ECBC Poseidon Messenger Bag K7202 Review
Review of ECBC's Poseidon Messenger Bag K7202
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ZOTAC Releases FireStorm Overclocking Software
ZOTAC has released a new overclocking utility for its GeForce based GPUs called FireStorm. Users will have a number of options for enhancing the performance of their GPUs, which ZOTAC has divided into novice and advanced capabilities. Novice capabilities include clock speed adjustment, fan speed monitoring and adjustment, and temperature monitoring. Among the advanced features are NVIDIA GPU Boost control, voltage adjustment and monitoring, and load monitoring. Senior Director Carsten Berger also added that, “Enthusiasts with the latest ZOTAC GeForce GTX TITAN graphics card can take advantage of display overclocking too.”
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Flexible and Stretchable Battery Created
Many researchers across the world are developing flexible electronics for a myriad of reasons including greater durability and use as medical implants. Powering these devices can be tricky though, because your standard battery is quite rigid and could potential rupture if bent too much. Researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois have changed that though by creating a flexible, stretchable battery that can be pulled to three times its normal size.
This team of researchers has been working on flexible electronics for some time and had previously developed a 'pop-up bridge' system for them. Unfortunately that same technique will not work with batteries because battery components must be tightly packed to be effective. Instead the researchers had to develop a spring design for the wires connecting the battery components within the flexible membrane. This design utilizes two orders of "S" shapes, with the larger curve being made up of multiple, smaller "S's," so when you pull on the wires, the curves straighten out.
The battery the researchers built had similar power and voltage to a conventional lithium-ion battery of the same (non-stretched) size. The researchers can also integrate coils that will allow for wireless charging of the battery, but unfortunately the battery was only able to survive 20 charging cycles before it started losing efficacy, though further research should improve that.
Source: Northwestern University
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ECS Announces All-In-One G24
ECS has announced a new all-in-one system, the G24. A 23.6" touch screen is the focal point of this Windows 8 system which can track up to ten fingers at once. ECS envisions a wide variety of potential uses for this system including the medical sector and shopping mall kiosks. There are a number of interchangeable Thin Mini-ITX available from ECS that will allow for users to customize their system based on their individual needs. An included hot swap bay provides the ability to easily switch between optical and storage drives.
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Holography to See Through Smoke and Fire
A fairly common lesson to teach children is to not play with fire and just about any time someone does in view of a child, they tell them to not try whatever they are doing at home. This is obviously because fire can be very dangerous, which is why firefighters exist. Now, thanks to some research published in the Optical Society of America's journal, Optics Express, firefighters may get a new tool to see and safely move through a burning building.
For some people the idea of holograms brings into mind the holodecks of Star Trek, but sadly real holograms are not so sophisticated. Instead of projecting a 3D form into free-space, they are a means to store 3D information in a 2D media by using optical interference. To create a hologram a laser beam is split into a reference and object beam. The object beam strikes the object being imaged, which affects its phase so when it recombines with the reference beam they create an interference pattern that stores the 3D data.
By using an infrared laser, the researchers have developed an infrared holographic camera that can see through smoke and flame, but not through people and objects. That means a firefighter armed with this technology would be able to safely see persons trapped by flames and hidden by smoke. The researchers are now working to make the camera portable so it can be used in the field.
Source: Optical Society of America
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IE10 Now Available for Windows 7
Microsoft has released an update for Windows 7 containing the latest version of Internet Explorer to date. The update is available for download through the Microsoft site, however will also be installed automatically through Windows Update within the next few weeks.
IE10 many enhancements over its predecessor, with Microsoft boasting the new web browser has a 20% speed boost over its predecessor, IE9. It also supports a number of features such as support HTML5 and CSS3, as well as support for touch input, although some of these features are also available in previous versions. With the release of IE10, Microsoft have also announced the IE10 Test Drive site, which allows users to stress their browser with a number of complex tests and benchmarks. The tests show on average a 15% performance increase over IE9, which is reasonable for a new web browser.
Source: MSDN Blog
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'Airwriting' Input Device Developed
In my family I am the most comfortable using the on-screen keyboard of my phone, which is odd because I also have the largest hands and fattest fingers. For those with less dexterous digits, many people and companies create advanced on-screen keyboards with special features and carefully constructed keys for the best results. Now researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed what might be the next generation of physical language input; Airwriting.
As the name suggests, Airwriting is able to translate in-air gestures into letters, which gives new meaning to talking with your hands. It achieves this with a system of accelerometers and gyroscopes that monitor the movement of the hand and wrist, and that movement data is then transmitted back to a computing system for interpretation. Using statistical models of the data for different letters, it is able to discern when one is writing in the air or performing some other action, though currently to a point. The system only has a vocabulary of 8000 words, but it has an error rate of just 11%, until it learns an individual's writing style, at which point the error rate drops to just 3%.
The researchers are now looking to refining the technology to better recognize words. Also they want to make the system smaller and believe it is feasible to one day fit the sensors and transmitter into an unobtrusive wrist band.
Source: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
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Hardware Roundup: Wednesday Edition
Today's roundup features several storage-related product reviews. First up is the My Passport 500GB USB 3.0 portable hard drive from Western Digital. While backup drives tend to be based on traditional hard drives due to their cost and size advantages, solid state drives have a performance advantage for users' primary system drives. As costs continue to fall and performance goes up you will be seeing more people make the switch. We have a pair of solid state drive reviews for you to read today covering the OCZ Agility 4 256GB and OCZ Vector 256GB units. We also picked up a review on the Phanteks PH-TC12DX CPU cooler to round things out.
Cooling
Phanteks PH-TC12DX CPU Air Cooler @ [H]ardOCP
Storage/Hard Drives
WD My Passport 500GB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive @ ThinkComputers
OCZ Agility 4 256GB @ LanOC Reviews
OCZ Vector Solid State Drive @ Benchmark Reviews
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