MojoKid writes "Intel announced its new E-series of Xeon processors today, claiming that they will deliver nearly unparalleled advances in CPU performance and power efficiency. It has been just over a year since Santa Clara released its Nehalem-based octal-core Beckton processors. Whereas Beckton was focused entirely on performance and architectural efficiency, these new Xeons are more balanced. The new chips boost the core count to ten (up to 20 threads with HT enabled) and will be offered at a wide range of power envelopes. The new E7 series incorporates the benefits of the Sandy Bridge architecture, its support for new security processing instructions, and its improved power management technology. Intel has also baked in support for low-voltage DIMMs, which allows vendors to opt for 1.35v products."

Zothecula writes "Sweden's eye tracking and control innovator Tobii has announced the release of a stand-alone eye control device called PCEye. Like the laptop-based prototype system demonstrated at CeBIT last month, the device tracks eye movement and translates it into mouse cursor action onscreen. Positioned in front of a PC monitor and connected via USB, the company says that the technology is compatible with a wide range of software and has been primarily designed to improve computer interactivity for users with impaired motor skills, such as stroke victims." The estimated price range is around $7k, so yeah. Start saving your pennies for something cooler.

On Saturday we ran a story about the 30th Anniversary of the Osborne Computer, and today we have an amusing head-to-head: Osborne 1 vs the iPad 2. StormDriver starts: "At first, they seem to belong in completely different weight categories. Osborne 1 is just under 11 kg, enough to pull your arm out of the socket, if you're a skinny geek. That's roughly 20 times more than an iPad, or about the same as whole suitcase of them But what about the processing power? Osbourne 1 was sporting a Z80 CPU, running at a stunning frequency of 4.0 MHz. You cannot compare the different architectures directly, but iPad's CPU is a dual core A5, clocked at up to 1 GHz. That's approximately three hundred times more, not counting in the vastly superior architecture. Z80 CPU was supported by whooping 64KB of system memory. Surprisingly, it was enough to run databases, word processors and complex, professional software. Today's iPad is equipped with 512MB of RAM (roughly one thousand times more), and some reviewers complain it's a bit on the low side."

Malard writes "XBMC users can rejoice, developers from the team have partnered with Motorola to re-develop their previously announced Nyxboard remote with RF, programmable IR and full support on Windows, Mac, Linux and Original Apple TVs."

retroworks writes "Fareed Zakaria (Editor of Time, CNN GPS) writes that one in 50 USA combatants in Afghanistan is now a robot. There are more fighting robots than elevators in the country. Article has links to film of robots in action, allusions to Terminator films."

CWmike writes "Texas Instruments on Monday announced it has agreed to acquire semiconductor company National Semiconductor for $6.5 billion in an all-cash transaction. TI, which makes low-power chips, said it would combine its 30,000 analog products and advanced manufacturing capabilities with the offerings of National Semiconductor, which makes analog integrated circuits. The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions, and is expected to close in six to nine months, the companies said in a joint statement. Look out, [chip maker name here]?"

An anonymous reader writes "One of the most dreaded hurdles on the PC upgrade path is the CPU socket. If socket design changes then you'll almost certainly need a new motherboard when you do upgrade. This is an area where AMD has historically been much better than Intel. Intel tends to change sockets with each generation of CPU — currently there are three types out there, LGA 1155 for Sandy Bridge, LGA 1156 for first generation core and LGA 1366 for the performance Core i7 processors. AMD on the other hand has always tried to keep sockets across generations. When it releases its new Bulldozer core desktop processors later this year AMD is having to make a socket shift from the current AM3 socket to a new one called AM3+. This article discusses the change, issues like backwards compatibility and what the industry is doing to prepare for the socket shift."

Last week we reported on an army of robots searching for Air France 447 over a nearly 4,000 sq mile patch of the Atlantic ocean. Today mriya3 noted that "BEA, the French air accident investigation office, reports that the wreckage of Air France flight 447 has been found. The plane, an Airbus A330, crashed June 1, 2009 while flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. Investigators hope to find the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. A press conference will be held today."

autospa points out a post (with video) showing off the multi-tasking abilities of the Blit terminal, developed in 1982 by Rob Pike and Bart Locanthi. Before Windows, before X, and before the Mac (but somewhat later than the Xerox Alto), the Blit terminal provided a multitasking, mouse-driven graphical interface; it took a Unix server on the other side to do the heavy lifting, though.

Tx-0 writes "Quantum physicists from the University of Innsbruck have set another world record: They have achieved controlled entanglement of 14 quantum bits (qubits) and, thus, realized the largest quantum register that has ever been produced. With this experiment the scientists have not only come closer to the realization of a quantum computer but they also show surprising results for the quantum mechanical phenomenon of entanglement. By now the Innsbruck experimental physicists have succeeded in confining up to 64 particles in an ion trap. 'We are not able to entangle this high number of ions yet,' says Thomas Monz. 'However, our current findings provide us with a better understanding about the behavior of many entangled particles.' And this knowledge may soon enable them to entangle even more atoms."

