Intel's SSD Promises Speed

Intel’s quest to speed up data transfers has resulted in the launch of  a new lineup of Solid State Drives, this time infused with more speed.The SSD 510 models are based on a 34nm process NAND flash memory and boast of fast SATA3 6Gbps performance, read speeds of up to 500MBps and 315MBps write speeds, which Intel said is twice as fast as its current solid state disk drivesFrom a gaming buff to a workstation user, the zipping speed is a treat for all. In an interview with The Inquirer, Pete Hazen, director of marketing for Intel's NAND solutions group stated that, "The Intel SSD 510 Series helps round out our SSD product line and was...

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Western Digital Rolls out Scorpio Black 750GB Notebook Hard Drives

Western Digital yesterday announced the launch of its Scorpio Black 750GB Notebook Hard Drives, which it has aimed at those looking for high capacities and high performance in the portable arena. Check out the specs below: 750GB 2.5-inch SATA 3Gb/s 7200RPM 16MB Cache Data monitoring and protection features "Our most demanding customers have come to expect "no compromises" from our all of our Black series products," explains Sushil Bandi, Country Manager for the Indian sub-continent, Western Digital.  "The new WD Scorpio Black drive does not disappoint, providing users of portable devices the necessary speed, significant storage and efficient...

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Fujifilm XP30 available now

The heavy duty Fujifilm XP30 camera that was revealed at CES in January is now available for purchase. The XP30 is dustproof, waterproof, freezeproof, and has shock protection in addition to the ability to snap photographs. With a built-in GPS for you to geotag your photographs automatically, its 14 megapixel lens with 5x optical zoom is no slouch when it comes to shooting compositions. The ability to capture 720p HD videos at 30fps is a nice bonus as well, for those times when still images just don’t cut it. The Fujifilm XP30 will set you back $239 and is available now. Hit the break for a promo vid...

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Jabra Launches SPEAK 410

Jabra, known for making handsfree and headset devices for mobile phones and other audio products, has just launched a speakerphone SPEAK 410. Measuring just 13 cm in diameter, this tiny speakerphone which looks like a speaker, plugs directly into a PC or Mac's USB port and the inbuilt sound card takes over the computer's multimedia functions becoming the default speaker and microphone. It can then be used for VoIP telephony. This is apparently the industry's only speakerphone with a 360 degrees microphone, allowing several people sitting around it to use it at once and also remain perfectly audible and loud to everyone. It comes with a travel...

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Firefox 4 Averages 5K Downloads Per Minute

Four days after the release of its Firefox 4 browser, Mozilla on Friday released some stats about the launch, revealing that it hit 15.85 million downloads in the first 48 hours, with an average of 5,503 downloads per minute. "The response to Mozilla Firefox 4 has been astounding," Mozilla said in a blog post that also included an infographic (click below) with launch stats. After day one, the download tally was at 7.1 million. At its peak, Firefox 4 was attracting 10,200 downloads per minute about 91.7 downloads per second. After the first 48 hours, users had downloaded 193.4 megabytes worth of browser. The top region downloading Firefox 4 was...

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Hotter Solar Energy

Solar thermal power plants that produce hotter steam can capture more solar energy. That's why Siemens is exploring an upgrade for solar thermal technology to push its temperature limit 160 °C higher than current designs. The idea is to expand the use of molten salts, which many plants already use to store extra heat. If the idea proves viable, it will boost the plants' steam temperature up to 540 °C—the maximum temperature that steam turbines can take. . Siemens's new solar thermal plant design, like all large solar thermal power plants now operating, captures solar heat via trough-shaped rows of parabolic mirrors that focus sunlight...

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Hackers Take the Kinect to New Levels

Soon after Microsoft released the Kinect gaming device, hackers found a way to pull raw data out of the system, radically expanding its potential uses. Enthusiasts have used the hardware to draw 3-D doodles in the air with hand movements, to play with virtual onscreen characters, and allow a robot to recognize gestures and map its surroundings. But one of the biggest goals of Kinect hackers—controlling a computer with gestures—is proving difficult to achieve. Researchers at MIT's Media Lab have created a new Chrome Web browser extension that lets users interact with any Web page via the Kinect if the device is plugged into a computer....

