New 4.5 inch LCD is more "Retina" than Apple's

And ad for Apple's Retina display

Move over Retina display, Hitachi has one-upped you with an amazing new display, capable of up to 1280 x 720 resolution on a mere 4.5 inch screen. This makes for a PPI of 329, giving it a slight edge over the 326 PPI of Apple's Retina display. Add to that the fact that Hitachi's display is larger, and I think we have a winner. Look forward to the first batch of phones using it sometime in 2012.

(source: Slashgear.com)

Next iPhone may have hardware keyboard

A recent post on Macrumors.com may offer us a hint at what's to come in the next generation of iPhone hardware. If their source is to be trusted, Apple is allegedly testing 3 prototypes of the iPhone 5, one with a hardware keyboard, and the other two with upgraded hardware.

This is a tantalizing rumor, however it seems unlikely that Apple would release such a device, especially given their stance in regards to hardware keyboards versus touchscreen ones. But one can always dream...

(source: MacRumors.com)

More Xperia Play details revealed

It's been several weeks since the Xperia Play's unveiling, and Sony Ericsson has finally decided to spill the beans on the device, offering final specs, and further details. The phone will be released sometime this spring, running Android 2.3 (as previously rumored). It will also contain a 5.1 megapixel camera, and the usual mix of connection options, including 3G, Bluetooth 2.1, and WiFi 802.11n. For a full chart of the specs, which seem to be quite impressive on paper at least, click on past the break.

Amazing slow-motion video demonstration

The video above was shot using a Phantom Flex camera, at a mind-boggling 2,564 frames-per-second, all in 1080p. According to the camera manufacturer's website, the camera is even capable of shooting faster speeds of up to 10,750 fps, but at a more limited resolution of 640 x 480.

The only real question now is, how long until we we see these cameras used for moviemaking?

(Vimeo.com)

HP announces iPad competitor, the "TouchPad"

It looks like it HP wants to take a bite out of Apple's tablet market share, with their newly announced tablet, the oddly named "TouchPad". The TouchPad seems to be sporting specs very similar to the iPad, or rather, closer to what the iPad 2 may contain. It's also expected to use the WebOS 3.0 operating system, a side-effect of HP's purchase of Palm last year.

After watch HP's promotional video for it, I also noticed that its interface in places, is eerily similar to the iPad's. Here's some pictures for comparison:

On the left we have HP's Touchpad, and on the right we have the iPad. It seems like a blatant attempt at copying the iPad's interface if you ask me. One can only hope it handles as smoothly as the iPad's. All in all, it's a welcome change to see a tablet that has the same level of polish as the iPad, however the jury is out on whether or not TouchPad will succeed where many a tablet has failed.

If you'd like to see the TouchPad promotion video, click here, and for more details, and the full list of specs, click past the break.

IBM building world's fastest supercomputer in Minnesota

Mike Good and Kevin Collins from IBM, posed in front of what will be the housing for Mira.

According to a recent post on StarTribune.com, IBM has drawn up plans to build what will be, the world's fastest supercomputer, with a processing capacity 4 times that of the closest competitor, the Tianhe-1A in China.

The "Mira", as it will be called, will be built in Rochester Minnesota, at an expected cost of 50 million dollars, with well over 750,000 individual processors. When Mira is finally operational, IBM plans to use it to develop things such as, new batteries for electric cars, new drugs, or even nuclear weapons.

(StarTribune.com)

(Picture credit goes to Star Tribune.com)

Xperia Play announced... finally.

Above, the somewhat disturbing reveal video.

After dozen of leaks, rumors, and pictures of the Xperia Play, Sony has finally given it an official "unveiling". it's in unveiling in name only though, as everyone and their dog has gotten their hands on one at this point.

Prior to it's official naming, most referred to it as the "Playstation/PSP Phone", though that's a bit of a misnomer, as it is unlikely that  it will be compatible with any recent PSP games. It is however "Playstation Certified", meaning that it will be compatible with Sony's upcoming Android application, Playstation Suite.

When the Xperia Play does drop later this year, it will be sporting a 4-inch multitouch LCD, and running the latest build of Android, 2.3 aka. Gingerbread. For a full list of specs, and more pictures, I've put a few links at the bottom of the page.

(Engadget)
(Gizmodo)
(HuffingtonPost)

Cash, Credit card... or cell phone?

