3 Technology Link |
- Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
- Trillion-frame-per-second video
- Here come the quantum dot TVs and wallpaper
- Utah company wraps up $1B case against Microsoft
- Google Street View explores Japan disaster zone
| Posted: 13 Dec 2011 01:41 PM PST Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet
Full-sized USB 2.0 port. Optional 3G. Excellent, though optional, keyboard folio case and accurate stylus pen.
A bit chunky. Frequent app crashes in our tests. Occasionally unresponsive screen. Subpar battery life.
The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet boasts excellent accessories that can transform the tablet into an on-the-go business machine. But short battery life and some stability issues make it a questionable choice for casual and corporate users alike. Though tablets are growing more and more popular among mainstream consumers, they have yet to prove themselves as viable replacements for laptops when it comes to productivity. With the 10.1-inch ThinkPad Tablet ($499,16GB; $569, 32GB; $669, 64GB; direct), Lenovo puts forth a tablet aimed at business users, but it lacks reliability and performance that has made the company’s ThinkPad line so successful in the corporate world. The most intriguing aspect of the ThinkPad Tablet is not the tablet itself, but its stylus and keyboard folio accessories, which cost an additional $140. There’s some good design and functionality here including a full-size USB port, and an option to add 3G connectivity, but frustrating app crashes and some unresponsiveness hold this Lenovo tablet back. Design and Accessories Lenovo also included a full sized USB port, which can directly access external hard drives. This is a nice feature that we’ve only seen in the Toshiba Thrive($429, 3.5 stars), but it also adds to the tablet’s heft. The bezel also houses a 2-megapixel front-facing camera on the top right corner, with a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera on the top left corner of the back. For connectivity, you get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, and there’s that aforementioned SIM slot to add cellular connectivity. Lenovo says the tablet will work with AT&T and Sprint’s 3G networks here in the U.S., and also supports global GSM roaming. The 10.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel IPS display is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass, which is also used in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 ($499, 3.5 stars). Though both screens share the same glossy sheen, I found the Galaxy Tab’s display brighter and colors were more vibrant. Viewing angles were comparable on both. The big problem with the ThinkPad Tablet’s screen; it was occasionally unresponsive. I found myself tapping multiple times before input would register, and swiping through home screens and the lock screen was often delayed. This wasn’t a huge deal, but it was frustrating to have to repeat gestures so often. Lenovo offers two marquee accessories that really take the ThinkPad Tablet to the next level in terms of productivity. The first is the keyboard folio case, which connects via the full-sized USB port and can prop the tablet up for a laptop-like experience. The second is a ThinkPad branded stylus pen, which fits nicely into the top of the tablet. The keyboard folio case costs an additional $99.99 and the stylus adds another $39.99, but honestly, you want to use both of them to get the most out of your ThinkPad Tablet. The optional keyboard appears small, but, like most ThinkPad keyboards, it’s a pleasure to type on. There is some delay between typing and text appearing on screen, but it is still far better than the on-screen keyboard experience. I initially thought the keyboard also included a traditional ThinkPad TrackPoint nub, but was disappointed to find it is actually an optical trackpoint. It is more of a tiny touch pad that you wipe your finger across, rather than a nub you push in any direction to move the cursor. The folio case converts the tablet to a near-laptop form factor, but it is much more comfortable on a hard, flat surface; I had less luck using the Thinkpad in my lap. It also folds flat and serves as a carrying case, but full 1.25-inch-thick package is bulkier than many netbooks. The pen input works well, though there is a slight delay while writing. The handwriting recognition is accurate, especially considering my questionable penmanship. My one gripe is that pen-optimized apps, like the included Notes Mobile, recognizes touches from your hand while it moves across the screen, causing stray strokes. Pen input was generally responsive, though I did find tapping on icons often required multiple tries to register. Aside from Notes Mobile, there are a few available pen optimized apps, like SketchBook, that are useful for drawing quick sketches or diagrams.