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Gestures that Your TV Will Understand

Thanks to Microsoft's Kinect, millions are casting aside their controllers and using their bodies to play games. Now the company that created the motion-tracking hardware for the Kinect wants to make waving your arms an accepted way to control everything from your TV to your desktop computer. PrimeSense, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, makes a package that combines one or two conventional cameras, an infrared depth sensor, and specialized computer chips. Together they collect and interpret a person's movements in 3-D. The movements are calculated by projecting a grid of infrared light spots into a room, tracking how light bounces back,...

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Better Tools for Kinect Hacking

A new generation of tools will soon make it even easier to tinker with the Kinect, the $150 Microsoft device that lets people control video games by gesturing. Since the Kinect's release in November, Microsoft has sold upwards of 8 million units and perhaps inadvertently started a frenzy of hacking, as academics and hobbyists have adapted the sensors available in the Kinect for projects ranging from robotics to unorthodox displays. The Kinect is so popular for such projects because it offers an inexpensive way to set up gestural controls. Unlike the Nintendo Wii, the Kinect can "see" users' gestures without requiring a remote or special...

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Wearable Sensor Reveals what Overwhelms You

That's what I found when I tested the Q Sensor, a device made by Affectiva, a company based in Waltham, Massachusetts. It looks like a large digital watch with no readout. A button on its surface lights up in different colors to convey the level of battery charge. Two small silver electrodes on the underside of the device continually send out a low electric current to measure skin conductance. Skin conductance rises along with physiological levels of stress, including both excitement and fear. Over the last year, the Q Sensor has been snapped up by researchers studying everything from sleep to game design, eating habits, and brand design....

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Game Developers Conference 2011 Highlights

The Game Developers Conference is obviously not as flamboyant as an E3 or a Tokyo Game Show. That probably has something to do with the fact that this is a conference for game developers and not the media. Most of the event is full of keynote speeches, demonstrations and previews so expecting earth shattering announcements is a tad silly. However we’ve combed through the entire event and here’s what we found interesting. Without a doubt I would say Battlefield 3 was the highlight of the event. After teasing us with an uhh teaser trailer, DICE finally blew open the doors to their highly anticipated military shooter and it did not disappoint. Not...

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Belkin Launches New Hi-speed USB Hubs

Belkin today announced the launch of their new lineup of Hi-Speed USB 2.0 4 and 7 port-loaded USB Hubs. These hubs will provide your devices easy USB access to your PCs. The hubs will not require any driver installations, because they're simple plug-and-play devices.Belkin promises this will not block any of your other USB ports and will provide transfer speeds of upto 480Mbps.“These attractively designed lightweight hubs add connectivity and high speed performance to any consumer computing platform, whether it is a desktop or a laptop. Their compact size also makes it a perfect travel tool, designed to easily tuck into the pockets of any laptop...

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Hawk-Eye Technology: What is it All About?

It’s pretty obvious that we are getting the otherwise viral cricket fever, all thanks to the Cricket World Cup 2011. Right from free apps for your smartphones to evolution of cricket games, we’ve done them because we’re getting into the cricket groove. And today, we’ll take a look into a certain technology that we’re so familiar with otherwise, because countless clips of cricket matches and some crucial decisions. The most recent will definitely be Ian Bell’s LBW decision of the India VS England match. The home camp – including the fans, thought that it should have been out. Guess what, even Hawk-Eye said so. But anyways, keeping controversies...

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Pwn2Own Update: Bugs Discovered in iPhone 4 and Blackberry Torch

The Pwn2Own hacker contest that began two days ago has been highlighting the bugs in its participants.The latest ones to have been slammed are the iPhone 4 and Blackberry torch. Apple's iPhone 4 was hacked by the four-time Pwn2Own winner, Charlie Miller using a drive-by download attack that detected bugs in its Safari browser. Charlie Miller in less than a week used the same technique with which he had discovered bugs in Mac's Safari browser. According to contest diktats, he walked away with $15,000 and the coveted iPhone that he had cracked. Blackberry, on the other hand, was exposed by Willem Pinckaers and Vincenzo Iozzo, who gained access...

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Updated: Play-Asia Offers Awesome Deal on Undisputed 2010

As part of their weekly sale Play-Asia.com is offering MMA game, Undisputed 2010 at Rs. 689. We've reviewed it and at that price, it's an utter steal. UFC Undisputed 2010 is as accurate a representation of MMA as you can get. It uses the UFC license to its maximum potential, with a huge roster of fighters and accurate TV-style presentation. It’s also just as technical as the sport of MMA itself, which means it’s not easy to just pick up and play. You’ll have to put in many hours before you start to discover how good it really is. If you’re unwilling to give it that time, this isn’t the game for you. But if you are, you’re sure to be rewarded...

