jeudi 29 mai 2014
Civilization V deux DLC de plus
mercredi 28 mai 2014
Poison et Yoshimitsu confirms dans Street Fighter X Tekken
Deux nouveaux personnages du jeu de combat Street Fighter X Tekken viennent d'être révélés par Capcom. Il s'agit de Poison et Yoshimitsu. La première a été découverte dans la série Final Fight avant d'arriver dans Street Fighter 3. Le second n'est autre que l'un des personnages réguliers dans la série Tekken. Les deux personnages peuvent être vus dans les vidéos diffusées par l'éditeur durant le show Comic Con 2011 qui se déroule actuellement. Au passage, notons que Steve Fox et Dhalsim, déjà teasés en vidéo, mais jamais vraiment confirmés.
jeudi 22 mai 2014
New eBook technologies hitting market
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Sometimes you see them out of the corner of your eye. They'll be hunched over on the bus or leaning against a wall on the subway, their eyes glancing over a Palm or BlackBerry PDA. Sometimes they're going over e-mail or work notes, but increasingly so, they'll be reading a digital novel, or eBook, on the tiny handheld screen. That may be a great book, but an uncomfortable means of reading it.
This may all change within the next few years with the focused commercial launch of several eBook reader devices. These units, generally priced from $250 to $400, allow for digital versions of text to be downloaded either from the Internet or a PC and read at the full resolution provided by a printed page. Until recently, this has been almost impossible on a small PDA's screen, the lighting needing to be optimal while the lack of clarity proved straining to many trying to read longer documents.
Enter eInk, the brainchild of eInk Corporation in Cambridge, Mass., and the technology that could change everything. Based on the idea of mimicking the physics of paper, eInk uses microscopic colored beads suspended in a clear liquid between layers of plastic that react to electrical charges.
These beads, which consist of positively charged white particles and negatively charged black particles, react to different electrical charges. Should a positive charge run through the circuitry, the black beads will move to the top of the layer and become visible. Should a negative charge run through the circuitry, the white beads will rise to the top and become visible. The overall effect, when put into motion, is that of a four-color grayscale screen that mimics the way light reflects on paper and allows for extended reading to take place at any angle via a technology that proves physically easier to read than the small, backlit LCD screen of an PDA device.
Once downloaded onto the device, the format of the text can also be searched through and adjusted to meet the reader's preferences such as larger text for senior readers.
The end result is that of a portable device that can potentially hold thousands of documents and display them at the same clarity, resolution and level of comfort provided by a traditional book. Where audio device manufacturers discovered that users were content to bring their entire audio library with them provided the user experience was convenient and enjoyable, firms such as Sony and iRex Technologies have begun developing and selling eBook readers for wider markets with educational institutions such as universities looking to digitize their text holdings.
"For the first time, consumers are actually doing a lot of reading online and onscreen through PDAs," said Keith Titan, vice president of New Media for publishing giant Random House. "It could be news articles, blogs, e-mail newsletters -- a tremendous amount of reading is being done and there's more sense in a dedicated device."
Like several other publishers, Random House has made an effort to move towards other forms of media including audio, video and eBooks. To date, Random House has translated more than 3,000 texts into downloadable eBooks and priced them approximately $7 lower than their $25 hardcover counterparts.
"It helps if you've got some strong brands. The technology, at $350 or more, depends on the content that's already out there." said Ross Rubin, an analyst for NPD Group, which focuses on consumer and retail trends, discussing the future eBook market.
"Paper is a very tough competitor. It's very inexpensive, it's relatively portable, it's got a lot of history behind it that's universally compatible. I think that's the challenge in trying to create an eBook market," said Rubin. "Things like magazines, textbooks, these are things people want to take with them and not necessarily lug along the weight as well."
Beyond developing markets, current efforts continue to make eBooks freely available for download from public domain works. Project Gutenberg, an Internet-based effort that utilizes thousands of writers and proofreaders to encode and enter existing works, has gained a following and posted more than 17,000 texts for download via their online catalog.
Perhaps it was inevitable. TiVo and MythTV have made digital libraries easy to collect and sort, the iPod has made audio simple to carry around, and a moderately priced eBook reader could put every text from "War and Peace" to your most recent casual novel in your back pocket to read on the way to work.
At least it'll be lighter.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
mercredi 19 juin 2013
In Brief Digi offers new 3G router
The Minnesota company said in a news release that the ConnectPort WAN will appeal to companies that require high-speed connections for 3G (third-generation) wireless services.
ConnectPort performs a variety of functions, including cellular routing, firewall and switching and can remotely monitor devices including security cameras and utilities. It also provides broadband downlink speeds of up to 700 kilobits per second.
