Google Nexus S Confirmed
Way back around the time the Nexus One was released, Google CEO Eric Schmidt had said that there would not be a "Nexus Two." Most people took that to mean that Google would not be making another smartphone; but in reality, it was only a comment on how the next smartphone by Google would not be named.
Today, Google officially announced their second smartphone, the Google Nexus S. Made by Samsung, it will be the first phone to feature Android 2.3, or "Gingerbread," as its operating system. In terms of hardware, it's not as radically advanced as the Nexus One was at the time of its release, but it still has a respectable spec sheet:
- 4-inch, 800 x 480 WVGA Screen
- 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) Processor
- Accelerometer
- Three-axis gyroscope
- 5.0 megapixel camera
- 16GB internal storage
- 512MB RAM
It'll support Voice-over-IP right out of the box, which sounds promising for anyone hoping to use a Skype app. In terms of physical design, the Nexus S has a slight curve on the front, which will supposedly fit better when held up to the side of your face, if you ever plan on using it for, you know, actually calling people.
Available on December 16th for $199 with a 2-year plan from T-Mobile, or $529 unlocked.
Sources: Gizmodo, Engadget, Google
UC Berkeley Students Create 3D Imaging Backpack
Students at UC Berkeley have come up with a backpack that uses lasers and cameras to create 3D images of the inside just about any building.
Professor Avideh Zakhor and her team of grad students developed the backpack, which uses 1 camera and 1 laser pointing up, down, left, and right to create 3D maps. As the wearer of the backpack walks around and through whatever building they wish to map, the lasers are constantly measuring the distance between the backpack and the walls, creating spacial maps. Simultaneously, the cameras photograph the walls, ceiling, and floor to create texture maps, which are laid over the 3D images to paint the walls and and give texture to surfaces.
They hope to combine their new technology with that of Google Earth to map the inside of buildings, as well as the outside. One of the benefits they speak of in the news coverage reporting the story is that a human can walk in hard to navigate places, like caves or mountains, that robots would be unable to traverse.
Check out the video below to see it in action!
Source: Engadget
Wipe Hard Drive from Toshiba Takes Encryption Up a Notch
There are tons of reasons why you'd want to encrypt the data on your hard drive. Whether it's those racy photos from last year's vacation to Jamaica, that novel you've been working on, or sensitive business information, people need a way to safeguard their data in a way that will stop any attempts at snooping.
While traditional password encryption can be broken with time, the engineers at Toshiba hope that the Wipe Technology they have come up with will drastically reduce that time, or eliminate it completely. Designed to be used in conjunction with Toshiba's own Self-Encrypting Drives (SED), it uses a special security key that, when removed, will render the contents of the hard drive useless. How is the key removed you might ask?
Well, whenever power is taken away from one of the hard drives that have been equipped with this sort of software, it will be erased. This will occur when you power a machine down, or remove it from a system. What's really interesting is that Toshiba has even put this software into hard drives used in printers, which, in offices, can hold sensitive documents.
Included (presumably) are configuration options (since you probably don't want your SED becoming unusable the first time you decide to move your computer) that will allow you to fiddle around with settings.
Check out the source links for the press release and more info!
Source: Gizmodo, Engadget
Google and Verizon Announce Details of New Agreement
Last week, rumors spread that Google and Verizon were having talks about a business agreement about net neutrality. Many people immediately suspected some sort of scheming on the part of the two companies, and that it would be the end of net neutrality. Although Google had been a supporter of net neutrality in the past, it was feared that it had changed its tune, and would be supporting the idea of a tiered system of internet access, where consumers would have to pay extra to gain full access to the web, much like cable television.
Google and Verizon denied that they were having such discussions, but not that they were talking to each other. Until today, it was unclear what the two tech behemoths had really been discussing, but as it turns out, the topic of conversation was how to preserve net neutrality, not dismantle it.
