Everybody’s excited about Intel’s new 45nm chip architecture and its first iteration, the Penryns. They’re going to be in the MacBooks, they’re going to be in your desktops, they’re basically taking the joint over and everyone’s pumped. You’re probably wondering why. Isn’t it just another bump in processor speed? No, it’s a bit superior than […]
Everybody’s excited about Intel’s new 45nm chip architecture and its first iteration, the Penryns. They’re going to be in the MacBooks, they’re going to be in your desktops, they’re basically taking the joint over and everyone’s pumped. You’re probably wondering why. Isn’t it just another bump in processor speed? No, it’s a bit better than that - read on and find out why 45nm is a major step for Intel.
First, it’s important to understand what 45nm means. This new process is essentially a further miniaturization of transistor technology, which all personal chips are based on. 65nm has been the standard for a couple years now, and Intel’s chips have been, in their multitudes, based on the same base-level recipe - or rather, on the same cake mold. The various versions - mobile, desktop, server, multi-core, all have the same underlying transistor technology, but customized for different tasks. In any case, 45nm is the new basic building block they’ll be working with. We’ve been shrinking the things for years, and each shrinkage makes for improvement in several areas, the two of which you care about are:
Transistor density- Smaller transistors naturally means more of them in any given area. This means higher clock speeds at the same chip size and on the same interface. It also means they have the ability to fit more custom circuits and sub-architectures for special instructions.
Energy efficiency- Transistors leak a bit of current. A leaked electron here and there’s a pretty insignificant problem on its own, but when you’ve got 500 million transistors leaking a hundred times a second, it starts getting noticeable. A smaller and more efficient gate means that there’s less chance for electron leakage, so less power is needed for each transistor. Translation: superior battery life in laptops, lower power consumption for desktops.
There are other improvements as well: Intel is taking this opportunity to improve built-in special instructions for all kinds of basic computations. There are other sets of instructions: you may have seen “MMX” and “SSE” being mentioned before. Well, the new iteration is SSE4, and the upgrades are mainly on the raw computation side. For instance, they’ve doubled the speed of easy division, and added optimizations for vector modifications. Sounds minor, but so many CPU functions rely on derivatives of these kinds of instructions that there can be some major improvements seen. Consider the math involved in stretching a 1080p video to fit your screen, or the amount of calculation involved in ray-tracing shadows or cloth simulation. Any improvement in basic calculation snowballs into a major saving later on as long as programmers are aware of how to take advantage of the special instructions.
Another thing you’ll see is a larger L2 cache. This is used by the CPU as a sort of personal RAM supply for switching things in and out super fast without sending them all the way to your system RAM. Penryn dual core processors will have 6MB of L2 cache, 50% more than current ones, and it should be faster as well. There are even more improvements in there, but honestly some are too technical for me to even try to understand, though I trust others in their judgment that they’ll be helpful.
Basically, 45nm is a good thing, and it’s not a minor change. It’s one of the larger steps that can be taken with processors, and it has both immediate benefits and the promise of future improvement. Now, if only they’d send me a sample.
Here’s a look at the upcoming Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W300 digital camera. It’s got a 13.6-megapixel CCD imager along with a Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar 3x optical zoom lens, and a 2.7-inch LCD screen. There’s also an “extra high-speed” burst mode that can shoot three-megapixel photos at five frames per second. Coming in May for $349. ShareThis
The Sony MDR-NC500D Digital Noise Canceling Headphones cost $400. While that might seem like a lot of money, I have the ability to only recommend to you that these headphones are akin to sliding a stick of warm, melty butter into each ear — not in the sense that sticking butter in your ears would likely impede […]
The Sony MDR-NC500D Digital Noise Canceling Headphones cost $400. While that might seem like a lot of money, I have the ability to only suggest to you that these headphones are akin to sliding a stick of warm, melty butter into each ear — not in the sense that sticking butter in your ears would likely impede your hearing, but more in the sense that butter is delicious and if you could somehow replicate the taste of butter as an aural sensation, it’d perhaps be something like using these headphones.
