It’s more than a little crazy to think about, but a 0.07-second power disruption in Japan yesterday may have just caused as much as a 20 percent drop in chip shipments from Toshiba. The root of the problem is that the backup system at Toshiba’s Yokkaichi memory chip plant failed to kick in because the brief drop in voltage was more severe than the system was designed for, which has not only forced the plant to halt production until Friday, but may have caused irreparable damage to scores of chips in production at the time of the outage. As The Wall Street Journal reports, it’s still not clear exactly how much damage was caused, but if, for instance, the systems controlling the so-called clean room were shut off, all chips inside would likely be ruined. The good news, such as it is, is that there isn’t likely to be a worldwide shortage as a result of the outage — Toshiba plans to adjust their output accordingly early next year, and it notes that demand is usually slow in January and February anyway following the holiday shopping season. Split second power outage may lead to drop in Toshiba chip shipments originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It has certainly been a long long road for Notion Ink , but the company is finally opening the Adam tablet pre-sale gates today. Now before you run off and grab your wallet, it appears that initial pre-orders will only be open to tried-and-true fans (apparently, they exist!) — Slashgear is reporting that at 1:30 p.m. EST registered commenters on Notion Ink’s blog will be sent the pre-order links. Then, about six hours later, the general pre-order page will be launched. Naturally, along with this news NI team is revealing detailed pricing, and as expected , there are lots of models to choose from. The entry level Adam will start at $375.33 and will pack a regular LCD and WiFi connectivity. Adding 3G shoots the price up to $425.33. On the higher end there’s the Pixel Qi model, which will start at $499.95 with WiFi and $549.99 with 3G. As for software, the company’s also released a lot of details on the Android skin it’s been working on, and we have to say it looks pretty snazzy, though we’d love to see this on a working unit. Either way, check out the screens in the gallery below. Of course, there’s one major question left: when will the Adam finally ship? Well, you won’t be getting it in time for Christmas, that’s for sure — if all goes as planned, they will be landing around January 6th. With that said, the tablet still hasn’t cleared the FCC and we still haven’t seen any live photos of this stuff in action, so click that pre-order button at your own risk. Gallery: Notion Ink Adam UI screenshots Notion Ink Adam pre-order to begin today, pricing starts at $375 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Apple announces firmware update to relieve those nagging MacBook Air display issues
December 9, 2010 No Comment
Looks like relief is in sight for new school MacBook Air owners suffering from display issues : you know, with the faulty logic boards, and the flickerin’ and the freezin’, and so on and so forth. MacBook Air EFI firmware update 2.0 comes highly recommended by Apple itself for all 2010 MacBook Air owners, with the company saying it will “resolves a rare issue where MacBook Air boots or wakes to a black screen or becomes unresponsive.” Sounds like a no-brainer to us! Hit up the source link to download this bad boy for yourself. Apple announces firmware update to relieve those nagging MacBook Air display issues originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 13:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Sparkpad platform revealed by way of FCC, could make your wildest photo frame fantasies come true
December 9, 2010 No Comment
A visit to Sparkpad’s website gives you little more than a “coming soon” teaser, but not all is lost, friends: new filings in the FCC’s database today are letting the cat out of the bag. We’re still not sure exactly how this stuff is going to be sold, but Sparkpad’s products are looking a bit like a Bug Labs for larger displays, seemingly allowing hobbyists and companies without massive R&D budgets to throw together Linux-based interactive products that run on photo frames ranging from 7 to 10.4 inches — and if that’s not big enough, there’s also some sort of option for remotely-operated displays of 15 inches and larger. The devices can be programmed using Flash, the Lua language, or — coming soon — using the Android SDK, making for a pretty versatile setup. Interestingly, Sparkpad’s manual points out that this is the platform used by the iGala touchscreen photo frame from a couple years back, so we’re guessing that the company is just now looking at opening up the underlying platform to all comers. Anyhow, yeah — if you’ve ever dreamed of programming your own DreamScreen , Sparkpad might be the way to roll. Sparkpad platform revealed by way of FCC, could make your wildest photo frame fantasies come true originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Hertz plug-in rental program to boast 1,000 vehicles, including the Tesla Roadster
December 9, 2010 No Comment
Hertz is getting serious about its about-to-launch, by-the-hour plug in car rental service Connect by Hertz. Set to launch on December 15th in New York City, the company has plans to extend the service into San Francisco, Washington D.C, Texas and London by the end of 2011. The list of cars in the fleet which will be available to rent now includes the previously announced Nissan Leaf , the Volt, the Mitsubishi i-MiEV, the Tesla Roadster , the Smart ED, and the Coda Sedan. The program will start extremely small, with only 20 total vehicles available to rent to begin with, but with a plan for between 500 and 1,000 by the end of 2011. The Hertz EV rental program has a fee to join up, and the cars will be rented on a first come, first served basis, but you can sign up now if you’re ready to get behind the wheel of one of the aforementioned silent bad boys. Hertz plug-in rental program to boast 1,000 vehicles, including the Tesla Roadster originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Well, would you look at what showed up on our frigid doorstep this morning? That’s right, we are now the proud owners of Google’s first Chrome OS laptop — the Cr-48 . Obviously, we ripped open the box and got right to handling the 12.1-inch, Atom-powered laptop. So, what does the thing feel like? How’s that keyboard? And more importantly, how’s Chrome OS looking? Stand by for our impressions, which we’ll be adding in depth over the day. First impression: this thing is different. Here are some quick bullet points, one of our favorite formats for presenting data in a list: Hardware The entire body is made of a