Archive for March, 2008

Asus are all set to release the ‘big brother’ of the popular 7 inch Eee PC. The new larger model referred to as the Eee PC 900 (not confirmed) will boast a slightly higher spec as well as some great new features.

The Eee PC was a big hit for Asus, being voted the “The Most Wanted Christmas Gift” by American Amazon.com and Cnet, as well as winning a prestigious award at the International CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards for 2008, it was inevitable that Asus would develop a bigger more powerful machine.Recently unveiled at CeBIT 2008 the new Eee PC 900 seems to have kept the same basic concept as its smaller counterpart, adding a slight specification upgrade and just enough new features to keep you happy.

ASUS promises the screen will display a 1024 x 600 pixel resolution and specs will be upgraded to 1G of memory, a larger storage of up to 12GB and wider 8.9-inch screen. There is also the addition of a “multi-finger gesture input” trackpad, which will provide the ability to zoom in and out as well as allowing for two-finger scrolling similar to the pad found on Macs.

The Eee PC will be compatible with both Linux and Windows although the Windows version is set to retail at nearly twice the price. Here we really notice the cost benefits of open source software.The Eee Pc is set to release in the summer, will retail for around 399 (Linux OS), making it reasonably priced depending on the choice of hard drive space.

The newest version of the Guitar Hero series hit the stores late last year and has been causing a storm ever since. Developed by Neversoft and Aspyr Media, and published by Activision and RedOctane, Legends of Rock is the third full installment in the Guitar Hero series and the fourth title overall.

The game is available for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360, PC, and Mac platforms. Xbox 360, Wii, and Playstation 3 users can also connect online to rock out with others anywhere in the world.As with the previous Guitar Hero games, the player can use standard controllers or a new wireless guitar-shaped controller specially designed for the game.

The gameplay in Guitar Hero 3 remains essentially the same, with the player guiding the guitarist through the varying genres of rock music by hitting the notes in time as they scroll across the screen.One notable addition to the game is the new cooperative career mode. The co-op mode is arranged similarly to the single player career, with one player on lead guitar and the other on bass or rhythm guitar. In this mode you’ll find just 6 tiers of songs - each encore song is unique to the co-op mode but the boss battles have been removed.

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There is no doubt about it, guided ammunitions are changing the way we fight wars. In the days of the Vietnam War, guided ammunitions had already been developed however dumb or iron bombs were still largely in use. These days many munitions have guidance systems ranging from lasers to GPS, some of these systems are even being fitted to unmanned vehicles to enable a totally autonomous attack.

Dumb bombs are what most people imagine when they think of a bomb. There is no way to control the bomb once it has been deployed, they simply fall to the ground and explode, hence the name. Needless to say hitting a target with a dumb bomb is an extremely difficult task and innocent bystanders are often caught up in the carpet bombing technique which is employed.Smart bombs are designed to guide themselves to the target. The concept of this smart weapon is certainly not new. First developed back in 1943 by the Germans, the technology would go through stages of radio-controlled and laser-guided developments before being used on a large scale. The first large-scale use of smart weapons came in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm when they were used by coalition forces against Iraq.

More Information On The Air Force’s Newest Smart bomb Plus Two Videos After The Jump.

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This great custom R2-D2 PC case modification is set to rock the worlds of all Star Wars fans. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be information regarding this particular mod, except that it could possibly have been made from the original R2 chassis.

The original R2-D2 chassis used in the movies was precision made to a high standard by an Australian firm called Petric Engineering. A closer look at this R2-D2 PC case reveals slight imperfections in the build quality but considering the thing looks this much like R2-D2, I don’t see many people complaining, just asking where on earth they might be able to pick one up.

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Whether or not the creator actually wanted to keep his name quiet is unclear but one thing is for sure, he has sparked off a lot of interest regarding R2 mods. There seems to be a bunch of R2 case mods popping up here and there, and one of the better ones we found actually had some information.