Overview
The main feature that differentiates these headphones from other noise canceling headphones is that these ones cancel the noise digitally. Using a relatively straightforward process, there’s a little microphone built into the headphones that samples the surrounding ambient noise and creates an opposite waveform to block out that sound.
It works really well, too. I initially tested the headphones in a relatively quiet room with a ceiling fan rotating at the highest setting. The whir of the fan was masked handsomely when I put the headphones on. It actually felt kind of weird. Oh, and the airplane too. Man, are these things great on the airplane. Not until you take them off do you realize how loud those engines are. It’s nearly overwhelming to come back into audio reality after a three hour flight. I found myself sometimes wearing these without listening to any music — I just used them to block out the airplane noise.
What’s Included?
You get a lot of stuff, to be sure. There’s an overly large zip-up carrying case, a detachable headphone cord, a power adapter, another cord/adapter combo that’s juiced by two AA batteries, an old-school airplane arm rest adapter, and a small-to-large headphone jack adapter. I expected to be able to just open the box and begin playing around but I found having to sort through everything first.
The headphones have an internal lithium-ion battery that needs to be charged before the first use. Once charged, you should be able to get about 16 hours before needing to recharge. If you find yourself without access to a power outlet, you can use the included AA battery adapter to get another 12 or so hours.
Performance
As I noted, the actual noise cancellation aspect works wonderfully. There’s a “monitor” button on the side of the right earpiece that allows you to temporarily turn off the noise cancellation so you can compare the two environments. There’s also an “AI NC MODE” button that you can press that’ll cause the headphones to examine the ambient noise wherever you are and adjust accordingly. Very cool.
Listening to music sounds pretty good, although not quite as great as you might anticipate from a pair of $400 headphones. My iPod Touch sounded a bit muddy at first, with the kick drum of Fall Out Boy’s “THNKS FR TH MMRS” popping and distorting to the point that I had to change the EQ preset from Rock to Spoken Word, of all settings. It was the only one where the bass didn’t overpower everything else. Once that part was tweaked, everything sounded pretty good. Seasoned audiophiles might not be as forgiving but given how well these things block everything else out, I have the ability to let an initial EQ adjustment slide. Movies and video podcasts have sounded fine, too.
Value
This is where things might get a tiny sticky. The headphones are $400. Are they worth it? I certainly wouldn’t spend $400 on headphones even if they were actually made of real butter but I’m not that uppity about my music. I was chatting with audio expert Mike Kobrin about the headphones and mentioned that I liked them and he didn’t throw a tantrum like an audio expert would normally do if someone were to recommend that inferior headphones were, in fact, good. So that’s something.
I also tested these headphones against my Dad’s Bose noise canceling headphones which were originally offered at $400 and I found that Sony’s sounded markedly superior. I could hear an audible noise-canceling hiss from the Bose, but there’s no such hiss from the Sony headphones. It’s nearly like a sound vacuum. Like anti-sound.
So, should you pay $400? That depends. I think someone who wants to get his or her first pair of noise canceling headphones would definitely be impressed. The kind of people who don’t have a problem spending $400 on headphones, though, might not be. And they’re the ones Sony’s going to have to win over. If I were to spend $400 on these headphones, though, I’d feel like I was getting my money’s worth.
As with all audio stuff, you should definitely try a pair out first to see how you like them. They’ll be available on March 21st.