According to a recent post on Bloomberg.com, Apple is planning to incorporate NFC technology into the next generation of the iPhone and iPad. NFC stands for "Near-Field Communication", and would allow the devices to send and receive information at a distance of up to 4 inches, with the goal being to allow consumers to purchase products at retailers, using only their iPhone or iPad.

This could be quite a game-changer in the way that we purchase things. Imagine yourself walking into a store, grabbing a few items, and running your phone over a reader to purchase it. If it catches on, I'm sure other cell phone manufactures will quickly follow suit. My only concern with  the technology however, is, is it secure? What happens if criminals crack the security of the protocol, and then use that to build "skimming devices", similar to what has been done to ATM machines? A bit unlikely, but worth a mention.

I do hope though, that Apple chooses to include NFC in their devices, as it would be neat to be able to purchase things using your phone, or even use your phone as an ID sometime in the future.

(Bloomberg.com)

[UPDATE] Intel recalls new motherboards and processors

Due to a bug in their latest P67 chipsets, Intel has issued a recall on many of it's "Cougar Point" motherboards, and also some of it's "Sandy Bridge" CPUs. The bug apparently relates to SATA speed degradation over time, a bug they say exists at a hardware level, so any kind of patch is out of the question. For more details about the recall, see the link below.

[UPDATE] Apparently the recall only affects the "Cougar Point" motherboards, and the CPUs shouldn't be affected by the recall. Here's a quote from AnandTech:

"Intel maintains that Sandy Bridge CPUs are not affected, and current users are highly unlikely to encounter the issue even under heavy loads."

(engadget.com)

Minor site addition

I've decided to add a small section to the website, a "tech article of the week" section. Sometimes when you're reading someone's blog, you come across an article, and you think to yourself, "Wow! This is great!", and then decide that you'd like share it with someone. Or maybe its a subject you find interesting, but someone else covers it much better than you could. I'll be using this section to highlight any such interesting articles I find during the week that I'd like to share, and I'll be updating it every Wednesday. Enjoy!

Kinect hacking - part deux

Earlier, I posted links to several interesting Kinect hacks, but no them so far, have had any artistic merit. This latest hack however, is a music video filmed entirely on using Kinect hardware, and then heavily post-processed, most likely to combine various shots. The resulting video is quite ethereal, even if I don't quite agree with their choice of music.

(vimeo.com)

New "air laser" could be used to find explosives

Scientists at Princeton University have just made a breakthrough in laser technology, that they say, might be able to be used to find explosives. It works by the laser beam "exciting" the molecules in the air, which causes the air itself to create a return laser beam, and then by recording the changes in the return pulse, they can identify the chemical makeup of the target. Apparently this method works quite differently than previous laser tracking methods, which normally work by measuring the amount of light reflected back off the target, a method that can't be used for identifying objects, but only for tracking air density or distance.

Currently however, the technology works only at close range (1.5 feet in their most recent test), but they hope develop it to the point where it could be mounted on a moving vehicle, and then used to search for landmines or other explosives.

(EurekAlert.org)

The case against 3D

3D technology seems to be billing itself as the next "big thing" in consumer electronics, 3D TVs, 3D movies, even 3D video games with the upcoming Nintendo 3DS, but I still find my myself wondering, is it really worth all the hassle? Can 3D technology really take off in the state it's currently in?

I believe it won't. Allow me to present this example case to illustrate the current problem with 3D TVs: Let's say you and your friends are sitting down to watch a 3D movie, a few minutes into the movie, another of your friends drops by and asks to join you, but wait! You don't have an extra pair of 3D glasses to spare. Now what?

That was just an example, but realistically speaking, who wants to buy a pair of 3D glasses for every person in your family? At a going price of 100 dollars or more per pair, I just can't see this being a decent answer to the 3D dilemma, and to further complicate matter most of this new 3d tech is incompatible with existing equipment. Somehow, I just can't see anyone running out, eager to upgrade their "new" HDTV to a 3D capable one.

Another problem I'd like to mention, where does 3D technology leave you if you happen to say, wear corrective lenses? Who would want to wear glasses over their glasses? I should note however that glasses-less 3D technology does exists, but it's in its infancy and scales poorly to larger screens and multiple viewers.

Another minor issue with 3D, one that is at least treatable, but worth mentioning, is the current lack of quality 3D content to watch on these devices, as some of the current movie releases weren't even filmed in 3D to begin with, but were originally filmed in 2D and then edited later to appear 3D.

