan ke perangkat sederhana yang tidak memiliki antarmuka pengguna.
• Penjelajahan web anonim juga didukung dalam Honeycomb. Pengguna bisa menjelajah web secara privat termasuk mode incognito untuk melakukan pencarian di web secara diam-diam. Selain itu browsernya juga diubah dari multi-window menjadi tabulasi dengan halaman terbuka akan ditampilkan pada papan yang berada di bagian atas layar. Sinkronisasi bookmark juga tersedia berkat opsi akun Google untuk segala aktivitas.

• Aplikasi yang sudah ada juga akan tetap bekerja baik meski aplikasi yang tersedia di Android Market saat ini didesain untuk smartphone yang memiliki ukuran layar lebih kecil. Tombol fungsi menu yang ada di ponsel Android sekarang digantikan dengan menu Action Bar. Ada juga opsi bagi developer untuk membuat tata letak bagi layar yang lebih besar dan menambahkannya pada aplikasi yang sudah mereka buat.
• Pengorganisasian email lebih mudah dengan tampilan dua bagian layar. Ini seakan meniru tampilan pada iPad yang bekerja dengan mengesankan. Pengorganisasian menjadi lebih mudah termasuk adanya fitur sinkronisasi email.

• Widget akan lebih interaktif dengan fungsi yang lebih beragam dan tidak hanya pasif menunggu informasi dari penguna. Gerakan tangan dan jari juga bisa digunakan untuk menggulung layar secara 3D untuk menyusun konten termasuk operasi navigasi yang lebih menyenangkan.

Untuk lebih lengkapnya, silakan simak video berikut:

[teknoup]

Sony’s next PSP, codenamed NGP

admin    Games, IT News, Sony    

Betcha didn’t think this day would come, but it finally has. Sony has just come clean with its next-generation PlayStation Portable. It’s actually codenamed NGP and will revolve around five key concepts: Revolutionary User Interface, Social Connectivity, Location-based Entertainment, Converging Real and Virtual (augmented) Reality. It will be compatible with the PlayStation Suite and is backwards-compatible with downloadable PSP games and content from Sony’s PlayStation Store.

Specs include a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, 5-inch touchscreen OLED display with 960 x 544 resolution, dual analog sticks (not nubs as on the current generation), 3G, WiFi, GPS, a rear-mounted touchpad, the same accelerometer / gyroscope motion sensing as in the PlayStation Move, an electronic compass, and cameras on both the front and back. Available this holiday season. Wait… what?!

Sony’s next PSP, codenamed NGP

Games will come on “new media,” not UMD anymore, but we’re unclear on what sort of flash memory is being used. Sony’s rather proud of the fact it’s offering the world’s first dual analog stick combo on a portable device, though we’re more geeked about the quadrupling of pixel count from the original PSP.

Sony’s live event has been graced by demos of some pretty popular games, including Killzone, Resistance, Little Big Planet, and Uncharted — with the latter serving as a demo platform to show off how the NGP’s rear touchpad can be used to more intuitively climb up some vines. That touch panel on the back is the same size and positioned directly under the front OLED touchscreen, which allows for some pretty sophisticated controls when using the two simultaneously.

The new console’s UI will be called LiveArea, which has a bunch of vertically navigable home screens and built-in social networking through PlayStation Network. You can jump between games and the LiveArea without losing your progress and comment on your buddies’ great feats of mobile gaming.

Sony’s next PSP, codenamed NGP games and UI

In closing its presentation, Sony trotted out Hideo Kojima to show off a cutscene from MGS 4 rendered in real time on the NGP. It was pulled directly from the PS3 version of the game and ran at 20fps, which looked very smooth indeed to our liveblogging eyes. Videos and Sony’s full PR are now available below.

Sony’s next PSP, codenamed NGP press shots

[engadget]