All Things News

This is you with IBM's new armor!

Straight from Engadget: “Your science fiction fantasy may be coming a reality, if IBM has anything to say about it. The company was recently granted a patent for bionic body armor, originally filed last March, that’s intended to bestow the wearer the power to dodge bullets. The device works by constantly emitting electromagnetic waves that bounce off any fast-moving projectiles, and it uses the data to calculate risky trajectories. If the object in question is determined to be a threat, muscle stimulators activate and cause the wearer’s body to contort in such way to avoid being hit. It works under the idea that a sniper typically fires from a distance, given the armor time to detect the oncoming bullet and react accordingly. Check out an image of from IBM’s filing after the break. Here’s hoping it can detect lasers, too.”

Straight from Engadget: “We knew the Army’s supposedly-dead Land Warrior high-tech uniform program still had some life in it, but now it appears that good marks from tests in the field might mean it’s going to make a full recovery. The Army sent the 4/9 Infantry (aka the “Manchus”) off to war loaded down with the 16-pound Land Warrior kit, and after some on-the-fly adjustments that made the gear lighter and more functional, the soldiers had talked Land Warrior up to the point where the 2nd Infantry Division’s 5th Combat Brigade Team has now officially requested 1,000 more Land Warrior rigs. The main change is the removal of six pounds of inessential gear, but the crew in the 4/9 also requested and added in a “digital chem light,” which allows buildings and waypoints to be marked in green on an electronic map, and restricted Land Warrior deployment to team leaders and above. There’s still some tricky funding problems to solve — some $102M needs to be set aside for the request — but the Land Warrior project managers say it’s looking promising. Now if we could only get some of that HUD monocle action on the civilian side, our morning coffee run would be a lot more interesting.”

Are you glad you picked Blu-Ray now?

“Lack of competition sends Blu-ray player prices upward”

Straight from Engadget: “Late last month, we actually posed the question of buying a Blu-ray player now (being that the format war is over and all), or waiting things out until prices sink and Profile 2.0 players flood the market. Aside from the PlayStation 3 — which is actually priced fairly reasonably if you were in the hunt for a new console anyway — it seems as though HD DVD’s exit has actually caused Blu-ray player prices to creep back upwards. Granted, this is about as far from surprising as it gets — after all, it’s nothing short of supply and demand working its magic. Still, it wasn’t too long ago that we saw Toshiba actively putting pressure on the Blu camp to reduce prices in order to stay competitive, and now that said pressure has vanished, stickers on the whole have headed north. Ah well, it’s not like the consumer didn’t ask for this, um, right?”

Straight from Engadget: “Just when you think all of your nostalgic fantasies have all been fulfilled, along comes Nintendo with a little extra joy for your retro heart. That “little extra” in this case happens to be Commodore 64 games for your Wii. You read that correctly, people — C64 games are headed to the system’s Virtual Console, starting with International Karate and Uridium, which will run you 500 Wii points apiece. Right now, the rollout appears to be taking place in Europe only, though we suspect it’ll head over to our shores sooner rather than later. While you’re waiting for that to happen, maybe now is a good time to exercise your digits and polish up on your IK trash talk.”

Straight from Engadget: “Linus Torvalds may have dabbled in Apple territory in the past, but he’s definitely not mincing any words about competing operating systems now. In a recent interview, Linus says that OS X is a “much better system” than Windows Vista overall, but that “in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for.” Apparently these problems are rooted firmly in OS X’s file system (HFS and HFS+), which he describes as “complete and utter crap,” and even “scary.” Of course, Torvalds also took the opportunity to tout the many virtues of Linux, which he says is an “obvious choice for anything from full-blown PCs to phones or video players.” Damn straight it is.”

Straight from Engadget: ” While not the first bunch to try and mesh invisibility with military equipment, the British Army is reportedly staying busy by “testing technology it claims makes tanks and troops invisible.” Apparently, the (previously) uber-secret trials were conducted by the Royal Engineers and scientists from QinetiQ, and if eyewitness reports are to be believed, they were able to “make a vehicle seem to completely disappear.” The illusion (read: we’re no closer to actual invisibility cloaks) was reportedly created by utilizing “cameras and projectors to beam images captured from the surrounding landscape onto a specially-adapted tank coated with silicon to maximize their reflective qualities,” and if things go as planned, these elusive machines could make their way onto the battlefield “within five years.” ‘Course, it’s not like anyone will have visual proof of that, but we suppose that’s just the nature of the beast.”

