Nvidia Intros Dual-GPU Card Next Month?

Nvidia is supposedly releasing a dual-GPU card next month to rival AMD's similar offering.

ZoomLast week brought reports that Nvidia confirmed the name of its upcoming dual-GPU card slated for a February launch.

Called the GeForce GTX 590, the card is expected to arrive in the same time frame as AMD's similar offering, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990 "Antilles"also set for a supposed February release. Nvidia is also expected to launch the new card in the same manner as it did with the GeForce GTX 580: surprisingly sudden, catching AMD off-guard.

Xoom tablet picks up 'freedom' theme from Apple's iconic 1984 ad

Computerworld - Freedom is clearly a big theme in consumer technology marketing, going back to that iconic "1984" ad from Apple of the sledgehammer-wielding runner attacking Big Brother.

Motorola Mobility has updated that freedom theme in a new one-minute ad to air during this year's Super Bowl. Motorola contrasts its upcoming Xoom tablet with the Apple ipad by referencing 1984, the year.

In the 1984 ad, Apple itself was attacking a Big Brother image, explained by CEO Steve Jobs as IBM -- "IBM wants it all," he said at the time. But many viewers saw the ad as a shot at Microsoft, which made software running on IBM PCs. (This video shows Jobs introducing the 1984 ad and the ad itself. )

Today, the iPad dominates the tablet market.

Will Sandy Bridge issues delay new Apple MacBooks?

With Intel's surprising Sandy Bridge news suggesting new computers featuring the processors might see delays, we couldn't help but ask ourselves whether the Sandy Bridge issues mean new MacBook Pros will come later rather than sooner.

First of all, we have no idea when new MacBook Pros are hitting next. However, assuming they're due for a refresh within the next few months, a few things seem likely: They're going to receive new Sandy Bridge processors, including the older Core 2 Duo-toting 13-inch MacBook Pro. And, they'll likely arrive after the competition. At least, that's been the case for recent MacBook Pros, including last year's Core i-series updates.

Google Spent More on Lobbyists in 2010 Than Yahoo, Facebook & Apple Combined

Google dropped $5.16 billion on lobbyists in 2010, according to the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database. The sum represents a 29% increase over the $4 billion the company spent in 2009.

The search giant hired its first lobbyists in 2006 and has increased its spending in the category every year since.

With issues like net neutrality, online privacy and online trackinggetting legislative attention in 2010, it’s no surprise that the company’s lobbying budget continued to increase throughout the year. Google spent more money on lobbyists in 2010 than Yahoo, Facebook and Apple combined, the lobbying disclosure database reveals.

Is Amazon prepping an unlimited video streaming service to take on Netflix?

Netflix is doing good business with its unlimited streaming service, but Amazon is hoping to get in on that action itself. Rumor has it, they're prepping a competing service for Prime members.

Teenager from Indiana makes homemade 'death-ray' with 5,800 tiny mirrors

Everybody, say hello to the 19-year-old Eric Jacqmain — typical teenager during the day — "death-ray with intensity of 5,000 shining suns" builder by night. This boy is the next Dr. Evil.

How does a young lad like Jacqmain build a "death-ray" that's powerful enough to "melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant?" By gluing 5,800 tiny mirror tiles on top of a fiberglass satellite dish and drilling a hole on the back to allow light to shine through a translucent piece of plastic.

Egypt adds a new weapon to its arsenal: turning off the Internet

In what's being considered an unprecedented move, Egypt has managed to almost completely remove itself from the Internet, disconnecting itself amid protests and fighting.

So, how does a country go about turning the lights out on the World Wide Web? Well, owning the companies that provide access certainly helps. Soon after midnight on Friday morning in Egypt, the state-owned ISPs serving the country went dark, effectively halting all inbound and outbound traffic.

