shri writes "E Ink has just announced a breakthrough in flexible electronic paper displays. The new display which has a 100DPI resolution and is only 300 microns thick has the potential of truely changing the way we read our information."

Shawnzyoo noted that Sony has released their new series of VAIO TX laptops. In order to make them stronger/lighter/thinner, they are now made of carbon fiber. No plans to release it in the US yet, so start learning Korean if you want this one.

An anonymous reader writes "According to LinuxDevices.com a multimedia device vendor has asked the open-source community to help define its next product, a Linux-based handheld portable media player/recorder (PMP/R) featuring audiophile-quality sound. The new product is a successor to the popular Neuros 442 PMP/R. Neuros has published the specs for a development board it calls the first prototype, and has asked hackers, open-source software authors, and others to review and weigh in on the design, which is expected to be finalized in the near future."

Rob writes "The Open Source Development Labs has introduced a new initiative to accelerate the adoption of Linux in the mobile market by providing a forum for device manufacturers, network operators, and application developers. Like the OSDL's other working groups, the MLI will provide a forum for creating requirement specifications based on existing implementations and invest in existing and new mobile Linux projects to identify and fill gaps in the open source operating system's functionality."

r84x writes "A research team led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently broke the code behind tiny tracking dots that some color laser printers secretly hide in every document. The U.S. Secret Service admitted that the tracking information is part of a deal struck with selected color laser printer manufacturers, ostensibly to identify counterfeiters. However, the nature of the private information encoded in each document was not previously known. "We've found that the dots from at least one line of printers encode the date and time your document was printed, as well as the serial number of the printer," said EFF Staff Technologist Seth David Schoen."

redemtionboy writes "According to IGN, "Nintendo of America on Tuesday will announce a groundbreaking partnership with Wi-Fi provider Wayport to make available free Internet access to DS owners at McDonald's restaurants across the nation." " There are so many potential jokes here that I'm gonna just leave it to you guys to make your own.

akhomerun writes "Microsoft has released version 1.0 of its experimental new VirtualWiFi Software. The free software enables Windows users to use a single wireless card to connect to multiple wireless networks simultaneously. The current build is a very primitive release, with no support for WEP or WPA encryption."

An anonymous reader writes "At Intel's Developer Forum in Taiwan, Intel introduced a new Non-volatile caching technology called 'Robson'." The new Robson cache technology allows computers to start up almost immediately and load programs much faster. Intel declined to comment on the specifics of how the technology works only saying that 'More information will be revealed later'.

PSP News writes "The announcement that Datel was producing a 4GB Hard Drive addon was just the thing the PSP Community was looking for and today Lik Sang has done a great hands on review of the product that provides more details and a much nicer price of $199 instead of the rather high $249 which was originally posted."

Rayaru writes "Palm and RIM have apparantly signed a deal allowing the Treo 650 to use RIM's email software. "The partnership with RIM is unique in that it is Palm's first chance to give Treo customers automatic synchronisation with calendaring." It's interesting that the deal also includes "future Treo products with the Palm operating system." Perhaps a Treo 670 Palm version is in the works?"

Rich writes "KDE could soon be making its way into your mobile phone. At aKademy in August David Carson and Deepika Chauhan from Nokia presented the work they've done in integrating KDE components into the latest version of the company's mobile phone software. Philip Rodrigues discusses this work with them on dot.kde.org."

Craig writes "PSP Owners have long been interested in watching the UMD films and playing games on the TV, well now according to a report from Lik Sang they can, the new PSPTV being produced eventually by Gametech will be a no modification addon. From the article: 'The TV Adapter for PSP lets you hook up your PSP to your home television (NTSC and PAL) via Composite or S-Video and Stereo connectors. This adapter requires no modification of your PSP console. This new peripheral takes a completely different approach and clips on top of your PSP screen, with two screws to fit at the back of the handheld (in these two holes you can see on the top of the UMD drive). Some sort of pyramid grows from the base, with a precision lens and mirror system at the top, capturing the image and light, in a similar way a scanner or camera would. It then converts it into a video signal that is sent through video leads going from the adapter to your TV set.'"