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Winamp 1.0 for Android Released

Remember Winamp? Yeah, that music player software we all used back in the day, and one that some still use today. Well, Nullsoft have been pushing hard for the Android version recently, and it was in the beta stage for a while now, but it finally has a stable release. Version 1.0 has a few new features – the interface has been changed quite a bit and the app is now integrated with Snipper. This allows you to discover new and free music, as well as save your selections for later purchases. However, Winamp doesn’t come with one of the most iconic parts of the desktop version, the graphic equalizer. While that certainly is a disappointment, this...

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X-Mini V 1.1 Capsule Speaker - Xtremely Disappointing

Xmi launched their V 1.1 Capsule speakers a couple of months back. Their previous X-mini Capsule Portable Speakers that we tested were decent in terms of sound quality, but they weren’t very loud. So what about the V 1.1? Let’s see how well it does in comparison.  Design and Features The V 1.1 Capsule Speaker has the standard capsule design with a neat rubberized finishing which gives a good feel to the speaker. The little lid that covers the driver of the speaker gives it a glossy look and protects it from dust. We all know how tough cleaning that tiny little port can actually be. The neck of the speaker is made of good quality plastic...

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VMware View For iPad Available For Remote Access To Windows

VMware, the virtualisation and cloud infrastructure specialist, has launched its VMware View app for the iPad, enabling it to run its program on the device. The VMware View software allows users to remotely access virtual Windows desktops through the device, as well as data from anywhere. Best of all, the app comes free of cost!This is certainly an interesting offer from VMware. As far as I am aware, remote access is not very popular and doesn’t have a widespread usage in India as of now. Could this move to offer remote access technology to the fastest growing consumer electronic device in recent history provide the spark?  Also,...

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Apple iPad 2 Preview

The second generation iPad went on sale earlier today, to much fanfare and long, long lines. We're hard at work on our full review of Apple's second generation tablet but there were a few things we wanted to chime in on before too much time passed. The iPad 2 is a very logical update to the original iPad. The hardware gets an upgrade, with revised industrial design, a slimmer chassis, and Apple's new A5 SoC inside. A5 brings along two Cortex A9 cores, a dual core version of PowerVR's SGX543 graphics chip, and 512MB of memory. Software stays mostly the same but gets some tweaks; the iPad 2 ships with iOS 4.3, which was released earlier...

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Researchers Muffle Radio Noise to Make WiFi Break through

A team of Stanford researchers have come up with "full duplex" radios that can talk and listen at the same time -- a feat that enables communications simultaneity over WiFi networks. Cutting through existing WiFi congestion could double network speeds and capacities, encourage ambitious new projects -- such as citywide WiFi -- and even help prevent plane crashes.On a radio or over the TV airwaves, speakers have to rely on back-and-forth communications because radio traffic only flows in one direction at a time on a frequency. Or so said scientific conventional wisdom, until Stanford researchers developed so-called "full duplex" radios that can...

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Samsung Adds New Stars to Android Galaxy

Samsung has further expanded its Galaxy brand of Android devices this week with the introduction of three new handhelds, each running various forms of the Android operating system. It's added the Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Mini and the Galaxy S WiFi as an iPod touch competitor. But will Samsung be able to maintain line cohesion as the Android OS evolves and fragments?Last year, Samsung put its production of Android devices into full gear and delivered its newly minted Galaxy line.   Originally just used for its highest-end Android phones, the Galaxy name has branched off to a new tablet product, and now to lower-end smartphones as well...

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Color, Sketch and Explode, Oh My: Three Must-Have Photo Apps

Sure, you can edit your iPhone photos using any of the million desktop photo applications out there. But why bother with all that syncing when great editing tools can be loaded to the phone itself for just a couple of bucks? Sketch Me, Color Splash and FX Photo Studio are three great places to start if you want to add a creative twist to your photography while on the go. Sometimes it's easy to forget there are thousands of cool apps that extend the built-in features of your iPhone or iPod touch, and photography apps are one category I've been slow to adopt. After all, I have a decent built-in camera for snapshots and video in my iPhone 4 already,...

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