Today Show hosts were clueless about the Internet in 1994

The Internet has become such an integral part of most people's daily lives, that it's easy to forget how recent it actually is. In this hilarious clip from January 1994, Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric seem to be completely clueless about what the Internet and basic things like email are.

This is what happens to all the money you spend on Red Bull

Red Bull may not actually give you wings, but it does make a huge amount of money for the company who produces the stuff, and over the years the company's blown a bunch of it buying some pretty sweet aircraft to play around with.

It looks like the profit margins are pretty high in the overly caffeinated sugary water business, and while I may not personally enjoy what Red Bull sells, I can't help but be impressed with how the company has decided to spend (some of) its piles of cash. Hangar 7 at the Saltzburg Airport is stuffed with meticulously restored vintage aircraft, sexy modern aircraft, and the odd F1 car. The Bell Cobra helicopter in the picture above exemplifies Red Bull's philosophy on acquiring cool stuff:

Activists in Egypt use fax machines, ham radios and other outdated tech to protest

The ongoing information blackout in Egypt is so serious that activists are actually digging through their garages and attics for old dial-up modems, fax machines and ham radios to replace the blocked Internet. I guess the old phrase, "one man's trash is another man's treasure" still applies in this situation.

AP Exclusive: Report warns of Iran nuke disaster

VIENNA – The control systems of Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant have been penetrated by a computer worm unleashed last year, according to a foreign intelligence report that warns of a possible Chernobyl-like disaster once the site becomes fully operational.

Russia's envoy to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, also has raised the specter of the 1986 reactor explosion in Ukraine, but suggested last week that the danger had passed.

The report, drawn up by a nation closely monitoring Iran's nuclear program and obtained by The Associated Press, said such conclusions were premature and based on the "casual assessment" of Russian and Iranian scientists at Bushehr.

A table with a hidden secret: a sound system

In a small apartment, space is a premium. And that means you probably don't have room for a big, ridiculous speaker. Unless said ridiculous speaker can double as an object more useful in the day-to-day, like the Acoustable.
The Acoustable is a gigantic speaker that doubles as a table, which is pretty clever, really:

Android tops everyone in 2010 market share; 2011 may be different

The Android platform has finally taken the lead in smartphone market share, leaving Nokia, Apple and RIM in the dust. That's according to analytics firm Canalys, which tracked worldwide smartphone shipments throughout 2010 and just published its numbers for the fourth quarter of the year. The firm says that 32.9 million Android devices shipped worldwide during the fourth quarter 2010, compared to the previous leader (Nokia's Symbian platform) at 31.0 million.

Google speeds in-house mobile app work to counter Apple

Google is planning to rapidly accelerate the number of mobile apps it makes in a bid to counter the iPhone's more popular choice as an app platform, insiders claimed Monday. The company is reportedly paying small Google engineering teams worldwide to write apps that would go beyond the usual search tools, such as check-ins and even games. The WSJ heard that only some might be Android exclusives and could consequently reach the iPhone or other platforms as well.

To spur the development, Google is hiring dozens of app developers, managers and others whose experience is specifically in mobile app design. An unspecified number of existing Google workers have reportedly switched over from what they were making before to help out. Product management lead Ben Ling has reportedly been called on to head up the app plans.

Most would be free but possibly ad-supported.

What's inside the iPad 2?

SAN JOSE, Calif. - What's inside Apple Inc.'s iPad 2?

The iPad 2, Apple's next-generation tablet PC, will use ARM's ''Cortex-A9 dual core processor running at 1.2-GHz'' and Imagination’s SGX543 dual core graphics, according to the AppleInsider Web site, which cited Concord Securities as its source. Here's the specifications for the current iPad.

Like the current iPad, Apple will design the processor in the iPad 2. As before, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. will make the chip on a foundry basis. 

Samsung will quadruple its shipments of the advanced mobile processor chips to Apple,according to the Korea Times.

