Category Archives: Image cache

Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hides a full keyboard under a tablet

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CES 2011 was host to a myriad of upcoming tablets running Android, Windows 7, custom skins, you name it.  Samsung’s Sliding PC 7 Series is certainly one of the most innovative and is a stand-out winner in my humble opinion. At first you might look at the slate and think it’s just a thicker iPad.  But that thickness is apparent for a reason; hiding underneath the tablet is a slide-out chiclet keyboard with a trackpad.  This hybrid machine doubles as a 10.1 inch tablet and a small notebook PC.  I’m really impressed with the design factor here, but specs are important too: 1366×768 multitouch display, Intel’s 1.66GHz (Oak Trail) processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB or 64GB of storage, 4-in-1 memory card reader, webcam, 802.11n WiFi, 3G/WiMax & DLNA support, built-in accelerometer, USB, HDMI out, will last up to nine hours on a single charge.  Samsung’s Fast Start feature will boot up the machine in as little as 15 seconds, or restore it from Hibernate and Sleep modes in 3 seconds.  The hybrid will ship with Windows 7 Home Premium and Samsung’s custom skin called Touch Launch that “comes with preloaded applications that are optimized for the touch screen display.”  To launch Sammy’s skin you simply and elegantly swipe a blue strip located on the screen bezel.  The Sliding PC 7 Series will drop in March at $699.

I’m really digging the choice hardware manufacturers are giving consumers when it comes to tablet design.  Companies like Dell, Lenovo, and Samsung are creating such inventive, sleek hardware designs that give users the option to use a simplified OS in a tablet form factor and a more robust Windows experience with a touchpad/keyboard present.  I like the idea of having a tablet that can easily be converted into a more full-fledged computing device when a full-sized keyboard is needed.  At just 2.2 pounds, Samsung’s slider isn’t that hefty and I think I can sacrifice a couple pounds in weight and some inches in thickness to know that a reliable physical keyboard is just a hand gesture away from accessibility.

Jump after the break to see the notebook do its transformation thing.  Official PR’s there too.

[Via Engadget] Continue reading Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hides a full keyboard under a tablet →

‘V’ returns tonight at 9PM on ABC [Update: Visitor skin revealed]

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“Red Rain” is about to fall out of the “Red Sky”.  Anna’s vengeful act at the end of season one will be addressed head on during tonight’s one hour season premiere of V.  We’ll also be introduced to Anna’s mother Dianna who is played by Jane Badler, the original V baddie from the 1980s miniseries.

In an interview with EW star Elizabeth Mitchell promises that the season two 10 episode arc will be grander than the first season.  “If you were frustrated by the last season, which you probably were — I was, a little bit — I think that this will be far more satisfying,” says Mitchell. There is far more action and there is far more of what you want in an alien-invasion story, where the aliens are out to use us as food and take our technology and do everything bad you can think about. There’s more of that wonderful thing of “Us-Against-Them” stuff, which is always so satisfying in a fictional sense. And also, there’s some good sexy stuff!”

“I think the last three episodes [of season 1] were a good indicator of where this season is headed,” Mitchell continues. “Instead of people sitting around talking people were actually accomplishing things. I wanted to be an action hero, not an exposition hero! I spent all that time training, learning to kick ass, and then all I did was talk. I was like, “I’m so bored! I wanna hit people and kiss boys!” The first one comes in quickly, and it’s eerie, what happens and the way they go about it. It starts just like a movie, which is the way that you want it to. The effects in it are just gruesomely good.”

Less talk, more action.  I like it.

THEY RETURN tonight at 9PM ET on ABC.  Peer into the galleries below to view stills from the episode and character profiles.


