Technology Nirvana

We dare say NVIDIA's ION platform hasn't been the quickest to go from announcement to market availability, but at long last we're seeing a number of pretty decent options cropping up. The Samsung N510 is a great test case for the prowess of the chipset, as it boasts the otherwise entirely unremarkable Atom N280, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD spec, meaning that whatever performance gains it exhibits will be down to the ION infrastructure. Unsurprisingly, the 11.6-inch machine showed marked improvements over standard netbooks in the graphics department, with hardware-accelerated 1080p video decoding and mildly graphically-intensive games made possible. With six and a half hours of battery life and a matte 1366 x 768 screen, the N510 was well received by the PC Pro team, who could only bemoan the uncompetitive pricing of £382 (about $613). Hit the read link for their full impressions.

Filed under: Laptops

Samsung's ION-enriched N510 reviewed approvingly, still needs price trim originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We try not to cover too many concept cars and devices, but sometimes it’s just too compelling. I’ve always liked Subarus, personally, and although I’ve pledged not to buy a car until I can get a full electric, I might have to go back on that if this Tourer hybrid goes to production. I hope they find a better name, though, it’s a bit “Rural Juror” for me. But gullwings, baby, gullwings!

It’d be a pretty traditional hybrid, as unexciting as that sounds, and it would have a full-sized 2L, 4-cylinder boxer engine as well as two power plants, 10 and 20kW, for electric propulsion. It will of course be all wheel drive.

It just looks awesome to me. A practical, roomy AWD Subaru, rocking gullwings? Man, if I don’t get one, at least I’ll see them all over the place because they’re so awesome. Assuming they ever get made, that is.

The Recon Scout XT looks like a power walker's dumbbell, but that doesn't stop the R/C device from being useful to military ops in the field.

Weighing just 3.2lbs (including the controller), the robot can land from heights of 30 feet onto concrete without sustaining damage. Toss it over a fence, drive it into a bunker and, all the while, a soldier can watch a wireless video feed on the controller's small screen (ranges span from 100 feet if venturing indoors to 300 feet through line-of-sight). The bot will even activate invisible, IR illumination if the area gets too dark.

Of course, the Recon Scout XT is surely meant to assist in violently vanquishing the enemy. But we like to imagine other, MASH-esque usage scenarios involving a uptight sergeants running out of the bath with their shower caps still on. ROFL! [Defense Tech]

Did you know that FAIL Blog serves up 22 million video views per month, and Engadget gets at least 2.3 million monthly views for its gadget videos, while Joystiq gets another 2 million? All three blogs use Viddler, which is now selling ads directly for its top content providers though its just-launched Viddler AdWorks. Advertisers can see a directory of the top three dozen video producers on Viddler and buy ads on their videos (overlay, pre-roll, and post-roll).

Viddler is selling ads against 30 million views a month collectively from those top producers, out of a total of 36 million views for all the videos uploaded to Viddler. FAIL Blog, which puts up videos of pratfalls and people acting stupidly, on its own accounts for 73 percent of Viddler’s video ad inventory, and is a big reason Viddler’s total views have gone from 10 million in January, 2009 to 36 million in August, 2009. After that, the most popular Viddler producers are Engadget and Joystiq, which are both owned by AOL, followed by niche video like WineLibraryTV (142,424 monthly views) and Gary Vaynerchuk’s personal marketing videos, which get only 27,070 views per month).

It quickly dwindles down to very small numbers per show, but Viddler is hoping to change that with its new ad network, and get more of its partners to put more of their best videos on Viddler instead of on YouTube or Blip.tv or Brightcove. As big as FAIL Blog is for Viddler, it streams even more videos directly on YouTube, where it has the 7th-most watched channel.

For ads that Viddler sells directly it is offering video partners ad rates starting at $3 per thousand views (CPMs) for overlays and $10 for pre-rolls. A video show that attracts a highly-focused, affluent niche audience like WineLibrary.TV can command a $10 CPM for overlays. These rates compare to about 80-cent CPMs that video producers currently get for the Google AdWords ads Viddler places in their videos today, and will continue to use for any inventory it can’t sell.

The other attractive element of Viddler’s AdWorks is that video publishers can choose to sell their own ads if they think they can get a higher rate than Viddler. In that case, they pay Viddler a flat $2 CPM for overlays, and $4 CPMs for pre-rolls. So if AOL’s (or Engadget’s) salesforce can get better than a $5 CPM for overlay ads, it is better off selling ads itself ($5-$2=the $3 CPM they would get from Viddler selling the ads).