OS and Performance Lenovo also bundles some useful business-focused apps, like McAfee Security, and Citrix Receiver, which offers some interesting desktop virtualization options. And there are two options for finding third-party apps on the ThinkPad Tablet: The Android Market and Lenovo’s own App Shop, which the company could have used to offer up tablet-specific apps. Instead, it only had a small collection of Lenovo approved app categories, such as its pen-optimized app collection, which only includes 10 titles. All of the apps are selected to work with the ThinkPad Tablet, but they still include many that are phone optimized as opposed to tablet optimized. The ThinkPad Tablet suffers from the fundamental problem facing all Android tablets: a lack of easy-to-find tablet-optimized apps. The ThinkPad Tablet is powered by a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor with 1GB of RAM. Though the tablet scored slightly higher than the similarly equipped Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 (4,912 versus 4,671 on our Antutu benchmark), actual performance was disappointing in my tests. I experienced far too many app crashes and system lockups. For instance, listening to Slacker Radio while switching between Google’s Talk app and the browser would often cause the music to stop or one of the apps to freeze up, requiring a force close. In a few instances, I would wake the tablet from sleep only to find that the DocsToGo app was no longer responding. Luckily I was able to recover my work, but it was still pretty disconcerting. And I had similar issues on two different ThinkPad Tablets. Also, the tablet just feels sluggish compared with other 10-inch tablets including the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime ($499, 4 stars). The latter costs the same, and with its quad-core Tegra 3 processor is much faster and more fluid than the ThinkPad Tablet in general use. The Transformer Prime also has an optional keyboard accessory, which makes it a viable laptop replacement. Like most tablets, the ThinkPad’s cameras are just average; taking moderately sharp pictures with some noise problems in low light and a lot of blur with moving objects. The rear facing camera is capable of 720p30 video, but our tests revealed the frame rates ranged from 15-20 frames per second and the video quality wasn’t great. I was able to video chat using the front facing camera, but the picture was choppy and the sound was delayed or, in some cases, didn’t work at all. For audio files, the ThinkPad Tablet supports AAC, FLAC, OGG, WAV and WMA. It also plays DIVX, H.264, MPEG4, and XVID video files without any problem. Lenovo claims that the ThinkPad Tablet will deliver up to 8 hours of battery life, but in our tests, which loops a video, with Wi-Fi on, and the tablet’s screen set at maximum brightness, the ThinkPad Tablet lasted just 5 hours and 5 minutes. This was pretty disappointing for such a hefty 10-inch tablet, especially compared with the iPad 2′s 7 hours, 30 minutes and the Asus Transformer Prime’s 7 hours, 38 minutes. Conclusions Spec Data
 Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : AngleThose fond of the classic yet staid ThinkPad aesthetic will appreciate this tablet, but much like its laptop counterparts, it lacks the slickness and wow factor of many of its competitors.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : HorizontalThe 10.1-inch, 1280-by-800-pixel IPS display is covered in Corning Gorilla Glass.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : BackThe rear panel is covered in rubberized black plastic, typical of the ThinkPad moniker, making the tablet easy to grip.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : RightAnd at 10.3 by 7.2 by .6 inches (HWD) and 1.6 pounds, the ThinkPad Tablet is chunky.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : LeftLenovo also included a full sized USB port, which can directly access external hard drives. This is a nice feature that we've only seen in the Toshiba Thrive($429, 3.5 stars), but it also adds to the tablet's heft.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : PenThe $39.99 optional stylus pen fits nicely into the top of the tablet.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : Keyboard CaseIt also folds flat and serves as a carrying case, but full 1.25-inch-thick package is bulkier than many netbooks.  Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet : OpenThe keyboard folio case, which costs an addition $99.99, connects via the full-sized USB port and can prop the tablet up for a laptop-like experience. (c) 2011 3tlink.info Share and Enjoy• Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Digg • Delicious • StumbleUpon • Reddit • Google Buzz • FriendFeed • MySpace • Add to favorites • Email • Print • PDF | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Trillion-frame-per-second video Posted: 13 Dec 2011 01:31 PM PST Trillion-frame-per-second videoBy using optical equipment in a totally unexpected way, MIT researchers have created an imaging system that makes light look slow.
MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second. That's fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle's bottom. Media Lab postdoc Andreas Velten, one of the system's developers, calls it the "ultimate" in slow motion: "There's nothing in the universe that looks fast to this camera," he says. The system relies on a recent technology called a streak camera, deployed in a totally unexpected way. The aperture of the streak camera is a narrow slit. Particles of light — photons — enter the camera through the slit and pass through an electric field that deflects them in a direction perpendicular to the slit. Because the electric field is changing very rapidly, it deflects late-arriving photons more than it does early-arriving ones. The image produced by the camera is thus two-dimensional, but only one of the dimensions — the one corresponding to the direction of the slit — is spatial. The other dimension, corresponding to the degree of deflection, is time. The image thus represents the time of arrival of photons passing through a one-dimensional slice of space.
Video: Melanie Gonick The camera was intended for use in experiments where light passes through or is emitted by a chemical sample. Since chemists are chiefly interested in the wavelengths of light that a sample absorbs, or in how the intensity of the emitted light changes over time, the fact that the camera registers only one spatial dimension is irrelevant.
But it's a serious drawback in a video camera. To produce their super-slow-mo videos, Velten, Media Lab Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar and Moungi Bawendi, the Lester Wolfe Professor of Chemistry, must perform the same experiment — such as passing a light pulse through a bottle — over and over, continually repositioning the streak camera to gradually build up a two-dimensional image. Synchronizing the camera and the laser that generates the pulse, so that the timing of every exposure is the same, requires a battery of sophisticated optical equipment and exquisite mechanical control. It takes only a nanosecond — a billionth of a second — for light to scatter through a bottle, but it takes about an hour to collect all the data necessary for the final video. For that reason, Raskar calls the new system "the world's slowest fastest camera." Doing the math After an hour, the researchers accumulate hundreds of thousands of data sets, each of which plots the one-dimensional positions of photons against their times of arrival. Raskar, Velten and other members of Raskar's Camera Culture group at the Media Lab developed algorithms that can stitch that raw data into a set of sequential two-dimensional images. One of the things that distinguishes the researchers’ new system from earlier high-speed imaging systems is that it can capture light ‘scattering’ below the surfaces of solid objects, such as the tomato depicted here. Image: Di Wu and Andreas Velten, MIT Media Lab The streak camera and the laser that generates the light pulses — both cutting-edge devices with a cumulative price tag of $250,000 — were provided by Bawendi, a pioneer in research on quantum dots: tiny, light-emitting clusters of semiconductor particles that have potential applications in quantum computing, video-display technology, biological imaging, solar cells and a host of other areas.