Straight from Engadget: “NASA sure loves the wacky vehicles, and the agency is mighty proud of its latest effort, the Chariot lunar truck. Designed from start to finish in just a year, the Chariot features 12 wheels driven by two electric motors through a two-speed transmission, allowing it to perform in a “bulldozer” mode with up to 4000 pounds or force or cruise at up to fifteen miles an hour. The modular design also means that the steel alloy frame can be fitted with several different crew / payload combinations, including a small pressurized cabin and a sample collector. There’s no telling when the Chariot might be deployed, of course, but we’re not going to be convinced until we see it stop a plane or drive through a swinging girder obstacle course.”

Straight from Engadget: “It looks like New Mexico’s the place to be for anyone looking to catch a glimpse of a possible future mission to the moon, with the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge set to get underway tomorrow at the Holloman Air Force Base in Alamogordo. As an added incentive for competitors, NASA is ponying up $2M in prizes, although they’ll have their work cut out for them if they want to take that home. Specifically, they need to show off a rocket-propelled vehicle and payload that “takes off vertically, climbs to a defined altitude, flies for a pre-determined amount of time, and then land vertically on a target that is a fixed distance from the launch pad.” Then they have to do that all over again within a predetermined period of time. To open things up a bit, there’s also two difficulty levels but, as with all challenges of this sort, no one takes home a prize unless they fully meet all the requirements.”

Straight from Engadget: “The major record labels’ ongoing fixation with physical media continues on, as Universal, EMI, and Warner have each announced plans to sell music preloaded on flash drives. Universal says the move is “aimed at the younger, 12 to 24 year olds, who no longer believe that the CD is as cool as it used to be,” but that “people still want to own a physical product.” Yeah, too bad that physical product is a DAP. Predictably, the $10 flash drives will cost twice as much as normal CD singles but contain additional content — just like that ridiculous “ringle” concept we just heard about, only with more plastic and manufacturing involved. There’s no word on what format the music will be in or what the DRM will be, but it’s not like it really matters, since no one is going to buy these anyway. No word on when we’ll see this Stateside, but UK teenagers can expect to be patronized by the record labels sometime in the next few months.”

Straight from Engadget: “While we’re not going to complain about the launch of the cheaper 40GB PS3, we are still kind of miffed that it isn’t backwards-compatible with our huge library of PS2 games — especially since newer PS3s retain compatibility through software emulation and not specialized hardware like earlier models. Not to worry though, because Sony Computer Entertainment America CEO Jack “Daniels” Tretton is here to dazzle you with mathematics: according to Jackie, the consumer actually benefits from Sony’s move to cut emulation, because now you have the opportunity to buy both a $399 PS3 and a $129 PS2, for a grand total of $528, which is — wait for it — less than the original 60GB PS3’s price of $600! Of course, what Mr. T here is forgetting is that most people would prefer a single, $399 PS3 with backwards compatibility (and rumble, for good measure), but really, once you get spinning that fast it’s awfully hard to stop.”

Straight from Engadget: “The Army’s FireScout robotic helicopter passed its engine tests today, marking another step on the road for the US armed forces to move away from the sort-of-cute “RC car with a big gun” school of military robotics to the sort-of-terrifying “Skynet becomes self-aware at 2:14 A.M., August 29th” school of deathbots. The robochopper, based on the commercially-available Schweizer 333 helicopter, can stay in the air for eight hours autonomously (five with a weapons payload) and has successfully landed itself on warships at sea. The Navy is considering deploying up to 200 of these things beginning in 2008, and the Army is interested in variants for work in Iraq — the bird can be towed behind a Humvee and used to scout for explosives. No mention of who gets authority to fire the optional Hellfire missiles, but let’s hope that decision stays with the humans for a while longer.”

