BMW continues to fight the good fight: making sure you hit less people with its luxury vehicles. The German automaker is developing a vehicle warning system aimed at curbing collisions caused by drivers making left turns — a leading cause of accidents and motorcycle fatalities. The system, which can be enabled for vehicles making left or U-turns while traveling under 10mph, detects movements using the vehicle’s navigation system and a single camera. Once a left turn is recognized, three lasers are used to scan for hazards up to 328-feet away — if one is detected, the car will automatically brake and throw up corresponding alerts for the driver. The company is set to show off the system as part of INTERSAFE 2, this week in Wolfsburg, Germany. In the meantime, the rest of us will have to rely on things like mirrors and looking over our shoulders. BMW left turn assistant uses lasers to help you avoid running people over originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 21:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Last week, the online grapevine foretold that T-Mobile users would have complimentary calling over WiFi . Now, the pink provider’s powers that be have made good on the gossip and officially made free WiFi calling official. The service is available to those with Android handsets with the carrier’s Smart Wi-Fi app preinstalled and are on T-Mo’s Even More or Even More Plus plans. All others wanting a dose of free will have to pony up for a new plan — you didn’t think it was actually free, did you? T-Mobile confirms gratis WiFi calling for the magenta-clad masses originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 21:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Solid-state storage aficionados are well-versed in the virtues of SandForce controllers, and Corsair’s new Force Series 3 drives pack a fresh version of the technology. Like the firm’s Force GT , Series 3 delivers data using SATA III 6Gbps connections, but uses a newfangled SandForce SF-2281 controller to shoot your info to and fro at up to 550 MBps read and 520 MBps write speeds. The SSDs also perform 85,000 IOPS, which makes the 60,000 IOPS from similarly-priced offerings from OCZ look downright dilatory in comparison. Prices are $139 for 60GB, $219 for 120GB, and $499 for the 240GB version, so they still aren’t cheap, but it’s a small price to pay to dodge the dangers of disk-based storage . Continue reading Corsair Force Series 3 SSDs: SandForce speed for modest money Corsair Force Series 3 SSDs: SandForce speed for modest money originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 20:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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And NewsFeed had thought all along that Twitter simply sounded like a recipe for success. Rejoice! The world’s first piece of music composed using Tweets has taken place. The Twinthesis project uses a computer program to extract sounds from those magical messages of 140 characters or less. The resulting “symphony” consisted of high pitched bleeps
Continue reading …ORNL energy harvester turns heat waste into electricity, converts hot machines into cool customers
May 16, 2011 No Comment
We’ve heard of turning yesterday’s lunch into tomorrow’s electricity , but a new energy converter coming out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory harnesses the power of a different type of hot waste. The as-of-yet unnamed thermal waste-heat converter has the potential to cool electronic devices, solar cells, and computers while generating electricity from excess heat. Its creators see the new conversion process being used to reduce the massive amounts of heat generated by petaflop computers. The converter employs up to one thousand tiny cantilevers attached to a one square inch surface (e.g. a computer chip) to produce between one and ten milliwatts of electricity — admittedly a very small amount of energy. However, it’s creators are quick to point out that a slew of these converters could generate enough power to perform small tasks in the heat-generating device — things like sensing when a server room gets too hot for comfort. Sure it’s a small step, but if they can get this stuff to save our future babies from cooking, we’re all in. Full PR after the break. Continue reading ORNL energy harvester turns heat waste into electricity, converts hot machines into cool customers ORNL energy harvester turns heat waste into electricity, converts hot machines into cool customers originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 20:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Why settle for a robot that can just roll or fly ? That’s the question some researchers from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Distributed Robotics recently asked themselves, and this little transforming contraption is their answer. As you can see in the video above, it’s able to roll around on the ground with relative ease (although obstacles may be another matter), and then prop itself up to take flight like any other robotic helicopter. Those thinking about trying their hand at a DIY version may want to think twice, however, as its not exactly as simple as it may appear. In fact, the researchers apparently spent a full $20,000 just to develop the folding rotor mechanism. Rolling robot learns to fly, plots escape from human captors (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 18:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Those new desktops HP unveiled today are little more than humming foot rests without a monitor, so the company also trotted out the x2301 Micro Thin — a 23-inch, LED-backlit, 1080p display that’s an absolutely anorexic 9.8mm (0.39 inches) thick. Most of the important internals have been shoved into the blue-tinted base to keep the brushed aluminum and glossy black screen as thin as possible. It’s not exactly a high-end model, but the 3ms response time and 8,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio are nothing to sniff at. The x2301 is expected to ship on June 10th for $280, just after its slightly cheaper (and chubbier) cousin, the Elite L2201x . Fashionistas, the line starts right around the bend. Gallery: HP x2301 Micro Thin Monitor HP x2301 Micro Thin monitor makes other displays feel bloated, insecure originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Discontinued products typically dip in value, but such is not the case with Leica lenses — unless they’re sawed in half. Leica students had an opportunity to “make” cutaways of two Leica lenses as part of a graduation project. A discontinued Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50mm (valued at about $4,500 when fully functional) and a 50mm f/1.4 Summilux (about $3,700) were split, exposing various layers of glass and metal. Now forever unable to capture images of their own, all four halves were photographed, and the tri-focal lens was sold for $995 on eBay , complete with original box — which, unlike its contents, appears to be in like-new condition. We were probably at home playing Frogger when Kermit went under the knife in biology, but we would have definitely had a perfect attendance record in any class that involved brushing camera equipment across a circular saw. $4,000 Leica lens split in two, sold on eBay as $1,000 piece of art originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 16:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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To the list of French accomplishments you may now add “robot basketball training” — at least if the video above is to be believed. But you probably shouldn’t believe it when members of Poitiers Basket 86 testify that amusement park rides improved the team’s “spatial orientation” and helped them defeat top-ranked Chalon. It’d be different if the “robots” were teaching them perfect free-throw or helping them walk , obviously, but PB86 is known for its innovative advertising, and this seems like a quirky example. Hit the video above to see the pranksters at work, but know that, as with Sartre and Camus, something gets lost in translation. [Thanks, Antoine] French basketball team ‘trains’ with robots, learns how to ‘win’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 15:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Is there any faster way for a sexy new handset to lose some mystique than by being torn apart beneath the unflattering lights of the FCC’s offices? But while all of these shot juxtaposed with a blue ruler might not be precisely the way Nokia wants you to see the X7 , the listing does bring the Symbian smartphone all that much closer to reality — particularly for US users hoping to get their fingers on that 4-inch touchscreen, offering visions of availability via the Nokia US store (especially since our dreams of AT&T coverage have already been dashed ). In the meantime, we’ll all have to be content to check out some stripped-naked shots of the Samsung-designed SDRAM , Broadcom transceiver, 8MP camera, and hexagonal reinforcement in the gallery below. Gallery: Nokia X7 FCC Shots Nokia X7 gets approved, undressed by FCC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 15:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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