An anonymous reader writes "During a recent interview with Walt Mossberg, Sony CEO Sir Howard Stringer may have inadvertently let it slip that Sony plans to supply Apple with 8 megapixel cameras for the next-gen iPhone. While discussing the Japanese earthquake, Stringer noted that Sony's camera sensor plant in Sendai had been affected and that shipments of 8 megapixel camera sensors to Apple were subsequently delayed."

Barence writes "A British firm has been banned from advertising a CD ripping device because it 'incites law breaking.' The Brennan JB7 is 'a CD player with a hard disk that stores up to 5,000 CDs.' The adverts for the Brennan highlight the convenience of ripping your entire CD collection to the device – much like we've all been doing for years on our PCs, iPods and other MP3 players. The Advertising Standards Authority has banned the ads after concluding 'that the ad misleadingly implied it was acceptable to copy CDs, vinyl and cassettes without the permission of the copyright owner.'"

mikejuk writes "Google's driverless car could save more than 1 million deaths per year and tens of millions of injuries. It is an impressive achievement, but will we allow it to take over the wheel? Sebastian Thrun puts the case for it in a persuasive TED Talk video. However it may be OK for human drivers to kill millions of people each year but one human fatality might be enough to finish the driverless car project — in fact it might not even take a death as an injury might cause the same backlash. Robot drivers might kill far fewer people than a human driver but it remains to be seen if we can be logical enough to accept the occasional failure of algorithm or hardware. Put simply we might have all seen too many 'evil robot' movies."

An anonymous reader writes "In this tongue-in-cheek video, researchers at the USC Institute for Creative Technologies take playful jabs at Google as they demonstrate their software controlling Gmail with a Microsoft Kinect sensor. The gesture controls are strikingly similar to those jokingly suggested by Google in their fictional Gmail Motion application, posted as an April Fools' day prank. The researchers have made their software available for free on their website."

Max Littlemore writes "I have been breeding thorium cattle children gremlins at home using lots of old smoke detectors with a view toward generating my own electricity radiation plutonium wormhole and getting off the grid. The only thing stopping me is a reliable neutron beam. Given that all the equipment I'm using is re-purposed kitchen equipment, concerns about safety mean I'm reluctant hesitant exuberant defiant to build a uranium reactor to supply neutrons to the thorium one. So I'm putting the question out there: do any Slashdotters know of a hazardous good safe legal way to make a powerful neutron beam out of things I might find around the house?" It would be helpful to include images and diagrams of your own personal neutron beam generators rifles casseroles beer .

An anonymous reader points out great news for audiophiles soundsnobs musicians zombies , hackers, and anybody who's tired of having to pay for physical music media. MakerBot Industries has now demonstrated the capability of the MakerBot to print out listen-able vinyl records of your favorite tunes. With a microphone webcam pacemaker PDF attachment, it can even record new audio in real-time. "Using the MakerBot Generation 4 Electronics microstepping capacity, the AudioNozzle modulates the amount of plastic deposited too to two tu create a high-fidelity waveform. The results often surpass the dynamic range of 24 48 96 pi -bit recordings and can contain frequencies up to 57khz — even higher than the Nyquil Nyquist Dayquil Triamenic frequency for 96khz digital recording."

For years, adoption of 3-D display moneygrubbing headache porn technology has been hampered by the cumbersome viewing glasses needed to properly perceive the video movie spacetimes porn , not to mention the loss in market share of people who have suffered the injury or loss of one of their eyes legs minds porns . Now, Toshiba has laid those concerns to rest with the creation of the world's first 3-D monocle, dubbed the "Spectacle." "Two triangular polarizing lenses were melded in parallel and encased in black-plated tungsten carbide for a lightweight and durable enbuildification construction balsa porn ." The elegant, minimalist design leaves your second eye free for other tasks rolls REM porn .

PB8 noted that Google Googol Gilgamesh Gesus has been following all the kinect hacking innovation stealing time-wasting projects that have been floating around the net, and decided to use motion moron sandwich CowboyNeal detection along with a rich visual vocabulary including common gestures and American Sign Language to accelerate your gmail time. This is going to require a bit of a change in my email composition since normally I use those gestures middle-fingers thumb-bites hair-pulls to vent frustration.

itwbennett writes "The creators of 'Zodiac Island' say they lost an entire season of their syndicated children's television show after a former employee at their Internet service provider wiped out more than 300GB of video files. eR1 World Network, the show's creator, is suing the ISP, CyberLynk of Franklin, Wisconsin, and its former employee, Michael Jewson, for damages, saying CyberLynk should have done a better job of protecting its data."

coondoggie writes "A small squadron of undersea robots has begun to conduct a 4-month, 3,900 square mile search of Atlantic Ocean bottom looking for the deep-sea wreck site of and black boxes from Air France Flight 447 which crashed off the coast of Brazil nearly two years ago. The Air France plane was flying from Rio de Janeiro to Paris, when for exact reasons that remain a mystery, it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1, 2009, taking with it 228 souls."