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World's first camera goes on public display in Macau
If you thought the golden anniversary of Olympus' Pen camera was something, get a load of this. From now until August 23rd, an elaborate exhibition entitled 'The Invention of Photography and the Earliest Photographs' will showcase some of digital imaging's earliest tools, including the planet's oldest camera. The wooden sliding box shown above will undoubtedly be the centerpiece of the Macau-based expo, though it will be surrounded by 250 photography antiques and 180 old photos, which were collections lent by the Nicephore Niepce Museum and 12 other museums, cultural institutions and private collectors around the world. Anyone planning on making the trip over? Make sure you take a few snapshots with your 90s-era point-and-shoot, cool?
Corsair DDR3 memory clocked at 2533MHz, women swoon 'round the world
Corsair -- the swashbucklin' favorite of privateers in need of RAM and SSDs -- has just announced that its Dominator GT DDR3 memory has been overclocked at a pretty astonishing 2533MHz. As you'd expect from a company made of braggarts and rogues, its claiming the world record for itself -- unless, of course, one of you other memory manufacturers feels like taking this bad boy on. Kingston, we're looking at you. Hit that read link for all the salacious details.
Fujitsu's supercomputer-ready Venus CPU said to be "world's fastest"
Due to the intrinsic limitations of machine translation, it's hard to say exactly what makes Fujitsu's latest supercomputer the "world's fastest," but we'll hesitantly believe for the time being. We're told that the SPARC64 VIIIfx (codename Venus) can churn through 128 billion calculations per second, which supposedly bests the current champ -- a chip from Intel -- by 2.5 times. An AP report on the matter states that Fujitsu shrunk the size of each central circuit, which in turn doubled the number of circuits per chip. 'Course, this beast won't be ready for supercomputer work for several years yet, giving the chip maker's biggest rivals plenty of time to sabotage its moment in the limelight.[Via Physorg]
CenTrak intros world's thinnest active RFID, opens new realm of possibilities
Despite being oh-so-promising years ago, we've seen little innovation in the RFID space over the past several months. Today, however, CenTrak's proving that the dream is still somewhat alive. The outfit has just introduced the planet's thinnest hybrid active Radio Frequency Identification tag, which is said to be so thin that it's almost "indistinguishable from a standard employee badge." The IT-740 Staff Badge checks in at just three millimeters thick and includes a trio of programmable buttons, a system controlled LED, hole mounts for portrait or landscape orientation, water resistance for easy cleaning and "ultra long battery-life." For employees, rocking one of these guarantees that your superior will recognize every step you take, every move you make and every bond you break. Which, sadly enough, isn't nearly as bodacious as The Police make it sound. Bonus coverage after the break.
Jagex looking strong for 2009
Jagex, the developer of the popular free-to-play browser based MMO Runescape, is looking very good as they enter into 2009 with two of their best quarters behind them and a brand new game ahead. RuneScape has already been hailed as the largest free-to-play game in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records, featuring 1 million paying players and 5 million free players.Besides giving Blizzard a run for "which company could fill a pool with money and swim in it," Jagex is also preparing a brand new MMO game, set in the confines of science-fiction and giant robots. MechScape, as the project is currently known, will feature deeper gameplay than its fantasy cousin to target a brand new audience. MechScape will be based from RuneScape's technology and will feature graphics of a higher caliber than RuneScape HD. You can look for much more information regarding this project in our GDC interview with Jagex, releasing tomorrow.