"Customers now have the ability to securely access information and applications at broadband speeds anywhere a UMTS/HSDPA cellular connection is accessible," said Digi Vice President Larry Kraft added. "The ConnectPort WAN delivers this speed for a wide range of commercial applications."
Copyright 2006 by United Press International
mercredi 22 mai 2013
Flying 3-D eye-bots
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Like a well-rehearsed formation team, a flock of flying robots rises slowly into the air with a loud buzzing noise. A good two dozen in number, they perform an intricate dance in the sky above the seething hordes of soccer fans. Rowdy hooligans have stormed the field and set off flares. Fights are breaking out all over, smoke is hindering visibility, and chaos is the order of the day.
Only the swarm of flying
Sensor has a higher resolution than radar
The distance sensor developed by the IMS offers significant advantages over radar, which measures distances using reflected echoes. "The sensor has a much higher local resolution," says Brockherde. "Given the near-field operating conditions, radar images would be far too coarse." The flying robots are capable of identifying even small objects measuring 20 by 15 centimeters at ranges of up to 7.5 meters. Moreover, this distance information is then transmitted at the very impressive rate of 12 images per second.
Even when there is interfering light, for example when a drone is flying directly into the sun, the sensor will deliver accurate images. It operates according to the time-of-flight (TOF) process, whereby light sources emit short pulses that are reflected by objects and bounced back to the sensor. In order to prevent over-bright ambient light from masking the signal, the electronic shutter only opens for a few nanoseconds. In addition, the sensor also takes differential measurements, in which the first image is captured using ambient light only, a second is taken using the light pulse as well, and the difference between the two determines the required output signal. "All of this happens in real time," adds Brockherde.
The 3D distance sensors are built into cameras manufactured by TriDiCam, a spin-off company of Fraunhofer IMS. Jochen Noell, TriDiCam's managing director, admits: "This research project has presented us with new challenges as regards ambient operating conditions and the safety of the sensor technology." The work falls under the AVIGLE project, one of the winners of the 'Hightech.NRW' cutting-edge technology competition which receives funding from both the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia and the EU. The IMS engineers will be presenting their sensor technology at the Fraunhofer CMOS Imaging Workshop in Duisburg on June 12 and 13 this year.
Conducting intelligent aerial surveillance of major events is not the only intended use for flying robots. They could also be of benefit to disaster relief workers, and likewise to urban planners, who could utilize them to produce detailed 3D models of streets or to inspect roofs in order to establish their suitability for solar installations. Whether deployed to create virtual maps of difficult-to-access areas, to monitor construction sites or to measure contamination at nuclear power plants, these mini UAVs could potentially be used in a wide range of applications, obviating the need for expensive aerial photography and/or satellite imaging.
vendredi 3 mai 2013
More bounce to the ounce Mini-robot attracts attention
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A steerable, jumping mini-robot developed by Michigan State University researchers is generating interest among robotics engineers, who don’t let its small size obscure its potential.
The tiny device, exhibited at MSU’s April 11 Innovation Celebration, uses a pager motor to hop several feet in the air like a locust, then right itself after landing for another jump. Power comes from a small photo cell.
The intent is to apply microfabrication technology to make it even smaller, said University Distinguished Professor Ning Xi of the Department of Computer and Electrical Engineering, who directs the department’s Robotics and Automation Laboratory. Graduate student Jianguo Zhao helped develop the robot under Xi’s supervision.
Such tiny, mobile devices – think swarms -- could be fitted with micro-sensors or communications networking equipment and deployed across rugged war zones or disaster areas that are unsuitable for wheeled robots, Xi explained. The next challenge is to give it water-hopping capability, he said.
Originally developed with funding from the National Science Foundation and then developed under commercial contract, Xi hopes to license the technology to government or commercial organizations. A news report and video can be viewed here.
mardi 16 avril 2013
Intel sets sights on new Ultrabook SSD specs
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(Phys.org) -- Intel reportedly plans to standardize SSD specifications for its Ultrabook platform, in line with its resolve to lead the way toward slimmer, faster laptops. Intel wants a new SSD connectivity standard because it needs to put to rest some issues with the mSATA standard. The latter stands for Mini-SATA, an interface connector. The current mSATA-specification SSDs used in Ultrabooks are limited in capacity. It is impossible to fit in more than four or six chips of NAND flash memory, and Ultrabooks would be limited to 512 GB of storage. Intel is not about to live with that limitation.
The company is to invite on board some relevant industry partners, including NAND SSD they want to swap out is in some obscure proprietary format, or worse yet, is soldered onto the motherboard. Can you say stress?”