Thermaltake Level 10

Are you considering replacing your computer - or even assemble a new one yourself?

Then, what about forgetting the traditional "boxes" that we call computer cases and go for something a bit more... stylish?
Just take a look at this Level 10 from Thermaltake?

If you thought they wouldn't have the guts to built it, you were wrong. This TT Level 10 is real and can be yours next month - provided you're willing to spend $700 in a computer case. :)

Google Chrome OS [Video]

Check how Google's Chrome OS might look:


Update, here's a real video:



Old fake video:


Do you like it?
With something so lightweight and web-based as this Chrome OS looks, it would be a lot better to implement it as Splashtop does: using a specialized USB-like module directly connected to the motherboard, and allowing for "instant-on" operation.

That would really make a difference: motherboards with Chrome OS built in!

Pericentric Lens

Imagine you were asked to figure a way to capture an image from a cylindrical object (like a soda can or battery) where you could see one its top and all around... in a single take!

I understand this isn't a common request for most people, but it's highly common in industrial image/vision systems for quality inspection, etc.

Sure there are a lot of ways you could do it. It's no secret you could simply use mirrors, or multiple cameras (cameras are cheap these days) but then you'd have to have further image processing to correctly assemble and stitch together all those bits and pieces. Why complicate matters? All you need is the right tool for the job: in this case, a pericentric lens.

Think of it as the exact opposite of a wide angle "fisheye" lens, allowing you to capture images like these:

... well, maybe it's simpler to show it to yout this way:

[images from opto-engineering]

Indeed, the side image shows up highly distorted (but that can be easily fixed by digital image processing if that happens to be necessary) but it solves the problem of acquiring an image of such an object in just one shot.

This special type of lens, along with entocentric and telecentric lens (not to mention spectral imaging lens) are highly specialized and you won't likely ever see one outdoors... But I thought it would be interesting to show you the secret these lens hold. :)

Optical Illusion

Some more mesmerizing optical illusions, this time from the late Jerry Andrus.

Digital Wallpaper via Projection Mapping

Here's another interesting example of how to use projection mapping top bring new life into a shop's digital wallpaper.

Check the video:


Hirzberger Events - Digital Wallpaper from Gregor Hofbauer on Vimeo.

Multicore 3D Animation

Now that multicore CPUs with 4 and 8 cores are getting popular (and 16 and 32 cores will soon follow) its time we start using it to its full potential.

Intel has been hard at work trying to improve gamers experience. Why should your multicore CPU spend most of its time idling when it could be put to good use improving the scenery (for example)?

That what you can see in these Intel Demos (with full source-code.)

For instance, if you try their Horses demo in a dual-core CPU, you might get 235 horses running around the plains.

But if you run it in an 8 core i7, you'll see nearly 600 horses running around.

And the same thing can be done with particle systems as shown in this "Smoke" demo:

LG DVD Bluebirds

One annoying surprise I had when assembling my new PC came from where I least expected it: the LG CD/DVD drive.

Little did I know that this unsuspecting GH22NS50 DVD-RW from LG was soon to become a little bugger!

Right from the start I began experiencing some weird Bluebirds content in that drive, whenever the drive was empty.

After some googling around, I found that this particular LG GH22NS50 model has some programs in its firmware, and it "mounts" that image whenever the drive is empty! Unbelievable!

Annoying, but easily fixable: you'll just need to update its firmware to a bluebird-less version!

And I hope that's the last of these experiments coming from LG or any other drive manufacturer.

Microsoft Courier Tablet

I'd really like to see this happening. When half the world is anxiously waiting for the upcoming Apple Tablet, what if Microsoft secretly launched an amazing product like this Courier Tablet PC?

More than a simple "tablet", this Courier is more like a digital booklet, with two screens - and dual-mode touchscreens for stylus and touch input.

But, more important than the hardware itself, is the software and the interface that its users will use day in and day out... and from what we can see in the following video, they seem to have that covered (though it still looks a bit futuristic to me and not "production-ready" at this time.)