April 15 won’t just be tax day, it’ll be the day you can pick up the DualShock 3 (rumbling PS3 controller) in the US. The controller’s already been available in Japan for months now, which means that if you’re really keen on getting vibration before your buddies, you could import it from Asia and hook it up now. If that’s too much work, $54.99 will get you one in April. [Kotaku]
The first thing that comes to mind when you see the Everex mini gOS Linux Personal computer is that it looks just like a Mac mini except in black it is a smart way to trim down after that comically bulky Wal-Mart-special gPC that launched Everex’s open-source strategy. And with an Intel Pentium Dual-Core Mobile processor, a DVD writer, DVI and S-Video outs, FireWire and a 4-in-1 media reader, it’s leagues ahead of other Linux boxes such as the subscription Zonbu. The Everex mini is slated to arrive at Newegg at the end of the week for a reasonable $499, but tell us, guys, seriously, did you’ve to deliberately go with a lowercase “m”? Hell, that’s just provocation. [Everex]
NMT’s Popcorn Hour network streamer looks great on paper (YouTube/Google Streaming, DVD Image playback, XviD, MPEG4, and even BitTorrent client support), but how does it actually perform? Quite well, states Networking Audio Video dot com, but with a few very annoying bugs.
The streamer has NFS and Samba support (with only Samba working correctly over Gigabit Ethernet, which is a bummer), and can stream 4GB ISOs “without much delay.” Fast forwarding through this didn’t cause a problem either, thanks partially to that Gigabit connection no doubt. Music, however, suffers, since there’s no ID3 tag reading and no cover art—it’s the bare minimum you can get in a networked music player.
What’s great about this player is that it’s got on the web content support, meaning you can watch YouTube and Google video. In theory. None of these videos actually played when NAV tested the streamer. That’s not so great.
But if you do have a BitTorrent fetish, you can use the Popcorn Hour to download torrents directly onto the machine. Unfortunately, this only lists XviD and not DivX as a supported format, so only a percentage of files you download off BitTorrent will play correctly.
Based on this, it seems that Popcorn Hour A-100 might be good for certain things, but lousy in others. If they can fix the bugs, this could be worth buying. [Networking Audio Video]
Sony today announced a pair of in-car GPS receivers. The large-screen, suction-cup-mounted GPS units feature touchscreens and real-time traffic updates, as well as voice-to-text interaction. The two units are the NV-U73T and the NV-U83T. They’re similar in most ways, save for the U83T featuring Bluetooth for handsfree calling. They’re out now for $300 and $400, […]
Sony today announced a pair of in-car GPS receivers. The large-screen, suction-cup-mounted GPS units feature touchscreens and real-time traffic updates, as well as voice-to-text interaction. The two units are the NV-U73T and the NV-U83T. They’re similar in most ways, save for the U83T featuring Bluetooth for handsfree calling. They’re out now for $300 and $400, respectively.
Sony’s MDR-AS100W are their flagship sports/outdoor headphones, water resistant, and fit with a two-foot cord best used with arm-mounted MP3 players. $100 is a lot of money for a headset you plan to sweat on in your Tae Bo classes. So, Sony’s spammed us with cool submodels, too, each with a unique flavor of ear-fitting yoga and price points unexplainably positioned from $20 to $100:
See? Just don’t ask me which is which.
Active Style Headphones Perfect for Sport and Fitness Enthusiasts Sony is also introducing a line of headphones that are designed to stay put when you’re not. Whether on the treadmill, the track, or trekking through the mountains, the new Active Style collection features five headphones with a slim design styled with black silicone rubber with orange-red accents. In addition, all active style headphones have moisture-resistant features. The MDR-AS20J headphones fit around the outer ear with an earbud that sets inside the ear canal. The MDR-AS40EX headphones feature a convertible ear hanger so you can transform them from over-the-ear headphones to a traditional earbud style, offering users versatility and personal preference. The collection also will include more traditional headband style headphones (model MDR-AS100W), behind-the-neck earbud headphones (model MDR-AS50G) and behind-the neck open air headphones (model MDR-AS30G). The headphones will range in price from $20 to $100.
MDR-AS100W Over the Head Earbud Headphones Available in March for about $100 Lightweight, secure fitting headphones with single side cord for sports usage Short (2 foot) cord ideal for armband use; supplied extension cord (2 feet) for general use Water-resistant design Three sizes of earbuds (S, M, L)
MDR-AS50G Behind the Neck Earbud Headphones Available in March for about $50 Lightweight spiral neck-band headphones for secure fit during activity Short (2 foot) cord ideal for armband use; supplied extension cord (2 feet) for general use Water-resistant design and washable carrying case Three sizes of earbuds (S, M, L)
MDR-AS40EX Over the Ear Earbud Headphones Available in March for about $40 Detachable ear hangers for stable fit Short (2 foot) cord ideal for armband use; supplied extension cord (2 feet) for general use Water-resistant design Three sizes of earbuds (S, M, L)
MDR-AS30G Around the Neck Headphones Available in March for about $30 Newly developed stability tip prevents movement of headphones
Sony’s latest venture into wireless home-theater-in-a-box 5.1 systems includes options for wireless rear speakers and a new system called S-AIR that can transmit audio from your home theater to smaller clock-radio receivers in other rooms, up to a precise-sounding 164 feet away. They all have five-disc 1080p-upconverting HDMI DVD players and an included TDM-iP10 iPod dock. (Tellingly, the dock for Sony Network Walkmans is sold separately.) Here’s the product breakdown:
• The DAV-HDX576WF includes both the S-AIR receiver and the wireless rear speaker package, and costs $500.
• The $400 DAV-HDX277WC includes the S-AIR receiver; the WAHT-SA10 wireless speaker package is compatible, but sold separately for $150.
• Also for $400, the DAV-HDX279W includes the rear speakers, but you’d have to buy the compatible AIR-SA10 S-AIR receiver separately for $120.
• If you’re not sure what you want at all, you can pay $300 for the DAV-HDX275 and then opt in to the S-AIR receiver or wireless rear-speaker kit later on.
SONY INTRODUCES WIRELESS AUDIO SOLUTION FOR MULTI-ROOM LISTENING MADE EASY
LAS VEGAS, Feb. 26, 2007 - Sony today unveiled four home theater systems featuring the new S-AIR™ technology, a wireless audio solution for multi-room listening.
By integrating S-AIR technology into its new home theater systems, the company will be delivering a practical wireless multi-room solution without complicated set-up stipulations, such as IP addresses, WEP keys and pin codes. Wireless audio can be transmitted from the main system in the living room to multiple rooms throughout the home — up to 164 feet — simply by connecting a separate S-AIR Air Station receiver/speaker into a power outlet.
S-AIR technology also delivers audio wirelessly to rear surround speakers without interfering with other household devices.
“From playing music to broadcasting the big game throughout the home, our home theater systems with S-AIR technology makes amusing easy and inexpensive,” said Brennan Mullin, vice president for audio products for Sony Electronics’ Digital Imaging and Audio Division. “Multi-room audio systems typically are quite expensive and need to be professionally installed. Now we’ve a simple, affordable substitute.”
The four BRAVIA® Theatre systems integrate a high-quality, five-disc DVD/CD player with upscaling to 1080p via HDMI™ when connected to a 1080p-capable HDTV set.
These systems feature Sony’s Digital Media Port, which adds controlling, networking, and connectivity for music playback with various optional accessories. An included cradle for iPod players (TDM-iP10) connects to the Digital Media Port to wirelessly stream audio through the home using S-AIR Air Stations. Additional accessories include a Network Walkman™ player audio cradle, a Computer client device and a Bluetooth® adapter (each is sold separately).
Featuring Digital Cinema Auto Calibration (DCAC), the units offer simple multi-channel surround sound setup with the use of an included microphone to automatically adjusting speaker frequency, distance and level for an optimal home theater experience.
Finally, the home theater systems offer a Dialogue Audio Enhancer with night mode. This adjusts for low dialogue when the receiver volume is turned low. They also come with an updated Portable Audio Enhancer, which improves the clarity and depth of a connected music player by adding information to the audio signal that had been removed during compression.
The DAV-HDX576WF model includes one S-AIR Air Station receiver/speaker (AIR-SA10) and a wireless rear speaker kit (WAHT-SA10). The theater system offers height adjustable floor standing speakers designed to match the style and height of BRAVIA TVs. This model will be available in March for about $500.
The DAV-HDX277WC model includes one S-AIR Air Station receiver/speaker (AIR-SA10) with an option to add a rear wireless speaker kit (WAHT-SA10, sold separately), while the DAV-HDX279W model includes the rear wireless speaker kit (WAHT-SA10) with an option to add S-AIR Air Station receiver/speakers for multi-room audio. Both of these models will be available in March for about $400.
The DAV-HDX275 system is equipped with S-AIR-Ready technology with an option to add a rear wireless speaker kit (WHAT-SA10) and an S-AIR transmitter (EZW-T100) with S-AIR Air Stations (AIR-SA10). The model will also be available in March for about $300.
S-AIR Accessories Adding rear wireless abilities to compatible S-AIR Sony home theater systems, the WAHT-SA10 wireless speaker kit utilizes radio frequency (RF) to transmit audio wirelessly to rear speakers, eliminating unsightly wires. An integrated headphone output allows you to conveniently enjoy home theater without disturbing others. The rear wireless speaker kit will be available in March for about $149.
AIR-SA10 Air Station receiver/speakers can be purchased for use with compatible S-AIR Sony home theater systems — up to four units can be used with each theater system. The AIR-SA10 features eight watts (RMS) of power, with an alarm clock function and will be available in March for about $120.
The home theater systems will be available through sonystyle.com, at Sony Style retail stores, at military base exchanges and at authorized dealers nationwide.
Wind turbines are becoming ever more ubiquitous thanks to their gradually lowering setup costs and relatively environmentally friendly energy production. It is a bit worrying then to see this particular wind turbine exploding in spectacular fashion. Worrying might actually be the wrong adjective—I believe the correct term is omfg-exploding-wind-turbine-destruction-is-so-satisfying-tastic. Check it out by hitting the video above, then jump in for a brief history lesson about Grandpa’s Knob.
Wind machines were used way back in 200 B.C. by the Persians, who managed to put the wind crunchers to use for grain grinding purposes. Skip a few years ahead, and you have the first Megawatt wind turbine (pictured), which was set up on a hilltop in Rutland, Vermont, and provided power to the local grid during WWII. The turbine was affectionately known as “Grandpa’s Knob.” Charming. Thanks for attending Wind Turbine Retromodo 101; there’ll be a test next week, so get revising. [Live Leak;Wiki]
April 15 won’t just be tax day, it’ll be the day you can pick up the DualShock 3 (rumbling PS3 controller) in the US. The controller’s already been available in Japan for months now, which means that if you’re really keen on getting vibration before your buddies, you could import it from Asia and hook it up now. If that’s too much work, $54.99 will get you one in April. [
The first thing that comes to mind when you see the Everex mini gOS Linux Personal computer is that 
NMT’s 
Sony’s MDR-AS100W are their flagship sports/outdoor headphones, water resistant, and fit with a two-foot cord best used with arm-mounted MP3 players. $100 is a lot of money for a headset you plan to sweat on in your Tae Bo classes. So, Sony’s spammed us with cool submodels, too, each with a unique flavor of ear-fitting yoga and price points unexplainably positioned from $20 to $100:
Sony’s latest venture into wireless home-theater-in-a-box 5.1 systems includes options for wireless rear speakers and a new system called S-AIR that can transmit audio from your home theater to smaller clock-radio receivers in other rooms, up to a precise-sounding 164 feet away. They all have five-disc 1080p-upconverting HDMI DVD players and an included TDM-iP10 iPod dock. (Tellingly, the dock for Sony Network Walkmans is sold separately.) Here’s the product breakdown:
Wind machines were used way back in 200 B.C. by the Persians, who managed to put the wind crunchers to use for grain grinding purposes. Skip a few years ahead, and you have the first Megawatt wind turbine (pictured), which was set up on a hilltop in Rutland, Vermont, and provided power to the local grid during WWII. The turbine was affectionately known as “Grandpa’s Knob.” Charming. Thanks for attending Wind Turbine Retromodo 101; there’ll be a test next week, so get revising. [
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