Tim
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Hitting the Books: US regulators are losing the fight against Big Tech
Despite its nearly limitless resources, federal regulators and legislators have struggled to keep pace -- much less rein in -- the worst tendencies of today's Big Tech corporations as Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge in 'Access Rules'
Acer's Predator PowerGem could boost CPU performance by over 12 percent
Between some powerful updates to its creator-focused ConceptD PC series and new Predator gaming laptops, Acer wanted to show off its latest component innovations on stage. At the company's IFA press event, Acer boss Jason Chen brandished the Predator PowerGem, a new material intended to aid in the cooling of PC components. Details are extremely scant, but it's apparent that PowerGem is a type of thermal interface material (TIM). It's supposed to take the place of thermal paste, which sits between a chip and the cooler above it. While these pads are already found atop components like NVMe storage or GPU VRMs, CPUs are still typically cooled with thermal paste, or more exotic materials like liquid metal. PowerGem appears to have been developed specifically to cool CPUs.
CERN introduces Large Hadron Collider's robotic inspectors
Since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) needs to be in tip-top shape to discover new particles, it has two inspectors making sure everything's in working order. The two of them are called TIM, short not for Timothy, but for Train Inspection Monorail. These mini autonomous monorails that keep an eye on the world's largest particle collider follow a pre-defined route and get around using tracks suspended from the ceiling. According to CERN's post introducing the machines, the tracks are remnants from the time the tunnel housed the Large Electron Positron instead of the LHC. The LEP's monorail was bigger, but not quite as high-tech: it was mainly used to transport materials and workers.
Intel caught using cheap thermal paste in Ivy Bridge?
For all the good stuff it brings, Ivy Bridge has also been running a little hotter than reviewers and overclockers might have liked -- and that's putting it mildly. A few weeks back, Overclockers discovered a possible culprit: regular thermal paste that sits between the CPU die and the outwardly-visible heatspreader plate. By contrast, Intel splashed out on fluxless solder in this position in its Sandy Bridge processors, which is known have much greater thermal conductivity. Now, Japanese site PC Watch has taken the next logical step, by replacing the stock thermal paste in a Core i7-3770K with a pricier aftermarket alternative to see what would happen. Just like that, stock clock temperatures dropped by 18 percent, while overclocked temperatures (4GHz at 1.2V) fell by 23 percent. Better thermals allowed the chip to sustain higher core voltages and core clock speeds and thereby deliver greater performance. It goes to show, you can't cut corners -- even 22nm ones -- without someone noticing, but then Apple could have told you that.
iPhone icon cupcakes look touchable, tasty
We haven't posted a really good iPhone cake in quite a while now, so here we go: Reader Tim sends in this set of cupcakes that his girlfriend made him for his 21st birthday, and boy do they look good. There are a few things that, as Apple obsessive, we would call out in there, including the fact that this cake uses the old iPod logo instead of the new Music app logo, and the fact that the phone happens to be tilted the wrong way in these pictures. But hey, that's just us nitpicking -- these look great, very nice job, and I especially like the custom day and date, as well as the special message on the Notes icon. Happy belated birthday, Tim, and you've got one very talented and sweet lady there.
T.I.M. has a taste for passers-by, also fava beans and a nice chianti (video)
Art school -- incubator of tomorrow's next great visionaries, or think tank for the Robot Apocalypse? Sorry folks, but this latest Arduino frankenconcept looks to be working against Team Humanity. Part of Art Institute of Chicago BFA student Daniel Jay Bertner's recent oeuvre, the Tracking Interactive Mechanism (or T.I.M., for short) uses a webcam operating OpenCV to follow gallery-traipsing gawkers' faces, and respond to their movements. Careful, though. T.I.M. here bites, or at least makes virtual attempts to pierce your flesh thanks to a hidden photocell mechanism triggered by a viewer's proximity. There's just one thing Daniel left out of his wall-mounted, predatory cyborg installation -- the requisite Hannibal Lecter soundboard. Jump past the break to see this nightmarish, mixed media concept in motion.
Apple creating touch panel shortages for tablet competition?
Things tend to get messy for the competition when Apple decides to direct its vast cash reserves on "very strategic" components. Especially when Cupertino starts waving around stacks of dough in the range of $3.9 billion to $7.8 billion. For reference, just look at what Apple did to NAND supplies as the flash-based iPod rose to dominance. Today DigiTimes is reporting that Apple is occupying close to 60 percent of the global touch panel production capacity from the likes of Wintek and TPK resulting in "tight supply" for the competition. The impact on consumers, according DigiTimes' sources at upstream component makers, is that tablet PC makers are unable to ship enough product to match orders due to component shortages. The issue is especially troublesome for second-tier tablet hopefuls who must compete with the likes of HP, RIM, Motorola, HTC, Samsung, LG, Dell (everyone but Sony) for the scraps. As a result, Apple should be able to more easily meet iPad demand in 2011, according to DigiTimes, while its competitors struggle to keep up.
