Donald Melanson
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Home page: http://www.engadget.com
Posts by Donald Melanson
Researchers tout efficiency breakthrough with new ‘inexact’ chip
01 day ago
Accuracy is generally an important consideration in computer chips, but a team of researchers led by Rice University are touting a new "inexact" chip (dubbed PCMOS) that they say could lead to as much as a fifteen-fold increase in efficiency. Their latest work, which won a best paper award at a recent ACM conference, builds on years of research in the field from the university, and is already moving far beyond the lab -- some inexact hardware is being used in the "i-slate" educational tablet developed by the Rice-NTU Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics, 50,000 of which are expected to wind up in India's Mahabubnagar school district over the next three years. As for the chips themselves, their inexactness comes not just from one process, but a variety of different measures that can be used on their own or together -- including something the researchers describe as "pruning," which eliminate rarely used portions of the chip. All of that naturally comes with some trade-offs (less defined video processing is one example given), but the researchers say those are often outweighed by the benefits -- like cheaper, faster chips that require far less power.
Researchers tout efficiency breakthrough with new 'inexact' chip originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 May 2012 06:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Rice University | Email this | Comments Silicon Micro Display rolls out $799 ST1080 wearable display
02 days ago
It may still be some time before you can take Google's ambitious wearable computing project for a spin, but there's certainly no shortage of head-mounted displays out there for those looking to blaze a trail of their own. You can now add Silicon Micro Display's new ST1080 glasses to that list, a full 1080p display that will handle both 2D and 3D content (in a variety of formats), and also allow you to see through the glasses for augmented reality applications (albeit with just 10 percent transparency). As with most such glasses, however, you won't get head-tracking capabilities, and you'll have a couple of tethers to contend with (HDMI for video and USB for power, including via an optional battery pack). Those not put off by those constraints or the whole visor look can place their order now for $799.
Silicon Micro Display rolls out $799 ST1080 wearable display originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 May 2012 03:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Silicon Micro Display, SMD Blog | Email this | Comments Microsoft Research’s MirageTable brings some augmented reality to your tabletop
01 week ago
We got a look at a holographic telepresence project from Microsoft Research earlier this week, but that's far from the only Kinect-enhanced rig it's working on these days. This setup dubbed a MirageTable was also shown off at the Computer-Human Interaction conference in Austin, Texas this week, offering a glimpse of one possible future where two people can interact with virtual objects on a table as if they were sitting across from each other (or simply do so on their own). To make that happen, the setup relies on a ceiling-mounted 3D projector to display the images on a curved surface, while a Kinect on each end of the connection both captures the person's image and tracks their gaze to ensure images are displayed with the proper perspective. You can check it out in action after the break, although some of the effect is lost without 3D glasses.
Continue reading Microsoft Research's MirageTable brings some augmented reality to your tabletop
Microsoft Research's MirageTable brings some augmented reality to your tabletop originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 May 2012 07:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
PermalinkAbout Projectors | BBC News, New Scientist | Email this | Comments Lava’s Medfield-based Xolo X900 smartphone gets reviewed by AnandTech
03 weeks ago
We briefly got our hands on the Medfield-based Xolo X900 back in February, and seen some benchmarks from Lenovo's K800 (based on the same reference design), but AnandTech has now provided a thorough review of the device that's ushering in Intel's new push into smartphones. In short, the phone is a solid first step, but not something that AnandTech sees as a flagship device. Battery life is respectable and performance is even better (scoring among the top of the heap in most benchmarks), and both the screen and camera manage to impress, but AnandTech didn't find anything that pulled the device ahead of the competition. In its own words, "on the one hand it's a good thing that you can't tell an Intel smartphone apart from one running an ARM based SoC, on the other hand it does nothing to actually sell the Intel experience." Hit the source link below for the full review and benchmarks.
Lava's Medfield-based Xolo X900 smartphone gets reviewed by AnandTech originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 14:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |AnandTech | Email this | Comments Google Currents app updated with international support, offline reading
01 month ago
Google Currents app updated with international support, offline reading originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Apr 2012 17:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink |Google Mobile Blog, Google Play, iTunes | Email this | Comments 