Closed Apple headed for trouble as Jobs's ego bites: Netgear CEO

The global chairman and CEO of home networking giant Netgear has launched into a scathing attack on Apple and its founder Steve Jobs, criticising Jobs's "ego" and Apple's closed up products.

At a lunch in Sydney today, Patrick Lo said Apple's success was centred on closed and proprietary products that would soon be overtaken by open platforms like Google's Android.

Apple has had unparallelled success by being able to control the entire ecosystem around its products, from the hardware to the software to the acquisition of content and apps through iTunes.

The 260 mpg car that might actually be cool

Every time I see a concept car, I wonder why, many years later, I have still not seen anything like it on a road.

Every time I see a hybrid car, I wonder why, many years later, they are still on the road.

Thankfully, VW seems to have a psychic link to some of these concerns. For last week at a glitzy show in the motoring hotspot of Qatar, the company unveiled the Formula XL1.

If you look at this fine, silver object of grace, it is as if John DeLorean was gazing on the world from heaven and channeling his thoughts for a happier and healthier motoring future.

“Heavy Rain” coming soon to a theater near you

A dark, atmospheric thriller that felt more like a David Fincher movie than a video game, "Heavy Rain" seemed destined for the Hollywood treatment—and indeed, the search for the Origami Killer may soon make the leap to the silver screen.

"Deadwood" creator David Milch has signed on to adapt last year's PlayStation 3 exclusive, according to Variety, with developers from Quantum Dream (the company that designed Heavy Rain) slated to pitch in.

Of course, it's not like video games turning into movies is anything new, as anyone who's seen "Lara Croft:Tomb Raider," "Price of Persia: The Sands of Time," "Resident Evil," and "Max Payne" knows.

Wal-Mart DRM reminder: The nightmare returns

This afternoon, an e-mail popped into my inbox that--at first glance--looked ripe for immediate deletion. The word "Wal-Mart" in the subject was what set me off. But in that split second before my finger went down to send the message into oblivion, something else caught my eye. And, well, I'll let the e-mail do the talking:

Black pyramid art installation delivers power for 250 homes

Some people believe pyramids have mysterious powers, but those beliefs could become real if this solar pyramid array in Abu Dhabi ever gets built.
Lunar Cubit is the winning entry in Land Art Generator Initiative, a contest in the UAE for designing beautiful green energy installations.

Food is now huffable

You know what's old news? Eating. And if swallowing drinkified food is turning out to be too much work for you, you'll be excited to hear that food is now inhaleable. Literally.

Is a tablet right for you?

When Apple released the iPad in April 2010, it quickly dominated the market for portable tablet-like computers and today has somewhere around 95 percent of the tablet market.

Manufacturers are racing to produce competing products, so expect many new models and even a refresh of the iPad itself in the year to come. Just because tablets are the current rage in portable computing doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s the right choice for you, however.

Tablets, in general, can do most of the things that a netbook-type computer can do. Notice I said netbook NOT notebook. There’s a difference! Netbook systems generally have a 10-inch LCD display, slightly smaller keyboards without a numeric pad, 2 gigabytes or less of memory and around a 160-gigabyte hard drive. They usually do NOT have a built-in CD/DVD drive or a lot in the way of external device connections, except for USB ports and possibly a VGA port to connect an external monitor.

New 'air lasers' could help detect bombs, pollution and more

We just learned that plants are getting in on the bomb detection game, and now lasers are looking to join the club. Not just regular ol' lasers, either — "air lasers."
We already use lasers to "sense" all kinds of stuff, the most common being range. But what you can detect with a laser can be hampered by relying on the information that bounces back, as it can be distorted or scattered.

Samsung's double-sided TV remote boasts a QWERTY keypad

Similar to the Boxee Box remote control, Samsung's RMC-QTD1 has standard TV controls on its front and a QWERTY pad on its flip side. Does Samsung's twofer work?

