MSI’s GT680 gaming laptop reviewed: potent at 720p, some battery life too
January 30, 2011 No Comment
MSI is calling this GT680R the world’s fastest gaming laptop. Spoiler alert — it’s not — but if you drop $1,650 to nab one starting this week, you’ll certainly be getting some bang for those bucks. Trusted Reviews and Hot Hardware recently got their hands on the first Sandy Bridge -equipped portable monster of a gaming rig, and found the experience quite satisfying on the whole. Though Hot Hardware discovered that the 2.0GHz Core i7-2630QM chip and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M graphics weren’t quite capable of playable framerates in the most demanding DX11 titles at native 1080p, lowering the resolution to 720 lines usually did the trick, and when it came to raw CPU benchmarks that Core i7 held its own against even last-gen desktop processors with little trouble to speak of. What’s more, equipped with a nine-cell battery Trusted Reviews managed to eke out three hours of life in a basic productivity test, practically unheard of for a laptop of this class, though we suppose you’re not likely to be carrying around this 7.7 pound beast for the sake of portable spreadsheets, eh? Hit up our source links for more details. MSI’s GT680 gaming laptop reviewed: potent at 720p, some battery life too originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 17:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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CAPTION: The leader of a long-outlawed Tunisian Islamist party was welcomed at the airport by thousands of cheering supporters on Sunday as he returned to his homeland after more than two decades in exile. (Jan. 30)
Continue reading …The government could soon prosecute a few Wall Streeters who allegedly played a role in the financial crisis, and the commission that uncovered those at fault was modeled on a similar probe after the Great Depression. So did anyone who precipitated that collapse ever go to jail? Nope, writes Brian…
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Click here to view this media Saturday Night Live gave Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and CNN a bit of grief for her “tea party” response to the president’s State of the Union Address. They could have done better by just airing Bachmann’s actual speech since their parody wasn’t nearly as creepy or bizarre as the real thing .
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Amazon’s allegedly got an security flaw where hackers can find your password much easier than they would otherwise, and there’s already a fix in place. But get this — you’ll probably need to change your password for the fix to take effect, if you haven’t already done so in the last couple of years. According to Reddit users, the Amazon.com login system will actually accept any phrase so long as it begins with your password, such as “password123″ when the magic word is simply “password” by itself. That apparently makes it that much easier for a computer to guess your password via brute force methods, no matter how counter-intuitive that seems, so if you simply change it immediately — and to something other than “password,” please — you’ll have much sounder dreams. PSA: Change your old Amazon.com password for better security originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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A head-on collision between a cargo train and a passenger train late on Saturday killed at least 10 people and injured 23 others in eastern Germany and authorities said the death toll could still rise. (January 30)
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A collection of video images from Sunday’s protests across the embattled country.
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A head-on collision between a cargo train and a passenger train killed 10 people and injured 23 others in eastern Germany, and left wreckage scattered across a frost-covered field. Police officers inspect the overturned passenger train after it crashed in Hordorf Photo: AP Authorities said they believe the death toll in one of Germany’s worst train accidents ever could still rise. The trains crashed in heavy fog late on Saturday on a single-line track near the village of Hordorf, 125 miles southwest of Berlin, vaulting the passenger train from the track and tipping it onto its side. The front rows of the first passenger compartment were crushed and several seats lay outside the train. Both…
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Addis Ababa – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pledged to help the African Union resolve Ivory Coast’s political crisis as leaders from the 53-nation bloc gathered in Addis Ababa amid the equally pressing troubles facing Egypt and Tunisia. Ivory Coast – along with the looming splitting up of Sudan – was high on the official agenda of the two-day meeting, although the crises in Tunisia and Egypt also cast their shadow over proceedings. November’s presidential election in Ivory Coast provoked a violent crisis in which over 270 people have died, according to the UN, with both incumbent Laurent Gbagbo and his internationally-recognized…
Continue reading …Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video)
January 30, 2011 No Comment
Augmented reality is swell, don’t get us wrong, but it’s no substitute for the real thing — especially when that thing is a badass tricopter equipped with a jury-rigged firework cannon to rain down miniature hell. Swedish R/C enthusiasts built this first-person flying contraption to carry out a single mission — destroy a series of hydrogen-filled balloons — which will hopefully be hard-coded into future automatons too. After all, balloons could serve as an excellent distraction when they inevitably come for you . Still, there’s no need to worry quite yet, so kick back and enjoy the video above while you contemplate humanity’s end. Homebuilt UAV hunts down hydrogen balloons, shoots firework missiles (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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