Parts-People Technlogy News

Over the weekend a man named Dave Akerman, self described as an armchair astronaut, sent a Raspberry Pi and one of the newly released 5 MegaPixel Pi cameras up, up, up and away, as part of his “Eye in the Sky Project”. Akerman entertains himself toying with three different types of HAB (high altitude ballooning projects). Buzz, as he calls it, is for light weight payloads for both maximum altitude and longer lasting flights. Cloud, for normal sized photographic payloads and of course Pie, for flights with the Raspberry Pi computer.

(via E15 – Bing Scroogled, Xbox IllumiRoom, Galaxy S4 | Red Headed Geek Show)

We got the new Google Chromebook Pixel and did a quick video review of it. Let me know what you think.

There is something better than "Full High Definition" for your HDTV and it is called 4K; it's coming to a home near you...

Another contender with heavyweight specifications but a lightweight body, is the HTC J Butterfly smartphone with a 5-inch screen putting it directly into a form-factor classification known as phablets. The J Butterfly joins the Oppo Find 5 in a rarefied, but soon to explode category, of full-HD, 1,080p, high-resolution smartphones that make Apple Inc.’s so-called “retina display” look like last year’s obsolete technology.

According to Eben Upton, the founder of the non-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation, the $35-US Model B version of the Raspberry Pi Linux computer is now shipping with an upgrade which doubles the RAM (Random Access Memory) to 512 MB. The price however stays the same, and the fortunate beneficiaries include everyone that has already ordered Pi units that ship on or after October 15, 2012, even if they ordered the previous unit with only 256 MB. Additionally a firmware update is now available to enable access to the additional RAM.

Convergence of devices into hybrid or convertible forms is clearly the order of the day, and all PC manufacturers have joined or will join that party. That same trend is already in evidence with some very popular smartphones that can’t quite decide to become a small tablet or a large phone.

It was May 31, 2011 that Intel’s newsroom quoted Executive Vice President Sean Maloney as saying that by the end of 2012, 40% of the consumer laptop market segment will encompass an emerging new breed of no-compromise computers, called Ultrabooks™.

Refurbished Dell Latitude D600 14.1" Notebook with Pentium m 1.4GHz Processor, 512MB Memory, 40GB HDD, DVD/CDRW, 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN, and Microsoft XP Pro with COA and Restore Disc.

Improvements in transferring power along with data among various PC devices and peripherals is not usually a technology topic that consumers consider to be exciting enough to discuss over a latte at a coffee shop. If typical computer, smartphone, and tabletusers (meaning almost everyone) knew how much the upcoming USB Power Delivery (PD) standard would improve their usage experience, their ears just might perk up even before caffeine could charge up their energy levels.

polar north pole...

Cool Dell Ultrabook teardown

On May 28, 2012 LG announced a 5-inch smartphone display, calling it the “highest resolution mobile panel to date”, providing full HD content equal to 1,920 x 1,080 resolution found on TVs and very high quality laptop displays; and that’s just the beginning of the wow-factor. 

Boundaries do still exist, however, and can almost be defined for netbooks. Typically expect netbooks to have screens of less than 11-inches, a weight of only one or two pounds, no optical drive, longer battery-life and a smaller form-factor than laptops. Definitely expect less capability with lower-powered processors, and fewer connectivity options and ports.  In the 2008 – 2010 time-period netbooks had a successful run with Intel claiming that it sold 70-million atom processors.

Yes, in fact, it is a sweet story; especially for students and developing countries. The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK registered charity going into production of a tiny PC about the size of a short stack of credit-cards. The founder, Eben Upton, became concerned about deterioration of skills in newly admitted students as he was lecturing and working in admissions at Cambridge University. He observed only basic student software skills, but also a substantial drop in admissions to programming courses. Students knew how to create documents, but had very little knowledge of basic systems development and systems architecture. The foundation is dedicated to promoting the study of computer science and related topics and inspiring students to embark on technology careers.