Chronicling the depravities of the State.
So I got my new Evo 4G and one question that I’ve been curious about is how durable the screen is. Thankfully somebody was willing to sacrifice for science and performed a scratch test on the screen of his Evo 4g.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeoAl-94bks]
Yes it passes with flying colors. If a razor blade won’t scratch the screen nothing I do to it should cause any trouble either.
I don’t play guitar but I do appreciate the style of this one. Unfortunately it required demilling an AK-47. Still it looks awesome.
Somebody decided to make ear buds that look like 9mm casings. Of course they’re gold plated and won’t chamber in any 9mm currently on the market.
This is awesome. The ultimate goal to projects like MakerBot is to creating a 3D print that can print more of itself. Well that goal is now one stop closer thanks to a man going by the handle Webca. He managed to create an entire frame for a MakerBot using a MakerBot. He also posted the instructions online so others can replicate his work.
So today is the big news day… at least in Apple circles. Apple officially announced the iPhone 4. So am I mad that I purchased an Evo 4G instead of waiting a couple days for the new iPhone announcement? Nope. I must say Apple threw some cool features into their latest phone but alas it’s still buckled down by Apple’s draconian App Store policies making it a wholly unusable device in my opinion. It’s also still locked to AT&T which is one phone company I personally never want to deal with.
But they did some cool shit. The new screen should look fantastic. I’m also impressed that Apple used the metal band running around the phone as an antena. One of the iPhone’s biggest problems has been reception and Apple appears to have found a method of correcting that in a rather clever way. They also have a video chat feature but it only works over Wi-Fi (meanwhile the video chat feature on my Evo works on 3G, 4G, or Wi-Fi but you have to pay for yet another service to used it).
Overall it’s pretty cool if you can stand AT&T and Apple’s App Store policies.
Well it appears as though the company that makes the e-paper displays used on e-book readers I’m so fond of is making some real advancements. E Ink just showed off some of their new displays at the Society for Information Display conference. The linked article includes a video demonstrating some color displays (nowhere near as rich of color as current LCDs produce of course) as well as flexible displays. By the looks of the opening demonstration they have upped the refresh rate (the display was showing what was being written is damn near real-time).
It’s pretty cool stuff. I would love to see color displays come to e-book readers in the near future.
The military wastes no time in finding the next best technology to blow enemies away. It should come as no surprise the military is looking at making their snipers even more precise than they are now. Right now they are looking into some really bad ass sounding optics:
The “One Shot” program originally aimed to give snipers the power to hit a target from 2000 meters away in winds as high as 40 miles per hour. In the first phases of the 3-year-old program, shooters used prototype rifles dressed with lasers and fancy computer hardware to do damage from 1,100 meters away in 18-mile-an-hour winds. The scope-mounted lasers can “see” wind turbulence in the path of the bullet and feed the data to computers, enabling real-time calculation of — and compensation for — the wind-blown trajectory.
That just sounds like all sorts of awesome right there. I think it goes without saying that I want one.
Every since the iPad was released I’ve been getting asked if I’m going to throw my Kindle away and replace it with Apple’s new device. My answer is always no which almost always causes the asking person to inquire why I’m not replacing my Kindle. Well simply put the iPad doesn’t do as good of a job as my Kindle at the one task I bought it for, reading books. So here is a comparison of the two devices as it relates to being e-readers.
Screen Technology
This is the most crucial element in this discussion for me. The iPad has a very nice looking screen. Unlike the Kindle the iPad’s screen is full color and higher resolution. Actually the fact it’s full color is generally the reason I hear from people who say I should dump the Kindle.
On the other hand the Kindle has an e-ink display. It’s a unique display for several reasons. First of all it doesn’t use a back light as LCDs do meaning you don’t get a harsh glow from it at the price of requiring lighting to read in the dark. The second difference between an LCD and e-ink display is the fact e-ink displays only use power when they are changing on screen elements. So long as nothing on the screen changes an e-ink display will not consume power meaning devices using these displays can have amazing battery life. And finally the third major difference is an e-ink display works in direct sunlight. You can read your Kindle on your deck, at the beach, or anywhere else bright sunlight can prevent a LCD from being usable.
Of course these advantages come at a cost. As previously mentioned e-ink displays are gray scale online while LCDs have full color. Additionally the refresh rates of e-ink displays is pretty bloody slow. While you can watch a fast paced action movie on the iPad you can’t even play Tetris reasonably well on the Kindle screen. The slow refresh rate can also make navigating the display laggy.
