Intel i7 Massive Price Cuts – “If you’re planning on building a gaming PC anytime soon, you will be pleased to know of Intel’s upcoming price reductions for some of their flagship processors. In just seven says time on the 30th of August, the Core i7 950 (LGA1366, 3.06 GHz, quad-core) which is currently retailing for $564 on Amazon.com will be slashed to $294, effectively replacing the i7 930…”

AMD Discusses Details of Next-Generation Products – “Finally, there’s Bulldozer. This is AMD’s new high-end server / workstation / enthusiast CPU. Like Bobcat, it’s an all-new architecture from the ground up. AMD is steadfastly refusing to give any specific timeframe for when Bulldozer chips might be available. But Bulldozer, when it arrives, will be drop-in compatible with the current generation of Opteron motherboards as well as AM3 products, provided that your motherboard manufacturer provides the necessary BIOS update…”

New OLED Design Could Lead to Cheap Big OLED TVs – “Just a few months ago we discussed how awesome it would be if OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays came to more consumer electronics but why we probably wouldn’t see them soon. The short of it? OLED is brighter, has deeper blacks, better contrast, and lower power consumption. But it’s far too expensive to end up in anything but portable devices…”

Robot Taught To Provide Basic Human Need

world’s largest tumour

World’s largest hailstones

Transparency: The Most Fuel Efficient Airlines – “While some airlines have done experiments in running planes on biofuels, air travel normally requires an enormous output of carbon-emitting jet fuel. Various factors, like plane models, total load, and chosen route can effect one trip’s fuel efficiency, but which airlines consistently manage to use the least fuel in their operations? This is a look at the most fuel efficient airlines, based on the amount of fuel used for each seat-mile (how much fuel moves one passenger one mile)…”

Scientists create ‘dry water’ – “The substance resembles powdered sugar and could revolutionise the way chemicals are used. Each particle of dry water contains a water droplet surrounded by a sandy silica coating. In fact, 95 per cent of dry water is ”wet” water….”

Giz Explains: How Blind People See the Internet – “Giz Explains: How Blind People See the InternetYour eyes are absorbing this webpage. They’re passing over this, this, then this word, right now. That’s how reading works, online: you take this for granted. But what if you couldn’t?”

Valve want to make the Half-Life movie themselves – “Valve’s CEO and co-founder, Gabe Newell, has told PC Gamer that the only way there’d be a Half-Life movie would be if Valve made it themselves. He also said they’ve been experimenting with doing just that…”

Google plugs free PC-to-phone calling into e-mail – “Google Inc. is adding a free e-mail feature that may persuade more people to cut the cords on their landline phones. The service unveiled Wednesday enables U.S. users of Google’s Gmail service to make calls from microphone-equipped computers to telephones virtually anywhere in the world…”

Music industry wants even more control – “Specifically, the entertainment industry is looking to enforce copyright by getting third parties to do some of the dirty work. In particular, the industry wants companies such as search engines and Internet service providers — the latter is typically your phone or cable company — to keep an eagle eye on what you do with your own computer, inspecting what you download and upload in granular ways. This is the rough equivalent of getting your phone company to listen to your calls to make sure you aren’t planning anything illegal…”

Asteroid Discovery From 1980 – 2010

Low prices and rates can’t slow fall in home sales – “ome prices in many parts of the country scream bargain, and mortgage rates haven’t been this low for decades. So why are houses across the nation sitting on the market for so long?”

Zuckerberg’s minions attack pre-launch teaching community – ” It has decided to file an infringement lawsuit against a pre-launch website called Teachbook.com because it has “book” in its name. And it’s a community for teachers. Facebook argues that if other websites could use a name with book at the end for online networking services, the suffix book could run the risk of being used as a general term for social media, taking away from the value of Facebook’s established brand. We kind of see Facebook’s point, here – but there’s no question it is being heavy handed…”

Why Synthesized Speech Sounds So Awful – “We have tricorders, teleportation and dynamic touch-screen interfaces, but not the most mundane prediction of Star Trek and countless other sci-fi franchises: human-like synthesized speech. Those of you who haven’t listened to synthesized speech since the last time you watched A Brief History of Time, prepare to be underwhelmed by the lack of progress. Here’s Roger Ebert using a text to speech synthesizer pre-programmed with his own voice…”

Have We Seen The Demise Of The Concept Car? – “Concept cars were once a no holds barred look at what future automobiles could be. While today’s concept vehicles are certainly stunning, they can easily be described as ‘realistic’, as they lack the fantastical details that were once prevalent in the concepts of yesteryear…”

America the Ignorant – “Chances are that by now you’ve heard about the Aug. 19, 2010, Pew poll that found that nearly one fifth of Americans (mistakenly) believe that President Obama is a Muslim. Perhaps you think that a terrifying outlier; or perhaps you’re a believer, and then you are in good company. Either way, you’re wrong: in fact, remarkably high numbers of Americans believe the most unusual things. Although the portion of poll respondents who believe Obama is a Muslim has risen recently, some of these oddball opinions contain more consistent numbers of believers. Here’s a sampling of the nuttiest…”

Angry Birds, The Upcoming PSP Game That Might Be a Movie – “If you’re one of the 6.5 million (yep, 6.5 million) who’ve downloaded the game from Apple’s iPhone/iPad store, you already know about these apoplectic avians and their crusade against packs of egg-purloining green pigs…”

8 Offbeat Travel Tours – “It’s no surprise that with the recent theatrical release of Eat, Pray, Love came the beginnings of a booming tourist industry based around the acclaimed travel book—especially considering the idyllic destinations involved: Italy, India and Indonesia. Far from being the first themed tours, these trips are just the latest crop available across the globe. Whether these expeditions are for history buffs, vampire groupies or spy-novel enthusiasts, find out the wackiest ways super-fans are getting a real-life taste of their obsessions…”

Powering homes with electricity collected from air may soon be possible – “Electricity collected from the air could become the newest alternative energy source, say scientists, who have solved a 200-year-old scientific riddle about how moisture in the atmosphere becomes electrically charged….”

Wikileaks publishes CIA “Red Cell” memo on risks of US perceived as “exporter of terrorism” – “Wikileaks has just published what it identifies as a CIA “Red Cell” report from February 2, 2010. The single, three-page document—much smaller than previous, highly-publicized leaks from Wikileaks— discusses the potential foreign policy consequences of perceptions that the United States “exports terrorism.” ..”

Who has most freedom to travel? – “THE ability to visit a foreign country without the cost and hassle of obtaining a visa is a welcome bonus for any traveller. It is also a barometer of a country’s international alliances and relations. A report released on August 25th by Henley & Partners, a consultancy, shows that Britons have the fewest visa restrictions of the 190-odd countries (and territories) for which data are available. British citizens can enjoy a three-day stay for business or pleasure to 166 destinations without needing a visa. Generally, citizens of rich countries and trade-based economies have more freedom to travel than those of countries suffering from war or repression. Compare, for instance, the restrictions on South Korea with North Korea and Hong Kong with those on China…”

Plan Seeks 100 Pct Renewable Energy in Australia in Ten Years – “The report, entitled Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan, “outlines a technically feasible and economically attractive way for Australia to transition to 100 percent renewable energy within ten years.” The plan specifies that the 100 percent renewable grid be “based on proven technologies that are already commercially available and that have already been demonstrated in large industries.”"

‘A Fantastic Time for Bubbles’ – “Investors have lived through the calamitous crashes of real estate and tech stocks in a single decade. You’d think we would have learned to avoid the sort of frenzied enthusiasm that causes an investing category to see its value inflated beyond all reason. Alas, that is almost certainly not the case…”

Giant bubbles:

Rare Breeds: Petunia – “Put on your garden boots (or your lab coat, if you prefer) and breed a unique collection of flowers! Each flower in “Rare Breeds: Petunia” has its own genetic code. Crossbreed two flowers and their genes will combine, with random mutations sprinkled in. Create something beautiful or strange, by simply selecting for traits that you want to emphasize…”

Infographic: High-Tech Combo Could Yield “Theft-Proof” Car – “GPS tracking, cell-network tracking, immobilizers, and secure key fobs are all common these days, but what if you were to roll all of the anti-theft technology available on the market into a single car? Would it be possible to theft-proof it? This infographic attempts to answer that question…”

Banks back switch to renminbi for trade – “A number of the world’s biggest banks have launched international roadshows promoting the use of the renminbi to corporate customers instead of the dollar for trade deals with China…”

Wired youth forget how to write in China and Japan – “Like every Chinese child, Li Hanwei spent her schooldays memorising thousands of the intricate characters that make up the Chinese writing system. Yet aged just 21 and now a university student in Hong Kong, Li already finds that when she picks up a pen to write, the characters for words as simple as “embarrassed” have slipped from her mind…”

[[[Jump to - Interesting Reading #561 – 120 megapixel camera, Marty McFly shoes, Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Death of Blackberry and much more…]]]

If you would like to follow Brainstuff on Twitter and Facebook, here are the links:
- Follow Brainstuff on Facebook
- Follow Brainstuff on Twitter