Television

When is 720p Not 720p? 399

Posted by Hemos from the the-tricks-of-the-eye dept.
Henning Hoffmann writes "HDBlog has an interesting entry about many home theater displays.
Home theater displays around the resolution of 720p (most DLP, LCD, and LCOS displays) must convert 1080i material to their native resolution for display. No surprise there. But many displays do this by discarding half of the 1080i HD signal, effectively giving 720p viewers an SD signal - not watching HD at all! "
Robotics

Sony's Robot Attends Pre-School 228

Posted by timothy from the plenty-of-robots-went-to-school-with-me dept.
Darren writes "Sony's Qrio humanoid robot has been attending a Californian pre school to play with children under the age of 2 since March to test if robots can live harmoniously with humans. I wonder if the testing includes monitoring the 'nightmare status' of the pre-schoolers?"
Toys

Programmatically Controlled Juicer 136

Posted by timothy from the wink-wink-juice-nudge-nudge dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Juicer is a wirelessly controlled, programmable juice maker which will mix each ingredient of a recipe to the exact proportions every time. The Juicer will take a recipe selection serially via either the keyboard or the wireless remote and dispense the juices into the cup below. Force and Photo sensors are incorporated to control the precise pouring. Wireless communication is controlled with two microcontrollers operating at a frequency of 433 MHz. All of this is housed by a big red frame custom made from 4130 steel."
Graphics

What Ever Happened to Virtual Reality? 431

Posted by timothy from the it-stayed-similar dept.
bergeron76 writes "It seems like it's been ages since I heard of any advances in "Virtual Reality" technology. Was Virtual Reality just hype? Are there any new or existing projects that have made any significant inroads (aside from the first-person shooter games)? Is total virtual immersion a worthless persuit / dead industry? If not, what are the bottlenecks that are delaying it?"
Robotics

Vex Pics from FIRST/LEGO/Vex Robotics Competition 76

Posted by timothy from the vexing dept.
antispam_ben writes "Last week's Slashdot article linked to CNN's coverage of the LEGO League robotics competition. LEGO League was only part of the event. I gave a short description and links to the original FIRST Robotics, LEGO League, and new Vex Robotics competitions in this comment. New from the local robotics mailing list is this page of pictures from the Vex competition."
Television

Build Your Own DVR 267

Posted by timothy from the no-build-mine dept.
prostoalex writes "If you have an old computer that had been laying around for a while and are ready to spend a bit on hardware to make into a Digital Video Recorder, this article from Make magazine contains a step-by-step guide on building one. The author spent $150 on TV card and $70 on BeyondTV PVR software." (And with a Linux-friendly capture card, MythTV would save the builder $70.)
Wireless Networking

Verizon Pulling Plug on Free Wi-Fi in NYC 128

Posted by timothy from the how-much-of-a-loss-is-that-really dept.
Cashen writes "'Verizon Communications Inc. is turning off the free wireless Internet access it beams from New York City telephone booths for DSL subscribers who use laptops away from home or the office.' Full article here. Is it just a coincidence Verizon is expanding its EV-DO in New York at the same time? Guess we have to pay to play now ... The real question is, when is EV-DO coming to Michigan?"
Software

Thin Client With OSS for Developing Nations 252

Posted by Zonk from the spreading-the-penguin-love dept.
FridayBob writes "The BBC has a story on a new, ultra-thin client that a group of not-for-profit developers, Ndiyo, hope will open up the potential of computing to people in the developing world. Not surprisingly, their system uses open source software. The system runs Ubuntu Linux with a Gnome/KDE deskto and OpenOffice. From the article: 'Licences for software are often a significant part of expenditure for smaller companies which rely on computers. But a recent UK government study, yet to be formally published, has shown that open source software can significantly reduce school budgets dedicated to computing set-ups.'"
Wireless Networking

Tempe, AZ To Provide Wireless Broadband 199

Posted by Zonk from the they-won-one dept.
jangobongo writes "City officials of Tempe, Arizona are laying claim to being the first major metropolitan area in the United States to deploy citywide wireless Internet access. MobilePro Corp. and Strix Systems have been contracted to provide a mesh network covering the entire city, which is to be in place by late summer or early fall. Downtown Tempe and the Arizona State University will have free access available, while the rest of the city will be offered monthly subscriptions ($20 for dial-up speed and $30 to $40 for high-speed wireless). Local broadband suppliers have been quiet on this, unlike elsewhere."
Networking

