Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Hope you’re eager to break into that Halloween candy early, because you’ve got some (re)celebrating to do. If you’ll recall, we first heard that laptops accounted for over half of US retail computer sales back in 2003, and in June of 2005, we found that it was somehow worth getting jazzed over once more when it happened again. Here we are in the latter half of 2008 shaking our heads in disappointment, as IDC has amazingly discovered that notebook shipments into the US market have exceeded the 50% threshold for the first time evar. Go ahead and stock up on rave supplies early — we get this weird feeling that we’ll be doing this same song and dance in 2010 or so.

[Image courtesy of DayLife]

Laptop shipments exceed desktops in US for the not-exactly-first time originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Oct 2008 09:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Storage

Last we heard, IBM was busy extending optical lithography down to 30-nanometers in order to keep Moore’s Law intact, and some two years later, the process is still being honed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley. Reportedly, gurus there with IQs far greater than ours have developed a new patterning technique (plasmonic nanolithography) that could make “current microprocessors more than 10 times smaller, but far more powerful.” Additionally, professor Xiang Zhang asserts that this same technology could eventually “lead to ultra-high density disks that could hold 10 to 100 times more data than disks today.” The secret to the madness is a flying plasmonic head, which is compared to the arm and stylus of an LP turntable; the setup enables researchers to “create line patterns only 80-nanometers wide at speeds up to 12-meters per second, with the potential for higher resolution detail in the near future.” In layman’s terms? That CPU you purchased last month will, in fact, be old hat in due time.

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

All of us here at Engadget are young, beautiful, and vigorous, but we understand that time is not always as kind to everyone else as it has been to us — that’s why we’re giving you the heads up that German scientists claim that they were able to reduce wrinkles by subjecting a test subject’s skin to regular ol’ LED lights daily over a period of several months. It seems that at a certain intensity the light dives into skin tissue and alters the molecular structure of water that would otherwise immobilize elastin, a protein that keeps skin healthy and, y’know, elastic. The researchers believe the tech can be “converted to deep body rejuvenation programs,” which we assume entails more than just taping our faces to our LED-backlit screens — but we’ll try it just in case.

[Via The Earth Times]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

It’s just a kooky, Surface-related R&D project for now, but Microsoft’s SurfaceWare holds the promise of optimizing your time-to-alcohol consumption ratio. Combining software with a level-sensing tumbler, SurfaceWare effectively measures the amount of liquid remaining in your glass. The specialized drinking glasses are fitted with a prism that works in combination with Surface’s infrared detecting camera to reflect light as it rises above the level of your beverage. As it empties, Surface will alert bar staff of your progress or automatically purchase another round at just the right time. You certainly don’t want to be wasting time in Vegas waiting on your disco fuel. Video walkthrough after the break.

[Thanks Divesh J.]

Continue reading Microsoft’s SurfaceWare gets you drunk faster than drinks through a straw

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Filed under: Cellphones

Not that it really matters to consumers one way or another — after all, if you want a Bold, you’ll pay the asking price — but recent analysis by research firm iSuppli has found that parts and materials used to make the device “cost $158.16, and that assembly and testing add another $11.25, for a total cost of $169.41.” Just for comparison, the Curve costs a cool $103 to build, and assuming RIM can sell the Bold to carriers at around $350, it’ll net a gross margin of around 45% before R&D costs, software, marketing, shipping and freebies given to obscenely wealthy celebs are taken into account. The report (er, the part about the nice margins) should come as welcome news to shareholders, who have recently been worried that the current economic situation may keep individuals from snatching up new ‘Berrys at a breakneck pace. Now, if only RIM / AT&T would let the thing get through testing, we’d be all set to contribute to those margins here in the US. Ahem.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

Assistive technologies are old hat, but a team of researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (among other institutions) is working to provide a more robust, all-inclusive option for elderly individuals who’d prefer to age gracefully within their own domiciles. In theory, sensors could be embedded throughout seniors’ homes in order to “detect when the residents have sleepless nights or forget to take their medication.” From there, caregivers would be alerted and could react remotely via a web-based communications portal. The UTA lab that’s perfecting the idea currently utilizes a single room equipped with cameras, motion detectors and robots, and professors / students keep a close eye on any movement that gets recorded and transferring to computers for processing. If all goes well, a collaboratively built “home of the future” will actually be on display at CES 2009, likely showcasing some of these very advancements.