But, that's exactly what MS needs right now. Having lost its edge in the smartphone market with Apple's iPhone revolution, this Courier could be just the thing Microsoft needs to arm itself in the upcoming digital book/tablet war.



... and if they really wanted to make a differente... they'd  launch this "Courier OS" as an open-source platform (just like Google did with Android) and then I'd like to see some faces at Apple's camp! :)

Zune HD OLED vs iPhone LCD

It's hard showing the differences between different screen technologies when you'll be watching it on an LCD (therefore, making it impossible to "see" the wider color ranger from an OLED display) but here's a video showcasing the new Zune HD OLED screen right next to the iPhone LCD.



I think it's just a matter of time before Apple uses an OLED screen in its iPhone - it's more efficient and thinner - they just need to sort a few more issues, like its outdoor performance when facing direct sunlight (where the iPhone LCD still behaves a lot better than an OLED screen.)

Gmail gets Google Sync Push

At last, Gmail is now PUSH enabled through Google Sync. No doubt you were already using its push services for contacts and calendar, but now your email can now be always updated in your mobile device.

What are you waiting for? :)

LittleDog learns new Tricks

Do you remember BigDog? The awkward looking robot that seems impossible to take down?
Well, it's little brother - LittleDog - has been learning some new tricks at MIT, and will "walk" even better. Tricks that will later be integrated into its larger brother.

It can now leap into the air, keeping its weight in just two legs (shown at around 1:44 in the next video):


And even some Shaolin magic, walking on stakes!

Instant Translation

It's no secret sci-fi movies have mastered the art of instant translation decades ago... But it seems we're finally turning it into a reality.

Just check this amazing instant translation system currently being used in Iraq, by Kristin Precoda, a speech translation researcher at SRI International.

Google UFO-mania explained

Looks like Google's UFO fascination is now officially explained.

If you remember, it all began with a single letter being abducted by aliens:

Then came the mysterious crop-circles:

And now... the reason behind it all, H.G.Wells anniversary. And all this being a reference to his classic "War of the Worlds." :)

XBMC Transparency v2 Theme

Looking for a drop-dead-gorgeous Media Center? Look no further!
Watch the amazing XBMC with this incredible Transparency v2 theme.




I dare you to resist it!

Eee Keyboard arriving in October?

Better late than never I guess. Looks like Asus' Eee Keyboard has a confirmed launch date for October.

I don't deny this is one of the gadgets I do want to try out myself (and it even comes with wireless HDMI - making it perfect for living room action.)

I just wished it came with a more modern CPU/chipset, instead of that -now oldy- Intel Atom.
(at least give us a Dual-Core Atom, or Ion, or anything else that can properly play FullHD streams, Asus.)

Multitouch Firefox

So you just bought the latest multitouch PC you could get - but now... what to do with it if your favorite web browser doesn't use it as well as it should?

Well, seems like we won't have to wait for long. Soon, Firefox will have full multi-touch capabilities.

Just peek the following video:


Multitouch on Firefox from Felipe on Vimeo.

Blogger with "Read More"

It might have take them a while (ten years!) but we can finally do a "Read More" section in Blogger/Blogspot without cumbersome hacks!

Why should you care? Well, if you write long posts you can now easily separate a introductory section from the longer main section, improving readability in your blog. (Without forcing your readers to scroll through endless pages of information they're not interested in.).

How does it work?

It's simple, just click the new icon in the blogger post editor:

That will allow you to hide everything after the break from your main blog page.

Google Chrome 3.0

Good news, we just got a new Google Chrome update (to version 3.0) and to show just how Chrome has been pushing javascript forward, nothing like a quick visit to...

Chrome Experiments. A site where you'll be amazed by everything you can now do without requiring Flash nor any other external plugins:

WebGL - Open GL in Browser (Javascript)

Proving (once again) that most of our future will be inside our browser windows, here's another example of things to come: Rendering accelerated javascript 3D graphics via Open GL ES - WebGL. :)

Google Aliens and Crop Circles

Just the other day Google was being abducted by Aliens:

Today, we face another UFO related logo: crop circles.