Video partners also have the option to sign up for a business account, where they pay per gigabyte and can either opt out of ads entirely or participate in AdWorks to offset their subscription costs. So Viddler straddles the video hosting space between a free ad-supported model (like Blip.tv) and a hosted subscription model (like Brightcove). A video producer will have to weigh that flexibility and the guaranteed CPMs Viddler is offering against the broader reach of a YouTube or even Blip.tv, which is about twice the size of Viddler in terms of videos streamed and can now place ads in YouTube as well.

Viddler remains a niche player in the online video hosting industry, but it’s never taken VC money and seems to be carving out a nice little business for itself.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Twitter has just announced a new feature that is sure to excite anyone who has been waiting for the site to offer an alternative to its Suggested User List. Appropriately called ‘Lists’, the new feature will allow anyone to make a list of other Twitter users and label it appropriately (for example, I could make a list called ‘TC Staff’), then share that list with other members. Twitter writes that the feature is still in limited testing, but that it will eventually be rolled out to all users.

By default any lists you create will be public, though you’ll also be able to hide them. If you choose to leave them publicly viewable, other Twitter users will be able to hit a button to “Follow this list” so they can add everyone at once. This is a big deal — until now the only convenient way to start mass following people on Twitter has been to use its own curated SUL. I won’t be surprised if we see some users vying to become the best ‘list makers’, offering comprehensive lists of celebrities, news portals, bloggers, and more. It will also be interesting to see if Twitter aggregates the most comprehensive Lists and includes them as part of the signup process (which would effectively just be the SUL in a different form).

Twitter’s post describing the new feature isn’t particularly detailed, but it seems like this may have a larger impact than just discovery — it could also potentially be used for Grouping, a feature that some third party apps have offered but that hasn’t been officially supported by Twitter. In short, this will let you group the people you follow into different list (say, one for News, one for close friends, and so on), and then quickly jump between them. Twitter will be supporting the new listing feature through its API, so we can likely expect this functionality to be extended to most third party applications that don’t already support grouping.

Also worth noting: a logical extension to grouping will be to support search within groups, which could help users weed out spam. Of course this is Twitter we’re talking about, so it could still be quite a while before we see this happen.

‘Lists’ may compete with sites like WeFollow that specialize in listing top Twitter users in various categories (on the other hand, these sites could actually become even more popular if they become the best places to find the most comprehensive Lists). It’s also likely going to replace TweepML, the open standard format for sharing groups of Twitter users.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Mmm, sexy. To be honest, we're still trying to shake the butterflies we felt when we touched Dell's 16-inch Latitude Z yesterday, and if you'd care to join us, you can place your order right now. The base package gets going at $1,799 after a $200 instant rebate, and that'll net you a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo SU9400 CPU, 64GB SSD, Intel's GMA 4500MHD integrated graphics, 2GB of RAM, a 4-cell battery, 8x slot-loading DVD burner, 802.11a/g/n WiFi and a 3-year warranty. So, who's putting a dent in their credit card tonight? Be honest -- we're all friends here.

[Via Laptoping]

Filed under: Laptops

Dell's sensual Latitude Z now on sale, starts at $1,799 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sorry for the late deals today—it's been a hectic morning. Hopefully we can make up for our tardiness with some great deals, be sure to check out the 42" Samsung.

Top Deals:
• 13.3" Lenovo U330 Laptop for $529 plus free shipping (normally $699 - use coupon code USPU330PROMO).
• 42" Samsung PN42B450 720p 600Hz Plasma TV $599.99 plus free shipping (normally $674 - use coupon code EMCLXNX75).
• Chex Mix Cereal for $0 (use this form).

Computing and Peripherals:
• Dell Studio XPS 9000 i7 Desktop and 22" LCD for $1199 plus free shipping (normally $1608).
• 13.3" Lenovo U330 Laptop for $529 plus free shipping (normally $699 - use coupon code USPU330PROMO).
• 13.3" Dell Studio XPS 13 Laptop for $999 plus shipping (normally $1319).
• 23" Dell ST2310 HD LCD Plus Wireless Keyboard and Mouse for $209.00 plus free shipping (normally $289).
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• Call of Duty World at War (360) for $39.90 (normally $56).
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• F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin (PC) for $17.50 (normally $34.99).
• Left 4 (PC) for $14.99 download (normally $36.99).
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• Retro Mini NES 8 Bit Handheld System for $24.99 plus free shipping (normally $34.99).