Update: If you watched the fantastic season premiere (spoiler alert), then you know that the producers finally decided to reveal more of what’s hiding underneath the V’s human skin.  First we saw Anna take her long, scaly tail out of hiding and kill a disloyal V ship captain, and then we caught a glimpse at Ryan’s alien/human hybrid baby.  USA Today managed to get their hands on an image coming directly from executive producer Scott Rosenbaum that shows what the Vs look like if you found them on their home planet stripped of their human skin.  If you think that V skeleton featured in the episode was revealing, you haven’t seen nothing yet.  Note: USA Today reports that the V’s physical appearance will be revealed piecemeal over the 10-episode second season, and the full alien body will show up in the season finale.  If you don’t want to spoil the surprise, don’t look after the break. Otherwise, click here: Continue reading ‘V’ returns tonight at 9PM on ABC [Update: Visitor skin revealed] →

The new Facebook profile page design put to good use

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Facebook gave profile pages a new look, and an employee from the Stinson Design agency quickly figured out how to create the coolest profile, period.  I believe it was French artist Alexandre Oudin who figured out how to visually express himself in this manner first, and the Stinson man ramped it up with the embedded YouTube video.  Look after the break to see Oudin’s profile page. Continue reading The new Facebook profile page design put to good use →

Want to learn more about this year’s holiday-themed Google doodle?

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On Thursday the holiday-themed Google doodle you see right now was unveiled to the masses.  This year was rife with all kinds of Google doodles (from Pac-Man to UFOs), but this one’s being touted as the “most ambitious one yet.” Chief Google doodler Michael Lopez (yes, that is a real position) headed this year’s festive doodle with a team of four other artists.  It took them over 250 hours to complete the 17 interactive portraits of holiday scenes. Originally, the plan was to unveil the doodle in stages over three days, but at the last minute Google execs decided that it’d be best to push out the doodle in one piece and keep it up for two-and-a-half days.  Lopez and his team rushed to make it happen, and they managed to put it up just in time around 9am Thursday morning.  The majority of the holiday scenes focus on food, dance, architecture, and textile from all around the world. Google estimates that it has created over 900 doodles since 1998, with approximately 270 of them running in 2010.  Of all the doodles thus far, this one seems to be the one that most diverges from spelling out the search engine’s name.  Can you find where it says “Google” there?  It’s very subtle.  Anyway, can’t wait to see what Lopez has in store for us next year!

[Via WSJ]

Facebook visualizes friendships, a bizarre map is born

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An intern at Facebook named Paul Butler was interested in what he calls “the locality of friendship”; he wanted a visualization that would show which cities had a lot of friendships between them.  He sampled about ten million pairs of friends, combing that data “with each user’s current city and summed the number of friends between each pair of cities.  Then [he] merged the data with the longitude and latitude of each city.”  The image above is the result, and this was his initial reaction:

The blob had turned into a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human relationships.

Pretty incredible, huh?  Just by combining data points between friend connections on Facebook he was able to recreate a unique map of the world (though Russia and China are almost totally absent).  The white areas on the “map” represent cities and towns, while the blue streaks highlight the relationships between them.  If you’re interested in learning more about how this was constructed, head over to Butler’s blog post; there you’ll also find a super hi-res version of the visualization.  FYI, it makes for a visually splendid desktop background.

[Via Facebook]

How the world searched, tweeted, and YouTube’d in 2010

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Ah 2010, what a year it has been.  What’s the best way to find out what was on everyone’s minds over the course of the past year?  By looking at the top Google searches, top Twitter trends, and most watched YouTube videos, duh!  The search giant has gone all out this year with their public Google Zeitgeist 2010.  What were this year’s hottest search terms?  Well, just look in the bar graph above!  The creepy video chat service Chatroulette took the top prize as the fastest rising query, and the rest of the list includes celebrities Justin Bieber, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Apple’s iPad, game portals Friv and GameZer, ringtone maker Myxer, and social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.  Click here to browse the entire Google Zeitgeist report.  Search terms are categorized subject matter and region, and Google also put together some snazzy interactive maps to support the data analytics.

