Can your phone or PDA power a 1080p set without dropping frames or run a fully 3d interface without any hiccups? Can your PDA plug into a laptop body and power it up as if it was a full blown laptop? Well then your obviously not holding a NVidia Tegra powered device, which makes sense since their not on sale yet. The Tegra APX 2600 chipset that NVIDIA is showing off is where all their tech demos has just about every consumer that see’s it and with some hope many manufacturers dieing for it to release so it can start hitting their products.
Lets just get this out of the way Tegra isn’t a phone it’s a hardware platform that will be in just about any type of portable or handheld device (and probably televisions etc as well). No your beloved iPhone is not going to outperform a Tegra powered device but if Apple is smart they should get Tegra for their next generation iPhone because as NVIDIA showed off this hardware rocks! One thing that might shy Apple away is the fact that one of the tech demos they were showing off was the fact they had ported over Android to run on one of the proof of concept devices. Then again that was sitting next to another device that was streaming 1080p video to a massive plasma, with a supposed 10 hour battery life, so maybe apple could overlook the fact that a competitor would be using the same hardware? :)
The android device was apparently quite responsive and fluid even thought they only ported android over recently and only had a few weeks to work on it. If your interested in seeing more head over to the source for videos of the proof of concept devices in action, just don’t drool too much on your keyboard, I mean even if the fact you could probably stream your high def copy of star wars, right next to reading the latest medical coding training courses and surfing the internet on a device no bigger than an iPod plugged into your plasma at home. Wow that’s just hot thinking about it :)
Source: Engadget
When is a wheel not a wheel, well when it’s a ewheel completely eliminating the need for many aspects of a cars engine to disappear from under the hood. The Michelin man and a company named Valeo have agreed to collaborate on an “electric and rechargeable hybrid vehicle system” the system itself would include the engine, drive train, a cooling system for batteries, climate control, lighting and energy management and even tires. The first thing to come out of this partnership is known as the E-Wheel, it utilizes Michelin’s own active wheel technology that embeds two electric wheels inside the hub of the tire one for power and one for full active suspension.
I mean this isn’t the next big fad or another diet pill like Stimerex ES. This is a real break through and a groundbreaking change from how things would be done. I mean active suspension is an amazing idea and Bose had a system for it a while back but we never saw it make it into many non-superrich cars but with the ability to pretty much completely remove all road bumps it’s a great move. And moving the actual propulsion to the wheel itself it greatly improves performance and efficiency of the engines themselves. The design completely removes the need for gearboxes, drive shafts, and pretty much the entire car suspension as it’s currently known. The only thing I think they haven’t confirmed is that the tires are runflat tires I mean thta would really top the cake on these wicked wheels.
Venturi has already demonstrated these new e-wheels in their Volage concept car and proven that they are as awesome as they sound. Their only looking now for a major manufacturing auto maker to take it to the next level and design and produce a car full blown.
Personally I don’t understand what the hell is wrong with GM and the rest of the US automakers, you’ve got congress bashing you to make huge changes in your cars and to respark the industry and you have revolutionary platforms like this ready at the drop of a dime what the hell are they waiting for? Oh ya knowing the US big 3 their probably going to try to reinvent it in a “better” way that takes 30 years, we’ll probably end up seeing it in some Indian ultra-mini car before the big 3 take it on.
Source: RegHardware
Posted in Auto, Innovation
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You know those awesome cars we saw that were so different and advanced looking they were awesome to read in the future “what’s coming in the future” magazines back in the day. Well we’re still driving albeit nice looking hybrid cars at best but nothing really advanced looking has actually come to market.
The Aperta is the first of those cars to actually start coming to market, a large departure from traditional car form and a major leap forward in just about everything inside as well. This baby’s full electric and space age looking, in a bit of a surprise Road & Track Magazine has managed to talk their way into a full test drive. Besides them noticing that this car definitely turns heads (in a good way in the way i would imagine). The car isn’t a speed demon but they did mention that due to it’s go-kart style handling and large windshields it makes the pavement easy to see which makes it seem like your moving a lot faster than you really are moving.
R&T Magazine also said that the gull wing doors will take some getting used to for those that aren’t used to them which most people won’t be. While the car is surprisingly small the inside is very roomy. While this is a major move towards seeing this parked in front of your house or say… in front of some luxury hotel rooms. The fact that it’s on the streets being test driven by magazines is definitely a step towards us actually getting our hands on it and driving one home from the distributor.
Source: Road and Track
Posted in Auto, Innovation
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Ok this I definitely did not see coming in my crystal ball, where companies around the world are shedding thousands of jobs at a time and cutting entire divisions (hell i Just posted about Pioneer not making televisions anymore!), in a bit of an odd turn of events Communications Workers of America which has been working on behalf of 20,000 workers with AT&T Mobility to rework their contracts has just gone ahead and authorized the entire 20,000 workers to strike and it could happen quite soon. The vote has taken place and apparently if the negotiations with AT&T doesn’t start to improve and progress we may see those 20,000 on picket lines or staying home.
As it stands now the union won’t start the strike until it gets final approval from the union’s executive board and the president of the union sets an actual date for the strike. AT&T stands by that it maintains a good relationship with the unions for its workers. In fact more of AT&T’s workers are unionized than any other carrier in the US, they shrug the vote off as basically just part of the negotiations progress. From the look of things the union won’t be happy with some promotional pens as a bonus for their workers, as their contracts expired and they wouldn’t be going through the entire big negotiations if it wasn’t for something big. The scary part is that they say their ready for all possibilities including the possibility that the 20,000 workers could go on strike. Personally I think poking the big corporate giants with a stick in this hard economic time isn’t the best idea, I mean even if your contract is expiring this week, most people are fighting to keep a job not bitching about the deal they got or the contract their stuck with.
But that’s just my 2 cents, I mean really I find the concept of 20,000 people getting their contracts all negotiated for together is odd, i mean aren’t we in a performance based world, shouldn’t each of those 20,000 people be evaluated on their own merits?
Source: RCRWireless
Ok when rumors start flying that a major player such as Pioneer is dropping their TV production and dropping their DVD business into a new company things can get a bit dicey. Apparently the original plan was to source Panasonic plasma panels in a way to cut costs, but in the end they ended up still facing a loss of just over one billion dollars, this has pretty much forced their hand to close down their TV development and production completely.
They also apparently are working with Sharp to spin their DVD business into a new company together that would basically shed several thousand employees over the next year or so and close down the Shizuoka plant which would be added to the US and European plant closings we’ve heard are happening. I mean this economic downturn is really pruning the companies that were wasting cash on things or just braking even before it started to turn bad. Though personally I still don’t know what Pioneer will be doing I mean will they be making tv stands and mp3 players? Or are they going to cut all the fat down until their only making cameras or silicon chips or something how far will they keep cutting back. I mean it’s not small things their cutting, LaserDisc is dead, their TV manufacturing is dead, and their DVD business is on 1 leg?
Source: Engadget
