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According to software development firm Devil Mountain Software, Service Pack 3 for Windows XP is a “must have” update. Because when they ran Office productivity test suite on a preview version of SP3, they found performance boosts of 10%. So in case Windows users needed another performance-oriented reason not to upgrade to Vista, they just got one. [yahoo via lifehacker]
In a recent interview with Gulf News, AMD’s CEO Hector Ruiz took the gloves off and went straight for Intel’s throat. Angry about Intel following AMD’s lead in areas like X86-64 (64-bit) technology yet dominating the market, Ruiz let loose to the media. “If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel.
Oh, but there’s more!
newVideoPlayer("cagwiifit_gizmodo.flv", 475, 376);Japan native CheapyD from gaming deals site Cheapassgamer got his hands on Nintendo’s new exercise game Wii Fit and undressed it for the world to see. Verdict: we forget how thin the board is. While the concept resembles step aerobics, nothing about the experience does (from the brief trade show hands on we had). So despite this being yet another extra console peripheral–putting the cherry on top of the Rock Band sundae that we call our living room–it should fit under a couch with ease. [cheapassgamer]
Organic transistors are appealing for their cheap manufacture and flexible materials. But often when cooling, misaligned molecules trap electrons that destroy the chips’ bandwidth. A new breakthrough in organic, pentacene transistors has found that when these chips are left to sit in a vacuum, the material “self heals” at room temperature, realigning the structure properly.
Epcot’s SpaceShip Earth ride was a little dated, so it’s been undergoing a major overhaul. And according to Distant Creations blog, a certain Apple celebrity will be making an appearance. Tinkering on a computer in his garage, the bearded “Jesus version” Jobs will be creating an early prototype Apple computer…alone.
Tis the season to build repurpose crazy electrical contraptions for a little merriment. From Peter Terren, the same crazy Aussie who brought you hits like the Tesla “Eye of Sauron Anti-Theft Device” has now transfigured Tesla coils to a festive Christmas tree shape. The trick was pulled off by building a frame (held together with wire and fishing line) around a standard Tesla coil to shape the spark pattern. Colour was added after through simple colour filter projection. So no, no one has invented fabled green electricity. Hit the jump for two more astonishing pics.
If you are planning on showing Gizmodo no love this morning, we shall excuse you if you ditch us for the awesome DARPA Urban Challenge. The DARPA Urban Challenge hopes to pursue technologies that may replace humans on the battlefield. Teams enter an unmanned, robotic and autonomous vehicle, which is released in a mock city environment and must complete certain tasks to succeed. The main objective is for the robotic vehicle to carry out simulated military supply missions, whilst simultaneously negotiating their way through traffic and past obstacles.
We’ve had our share of cool water bottles make their way through the site. Now we get BevyTech’s Gadget Bottle, which is just sad. Not only does this seem like a broken cellphone/MP3 player/pill bottle(!?) waiting to happen, but what practical reason is there for affixing a gadget to a water bottle? Granted the knife-bottle option does look extra grimy, but it’d be cooler if they built it into the bottle. I’ll spend my $8.25 elsewhere, thanks. [Gadget Bottle]
Microsoft’s HD Photo standard is now officially tapped to become JPEG’s successor by the Joint Photographic Experts Group, but it’ll be known as JPEG XR. XR stands for extended range, given the wider colour palette and finer gradations it can show. Other benefits include in-camera imaging processing support and, supposedly, better compression. Besides losing its Windows-y name (in a former life, it was Windows Media Photo) it’s dropping proprietary control by Microsoft to become as neutral as JPEG is now. Though support’s already built-in to Windows Vista, it’ll take a year to get standardized, at which point large-scale adoption will probably start picking up steam. [Cnet via Electronista]
They say that the best way to develop a great product is to find a need and fill it. Perhaps the design team at DigitalTech didn’t look hard enough when they came up with their Touchstone portable gadget charger / hand warmer hybrid. It’s not that the two functions of the device aren’t useful —it can charge just about anything and my hands could stand to be a little toastier in the winter months —I’m just not sure that these functions make a lot of sense together. Still, if you would prefer a compact charger with some added yet unrelated functionality, you will be happy to know that the Touchstone can provide up to 9 hours of continuous cell phone charging and up to 6 hours of hand warming. Available for around $44. [Product Page via TFTS]
