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Scientists bend gamma rays, could neuter radioactive waste (update: more credit)
Bending most light is easy; bending it in gamma ray form, however, has often been deemed impossible given how hard it is for electrons to react to the extreme frequencies. LMU Munich scientist Dietrich Habs and his Institut Laue-Langevin teammate Michael Jentschel have proven that assumption wrong: an experiment in blasting a silicon prism has shown that gamma rays will refract just slightly through the right material. If a lens is made out of a large-atom substance like gold to bend the rays further, the researchers envision focused beams of energy that could either detect radioactive material or even make it inert by wiping off neutrons and protons. In theory, it could turn a nuclear power plant's waste harmless. A practical use of the technology is still some distance off -- but that it's even within sight at all just feels like a breakthrough. Update: The research also involved the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics' Marc Günther. Thank you, Dr. Günther.
T-Mobile officially adds Prism to its budget lineup on May 6th for $20
No surprise here, but T-Mobile has been prepping a low-end Android phone called the Prism for quite some time now, and it's finally time for the little guy to make its official debut. With a 3.5-inch HVGA display, 3.2MP fixed-focus camera and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), it won't be the stuff dreams are made of. The CPU is also unspecified, which leads us to believe that T-Mo is leaving it out of the talking points for a reason -- yesterday's leak indicated that we can expect it to be 600MHz. That said, plenty of potential buyers wanting an inexpensive smartphone may be easily persuaded by its $20 price on contract (with a $50 mail-in rebate) or $150 without any sort of commitment. The Huawei-made Prism will make its first appearance at Best Buy on May 6th, followed by Walmart on the 9th and official retail channels on the 23rd. We have a press release awaiting you after the break, so take a peek if it interests you.
T-Mobile Prism leaked: entry-level Huawei smartphone to launch in May
While the design (and even the briefing slides) scream affordable, we're sure there must be some Big Magenta customers aching for a keenly-priced smartphone fix. So here's the Prism. Huawei's behind that T-Mobile face, cooking up a Android Gingerbread phone with a pretty weedy 600MHz processor and a 3.5-inch (480 x 320) touchscreen. A fixed-focus (yeah) 3.2-megapixel camera pokes out the back, while a microSD slot means you can extend space for those vaguely-almost-in-focus shots -- the Prism arrives with a 2GB card already onboard. The phone looks set for a May 6th release date and TmoNews has several more slides with some extra launch details -- you can check them out at the source below.
T-Mobile Prism from Huawei lands at FCC
Thanks to leaked inventory documents, we've already known that Huawei's Prism would grace its way onto T-Mobile's shores. Now that its certification papers have been put through the wringers at the FCC, we can plainly see that the handset will be marketed as the T-Mobile Prism. While little is known about the device -- dubbed internally as the U8651T (or Astro) -- we're able to glean that it supports quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE, along with UMTS/HSPA connectivity on the 1900MHz, 1700MHz and 850MHz bands. We also discovered AGPS, 802.11b/g/n (WiFi) and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR thrown in for good measure, along with microSD support and a 1,400mAh battery -- that last tidbit safely excludes this handset from being a rebadge of one of Huawei's high-end offerings.
Live from Huawei's Mobile World Congress 2012 press conference!
And it begins. Welcome to the first of many, many press conferences we'll be liveblogging during our week here at Mobile World Congress. Kicking things off we have Huawei and, one would hope, clarification on quite a few leaks. Will we see an Ascend D1 Q (or Prism) smartphone? A 10-inch tablet to complement the 7-inch MediaPad we reviewed last year? Stay tuned for the blow by blow. February 26, 2012 9:30 AM EST
NVIDIA announces DirectTouch technology for Tegra 3 tablets, promises a smoother touch experience
You'd think that with Tegra 3 shipping in the Transformer Prime and all, we'd know everything there is to know about the new SoC. Apparently not. NVIDIA just announced DirectTouch, a technology exclusive to its Tegra 3 platform that uses that bonus fifth core for to improve touch detection. So what does a low-power core have to do with the touch experience, you say? Essentially, what's going on is NVIDIA's PRISM Display technology separates color and backlight intensity to save battery life while preserving fidelity. In a demo, the technology looked mighty smooth, though we'll need to get hands-on ourselves and see the technology in action for more than five seconds before we can weigh in on its utility. Billy Steele contributed to this report.
New glasses-free 3D tech uses per pixel prisms for zero crosstalk, audience flexibility
Try as manufacturers might, attempts at autostereoscopic (glasses-free) TV have been subpar; existing tech typically makes for messy images due to ghosting, only provides a 3D effect if you're standing in one of a very few predetermined spots (usually 8-10 viewing angles, though we've heard of 64), and reduces display resolution -- all because only some pixels can be seen from each spot. With the occasional exception, it's not terribly impressive. Scientists at the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan are looking to change that. Rather than block light with a parallax barrier, their screen uses a matrix of specially cut prisms to reflect it, reducing ghosting to nil and maintaining display resolution by sending the same image to each viewer. Though there are still a fixed number of viewing zones, the prisms are so tiny that manufacturers can simply add more prisms to each pixel to increase that number -- with 11 prisms per pixel, researchers say such a system could support 100 simultaneous 3D moviegoers. We've no word on whether the tech is affordable or when we'll see it, but we expect it to handily beat cyborg eyeballs to market.