[Image courtesy of Michael Mulvey / DMN, thanks Travis]

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Misc. Gadgets

[Via Slashdot]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Call us devilish, but we just can’t help but love these types of stories. Here we have yet another overly confident group of researchers grossly underestimating the collective power of the hacking underground, as gurus from all across Europe have joined together to announce “the first commercial communication network using unbreakable encryption based on quantum cryptography.” Interestingly enough, quantum cryptography has already been cracked in a kinda-sorta way, but that’s not stopping these folks from pushing this claim hard to government agencies, financial institutions and companies with distributed subsidiaries. We’ve no doubt this stuff is pretty secure, but the last time we heard someone utter a claim similar to this, we saw him uncomfortably chowing down on those very words merely months later.

[Via Physorg]

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Filed under: Cellphones

No need to defog your spectacles, what you just read there in the headline is the truth. Astoundingly enough, Motorola’s nearly archaic (in cellphone years, anyway) RAZR V3 is still the top-selling handset in the United States. Of course, it helps that it’s highly subsidized on practically every carrier from coast to coast, but we’re still a little stunned that it’s selling this well nearly 2.5 years after Moto moved its 50 millionth unit. The rest of the top five isn’t nearly as shocking, with Apple’s iPhone snagging the silver, RIM’s BlackBerry Curve grabbing the bronze, LG’s Chocolate at number four and the BlackBerry Pearl at five. With the original RAZR still selling so well, one would think Motorola could just tweak it slightly and issue a second iteration for even more windfall profits. Er, wait.

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Filed under: Transportation

Oh MIT, do the wonders that come from your halls ever cease? Yet another remarkable development is emerging from the fabled institution, and this time it’s an autonomous wheelchair that can remember important places in a given building (read: the hospital ward, your house, the local arcade, etc.) and then take you there on command. In other words, the voice recognizing chair could understand phrases of direction, such as “head to the kitchen,” and it would take on the burden of navigating the halls while letting the rider chill. The researchers are implementing a system that can learn and adapt to the individual user, and in the future, they’d like to add in a collision-avoidance system and mechanical arms to help patients lift and move objects. Say, can regular joes / janes buy these? We’re totally feeling this over the Segway.

[Via medGadget]

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Filed under: Displays

Remember that Qosmio G55 laptop with gesture control? Yeah, the one with the Cell-based SpursEngine under the hood. Well it looks like Tosh is bringing that so-called “natural” gesture input to its future cell-based televisions. Judging by the latest video alone, the gesture control seems more at home on the big-screen TV than smaller-screened laptops that require a higher degree of precision and closer viewing proximity. Demonstrated on a prototype, Toshiba hints that the tech might come to future Cell-based TVs — interesting what with the cell-based ZF televisions already announced for Europe. While we find pushing buttons on a remote about as natural (and lazy) as it gets, here’s hoping for this arm-flailing gesture control on future Toshiba TVs just for the nerdiness of it. Video of the G55 gesture input as well as the prototype television show at IFA after the break.

[Via AVING]

Continue reading Video: Toshiba’s gesture control coming to its cell-based TVs?

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Displays

Toshiba is pulling an EyeToy, minus a diabolical plan to actually sell the thing and make a killing off of collectable elemental decks. The company’s Cambridge-based Research Lab has some new video camera-based feature they’re prototyping for possible eventual TV implementation. The real highlight is a fist-based cursor control — just stick out your hand, make a fist, and control a cursor on-screen for navigating the TV’s functions. You can also put up your palm to stop the madness, and even rotate 3D images on-screen, but it’s all a little shaky for now. Another thing we saw was picture recognition: hold up a cue card to the TV with an image on it and the TV recognizes it and performs a pre-assigned function. Tosh is also working on speech recognition and some other things; not really changing the world, but some fun stuff all the same.

