Canon develops world’s first 120 megapixel APS-H CMOS sensor – “Canon has announced it has developed a 120 megapixel 29.2 x 20.2mm APS-H CMOS sensor – the same size used in its EOS-1D series of professional DSLRs. The sensor, for which Canon has announced no production plans, has a pixel count nearly 7.5 times larger than the company’s highest pixel count commercially available sensor. It offers full HD recording (using 1/60th of its surface area) and can deliver 9.5fps continuous shooting. This follows a 50 million pixel sensor of similar format the company developed in 2007…”

GREAT SCOTT! Nike Air Mag “Marty McFly” Release? – “If this technology is to be used in the form of a Marty McFly inspired sneaker it would be the definition of game changer; the perfect intersection between performance and nostalgia. The movie was set in 2015; is a Nike Air Mag “Marty McFly” release on the horizon?”

Why Isn’t There A Better Way to Text While Driving? – “Texting while driving is especially dangerous, not simply because we’re distracted, but because it necessitates taking one’s eyes off the road, often for many seconds at a time. Anything done while driving is a distraction—looking at an iPod, searching through a purse, even talking on a Bluetooth headset with eyes on the road—simply because it distracts us from the task at hand: piloting a two-ton machine at speeds considered appropriate for only daredevils and experts just a century before. (Tom Vanderbilt’s book ‘Traffic’ addresses this at length, for those interested in statistics.)”

Evolution, not revolution: a look at AMD’s Bulldozer – “In a presentation today at Hot Chips, AMD unveiled new details of two upcoming microprocessor architectures aimed at the server and mobile markets. Those architectures, codenamed Bulldozer and Bobcat, are AMD’s first new-from-the-ground-up designs since the original Opteron, and Bulldozer in particular marks the biggest departure from existing hardware since AMD introduced the original K7 back in 1999…”

Toshiba 3D TV line packs a surprise: No glasses – “Toshiba will release a 3D TV that utilizes glasses-free, autostereoscopy technology. One newspaper says the 3D sets will hit as soon as the end of the year…”

747-8′s one million pound takeoff – “Boeing engineers stretched the fuselage of the iconic 747 to create the new 747-8 Freighter. The bigger airplane boasts a designed maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) of 975,000 pounds (442,253 kg), compared to the 875,000 pound (396,900 kg) MTOW of its predecessor, the 747-400 Freighter….”

Seaswarm – “Seaswarm is a new oil-skimming system that can autonomously navigate the water’s surface. Seaswarm units are self organizing and can clean an oil spill more effectively than current methods. Seaswarm uses a photovoltaic (solar) powered conveyor belt made of a thin nanowire mesh to propel itself and simultaneously collect oil. This nanomaterial, patented at MIT, can absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. As the flexible conveyor belt softly rolls over the ocean’s surface, it propels the unit forward, absorbing oil as it goes…”

Lifting the veil on the hybrid processor-graphics chip in the new Xbox 360 – “Microsoft and IBM described the two-headed chip that enables the new black version of the Xbox 360 to operate on less power and more quietly than past models of the video game console…”

Windows Phone 7 Browser Comparison

Best Cameras Under $300 – “While it would it would great spending $500 or more for a digital camera, getting the most bank for buck makes at lot of sense today—or anytime. What follows are 10 digicams that go for less than $300 online or in stores–and take great photographs. You won’t find any barebones sub-$100 cameras here simply because, for the most part, they’re not worth it even at the low price. Spend a bit more for a solid camera and you’ll have photographic payoff that’ll last for years…”

A tech autopsy of Google’s failed communication platform. – “In a short blog post on Aug. 4, Google announced that it was pulling the plug on Wave, the “real-time communication and collaboration” Web site that the company launched last year. This wasn’t a surprise. “Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked,” Google explained diplomatically—something akin to describing the Hindenburg’s last voyage as being a tad bumpy. In reality, Wave had been deserted for months. Although it won a standing ovation when the company first unveiled the program last year, many early users reacted as I did when Wave went live—I was instantly turned off by its complexity and by the way it confounded online social conventions. (Especially annoying was its always-on “live typing,” which revealed your textual fumbles to the world. Thanks, Google!)”

Report: Google Testing ‘Instant Search’ Feature – “Ever since Microsoft launched Bing last year, Google has been implementing search features at a fairly rapid pace. According to a number of online reports, the company is currently testing an “instant search” feature that changes search results as you type….”

Samsung Galaxy Tab Revealed, Gives My iPad Self-Esteem Issues – “Samsung has finally released an official Samsung Galaxy Tab teaser video that personally gave my iPad self-esteem issues…”

3 Colombian teens on Facebook hit list killed in past 10 days – “Three teens who were on a 69-name hit list posted on Facebook have been killed in the past 10 days in a southwestern Colombian town, officials say…”

Apple Files for Patent to Disable Jailbroken iPhones – “Apple has applied for a patent covering various methods for identifying and disabling unauthorized use — including jailbreaking and other hacks — of electronic devices, such as its popular iPhone and iPad products….”