Engadget Mobile Podcast 031: Saturday @ CES 2010 - 01.09.2010
Welcome to the future of the Engadget Mobile Podcast. And by the future, we mean the present. The now. The 2010 where we have a Blackberry on our wrist, a Rumor in our hand, and The Need For Speed on our Pre. Strap in and log on. Hosts: Chris Ziegler, Sean CooperProducer: Trent WolbeMusic: Solvent - Devices and Strategies (Ghostly International)03:36 - Live from Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo's CES 2010 keynote06:40 - LG Rumor Touch hands-on07:45 - LG Lotus Elite hands-on: it's red, square, and marginally attractive15:53 - inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry wrist-on21:32 - LG's GT540 mixes Android 2.0, pretty, and low-end22:53 - Google support forums rife with Nexus One 3G complaints, is this a real problem?25:20 - LG GW990 hands-on video41:25 - Palm gets serious about 3D gaming on webOSSubscribe to the podcast[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Mobile Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Mobile Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune MarketplaceDownload the podcastLISTEN (MP3)LISTEN (AAC)Contact the podcastpodcast (at) engadgetmobile (dot) com.
Italy's TIM nabbing HTC Magic
In Europe, HTC's Android devices are fragmented among the big players, which means TIM could end up being the first carrier anywhere to offer both the Dream and the Magic now that they've popped a product page on their official site for the keyboardless device at a stiff €449 (about $595). There's no launch date listed, but Tecnophone says that the phone's are already in TIM's possession -- and they might be looking at a May 4 launch to line up with Vodafone. Unable to decide which version you're going to buy, TIM subscribers? Yeah, it's a pretty awesome problem to have. [Via Tecnophone]
HTC Dream comes to Italy's TIM for €429 on prepaid
HTC's first Android device is pretty much all over the place now -- either as the G1 or the Dream -- and TIM is the latest to go live with it over in Italy. Like most European carriers, TIM is happy to get you a Dream for as little as €0, but where it gets interesting is with the prepaid option: for €429 (about $583), you can just have the darn thing outright and pay as you go. T-Mobile USA: there's a lesson to be learned here. Maybe.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Italian HTC Touch HD gets unboxed, looks highly desirable
Not that you don't already have an awesome idea of what HTC's luscious Touch HD looks like from all the hands-on love it's been receiving overseas, but how's about an official unboxing in Italy to really put the cherry on top? Go on, Europeans -- enjoy your Touch HD. It's not like we want one in our part of the world anyway. In fact, don't even bother checking out the read link, there's nothing worth being completely envious of in there, anyway. [Via Coolsmartphone]
Samsung's C6620 looks fun, means business with WinMo 6.1
Along with the change in naming convention comes a change in industrial design, and the C6620 -- one of the first smartphones to make use of Samsung's annoying new one-letter, four-digit scheme -- definitely looks a bit different than your average WinMo piece out of Seoul. Italian carrier TIM appears to be the first in the world to offer it, featuring triband GSM along with HSDPA, Bluetooth (we should certainly hope so), and a 2-megapixel camera -- not earth-shattering by any stretch, but we're digging the two-tone thing they've got going on here. It's selling for €199 (about $254), which we think makes this (or something very close to it) a perfect spiritual successor to the original BlackJack, yeah?[Via Unwired View and mobileblog.it]
BlackBerry Pearl 8220 launches on TIM in Italy
T-Mobile USA's busy with... ahem, another launch at the moment, but Italians on TIM now have access to RIM's first and only clamshell (TIM, RIM? Coincidence?). The Pearl 8220 is ready for shipment to the Mediterranean villa of your choosing for 269 (about $372), though TIM's only offering black at the moment -- so maybe T-Mobile's taking so long because they have to prepare some specially formulated dyes for that red version. Or something.[Via Boy Genius Report]
BenQ's 3G-enabled, Atom-powered MID Aries2 (S6) boots up in Italy
Is it really time to shine, BenQ, or are you just foolin' again? Judging by a product page at Italy's TIM website and a fresh report from the Italian branch of Tom's Hardware, the S6 (or MID Aries2, or BenQ MID... gosh, we're so confused!) is finally ready to order. The Atom-based MID impresses with built-in 3G capabilities, 512MB of RAM, a 2GB SSD, 4.8-inch 800 x 480 resolution display, WiFi / Bluetooth 2.0 and -- just to really pound the message home / incite jealously -- 7.2Mbps HSDPA. The current asking price sits at €429 ($626), and while the value proposition may be debatable, the amount of possibilities packed into a frame this small (6.2- x 3.5- x 0.86-inches) definitely isn't. Let's get these out to other nooks and crannies of the wide world, eh BenQ?[Via UMPC Portal]
LiMo Foundation breaks 50-member mark
The deafening silence out of the Android camp as of late has left plenty of room for competitors to steal some of the spotlight to advance their own causes, and the LiMo Foundation certainly seems to be doing what it can to take advantage of the opportunity. The "other" Linux-based mobile platform already has a key advantage over Android and the Open Handset Alliance -- products that are actually shipping -- and they're working to wide the gap here by announcing that they've now pushed their member count over the half-century mark. As usual, there are a few heavy hitters in this round, too: ZTE, Motorola spinoff Freescale Semiconductor, and Telecom Italia headline the eleven-strong class of carriers, component manufacturers, and software shops. Separately, they've announced that 21 LiMo phones now grace the market, so it's looking like these guys are here to stay regardless of what the Android camp's up to.
