Real-time discovery of Twitter images with Hashalbum

One of Twitter's greatest strengths is the sheer wealth of data that it produces. Like the Internet itself, though, without search engines, that data is all but inaccessible. Few would argue that Google defined the Internet that we use today, and likewise it is only through ingenious indexing that the Twitter fire hose will ultimately become useful. Which brings me neatly onto Hashalbum, a site that simply searches Twitter for a hashtag (like #tsa), and shows you all of the images contained in that data set.

It's a stupidly simple idea that instantly exposes a treasure trove of funny, poignant and timely images. Supposedly the albums update in real-time, but I can't confirm that -- and I also don't know how much of the Twitter fire hose Hashalbum actually parses. Other than letting you search by hashtag, the site does nothing else.

Of course, because the results are unfiltered and the engine is completely 'dumb' (there's no analysis of the images themselves), the quality of the searches isn't very high. Just like Twitter, Hashalbum produces a stream of random, stream-of-consciousness images -- it's still down to you to pick out the interesting bits, but hey, that's Twitter!

Real-time discovery of Twitter images with Hashalbum originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 06:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cowon 3D is the 1080p-playing, 4.8-inch PMP that just jumps out at you

As far as 3D goes, we can still take it or leave it, but what's really got us intrigued about Cowon's latest effort is the promise of full 1080p video playback. Ally that to a HDMI output and up to 64GB of flash storage and you've got yourself a pretty potent portable media station. The Cowon 3D PMP offers an 800 x 480 resolution on its own 4.8-inch display -- which is touted as the world's first 3D visualizer on a PMP that doesn't require glasses -- plus a battery rated to last for 10 hours of video, 45 hours of audio and up to 300 hours on standby. And, in an upgrade from the recent X7, this new device also has WiFi connectivity! Launch is scheduled for December 10th in Cowon's backyard of South Korea, with prices coming in at KRW499,000 ($431) for the 32GB-equipped 3D PMP and KRW589,000 ($509) for the 64GB version.

[Thanks, Kunal]

Cowon 3D is the 1080p-playing, 4.8-inch PMP that just jumps out at you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 03:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter for Windows Phone 7 reviewed, thoroughly unexciting

Perhaps my expectations were too high as I eagerly unwrapped my HTC Trophy, plugged it into my computer and booted up Zune. Installing apps is so easy! Search, click, blam. In moments I was booting up Twitter, its comforting, peaceful blue emanating from the phone's bright screen.

You're greeted with a 'top tweets' (lower-case is obviously still in), 'trends,' 'suggested,' and 'nearby' panorama. You don't have to log in to use this section, which is nice, as a lot of people use Twitter for the newsy aspect, rather than actually tweeting.

That's where the good news ends.

Twitter for WP7 is slow. Sliding between pages is spluttery and nowhere near as smooth as the main WP7 menus. Scrolling down through tweets is worse; the frame rate drops just enough to create a bit of a 'blinking' effect that will probably cause epileptic seizures amongst sensitive users.

Unfortunately... it gets worse.

Continue reading Twitter for Windows Phone 7 reviewed, thoroughly unexciting

Filed under: Windows Mobile, Social Software

Twitter for Windows Phone 7 reviewed, thoroughly unexciting originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 15 Nov 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fonera SIMPL router now on sale for $49, moving quickly to telcos

Still holding tight to the "Sharing is Caring!" mantra? Not afraid in the least of handing out a few kilobytes to lost tourists down below? If so, you're a prime candidate to own a Fon router; for those unaware, Fon's goal is to equip the world with its 802.11n routers, and then distribute WiFi through them for all to enjoy. The device creates two WiFi signals (SSIDs), one private and one public, and for anyone who knows the pain of being desperate for just a single open hotspot, it's a product (and mission) worth supporting. The Fonera SIMPL was introduced way back at Mobile World Congress, and while the company said it had an order for 400,000 then, that figure has risen rather significantly since. Today, it's revealing that two million of these guys have been sold to telecommunication companies around the globe, with British Telecom, MTS-Comstar Russia, SFR France, SoftBank Japan and ZON Cable Portugal named in particular. The general idea is to provide these to customers in order to lighten the overall load for everyone else, but those looking to buy in sans help can finally do so -- the SIMPL's going for $49 / €39 right now directly through the outfit's website and we're confident that you'll do the right thing.

