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TomTom Car Kit for iPhone review

by Richard Lai posted Oct 29th 2009 at 4:05PM

Boy, TomTom sure has chosen the worst possible time to release its Car Kit for iPhone, and to make matters worse, its decision to not include the iPhone app is now set in stone. That's right, the hardware alone will set you back the cost of a TomTom ONE nowadays, and the $99.95 app works on the iPhone 3G and 3GS without it. So here's the question: is the car kit worth the extra $119.95? To find out, we got hold of a review unit for a sunny road trip around London. Surprisingly, the car kit uses Bluetooth to connect the GPS receiver and the hands-free function to the iPhone, even though there's a dock connector for charging. Bluetooth connectivity does have its advantages: according to TomTom it can work as a generic Bluetooth GPS receiver for any satellite navigation app -- including Google Maps -- on the iPhone, or any smartphones at all for that matter. TomTom even confirmed that the car kit could potentially compensate for the first-generation iPhone's lack of built-in GPS, but since its app won't run on anything but a 3G or 3GS we'll have to wait and see if that's actually useful. Meanwhile, the company is cooking up a compatible app for the original iPhone and the iPod Touch, which could make the car kit more worthwhile. Read on for our hands-on impression and test videos.

[Thanks for being our driver, Sam]

Gallery: TomTom Car Kit for iPhone review

Continue reading TomTom Car Kit for iPhone review

Mice run through Quake, Princeton neuroscientists scan their brains for traces of evil (video)

by Vladislav Savov posted Oct 15th 2009 at 8:54AM

Want to know just how prevalent technology has become in our lives? Now even lab mice get Quake-derived virtual reality playgrounds to navigate instead of their old school wooden mazes. In all honesty, this appears a significant and praiseworthy advancement, as the Princeton team have succeeded in mapping brain activity right down to the cellular level, with real-time tracking of single neurons now possible. The Orwellian-looking setup above is necessary in order to keep the mouse's head immobile, and thus capable of being studied, while the animal moves around and its brain performs motion-related tasks. Go past the break to see a schematic of the scanner and a quite unmissable video of it in action.

[Via Switched]

Continue reading Mice run through Quake, Princeton neuroscientists scan their brains for traces of evil (video)

World's first 'wireless' pacemaker talks to your doctor daily, whether you like it or not (though you probably do)

by Joseph L. Flatley posted Aug 11th 2009 at 10:13AM

In the past we've been clued in to both deadly pacemaker hackers and the development of a cloaking device to deal with that sticky situation. Now, according to Daily Tech, a woman in New York has become the first in the world to receive a pacemaker that communicates wirelessly with a monitoring service, which is in turn accessed daily by her doctor. "If there is anything abnormal," says Dr. Steven Greenberg from St. Francis Arrhythmia and Pacemaker Center, "it will literally call the physician" and notify him or her. In addition, most of the tests that were done in the doctor's office are now automated, saving everybody time and effort. There is no word yet on possible Twitter integration, but we're sure "Biz" Stone is already on it.

[Via Switched]

Flash drive bonanza: 36 crummy drives tested and compared!

by Laura June posted Jul 6th 2009 at 4:32PM

The wild array of flash drives you see above -- a veritable cornucopia of bad taste, if you will -- has been put through some rather exhaustive paces by the freaks over at Test Freaks. That's right, they rounded up the finger tip, the tiny skull, the truly disgusting chicken foot, as well as a wide variety of fake edibles -- and poked and prodded them en masse until they came up with the answer we expected: most of these are actually pretty shoddily made. As if you buy a foul-looking shrimp tail flash drive because you expect it to get the best transfer rate. Hit the read link to check out the full insanity of this undertaking.

[Thanks, Vincent D.]

Panasonic's Toughbook CF-30 gets gnawed by tiger, stomped by elephant and 187'd

by Darren Murph posted Jun 25th 2009 at 8:41AM

In a whirring round of hurt that only a dear friend we know simply as Congmasta could deliver, a team of his irreverent cousins got ahold of Panasonic's Toughbook CF-30 to see just how far the envelope could be pushed. We already discovered that said machine was plenty tough for the average adventurer, but Forbes' tests prove that this bad boy is tailor made for maltreatment in the field. Somehow, the machine survived a round of Diet Coke to the keys, a few chomps from a white tiger, an elephant's playful attempt to extirpate it and even a single .22 slug through the lid. After the torment concluded, the CF-30 still managed to boot, and while that hole in the LCD was certainly a nuisance, it didn't stop the rest of the pixels from lighting up and trudging onward. Tap the read link for all the gory details, photographs and video, but seriously, don't try this at home. Or anywhere.