Is Google preparing the world to announce something truly amazing - like, the existence of alien visitors in our world? (Hehe, I'm stating a new conspiracy theory! :)

How to Open the iPod 5th Gen

Because there's thins thing about boys wanting to know the insides of their new toys, the ifixit website has already done a complete teardown of the new 5th gen iPod Nano and revealed all its secrets.

Sure, I wouldn't advise doing this to your new iPod.... but if the time comes when you have nothing to lose and want to know if you can fix it, you'll know how to do it.

Military Unmanned Vehicles

These military contractors have all the fun...

Just check out these two unmanned vehicles you'll be likely to see zooming across the battlefields in the near future - though, I find these would be put to much better use as recreational manned vehicles! :)

Ripsaw


Although, for bumpy streets, this Crusher might be more appropriate:

LG 15" OLED at IFA

If you had any doubts about the upcoming 15" OLED from LG, here they are, at IFA 2009.



Of course, besides its extreme thinness (which you can see in the video) they'll have amazing color quality - but that you won't be able to see in any CRT/LCD monitor. But don't worry... if a couple of years we'll have OLED screens all around use.

And I can't even dare to imagine how these millimeter-thickness screen will allow laptop designers to come up with... :)

AMD Eyefinity - Multimonitor for the Masses?

If AMD is having a hard time keeping up with Intel in the CPU field, ATI on the other hand is keeping Nvidia well in check. And now AMD/ATI is about to introduce Eyefinity - which might be the very first step to bring multi-monitor systems to the masses.

Just like many gamers now have SLI/Crossfire setups in their computers, lots of them don't have a problem having several monitors. But, until now, multimonitor gaming isn't easy, monitors are treated as separate entities - but with AMD/ATI's Eyefinity you can now group a bunch of monitors as if it was a single one.

Considering how LCD prices increase with size, I'm sure there are a lot of people out there that would prefer spending the same amount of money in six 24" LCDs than in a single 30" monitor!
Though not everyone will have the space to do something like this:

(24 monitors  11,520 x 4,800 - 55.3 megapixels - 4 graphic cards)

And while the the bezel around the screen is kind of annoying, even that can be minimized if you opt to buy thin-bezel LCDs, like these ones from Samsung.

In one of the demos, a single card with a single GPU was able to run the GRID racing game in six 30" monitores, at 7680 x 3200 - which is s sign of things to come.

If you love wide-screen, high-resolution gaming... Eyefinity might be just what you were waiting for!

Apple News

Yesterday was the day Apple presented us with some updates. And here it is:

iPod Nano 5G

The new iPod nano has some enhanced colors and... a video camera - among other things:

• Video camera (640x480) - (though, no still photos!)
• Integrated speaker and microphone
• Voice recorder
• 10% larger LCD (2.2")
• Voice Over
  
• FM radio!
• YouTube upload (via computer)
• Pedometer with online Nike+ sync
  

The 8GB now costs 139 euros, while the 16GB version costs 169 euros. (Who will buy the 8GB version when they can get twice the storage for just 30 euros more?)

The video camera can do some real-time effects on the video, such as black-and-white, "psycadelic" effects, and even an "x-ray vision" mode.


iPod Touch 

The iPod Touch, failed to do much of an impression - the most noticeable thing was the absence of a video camer (people were expecting it to have one - but it sounds like those rumors about hardware problems actually were right about it.)

Prices dropped (the 8GB model costs 189 euros) and there are larger capacity models with 32GB (279 eur) and 64GB (369 euros).

The hardware was updated, and it's nos 50% faster - making it an ideal pocket computer and portable game machine, and becoming the cheapest way to access the App Store and its millions of Apps. In fact, it looks like Apple is now looking to the game business as a really good way to push the iPod Touch, which now have OpenGL|ES v2.0 and offer the easiest way for gamers to get their games (App Store.)


New iTunes 9

I'm not a big fan of iTunes, but it does look like it's getting "less" annoying and offering some interesting features that might make me give it a second chance.