Continue reading Fonera SIMPL router now on sale for $49, moving quickly to telcos

Fonera SIMPL router now on sale for $49, moving quickly to telcos originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 15:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Speed up Firefox page loading time without using a RAM disk

Yesterday we wrote about moving the cache of Firefox or Chrome onto a RAM disk. Instead of loading cached images and data from the hard drive, it loads from memory, which is a lot faster. It turns out, though, that Firefox can do this without using a RAM disk -- you can simply do it with about:config.

Just follow these instructions -- and don't worry, if you mess it up, you won't break anything.

• Type about:config into the address bar
• Type browser.cache into the Filter field
• Set browser.cache.disk.enable to false (double click it)
• Set browser.cache.memory.enable to true (double click it)
• Right click > New > Integer; type browser.cache.memory.capacity; press OK
• Type in 100000 (this is equivalent to 100 megabytes); press OK
• Close all Firefox tabs and windows, and then restart the browser

If you want more than 100 megabytes of cache -- if you have lots of spare memory, or you're prone to mammoth browsing sessions -- type in 500000 instead for 500 megabytes of cache. To confirm everything is working, visit about:cache and you should see some 'Memory cache device' information.

I'm currently unable to benchmark this change (Firebug doesn't work with FF4 Beta 7!) but in theory it should be just as fast or faster than the RAM disk approach.. Lee has been using it for a few hours and he says page loads are much faster. If you use Firefox, try it out and let us know whether it feels faster or not!

Thanks to commenter danielkza for the tip!

Filed under: Browsers

Speed up Firefox page loading time without using a RAM disk originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Leveraging Linux for Supercomputing

High-performance computing applications such as numerical simulation -- whether for forecasting, mechanical and structure simulation, or computational chemistry -- require a large number of CPUs for processing. To meet these needs, customers must buy a large-scale system that enables parallel processing so that the simulation can be completed in the shortest possible time.

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Tip of My Tongue helps you find that word you're looking for

It sometimes happens that a certain word eludes me. I know it exists, I even know what it sounds like or how it begins or ends -- but for the life of me, I can't recall what the exact word is. For situations like these, Tip of My Tongue can come in very handy. To find the word "download," I only had to tell it that it starts and ends with D, has W somewhere in the middle, and means "transfer."

The search is very fast, done on-the-fly, as you type. You can search by word parts (beginning, middle, end), by certain letters which it must have or can't have, or by its meaning (you get to specify up to three synonyms). You can then refine the search by specifying a minimum and maximum length, and even what the word sounds like (i.e, what it rhymes with).

To me, this seems to cover all bases. Even a vague notion of what a certain word is should be enough to hone in on that word using Tip of My Tongue. This is definitely one for any writer's toolbox.

Filed under: web 2.0, Education

Tip of My Tongue helps you find that word you're looking for originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Run for your life in Tetravalanche -- a Tetris-themed Time Waster

I know what you're thinking; Tetris? Top-down action? How can these be combined into any sort of coherent time waster?

Well, Tetravalanche shows us they can be combined. You're Upman, and you're trapped inside a Tetris game. Bricks are falling from the sky, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is Mr. "Monster-From-The-Deep" (their name, not mine). That's a scary blue monster that rises from the bottom of the screen, slowly but surely.

You must run, jump and punch your way up the ever-growing pile of bricks faster than the Monster-From-The-Deep rises. Because if it catches up with you... well, I guess you already know what happens. Use the arrow keys for running and jumping, and Ctrl for punching through bricks. If you happen to jump up right into a falling brick, that's bad: you will be propelled down with lots of force, enough to break through several levels of bricks on your descent... and find yourself ever closer to the monster.

The soundtrack is pretty cute, but leaves a bit to be desired. All in all, it's a good way to burn off a few extra minutes, and that's what time-wasters are for, right?