[Image courtesy of Schim Schimmel/SchimmelSmith Publishing, thanks Vipul]

iPhone 3GS and Pre head-to-head benchmarks: iPhone wins

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 20th 2009 at 11:29PM

Now that we know the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre share extremely similar 65nm ARM Cortex A8-based internals, it's time to break out the stopwatches and see how these blood brothers stack up. Anandtech has the first head-to-head tests we've seen, and it seems like the 3G S has the slight edge, loading a series of web pages ~~11 percent faster~~ and a whopping 54 percent faster than the iPhone 3G. ~~Not too shabby, but not exactly a thorough drubbing either -- especially when you consider webOS is still 1.0 and there's likely some optimizations to come.~~ Full results at the read link.

Update: Anandtech had some uncharacteristically bad math going on -- the 3G S is actually 21 percent faster than the Pre, which is quite notable considering the similar hardware and WebKit-based browsers.

AMD proposes new laptop battery life metrics, Intel is like "whatevs"

by Darren Murph posted Mar 14th 2009 at 6:23PM

AMD has struggled of late to produce anything akin to a "good idea," but we've got to give a serious high five to senior VP and CMO Nigel Dessau on this one. While pumping gas one day and thinking about the low / high MPG ratings on vehicles, he began to wonder why laptops are being left out of that scheme. Handsets have talk time / standby time, PMPs have separate longevity ratings for audio and video -- so why on Earth are we generally given just a single figure for laptops? Testing has shown that almost always the quoted figures from laptop makers aren't even close to what users get in the real world, so Dessau is suggesting we implement a "guide rail" system that explains a maximum and minimum life expectancy. As for Intel's take? "There are many ways to measure battery life. We believe the best way to determine how to measure battery life is by making proposals and debating it in industry consortiums and not via a blog post." Oh Intel, could you possibly be any more corporate?

[Via HotHardware]

Read - AMD's take
Read - Intel's take

DDR3 shootout pits OCZ, Kingston and Corsair against one another

by Darren Murph posted Feb 25th 2009 at 3:13PM

DDR3 modules aren't exactly new or anything, but given just how low the prices of big time kits have become, we figured it prudent to pass along one of the most thorough shootouts on the subject that we've seen. HotHardware grabbed a few DIMMs from the labs of OCZ Technology, Corsair and Kingston, threw 'em all in a Core i7 rig (not simultaneously, silly!) and benchmarked the lot until they literally fell asleep at the keys. The results? We'd love to tell you which sticks came out atop the pile, but that would just be spoiling the fun for you, now wouldn't it? Give the read link a look if you're ready for the action.

Southwest details in-flight WiFi plans, announces partnership with Yahoo!

by Darren Murph posted Feb 11th 2009 at 7:31AM

Southwest got official with its WiFi plans late last month, but avid travelers who favor the only airline worth flying anymore (okay, Virgin America and JetBlue aren't bad either) were left wondering about most of the details. Today, the company has fired up a single Row 44-equipped flight, and it has announced plans to equip three more airplanes with in-flight WiFi by early next month. Furthermore, it has nailed down a partnership with Yahoo! in order to offer an in-flight homepage with "destination-relevant content." The service, which has yet to receive final FCC approval, will be tested over the next few months, and if all goes well, we're left to hope, pray and beg that the airline rolls it out fleet-wide. There's no mention of an actual price here, but it would totally rule if it bucked the trend and provided it to everyone for free. Right, everyone?

[Via Gadling]

Windows 7 build 7000 already outperforming Vista and XP in "real-world" tasks

by Paul Miller posted Jan 3rd 2009 at 5:15PM

You might've heard that crazy rumor making the rounds that Microsoft leaked the Windows 7 beta on purpose to build some positive buzz, and while there's no real evidence (or likelihood) of that of any sort, the seemingly-magical build 7000 is certainly doing well for itself. Following up on wide praise for the fledgling OS, ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes pitted the beta up against XP and Vista in some informal "real-word" tasks like boot up, shut down, file maneuvers, installations and other common tasks. On both test systems, an AMD Phenom 9700 setup and an Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2200 number (with ATI and NVIDIA graphics, respectively), the Windows 7 install soundly bested XP and Vista task by task, with few exceptions. Performance testing is never an exact science, but it's clear that Microsoft is taking performance very seriously this time around -- we can't wait for the next conveniently-leaked beta to bolster this rep even further. Next on the benchmarking agenda? Real World: Brooklyn tasks.