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Misc. Gadgets

It’s hard to say when we, the consumers, will actually see any real benefit from the latest noteworthy discovery from Northeastern University, but we can only imagine that Srinivas Sridhar and team aren’t wasting any time moving things forward. Said crew has recently created a “new microlens that focuses infrared light at telecommunication frequencies,” and if you’re looking for specifics, it can focus an infrared beam to a spot just 12-micrometers away from the surface. The science behind the discovery is probably only digestible by those that understand rocket science, but the long of short of it is this: the “research shows that it is possible to create smaller, ultra-compact infrared optical components that can be integrated into existing semiconductor technologies while not sacrificing image quality.” Now that’s something even the layman can appreciate.

[Via Physorg]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Here’s an interesting one. A group of US experts have discovered that a common form of skin cancer could one day be detected very early on by simply analyzing scents. More specifically, it was found that basal cell carcinomas give off an odor that is distinctly different than samples from healthy skin, which obviously opens up the possibility for “cheap and painless testing.” In the future, researchers are hoping to create scent profiles for other types of skin cancer, including the infamous malignant melanoma. Believe it or not, a machine may be only one of the devices used to eventually sniff cancerous cells — similar research is ongoing using canines and their remarkably sensitives schnozes.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

In operating rooms today, cancer surgeons are essentially forced to operate without any definitive way of determining whether or not 100% of the diseased tissue has been removed. Thanks to a radical invention by researchers in Massachusetts, that huge limitation could soon be a thing of the past. A new system, dubbed FLARE (Fluorescence-Assisted Resection and Exploration), involves a near-infrared (NIR) imaging system, a video monitor, and a computer. These tools are used to see special chemical dies (christened NIR fluorophores) that are crafted to “target specific structures such as cancer cells when injected into patients.” When these dyes are exposed to NIR light, the cancer cells light up, giving doctors an easy look at what they have left to remove. The team is gearing up to showcase the technology at the American Chemical Society national meeting in Philadelphia — here’s hoping it can be put to good use in the very near future.

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Filed under: Storage

Most folks up in Madison are readying their face paint and stocking up on tailgating supplies, but the geeks among us (bless ‘em!) are focusing their attention on something much more relevant to your future RAID array. A team from UW-Madison (along with partners from Hitachi) is getting set to publish a report that details a patterning technology that could offer performance gains over current methods while reducing time and cost of manufacturing. The process builds on existing approaches by “combining the lithography techniques traditionally used to pattern microelectronics with novel self-assembling materials called block copolymers.” So, what does all this technobabble mean for you? Huge gains in density on patterned media, or if that’s still not straightforward enough, ginormous HDDs in the near future.

[Via Protein OS]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Hard to say if this solution will be cheaper than the bordering-on-free LifeStraw, but a team at the University of South Australia has developed a low-cost method for removing bacteria and other contaminants from water “using tiny particles of pure silica coated with an active nano-material.” Professor Peter Majewski is pretty proud of the all new system, stating that it can “remove bacteria, chemicals, viruses and other contaminants from water much more effectively than conventional water purification methods.” Due to its ability to function sans additional energy and its low overall cost, the team is hoping to see the creation bring clean water to developing countries. The best part? It should be available within two years.

[Via Protein OS]

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

The latest in nanowire research has a crew at the University of California, Berkeley creating the very first integrated circuit “that uses nanowires as both sensors and electronic components.” By utilizing a so-called “simple” printing technique, the researchers were able to create a batch of uniform circuits that could one day serve as image sensors. According to Ali Javey, an electrical-engineering professor at the institution, the goal is to “develop all-nanowire sensors” which could be used in a wide array of applications, and the benefit of using ‘em is their exceptionally high level of sensitivity. In due time, the gurus would like to make everything on the circuit printable, though we have this strange feeling we won’t be seeing any actual results from all of this for years to come.

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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Misc. Gadgets

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Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets

2008 has been somewhat of a banner year for 3D, but the brilliant minds at MIT are already working up a system that’ll put U23D to shame. Hailed as a “super-realistic image system,” the invention produces “6D” images that not only have a full three-dimensional appearance, but also “respond to their environment, producing natural shadows and highlights depending on the direction and intensity of the illumination around them.” Without relying on electronics or active control, the process could be used to produce images with an “unprecedented degree of realism” — resulting in something associate professor Ramesh Raskar calls the “ultimate synthetic display.” As expected, initial applications for the ultra-pricey ($30 per pixel, currently) system revolve around digital signage / advertising, but it’s really just a matter of time before Six Dimensions of The Jonas Brothers hits a cinema near you. Save us.

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