Teknorati.net
musings about tech & miscellanea
Gaming can make a better world: Jane McGonigal
Aug 23rd
Provocative, from TED.com:
“Games like World of Warcraft give players the means to save worlds, and incentive to learn the habits of heroes. What if we could harness this gamer power to solve real-world problems? Jane McGonigal says we can, and explains how.”
Droid X Teardown
Jul 17th
Teardown and assembly photos and videos from Zedomax.com.
“After fiddling with my Droid X for two days non-stop, I finally figured out how to dissect the latest Motorola superphone.
Just in case someone needs to replace parts or perhaps the touchscreen in the future, I’ve documented the whole process for your viewing pleasure using my Canon 7D. And yes, still working on my photography skills so please bear with me.”
Moving to Android from Blackberry
Jun 12th
I’m really impressed with the Android OS these days, and the new hardware/devices available are amazing. After playing with my wife’s Motorola Droid, my Blackberry Tour seems outdated … Android truly excels as a phone and MID (mobile internet device).
But, Blackberry’s push email and Blackberry Messenger is something I’m having a hard time letting go of. Crackberry.com has a great post on transitioning from Blackberry to Android. Definitely worth the read.
HTC Evo 4G Teardown
Jun 2nd
Teardown pics and video from iFixit!
“We pulled a couple of strings to acquire the most desirable Android phone today, the HTC Evo 4G!
Check out Wired’s video of our HTC Evo 4G disassembly!”
Tethering with Android
May 18th
Android Central has a great post on the basics of tethering for an Android phone. Link to PdaNet, video on WiFi tethering, and the pearl of info, using HTC Sync if your Android is using the Sense UI.
“If you have a phone running Android 2.1 with HTC Sense, mobile network sharing is built into the operating system. Don’t get too excited though, because your carrier decides whether or not it will work. If you want to try it for yourself, make sure you have the latest version of HTC Sync and plug your phone into your computer. In the connection options, choose Internet sharing.”
HTC Incredible disassembly video
May 5th
Great video for those like to dig in and check out what’s under the hood with the newest latest & greatest from HTC running Android.
Google Owns More Than 2% of World’s Servers
Apr 23rd
Check out this great infograph from Intac.net showing who owns the most servers. Google is depicted as the large yellow block below the others.
EricTric.com: “Think Google’s worldwide operations are gigantic? Well, you’re right. A new infographic distributed by Intac displays exactly how many servers some of the world’s top technology companies own and use to power their incredibly large and sophisticated operations.
For example, RackSpace (who hosts Erictric) is said to own over 56,000 servers. Trailing close behind is The Planet, a popular host who cares for over 15 million websites, with a server count of just over 48,000. What about Facebook? 30,000. Intel? 100,000.
But what about Google, the internet’s superpower? Try over one million servers. According to the graphic, “it is speculated that Google owns more than 2% of all the world’s servers.””
Gizmodo.com: “You already just sort of know, logically and instinctively, that Google’s got a ridiculous number of servers working for them. That doesn’t make it any less mind-boggling when visualized. Get ready for a lot of scrolling.
Of course, not all servers are created equal—so “more” is a problematic word here. And I’m betting this wouldn’t look quite so lopsided if big hitters like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon were represented. Regardless, though, such a massive difference of scale is incredibly impressive, even if not entirely surprising.”
Verizon’s HTC Incredible
Apr 20th
Verizon will be offering the new HTC Incredible on April 29th, and upstages Google’s Nexus One. HTC’s Sense UI looks fantastic, powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor. Check out the video for a taste!
iPad Teardown
Apr 10th
iFixit.com is a great site for those into gadget teardowns. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the iPad went under the spudger. From their site:
“We got a sneak peak inside the iPad yesterday, when we were able to un-redact the FCC’s test photos. Be warned, however: what you see there is with a pre-production unit, while the photos here are from a unit purchased at retail.
Want to stay up-to-date with the hardware world? Follow @ifixit!
Our iPad repair manual already has some repair guides in progress for the iPad. We hope you didn’t already break your screen, but if so, that’s the best place to go.
Also check out the YouTube video slideshow of the teardown!
Update 4/5: We’ve worked with ChipWorks to dissect the silicon inside the iPad. More photos forthcoming.”
New Dell in the house
Mar 26th
Just picked up a Dell Studio XPS 8100 desktop at Bestbuy for $1,080, which is $278 cheaper than Dell’s site with the exact same configuration. So with the money saved, now looking for a 24″ LCD monitor, which is really the sweet spot for 1920 x 1080 resolution; crisp high res without having the fonts too small as with 22″ monitors and smaller in this resolution.
This one’s replacing 1 of the 2 desktops I use across 3 LCD monitors for my daily use; one for Outlook and various widgets across 2 screens, and the new Dell for my main
BTW, the ATI Radeon HD5770 graphics card has 1GB of dedicated memory and is an excellent performer, especially with today’s multimedia needs (and yes, great for gaming whenever I get back into WoW).
Product Features
- Intel® Core™ i7-860 processor
Features an 8MB cache and 2.8GHz processor speed. - The all new 2010 Intel® Core™ i7 processor
Features 8-way processing for ultimate smart performance. Intel® Turbo Boost Technology automatically speeds up your processor when your PC needs extra performance. - 8GB DDR3 memory
For multitasking power, expandable to 16GB.
Navigating a 13.3 gigapixel image on a 22 megapixel display wall
Mar 24th
This is so impressive! “What we’re looking at here is a 22 megapixel display, stitched together from the output of no less than 28 projectors (7,168 x 3,072 total resolution), which just happens to respond to touch-like input in a fashion even Tom Cruise would find fascinating. You don’t have to actually touch the wall, floor-mounted cameras pick up your gestures in 2D space and a 30-node computer setup crunches all the computational and visual data to deliver some buttery smooth user interaction.”