Wind-powered vehicle hits 126MPH, nabs world record
Sorry Mr. Schumacher, but your ten year record just got obliterated (okay, "beat soundly") by a Briton. On the dry, dusty plains of Ivanpah Lake in Nevada, Sir Richard Jenkins managed to perfectly harness winds of 30MPH in his futuristic Ecotricity Greenbird in order to hit a ridiculously quick 126.1MPH. In all honestly, we can't even fathom how you hit that speed with just 30MPH of wind, but clearly we're not up to speed when it comes to physics and engineering. At any rate, the milestone is pretty important for Ecotricity, which is trying to make wind power the go-to alternative energy source within the next score. Now, if only we could figure out a cheap and easy way to generate wind on demand, we'd really be onto something.[Via BBC]
Worldwide cellphone use hits 60 percent, developing nations largely to thank
Outfits like Nokia have been just rolling in profits from selling oodles of low margin handsets in developing nations across the globe, so it's no shock at all to hear that those very countries have propelled the worldwide usage tally well above the 50 percent mark. According to a wide-ranging United Nations report, around six in ten people across the globe now use mobile phones, and as expected, fixed line subscriptions have increased at a much slower pace. If you're wondering just how significant this figure really is, chew on this: in 2002, just under 15 percent of the global population used a cellie. Impressive, eh?[Via TG Daily]
14-year-old breaks GHIII 'Fire and Flames' record, guitars
At the tender age of fourteen, our oafish hamfists could barely handle the simplest daily tasks: Shoe tying, pencil handling, typing and so on. Danny Johnson, a 14-year-old with such outrageous manual dexterity that we're of the firm belief he's at least two-thirds robot, recently performed a task we thought unthinkable -- he broke 17-year-old Chris Chike's official record on Guitar Hero III's most difficult song, "Through the Fire and Flames", and he broke it by nearly 100,000 points. Robot.Johnson, who's broken nearly 80 guitar peripherals over the past nine months in pursuit of the record, set a wide margin with strategic Star Power usage, elevating his score to 973,954 (topping Chike's 899,703) during a performance at a Best Buy event with Guinness officiaries in attendance. However, we've seen Chike garner even higher scores without being witnessed by the aforementioned officiaries -- we think it's time for these two Jimmy Woods-esque virtuosos to settle this in a no-holds-barred, winner-take-all guitar duel.[Via Game|Life]
Baby steps: new solar cell efficiency record isn't awe-inspiring
Granted, we've no idea what it takes to really push the efficiency level of a solar cell, but we're getting pretty bored with these incremental improvements year after year. If you'll recall, the record for solar cell efficiency sat at 40.7 percent in 2006, and that was raised to an amazing 40.8 percent last August. Today, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems have announced an all new milestone: 41.1 percent efficiency. According to team head Frank Dimroth, the crew is simply "elated by this breakthrough." Meanwhile, the rest of planet Earth is suddenly depressed by the thought of perishing from old age before this data point ever breaks the big five-oh.[Via Gizmag]
Sony gets official with VAIO P: world's lightest 8-inch netbook
Not that we really needed Sony to tell us something we already knew, but we certainly appreciate the gesture. The hotly anticipated VAIO P is for real, and it's coming in as the world's lightest 8-inch netbook at just 1.4 pounds. The Vista-based device packs an almost unbelievable 1,600 x 768 resolution LED-backlit XBRITE-ECO LCD display, 802.11n WiFi, 3G WWAN, Bluetooth, a battery good for four hours (eight hours with the optional high-capacity cell) and a GPS module for good measure. You'll also find an instant-on mode that launches directly into Sony's Xross Media Bar interface, and the inbuilt webcam will keep the video chats going well into the morning. It'll start shipping in early February (in garnet red, emerald green, onyx black, crystal white and classic black hues) for $900 and up, and you can peek the full release just after the break.%Gallery-40923%
Sony sets Guinness World Record with BRAVIA-drome
Sony was smelling a world record when it constructed this beast, and sure enough, that's exactly what it set. The BRAVIA-drome was originally constructed to showcase its 240Hz Motionflow technology, and it has ended up being a continual source of interest even after the commercial shoot. This week, a Guinness World Records adjudicator affirmed that the structure was indeed the "World's Largest Zoetrope." We're not exactly sure that this proves / disproves the awesomeness / lameness of its 240Hz tech, but congrats anyway, Sony.
Samsung attempts to set world record for fastest texting while skydiving
We're not sure if this is meant to prove that texting on Samsung's line of handsets is remarkably quick or if the ten individuals selected to text quickly whilst skydiving are just amazing multitaskers, but either way, the exercise has been executed. Samsung Mobile rounded up ten skydivers and equipped them with a Propel, Alias, Gravity, Rant or Messager in an attempt to set the "Guinness World Record for fastest test messaging while skydiving." The crew took a total of two jumps and landed safely each time, and now the Guinness team is breaking down the video to see if an award is in order. Check the read link for more images and a vid, but don't bother looking for an application to get on the 2009 team.
No new HDTV size record to be shattered at CES 2009
For awhile there, it seemed like companies were coming out of the woodwork to showcase the newest "world's largest HDTV" at CES. Now that we've hit the 150-inch point, though, analysts aren't expecting anything to one-up that at next year's show. In an interview with Panasonic Professional Display's Andrew Nelkin, he confessed that he saw 150-inches as a "natural stopping point." For starters, it's big enough for most commercial applications, and moreover, anything larger becomes nearly impossible to install in a single piece. He even felt that the 150-inch ceiling may remain intact for years to come, but maybe he's just masking the development work on a bigger set that's already on a boat headed for Vegas.