This R2-D2 case was created by Ken “TGS” Kirby for ExtremeTech’s Science Fiction Case Mod Contest. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to complete the mod in time for the competition deadline so didn’t make rank, however many have reported that R2 would of certainly taken the 1st prize had it been entered.

The idea started when Ken salvaged two R2-D2 legs from an old R2-D2 Pepsi cooler. The after a long search he managed to find a white plastic barrel for R2’s body and a weber grill for R2’s head, then the chassis was ready.

Ken’s finished mod comes complete with:

• ABIT IC7-G
• P4 3.2Ghz w/HT @ 3.71Ghz
• 2GB (4 x 512MB) of DDR400 RAM
• 120GB Hard drive
• Radeon 9800XT 256MB Graphics Card
• Creative 7.1 surround sound
• Asetek Vapochill Phase Change cooling @ -38C

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As the trend for R2-D2 mod’s catches on and begins to grow, perhaps it won’t be long before a large company patents the idea and sets up for mass production.

As Blu-Ray seems to be leading the high definition format war over rival HD DVD, Sony and Nichia have teamed up to develop a new Blu-Ray player that is smaller and more cost efficient.

The new laser unit is just 3mm think and is compatible with normal DVD’s. Standard Blu-Ray players can not read DVD’s that contain organic dyes in the recording layers - Sony and Nichia’s new player can, this means the company will be able to save money churning out compatible disks from existing DVD lines and hopefully these savings will be passed on to the consumer.

The smaller dimension of the new Blu-ray laser makes the drive very efficient on space. This should also reduce cost of laptops and handheld devices that require time and money spent to map out how all the components will fit into case size deemed “portable.”

There is little news as to which products will be incorporating the new Blu-Ray player however Sony did announce that the new disc drive should make an appearance in their Vaio laptop range later this year, there are also rumors of the PS3 possibly getting this upgrade.

Brickhouse Security has just released their “Secret Service Invisible 2-Way Micro Headset,” the smallest communications device currently available to the general public. So, if you’re in need of an invisible headset for your business communications, covert operations or simply to impress your friends, you can pick one up for a mere 650 bucks.

This tiny communications device comprises of a micro-sized earphone, a transmitter necklace and a microphone which is connected to a cell phone. The micro earphone is wireless and weighs approx 1 gram, the wireless transmission works silently and is automatically picked up by the micro-earbud on the transmission necklace.

The earphone isolates the sound in the ear so nothing can be heard from the outside and there is an invisible thread which allows for a quick safe removal after use.

The device is marketed for suits business negotiations and meetings, live media appearances and personal surveillance requirements. People like President Bush and Barak Obama are already wearing the Secret Service Invisible 2-Way Micro Headset to ensure the correct wording, details and quotes are used when speaking publicly.

Check Out The Promotion Video From Brickhouse.

There was never really any doubt the X-Box’s favorite master chief would return in another episode of the Halo series, especially with the cliff hanger we were all left with at the end of Halo 2. Well, avid fans (who haven’t already completed the game) will be please to hear the final chapter in the Halo trilogy continues the story and concludes it brilliantly.

For those who didn’t get caught up in “one of the most popular games in history,” the Halo story centers on the interstellar war between 26th century humanity, led by the United Nations Space Command, and a collection of alien races known as the Covenant.The player assumes the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he wages war in defense of humanity, assisted by human Marines as well as allied alien Elites.Following the events of Halo 2 - The Covenant is on its way to Earth, continuing its universal ethnic cleansing and attempting to activate the floating space weapons known as Halos, which could destroy civilization as we know it. The Master Chief and the other Earth forces of the UNSC are in hot pursuit to stop them, with newfound alien allies such as the Arbiter coming along for the ride.

The third and final part of the Halo trilogy was released in September, 2007. During the opening day, over one million people connected to X-Box live to play Halo 3 and by the end of the day, Halo 3 had broken the record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history, bringing in $170 million within the first 24 hours. The game then went on the sell over 8.1 million copies by January 2008.