New Computer Powered By PoE 354

Posted by Zonk from the it's-everywhere dept.
BlakeCaldwell writes "BBC News is reporting about a new PC that's powered via a network cable rather than through a wall socket. The computer only requires 12 watts, lower than the upper limit of 15.4 watts that power over ethernet (PoE) can supply. FTA: 'PoE could end up being a universal power supply system as the cables and connectors for it are the same all over the world. By contrast power sockets and plugs differ by country.'"
Power

Nuclear Fusion Discovered 317

Posted by Zonk from the not-the-power-generating-kind dept.
prostoalex writes "Both USA Today and The New York Times are reporting on research group from UCLA led by Seth J. Putterman which has discovered a form of nuclear fusion. The impact of the discovery? 'While the device is probably too inefficient to produce electricity or other forms of energy, the scientists say, egg-size fusion generators could someday find uses in spacecraft thrusters, medical treatments and scanners that search for bombs.' The findings are published in Nature magazine."
Communications

Nokia Announces Hard-Drive Phone 410

Posted by timothy from the great-for-long-annoying-drives dept.
blorg writes "The new N91 features a 4gb microdrive and a 2 megapixel digital camera, and plays music in MP3, AAC and WMV formats. With this phone, Nokia reckons it has an iPod killer and aims to become the largest seller of portable MP3 players this year, having already outstripped camera manufacturers in the photography market. However, as the BBC points out, people are not necessarily buying these phones for their camera or music features."
Power

Room-Temperature, Small-Scale Fusion at UCLA 448

Posted by timothy from the warms-the-cockles-of-your-heart dept.
gnuman99 writes "A UCLA collaboration (Seth Putterman, Brian Naranjo and Jim Gimzewski) appear to have developed a fusion device powered by a pyroelectric crystal, a type of crystal used in cell phones to filter signals. When heated, such a crystal produces a large electric charge on its surface. The UCLA researchers placed a lithium tantalate (LiTaO3) pyroelectric crystal so that one side touches a copper disc. A tiny tungsten probe is then placed at the center of the copper disc. When the crystal is subsequently heated, a very large large electric field is produced at the end of the tugsten tip, ~25 billion volts per meter. This field gradient is so high that it strips the electrons from nearby deuterium atoms. The ionized deuterium atoms then accelerated by this field towards a solid target of erbium deuteride (ErD2). They collide with it at such high energies that some fuse with the target. A measurement of almost 900 neutrons per second was observed. This is 400 times the background! Although the amount of energy produced in this initial experiment was miniscule (~1E-8 jules), this technology could be used for things like microthrusters. There are pictures and movies on the UCLA's physics site." Reader richmlpdx adds a link to coverage at MSNBC.
Movies

Distributed DVD Back-up Solution? 80

Posted by Cliff from the more-processors-are-better-than-one dept.
SoBeIcedT asks: "I just bought the third season of 24 [fox.com] on DVD and have begun to back it up to DVD+R using DVD-Shrink on Windows XP. Being the gadget loving guy I am, it makes sense that I would have multiple computers. The trouble is I can't make use of all of those CPU cycles and they go to waste. Is there a way (perhaps using clusterKnoppix or something of the sort) that I can easily use all of the processor power in my home to transcode the DVDs?" dvd::rip is one option that has clustering support. Are there any others?
Desktops (Apple)

Apple Updates Power Mac Line 686

Posted by CmdrTaco from the but-i-want-it-now dept.
Phreck writes "Apple has announced an upgrade to its Power Mac line today. The new Power Macs all feature dual G5 processors, 512 MB RAM, and dual-layer 16x SuperDrives. On the low end is the dual 2.0GHz with 160GB HD and ATI Radeon 9600. The mid-range includes dual 2.3GHz processors with 250GB HD and ATI Radeon 9600. The top-end system has dual 2.7GHz processors with 250GB HD and ATI Radeon 9650. The processors are not the dual-core variety as has been rumored for weeks now."
It's funny. Laugh.

Snails Edge Out ADSL 205

Posted by timothy from the little-tiny-station-wagons dept.
Anonymous writes "Dear Sirs, Following our experiment last year, and after long preparations, we have successfully proved that certain gastropods called African giant snails can be faster then ADSL and ... pigeons. The system we have used, called SNAP (SNAil-based data transfer Protocol), uses biological carriers (snails), and, for the first time, taking advantages of the unique merits of the wheel for data transfer. More details can be found here."

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