Look after the break to learn about the most popular Twitter trends and the most watched YouTube videos of 2010. Continue reading How the world searched, tweeted, and YouTube’d in 2010 →

T.I.’s new record renamed No Mercy, tracklist and album cover revealed

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T.I. just can’t catch a break these days.  Shortly after being released from prison on weapons charges, he was sent back to the doghouse for drug charges.  The King is not longer Uncaged, so the rapper decided to rename his seventh studio record No Mercy.  The tracklist includes some great featured artists including Kanye West & Kid Cudi on the opener “Welcome to the World”, Drake, Eminem, and Pharrell.

1. Welcome To The World (Feat. Kanye West & Kid Cudi)
2. How Life Changed (Feat. Mitchelle’l & Scarface)
3. Get Back Up (Feat. Chris Brown)
4. I Can’t Help It (Feat. Rocko)
5. That’s All She Wrote (Feat. Eminem)
6. No Mercy (Feat. The-Dream)
7. Big Picture
8. Strip (Feat. Young Dro & Trey Songz)
9. Salute
10. Amazing (Feat. Pharrell)
11. Everything On Me
12. Poppin Bottles (Feat. Drake)
13. Lay Me Down
14. Castle Walls (Feat. Christina Aguilera)

Though he’ll be behind bars when it drops, you can expect No Mercy to hit stores December 7.

[Via HipHipDX]

The Muppets are coming back to the big screen in a big way

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Here’s your very first glimpse into the first Muppets movie made for the big screen in eleven long years.  Take it all in…

Now let’s talk deets.  James Bobin (of Flight of the Conchords fame) is set to direct and Jason Segel (I Love You, Man, How I Met Your Mother) will executive produce, write (with Nicholas Stoller), and star in the film.  Segel happens to be a big fan of Jim Henson and his furry creations.  “We’ve worked really hard to stay true to the original spirit of the Muppets,” said Segel.  “We’ve missed the same thing everyone else has been missing.”  Here’s a leaked synopsis:

The Greatest Muppet Movie of All Time is about Gary, Mary, and Walter (a man, his girlfriend, and the man’s life-long nondescript, brown puppet best friend) getting the old Muppet gang — now retired entertainers known for the same Muppet show we know them from — together to save the TV studio that the original show was shot in. A villain, Tex Richman (nice name, on par with Doc Hopper), bent on drilling for oil underneath the studio, is due to take over the studio in weeks and the only way to stop him? Putting on a show that draws ten million viewers.

Segel will star as the human lead Gary, Amy Adams is Mary, and Walter–who happens to be a brand new Muppet addition–will be voiced by Paul Rudd.  (FYI, Walter is the iPhone-wielding Muppet in the image above.)  Tex the antagonist will be voiced by Chris Cooper.  Rashida Jones is locked in, too.  Beyond that almost all the other information surrounding this movie is pure speculation.  But let’s add to that conversation!  Other potential guest voices include: Kristen Schaal, Jack Black, Donald Glover, Jane Lynch, Danny Trejo, Zach Galifianakis, and Lady Gaga.  And guess who’s rumored to play Gaga’s entourage?  John Krasinski (The Office), Ed Helms (The Hangover), and Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family).  Yeah.  This might just turn out to be the greatest Muppet movie of all time after all.

Production started in September, and Disney plans to release it wide Christmas 2011.

[Via EW; CinemaBlend; TheFilmStage]

Sony intros new Bluetooth headset for PS3 users

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What you’re looking at here is the newly redesigned Bluetooth headset for PlayStation 3 users.  It’s glossy, sleek, and 30% more compact than its original counterpart which debuted in 2008.  Hungry for specs?   It offers a dual-microphone design, automatic pairing via USB cable, in-game headset status indicator, an easily accessible microphone mute button, a charging cradle which also functions as a desktop microphone, a special High Quality mode that promises “crystal clear voice chat” during gaming sessions, and built-in noise cancellation.  It also packs three-way calling and call waiting support if you feel like pairing it with a mobile phone; its got six hours of talk time, so it’s definitely a viable cell phone companion.  All this can be yours for the same price of the original model–$49.99.  It will release sometime this month.

[Via PlayStationBlog]