• Facebook and Twitter integration
  
• iTunes LP - the digital version of the old LP covers (and more.)
  
• iPhone App management done right (at last!)
• Home Sharing
• Faster performance in Windows PCs

Also, don't forget to update your iPhone/iPod Touch to the latest OS 3.1 - so you can have full access to all those new features.
(Though, if you have an unlocked/jailbroken iPhone... you might want to wait a bit more to ensure you won't break anything :)


Some other annoucements: a new iPod shuffle, and the iPod classic now was 160Gb storage space; and that's about it.

Daily News

What news will Apple bring us today? Why does Microsoft keeps messing up? Did you notice what day is today? And how about a trip to Vegas to try out their new multitouch toy? That's what you can read about next...

Apple Event

Today, Apple will finally reveal its latest gadgets - and while everything is kept secret, rumors are buzzing around like crazy.
The most likely is that we'll be presented the new iPods (with integrated camera) and a new iTunes (as well as a new iPhone OS update).
The much awaited iTablet from Apple won't likely be show today. And the "rock and roll" motto has people wondering if it has anything to do with the arrival of the Beatles entire catalog to iTunes.

But... I hope they do have some nice surprise to keep us off balance. :)


Microsoft Messing Up


It's unbelievable Microsoft keeps messing up. For starters... some serious security flaws that allow a remote attacker to crash your system. This bug affects Vista/Windows 7/e Win2008 Server (XP is unaffected as it uses an older version SMB.)
But... how do they want us to upgrade from XP to a newer MS OS when these things pop up almost every single day?

Maybe that's why they're stance seems to be lying about the competition:

... though I'd advise them to make their own products better, so they wouldn't publicly look like this:

Highest Resolution Multitouch in the World


Like super-sized wide-screens? What if it turns out to be an interactive multitouch screen allowing up to six simultaneous users?

That's the latest piece of technology developed by Obscura Digital for the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas, and it can handle hundreds of high resolution images and videos in a way that would make a "Surface" eat its heart out.

Just wach it:





Funny Date 09/09/09

In case you haven't noticed yet, today is 09/09/09 (a date we don't have to worry about being in either US/Euro format ;)
Maybe you did watch to see the time zip by at 09:09:09 on this 09/09/09... But don't worry too much, in case you've missed it you'll be able to catch it again next year at 10:10:10 on the 10/10/10 (and so on until 2012... then you'll have to wait another century or so :)

New Intel CPUs: the i5 and new i7s

Looks like Intel's newest CPUs are arriving, and these new Core i7 and i5 have a lot to offer.

The people at MaximumPC have done an excellent detailed analysis of these new CPUs, but I'll leave you with some highlights.

These new i7 and i5 were designed with one thing in mind: cost reduction. While the existing i7 CPUs offer amazing performance, they're also quite expensive - being reserved for the "high-end" range of the market, like professional use and hardcore gamers.
In the new series, some of its specs were tweaked - gone is the triple-channel memory; while the PCI-e controller is now integrated in the CPU - allowing the design of much cheaper motherboards.

While a bit more restricted, this configuration allows you to have amazing performance (similar and even better than the older i7-920) at a much lower price point. This will do for most people - leaving the "hardcore" segment with their higher performance X58 motherboards for full SLI power, etc.

One of the major issues is: these new i7 and i5 use a new socket: the LGA1156.This means that you can now have an i7 CPU that doen's fit a i7 motherboard (I think this was a bad move by Intel - but, they'll have their reasons.)

Now, you'll have to check if your i7 has a LGA1156 or the "regular" LGA1366 socket.
The LGA1156 will be a lot cheaper; but if you're planning on upgrading your CPU next year, for something like the upcoming i9 6-core/12-threads CPUs... you'll need to use the LGA1366.

However, for most people, the amazing performance/price ratio of these new i7/i5 processors will surely make them irresistible.

Dream PC

While my new computer (auto-translated link, sorry) testing is still in process, how about we take a look at some amazing examples of how computers can be more than a simple black box?

