Posted 02/08/10 at 09:07:22 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Asus is apparently making plans to release their first Pine Trail powered all-in-one PC. The Eee Top ET1610PT will come equipped with the fairly new Intel Atom D410 single core CPU, and of course, Intel integrated graphics. The PC will have a 15.6 inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1600x900. It will also come equipped with 802.11n Wi-Fi, which is a nice feature on a low end machine.

Strangely, this new PC will come with Windows XP preinstalled. You read that right, no Windows 7 on this bad boy. The presence of that touchscreen display makes the decision to go with XP just that much more baffling. The machine is expected to go for 400 Euros when is ships.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 08:04:51 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Are you searching for just the right outing for you and your special someone this Valentine’s Day? Well, look no further, Barnes and Noble will have Nooks available in stores for you to actually buy. Name just one thing more romantic than swinging by your local retail establishment to buy a new gadget. We sure can’t come up with anything.

The bookseller was caught off guard by demand for their ebook reader this past holiday season, with preorders spilling over into January. Barnes and Noble has had limited numbers of demo units in their retail locations since shortly after launch, but now you can actually take one home. This was cited as a main advantage over Amazon’s offering.

The Nook is a compelling alternative to the Kindle for some. The Nook runs the Android operating system, and a dedicated modding community has even gained root access to its Android core. Now that the production delays have finally been sorted out, we’ll see just how many people walk out of a Barnes and Noble with a Nook.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 07:08:38 PM by Ryan Whitwam

There’s been much discussion of the reasons for the long life of the current generation of game consoles, but it looks like one of them may finally be on the way out. It turns out to be the one most in need of a hardware refresh, the Wii. According to a statement from Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo is currently working on new hardware.

There isn’t much to go on beyond that. The company has previously downplayed the need for a new version of the ultra-successful Wii. It is possible we will just see a slightly modified Wii console, and not an entirely new generation?

So in a year you could find yourself with a Wii HD, or maybe just a Wii that lets you dock that DSi XL you totally have. What would you want to see in a new Nintendo console? Does it need to have HD to compete?

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Posted 02/08/10 at 06:30:00 PM by Alex Castle

After our USB 3.0 coverage last week, we figured it would be a good time to turn our attention back to USB 2.0 (aka High Speed), and one of the classic nerd hobbies: USB hacking. Because of its highly-accessible wiring, USB can be easily modified for all sorts of purposes, even by neophyte hardware hackers. In the past, we've shown you how to perform some simple hacks, but now we want to highlight some of our favorite hacks created by members of the DIY community.

Some are of questionable utility, some of them are downright dangerous, but all of them are good, old-fashioned fun. Read on for our picks for the 10 most amazing USB hacks!

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Posted 02/08/10 at 06:08:25 PM by Jason Barry

The Stream Modular computing concept isn’t exactly a new idea, but it was always talked about in a high-level conceptual way. Barton Smith, Industrial Engineer and key proponent to modular computing, created a nice demo of some of the interfacing ideas that are carried through the conceptual design using his Locus OS.

Within the idea of Stream Modular computing, you would purchase single purpose computing devices to satisfy a desired “experience” or function, rather than using many all-purpose devices to accomplish specific tasks.

He released a video of the interfaces one would expect to find on these “modules” and how they interact with each other through “experiences.” The modular computing paradigm may not be ready for real-world acceptance, but some of the design and interface concepts are too cool to ignore.

Check out the video and more detailed explanation, after the jump.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 05:39:05 PM by Jason Barry

An FCC filing from Dell leaked some new information about the new Mini 10 that is expected to be released later this year. The upgraded netbook will feature Intel’s latest WiFi-Link 6250, which incorporates 4G WiMax and 802.11n wireless support onto a single chip.

There are still some details missing such as an expected launch date and what, if any, other upgrades can be expected to the existing hardware. It can be expected that Dell will launch the WiMax models with compatibility with Clear and Sprint, as they are currently the only widely available 4G network providers.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 04:52:22 PM by Bart Salisbury

If you live by the sword, there’s a good chance you’ll die by the sword. So it goes with technology. Once introduced, regardless of how beneficent the intent, there’s always a dark side to be explored, and no shortage of people willing to find out what that dark side holds.