So now this is officially the most popular game to date, let’s take a look at the new features Bungie Studios have added.

Continue reading this article for a review on the game, lots of screenshots and a video review.

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Pioneers in military technology DARPA - The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - have just unveiled a six-wheeled autonomous robot that is capable of maneuvering through ditches, walls, streams and even other vehicles whilst raining down a hail of bullets against its enemies.

The Crusher - developed at the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute - weighs nearly 7 tons, has a top speed of about 25 mph and is designed to be totally autonomous; it doesn’t even require a remote driver to control the robot, although this is an option if necessary.

Check out this first video of the Crusher Climbing a 4 foot wall.

The robot is armed with a large caliber gun, long range cameras that can spot enemy targets up to two and half miles away, as well as GPS sensors and internal maps to plot out its route. The Crusher can roll through just about anything that gets in its way, deviating from the most direct route only when faced with obstacles over six feet tall or deep.

Another two videos and more info after the jump

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Point based motion capture has become the industry standard procedure to capture the movements of the human body and convert the data for use in 3D animations. Reflective markers are placed at many points of the body, as the person moves around the data is recorded and can then be transferred to the animation. Both movies and games use this technology to give characters lifelike movements and actions.

However when it comes to realistic facial work, even setups that use of hundreds of reflective dots leave the developers with rough blocky data the requires a lot of post processing.

Enter motion capture company Mova. Mova’s Contour Reality Capture System uses multiple cameras that create 100,000 polygon facial models that are accurate to within one tenth of a millimeter.

Mova founder, also the man behind Apple’s QuickTime and Microsoft’s WebTV, Steve Perlman said,

“This pushes Unreal Engine 3 to its very limit … it’s about as photo-real as you can get in real time.”

Check out the video of the Unreal Engine 3 running real time on a dual NVIDIA 8800 GTXs with SLI.

Perlman says the company has been working privately with developers for some time to adapt the system for video game use.

“People have never had this kind of data available before in a game context … their heads are spinning,” he said. “What you’re seeing right there is the result of, having time to wrap our heads around this thing and see how we’re going to use it, and yes, we can in fact get a face that looks almost photo-real — you know, not quite, but almost photo-real — running in a game engine today.”

“You can see the difference then between what’s achievable in cinema and what’s achievable right now in video games…….But next generation game machines, they’ll be able to essentially show in real time what we can do currently in non-real-time using renderers. … Next generation, you’re going to have interactive sequences where people think there’s a live person in the game.”

The Unreal Engines abilities doesn’t stop there, the contour system can also create even more detailed animations if real time processing is not necessary. Below is another video of how reality capture data can look when pre-rendered.

Perlman says that the cost of a Contour motion-capture session isn’t much higher than traditional marker-based capture session, somewhere in the region of a few thousand to a few hundred thousand depending on the length and complexity of the shot.

The real savings come in post production, Perlman explains,

“Unlike marker-based capture, which has a big manual clean-up process before you see results, with contour it’s purely computational….
“We’ve talked to people and one of the reasons when they announce delays for complex games is because they’re fighting to try and make the faces look good. With Contour, you send the guy in, he does a shoot, and we send you a face that looks nearly perfect. It’s no longer one of the risk issues for your schedule.”

The Contour system generates so much data, Perlman says, that the full value of the rendering won’t be apparent until hardware speeds improve.

“With markers, you kind of get the resolution of what those markers are and that’s it……
“When a next-generation game system comes out, or they decide they want to do something for a feature film, you can’t really use the data. With Contour, it’s actually capturing the data at much higher resolutions than any system in the world, even for feature films, can currently use. What we do is we store that data away … and when a next generation video game machine comes out and they want the data at higher resolution, they can.”