Intel's Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 overclocked to 5.5GHz
Right, so Intel's 3.73GHz Core i7 Extreme Edition 965 is fast enough for the vast majority of PC users across the globe, but not for Japanese overclocking enthusiast duck. Oh no -- duck decided to pair the chip up with ASUS' ROG Rampage II Extreme motherboard, which facilitates hardware-based OC'ing, in order to reach a top speed of 5510.09MHz. The point of the exercise? Just to say he could, not to mention set the bar for OC Team Italy to try and demolish.
4,000-square foot "portable cinema" rolls into UAE
Only in Dubai and the surrounding areas would a 4,000-square foot cinema-on-wheels be considered "portable." The 70-ton, six-story high screen -- which is nicely complemented by a 32-speaker digital surround sound system -- is prepared to show off theatrical masterpieces to some 2,000 onlookers at the Hydra Open Air Cinema UAE 2008. Said event is set to spend a dozen nights in both Abu Dhabi and Dubai during November and December, and organizers are fully expecting to make it an annual tradition. So, what are the chances we can get Star Wars going on this thing?[Via AboutProjectors]
World's largest LED screen coming to Dubai
By this point, you should fully understand that "Dubai" and "world's largest" go hand-in-hand, so it's quite fitting that said city is receiving the planet's most humongous LED screen. Designed by UAE development company Tameer Holding, the 33-story high display will reportedly be "embedded on an intended commercial tower in the Majan district of Dubailand," where it will stand tall and blast out advertisements to onlookers some 1.5-kilometers away. Dubbed Podium, the building will also house 33 levels of "premium commercial office space, two floors dedicated to retail and four floors for parking." There's no word on when the project will be completed, but we don't suspect Tameer will be dragging its feet in getting this up.[Via Coolbuzz]
World's largest computing grid lives to go live
Contrary to popular belief, the world as we know it didn't implode after the Large Hadron Collider was flipped on. Sure -- someone, somewhere is growing a ninth arm and trying desperately to land a cameo on Fringe, but the planet at large is still humming along just fine. Now, the world's most ginormous computing grid (the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid, or WLCG) has gone live, and the gurus behind it are celebrating the beginning of its momentous data challenge: to analyze and manage over 15 million gigabytes of data each year. The Grid combines the IT power of over 140 computer centers, 100,000 processors and the collaborative efforts of 33 countries. Unfortunately, there's no word on when the official WLCG-based Call of Duty 4 server will be green-lit for action, but we hear it's pretty high on the priorities list.[Via China View]
UN communications chief predicts four billion mobile phone subs by year's end
No need to adjust your set -- the United Nations communications chief has boldly predicted that half of planet Earth's population will be hooked on some sort of mobile phone before 2009 dawns. Granted, the numbers he's talking about do look strictly at subscriptions, so a small percentage will be skewed by those with multiple accounts (and thus, multiple numbers), but really, the forecast isn't all that outlandish. After all, we already hit 3.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions back in November of last year (and 4 billion lines overall). As predicted, it's growth in developing regions such as Africa and the Middle East which will boost the overall figure the most, with yearly increases in those areas expected to hit 27% and 25%, respectively. So, what are the chances a post eerily similar to this pops up in 2012 or so saying the entire world has a cellphone? Our trusty Magic 8-ball says "Signs Point to Yes."[Via Core77, image courtesy of Road and Travel]
New solar cell efficiency record (barely) achieved at 40.8%
Just under two years ago, researchers at Boeing-Spectrolab managed to achieve 40.7% solar cell efficiency. Two years later, scientists at the US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory have demonstrated their nerve by trumpeting an all new world record... one that's 0.1% points better than the last. Yes, your new record now sits at 40.8% -- tremendous progress, wouldn't you say? Looking outside of the numbers, you'll find that these cells differ "significantly" from the prior record holders, which enable them to be thinner, lighter, cheaper and altogether swanker. That's it for now folks -- come back in a couple years, we hear 40.9% is just around the bend.[Via CNET]
Pioneer finds 20-layer 500GB Blu-ray Disc "feasible"
Now here's a rate of progress we could get used to. Nary a month after Pioneer trumpeted a 400GB Blu-ray Disc, out pops another press release from the firm boasting about a 500 gigger with a score of layers. Based on research at its Tokyo headquarters, specifications have been drafted for an incredibly capacious 500GB BD. Granted, this very company already had plans for a 500GB optical disc nearly four years ago, but there's no time like the present to make this stuff a reality, right?[Via TrustedReviews, thanks xdragon]