Straight from Engadget: “Oh how we wish it were all just a horrific dream, but somehow, the engineers behind Clarion’s flashy new MAX9700DT in-car navigation unit still felt it necessary to include support for a format that just refuses to die. Granted, the system is loaded to the hilt with features and supported formats, but we have a hard time believing that even the Japanese really still find MiniDisc and ATRAC all that attractive. Nevertheless, the unit also boasts a seven-inch touchscreen display, built-in 1Seg TV tuner, DVD player, a 40GB hard drive, iPod compatibility, 50-watt x 4 amplifier, AM / FM radio, and support for a whole host of audio formats including WMA and MP3. Getting around shouldn’t be too difficult given the expansive screen and “3D maps,” and just in case that 40GB of internal storage isn’t quite enough, you can cram an SD card or Memory Stick into it for a bit more space. As nice as all this sounds, few from crowds other than the elite will be pondering a purchase, as ¥341,250 ($2,868) isn’t exactly bargain basement (or even “good deal”) territory.”

Straight from Engadget: “Seems we can’t have a month go by without another industry-wide price fixing scandal. Today’s cartel was bent on fixing the prices of professional-grade video tapes used in television. An infamous list of swindles which includes DRAM, LCDs, and online-music just to name a few. While the EU regulators citied “several companies,” only Sony would confirm that they were charged with the crime. Fingers are also wagging in the direction of Panasonic, Fujifilm, Hitachi Maxell and TDK but all declined to comment on the matter. So innocent until proven guilty, mkay. The EU’s charges are based on raids it made in 2002 as well as information received since, under a leniency program. Companies now have two months to respond. If guilty, companies could be fined as much as 10% of their annual global sales. Oh my.”

Straight from Engadget: “Distraction-devoted drivers can look forward to SNT’s IOPS in-dash car PC, which will be unveiled later this week at Cebit, along with some hardware deets. Right now we can tell you that it runs Windows XP, has a 7-inch main touch screen interface, gives you internet access with HSDPA, connects to Bluetooth devices, and streams live video from your rear bumper (great for more perpendicular-inclined parallel parkers). For drivers in Korea who can actually use the technology (tear, sniff), the IOPS unit can not only play live T-DMB programming, but also records shows on its hard drive for later viewing, and can even burn them to a disc. A price hasn’t been announced yet, but anyone who drops cash on this won’t have to suffer a boring TV-less or web-less drive again.”

Straight from Engadget: “Another day, another all-in-one solution for copying AACS-protected HD DVDs hits the streets. Fengtao Software has thrown support for the next generation format into the latest beta version (3.0.9.0) of its DVDFab copying software. Following in the steps of Slysoft’s AnyDVD HD, the maker of DVDFab HD Decrypter says Blu-ray backup support is “coming soon”, and that it’s capable of copying an HD DVD to the hard drive — sans any copy protection restrictions — in less than one hour. Of course the changelog doesn’t provide details on how DVDFab does it’s unDRMing thing, but with so many methods available, does it really matter which one? Still no word on how AACS LA plans to respond to the growing availability of easy hacks and DRM-free HD editions of Hollywood’s latest, but at this rate we’ll have a war between various makers of one-click backup software to rival Blu-ray vs. HD DVD.”

Straight from Engadget: “We’ll admit, we’re feeling starting to feel for you folks in Europe, as not only do you now have to actually pay attention to where you’re driving, but the PlayStation 3 you were planning on snagging exactly one month from today might be hamstringed right out of the box. According to comments made by David Reeves, president of SCEE, support for PS2 titles will indeed be limited, as he stated that “rather than concentrating on PS2 backwards compatibility, company resources will be increasingly focused on developing new games and entertainment features exclusively for PS3.” It seems that original PlayStation titles won’t be hindered all that much, but the situation looks fairly dire for your current PlayStation 2 discs. The actual list of compatible titles won’t be published until launch day, and while it was noted that future titles could be added through PlayStation Network downloads, a Sony spokesperson purportedly stated that “backwards compatibility is not going to be as good as in the US and Japanese models.” The reason, while still not pinpointed, could potentially be linked to the Euro-spec’d PS3 rocking a “new chassis” designed to bring manufacturing costs of the console down, which might have demanded some hardware cutbacks somewhere along the line. Regardless of the “why,” it looks like UK users could get snubbed by Sony once again, so we seriously hope your PS2 won’t mind sharing cabinet space with its newfangled sibling come March 23rd.”