In a press call earlier today, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg related to the press a policy proposal that they had come up with for the safeguarding of net neutrality. To sum up their main points:
- They believe that internet traffic should not be blocked in any way
- Transparency should be required and enforced in regards to wireless and wireline broadband providers
- The FCC should be in charge of overseeing and enforcing these points, with up to a $2 million fine for offenders.
More or less, they believe in the government stepping into the broadband ring, but only in a role that would preserve net neutrality. Another interesting point they made was that the wireless broadband market is still too competitive and changing too fast for government regulation. They are worried that setting down too many rules with restrict growth, but think that transparency in the wireless industry is a must.
Check out the source link for more information!
Source: Engadget
Solar Bike Fujin Combines Two Green Techs in One
Although they are not very common in the United States, powered bikes (not motorcycles, mind you) are used in other countries around the world as an alternative to the traditional bicycle as a means of transportation. Many of them use small electric motors, or some sort of gas, however, so they are not totally environmentally-friendly.
However, a Japanese engineer who worked on the rover that was a part of the Hayabusa probe has come up with a new design that can drastically reduce the carbon footprint of these vehicles. Credited only as Mr. Yamawaki, he works for a company called Hama Zero , which showed off the bike at Electric Vehicle Development Technology Exhibition (EVEX for short).
He brings to the design some of the technology he used in designing the rover, including wheels that spin with incredibly low levels of friction. So little friction is created when the wheels spin, that with a gentle spin with the hand, they will allegedly spin for 20 minutes without stopping!
The bike is capable of speeds up to about 45 mph, and can travel 137 miles with a fully charged battery. If you ride it to work and leave it in the sun for 8 hours, you'll be able to travel 31 miles, which is pretty impressive, especially since you'll be riding to and from work for free!
Check out the video for a demonstration and more information.
Source: Engadget
Waterloo Labs Creates Face-Controller for NES
Ask yourself this question: would you rather control your games with a traditional controller, (like one of those boring Wiimotes) holding it in your hand and constantly weighing yourself down, or would you rather controller video games with your FACE?
If you prefer a regular old controller, suit yourself. But if you are interested in a controller that uses your face, then the guys at Waterloo Labs might be able to help you. They have developed a system of electrodes that measure movement in your eye to control any NES game they choose.
It uses electrodes that measure the changes in the electrical fields around your eyes that occur when you look in different directions. According to the video they used to explain it all, your eyeball actually has a positive and negative side, just like a battery. The back of your eye is more negative, while the front of your eye is more positive. So when you look all the way to the left or right, for instance, part of the negatively charged back of your eye becomes more visible, and changes the electrical field around your eyes slightly. The whole setup is called an EOG, or electro-oculogram.
Once the changes are measured, they are magnified and interpreted through the kind of custom made setup that electrical engineering students make, and plugged into the NES. The result: awesomeness.
Check out the video below to see the system in action!
Source: Engadget
“Touch Light Through the Leaves” Lets You Feel Light and Shadows
Researchers at the University of Tokyo have created a device which will make at least one instance synesthesia a reality for anybody who uses it. For those who do not know, synesthesia is when a stimulus to one of your senses produces a reaction in another sense. For instance, hearing music and "seeing" colors as a consequence, or smelling a color are examples of synesthesia. For most people such experiences are impossible without the use of psychedelic drugs or some sort of medical condition.
However, Kunihiro Nishimura, Yasuhiro Suzuki, and Michitaka Hirose, of the University of Tokyo, have created a device that allows its users to feel light and shadows. The device itself is a simple glass cylinder. Housed within it are 85 vibrating motors, which are activated by a camera that measures light input on the opposite side. The vibration units on the side opposite the camera point down to where the palm of the user's hand would be. When differences in light levels are measured by the camera, they are processed by a computer to which it is connected, which in turn triggers the motors to vibrate according to the patterns of light and shadow that are cast upon it.
It's a bit hard to explain, so check out the video below for a demonstration.