batgirl writes "ECS has taken advantage of their recent merger with PC Chips and released an interesting take on motherboards. Using the highly portable SiS chipsets, they were able to create a motherboard that supports all kinds of processors across all platforms. The PF88 starts as an Intel socket 775 motherboard, but different expansion cards can be purchased to add support for everything from a Socket 939 Athlon64 to a Socket 479 Pentium-M. The price is right, and performance is as good as can be expected. But how many people would make use of this?"

lucabrasi999 writes "CNN is reporting that Japan is moving towards requiring all owners of potentially dangerous animals (such as crocodiles and pythons) to have microchips installed in case the animal gets loose. Apparently there has been a wave of 'wild' animals that have been escaping their captivity. Did you know that it is actually possible to take your pet snake for a 'walk'?"

caffeine_monkey writes "AP is reporting that Hewlett Packard is recalling 135,000 notebook batteries because they occasionally overheat and melt. Affected models are HP Pavilion, Compaq Presario, HP Compaq and Compaq Evo. More details are on the HP support site. From their FAQ: Is it safe to buy HP notebooks? Absolutely. HP fully stands behind the products it makes."

Angry_Admin writes "According to the article at IT World Canada, 'Recent food security scares have triggered public outcries and intense concern. People want to know exactly what is in their food, and what is done to it by whom. In response, Canada and many other countries are introducing traceability requirements - records that track all links in the food supply chain, from farmers to processors to retailers to consumers. The Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada agency recently released a policy framework, stating the goal is to make 80 per cent of all food products traceable by 2008.'"

Maximus writes "Asus is this first board partner out of the block with a single board, dual GPU design based on NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GT graphics chip. The Asus Extreme N7800 GT DUAL essentially takes a dual board SLI setup and packs it all into a single PCI Express based card. HotHardware has a performance preview posted that shows this card can even compete in some cases with an GeForce 7800 GTX SLI setup, due to improved latency characteristics with respect to inter-GPU transactions, that are inherent to a single board design . This board is a bit pricey though for sure so only gaming speed freaks need apply."

Biul drolly writes "Apparently, TiVo's marketing department had difficulty with figurative speech in school." Specifically, News.com reports that TiVo held a mock funeral for the VCR this week. From the article: "While the death of VCRs and the VHS format has been long expected, it may be a bit premature to announce its arrival. Some 97 million households still have at least one VCR, according to the International Recording Media Association. However, TiVo's stunt does point out how fragile the VCR market is. Panasonic and Toshiba still make VCRs, as do lesser-known companies such as Lite-On, a Taiwan-based electronics manufacturer that sells its recorders through Wal-Mart Stores. But several manufactures have quit making VCRs. Brian Lucas, a spokesman for Best Buy, said that the retailer carries less than 10 models of standalone VCRs now. Ten years ago, it carried more than two dozen."

ewg writes "Today, 2005-10-14, is World Standards Day as celebrated by the IEC, ISO, and ITU. The press release emphasizes the benefits of safety standards, but the interoperability is the true prize for information systems. How many sets of country codes and date formats do we need?" From the release: "International Standards accommodate people's desire to live in a safer, more secure world by providing a valuable safety net. 'Standards for a safer world' is the theme of the message signed by the leaders of the three principal international standardization organizations to mark World Standards Day 2005. Standards developed at the international level through IEC, ISO and ITU are available for use at the national and regional levels to meet the needs of society at large, the market and government regulators," the three leaders point out. They see standards as vital in disseminating best practices and new technologies, while avoiding new barriers to trade that national security and safety regulations may create."

Case_Argentina writes "Interesting article and photos on News.com about a guy who does microscopy photography discovering hidden images in computer chips. The images, made by tiny wires connecting the deeper layers of the chip, were left there by engineers leaving messages to competitors, or just having plain fun. Snoopy, Daffy Duck, Dilbert, Dogbert and lots of silicon characters and images can be seen at The Silicon Zoo." Update: 10/15 06:27 GMT by Z : As some readers have pointed out, if history serves you can look forward to reading about this again in 2007.