The trillion-frame-per-second imaging system, which the researchers have presented both at the Optical Society’s Computational Optical Sensing and Imaging conference and at Siggraph, is a spinoff of another Camera Culture project, a camera that can see around corners. That camera works by bouncing light off a reflective surface — say, the wall opposite a doorway — and measuring the time it takes different photons to return. But while both systems use ultrashort bursts of laser light and streak cameras, the arrangement of their other optical components and their reconstruction algorithms are tailored to their disparate tasks. Because the ultrafast-imaging system requires multiple passes to produce its videos, it can't record events that aren't exactly repeatable. Any practical applications will probably involve cases where the way in which light scatters — or bounces around as it strikes different surfaces — is itself a source of useful information. Those cases may, however, include analyses of the physical structure of both manufactured materials and biological tissues — "like ultrasound with light," as Raskar puts it. As a longtime camera researcher, Raskar also sees a potential application in the development of better camera flashes. "An ultimate dream is, how do you create studio-like lighting from a compact flash? How can I take a portable camera that has a tiny flash and create the illusion that I have all these umbrellas, and sport lights, and so on?" asks Raskar, the NEC Career Development Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences. "With our ultrafast imaging, we can actually analyze how the photons are traveling through the world. And then we can recreate a new photo by creating the illusion that the photons started somewhere else." "It's very interesting work. I am very impressed," says Nils Abramson, a professor of applied holography at Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology. In the late 1970s, Abramson pioneered a technique called light-in-flight holography, which ultimately proved able to capture images of light waves at a rate of 100 billion frames per second. But as Abramson points out, his technique requires so-called coherent light, meaning that the troughs and crests of the light waves that produce the image have to line up with each other. "If you happen to destroy the coherence when the light is passing through different objects, then it doesn't work," Abramson says. "So I think it's much better if you can use ordinary light, which Ramesh does." Indeed, Velten says, "As photons bounce around in the scene or inside objects, they lose coherence. Only an incoherent detection method like ours can see those photons." And those photons, Velten says, could let researchers "learn more about the material properties of the objects, about what is under their surface and about the layout of the scene. Because we can see those photons, we could use them to look inside objects — for example, for medical imaging, or to identify materials." "I'm surprised that the method I've been using has not been more popular," Abramson adds. "I've felt rather alone. I'm very glad that someone else is doing something similar. Because I think there are many interesting things to find when you can do this sort of study of the light itself." (c) 2011 3tlink.info Share and Enjoy• Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Digg • Delicious • StumbleUpon • Reddit • Google Buzz • FriendFeed • MySpace • Add to favorites • Email • Print • PDF | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Here come the quantum dot TVs and wallpaper Posted: 13 Dec 2011 01:28 PM PST Here come the quantum dot TVs and wallpaperA British firm’s quantum dot technology will be used for flat screen TVs and flexible screens, according to the company's chief executive.
The quantum dots will be in use for ultra thin, light flat screen TVs by the end of next year, and, in another three years, will be used in flexible screens rolled up like paper or used as wall coverings. The company, Nanoco Group, is reportedly working with Asian electronics companies to bring this technology to market. "The first products we are expecting to come to market using quantum dots will be the next generation of flat-screen televisions," Nanoco chief executive Michael Edelman has stated. Nanoco describes itself as the "world leader in the development and manufacture of cadmium-free quantum dots." While quantum dots technology is not new, the scientists at Nanoco are succeeding in their goals toward mass production. Earlier this year, the company, which was founded in 2001 and is based in Manchester, announced it successfully produced a1kg batch of red cadmium-free quantum dots specified by a major Japanese corporation. The ability to mass-produce consistently high quality quantum dots, says the company site, enables product designers to envisage their use in consumer products and other applications for the first time, and then bring the products to market. Quantum dots are nano-materials with a core semiconductor and organic shell structure. This structure can be modified and built on to ensure the quantum dots work in applications that may use different carrier systems. This includes but is not limited to printing ink including ink jet printing, silicone, polycarbonate, polymethyl methacrylate based polymers, alcohols and water. Nanoco's team says it can manipulate the organic surfaces of the quantum dots to work in applications like electroluminescent displays, solid state lighting and biological imaging.
The ability to precisely control the size of a quantum dot enables the manufacturer to determine the wavelength of the emission, which determines the color of light that the eye perceives. During production the dots can be tuned to emit any desired color of light. Dots can even be tuned beyond visible light, into infra-red or the ultra-violet. Nanoco defines itself as "a world leader in the development and manufacture of cadmium-free quantum dots" at a time when being "cadmium-free" presents special advantage. Cadmium is generally used in LEDs in lighting and displays. The European Union has made it exempt, though, from its Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directive due to the fact that there isn't yet a practical substitute, according to eWEEK Europe. That exemption is to end in July 2014. "Our research and development department is also constantly engaged in the creation of new quantum dots with additional properties sought by the market, such as our RoHS-compliant heavy metal-free quantum dots," says the company. (c) 2011 3tlink.info Share and Enjoy• Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Digg • Delicious • StumbleUpon • Reddit • Google Buzz • FriendFeed • MySpace • Add to favorites • Email • Print • PDF | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Utah company wraps up $1B case against Microsoft Posted: 13 Dec 2011 01:25 PM PST Utah company wraps up $1B case against MicrosoftMicrosoft Corp. purposely duped a Utah company into believing its writing application would be included in the Windows 95 rollout, then pulled the plug so Microsoft could gain market share with its own product, an attorney said Monday in closing arguments of a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit against the software giant.
