Filed under: Desktops

Presumably in an (utterly futile) attempt to bring down the power grid all around the Mediterranean, print magazine PC World Greece benchmarked three powerful Nehalem desktop processors — the Core i7 Extreme Edition 965, and the apparently non-extreme Core i7 920 and 940. Names aside, performance from all three was extreme compared to most stuff currently on the market. The data for number nerds: in 3DMark06 the 920 finished ever-so-slightly behind the Core 2 Extreme QX9770’s 4,922 marks with 4,818 while the 940 and the 965 both opened a can of you-know-what at 5,282 and 5,716 respectively. More titillating figures await enthusiasts through the read link, but for you normal folk only concerned that Nehalem wouldn’t be fast enough to justify an upgrade (and you weren’t), rest assured that it triumphed in this no-holds-barred CPU cage match.

[Via techPowerUp! Forums, thanks sk]

Intel Core i7 benchmarks make Core 2 Extreme look like a washed-up has-been originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Section: Audio, Portable Audio, Communications, Cellphones, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile

Tough times call for tough actions.  It seems in light of all the economic bad news, lower income folks are ditching gadgets to have just one: the iPhone 3G.  Who needs two iPods?  Who needs a netbook?  Who needs a home phone line?

Indeed, one could argue the iPhone is just a tethering application away from ditching your home line, your broadband connection, your cable or satellite company, heck—even books are not able to escape all the niches Apple’s wonder child can get its hands on.  My thinking here is tethering would allow you to use your laptop/desktop via the iPhones 3G connection, so you can ditch the $25 per month + for broadband.

Cut costs and rationalize iPhone spending

According to the Wall Street Journal,

“We see that lower-income consumers are increasingly turning to mobile devices to access the Internet, to listen to music and for email,” said Mark Donovan, senior analyst at comScore. ”

The numbers behind this blew me away:

Ownership of the iPhone rose 48% from June 1 to the end of August among households earning between $25,000 and $50,000 a year, compared to 21% overall, the study showed

Clearly, the iPhone hit the sweet spot in pricing.  But can it really shift consumer demand from broadband access?  The WSJ reported increases for these lower income households in web browsing and listening to music, but e-mail use lagged.  That could be explained by text messaging become more prevalent among younger users.

Last time I checked, 3 out of 5 Gadgetell editors owned iPhones.  Any of you guys think you could survive just on the iPhone for your home computing/music/entertainment needs if tethering were possible?

Source: [Wall Street Journal]

Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »

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Filed under: Laptops

One day later and Sony’s battery recall has already tripled in size. What started as a recall of 35,000, just hit 100,000 (75,000 of which are HP related) and now includes Li-ion batteries used in some Acer laptops as well as the original list of Dells, HPs, and Toshibas. All the laptops were sold between 2004 and 2005, two-thirds of which were sold outside the US. What’s most troubling is that Sony claims the faulty batteries are from the same unit that made the recalled batteries from 2 years ago.

So… Apple, you next?

Sony battery recall hits 100,000 — adds Acer to the list originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Oct 2008 06:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NYC’s new “Rat Information Portal” is being billed as “a one-stop resource website for New Yorkers’ rat prevention needs.” In addition to tips on how to control rat populations, the website also supplies an interactive “Rat Map” with data on inspections, violations, compliance, exterminations, and cleanups for any property in the city going back three years. Basically, it is a hotspot map for creepy vermin within the city. The idea is to put pressure on property owners who are slow to address their growing rat problems and give everyday citizens the tools they need to fight back. That’s right folks…NYC has declared war against the rats. [Rat Information Portal via SFGate]

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Time Magazine has gone through all of the inventions of 2008, from walking chairs to spaghetti forks, and declared to best 50 of the year (and of course, a winner, which was this at-home genetic testing service by 23andMe). Many of their choices are predictable, like the Large Hadron Collider. Some are easy to overlook, like the Global Seed Vault. And others are straight-up controversial, like the baseball instant replay or the game Spore.

Time has the full list on their site, but it’s divided into 50 different pages. So we’ve condensed it into easy list form:

Time Top 50 Inventions 2008

1. The Retail DNA Test
2. The Tesla Roadster
3. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
4. Hulu.com
5. The Large Hadron Collider
6. The Global Seed Vault
7. The Chevy Volt
8. Bullets That Shoot Bullets
9. The Orbital Internet
10. The World’s Fastest Computer
11. Green Crude
12. Housing Funds
13. The Memristor
14. The Bionic Hand
15. The Direct-to-Web Supervilian Musical
16. The Dynamic Tower
17. The Mobile, Dexterous, Social Robot
18. The New Mars Rover
19. Montreal’s Public Bike System
20. The Everything Game
21. The Synthetic Organism
22. The Shadowless Skyscraper
23. The Branded Candidate
24. Bionic Contacts
25. Thin-Film Solar Panels
26. The Speedo LZR Racer
27. Bubble Photography
28. The Invisibility Cloak
29. The 46th Mersenne Prime
30. The Internet of Things
31. Einstein’s Fridge
32. Facebook for Spies
33. Biochemical Energy Harvester
34. Made-in-Transit Packaging
35. Airborne Wind Power
36. The New Ping-Pong Serve
37. Smog-Eating Cement
38. The Baseball Instant Replay
39. Enhanced Fingerprints
40. The Seven New Deadly Sins
41. The Peraves MonoTracer
42. Disenvoweling
43. High-Tech Running Shoes
44. Sunscreen for Plants
45. The Short Refinance
46. Aptera Electric Car
47. Google’s Floating Data Center
48. The Time Eater Clock
49. Sound-Enhanced Food
50. A Camera for the Blind

Read the reasoning behind the decisions over at Time. [Time]

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