Looks like a crushed iPhone, but works like a Magic Trackpad

Apple's wireless Magic Trackpad may look like the future, but for the shrinking ranks of Mac-brand-refuseniks, another solution may work just as well.

Lenovo: LePad necessary to avoid being wiped out by Apple

essential since they would be the future of the computing business. Without a good offering, any company that couldn't stand up to the iPad and iPhone would be virtually non-existent, he explained to Bloomberg.

"Anyone who loses this battle will be phased out from the history of this industry," he said.

Chuanzhi noted that Apple had a "significant share" in China but didn't have the same kind of clear leadership it has in other countries. Apple at last check had led smartphones in China in the first half of 2010 with 900,000 iPhones sold, but that lead is no longer absolute. Native Chinese companies such as ZTE have kept Apple back by offering cheap Android devices and thriving on their basic phone lineups. Apple has a better edge in tablets as the Wi-Fi iPad mostly has to face relatively small if significant contenders like Hanvon as well as tiny white-box companies, some of whom are actively cloning the iPad.

Windows Sales Stalled By Tablet Headwinds

Microsoft shares were off in pre-market trading Friday on investor concerns that the company's Windows operating system is threatened by a new wave of tablet computers that use software from rivals Apple and Google.

Despite announcing record quarterly revenue of $19.95 billion and robust results for its Kinect and Office 2010 offerings, Microsoft saw its shares fall in after hours trading Thursday. The shares were down .24%, to $28.80, in Friday's pre-market.

Egypt’s Internet Shutdown Can’t Stop Mass Protests

Protesters have flooded the streets of Alexandria and Suez. In Cairo, they’re publicly praying in the thoroughfare. And the Egyptian government can’t seem to stop them, despite the crackdown on internet access and cellular communications.

AMD uncloaks Fusion dev kit

AMD has released the software development kit for its Fusion line of CPU/GPU mashups, an update and renaming of its ATI Stream SDK.

"When developers harness the power of parallel processing within our APU designs, they can fundamentally change the PC experience to help not only make it faster, but also to create new possibilities in software," said AMD's director of client product and software marketing John Taylor when announcing the company's new acronym stream, the AMD APP SDK v2.3 for APUs.

12 bizarre real-life places that are stranger than science fiction

Science fiction is home to some fantastic societies, from Cloud City to Bartertown. But you doesn't have to leave reality for this—our own world has places so abnormal, they make alien societies seem ordinary.

Here are 12 remarkable locations in which people once lived (and some still do).

South Korea demoes LTE-Advanced, makes 3G look like dial-up

Hey, speaking of broadband penetration, why don't we take a look at what South Korea, the world leader in Internet tech, is doing? Oh, looks like they're driving around in an RV stuffed to the gills with tech, showing off an LTE-Advanced network that can wirelessly suck in 700MB of data in under 10 seconds. So, just another Wednesday in South Korea.

LTE-Advanced throws down some pretty impressive numbers: downloads top out at 600Mbps, making it 41 times faster than 3G (14.4Mbps downloads) and six times faster than regular ol' LTE (100Mbps down). The demo even showed off streaming a 3D HDTVsignal to the moving truck.

Project Daedalus could be the first realistic interstellar probe

Last week we took a look at the massive interstellar probe designed by the Daedalus Project, and this week we'd like to explain in a bit more detail how this thing might actually be able to reach a nearby star in our lifetimes using near-term technology.

Smugglers busted with pot flinging catapult at the Mexican border

Mexican authorities have seized a catapult that was being used by drug smugglers to fling bundles of pot over the US Mexican border fence.

U.S. National Guard troops from the Naco border patrol station observed a group using the spring operated catapult on surveillance cameras, and coordinated with Mexican authorities to disrupt the operation. The smugglers had fled by the time agents showed up, but they did capture their catapult and about 60 pounds of pot.

