Panasonic CF-F9 Toughbook unboxing video + overview

Panasonic CF-F9 Toughbook unboxing video + overview. The F9 comes with an Intel i5 2.4 Ghz M520 CPU, 250GB HDD, and up to 8GB RAM. Unique handle and Optical drive make this notebook get noticed. It is remarkably light weight at 3 pounds for a 14" and offers a 9 hour battery life.
Available at Conics.net

Video overview of Gigabytes upcomming Convertable tablet PC the M1125

Video overview of Gigabytes upcoming Convertible tablet PC the M1125 at the Computex Taipei 2010 trade show. Expected for release in August, the 1125 will ditch the ATOM for the much more powerful Intel ULV Calpella Processor. No word on whether its an i5 or i7 core. Stand out features are a capacitive 11.6 1366 x 768 screen touch screen supporting multi-touch, two USB 3.0 ports, Easily upgradeable with a single door access, 3G antennas built in for connectivity, and a brushed aluminum finish. Tried to nail down a price point but all we could get was between $500-$1000.

Sony has released a video of a 4" Rollable OLED Display

Sony has demonstrated a 4" Rollable OLED Display at the at the SID 2010 International Symposium. While only a prototype the 432 x 240 pixel resolution display supports 16M colors while exceeding 100nits brightness and a 1,000:1 contrast ratio.
No word if or when this will ever come to market but pencil sized cell phones can't be too far in the future.
More at PC Watch (in Japanese)

Take That McDonalds - Lotteria Tower Cheese Burger With 10 Patties

Fast food chains in Japan somehow love to create “heart-attack inducing” hambugers as promotion (Windows 7 Whopper and Mega Tamago). Now its Lotteria turn and they are allow customers to stack their Tower Cheese Burger 「タワーチーズバーガー」with 10 pieces of patties for 100 yen each.

Essentially, you’d start off with a 160 yen cheese burger and create a monstrous burger seen above which weighs a little more than half a kilogram (579 grams).
Actually it’d be cool if you had a large family, then you can just order one really large burger and share it together for a satisfying meal.
More at alafista.com

More details in Japanese with pictures here.

Badass All Metal Rubber Band Gun and Rubber Band Machine Gun!

Bad-ass All Metal Rubber Band Gun and Rubber Band Machine Gun!

“Mezamashi TV” did this short feature on a guy who makes fancy rubber band guns out of metal. It is all in Japanese but you get the idea of these bad ass rubber band guns just by watching the video. Some background:
His day job involves metal working, so he has the knowledge needed to make some pretty bad-ass rubber band guns. His most advanced weapon is a rubber band machine gun, which fires off 30 rounds in about 2 seconds (it takes much longer to load).

He says that his hobby sometimes causes trouble at home, since his wife doesn’t like finding rubber bands strewn about the house in random places.
More video at JapanProbe

New and updated Sony VAIO P will be launched May 22nd

New and updated Sony P will be launched May 22nd. Sony has updated it P series with slightly faster CPU, Accelerometer, and flashy new colors. In addition Sony has added an optical mouse pointer and mouse buttons to the bezel of the screen. The specs remain essentially the same with the fast CPU offered a Atom Z560(2.13GHz) over the 2Ghz model in Japan. It comes with the same 8" 1600x768 screen, SSD options, and dimensions as the previous model.
Sony has designed software that uses the new accelerometer as a way to navigate the browser by tipping the the computer to the right you can go forward a page and tipping the computer to the left you can go back a page. The accelerometer also adds more precise GPS functions and the addition of a software compass.
Pricing is the same as the previous model. Sadly, Sony has changed the colors to retro 1980 Neon with shocking pink, Neon Orange, and Neon Green colors. There is also a real Alligator skin model available directly from Sony style.
Much more at PC Watch but grab your translator as its in Japanese.And videos by PC Watch Here

Pictures of the new AU IS01 Android clam shell tablet phone

Pictures of the new AU IS01 Android clam shell tablet phone. AU will introduce a 5" clam shell Android touch phone in June. No word on pricing but this item will only be available in Japan. Here are the specs:
Size: 83 × 149 × 17.9mm
Weight: 227g
Communication Systems: CDMA 1xEV-DO Rev.A (CDMA 1X WIN)
Talk time (3G/CDMA): 310 minutes
Standby time (3G/CDMA): 200 hours
Charging time: 210 minutes (AC),230 minutes (DC)Display About 5.0 inches, 960 × 480, New Mobile ASV LCD touch-screenOS: Android OS 1.6
CPU: 1GHz Snapdragon
Memory card: microSD / microSDHC Card
Wireless LAN (IEEE802.11b / g)
GPSBluetooth 2.1 + EDR

Lots more pictures at Impress Watch

Inexpensive Metal Catalyst gets Hydrogen from Water

A team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley devised a high-valence metal they're calling Mo-oxo for molybdenum-oxo (PY5Me2). The catalyst requires no additional organic additives or solvents, can operate in neutral water (even if it's dirty) and works with sea water -- meaning we could literally be looking at oceans of cheap energy. Best of all: Mo-oxo is about 70 times cheaper than platinum. The research is still preliminary and the Berkeley team is just getting into some of the more exciting chemistry. They're looking for additional similar metals that might generate hydrogen gas at even higher efficiency, so by the time this kind of tech is commercialized we may have found an even better catalyst. Hydrogen would command a key role in future renewable energy technologies, experts agree, if a relatively cheap, efficient and carbon-neutral means of producing it can be developed.
Read all the details at Science Daily