The only thing that really needs work is the name of the device. "Touch Light Through the Leaves" is just a bit too literal, not to mention a bit of a mouthful.
Source: Engadget
New Method of Injection Looks to Revolutionize Vaccinations
Going to the doctor's office can always give a person butterflies. If you're anything like me, going to the doctor, or even the hospital it's in can bring back ALL of the negative memories you have had about visiting the doctor. Most of those bad memories come from being a little kid, absolutely terrified of getting a shot. Even you don't get these sort of memories when you go to the doctor, shots can be scary. Many people have a fear, and even phobias, of needles (Trypanophobia).
A new technology developed by a team of researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology may be able to put all those fears to rest however. Led by professor Mike Prausnitz, the team has developed a vaccine delivery that uses microneedles, in patch form. Apparently, it looks like a small piece of sandpaper, and is straightforward and much more safe to administer than the current method of using hypodermic needles to inject.
The patch, which can be applied just like a Band-Aid, is covered on one side with incredibly small needles, or spikes. When applied, it just barely penetrates the skin, then dissolves, releasing the vaccine into the body in a relatively pain-free method. The whole process takes between 5 and 15 minutes, and testers said that they felt about one-twentieth the pain of getting a shot, if that (most called it painless).
In addition to solving the problem of patients fearing needles, it also could cut costs for doctors and hospitals as well. Without the danger of someone being injured by a used needle, money spent on bio-hazard disposal can be used in other ways.
If it gets approval from the FDA, this could be a big step in the vaccination and health industry, to say the least.
Source: AP via Engadget
Apple Addresses iPhone 4 Antenna Issue in Press Conference, Offers Free Cases
Everyone knew that Apple's press conference today was coming, but nobody knew just what Steve Jobs would say. It was clear from the beginning that the press conference would address the widely publicized problem with antenna reception for the iPhone 4 (specifically, how holding it a certain way would kill reception) but how it would be acknowledged and the resulting actions taken by Apple to deal with the problem was not.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs started the conference by giving some statistics about the iPhone 4: 3 million sold in 3 weeks, and the title of #1 smartphone according to numerous tech sites, in addition to the highest customer satisfaction rating of any smartphone or iPhone. Next, the presentation showed a number of other smartphones (the BlackBerry Bold 9700, Droid Eris, and Samsung Omnia II) and demonstrated how they would similarly lose reception when held in a particular way.
Next, Jobs compared missed calls and returns of the iPhone 4 to those of the 3GS. Basically, downplaying the negative publicity and image that the press had created for the problem.
Once that was out of the way, Jobs explained what Apple would be doing to resolve the problem. As many people had suggested and predicted, the answer was... FREE CASES.
Since the problem with the antenna was the result of the user's skin shorting out two adjacent segments of the iPhone 4 antenna (which runs around the outer edge of the phone), the solution was a case that would provide insulation between the hand and the phone. Those unhappy with their purchase can return their undamaged iPhone 4's within 30 days, and everyone who has already bought a bumper will be refunded.
Damage control has been rendered, now the only thing that remains will be to see how the public and current iPhone 4 users will react.
Source: Engadget 1, 2
Wet Circuits Introduce A Waterproof Power Strip for All Your Underwater Power Needs
Have you ever been plugging in appliances underwater and thought "Man, I wish I had a power strip to plug in ALL of my appliances while submerged!" No? Well, you just might want to once you have seen the new power strip by Wet Circuits.
It's water resistant, and has touch protection, overheating protection, and spark protection. That means that in addition to providing safe electrical power when wet, it won't electrocute you if you happen to stick your finger into a socket. If you should be in a situation where the power strip overheats, it will temporarily turn itself off (the video claims that it will turn off at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, and can work at up to 248 degrees Fahrenheit). Spark protection adds another dimension of safety, and prevents carbon buildup.
The video demonstrations are pretty funny, due mostly in part to the dubbing. Check them out to learn more. And if you are really taken by it, Wet Circuits are available now for just $35.
Source: Engadget