7 Weapons That Changed Warfare

The new movie 300 is the story of an epic battle between the Greeks and the Persians set in 480 BC. Even as far back as that era, the state of technology played a critical role in warfare. Better bows, blades, and armor often meant the difference between the conquerors and the conquered, and if a civilization was using obsolete weaponry, it could prove disastrous. Just ask the Aztecs.

Aliens reportedly ARE in Ridley Scott's Prometheus ... BIG aliens

Director Ridley Scott recently said that his new movie Prometheus is using the originalAlien as a "jumping-off point" for a "new, grand mythology." But apparently there are still aliens in the new movie—and they're big.

An exclusive source has told Sky Movies that the classic monsters from the original film are in fact in Prometheus, and are actually an important part of the plot: "Despite thatpress release that seemed to indicate there were no aliens in the movie, the familiar HR Giger-style aliens do appear. Big ones apparently."

17 frigid worlds proving our snowpocalypse could have been WORSE

If you've been thinking the 'snowpocalypse' and 'snowmageddon' storms that have hit the eastern United States have been bad, here are 17 worlds from around the galaxy that should leave you feeling better about a little snow.

We realize these are only the—ahem—tip of the iceberg as far as frozen planets go, and there are many, many more, but they should be be enough to remind you that things could have been much worse.

The Appgun turns your iPhone into an augmented reality scope

Here's a use for your iPhone I bet you haven't tried: sticking it on a plastic gun and using it as a sight in an augmented reality game.

But that's exactly what you can do with the Appgun. When playing a game designed for it, it uses the camera to display what's in front of you, plus some aliens or whatever for you to shoot at. It seems kind of awesome! And it'll set you back $30 when it comes out in April, complete with a free game to let you shoot up your living room.

Electric Pig via Gizmodo

The best and worst ISPs for Netflix streaming

Netflix can stream you movies and TV shows in HD, but only if you've got a connection beefy enough to handle all that data. And now Netflix has put out a chart showing just how every major ISP in the country fares when streaming their video.

Kindle books now outselling paperbacks on Amazon

Who said e-books would never catch on? It looks like dead-tree books are going the way of the vinyl record, as Amazon is now selling more Kindle e-books than paperbacks.

Inventors risk robot uprising by creating real-life Terminator hand

Designers at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics in Germany (DLR) have just built a working robot hand. And it's one of the toughest robot hands currently made.Does this photo look familiar? If you're thinking "That looks like the hand from Terminator 2, perhaps a prototype for the movie," you'd be wrong.

Intel Agency: Without Videogames, We’re Doomed

American intelligence analysts are biased, and therefore make lousy decisions — even the spooky agencies admit that. The spy guys’ new hope for introducing some objectivity: Get the analysts to start playing a videogame.

“A Serious Game could provide an effective mechanism for exposing and mitigating cognitive bias,” theIntelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency announced Tuesday. Iarpa, the blue-sky science-and-technology division of the intelligence community, is looking to gather potential developers for this “Sirius” initiative next month in Washington.

This waste treatment plant is also a ski slope, with lasers

If you're going to build a giant waste incinerator, you might as well design it so that people can ski down its sides. Oh, and you should also make it blow smoke rings, and then shoot those smoke rings with lasers.
This crazy building is basically just a giant shell that Danish architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group is planning on wrapping around a new waste incinerator in Copenhagen that'll turn garbage into energy. Instead of an industrial eyesore, the plant will become a year-round ski park, with everything from a bunny slope to a black diamond run. An elevator will take people from the bottom to the top, and the rest of the complex will form a park and recreation area.

Solar-charged roads could keep roads snow-free by melting it on contact

Think the asphalt in the ground can't be high tech? Think again. If an associate professor of environmental engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute gets his way, snow-covered roads and abandoned cars left in snowpocalypses could be a thing of the past.

Jet-powered water cannon fights blazes in the tallest of buildings

We've seen jet-powered fire trucks before (and school buses for that matter), but this fire truck with a jet engine on it is designed to fight blazes that are normally hard to reach.