It may be a bit early to be ringing the death knell for 3D , but I believe that unless these shortcomings are corrected soon, consumers will ultimately become disenchanted with 3D, and 3D TVs will then join the list of other failed technologies along with Betamax, and the more recent HD-DVD.

Airplane lovers rejoice!

Badermodels.com is now selling these creative, yet totally impractical USB drives in the shape of various aircrafts' tail-fins. But a going price of 53 dollars for even even the cheapest one, I don't know what what would drive someone to buy something like this, you certainly won't see me flying over to their site to order one! (sorry)

(Badermodels)

How big is the internet?

Have you ever wondered how big the Internet is? Some of you probably have, and for those of you that really care to know, Focus.com has put together a large chart with various statistics about the size of the Internet. There's also one other interesting statistic that I've derived from their chart:

• Total number of people using email services: 1.9 billion.
• Total number of Internet users: 2 billion

That means 95% of all Internet users also have e-mail addresses, that's a much higher percentage than I would have guessed. Now would be a good time to also mention xkcd.com's "map of online communities", which is fascinating in its own right.

(Internet size chart)

[UPDATE] Egypt under communications blackout

Just this morning, for reasons currently unknown, Eygyt has been cut off from the outside world, as they are now under a communications blackout, meaning, no internet or cell communcations can enter or leave the country.

The above video was reportedly filmed on the 27, and if the film is to be believed, there seems to be massive civil unrest in the country right now. I'll post more on the situation as it unfolds, in the meantime, I've added a few links below with further information on the blackout.

UPDATE: It seems the events in the above video are real, and are an attempt by citizens to protest their President Hosni Mubarak's totalitarian rule. The internet shutdown seems to have been an effort by the government to prevent the protesters from organizing their resistance, as the first round of protests was organized almost entirely on social networking sites like Facebook.

There also seems to be a concerted effort to crackdown on all media coverage of the events, with CNN reporting that several of their cameras have been seized by local police, and/or destroyed.

(Associated Press)
(renesys|blog)
(CNN)

Meet the NGP

Sony has just announced the rumored PSP2, and surprisingly they aren't calling it PSP2 as most thought they would. The specifications on this thing are pretty ambitious though, it has a 5-inch OLED multi-touch touchscreen (as rumored), dual analog controls, front and rear-facing cameras, and in strange twist of events, also has a touchpad on the rear of the device. It's also worth noting that unlike the current PSP, it will not be sporting any kind of UMD drive, as they've decide to use a flash based storage method this time around. Other items interest include a gyroscope, GPS, and 3G.

This seems like a pretty interesting spec list, and it should be interesting to see what developers can do with it once they get it in their hands. I can't wait to get my hands on it myself, lets hope it plays as good as it looks.

As for a price, currently no price or exact release date has been nailed down, only a vague "Holiday season in Japan". If had to hazard a guess at a price though, I'd put it in the ballpark of 300-350 dollars, but I really hope it doesn't end up costing more than that.

For a more complete list of NGP specs I'd recommend reading Joystiq's post on it, as it goes quite a bit more in-depth. I'll put the link at the bottom of the post for your perusal.

(complete list of NGP specs)

Sony press conference imminent

An artist's rendition as to what the PSP2 may look like.

In a few hours Sony will be hosting press conference in Tokyo, and will likely unveil the long rumored PSP2, successor to the popular Sony PSP. Currently not a lot is known about the system, with most of the rumors pointing to it having some type of OLED touchscreen and a PSP Go-esque form factor. There have also been several, although somewhat dubious leaked photos of the PSP2, but nothing about the system is clear yet. I'll post further information as news leaks out.

Not the future I'd imagined...

Companies like to create prototypes of their idea of the future, but this has to be one of the most far out ones I've ever seen. The picture above represents one of several mock ups created by BMW to represent a possible outlook on future transportation methods. Personally though, you won't catch me dead in this, or their bizarre coat/car contraption.

(as seen on Engadget)

Real world mapping with Kinect

The Microsoft Kinect has been on the receiving end of a lot of interesting hacks lately, its been made to track people in real-time 3d, its been used to play air guitar, and has even been used to play World of Warcraft, but this latest hack is considerably more ambitious, this guy has used it to map out fairly large sections of the world by attaching it to his car, the results are very interesting.