karvind writes "Physorg is reporting that Samsung Electronics has developed the world's largest liquid crystal display panel. This 82-inch TFT-LCD is 17 inches larger than LCD flat panel previously developed by Sharp. This development challenges plasma display panels in this market area. This full HD image quality (1,920 x 1,080 pixels) TFT-LCD panel was developed at the company's new production complex in Tangjeong, Korea. The soon-to-be operational 7th-generation production facility uses glass substrates that measure 1.87m x 2.20m."

ikewillis writes "Intel has introduced a new wireless networking standard called 802.11s. This standard utilizes a mesh topology, allowing for fully self-configuring networks where each node can relay messages on behalf of others, thus increasing the range and available bandwidth with the number of nodes active within the system, versus the point-to-point structure of existing WiFi networks. This will radically transform WiFi hotspots, allowing the geographical area and available bandwidth on the network to scale with the number of participants."

ThinSkin writes "Over at ExtremeTech, we have reviewed the RollerMousePRO, an ergonomic input device that claims to reduce pain and discomfort associated with repetitive mouse use while also increasing productivity. The idea behind the product is to have a fully functional docking station for your keyboard that allows you to navigate a cursor without much hand movement. There is an interesting Flash demo that illustrates how this works." Using a roller-bar beneath the keyboard may remind some people of the Outbound Macintosh-based laptop.

neutron_p writes "A former Soviet Union military development finds its use in modern technology and still remains fascinating." The development comes in the form of a flexible microwire, 10 micrometers thick and 10cm long, with a metal body and a glass coating, which the linked article says "can store 10 Gigabytes of information. It is possible thanks to their magnetic properties. Anyway, it's not that easy. Researchers say that the greatest difficulty will be with the reading of information."

Ken Hansen writes "It was with great anticipation that I pre-ordered Apple I Replica Creation by Tom Owad -- I'd always been interested in 'classic' hardware, and the Apple I came just before I got interested in computers (the late '70s -- timeshare terminals, TRS-80s, and my first computer, the SYM-1). I'd seen the story on Wired about Vince Briel's Replica 1 project, and wanted to try it out. When the book arrived, I quickly scanned it, and it looked pretty good: sections on the history of the Apple I, instructions on how to build the Replica I from Vince Briel, programming the Replica I in both BASIC and 6502 assembler, and some details on how the actual Apple I and Replica I hardware works. Then I started reading the book ..." Read on for the rest of Hansen's review.

ScooterMcGoo writes "According to a Microsoft Watch blog, WinFS is being back ported for Windows XP. From TFA: WinFS isn't dead, Tom Rizzo, Microsoft's director of product management for SQL Server, recently told Microsoft Watch. In fact, Microsoft is planning to provide an update on the technology at this year's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in September, he said. Rizzo said that Microsoft is busily back-porting the WinFS file-system technology to Windows XP. It's unclear if Microsoft also is porting WinFS to Windows Server 2003, but such a move would be likely, given that the Redmond software vendor is doing so with Avalon and Indigo."

An anonymous reader writes "AltiVec? Velocity Engine? VMX? If you've only been casually following PowerPC development, you might be confused by the various guises of this vector processing SIMD technology. This article covers the basics on what AltiVec is, what it does -- and how it stacks up against its competition."

VL writes "Do-It-Yourself Phase Change Cooling Systems are built and used by a few folks, but they can be complicated to build, mostly messy, and dangerous; certainly not something you should get into without knowing what you are doing. But as with anything like this, there is always a turn key solution brought to market you can buy. Enter asetek, and their VapoChill series of Phase Change Cooling systems. What we have on the review bench here specifically is the asetek VapoChill Lightspeed [AC], a case separate enclosure containing a Phase Change Cooling system for your PC's CPU."

An anonymous reader writes "Virgin Radio, one of UK's top radio stations, has launched the first 3G radio service for free (as in beer). This is great news for those with a Symbian equipped phone and an unlimited data plan. Various articles suggest that mobile radio could be a major threat to satellite radio. Russell Beattie and friends have had an initial look and commented on the program."

