After some months of waiting, Hard Kernel has finally announced that the developer version of the much awaited ODROID portable entertainment device is now available through pre-order while the consumer version is expected to be released by the end of this year.

The Hard Kernel ODROID portable entertainment device includes an Android based operating system and is powered by Samsung’s 833MHz S5PC100 processor. But aside from these, it will also be provided with Bluetooth, HDMI output, and of course, Wi-Fi to feed your online needs. This device also has a 512MB memory and 8GB SD card storage space. The Hard Kernel ODROID is also designed with a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen display. Aside from the device itself, the package will also include download and charger cables, batteries, and serial console debugging board.

The developer version of this Hard Kernel ODROID is expected to be available by November 5 with a tag of $320 while the consumer version will be released in December and is cheaper at $250.

Television buffs may now have a reason to smile for a new study has found that some TV shows could increase intellegence by helping viewers better understand politics and develop ideas.

Television shows, such as the ‘Simpsons’, ‘Lost’ and ’24,’ help viewers to understand politics and develop ideas, research suggest.

The study carried out jointly by the universities of Surrey in Britain and Illinois in America, examined the ability of 170 viewers in the US, Netherlands and Greece to acquire new political insights and also studied the effects of watching these programmes on the viewer’s psyche, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The researchers found that nearly one in four viewers claimed they had a better understanding of political issues after watching the shows.

And nine-in-ten among those questioned said that they had discussed topics from the programmes with friends and family leading them to examine and adapt their own political or ethical stance.

Dr Tereza Capelos, from the University of Surrey, said, “While shows like The Simpsons and Lost may never be seen as educational or mind-expanding, the enjoyment and relaxation they provide can make viewers more receptive to new information and ideas.”

The research also suggested that a fifth of viewers consider fictional TV programmes just as believable and reliable as news programmes as sources of information.

Western Digital has begun delivery of Caviar Black hard drives with a rotational speed of 7200rpm and a storage capacity of 2 terabytes. The manufacturer has also 2TB Raid Edition 4 discs released for the business market. The manufacturer has also 2TB Raid Edition 4 discs released for the business market.

The 2TB versions of the WD Caviar Black series and RE4 WD family running on 7200rpm, 64MB cache and include a SATA host interface 300. The 2TB versions of the WD Caviar Black series and RE4 family running on WD 7200rpm, 64MB cache and include a SATA host interface 300. Both versions also include two processors. Both versions also include two processors. Also, the hdd’s Western Digitals equipped with dual-stage actuator technology, for which a precise positioning of the head is ensured. Also, the hdd’s Western Digitals equipped with dual-stage actuator technology, for which a precise positioning of the head is ensured. The discs are further equipped with IntelliSeek technology, which the balance between search speed, power consumption, noise and vibrations being watched, and StableTrac which the motor is stabilized. The discs are further equipped with IntelliSeek technology, which search the balance between speed, power consumption, noise and vibrations being watched, and StableTrac which the motor is stabilized.

The business Raid Edition 4 discs also contain sensors to any shocks in the monitor. The business Raid Edition 4 discs also contain sensors to any shocks in the monitor. Also, these discs are more energy efficient and comprehensive testing them for reliability. Also, these discs are more energy efficient and comprehensive testing them for reliability. The MSRP for the 2TB Caviar Black is 300 euros. The MSRP for the 2TB Caviar Black is 300 euros. RE4 The models are being validated by OEMs and will soon appear in servers. RE4 The models are being validated by OEMs and will soon appear in servers.

Facebook, the world’s largest social networking site, said it will buy FriendFeed, netting a group of prized ex-Google engineers in the fast-growing Internet business.

FriendFeed, an up-and-coming social media startup, lets people share content online in real time across various social networks and blogs.

The service is similar to, though less popular than Twitter, the microblogging site that Facebook tried to buy for $500 million in 2008, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed on Monday, but Facebook said FriendFeed would operate as it has for the time being as the teams determine long-term plans.

Facebook’s big gain in the acquisition is the engineering talent at FriendFeed, rather than the actual product, which has won critical praise, but lagged in popularity compared to Twitter, said Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang.

“These guys now how to build scalable, social applications,” said Owyang.

In a statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he admired the FriendFeed team for having created a service he described as simple and elegant.

“As this shows, our culture continues to make Facebook a place where the best engineers come to build things quickly that lots of people will use,” said Zuckerberg.