Home Entertainment:
• 52" Samsung LN52B750 1080p 240Hz LCD TV for $1,679 plus free shipping (normally $1805 - use coupon code LN52B750).
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• 42" LG 42LG70 1080p 120Hz LCD TV for $799.00 plus free shipping (normally $899).
• 42" Samsung PN42B450 720p 600Hz Plasma TV $599.99 plus free shipping (normally $674 - use coupon code EMCLXNX75).
• 40" Toshiba 40RV525 1080p LCD TV for $547 plus shipping (normally $650).
• 32" Panasonic VIERA TC-L32C12 720p LCD TV for $399.99 plus free shipping (normally $440).
• Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-Ray Player for $149.97 plus free shipping (normally $199).
• Polk Audio Monitor Series CS2 Center Channel Speaker for $109.99 plus free shipping (normally $163 - use coupon code EMCLXNX67).
• Damien Rice Live at Fingerprints: Warts and All (MP3) for $1.99 (normally $6.99).
• Ghostbusters 1 and 2 for $7.99 plus free shipping (normally $13.36).

Personal Portables and Peripherals:
• Olympus Stylus 550WP 10MP 3X Digital Camera (Waterproof) for $139.00 plus free shipping (normally $119 - use coupon code: CAM9285).
• Klipsch Custom-1 Noise Isolating Headphones for $39.99 plus free shipping (normally $50).
• Nokia E75 Smartphone (Unlocked, Quad-Band GSM) for $244.99 plus free shipping (normally $369 - use coupon code: 07ZR$LVQP18BSZ).
• Nikon D5000 12.3MP dSLR Body for $585.99 plus free shipping (normally $636 - use coupon code: CAM9145).
• Altec Lansing BackBeat 906 Bluetooth Headphones for $71 plus free shipping (normally $100).
• Garmin nüvi 850 4.3" GPS for $165 plus free shipping (normally $250).

Hobomodo:
• Chex Mix Cereal for $0 (use this form).
• Subscription to Rouge Magazine for $0 (use this form).
• Sample Starbucks Oct. 2-5, get a coupon for a free tall coffee (in-store) for $0 (use this form).
• 3 1/2" LED Flashlight @ Harbor Freight w/ Coupon for $0 (use this form).
• Fable II: Episode 1 (360) for $0 (normally $29.99).
• ZOOZ Control Pro (iPhone) for $0 (normally $1.99).

If a deal looks too good to be true, investigate the store and see if it's a good, reputable place to buy. Safe shopping!

[Thanks TechDealDigger, Fat Wallet, GamerHotline, Cheap College Gamers, CheapStingyBargains and TechBargains.]

"Game changing" is thrown around way too frequently these days, but man, this thing just might be. The Livepack is being described as "a satellite television truck in a backpack" by creator Livestream, and for all intents and purposes, it is. Put simply (or as simply as possible), the pack includes everything one would need to stream "HD quality" footage: encoding hardware, a Firewire cable and the real kicker, a built-in wireless connection with six load-balanced 3G modems over three carriers (AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint if you have to know). Users simply provide their own camcorder, mash a button when it's show time, and out goes the signal. The Livepack can currently be rented for $2,500 per month (includes 30 hours of streaming) or $1,500 per month if you commit to a year-long agreement. So, who's up for showing the world their high school prom live in HD? Demo vid is after the break.

[Via Red Ferret]

Continue reading Livestream Livepack: a 'satellite television truck in a backpack'

Filed under: Portable Video, Wireless

Livestream Livepack: a 'satellite television truck in a backpack' originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google sure has a lot of money! And man, does it like to spend it! This map shows all of Google's acquisitions and investments, detailing just how vast and diverse Google's interests are. [Meet the Boss via The Awl]

If you suddenly find yourself with $300 to burn, an old laptop, and too much time on your hands this weekend, I might suggest that you build a DIY Google Street View-style rig for your car. That’s what West Point student Roy Ragsdale did for his “disruptive technologies” class. And if someone at West Point does it, it’s okay for you to do it.

The gear consists of eight Microsoft LifeCam NX-6000 webcams, a couple D-Link USB hubs, a GPS receiver, and an old laptop running Ubuntu. Roy whipped up a script that made each of the cameras take a 1280×1024 snapshot every 20 seconds and then later had each 8-pack of photos stitched together to form a panoramic picture. He was able to grab photos while driving over 60 miles per hour that were “perfectly clear and on par with those available on Google Street View.”

Sounds fun, I guess. Sort of. There’s always the actual Google Street View, too, which involves keeping your $300 and far less driving. Well done for a class project, though.

[IEEE.org via Gizmodo]