Ask TUAW: Arranging icons on the iPhone, installing Windows on a Mac, Airport networks and more
Welcome back to Ask TUAW, our weekly troubleshooting Q&A column. This week we have questions about arranging icons on the iPhone, installing Windows via Boot Camp, AirPort networks, iMac rotation support, replacing the video card in an iMac, and more. As always, your suggestions and questions are welcome. Leave your questions for next week in the comments section at the end of this post. When asking a question, please include which machine you're using and what version of Mac OS X is installed on it (we'll assume you're running Snow Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don't specify). And now, on to the questions. Leah asks: Is there a better way to arrange icons on my iPhone than by trying to drag them around on the phone itself. I can't seem to get it to work very well and usually mess it up. Apple provided a better way of organizing iPhone icons in iTunes 9. In the past, I always tried to arrange my icons on the iPhone the same way you do, by dragging them around on the device itself. This isn't as easy as it sounds, especially if you have larger hands. Now, with iTunes 9 or higher installed and your iPhone connected to your Mac or PC, launch iTunes, click on the Applications tab, and you will not only see the apps you have installed on your iPhone, but the iPhone screens and the placement of the icons as well. Simply drag the icons around in iTunes and put them in the desired order. The next time you sync, the icons are arranged identically on your iPhone as well. It's so much easier.
Prism single-site browser goes 1.0 beta
The concept of a single-site browser or site-specific browser (SSB, either way) is simple: give me a window with one website in it, preferably a desktop application replacement like Gmail, RTM, Basecamp or Zoho, and let that window behave like a regular application with its own Dock icon, notifications, etc. If you're spending a lot of your time on a particular site, this can simplify your life quite a bit; if you're mixing up GTD with ADD (as so many of us seem to be), an SSB can help limit your distraction horizon while you're trying to maintain focus and flow. The inspiration for many SSB offerings was the Firefox offshoot Webrunner, and the descendant of that project has now earned a 1.0 beta designation and its own website: Prism, from Mozilla Labs, gives you a power tool for creating your own SSBs at will, either via a Firefox extension or by launching the Prism config app and typing in the target URL. Aside from having a dockable icon for each website you convert, you can also set your SSBs to launch at login, or assign mailto: links to open your web email client (similarly achievable for Gmail with the Gmail Notifier tool). If you have to keep separate sets of credentials for work & personal accounts for web services, no need to log in and out repeatedly -- just set up a Prism SSB for one of the accounts, and the passwords & cookies will stay as they need to be. In my brief testing this morning, several sites worked just as expected; the only sticking point is that the Choosy extension gets confused about whether or not Firefox is running when an SSB is open. Safari 4 developer seeds had offered a "Save as Web Application" feature for creating SSBs, which has been stripped from the File menu in the current public beta but still looks to be part of the final release; meanwhile, you can still make WebKit-centric SSBs with the excellent and free Fluid. What site or webapp would you put in a single-site browser? Thanks to everyone who sent this in. [H/T to Lifehacker]
T-Mobile market testing terrible names for the HTC Magic / Sapphire
We're not sure why T-Mobile would be market-testing names other than "G2" for its upcoming HTC Sapphire, but it apparently is -- and if these leaked slides are to be believed, it's not doing so well on the ideas front. Seriously: "T-Mobile Genius 3G with Google" and "Prism 3G with Google" both trade in the well-known G-series branding for banal anonymity, and "myTouch 3G with Google" just sounds like a skin disease that's gone from bad to worse. Interestingly, "T-Mobile G3" is also on the list, which makes us wonder if there's a less-drastic G2 model in the works, but that's pure speculation on our part -- what we do know is that we'd take Vodafone's Magic branding over any of these other sad options in a heartbeat.