FriendFeed’s four founders are former Google Inc employees who count well known products like Gmail and Google Maps among their accomplishments.

Facebook said the founders will hold senior roles on its engineering and product teams.

FriendFeed had talked with Facebook “casually” for a couple of months, and that it became clear that the teams were “cut from the same cloths,” FriendFeed co-founder Bret Taylor told Reuters in an interview.

He declined to say whether FriendFeed had been in talks with other companies.

One bridge between Facebook and FriendFeed might have been Matt Cohler, Facebook’s former management vice president. He joined FriendFeed backer Benchmark Capital last year.

Asked what role the connection played in the deal, FriendFeed’s Taylor said the decision to be acquired by Facebook was made entirely by the team at FriendFeed.

Facebook has more than 250 million registered users. In May, the social networking company announced a $200 million investment from Russian investor Digital Sky Technologies that pegged the value of its preferred shares at $10 billion.

Facebook has said its revenue is on track to rise 70 percent this year, and board member Mark Andreessen has said the company will bring in more than $500 million in revenue in 2009.

But Forrester’s Owyang said that Facebook must make the content generated within the site more accessible to the public instead of only to closed networks of Facebook friends, so that the company can sell more ads.

Earlier this year, Facebook announced changes to its privacy controls to allow people to make their status messages and posts viewable to a broader Internet audience.

From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop’s fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened. It’s the fable about a thirsty crow. The bird comes across a pitcher with the water level too low for him to reach. The crow raises the water level by dropping stones into the pitcher. (Moral: Little by little does the trick, or in other retellings, necessity is the mother of invention.)
Now, scientists report that some relatives of crows called rooks used the same stone-dropping strategy to get at a floating worm. Results of experiments with three birds were published online Thursday by the journal Current Biology. Rooks, like crows, had already been shown to use tools in previous experiments.
Christopher Bird of Cambridge University and a colleague exposed the rooks to a 6-inch-tall clear plastic tube containing water, with a worm on its surface. The birds used the stone-dropping trick spontaneously and appeared to estimate how many stones they would need. They learned quickly that larger stones work better.
In an accompanying commentary, Alex Taylor and Russell Gray of the University of Auckland in New Zealand noted that in an earlier experiment, the same birds had dropped a single stone into a tube to get food released at the bottom. So maybe they were just following that strategy again when they saw the tube in the new experiment, the scientists suggested.
But Bird’s paper argued there’s more to it: The rooks dropped multiple stones rather than just one before reaching for the worm, and they reached for it at the top of the tube rather than checking the bottom. The researchers also said Aesop’s crow might have actually been a rook, since both kinds of birds were called crows in the past. — AP

The mystery of why temperatures in the sun’s outer atmosphere soar to several million degrees, far hotter than temperatures near the sun’s surface, has been solved.

New observations made with instruments aboard Japan’s Hinode satellite reveal the hotter outer atmosphere is due to nanoflares.
Nanoflares are small, sudden bursts of heat and energy. “They occur within tiny strands that are bundled together to form a magnetic tube called a coronal loop,” said James Klimchuk, an astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Centre’s Solar Physics Lab in Maryland.

Coronal loops are the fundamental building blocks of the thin, translucent gas known as the sun’s corona. Scientists previously thought steady heating explained the corona’s million degree temperatures.

Observations from the NASA-funded X-Ray Telescope (XRT) and Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) instruments aboard Hinode reveal that ultra-hot plasma is widespread in solar active regions.

The XRT measured plasma at 10 million degrees Kelvin, and the EIS measured plasma at five million degrees Kelvin; 273 degrees Kelvin equal zero degree Celsius.

“These temperatures can only be produced by impulsive energy bursts,” said Klimchuk, who presented the findings at the International Astronomical Union General Assembly meeting in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N) is looking to the building blocks of our bodies – DNA – to be the structure of next-generation microchips.

As chipmakers compete to develop ever-smaller chips at cheaper prices, designers are struggling to cut costs.

Artificial DNA nanostructures, or “DNA origami” may provide a cheap framework on which to build tiny microchips, according to a paper published on Sunday in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Microchips are used in computers, cell phones and other electronic devices.

“This is the first demonstration of using biological molecules to help with processing in the semiconductor industry,” IBM research manager Spike Narayan said in an interview with Reuters.

“Basically, this is telling us that biological structures like DNA actually offer some very reproducible, repetitive kinds of patterns that we can actually leverage in semiconductor processes,” he said.