Bill Gates’ favorite teacher – “Sal Khan, you can count Bill Gates as your newest fan. Gates is a voracious consumer of online education. This past spring a colleague at his small think tank, bgC3, e-mailed him about the nonprofit khanacademy.org, a vast digital trove of free mini-lectures all narrated by Khan, an ebullient, articulate Harvard MBA and former hedge fund manager. Gates replied within minutes. “This guy is amazing,” he wrote. “It is awesome how much he has done with very little in the way of resources.” “

12 Standard Screen Patterns – “As Bill mentioned in an earlier post, we don’t want to limit this blog to just the principles and patterns found in the book. For that you can check out our Explore the Book section. In the spirit of that, I want to share an additional set of principles and patterns I have been using for RIA design. While the book takes a much more consumer web site orientation, these concepts are central to enterprise application and web productivity application design and more broad than those discussed in the book…”

Twitter’s not stupid – you just have boring friends – “I’ve been having conversations over the past 24 hours about the ‘value’ of social media. The social transparency and personal profile that this kind of medium affords is one of those things that crops up from time to time in articles such as this one in Techcrunch and this one in Music Think Tank – and I find myself ending up defending Twitter, which certainly doesn’t need my help….”

Brilliant Plans to Rescue Dying Industries – “Obviously the important thing, in early 21st-century America, is to make sure that no fading industry is left behind. If that means bolting outdated technology to new devices and letting consumers pick up the bill, well at least we can make sure that “morning zoo” DJs are kept off the streets and out of trouble…”

Destroying the Samsung Galaxy S’ Gorilla Glass – “This image looks crazy, isn’t it? As we know, Samsung Galaxy S is made with Gorrilla glass to resistant scrathes on the phone. Evrybody wants to see the demo but no one dare to try the test. Now here is the demo video made by some Korean gyus. Enjoy the show!”

10 Trickiest Spy Gadgets Ever – “because spies live and work among us, they need every day objects to conceal their secret files and transmissions….”

5 Terrible U.S. Road and Highway Designs: Lessons Learned – “Whiling away the hours in roadwork-induced stoppages, you might find yourself cursing the traffic engineers and highway designers responsible for your misery. You might praise them for finally doing something about that particularly sticky wicket of an interchange. And you might wonder to yourself, “If there was a perfect highway, what would it be like?” At least that’s what we wondered. So we found some of America’s worst examples of highway design, and talked to experts in the field to find out what it takes to build good roads….”

BlackBerry crumble: Why RIM is in trouble – ” Shares of the BlackBerry smartphone maker have been crushed in the past few weeks, due largely to concerns that its hotly anticipated new Torch phone is not selling as well as hoped. Research in Motion shares have plunged more than 15% just this month and are barely above their 52-week low… “

Transforming A School Bus Into A Lab For Sustainable Living – “A few months ago, Felicia Ballos and Ray Roy were faced with several major life challenges, namely: the birth of their first child Bowie and dealing with difficult New York living conditions. Opting for more sustainable and mobile living conditions, Ray and Felicia have turned a school bus into a multipurpose home, movie theater, and performance venue. However, their journey, which they are currently filming as a documentary, and new home is not just about a lifestyle change; rather, the bus operates as a potential prototyping lab for many potentially sustainable ideas using open source software/hardware from Arduino to Makerbots…”

Tech talk video: Computers As We Don’t Know Them

Taxation fears

Oracle, closed minds and open source

Netflix versus Redbox: Head to Head (Infographic)

Nokia’s Effort To Try To Compete With Apple – “In another move that shows Nokia’s eargness to compete with Apple, the struggling phone company is ramping up efforts to boost software development for the Ovi platform by trying to attract more developers. Earlier today, Nokia announced that it is purchasing analytics firm Motally. “The Finnish company say the acquisition Friday underscores its attempt to improve mobile Web browsing analytics for software developers of its Internet services, that are struggling to match competitor Apple Inc.,” the Associated Press reported in its coverage of Nokia’s announcement early Friday. The move causes many analysts as Nokia’s latest and borderline desperate attempt to bolster the Ovi platform, which gives mobile pone users access to a wide range of downloads, including games, maps, and music….”

Hacker’s Arrest Offers Peek Into Crime in Russia – “On the Internet, he was known as BadB, a disembodied criminal flitting from one server to another selling stolen credit card numbers despite being pursued by the United States Secret Service. And in real life, he was nearly as untouchable — because he lived in Russia….”

A new generation of power: Hi-tech rechargeable batteries developed for military – “Scientists reported progress today in using a common virus to develop improved materials for high-performance, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that could be woven into clothing to power portable electronic devices. They discussed development of the new materials for the battery’s cathode, or positive electrode, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held here this week…”

US military’s top secret X-37B shuttle ‘disappears’ for two weeks, changes orbit – “In May, avid skywatcher Ted Molczan studied the X-37B’s orbit from his home in Toronto and said its behaviour suggested it was testing sensors for a range of new spy satellites. Since then, the X-37B been arguably the least-secret secret project on the planet, as fellow backyard astronomers joined in the scrutiny, aided by how-to video guides and apps such as the Simple Satellite Tracker. That is, they did until July 29, when the shuttle disappeared, causing all kinds of consternation and conspiracy theories about its fate…”

Glorious gadolinium gives flash memory a future – “Future flash memory could be faster and store more data without changing its basic design by using a clever nanocrystal material proposed by scientists at Taiwan’s Chang Gung University, who describe a new logical element made with the rare earth material gadolinium in the journal APPLIED PHYSICS LETTERS, which is published by the American Institute of Physics…”

Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline – “Intel chief executive Paul Otellini offered a depressing set of observations about the economy and the Obama administration Monday evening, coupled with a dark commentary on the future of the technology industry if nothing changes…”

[[[Jump to - Interesting Reading #560 – Largest Amateur Rocket, Hating Do-Gooders, 20-Somethings’ immobility, glasses-free 3D TV and much more…]]]

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