Kerhop writes "ecoustics.com has an article on how to convert SVHS tapes to work in DVHS recorders which is similar to modifying a floppy drive (like we did years ago) to double the storage. There's two holes on a DVHS cassette and a single hole on the SVHS tape. The hole common to both permits DVHS tapes to handle SVHS signals; the hole unique to DVHS is what we want to focus on. Just cut off the top four to five millimeters of the pin within the recorder itself."

lopati writes "Europhysics News writes about a new ergonomical mouse called Horse (jpeg) that reduces repetitive stress injuries by allowing 'the three middle fingers to adopt a flexed position to relax the tendons' and including a thumb scrool [sic:] wheel. Just a few simple changes for so much more comfort!"

An anonymous reader writes "A startup in Santa Clara, Calif. is shipping a Linux-based mesh router aimed at VoIP and video. The Mesh Dynamics Module uses multiple radios -- along with custom real-time Linux extensions -- to create a duplexing backhaul network said to improve bandwidth more than 64 times over conventional mesh technology. Normal, single-radio access points function in a half-duplex manner, a limitation that reduces bandwidth by 50 percent for each hop in the mesh. Mesh Dynamics is attempting to solve this problem by dedicating separate radios to upstream and downstream traffic of a 'backhaul' network that relays traffic between mesh nodes, thus simulating full-duplex operation."

wertarbyte writes "According to the German IT news site Heise, german Telekom and the german railway corporation Deutsche Bahn have formed an alliance to equip the ICE high speed trains with WLAN access (Babelfish translation), as well as the stations those trains arrive at. This offer is aimed at business travellers, and will first be introduced on routes frequented by those ("travel time is usable time")."

conJunk writes "The BBC has an interesting story about Ants and their leaderless collective behavior. It goes on to describe these cool little robots called U-bots. They have a super-simple instruction set and if you let them loose in a room full of frisbees it looks, to the casual observer, like intelligent and guided work." From the article: "Being small is going to be a problem. So how can you get a whole bunch of dumb small things doing something smart?"

tl writes "netzstaub has posted an extensive interview with Adam Dunkels, a computer scientist working in the field of wireless sensor networks and author of the open source lwIP and uIP embedded TCP/IP stacks, the Contiki OS, and the Protothreads library. The interview touches on protothreads, sensor networks, TCP/IP, Contiki, and embedded software development. Many Slashdot readers probably remember the tiny Contiki OS from previous articles where, not surprisingly, clustering has been discussed. From reading the interview, it seems Contiki clusters now have come true."

randomErr writes "In one for the first article on the new O'Reilly MAKE magizine we see how to recharge your iPod with a crank. The "Torronesque" project was based on the idea of coming up with a project and buiding it even if it has no immediate purpose. Imagine getting a little power charge every time you press a key or open your phone or laptop."

Cryofan writes "Michael Copps, one of the five members of the FCC, spoke on the recent controversy over legislation to outlaw municipal WiFi: "I think we do a grave injustice in trying to hobble municipalities. That's an entrepreneurial approach, that's an innovative approach. Why don't we encourage that instead of having bills introduced--'Oh, you can't do this because it's interfering with somebody's idea of the functioning of the marketplace...a municipality is a democratically run institution. They can make their own decisions. They don't need the Bells. They don't need the Administration, and they don't need me telling them what kind of decision they should be making.'"

News for nerds writes "AIST and NEDO announced they have developed 2 bipedal dinosaur robots for the EXPO 2005 Aichi, Japan(Mar.25-Sep.25). PC Watch has an article with pics/movies and TBS News has a movie. Tyrannosaurus Rex and Parasaurolophus are modeled as 3.5m/80kg robots, and cost $1.8 million to build. They can roar and walk with an artificial pounding sound, but not as fearsome as Mechagodzilla. The external skin is designed by Kokoro Co., Ltd. and the endoskelton is developed by Kawada Industries, Inc. which is the manufacturer of the HRP-2 Humanoid Robot."

paulius_g asks: "I have an eMachines laptop running Windows and I would like to know how today's geeks monitor their laptops caracteristics (CPU temperature, fan speeds, SMART, etc.) There are software to monitor normal motherboards, but laptop motherboards are usually unsupported on these kinds of software. I am in desperate need in such a software as my laptop overheats a lot while the fan is running at a low speed. So, what do you use to monitor your laptop?"

jasonmicron writes "The Houston Chronicle is reporting that if certain state officials have their way, cities in the state of Texas will no longer be able to offer free WiFi to their citizens. This could set a dangerous precedent if passed, as broadband providers could start lobbying officials in the other 49 states to ban free WiFi as well. According to the article, Pennsylvania has already fallen victim to such a law but it excluded Philedelphia due to the city's 'existing efforts.'"