Symbian Foundation adds another round of supporters
The Symbian Foundation's founding member list was nothing to sneeze at, featuring the likes of Vodafone, Samsung, LG, AT&T, and of course Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola -- but the initiative is getting even stronger here with the addition of a couple other major carrier players, a chipset giant, and a heaping handful of software firms. From the carrier side, 3 and America Movil get added to the list; Marvell joins Texas Instruments from the silicon side of things, and the app developers now include Aplix, EB, EMCC Software, Sasken, and TietoEnator. We're not going to lie, we're not familiar with some of these devs -- but when you're fighting juggernauts like Android and LiMo to win the hearts and minds of the open-platform public, you need all the ammo you can get.
Reuters: 3G iPhone announcement for Italy Monday, or Tuesday
Reuters Italia is reporting that the 3G iPhone will be announced by the Italian carrier TIM (and presumably the rest of Europe) on Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Better yet, Reuters' source within TIM says that the 3G iPhone will be available immediately, Tuesday at the latest. Availability is still rumored for sometime in June for Italy and it's been awhile since Apple did an announce-and-launch on the same day. Quietly distributing 3 million or so iPhones around the world even with Apple's stealth is no easy task and we still haven't seen it, or anything from Apple hit the FCC. Still, at this point the biggest surprise of WWDC would be for Jobs not to announce a 3G iPhone. Update: After some initial confusion over the translation, Reuters says that it will be announced on Monday or Tuesday. [Via ToTouch, thanks Giovanni]
TIM says it's bringing the iPhone to Italy, too
Breaking with the longstanding tradition of granting exclusivity to the carrier in each country that can withstand Apple's vice-like iPhone profit sharing pressure, Italy's Telecom Italia has issued a super-brief statement simply letting the world know that "it has signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Italy later this year." No details, no launch date, no word on whether it'll be 3G (our money says yes) -- but either way, this means Italian customers will have the option of not one, but two carriers from which to get their Apple fix since Vodafone will be hauling in the device as well. A little competition never hurt anyone, right?
Qualcomm plans multiple HSPA+ trials this year
Why can't we just have and enjoy the latest, greatest pre-4G technology for a few frickin' minutes without having our collective attentions immediately redirected to the next latest, greatest thing? Qualcomm has gone and spoiled all the fun by announcing that it'll be setting up HSPA+ trials with Australia's Telstra, Italy's Telecom Italia, Hutchison 3 in the UK, and Telefonica this year to deliver downlink speeds up to 28Mbps as an evolutionary upgrade to the networks' already-deployed HSPA systems. If all goes well, Qualcomm expects that the technology could be commercialized as early as 2009, potentially putting it head-to-head with the very first volleys in the race to true 4G via LTE. 28Mbps, 173Mbps... we think we know which one we'd rather have in our backyard.[Via MobileBurn]
Italy's TIM signs up for Ovi, too
At first, Nokia's multimedia-centric Ovi announcement was met with a downright icy reception among European carriers for fear that it was going to hit 'em where it hurts -- in the bottom line. Things have been warming up, though, thanks in part to Nokia's willingness to customize carrier-branded devices to offer access to both Ovi services and carriers' own services side by side -- a tad confusing to consumers, yes, but likely a win-win for revenue. Telecom Italia is the latest group to give in and accept Nokia's encroachment on its bread and butter, agreeing to offer up the N81 and N95 8GB preloaded with the goods. They're calling it a "sustainable business model" with a "mutually beneficial approach" -- but ultimately, the proof's in the pudding, so we'll have to see how long this goes on once those two models have run their course.