Filed under: Fun, Games, Time-Wasters

Run for your life in Tetravalanche -- a Tetris-themed Time Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 26 Nov 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Osram?s New LED Camera Flash: Smaller, Brighter, Even-er

Osram, the lightbulb company, has come up with a bright new LED lamp for use in cellphones. Called the Oslux, it is 50% brighter than other LEDs, but more importantly for taking photographs, the light is flatter and “more evenly distributed”. This means that the light-falloff towards the edge, something common to regular and LED [...]

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Korean Crisis "Is Not Starcraft" [Politics]

Last week, North Korea shelled a South Korean island, sending the peninsula in to "crisis status." The South fired several test shots in response but, according to the New York Times, the country denied that any hit the North. More »

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UberTwitter beta arrives on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch

UberTwitter, the definitive BlackBerry Twitter app, has finally made the leap to iOS. The app bears the beta moniker, but Engadget seems to think that the final release will be as soon as December.

UberTwitter, other than being a very polished app, only really has one unique feature: UberView (please forgive my continuing lack of umlauts). UberView, with a quick flick of the phone into landscape orientation, shows you a preview of links contained in tweets -- handy for when you don't want to open up a browser, or indeed expose your iDevice to potentially malicious websites.

Other than that, UberTwitter for iOS provides the usual slew of Twitter miscellany: tweet pictures, add your location, change your avatar, send Direct Messages (!!!) and more.

UberTwitter for iOS [iTunes] -- Free

Gallery: UberTwitter

UberTwitter beta arrives on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 24 Nov 2010 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shortcut Manager for Chrome lets you execute JavaScript with hotkeys -- and more!

I've recently been spending more and more time in Chrome, and I'm very impressed. One of the things I needed was a way to execute arbitrary bits of JavaScript (bookmarklets and other tidbits) using keystrokes. This is useful because it lets me control Chrome using AutoHotkey, and do all sorts of other things.

The solution I found is called Shortcut Manager, and it's a Chrome extension that goes above and beyond what I need. It lets you assign hotkeys to execute existing browser operations (switch tabs, scroll, etc.), but also lets you paste in any bookmarklet code or other JavaScript for the hotkey to execute. You can also assign site-specific hotkeys -- meaning a certain hotkey would do something on one site, and something else (or nothing at all) on another site.

Last but not least, having worked so hard on your customizations, Shortcut Manager lets you easily export and import your settings (sync support would be a nice addition). This is a a must-have extension for me, and probably for other JavaScript-loving nerds as well.

Filed under: Browsers

Shortcut Manager for Chrome lets you execute JavaScript with hotkeys -- and more! originally appeared on Download Squad on Wed, 17 Nov 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Meka, UT Austin researchers show off 'sociable' Dreamer robot head

The folks at UT Austin's HCR Laboratory have been working on a Meka humanoid robot for some time now, but they've only just recently added one pretty significant component to it: a head. This so-called "Dreamer" isn't just your ordinary robot head, though -- described by the researchers as a "sociable humanoid head," the head is modeled on anime and comic characters, and promises to establish an "organic link to its biological counterpart, creating feelings of quasi-affinity in response to gestures and synthetic emotions." In other words, it's impressive enough to hold your attention while you interact with it, and it may very well creep you out a little. Head on past the break to check it out in action.

Continue reading Meka, UT Austin researchers show off 'sociable' Dreamer robot head

Meka, UT Austin researchers show off 'sociable' Dreamer robot head originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Nov 2010 14:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The 233-Line Kernel Patch and the (Even Easier) Alternatives

Ingenuity has always been a hallmark of the Linux world, but sometimes the community really outdoes itself. Take the 233-line patch to the Linux kernel's scheduler that was recently created by developer Mike Galbraith, for example. With the ability to reduce the average latency of the desktop by as much as 60 times under heavy loads, the patch even drew kudos from Linus himself.

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Apple's Cyber Monday Sale: Accessories For Very Slightly Less [Cyber Monday]

Even Apple's getting in the Cyber Monday spirit! Much like its Black Friday savings, the savings aren't exactly doorbusters—but there are bargains to be had in the audio and accessory departments. More »

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