Perlman wouldn’t reveal which companies are currently using this technology, but said he expects the first games with Contour captures could come out in 2008, depending on developer schedules. He hopes the system will be in wide use by 2009.

The Pain Ray or Active Denial System (ADS) is a long standing joint project between the Air Force and the Pentagons Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate. The ABS non-lethal weapon consists of a real life ray gun which shoots 95 GHz millimeter waves that penetrate the skin at a 64th of an inch beneath the skin. This causes the water molecules to boil where the nerve receptors are most concentrated and of course, this hurts like hell.

A press release by Sandia National Laboratories explains that when the waves hit,

“[They produce an] intense heating sensation [which] stops only if the individual moves out of the beam’s path or the beam is turned off……..
“The sensation caused by the system has been described by test subjects as feeling like touching a hot frying pan.”

Another Demonstration Video And More Info After The Jump >>>

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MojoPac is great new piece of software which allows you to install anything on a portable USB Mass Storage Device - whether it’s Photoshop or World of Warcraft - then take the drive to a host computer and use the programs on the guest drive.

MojoPac conveniently allows you to switch between the host and guest drive and also keeps practically everything personal including bookmarks, documents, history, etc.

View More MojoPac Demos and Guides >>>

MojoPac makes it possible to:

• Listen to your music library, watch videos and download podcasts from any PC
• Watch downloaded video like movies or TV shows with your media player of choice
• Play PC games such as World of Warcraft, Everquest or Half-Life from any PC and take the game and its current state with you
• Use expensive PC software you have limited licenses for, like Microsoft Office or Photoshop, from any computer
• Surf with your preferred browser, store your passwords and other sensitive data separate from an untrusted host PC
• Backup working copies of your essential software so that if your computer crashes or hard drive fails, you can plug your MojoPac into another PC and have a working environment ready to go

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Iraq is a country that has been subjected to an ongoing battle for dominance for over 4500 years. Nestled between the Tigiris and Euphrates Rivers, Mesoptamia or modern day Iraq lies in the heart of the fabled “Fertile Crescent.” From the earliest times, the struggles for the region have often been dictated by the need for natural resources.
Currently the United States and its “coalition of the willing” occupies the country, however the Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, and British - not to mention the indigenous peoples - have all buried their dead in this land.

Here are 10 key battles from the violent history of Iraq

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This newly redesigned Russian military uniform was unveiled last months at Russia’s Defense Ministry. The new uniform was designed by a famous Russian designer Valentin Yudashkin and although the picture doesn’t seem to focus too much on the uniform, it does say a thousand words about the good looking chick wearing it!

K3B is simple CD/DVD creator for Linux OS. K3B has been optimized for use in KDE - a powerful graphical design environment for Linux and Unix Work stations – and it ships in most default KDE packages.

One of the main benefits of K3B is that it is such a mature project. Some my find the simple interface a little outdated but the fact of the matter is that K3B is stable, user friendly and has a wide range of feature for your burning needs.

On opening the K3B application you are presented with a split view window, directories are listed on left in a tree structure, the current directories are on the right and the welcome page is at the bottom displaying main options.

Once you have chosen your desired task the welcome page will become the current project window, all the files that are to be burned to CD/DVD will be displayed here. You can simply drag and drop the files you want to copy and once you’re done, you’re ready to burn.

K3B’s whole burning process is extremely clear and should be easy for anyone who is familiar with Nero to understand.

For KDE users, K3B is highly recommended for an easy, yet powerful way to burn data, audio and more to disc. GNOME users may want to try Gnomebaker, and if you’re into using the command line, give CD record a try.

Download K3B CD DVD Burning Software

There are many weird and wonderful abandoned structures throughout the world, being based in Bangkok, a city of unfinished projects; I certainly see my fair share everyday. But no where has quite as many amazing abandonment’s as the former Soviet Union. The complex political, military and social history has lead to everything from buildings to entire cities being left uncared for, still standing to weather the elements until the end.

More Pictures After The Jump!

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