But it comes down to function. The Kindle is meant, at least for me, to read books. Any additional features are secondary and barley of note. The e-ink display excels at emulating paper meaning reading on the Kindle is as close to reading a real book as you’re going to get today in an electronic device. I absolutely love e-ink displays and would really love to have a cell phone with such a display (to crank up the battery life).
Battery Life
There is no question here the Kindle wins. Once again this shouldn’t be surprising since the Kindle’s screen only uses power when it’s refreshing and the device itself uses very little power otherwise unless the wireless connection is on. I believe Apple rates the iPad’s battery life at roughly 10 hours. I’ve gotten a solid three weeks out of my Kindle with the wireless turned off. With the wireless turned on all the time the battery life still hovers around one and a half weeks. Generally this isn’t a big deal as I recharge most of my devices every night (with the exception of the Kindle). But it’s nice knowing if I have a full day of flights ahead of me I’ll have the battery life to make it.
The other reason the Kindle has such great battery life is because the hardware inside is clocked down a lot. This restricts what capabilities the Kindle has which is perfectly fine for a dedicated device which the Kindle is. The iPad on the other hand has some wicked hardware for a mobile device. You can play games, watch movies, listen to music, and pretty much anything else you would want to do. The iPad is a generic device meaning it has the capabilities to do more but at the cost of not being designable (and thus tuned to) to a specific task. 10 hours is still a pretty respectable amount of battery life for what is essentially a netbook sans keyboard.
Form Factor
Here again the Kindle wins for what it does. The Kindle’s (standard not the DX) form factor is very close to that of a real book. It’s thin and very light. The iPad on the other hand is larger and heavier meaning is doesn’t keep the form factor of a real book. Once again this is a trade-off between size and capabilities. The iPad has a larger screen and needs a larger battery. The Kindle on the other hand only needs a screen large enough to display a comfortable amount of text and a much smaller battery since it draws less power.
Wireless
Both devices are wireless capable. The Kindle is able to use cellular data connections (which Amazon calls Whispernet) while the iPad can use either Wi-Fi or, in specific models, AT&T’s 3G network. The nice part about the Kindle is the cost of the wireless data is incorporated into the price of the device and books your download. You never have to pay a monthly subscription for access to the cellular network the Kindle uses while you have to pay up to $30.00 a month for the iPad’s 3G capabilities.
With that said I wouldn’t mind having the ability to use Wi-Fi on the Kindle. Everywhere I go has pretty good 3G coverage but there are a lot of places without. For those locations your only option is to purchase Kindle books on a laptop and transfer them over to the Kindle using a USB cable (included with the Kindle). I hope someday a Wi-Fi card is put into a future Kindle model.
But once again we see the difference between a dedicated device and a general purpose device. The Kindle uses the wireless connection to download books, firmware upgrades, and browse web pages (in a very limited manner via the Kindle’s built-in web browser which isn’t very good). The iPad can use it’s wireless network for everything from browsing web pages to streaming video. Thus the Kindle uses very little bandwidth meaning Amazon can soak up the cost. Still having the ability to download books at almost any time without needing to attach it to another computer is great. Being able to do said task without an additional monthly charge is amazing.
Overall
Overall I feel the Kindle is a better e-reader than the iPad for the above stated reasons. With that said the Kindle is also designed specifically for reading meaning the entire device can be tailored as such. The big difference between a dedicated device and a general purpose device comes down to having a master of one trade or a jack of all trades. A jack of all trades can do most things decently but oftentimes is limited in some manner from being perfect on most of those trades. A master of one trade can be designed entirely around that trade making it much better at doing the job.
The iPad will net you move features but it’s not a dreadfully good e-reader in my opinion. I read a lot so it’s worth lugging around an additional device to read on. But I can’t really use it to replace any tasks I do on a laptop. Either way my Kindle isn’t going away anytime soon.
No not that VHS, this VHS. Well the Croats puts out a video demonostrating their new assault rifle which can be found over on The Firearm Blog.
Overall it looks cool although doesn’t seem to bring anything too revolutionary to the table. Of course that is until you realize it’s being produced by a nation who generally had more experience in combloc weapons than NATO weapons so this is a completely new endeavor.
For those of you who don’t know much about the VHS it’s a rifle being produced by the same company who gave us the HS 2000, better known in America as the XD, handgun. As an owner of a said handgun I must say if they can make a rifle even half as good as the HS 2000 I will be very impressed. Of course I’m doubting anybody is going to import a semi-automatic version of this new rifle since it’s mostly a clone of other things already on the market.
Breda has a picture of what must be the largest gun safe every produced. You could store some ship-to-ship cannons in that thing. I want one!