9/14/2011 Intel Labs creates a Fireball to help fight fires

Intel may be best known for its design and production of processors, but the chip giant has its hand in many fields of technology and related-research, one of which is disaster management.
On day zero of IDF, Intel Labs was showing off a few devices it had developed to help manage a disaster situation. The most interesting of those devices is called the Fireball. Terry O’Shay from Intel Labs was on hand to show off the device, which you can see in the video below.





Fireball is a spherical device with an antenna popping out of the top of a steel case. It is meant to be thrown into a fire at which point the sensors inside can feedback information about temperature, the quality of the air (amount of oxygen, carbon dioxide, and ammonia present), and what free volatiles exist. The electronics and battery housed in the center of the Fireball don’t fry in the fire because they are encased in a ceramic shell, which also means the device won’t explode and injure anyone.

The information collected by each Fireball is fed back over WiFi to a server sitting in the firetruck. Firemen can then gain access to this information using an app on their phone which gives clear readouts for each sensor. The data can also be stored for later analysis.




It is hoped the additional information the Fireball provides will help firefighters better tackle fires. Using multiple Fireballs in larger fires may also help in the planning stages of how to best go about putting the fire out. Testing is required with firefighters using the Fireball in a real-life situation, but Intel is confident the device will be in use within the next few months.

@Atulplayer

Windows 8 Samsung tablet handled, new features revealed

As expected, Microsoft has handed out a Samsung tablet to BUILD attendees. So, what was the mysterious tablet teased last week?

It wasn’t a quad-core Nvidia chip as some thought. Rather, it was a kicked-up Samsung Series 7 slate with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 64GB SSD, and an 11.6″ Super PLS touchscreen display. The tablet also came with a dock that offered wired connectivity options like USB, HDMI, and Ethernet.

If that’s not enough to make you drool, lucky devs in attendance also received complimentary 3G service from AT&T — a whole year’s worth, with a bandwidth allotment of 2GB per month.

After the hardware was unboxed, the hands-on previews arrived and Microsoft’s Windows Phone-esque interface was front and center making Windows 8 a finger-friendly experience. From the moment you sign in, Windows 8′s tablet features are easy to see.





First, there’s the new picture password option. Instead of using a plain old password, you’ve now got the option to select a picture from your library and draw a pattern on top of it to log in (example: touch your dog’s nose and then draw a circle around its head). It’s a very smart system and totally immune to keyloggers.

Once you’ve signed in, the previously-revealed start screen comes into view. Apps and Live Tiles can be pinned, rearranged, and re-sized to your specifications. The start menu has been simplified, reduced to 5 “charms”: settings, devices, share, search, and start. The share charm will tap into Windows Live, where you can, of course, connect your Live ID to scores of web services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and just about any other site on which you have an account.

Windows 8 also offers a greatly improved on screen keyboard. The keys are larger and easier to hit accurately with a finger, and there’s also a split mode that allows you to type using your thumbs — a nice option since 12″ tablets like the Samsung freebie are a bit heavy for using comfortably in one hand for long periods of time.





Internet Explorer 10 was also on display, shown in all its chromeless glory looking very much like a third-party tablet browser like Dolphin or Opera Mobile running in full screen mode. Tabs are shown visually in a strip along the top edge of the screen and the browser’s address bar has been moved to the bottom — where it more or less replaces the taskbar.

Again, it’s a very finger-friendly interface, with the generously-sized buttons and thumbnails providing a much more natural experience than you’ll get with Internet Explorer 9 on a Windows 7 tablet.

As one final nod to the tablet computing experience, Microsoft announced that Windows 8 builds on Windows 7′s already improved support for various types of sensors — including gyroscopes, accelerometers, and magnetometers. It also supports NFC, which enables webOS style tap-to-share on Windows 8 devices.

With the Windows 8 preview download going live tonight, we’ll share more details as they’re revealed in the coming days. Stay tuned!

Also, check out the Samsung tablet running Windows 8 over at ExtremeTech


@Atulplayer

Sony unveils Walkman Z series powered by Android

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Not everyone who wants to play music and videos or run apps and games on a touchscreen device is in the market for a for an iPhone or Xperia Arc. That’s why Apple still makes the iPod touch — and why Sony has just introduced the Walkman Z series powered by Android.

Like many smartphones, the Walkman NWZ-1000 series PMPs offer a 4.3″ display that pushes 480×800 pixels, a 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 processor, 512MB RAM, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, FM tuner, and a micro-HDMI port for video output. Full 1080P HD video is supported and plays back smoothly at bitrates as high as 10Mbps. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Player range, Sony has decided to omit a camera on the NWZ-1000 — but this is a mediaplayer, so it’s easy enough for Sony to claim it doesn’t need to capture media as well.

Three models are available: the NW-Z1050 with 16GB, the NW-Z1060 with 32GB, and the NW-Z1070 with 64GB. Pricing starts at about $360 and tops out around $560 (when converting at current rates from Yen to USD).

Unlike some Android PMPs, Sony’s Walkman Z features access to the official Android Market for downloading additional apps and games. It’s also running Gingerbread, and Sony estimates about 20 hours of music playback or 5 hours for video.





The new Sony Walkman Z series will launch in Japan on December 10th — no pricing or availability outside of Sony’s home has been announced as of yet. Still, it’s nice to see the Android Walkman finally get a launch date anywhere. It’s been a long time coming.


@Atulplayer

Windows 8 Blue Screen of Death replaces crash details with a sad face

The Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSoD) has always been a screen we dread to see. It’s blue, of course, and usually filled with lots of text telling you about the crash your operating system just experienced. To 99% of people viewing it, it makes absolutely no sense and is dismissed with a mandatory reboot.


The BSoD has been included with every version of Windows I have ever owned, and I think I’ve seen it appear on every Windows system I’ve used in anger. But for Windows 8 we were expecting it to disappear, replaced by a Black Screen of Death.

With the unveiling of Windows 8 yesterday at the Build conference, that turns out not to be the case, but the BSoD has at least had a major revamp.




As you can see in the images above, the uninformative page of text has gone. Instead you get a sad face depicted in text characters followed by a message telling you your PC couldn’t handle a problem.
A reboot is going to happen at this point, but if you want to find out what caused the problem you need to write down or remember the search term it presents you with. The two search terms I have seen suggested so far are “System Service Exception” and “HAL Installation Failed.” I doubt either will return that much useful information as they are both quite generic terms.

While it’s nice not to have to look at a blue screen full of text, it’s a shame Microsoft still hasn’t found a way to refine the error reporting process further and present users with a very clear description of why Windows 8 fell down


@Atulplayer