Gaming to Go: Prism: Light the Way
CALAMITY! The light is gone!In the dark? You aren't the only one. The cute little story sequence at the beginning of Prism: Light the Way speaks of Bulboids, Glowbos, and an even stranger assortment of words, describing some horrific process wherein a star monster is totally crashing an intergallactic party or something. The thread-bare plot in Prism isn't the greatest thing you'll read this week, but the solid puzzle mechanics beneath it sure make the whole thing much easier to bear, especially if you're interested in trying a puzzle game that doesn't involve matching up three or more blocks of the same color.One look at Prism's interface and accompany soundtrack might make you change your mind, admittedly, but persevere and you'll find a fairly satisfying adventure awaiting. With over 100 different puzzles to conquer and a few additional modes to mix things up a bit, Prism: Light the Way is definitely worth a more in-depth look, so why not come along with this week's edition of Gaming to Go and see if this unknown puzzler will tempt you to lighten your wallet a bit? #ninbutton { border-style: solid; border-color: #000; border-width: 2px; background-color: #BBB; color: #000; text-decoration: none; width: 100px; text-align: center; padding: 2px 2px 2px 2px; margin: 2px 2px 2px 2px; } .buttontext { color: #000; text-decoration: none; font: bold 14pt Helvetica; } #ninbutton:hover { text-decoration: none; color: #BBB; background-color: #000; } NEXT >> %Gallery-39310%
The DS Life: Light the Way
Despite the title, this post has nothing to do with Prism: Light the Way, one of the DS's most interesting but overlooked puzzlers. Circuit City has the game on sale for $9.99 this week, though, so you should totally look into picking it up anyway! For this week's edition of The DS Life, we'll look at several images taken from photographer Patrick Brosset's collection of light painting shots, long-exposure photos taken with streaks of light drawn over the scene. What does this creative technique have to do with the Nintendo DS or gaming? Join us past the break to find out!
Amazon gives us a reason to be jolly
Amazon has put over two dozen Nintendo DS games on sale, some of them marked down as low as 50% of their original price! Some of the titles are trash, but there are more than a few that you should consider picking up. We've listed below the ones that stood out to us, but make sure to check out Amazon's page for the full selection of DS deals. Front Mission - $24.99 Looney Tunes: Duck Amuck - $19.99 Master of Illusion - $19.99 Nintendo DS Headset - $9.99 Prism - $19.99 Spanish for Everyone - $14.99 Don't forget that orders totalling over $25 are eligible for the online shop's Free Super Saver Shipping. Joys be thine, frugal readers![Via CAG]
Nokia makes Prism collection officially official
Despite Asian availability for a few weeks now of the 7500 model, it seems Nokia has just today decided to make its so-called "Prism collection" official. Perhaps a great gift for the mathematics professor or physicist in your life, the two span the spectrum of radio coverage and features; the 7500 is naturally the lower-end of the two, featuring a QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera, and data topping out at EDGE speeds. The 7900 adds a fourth band of GSM coverage (Americans may want to stay away from the 7500 thanks to an absence of GSM 850), WCDMA 850 / 2100, 1GB of internal storage, and a trick 2 inch OLED screen. Both phones ride atop Series 40 3rd Edition and should be in shops this quarter -- if they aren't already -- for €210 and €400 (about $288 and $549) respectively.
Hands-on with the Nokia 7500 Prism
If you close your eyes and think of a Nokia candybar -- even a particularly stylish one -- we're guessing the 7500 Prism is about the furthest thing from what you'd envision. The oddities don't stop with the unusual geometric pattern adorning the phone's surface, either; despite using the latest and greatest version of Series 40, the 7500 is merely a 2.5G handset, unusual for even a midrange Nokia in the year 2007. But wait, it gets even better: take a gander at the bottom of the phone and you'll find a mini USB port where you might expect to find a Pop-Port (yeah, we know Nokia's been doing this as of late, but it's still a little bit of a shocker every time we see it). Was Nokia's little venture off the beaten path worth it? Read on to find out.Update: Our bad, it turns out the 7500 is running Series 40 3rd Edition, not 5th. Still a solid platform, we reckon!Thanks to the good folks at Wireless Imports for the hookup!%Gallery-5582%
Reflecting on Prism: Light the Way
We were surprised to read that Prism: Light the Way collected an 8.5/10 score in the latest issue of Nintendo Power, mostly because prior to the review, we had never heard of the puzzle game. Prism tasks you with saving the Glowbos, a black-hole-inhabiting race of blobs. A space monster has absorbed the light that the Glowbos need to survive, and the Bulboids, creatures that shoot beams out of their mouths, are their only hope!Directing these rays to the Glowbos can be a challenge, especially since some of them require a specific color of light. You'll have to use filter blocks, splitters, and mirrors to deliver the right beams to all of them. Prism features 120 unlimited-time puzzles, Timed and "Hyper" modes, and the option to play an infinite stream of randomly-generated stages. You'll also be able to compete against another player without needing a second copy of the game. Prism: Light the Way hits the DS this September 4th in North America. There haven't been many screenshots or trailers put out for the handheld title yet, but we've embedded a gameplay video for the PC version past the post break.
Nokia debuts totally fugly 7500 Prism in China
By all accounts, Nokia's designers are either on a cutting edge so far into the future and so deeply advanced that we can't understand it, or they've all gone off their medication. The bizarre 7500 Prism (which may or may not be the similarly styled 7900) made its debut at a Nokia fashion event in China today, along with the 8600, 8800 Sirocco, 6110 navigator, 5700 XpressMusic, 6500 classic, 6500 slider and the 3500 -- though none of them were as totally zany looking as the Prism. The phone's specs are at least fairly normal, featuring a 2 megapixel camera, microSD slot, a QVGA screen and rocking the S40 (version 5) OS. It's unclear at this point why the company believes people will want a diamond shaped keyboard, but since the FCC has already approved this model, we'll soon learn if they really do.