[Via Ars Technica]

Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1a prodded by the FCC

by Joshua Topolsky posted Nov 12th 2008 at 12:09PM

If you've read through our thorough review of Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1, by now you're probably champing at any number of bits to get your hands on the device. Well, thanks to the FCC, you can rest easier knowing you're one step closer to actually touching, holding, and hugging the phone (the US-destined X1a, that is). Amongst other things, the documents seem to disclose -- we'll stop short of saying confirm -- that a black version will be in play when it arrives in the States, though we feel that page 46 of the 114 page test report was more revealing in many ways. Don't believe us? Hit the read link and take a look for yourself.

Nissan readies pilot for road-cam / slip-hazard alert services

by Darren Murph posted Oct 21st 2008 at 2:33AM

Way back in 2005, we got wind of a Bluetooth-based telematics systems for cars dubbed Carwings. Now, Nissan is gearing up to launch two safety pilots which will rely on -- you guessed it -- Carwings HDD navigation systems. First up is the slip-hazard alert, which marries data from the ITS (Intelligent Transport System) and ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) in order to warn drivers of slippery road conditions. In addition to that, the recently concocted road-cam service can "enhance the effectiveness of the alert service by offering drivers a visual image" of surroundings. The company will make the slip-hazard alert and the new road-cam service available to all Carwings customers (in Japan) beginning next month, with the latter hitting first (in November) and the former second (in December). Oh, and did we mention the upgrades will be completely gratis? Because they will be.

[Via Wired]

Sprint and Intel signing up Baltimore-area XOHM testers

by Darren Murph posted Sep 24th 2008 at 9:15AM

Back in June, we heard that Sprint would be going live with its XOHM WiMAX service in Baltimore, um, this month. As of today, it's pretty clear that the service won't be rolled out fully before October dawns, but at least some progress is being made. Based on a survey sent out to select (read: lucky) Baltimore-area residents, it seems that Intel and Sprint are willing to give away free laptops in order to trial the XOHM service in the city. Unfortunately, the lappies won't even be given out until late October, and the trial itself is set to last 30 days, so frankly, we'll be lucky to see XOHM hit the general populace before Santa takes to the friendly skies. Though, why are we not surprised?

[Thanks, Anonymous]

LTE trial deemed a success: 170Mbps downloads in a moving car

by Darren Murph posted Sep 19th 2008 at 9:13AM

Controlled LTE trials have been going pretty well of late, but the first test "under everyday conditions" has just gone down in Germany. We're pleased to say that everything went off without a hitch, as a connection using the next-generation (4G) mobile communications standard was maintained while inside a moving car traveling at around 42mph. Aside from the thrill of not dropping in and out of Pidgin at random, experimenters were able to pull downloads of up to 170Mbps and upload at up to 50Mbps. According to Hamid Akhavan, head of T-Mobile, it will still be 2010 (at the very earliest) before any of its markets go live with LTE, but at least we're moving in the right direction, eh?

[Image courtesy of ChrisHarrison]

Texas Memory breaks records, budgets with blisteringly fast RamSan-440 storage device

by Darren Murph posted Jul 23rd 2008 at 5:27PM

Texas Memory has been around longer than most of you readers have been alive (or so we're told by our resident omniscient overlord), but it's been quite awhile since it was talked about freely in the same breath as WD, Fujitsu, Samsung, et al. Now, however, the company is making the rounds once more thanks to its "record setting" RamSan-440, which provides between 256GB and 512GB of RAM-based SSD storage, 600,000 IOPS, 4,500MB/sec random sustained external throughput and latency under 15-microseconds. The entire rig arrives in a 90-pound 4U rack-mount enclosure and claims to be "the first SSD to use RAIDed NAND flash memory modules for data backup." Chances are, you were already bracing to hear a pretty ludicrous figure when it comes to pricing, but $150,000 for the 256GB edition and $275,000 for the 512GB iteration? Please -- we'll take a Lightning GT, thanks.

[Via DailyTech]