Shorter Space Voyages with new Plasma Rocket

Shorter Space Voyages with new Plasma Rocket. Known as Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR), a new plasma rocket is being developed to one day transport astronauts to Mars in 39 to 45 days -- a fraction of the six to nine months the trip would take with conventional chemical rockets. Shorter travel time greatly reduces astronauts' exposure to potentially deadly cosmic and solar radiation, currently a show-stopper for human missions to Mars.
VASIMR technology, which uses radio waves to ionize propellant, such as argon, xenon or hydrogen, and heat the resulting plasma to temperatures 20 times hotter than the surface of the sun creating thrust. In place of metal nozzles to control the direction of the exhaust, VASIMR uses magnetic fields.
Houston-based Ad Astra Rocket Co., which has raised millions of dollars from private investors, reached a significant milestone last year when it successfully operated a demonstrator VASIMR at full power in a vacuum chamber.
Ad Astra plans to launch its flight version VASIMR to the space station in 2014. As a backup, they intend to manufacture two engines in case a launch accident or other major problem prevents the first from reaching the outpost.
Once the engine is safely installed outside the station, the spare could be tapped for a new missions.
Much more at DiscoveryNews

Sony Z11 with Core i7 2.66GHz CPU, 4x 128GB SSD in RAID 0 test drive!

Sony Z11 with Core i7 2.66GHz CPU and upto 4x 128GB SSD in RAID 0 (Quad RAID)... we took some for a test drive.

unboxing video and some "testing" / playing Call of Duty : Modern Warfare 2 (COD MW2)
as you'll see from our videos, this is a very impressive Sony Laptop.

Meet the sausage meat iPhone stylus!

OK, it's winter, you're cold, don't want to take off your gloves... but still want to use your iPhone...

South Korea has the answer!
CJ Corporation's sausages have similar electrostatic properties to human fingers - allowing them to be used as a stylus with the iPhone's capacitive touch screen.

brilliant!

source: gearfuse

GScreen dualscreen laptop, coming May 2010?

Kohjinsha's already selling the DZ and (under the Onkyo brand) DX , but what if you need more than those 2x 10" LCDs, you want 2x 17" and a beefier i7 CPU - and have a fatter wallet :)

GScreen will start at about $2895 USD, the company reports it will be shipping from March 2010.

more at engadget

PhotoFast G-Monster2 : Sandforce 1500 controller

Coming first in 100GB and later available in 50, 200 and 400GB sizes.

Max read speed is quoted as 260MB/sec, but the most interesting point is the random write speed of " upto 75MB/sec " !

At the heart of the new G-Monster is the SandForce SF-1500 controller, so as you'd expect this is not a budget SSD... price for 100GB starting at 74,800 YEN ($830 USD!!) . We can't imagine what they'll ask for the 400GB... [you'll have to wait till March for that one]

for more, over to Photofast
a few benchmarks there

Onkyo DX unboxing and mini review

Unboxing:

Mini Review:

computer supplied by: Conics.Net

Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Google to China : I play your silly games, why did you piss in my shoe ?!

(image source)

more on it here:
Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Glint of sunlight shows lake on Saturn's moon Titan

Glint of sunlight shows lake on Saturn's moon Titan. This is the first glint of sunlight to be seen by human eyes from a lake on Saturn's moon Titan – although it comes to us via NASA's Cassini orbiter. The reflection comes from a sprawling northern lake called Kraken Mare, which spans an area larger than the Caspian Sea. Titan has dozens of lakes, which are thought to be full of liquid methane, ethane and other hydrocarbons that may make a hearty soup for life. Cassini had already confirmed that there is liquid on the moon's southern hemisphere. But until recently, the northern hemisphere of the moon has been swaddled in winter darkness, and this glint of sunlight is the first sign of liquid there. It also suggests 1100-kilometre-long Kraken Mare is the moon's largest lake. The previous record-holder is a 235-kilometre-wide southern lake called Ontario Lacus.
More at New Scientist

Video; Is this the Apple tablet?

The French website Nowhereelse.fr has obtained what it suggests may be a video of the long-rumored Apple tablet:

Via Bookofjoe

Water-World Found! Super-Earth waterworld orbiting star 40 lightyears from Earth

Water-World Found! Astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) say they've spotted a super-Earth waterworld orbiting a red type M star some 40 lightyears from Earth. The body - dubbed GJ1214b - is circling dim host star GJ1214 every 38 hours at a distance of just 1.3 million miles. The star's modest surface temperature of 2,700°C, though, means that GJ1214b itself is a balmy 200°C. The planet has a mass and radius of 6.5 and 2.7 times that of Earth, respectively. The density obtained from these figures "suggests that GJ1214b is composed of about three-fourths water and other ices, and one-fourth rock". CfA graduate student Zachory Berta, who first identified the planet, said: "Despite its hot temperature, this appears to be a waterworld. It is much smaller, cooler, and more Earthlike than any other known exoplanet." The discovery was made as part of the ground-based MEarth Project, which uses "an array of eight identical 16-inch-diameter RC Optical Systems telescopes that monitor a pre-selected list of 2,000 red dwarf stars".

Much More at The Register

Panasonic N8 / S8 unboxing and review

Unboxing Video: (skip to 3:20 to get to the PC)



Part 2: (N8 V's S8)

Apple Mac gets "Speed holes" mod in Jerusalem

Leave your bag unattended in an airport in Israel and this might be the result...

We're not sure if the Mac runs better after the mod, but it's said to make it lighter and certainly looks cool!

source: Engadget