soft, beautiful matte black. It feels very Droid-like, just a little less rubberized. Overall, it looks a lot like a black MacBook, including a magnetic latch with a split spot for getting your finger in and lifting the lid, a very similar keyboard, and a similar hinge design. There’s on of those large Envy-style clickpads. It has great multitouch scroll, and great general mousing feel (better than most Windows laptops), but it also has some of that Envy trouble of disliking a finger floating on the lower part of the pad. Basically, you have to click or mouse, you can’t be doing both at once. The matte screen overwhelms us with gratitude. Thank you, Google. Thank you . There’s ultra-wide ctrl and alt buttons on the left side, thanks to the lack of a Windows Key. Software It starts up instantly, and it’s actually really hard to tell if we’ve put it into standby or not because there are no drive noises, and we haven’t hit upon any fan noise yet either. We’re having trouble installing Photoshop. Our apps haven’t synced over from our desktop’s copy of Chrome, which must be a still-forthcoming feature. You need an internet connection for the very first setup and login, but you can login to an existing user while the device is offline, and access anything that’s cached or HTML5-stored on the device — like some of those new Chrome Web Apps. While wake from standby takes less than a second, a cold boot takes around 15 seconds to get to the login screen, and another 6 or 7 seconds to login after you’ve entered your password. The remainder of our impressions will be about Poppit! . The most important thing to remember is that this product is in no way designed for the mass market, and it’s up to Samsung, Acer, and other forthcoming third parties to actually build the hardware we’ll end up buying in the long run. Still, there seems to be a lot here that laptop manufacturers of all sorts could take note of, and generic-ified or not, the Cr-48 is pretty striking. Developing… Gallery: Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview Google Cr-48 Chrome laptop preview originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Fujitsu hybrid energy harvester makes power from light or heat, gets us closer to human batteries
December 9, 2010 No Comment
As fleshy meatbags, we tend to give off a lot of excess heat as we futilely live our lives. Fujitsu wants to help capture every last particle motion, and all the other warmth we generate through the myriad of other inane activities like driving cars, firing rockets , and trying to not freeze to death. But, it’s not just happy with that, developing a new “hybrid energy harvesting device” that does double-duty by also capturing light from the sun. It’s a process shown after the break but, with no hard numbers to go with that pretty picture, we’re not sure just how efficient it is at doing either. Still, there are some 6.7 billion people worldwide. How efficient does it really need to be? Continue reading Fujitsu hybrid energy harvester makes power from light or heat, gets us closer to human batteries Fujitsu hybrid energy harvester makes power from light or heat, gets us closer to human batteries originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Ever heard of Ona? Up until last week, we hadn’t either. Turns out, Ona’s a purveyor of “fine” camera bags and accessories, and given that it’s the holiday season, we figured it prudent to have a gander at the outfit’s latest and greatest — you know, just in case you’ve a camera lover in your family who you’ve yet to buy for. The all-new Union Street ($279) is quite clearly an upscale messenger bag on the outside, but the internals are arranged in a way that the amateur photog / gadget lover would appreciate. There’s room for a few pens (of the lens and / or ink variety), a smartphone, a navigation system, a 15-inch (or smaller) laptop and — according to Ona — a DSLR along with three lenses. The other notable aspect is the waxed canvas exterior (dubbed Waxwear), which is generally more rugged and weather resistant than your average patch of suede or leather. How’s it all shake out? Join us after the break for our pair of pennies. Gallery: Ona Union Street camera messenger bar hands-on Continue reading Ona Union Street DSLR / laptop messenger bag review Ona Union Street DSLR / laptop messenger bag review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 11:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Major tech manufacturers to drop VGA by 2015, Apple wonders what took ‘em so long
December 9, 2010 No Comment
A syndicate of consumer electronics titans including AMD, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, Samsung and LG announced this week that its products will collectively drop support for VGA by 2015. Saying sayonara to the 20+ year-old analog technology is pretty self explanatory to us in this day and age, but the council of doom apparently felt compelled to cite DisplayPort’s and HDMI’s benefits of increased energy efficiency, smaller size and support for higher-resolutions as proof the move wasn’t personal — just business. AMD plans to lead the charge by starting the VGA removal process in 2013 and even intends to go the extra mile by stripping DVI-I and low voltage differential signaling technology (LVDS) support too. We definitely side with AMD’s desire to focus on cutting edge standards like Displayport 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a sooner, but if plenty of lead time and “going green” excuses help everyone else involved in the sentencing sleep better at night, then so be it. Continue reading Major tech manufacturers to drop VGA by 2015, Apple wonders what took ‘em so long Major tech manufacturers to drop VGA by 2015, Apple wonders what took ‘em so long originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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The Earthlings here at Engadget HQ are still patiently awaiting their own Cr-48s , but it looks as if those who were quick on the trigger have just received a Chrome OS laptop to cuddle with. If you’ll recall, Google opened up a Chrome OS Pilot Program Tuesday, and for those who registered early (and got awfully lucky), they’re being treated to a Cr-48 on their doorsteps. One gracious tipster has already sent over a trio of unboxing shots, and we’ll be sure to give the low-down (you know — video, impressions, etc.) once our own arrives. Anytime now, FedEx… [Thanks, Dan] Gallery: Google Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop now shipping Google Cr-48 Chrome OS laptop now shipping to the lucky few originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Dec 2010 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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