In this case the dark side is really obvious. Alternative Production Solutions (APS) is working on an Electronic Key Impressioner (EKI). The EKI eliminates the “tedious job of manual lock impressioning".  Instead, this USB device “electronically maps the inside of a lock” and provides a key code within a matter of seconds. With a key code in hand it’s a simple matter for a locksmith to cut a working key. Whatever was locked becomes unlocked.

The EKI is designed for use on wafter tumbler locks--the type that keep your house secure, and your older model car protected when left unattended. APS says the EKI will only be available to locksmiths and “authorized security professionals”, but, given the way the world seems to work, that’s not a comforting assurance.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 04:14:52 PM by Bart Salisbury

Corsair’s bumping up the specs on its SSD line-up, with the introduction of two new series of SATA-II 2.5-inch drives: Nova and Reactor.

In addition to the SATA-II interface, the drives will use the Indilinx Barefoot controller and MLC NAND. The Nova series will have a 64MB cache and capacities of 64GB and 128GB. The Reactor series will have a 128MB cache and capacities of 60GB and 120GB.

Read/write speeds are pretty snappy for each. The Nova series will max out at 215MB/s  for reading, and writing speeds of 130MB/s for the V64 drive, and 195MB/s for the V128 drive. The Reactor’s read/write speeds are higher still, with read speeds topping out at 250MB/s, and write speeds of 110MB/s for the R60 drive and 170MB/s for the R120 drive.

An added bonus on the Reactor series is a mini-USB port, in addition to the SATA II 3.0Gbps interface.

All four drives are expected to be available in the next few weeks. But, so far, they only seem available in Europe. And, even with exchange rates in mind, they don’t look to be priced for the cost-conscious. Fudzilla reports the lowest prices for the Nova series as €160.11 ($224) and €303.35 ($425), and for the Reactor series €151.67 ($212) and €294.93 ($413).

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Posted 02/08/10 at 03:45:00 PM by Gordon Mah Ung

The GPU might be hailed as the new heir to the computing throne, but a stroll through any big-box PC retailer doesn’t bear that out—very few PCs under $900 even have discrete graphics cards. Instead, in the vast majority of machines for sale, the lowly, spat-upon integrated graphics rule the roost.

According to John Karabian, a product manager with No. 2 PC maker Acer, for the average consumer, it’s still just about the big three: CPU, RAM, and hard drive: “They know a 3.2GHz Core i7 is going to be slower than a 3.33GHz Core i7, 4GB is better than 2GB, and 1TB is better than 500GB.” The graphics card, Karabian said, is just something most consumers don’t think about, and if they do, it’s in a negative way. “The perception, it seems, in the marketplace, is that discrete graphics are only for gamers,” said Karabian.

Randy Copeland, president of Velocity Micro, agreed that the average consumer couldn’t care less about graphics in today’s market. Although Velocity Micro’s PCs are above the mainstream $900 PC, and all include graphics cards, he said it is difficult to market the benefits of the GPU to consumers.

“They don’t get the value of that graphics card unless there is a blue shirt there walking them through it,” Copeland said. “You don’t have a whole lot of space to sell someone a computer. It’s limited to the four or five bullet points [on the price tag], and that’s your sales pitch.”

Continue reading after the jump.

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Posted 02/08/10 at 03:24:58 PM by Bart Salisbury

Google’s continuing to push technological boundaries. In language, Google has been working on both text translation and voice recognition. It only seems logical to combine the two for real-time speech translation. And even better yet, real-time speech translation built into the software of a smartphone.

“We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time,” said Franz Och, Google’s head of translation services, “Clearly, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that’s what we’re working on.”

It’s the smartphone that Google hopes will aid this quest. Because smartphones are personal, it’s possible to have them learn the speech patterns and intonations of the user. The software doesn’t have to master all language possibilities, just yours. This would simplify the task of providing a machined-based translation.

While Google’s idea is interesting, not all are convinced a solution is right around the corner. David Crystal, an honorary professor of linguistics at Bangor University, says, “The problem with speech recognition is the variability in accents. No system at the moment can handle that properly.” Crystal says its possible Google will get their first, but it will probably take a few years longer than than expected.

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