“It was purely a predatory action,” Novell Inc. attorney Jeff Johnson told jurors. Utah-based Novell sued Microsoft in 2004, claiming the Redmond, Wash., company violated U.S. antitrust laws through its arrangements with other software makers when it launched Windows 95. Novell said it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2 billion loss. Novell is now a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group, the result of a merger that was completed earlier this year. The trial began in October in federal court in Salt Lake City. Microsoft lawyers have argued that Novell’s loss of market share was its own doing because the company didn’t develop a Windows compatible WordPerfect program until months after the operating system’s rollout. Johnson has conceded that Microsoft was under no legal obligation to provide advance access to Windows 95 so Novell could prepare a compatible version. Microsoft, however, enticed Novell to work on a version, only to withdraw support months before Windows 95 hit the market, he said. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates testified last month that the company made last-minute changes to Windows 95 that would have supported WordPerfect because he feared it would crash the operating system. Gates also said Novell just couldn’t deliver a compatible WordPerfect program in time for the rollout, and Microsoft’s own Word program was actually better. He said that by 1994, the Word writing program was ranked No. 1 in the market above WordPerfect. WordPerfect once had nearly 50 percent of the market for word processing, but its share quickly plummeted to less than 10 percent as Microsoft’s own Office programs took hold. Novell has argued that Gates ordered Microsoft engineers to reject WordPerfect as a Windows 95 word processing application because he feared it was too good. (c) 2011 3tlink.info Share and Enjoy• Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Digg • Delicious • StumbleUpon • Reddit • Google Buzz • FriendFeed • MySpace • Add to favorites • Email • Print • PDF | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Google Street View explores Japan disaster zone Posted: 13 Dec 2011 01:24 PM PST Google Street View explores Japan disaster zoneGoogle has published a bank of interactive images of the area of Japan hit by a huge quake and tsunami in March, letting viewers take a virtual walk through the zone before and after the disasters.
Vehicles from Google’s Street View service drove along 44,000 kilometres (27,000 miles) of roads to collect the images from the areas worst affected by the twin disasters, which killed about 20,000 people. Mostly shot in July, the 360-degree images linked to a map of the area provide a portrait of devastation, with piles of debris, gutted and flattened buildings, and overturned boats amid a vast wasteland. At users’ request, Google also provides images of the same region before the quake, with a comparison tool for “before” and “after” pictures. The photos capture 82 cities and villages in the prefectures of Miyagi, Iwate, Fukushima, Ibaraki, Yamagata and Aomori. “It is our hope that this will help people rediscover lost memories of their homes and towns,” said Google on the dedicated site, which will also host photos and videos uploaded by residents from the area. (c) 2011 3tlink.info Share and Enjoy• Facebook • Twitter • LinkedIn • Digg • Delicious • StumbleUpon • Reddit • Google Buzz • FriendFeed • MySpace • Add to favorites • Email • Print • PDF |
Media Lab postdoc Andreas Velten, left, and Associate Professor Ramesh Raskar with the experimental setup they used to produce slow-motion video of light scattering through a plastic bottle. Photo: M. Scott Brauer
Quantum dot OLED prototype. Image credit: Nanoco Group
In this Nov. 21, 2011 photo, Bill Gates arrives to testify at the Frank E. Moss federal courthouse in Salt Lake City. Closing arguments are set Tuesday Dec. 13,2011 in a $1 billion federal antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. Novell Inc. claims the software giant duped it into working on a new version of the WordPerfect writing program only to withdraw support months before Microsoft’s Windows 95 was released. Novell claims it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1 billion loss.
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