The research was a joint undertaking by scientists at IBM’s Almaden Research Center and the California Institute of Technology.

Right now, the tinier the chip, the more expensive the equipment. Narayan said that if the DNA origami process scales to production-level, manufacturers could trade hundreds of millions of dollars in complex tools for less than a million dollars of polymers, DNA solutions, and heating implements.

“The savings across many fronts could add up significantly,” he said.

But the new processes are at least 10 years out. Narayan said that while the DNA origami could allow chipmakers to build frameworks that are far smaller than possible with conventional tools, the technique still needs years of experimentation and testing.

Weighing just 115gms,with a sleek, contoured chassis,and a neat interface, the next generation iPod Touch, is surely the most stylish gadget you can possess after an iPhone.Whether you are a gamer or are into social networking, news, sports, or business — the new iPod Touch has something for everyone!
Apart from music videos, and photos, you can access the iTunes music store wirelessly, browse the web with Safari browser, watch Youlube videos, schedule your Calendar, and many more things.The most fun part of the new iPod Touch are the applications available on the iTunes store.The Touch lets you to check your mails, provided you are connected to a wireless network.The large 3.5in multi-touch display lets you access all of the above applications with your fingertips.You can glide through albums with Cover Flow,type with the touchscreen keyboard,flick through photos and enlarge them with a pinch,zoom-in and zoom- out on a section of a web page, and control game elements precisely. Touch lets you cascade nine home screens depending on the number of applications you add on to it. Holding on to any icon on the home screen for a few seconds makes them dance all about,and that’s when you can drag and relocate them wherever you want.
Sporting the same revolutionary interface as the iPhone,it now includes Genius playlists support. Genius finds the songs in your library that go well together and makes a Genius Playlist for you.You can listen to the playlist, save it for later,or even refresh it and give it another go,You might not be aware of the innumerable tracks that your iPod Touch has, but you can count on Genius to figure it out. Another major change that Apple has made to this player is the inclusion of speakers.Although the music does not sound as great as with your earphones, the speakers nevertheless come in handy while playing games.
The Touch responds to motion using a built-in accelerometer. Touch detects when you rotate it from portrait to landscape and then automatically changes the contents of the display. So you immediately see the entire width of a web page, or photo in its proper aspect ratio or control a game.The accelerometer makes for a perfect portable gaming console, specially for racing games, where your entire iPod acts as a steering wheel, like in the Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, and for tap-and-tilt games such as Super Monkey Ball, in which your character responds to your every movement.
Besides being slimmer than the previous generation Touch, the new one features many good points that make it an all round entertainer. So when we rated the previous generation as Best Buy, this one deserves a bit more, probably a Must Buy.

Apple Inc. has always left its users wonderstruck with its innovations.And, this time,the new iPod Shuffle claims to be the most wearable and smallest iPod ever!
Available in four more funky colours of red,blue,green,and pink,it isso tinythat you can simply clip it on to your shirt collar,workout shorts,or even your hair!
Like all other Apple products,the Shuffle has a neat interface with minimal and simple buttons. It lacks the stylish and easy click wheel and a display, but that is also how it stands out to be the smallest music player in the world! So,the convenience of browsing through your music collection on the display and picking each song at a time, does not exist.
The iPod Shuffle bundles a dock,a pair of earphones,and a Quick Start Guide.To start with,connect the Shuffle to the iPod Dock connector to charge or sync yourfavourite playlists from the iTunes store. Here you can also instruct iTunes to ‘autofill’your iPod Shuffle with randomly picked songs from the iTunes library.
If you like surprises,then this is for you – when you toggle the shuffle switch,all your playlists are shuffled, leaving you guessing as to which song will play next.You can flip it back to listen to your created playlists and albums in the order you synced them with ilunes.
All the controls are at your finger tips – click the center button to play and pause,the outer buttons to move back,skipforward,and adjust the volume. The same button clicked a specific number of times will
perform a different
function. Like, if you press the Play/Pause key thrice,itwould quickly go to the beginning of the playlist.
The Shuffle produces good sound clarity but it bundles the usual pair of Apple earphones with no improvements in their output — a major detrimental factor since the speakers begin to crackle with regular use.Therefore, it is a good idea for audiophiles to invest in the new Apple in-ear phones available for crystal-clear and optimum sound output.
Priced at Rs.2,307 (1 GB) and Rs. 2,700(2GB) and weighing just 0.55 ounces (1 5.6gms),the new iPod Shuffle is surely the most affordable and wearable music player.