NASA's totally radical lander uses skateboards as feet

NASA really is trying everything in its quest to build better robotic craft. Wasn't too long ago that the space agency tried bean bag wheels. Now, it's duct-taped skateboards to a lander's legs to allow it to ollie across the surface of distant planets (or, in this case, help test it here on Earth).

Xbox LIVE labels autistic boy cheater for being too good a gamer

Julius Jackson, an 11-year-old autistic boy, has done well for himself in Xbox LIVE, and in 200 days has racked up 1500 game achievements. Unfortunately, Xbox LIVE thinks he's played too well ... and removed his achievements. They have also labeled him "cheater."

Futurist Volkswagen XL1: 261 miles per gallon

What with gasoline prices at the pump well past $3 a gallon--and edging ever higher--drivers understandably are pining for the day when technology will come to their rescue.

If you're willing to wait a couple of years, Volkswagen may have what you're waiting for.

At an auto show in Qatar this week, Volkswagen showed off a proof-of-concept car that will get 261 miles to the gallon. The XL1, a two cylinder, two-seater made from carbon fiber, is expected to go into production sometime in the next two years. If the auto's fuel efficiency lives up to the advance billing, VW likely will be able to say it makes the world's most economical car.

Google's Android 3.0 Honeycomb: What's inside

We already knew about Android 3.0's (Honeycomb) 3D capability and its new look with larger, revamped icons and the like. But now Google has revealed the details on many more feature updates and additions in its Android operating system for tablets.

The Goog's theme for tablets is bigger, better, and more. Tablets' larger screen size encourages a proportionately larger design and gives developers more room to play around with 3D graphics, live streaming, and deeper connections with Bluetooth devices.

Capacitive and resistive touch to go head-to-head in next portable gaming showdown

A major difference between the NGP and 3DS lies in the two devices' touch-sensitive technologies. The 3DS will reuse the original DS' resistive touch screen, whereas the NGP will have two capacitive touch areas (front and rear), of the type most tablets and smartphones use today (including the iPhoneand iPad).

The 3DS' resistive touch screen requires some depression (hence the stylus), but can also respond to a finger press. The technology offers a nice level of precision (like when handwriting or pecking at small virtual keys), but certainly requires a bit of a learning curve when being used in tandem with a stylus.

Wear your earbuds in the street, get fined?

For some lawmakers, Cathy Cruz Marrero's now-infamous fall into a fountain while texting couldn't have come at a better time.

In California, State Sen. Joe Simitian has reintroduced a bill that would fine cyclists $20 for texting. In Oregon, State Rep. Michael Schaufler wants to fine cyclists $90 for wearing headphones or earbuds. In Virginia, lawmakers are considering whether to broaden such a ban to include any handheld communication device.

And in New York, a bill before the legislature's transportation committee would ban the use of electronic devices while crossing streets.

Intel to invest $100 million in university research

Intel Labs will invest $100 million in U.S. university research over the next five years, the chipmaker announced today.

Intel will open Intel Science and Technology Centers (ISTC) across multiple universities, focusing on projects in areas "that align with the company's research agenda including visual computing, mobility, security and embedded solutions," the company said.

The new investment model is expected to result in U.S. researchers receiving up to five times more funding from Intel Labs when compared to the investment model Intel has used to date.

Snowstorm wallops Northeast, piling on the misery

NEW YORK – A long-predicted storm caught much of the East Coast off guard with its unexpected ferocity, tearing through with lightning, thunder and mounds of wet snow, leaving nearly 300,000 customers around the nation's capital without power, and forcing people to shovel out their cars and doorsteps all over again.

The forecast had called for up to a foot of snow in parts of the region, but the storm brought far more in spots. New York got 19 inches, Philadelphia 17. Public schools closed for a second day Thursday, including the nation's largest system in New York City, and motorists were warned to stay off slick roads.