Computers like this Edelweiss.

An amazing masterpiece.
But, back to reality, too bad I'll have to settle for a more affordable (and common) computer case! :)

Naked Aspire One

A friend of mine had to recently open up his trusted Acer One netbook (unfortunately for a bad reason: to put it back as it was originally to send it back to the factory for fixing) and he took the time to take some pictures.

So, if you're curious about how the Acer One looks on the inside, just click ahead:

Rolling Shutter Video Correction

If you're a video perfeccionist, you've probably seen what happens when you get video material captured with Rolling Shutter sensor camera. This usually happens in CMOS cameras, but can happen in any type of camera (even film cameras) that use a vertical sliding shutter.
(There are global shutter CMOS sensors, but those are usually used in professional applications.)

So, what's this problem? Just like the old interlaced CRT screens, this rolling shutter means the image is captured one line at a time, instead of being captured a full frame at once.
For static scenes this isn't a problem, but if you happen to be capturing moving subjects, it will introduce distortions (the faster they - or the camera - moves, the worse.)

It can lead to such abnormalities as these:

But now, thanks to the magic of digital video processing and this Rolling Shutter plugin for Adobe After Effects, you can fix most of it.

Nothing like a demo video to show you how everything works. :)

Daily News

How to vaporize 23 laptops, iPhones and iPods in half-a-minute; the world's most famous webpage is now patented; internet rendered games get closer; and much more...


Gone in 31 seconds

While most people carefully consider acquiring a new Macbook Pro, iPhone or iPod for several days (or even weeks) there are people that certainly have a faster (albeit illegal) way to do it. Check the following video to see how a group of thieves took 23 laptops, 14 iPhones and 9 iPods from an Apple Store in New Jersey.





Google gets webpage patent

It took them a while, but after five years Google managed to get a patent for its main search page.

I can't really say I'm fond about these kinds of patents - hey, let me page a blank page and claim royalties for it! - but... it's up to them.
I just hope they don't get to become some patent nazis likes some other companies out there - after all, it's all about the "do no evil" motto... right?


OnLive begins beta testing


Good news for all my american readers. Remember OnLive, that internet based game rendering that provides high quality graphics without requiring any of the high-end hardware?

Well, they're now accepting beta testers to begin real-world tryouts.

I believe this is the kind of technology that will make be running everything in the near future, from games to plain regular "computing". We'll just need a "dumb" efficient terminal, without power-hungry hardware, and everything will be stramed from those big servers out there.
(And stop worrying about upgrading our hardware to run the latest games :)

Keyboard with trackpad

If you hate having your hand jumping back and forth between mouse and keyboard, this is the keyboard you need:

The Adesso AKB-440 offers an integrated trackpad in the area you'd usually find your cursor keys. Sounds like a good option for me... Care to send me one for reviewing? :)

Low Cost Petabyte Storage

In a time where I - myself - am still looking for a reliable, simple, and cheap way to keep my data safe (my main computer crashed a few days ago, and I'm still painstakingly slowly recovering data from it) this blog post jumped to my attention: talking about BackBlaze solutions to its large-scale storage needs.

To start with, lets analyze how much a petabytes costs these days (if you don't know what a petabyte is, its 1000 Terabytes, and 1TB equals 1 Gigabyte; to put it in perspective, 1PB equals about 227 thousand DVD-R discs.)

As you can see, the cost difference between the raw hard drives and what most companies charge you is substantial - which is why BackBlaze decided to build their own storage solution (just like Google does) and now shares their secrets with all of us.

The solution they come up with is their BackBlaze PODs, each holding 67TB and costing just $7,687.

The access to all this data is done - not via iSCSI, NFS, SQL, or Fibre Channel - but *exclusively* via HTTPS.

For all the details and a complete hardware and price list for these pods be sure to read the full post on how to build a petabyte storage solution at low cost.



I wouldn't need that many space for myself... but I'm glad they decided to share it with us so we can use some of their ideas. :)