Straight from Engadget: “Toshiba’s new duo may not steal the show together, but the G900 is officially ready to help redefine high-end smartphone devices. The behemoth features, as we mentioned an utterly unreal 3-inch WVGA (800 x 480) display, rear biometric scanner, 2 megapixel rear camera, front-facing video conferencing camera, 64MB of internal memory, miniSD expansion, tri-band HSDPA (yes!), 802.11b/g, Bluetooth, USB, video calling, and USB On-The-Go. The E01 is far more lower end, but still manages HSDPA, a 65k color display, A2DP Bluetooth, and that same 2 megapixel camera. We’re still missing out on pricing and launch details, but for now you can still check out the gallery below for more pics, including a couple side-by-sides.”

Straight from Engadget: “Flying cars have been doing this whole vaporware thing long before Duke Nukem Forever was even a twinkle in 3D Realms’ eye. That’s why it’s practically absurd to assume anything at all will come from this new X-Hawk flying car, whose inventor, Rafi Yoeli, the founder of Urban Aeronautics, claims could ready for the market by 2010. The project has been in the works for years already, but Rafi recently managed to get a rudimentary prototype to fly a few feet off the ground, and has sparked some interest from Textron’s Bell Helicopters for potential partnership. Two main things set the X-Hawk apart from the pack. First, the ducted fan design allows the car to achieve the speed and maneuverability of a helicopter — 155 mph, 12,000-foot altitude, two hours of flight time, vertical take off and landing — but removes the dangers of exposed rotors, allowing the “car” to sidle up to buildings for rescue missions, or coexist in close quarters with other vehicles. The enclosed-rotor design isn’t perfectly unique, but the X-Hawk further differentiates itself by its target market: Rafi is going after those established military and rescue dollars, instead of the theoretical consumers willing to drop $1.5 million on a flying car that they’ll still need to obtain complicated licenses for and etc. Making high-rise rescues possible, along with urban airlifts and such makes this sound like a natural fit, and perhaps we’ll get a little bit of trickle-down flying car action before 2035 when Duke Nukem finally ships.”

Straight from Engadget: “It seems that satellite radio just can’t catch a break, as the RIAA and its indirect constituents apparently have a perpetual target set on crippling services associated with recording content. Yet again satellite radio (along with internet radio) is under fire, and this time a number of senators are pushing “rules embedded in a copyright bill, called the Platform Equality and Remedies for Rights Holders in Music Act,” which could “restrict listeners’ ability to record and play back individual songs.” Furthermore, the act calls for streams to be laced with “reasonably available copy-protection” so that timeshifting material becomes next to impossible (and illegal, too), and that portable recording devices such as the much-debated XM Inno and Sirius S50 would no longer allow “automatic recording.” The reasoning stems from a belief that satellite / internet radio should still be a “passive experience,” presumably forcing us to look backwards rather than forward in radio technologies, and proponents of the agenda somehow insinuate that enforcing these rules will curb “music theft.” Unsurprisingly, the RIAA “applauded the effort and urged Congress to make passing the legislation a top priority this year,” while most everyone else on the planet (including spokespersons for XM and the Home Recording Rights Coalition) is balking at what would potentially make satellite / internet radio less accessible to desiring consumers. While we’ve no idea how quickly action will be taken on these newly surfaced guidelines, we can all rest assured that our representatives will devote every waking hour to this here issue until it’s finalized and implemented, at least if the RIAA has anything to do with it.”

Straight from Engadget: “Well-known theoretical physicist and all-around geek hero Stephen Hawking has told the press he plans to undertake a zero-gravity flight this year in preparation for a hopeful berth on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic space tourist service when it launches in 2009. Hawking, who has the neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, communicates via a blink-controlled computer and uses a high-tech wheelchair for mobility, making space flight somewhat challenging — but Virgin Galactic spokesperson Stephen Attenborough said in a statement Monday that Branson is committed to working through the issues that need to be addressed in order to accomodate people with disabilities on his company’s trips into suborbit. Cost of a two-hour suborbital spaceflight? $200,000. The look on the most famous cosmologist’s face upon actually making it into space? Priceless.”