Recent Comments:
U.S. Army and EnerDel team up for electric-hybrid Humvee {Engadget}
Nov 6th 2009 5:17PM On top of that if the stealth mode just kills the main engine the electric motors might not put out much heat, but that diesel generator has gotta cool down first.
So then your options are install a superfast cooling system that'll suck your battery dry in minutes, or sit there twiddling your thumbs until the engine cools down. So It's not actually useful unless you're doing a cold start to sneak right up on the enemy as far as the battery will let you. Awesome.
Rechargeable zinc-air batteries promise a lot, we'll see if they deliver in 2010 {Engadget}
Oct 30th 2009 7:42AM "Prototypes of the new battery have been tested for more than a hundred (discharge/recharge) cycles, and are expected to last at least twice as long"
Blegh. They'll need to improve on that first.
HP unleashes Compaq L2105tm touchscreen, multitouch monitor {Engadget}
Oct 21st 2009 6:07PM Because up until now there was very little support for them in the general consumer market, but now that Windows 7 is about to come out and seeing as it has trumpeted about the multitouch features in it manufacturers suddenly feel more confident that it'll sell seeing as Windows has such a big share of the home PC market. Match that in with the fact that finger touch has generally become more acceptable and known to consumers (iPod touch/iPhone are good examples) and suddenly touch monitors don't seem like a bad idea.
Before that there were very few places you could really sell them: public service machine and tablets really. I'm still not sold on them anyway, I hardly use the finger touch on my tablet PC. I really hate getting fingerprints on my nice clear screen.
Also, 1/4th? Fail! :-p
Video: DFI hybrid motherboard runs two whole systems... simultaneously! {Engadget}
Sep 18th 2009 4:19PM That's actually a pretty nifty idea, but knowing industry the cost will outweigh the benefits of just buying them separately.
There's also the small problem of upgrades: if you've a dual system, what happens when AMD/Intel update their CPU ranges and spec new mobos? You'll have to chuck out your whole hybrid mobo for a new hybrid mobo, which is a bit of a waste seeing as the Atom parts probably won't upgrade much. You may even end up chucking away the same Atom system that is included in your new mobo.
Could work well, could work badly...
iTwin lets you share files over the internet {Engadget}
Sep 15th 2009 12:03PM The difference being that a four dollar crossover cable doesn't connect machines over the internet. Your machines don't need to be in the same country to share data over these, whereas machines using a crossover need to be in the same room/building.
Horses for courses and all that, these could be useful in some situations but they're totally different to crossover cables.
Lenovo introduces multitouch ThinkPad X200 Tablet and T400s laptop {Engadget}
Sep 15th 2009 5:38AM It offers the benefits of helping to prevent simple spambots stuffing the place full of posts about Viagra and get rich quick schemes. It also means excessive trolls or spambots that slip through the net can have their email address/account banned, leaving the comment section (relatively) on-topic.
It's a minor pain, and it's not perfect, but the benefits are great.
Lenovo introduces multitouch ThinkPad X200 Tablet and T400s laptop {Engadget}
Sep 15th 2009 4:20AM You can do a lot of the things with touch that you can with a stylus. Some of the tablet-functions in Windows will swill give you an on-screen keyboard so that you can type with that, which isn't great for something like essay writing but if you're just browsing the web it can be fine. I've spent more than a few hours navigating Wikipedia using the touch on my HP TX2500. On top of that basic games like chess are easily controlled using touchscreens, and if you're ever bored you can always use it for fingerpainting!
It's not as useful as the stylus in my opinion, but if speed and accuracy aren't critical then pretty much anything that can be done with the stylus can be done with the touchscreen, and it just feels a bit more natural. The only downside is getting fingerprints all over your screen.
Engadget's back to school guide {Engadget}
Aug 20th 2009 12:45PM Yeah, they've copied the description into the headings for the On The Cheap page but forgotten to change the item name.
The SCX-4500W looks great, but it's way too expensive for a printer IMO...
Heathrow taxi pods become a glorious, driverless reality {Engadget}
Aug 18th 2009 6:51AM Hehe! British Airways? Organise a transportation system? You're funny Steve! ;-)
Heathrow taxi pods become a glorious, driverless reality {Engadget}
Aug 18th 2009 6:27AM "...zero emission electric vehicles"
OK, the pods themselves might not emit much, but that electricity has to come from somewhere you know. Electric doesn't mean green, it just moves carbon emissions somewhere else until that source is sorted out too.
It looks neat though, but knowing the UK government either nobody will fork out the money to make a mass-roll out or it'll be several billion more quid and a decade later than expected.
