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Sony's VAIO P going for €599.95 with T-Mobile Germany data contract {Engadget}
Mar 8th 2009 1:00AM Use SetFSB to adjust underclocked Atom CPU from 1.33 into 1.60 or 1.80
http://www13.plala.or.jp/setfsb/
Sony's VAIO P going for €599.95 with T-Mobile Germany data contract {Engadget}
Mar 8th 2009 12:58AM BREAKING NEWS .... SetFSB can now be used to overclock an American Vaio P 1.33 Ghz to Japanese Vaio P 1.86 Ghz speed.
http://www13.plala.or.jp/setfsb/
Supposedly fixes choppy full screen video playback in iTunes and YouTube (Disabling SmartWi and using Vista Basic graphics mode also helps)
Sony bringing Gobi WWAN module to VAIO Z, TT and P {Engadget}
Feb 16th 2009 2:37PM Some workarounds:
- You can switch to a lower resolution, and the Vaio P will display everything bigger.
- You can lower the DPI to make everything bigger.
- You can zoom Word to 150-200% or thereabouts.
- You can use Large Mouse Cursors (Control Panel -> Mouse -> Pointers)
- Use the built-in Zoom button.
The high resolution is a bonus -- I like the high resolution -- but the option to display everything at a lower resolution does produce a very poor "first impression" for some. But there ARE workarounds, as listed above.
Sony P-series "netbook" unveiled, underwhelming {Engadget}
Jan 5th 2009 11:49PM Netbook schmetbook -- I remember the early Sony Picturebook's from the late 90s. Those were the first true netbooks, you could slap in a PCMCIA network card in those (later, the early WiFi cards) and have micro laptop computing like today's netbooks, a decade ago.
What's really great is the advent of the CHEAP prices in tiny laptops, even with an Atom, that outperform those tiny machines at one-tenth of the price. I remember the days of the $3000 ultracompact laptops.
I had been wanting an ultracompact laptop for so many years. Now they are finally affordable.
What's still sad is that I have to pay a hugely massive premium to go beyond 1024x600, as I want a higher resolution.
BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8220 Worth the Hype? (Hands-on Review) {Switched.com}
Jan 5th 2009 9:24PM I got one of these for Christmas for someone.
The web browser is slow, but we found a faster third-party web browser for BlackBerry called "Opera Mini" and installed it on the Pearl Flip. It works much better and faster, and actually renders some sites more faithfully.
We also upgraded the OS (firmware) on the Pearl Flip with the latest version found online, and Facebook appears to work perfectly on it. The phone also appears to activate and dial faster too -- one of the other complaints we had. The spell checker and automatic suggester for SureType in the Pearl Flip is much better than on the old 7100 series phones, the first SureType phones. I have observed that even, myself, I type much more accurately on the Pearl Flip than the 7100 series, and the Pearl Flip has a much bigger keyboard than a regular Pearl.
All in all, a much better performing BlackBerry than the average "new-release" BlackBerry -- the Storm leaves a lot to be desired (Although it click keyboard is excellent for me)
I personally prefer my BlackBerry Bold -- but the Pearl Flip appears to be a very good software quality, except for browser performance (solvable by installing a third party mobile browser).
LG Display plans to melt eyes with Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV {Engadget}
Jan 5th 2009 9:17PM One minor correction:
"...either the backlight strobe rate..."
Should read as:
"...either the backlight strobe duration..."
(Very important correction to myself)
LG Display plans to melt eyes with Trumotion 480Hz LCD TV {Engadget}
Jan 5th 2009 9:14PM Disclaimer: Former worker in home home theater industry (but not for Sony or LG).
Apparently, 480 Hz actually isn't overkill for some -- although there IS a point of diminishing returns.
The Truth: The sad fact remains is that a 20-year old CRT has less motion blur than any of the 120 Hz LCD's or even Sony's 240 Hz LCD.
