| |
| Posted: 24 May 2010 08:55 AM PDT  10 Latest News, Blogs, Tips, and Reviews that I find Interesting and Useful:1. Pac-Man Creator Reflects on 30 Years of Dot-Eating On May 22, 1980, the Japanese gamemaker Namco installed the first Pac-Man machine in a movie theater in the trendy Shibuya section of Tokyo. On Saturday, the company celebrates the 30th anniversary of the little yellow circle that became videogames' first enduring character. More @ Wired 2. Quantum teleportation achieved over 16 km Scientists in China have succeeded in teleporting information between photons further than ever before. They transported quantum information over a free space distance of 16 km (10 miles), much further than the few hundred meters previously achieved, which brings us closer to transmitting information over long distances without the need for a traditional signal. More @ Physorg 3. Search more securely with encrypted Google web search As people spend more time on the Internet, they want greater control over who has access to their online communications. Many Internet services use what are known as Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) connections to encrypt information that travels between your computer and their service. More @ Googleblog 4. Open Source STM 5. The Yin and Yang of Product and Engineering For a tech company, product and engineering are the heart and soul of the business. When I do a quick mental query of headcount across our entire portfolio of ~30 companies, I think at least 50% and maybe as much as 60% of the entire headcount of our portfolio is in either product or engineering. More @ AVC 6. A Herd of Print Linux Magazines Print isn't dead, it's just changing despite the best efforts of the titans of industry to resist and foil all change. Here is a roundup of excellent Linux print publications, and for no extra charge a bold prediction of the future of print. More @ LinuxToday 7. Apple faces patent suits over iTunes Store, Safari, Mac OS X Apple is involved in some curious patent cases filed this week in Texas federal district courts. One suit claims that Apple's iTunes Store (among many others) infringes on a patent for what is essentially an online store for music downloads. More @ ArsTechnica 8. Pandora handheld now shipping: first mass-produced unit unboxed, world somehow survives 9. New Life for Old Computers They're collecting dust in storage rooms and taking up extra space in your garage or office. They can't handle today's applications, peripherals or operating systems. Yes, older computers are a nuisGraphic: Diego Aguirreance, like the brother-in-law who sleeps on your sofa for a few months. More @ PCWorld 10. Top 10 Underrated Sci-Fi Stories Before 1864 Unlike fantasy, which had a clear genre launcher in J.R.R. Tolkien, the science fiction genre developed over the latter half of the 19th century with the works of Jules Verne and, subsequently, H.G. Wells. For the sake of a clear cut off date, however, we shall say the cut off date for novels not to be influenced by these fathers of the genre is 1864, the year in which Verne published "A Journey to the Center of the Earth." More @ Listverse  |
| Pandora Open Source, Linux-based Handheld Game Console Now Shipping Posted: 23 May 2010 08:28 PM PDT  Pandora, the Linux-based handheld game console that is aimed to take advantage of free and open source software is finally shipping. After two years of development, the OpenPandora developers are finally sending out the first completed batch of the game console to consumers.Pandora may look like a slightly bigger Nintendo DS but its hardware and software architectures are not closed down and it is open for home-brew development or hacking. It can also serve as a subnotebook and run as a low-power but full-featured Linux desktop. The user interface of Pandora is customized to fit its small form factor with available touchscreen, analogue joystick, and keyboard-based inputs. Since the device is very much hackable, users can run their own desktop environment or even install other Linux distributions. Pandora is also designed for the emulation of older computer systems and video game consoles. It has working emulators for Dreamcast, PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Amiga, SNES, Atari Jaguar and Sega Mega Drive software. Some of the known technical specifications of Pandora: * Runs the Linux kernel (2.6.x) * 800x480 resolution touchscreen LCD, 4.3-inch widescreen, 16.7 million colors (300 cd/m2 brightness, 450:1 contrast ratio) * Texas Instruments OMAP3530 System-on-Chip with Cortex-A8 600 MHz Processor * 256MB DDR-333 SDRAM * 512MB NAND FLASH memory * IVA2+ audio and video processor (based on the TMS320C64x+ DSP Core at 430 MHz) using Texas Instruments' DaVinci technology * ARM Cortex-A8 superscalar microprocessor core * PowerVR SGX 530 (110 MHz) OpenGL ES 2.0 compliant 3D hardware * Integrated Wi-Fi 802.11b/g * Integrated Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR (3Mbit/s) (Class 2, +4dBm) * Full gamepad controls plus shoulder buttons * Dual SDHC card slots (currently supporting up to 32GB of storage each, supports SDIO) * Headphone output up to 150 mW/channel into 16 ohms, 99dB SNR * TV output (composite and S-Video) * Internal microphone plus ability to connect external microphone through headset * 43 button QWERTY and numeric keypad * USB 2.0 OTG port (480Mb/s) with capability to charge the Pandora * Externally accessible UART for hardware hacking and debugging * Brick prevention with integrated bootloader for safe code experimentation * Estimated 8.5-10+ hour battery life for games, 10+ hour battery life for video and general applications, and theoretically 100+ hours for music playback (with backlight off and maximum power management)  Pandora is priced at around $330, and if you are interested in buying one, you can contact gp2xorders@gmail.com. I hope they will set up a page soon where we can easily place our orders. Will you buy a Pandora game console?  |
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechSource To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment