FocuSoft Tech Blog

Venus wearable monitor could offer alternative to needles Posted: 29 Apr 2009 03:03 PM PDT It looks like folks wary of needles now have yet another piece of technology to look forward to, with this so-called Venus device promising to measure tissue oxygen and pH levels without the need to draw any blood at all. To do that, the system makes use of a relatively small sensor that’s placed directly on the skin, which uses near infrared light to measure to measure the blood and analyze both the tissue oxygen and pH, as well as the the metabolic rate. As a bonus, the lack of needles also reduces the the risk of infection, and it’s relatively portable nature makes it ideal for use outside of strictly medical situations, such as monitoring athletes — or astronauts, as it was originally developed for. As you might expect, however, the device is still just in prototype form, and there doesn’t appear to be any indication as to when it might move beyond the lab. Read the original post: Venus wearable monitor could offer alternative to needles

Pedestrian Safety Act of 2009 to investigate the dangers of silent automobile engines Posted: 29 Apr 2009 02:51 PM PDT As automobiles become more eco-friendly, they’re also becoming increasingly quieter… which is a good thing, if, like us, you want to live in a completely silent world (the blaring of Mastodon notwithstanding). The obvious problem with quieter vehicles is, of course that they can pose a real danger to unsuspecting pedestrians. To combat this terrifying prospect, Senators John Kerry (D, MA) and Arlen Spector (R, er… D, PA) have introduced The Pedestrian Safety Enhancement Act of 2009. This bill requires the Secretary of Transportation to conduct a study on what effects of hybrid, electric and other silent engine vehicles are having on pedestrian injuries and deaths in the US. The bill specifically focuses on the perils of quiet engines to blind pedestrians, but notes that the dangers are likely wider spread than that. While there are no possible solutions mentioned, may we suggest writing into law that you have to have a bullhorn strapped to your car and yell “vroom vroom” the entire time you drive? Read the original: Pedestrian Safety Act of 2009 to investigate the dangers of silent automobile engines

DIY’ers successfully build their own CableCARD equipped HTPC Posted: 29 Apr 2009 02:28 PM PDT HTPC fans were devastated when it was revealed that only OEM PC builders would have the privilege of building Vista Media Center PCs with CableCARD support, but hope is here: it looks like a few members of The Green Button forum have figured out how to build their own CableCARD ready HTPC. There’s two barriers to overcome, which unfortunately still make it more difficult than just picking up an internal or external ATI Digital Cable Tuner, but they’re not terrible: would-be system builders just need to score an OCUR tuner product ID number and use a BIOS contains the correct OSFR table. No one’s figured out how to tweak just any BIOS yet, but apparently most ASUS P5Q motherboards work fine — so really you just need to score some used CableCARD tuners off eBay and ask the seller for the PID from their computer. Or you could throw caution to the wind and plug in the generic PID of 263DJ-2Y9YT-6X9G6-W28DB-697TF, which may or may not work. Anyone feeling brave enough to grab a new mobo and CableCARD tuner and give this a shot? Read the original here: DIY’ers successfully build their own CableCARD equipped HTPC

Mio S401 and S501 nav units leak out, due in May Posted: 29 Apr 2009 02:02 PM PDT It’s been a while since we’ve seen a new Mio navi hit Stateside — Mitac seems to be concentrating on the Magellan brand here — but it looks like there’s still some kick left in those boots: say hello to the Moov S401 and S501. Baby brother 401 will sell for $129 and has a 4.3-inch screen and four million preloaded POIs, while the $169 501 bumps it up to 4.7 inches and 12 million. Both have Mio’s newish “Spirit” interface, but we’re most intrigued by the repeated mentions of gas price searching and Google Send to GPS in the docs we were leaked, which suggest integration with a service like MSN Direct. We’ll find out soon — these are set to land in Radio Shack in mid-May. [Thanks, Anonymous] See the rest here: Mio S401 and S501 nav units leak out, due in May

FriendFeed Beta Becomes Regular FriendFeed. Hope You Like Real-time. Posted: 29 Apr 2009 01:58 PM PDT Earlier this month, FriendFeed opened the beta testing area of its site to test a major redesign and a big new feature: Real-time updates. Today, it has removed the beta label from the new features, and pushed them live to the regular site. Initially, there was quite a bit of concern from beta testers that the real-time updates were simply too much information being thrown at you, too quickly. But over the past several weeks, that talk has quieted quite a bit, and users seem to be acclimated to the live updating functionality. Of course, there have been some who also chose to use the regular, more static FriendFeed site still, so it will be interesting to see how those users react now. This roll-out is potentially important for other social sites as well. The biggest is of course Facebook, which has stated its desire to make the site's news feed streams update in real-time. Given the initial backlash FriendFeed saw against real-time, one can only imagine how bad it would have been received on Facebook. Especially considering that site has over 200 million users sending updates. And it's likely that fact that is delaying the roll-out of the real-time data flow on Facebook, I'm hearing. That functionality was first talked about during the preview event for the most recent redesign back in early March. But with its recently unveiled new stream APIs, Facebook is allowing other services to access some of its data flow in real-time, and to build apps that handle it, even if it can't do that, yet. And the real-time updates aren't the only new feature of FriendFeed. Aside from the aforementioned redesign that makes the site have a cleaner look, there is improved search functionality — including the ability to easily search for users. There is also a way to save searches that you do often on the site and have them easily accessible. There is also a new feature that it's calling "FriendFeed by Email." Basically, this allows users to interact with the service through an email account. This includes sending updates and images, and getting custom updates back, including comments and "likes" on the items you have posted to the service. The new version of FriendFeed also includes the ability to direct message people, just as you can on Twitter, and this too will work through email. Learn a bit more about the real-time update aspect in the video below. CrunchBase Information FriendFeed Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors Read the rest here: FriendFeed Beta Becomes Regular FriendFeed. Hope You Like Real-time.

‘Flight Control’ Sales Stats Offer Fascinating Look At Inner Workings Of The iPhone App Store Posted: 29 Apr 2009 01:46 PM PDT Firemint, the company behind the best selling iPhone game 'Flight Control', has put together a fascinating report outlining the sales trends the company has seen over the last month, from March 24 to April 25. The application has dominated the App Store over the last few weeks, reaching the #1 paid spot in over a dozen countries (though it's currently fallen to #7 in the US). Since launching on March 6 the application has been downloaded over 700,000 times. It's unclear how much money the application has actually made - it's currently marked as 'on sale' for a limited time, but even at its current 99 cent price point the app's developers will have made $485,000 dollars after Apple's 30% cut. For those of you who haven't played it, Flight Control is a highly addictive game that involves directing tiny aircraft to their landing pads. The game strikes the perfect balance between accessibility (you can figure out how to play it in about two minutes) and offering a significant challenge. It may not be the sort of game you'd want to sit and play for hours at a time, but it's a perfect diversion for the doctor's waiting room or a bus ride. Firemint has gone to great lengths to record its data, but it isn't quite comprehensive - apparently the studio forgot to download its reports from Apple on a couple of days, and there's no way to get them now. Still, this is probably the most detailed set of data to be released by a top developer to date. Among the revealing insights: The United States accounted for the vast majority of sales, with 57%. Second in line was the UK with 17%, followed by Germany and Canada, with 4% each. Each Top App List is country-specific (your downloads in the USA don't help you reach the chart in the Austrailian version of the store). At the high end of the spectrum, Flight Control was able to reach the top spot in the United States with 9586 daily downloads, while it took 3061 to hit the top spot in the UK store. Reaching the peak position in Finland took only 23 downloads in a single day. In the US, Flight Control saw a downward trend in sales over time as it maintained the #1 spot in the App Store. This isn't particularly surprising given the finite number of iPhone owners who check the App Store on a regular basis, but it gives an idea as to why the top apps lists have such a high churn rate. Firemint speculates that Flight Control was able to maintain its top spot even as sales declined because the App Store uses a moving average rather than the number of sales in a single day to rank apps. Sales were impacted by outside events, including Easter (when there was an increase in sales) and media coverage. The data makes a few things clear. For one, adding localization support should probably be placed on the back burner for applications that would require a large time investment to add new languages. Over 80% of Flight Control downloads came from English-speaking countries. It's also clear that, at least in the case of Flight Control, there isn't sustained growth once an application hits #1 on the App Store. Instead, the application quickly peaked and has gradually lost steam over time, though it remains popular. Be sure to look through the full report for more details, including a day-by-day breakdown of download stats. CrunchBase Information iPhone App Store Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it's time for you to find a new Job2.0 Go here to see the original: 'Flight Control' Sales Stats Offer Fascinating Look At Inner Workings Of The iPhone App Store

Maemo 5 Beta SDK released into the hands of an eagerly waiting world Posted: 29 Apr 2009 01:44 PM PDT Sure, you’ve seen the alpha SDK, and you’ve even seen it in pre-alpha, but if you’re really serious about your Maemo 5 development you gotta check out the beta release. This should be music to the ears of all you crazy kids who are hard at work developing software for Nokia’s next-gen Internet tablets. And “Maemo 5 Beta SDK” is not only fun to say, but it also brings several new features to the table, including: support for widget development, a new version of the Modest open-source email app, OMAP3 support, HSPA data connectivity, hi-def camera support, and hardware-based graphics acceleration. Lastly (though certainly not leastly) you’ll finally be able to get your hands on a Maemo 5 Development Manual. We hear that one’s a real page-turner. Hit that read link and get to work. [Via Brighthand] Go here to see the original: Maemo 5 Beta SDK released into the hands of an eagerly waiting world

AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition announced Posted: 29 Apr 2009 01:42 PM PDT AMD has just announced another processor option. It’s called the Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition and this 2.8GHz processor packs in some power for its relatively small size, including 65nm dual-core chips. Intended to be an affordable processor option, this model allows for faster speeds at the budget level with overclocking ability. You can thank the Black Edition status for that useful function. Other features include the ability to choose HyperTransport, processor core frequencies and the memory controller by means of OverDrive or other software of its type. It also has 2MB of shared L3 cache, a 128-bit memory controller, PC2 8500 DDR memory support and an 1.8GHz HyperTransport bus. You can get the AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition 2.8GHz processor today for $69. [via UberGizmo] Relevant Entries on SlashGear AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ "Black Edition" hand picked for over clockers AMD Phenom X4 Black Edition CPU plus two eco-chips announced A Special Edition PC-BOT from WhiteBox Robotics Black XBox 360 delivers HDMI A Dual-Core FX-60 And The End Of Socket 939 Read more here:  AMD Athlon X2 7850 Black Edition announced

Toughcam Battle: Canon PowerShot D10 vs. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 [Battlemodo] Posted: 29 Apr 2009 01:40 PM PDT Both Panasonic and Canon announced their first water- and shock-proof compact toughcams earlier this year, and we’ve taken them underwater for a test. Which is better for capturing your summertime antics both wet AND wild? Let me say first that I did not use either of these cameras in their ideal conditions—namely, outside, underwater while swimming. For some reason, Canon and Panasonic did not tailor the release dates of these cameras to coincide with my trip to Egypt a few months ago, which is where I wanted to test them out (why not guys??). Back here in New York, any outdoor body of water is way too frigid right now, and there’s something pretty creepy and ultimately unacceptable about taking an underwater camera to the YMCA for test shots. So, instead of the verdant coral reefs of the Red Sea off the Sinai coast, which were straight out of Planet Earth, our test shots are of me playing with a Kraken Attackin’ Lego Pirates playset in my kitchen sink. Which is a cool playset, but, you know, not the same. But still, we’ve gathered enough data I think to inform your decision, if you’re thinking of picking up a waterproof toughcam for this summer. Here are the main points of differentiation I see: Form Factor/Interface Both cameras are waterproof, but the Canon D10 is protected up to 10 meters (around 32 feet), where the Panasonic TS1 is only protected up to three meters (around 10 feet). And that’s immediately apparent in their shapes: The D10 looks like it was designed by Ringo on the set of Yellow Submarine—its bulbous shell and porthole-like screws drive home the fact that this baby is going underwater. But on land, it’ll be tough to fit it into a pants pocket without some serious bulging. It does have some nice, easy-to-press buttons for changing into video mode, for instance, and the icons on the LCD screen are nice and big, easily spotted through a snorkeling mask. There are some superfluous button presses to lock in settings which could be tedious underwater, but the UI is not horrible, and you’ll easily get used to it. The D10 also has come big screw-mounts on each corner for mounting various underwater grips and other accessories that you can buy from Canon. The TS1 takes a totally different approach, with a sleek rectangular slab shape that at first glance is hard to distinguish from regular non-tough weeniecams. The buttons are a bit smaller, but not prohibitively so, and shootings modes are selected with a thumb dial instead of dedicated buttons—I didn’t see anything I couldn’t operate with a bit of practice while snorkeling. A basic locking wrist-strap comes in the box. The important thing is that the TS1 is not at all out of place in non-toughcam situations, where the D10 may be. But if you’re a deep snorkeler, three meters may not be enough for you compared to the D10’s 10 meters (I imagine if you’re a serious SCUBA diver, you’ll need something beefier than either of these), but where you lose usability under water with the TS1 you will gain it on land. Consider that. Video Another big difference, if not the biggest, is that the Panasonic TS1 shoots 720p in the AVCHD format, where the Canon only does 640×480 VGA vids. The TS1 video recording mode isn’t the most polished—there’s a good two to three second delay from when you hit the dedicated video button to when recording actually starts and stops, and it’s unclear exactly when everything does start, but if you’re OK with that, the HD video mode is awesome. I mean, underwater HD in such a tiny package—that’s a no-brainer right? I would kill to have some HD clips of my friends and I swimming around in crazy schools of neon fish in Egypt. Here are some sample clips from the sink: TS1 720P Clip: Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 HD Video from Gizmodo on Vimeo. Note: There is a current bug with the TS1 that makes video imported into iMovie ‘08 and ‘09 play at double speed. I had to do some conversion to avoid this, which is a pain. Panasonic says they’re working with Apple on this to include a fix in future versions of iMovie. Canon D10 VGA Clip: Canon Powershot D10 Video from Gizmodo on Vimeo. Keep in mind that the AVCHD format is kind of annoying, in that you might have to install special codecs and import video straight into your video editing software of choice and then export it in friendlier formats, rather than just grabbing an AVI or MOV clip from the memory card and uploading it to YouTube. And yeah, the quality of these videos is pretty bad, but the difference in the actual output is clear: 720p underwater rules. Shooting Both cameras are 12-megapixels, for full-res shots at 4000×3000. Both have the same size CCD sensor, but the TS1’s ISO goes up to 6400 where the Canon D10’s only to 1600. I didn’t do a thorough sensitivity test with either camera, but I would imagine you don’t want to go much higher than 800 on either one, so the difference is probably fairly moot. A difference that does matter is the TS1’s wider-angle lens: it’s a 28mm-128mm f/3.3-f/5.9 effective focal length zoom, compared to the D10’s 35mm-105mm f/2.8-f/4.9. TS1 Sample Shots D10 Sample Shots As you can see, color reproduction via the TS1’s Leica lens is far better than the D10s, which has to fight through a bit more protective plastic. Also, the TS1 tends to autofocus underwater with much greater ease—important, because you won’t always be able to look at the LCD when composing shots while snorkeling. Conclusion Like I said, I only played with these cameras in the sink, so I didn’t push their waterproof capabilities to their max. But having a waterproof and shockproof camera around the house is kind of cool in its own right—imagine taking bath time photos of your kid without having to worry about getting the camera wet, or taking shots with dirty hands while you’re barbecuing, or anything like that. You can always dunk these cameras underwater to clean them off. It’s nice. You don’t have to be a snorkeler to use them and have fun with them. Which is why for me, the balance shifts heavily toward the Panasonic TS1. Its form factor makes using it on land a lot more convenient, and the added HD video option is a huge plus. And my ears hurt if I go down much further than three meters underwater anyway. At a premium of only $70 ($400 list vs. $330 for the D10), I’d say it’s well worth spending up for. Panasonic Lumix DSC-TS1 HD video capture Unobtrusive form factor good for both land and sea 28mm wide-angle lens Buttons perhaps more difficult to use underwater Only waterproof up to 3 meters Canon PowerShot D10 Super-rugged body waterproof up to 10 meters Big, simple buttons and LCD icons Only shoots video at 640×480 Very bulky Go here to read the rest: Toughcam Battle: Canon PowerShot D10 vs. Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS1 [Battlemodo]

Workday Raises $75 Million For Human Resources Software Posted: 29 Apr 2009 01:37 PM PDT Workday, a financial and human resources SaaS provider, has secured $75 million in Series E funding led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA) (which contributed $45 million) with existing investors Greylock Partners and Workday CEO and co-founder Dave Duffield also participating. Duffield founded PeopleSoft, which he sold to Oracle in January 2005 for $10.3 billion. The company has raised a total of $150 million in funding. Workday, which currently has over 80 customers, plans to use the funds to extend its product portfolio and support the company's expansion. Workday’s software, Workday Human Capital Management and Workday Financial Management, helps companies manage human resources and finances in a single system. CrunchBase Information Workday Information provided by CrunchBase Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. View post:  Workday Raises $75 Million For Human Resources Software

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