On many LCD's, even the Average Joe User often notices they cannot read the advertisement signs at the back of a hockey rink or football field when there is a fast horizontal panning motion -- when carefully pointed out the differences in motion blur of CRT versus LCD, most sports fan notice. It's not a minority, such as 2% .
Even at 60 Hz CRT's, there is a clear difference in hockey/racing/skiing especially in fast pan shots, in shutter speeds of 1/200sec versus shutter speeds of 1/1000sec. But try to show the same material on an LCD, and it is extremely difficult to tell apart these material taken at different shutter speeds faster than the sample rate (either the backlight strobe rate, or the motion interpolation rate).
So framerate interpolation or backlight strobing (dark frame, or flickering backlights, or scanning backlights, such as in high end Samsung displays). Backlight strobing or motion interpolation is necessary to gain the full benefits of fast shutter speeds used by sports cameras in sports shows.
As a rule of thumb, "1/x second" backlight strobing will yield similar motion blur as "x Hertz" frame interpolation.
To gain the FULL BENEFIT of fast-shutter video cameras (1/1000sec shutter), one needs a 1000 Hz display, or a backlight that strobes at 1/1000th of a second. (Or a scanning backlight, where individual 'lines' of lights show at 1/1000th second each)
Thusly, therefore, 480 Hz is not enough, for certain kinds of video material; although it now comes quite close to CRT.
IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE YOU REPLY:
"How many frames per second can the human eye see?"
...NOT SAME AS
"How many frames per second do I have to have to make motions look fluid?"
...NOT SAME AS
"How many frames per second makes the movie stop flickering?"
...NOT SAME AS
"What is the shortest frame a human eye would notice?"
...To help attempt to explain things differently: Even among the same person, experiments have shown that the thresholds vary depending on context. For example, people can still see stroboscopig wagon wheel optical illusions that show differently under a 1000 Hz strobe light versus a 1005 Hz strobe light (wheel being stationary versus wheel rotating, as in 'wagon wheel effect', if it is in sync or out of sync). These artifacts show that, indirectly, the human eye can tell apart 1000 Hz and 1005 Hz. Just like for audio, hearing 1000 hz versus 1005 Hz sounds almost the same, but try to hear the two sounds together, there is a 5 Hz beat frequency as a 'side effect'. Although this is apples versus oranges, it proves that there are unexpected reasons why there is a benefit to higher interpolation rates. Unfortunately, there are many effects that force vendors to require 480 Hz (or even greater) interpolation in LCD displays, to compensate for the LCD motion blur effect that does not exist in CRT's due to CRT's flicker effect... Personally, I prefer backlight strobing -- because it is less artifical (no interpolated frames) and more CRT-like -- but people typically do not like the flicker of strobed backlights, and a touted advantage of LCD is the lack of flicker (but that very advantage creates a disadvantage: motion blur)
Eyes-on: Samsung's 82-inch QuadHD & 52-inch Ultra Slim LCDs {Engadget HD}
Jan 9th 2008 8:49PM The LCD factory I believe outputs 82 inch slabs (or multiples thereof), and that is where the 82 inch comes from. :-)
Panasonic's 12 megapixel Lumix DMC-FX100: a wide-angle, "HD video" shooter {Engadget}
May 23rd 2007 12:53AM Actually, the extra pixels are useful even for lower-resolution images because the 12 megapixels are for primary color components, which translates to about 4 megapixels of RGB pixels. (Due to bayesian matrix, this won't be an exact equivalent though). That would make for really sharp 2048x1536 photos.
As an example, downsample a digital photo to half its size -- notice how it often becomes sharper as it gets downsampled, because of better sharpness-to-pixel efficiency?
That's what I'll use the extra pixels for -- the luxury of shooting really sharp 4 megapixel images.
Is this a photo of the newest BlackBerry? {BBHub}
Jun 6th 2005 10:57PM If RIM is reading this, consider checking this out: http://www.blackberryforums.com/showthread.php?t=9539 "Top 7 Most Important Requests for RIM Growth Success" Also, I maintain a huge BlackBerry FAQ at www.BerryFAQ.com as well.
