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Carnegie Mellon’s robot snakes converge into creepy hand-like wargadget

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 16:16:00 +0000

President Eisenhower, in his famous farewell speech in 1961, warned against the the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the ” military industrial complex .” If he had given those remarks some sixty years later, he might have worked academia into the phrase — especially if he knew about the snakes ! Certainly one of the more viscerally unnerving wargadgets we’ve encountered over the last few years, the creepy-crawly automatons of the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute are a big hit at the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, where three of ‘em have been arrayed onto a circular base to form the Robotic Tentacle Manipulator, a hand that could be used for opening doors or handling IEDs, possibly while mounted on the iRobot Warrior . The “opening a door” problem, as it is called, has perplexed the field of robotics for quite some time now — and it might one day be solved using technology like this.

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Carnegie Mellon’s robot snakes converge into creepy hand-like wargadget

Microsoft Street Slide: it’s electric! (video)

admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 07:03:00 +0000

Remember the first time you used Google Street View ? Amazing, right

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Microsoft Street Slide: it’s electric! (video)

Apple issues Magic Trackpad drivers for OS X and Windows, updates MacBooks with new gesture support

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:42:00 +0000

Right on schedule, Apple’s released new drivers for the Magic Trackpad , in both OS X and Windows flavors.

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Apple issues Magic Trackpad drivers for OS X and Windows, updates MacBooks with new gesture support

Apple Magic Trackpad first hands-on

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 14:57:00 +0000

So it’s real, and… it’s a trackpad

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Apple Magic Trackpad first hands-on

Apple launching new Mac Pros, speedbumped iMac, new Cinema Display and maybe the Magic Trackpad tomorrow?

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:06:00 +0000

Sure, we’ve been hearing whispers that Apple’s got a new Mac Pros and some updated iMacs waiting in the wings, but our friend John Gruber at Daring Fireball seems just a mite more confident about things — in a post trumpeting the return of his podcast The Talk Show, John coyly says tomorrow “might hypothetically” bring new Mac Pros, speedbumped iMacs (we’d guess the Core i3 will make its OS X debut), and a new 27-inch 16:9 Cinema Display will all arrive tomorrow. John also says the Magic Trackpad might also arrive tomorrow, but he’s calling that one a “double-hypothetical,” so who knows — we’d think anything more serious than hardware refreshes would warrant a Jobs introduction, but hey, maybe Steve’s all talked out for the month. We’ll see what happens — stay tuned.

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Apple launching new Mac Pros, speedbumped iMac, new Cinema Display and maybe the Magic Trackpad tomorrow?

Toshiba AC100 review may explain why we haven’t seen many (or any!) smartbooks

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:41:00 +0000

To be honest, when Toshiba’s 10.1-inch AC100 smartbook was revealed last month it looked like one nice clamshell, but we’re not really all that surprised that Hi-tech.mail.ru found it to be rather lacking after putting it through the paces.

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Toshiba AC100 review may explain why we haven’t seen many (or any!) smartbooks

Blue Screen of Death amongst issues that plagued Deepwater Horizon

admin — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:52:00 +0000

A recent report in the New York Times details a myriad issues that led up to the eventual explosion that started the mess known as the ” BP oil spill ,” but aside from obvious mishandling of warnings and red flags, one particular issue was troubling those working on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig long before April 20th. Mike Williams, the rig’s chief electronics technician, has come forward with a multitude of icky details surrounding the negligence that was involved in the catastrophe, with the one most germane to our discussion being the following: “For months, the computer system had been locking up, producing what the crew called the Blue Screen of Death .” Williams continued, noting that “it would just turn blue,” with “no data coming through.” Of course, it’s not as if BSODs are totally uncommon out in the working world — Microsoft’s Windows powers the vast majority of systems that corporations rely on daily — but this one rubs just a wee bit differently. Hit the source link for the full spill.

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Blue Screen of Death amongst issues that plagued Deepwater Horizon

Microsoft becomes official ARM licensee, could an MS microprocessor be next?

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:53:00 +0000

ARM processors are so hot right now, especially in the mobile space, where they power many of the greatest smartphones, tablets, and mobile devices coming down the turnpike. Microsoft is apparently looking to merge in on that action, becoming an official ARM licensee. It’s unclear exactly what MS will be doing with its new found technical rights, but General Manager KD Hallman said “With closer access to the ARM technology we will be able to enhance our research and development activities for ARM-based products.” This likely means Microsoft will be better optimizing Windows Embedded and Windows Phone for the processor architecture, but also opens the door for Ballmer & Co.

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Microsoft becomes official ARM licensee, could an MS microprocessor be next?

Microsoft wants employees to code Windows Phone 7 apps ‘in their spare time’

admin — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:39:00 +0000

You had to know those freebie WP7 devices for Microsoft employees would come with a few strings attached. We imagined the Redmond brain trust was aiming for some word-of-mouth popularization along with a boost in team morale and proactivity, but as it turns out, things are a little more codified than that. TechFlash has what it claims to be the internal memo announcing the free Windows Phone 7 handsets — from mobile chief Andy Lees, who hasn’t been having the best of times lately — which sets out Redmond’s expectation that employees should “evangelize” the product at every opportunity, while also setting aside some spare time before launch to develop apps

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Microsoft wants employees to code Windows Phone 7 apps ‘in their spare time’

HP Slate no longer a consumer product, will arrive for enterprise this fall

admin — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:45:00 +0000

We’ve sensed that something ’s been up with the HP Slate for a while now, and it looks like we’ve finally gotten the first solid confirmation that the Windows 7 tablet as unveiled by Steve Ballmer at CES in January won’t hit the consumer market as planned — speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, HP Personal Systems Group VP Todd Bradley just said that the Slate will be “more customer-specific than broadly deployed,” and that it would launch the Microsoft-based tablet “for the enterprise” in the fall. That fits right in with HP telling us the other day that it was in “customer evaluations” as it prepared for the “next steps,” and based on followup comments from Bradley and Palm head Jon Rubinstein, it certainly sounded like the company will focus Windows tablets at the enterprise and develop a variety of webOS devices for the consumer market. Of course, there’s no official announcement yet, so we’ll see what happens — the only thing that we can confidently say is that the HP Slate has definitely succeeded the iPad as the tech industry’s favorite vaporware tablet .

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HP Slate no longer a consumer product, will arrive for enterprise this fall