New $74 Android mini computer is slightly larger than a thumb drive

Posted on by

The small computer has an AllWinner A10 single-core 1.5GHz ARM CPU, a Mali 400 GPU, and 512MB of RAM. An HDMI port on the exterior allows users to plug the computer into a television. It outputs at 1080p and is said to be capable of playing high-definition video.

The device also has a full-sized USB port with host support for input devices, a conventional micro-USB port, a microSD slot, and an internal 802.11 b/g WiFi antenna. The computer can boot from a microSD card and is capable of running Android 4.0 and other ARM-compatible Linux platforms.

via New $74 Android mini computer is slightly larger than a thumb drive | Ars Technica.

The elusive capacity of networks

Posted on by

What makes that question particularly hard to answer is that no one knows how to calculate the data capacity of a network as a whole — or even whether it can be calculated. Nonetheless, in the first half of a two-part paper, which was published recently in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, MIT’s Muriel Médard, California Institute of Technology’s Michelle Effros and the late Ralf Koetter of the University of Technology in Munich show that in a wired network, network coding and error-correcting coding can be handled separately, without reduction in the network’s capacity. In the forthcoming second half of the paper, the same researchers demonstrate some bounds on the capacities of wireless networks, which could help guide future research in both industry and academia.

via The elusive capacity of networks – MIT News Office.

Network coding

Posted on by

Network coding – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Network coding is a technique where, instead of simply relaying the packets of information they receive, the nodes of a network will take several packets and combine them together for transmission. This can be used to attain the maximum possible information flow in a network. Network coding is a field of information theory and coding theory.

The Call of the Future by Tom Vanderbilt

Posted on by

In 1986, the latest shift was “call waiting,” which Judith Martin compared to “standing at a cocktail party and not paying attention to the person you’re with, waiting for a more important person.” Now, of course, as we stand at that same cocktail party, fidgeting with our smartphones—which, despite rarely looking like something designed for speaking into, we not only talk on, but to (summoning the iPhone’s electronic concierge, Siri, for directions or the weather)—the interruptions that once occurred on the telephone line now occur in real time and space.

via The Wilson Quarterly: The Call of the Future by Tom Vanderbilt.

Moodle

Posted on by

Moodle is a Course Management System (CMS), also known as a Learning Management System (LMS) or a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It is a Free web application that educators can use to create effective online learning sites. It is used by over 54,000 institutions (that we know about) and millions of teachers in 212 countries.

via SourceForge Community Blog | Project of the Month, July 2011.

What is the difference between Course Management and Content Management?  I suspect very little.

Yealink

Posted on by

Founded in 2001, Yealink is the professional designer and manufacturer of IP Phone and IP Video Phone for the world-wide broadband telephony market. For more than ten years, Yealink has focused on VoIP products characterized by high cost-performance, easy deployment and affordable price. Yealink benefits customers from flexibility and broad interoperability with the major IP-PBX, softswitch and IMS in the market. Chosen by famous carriers, enterprises and clients from over 80 countries, Yealink provides SMB and diversified customers from all over the world a best choice to extend the value of network communication.

via Yealink-Easy VoIP,SIP based IP Phone,IP Video Phone,Dect Phone,USB Phone,VoIP,Unified Communication,Skype Phone，Media Phone.

flightcrew – A better epub validator

Posted on by

FlightCrew is a C++, cross-platform, native code epub validator. It is composed of three parts:

  • FlightCrew, the validation library;
  • FlightCrew-cli, the command-line front-end to the FlightCrew library;
  • FlightCrew-gui, the GUI front-end to the FlightCrew library;

FlightCrew runs on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (and possibly other platforms). FlightCrew-gui uses the Qt Framework, but the rest does not. The validation library has no external dependencies outside of those included in the source tree and built along with FlightCrew.

Since FlightCrew is licensed under LGPLv3, it can be directly used by closed-source projects as well as open-source ones. It was initially created for Sigil, the epub editor.

Work on FlightCrew was inspired by the inadequacies of other epub checkers.

via flightcrew – A better epub validator – Google Project Hosting.

AMD launches Trinity processors: the Ivy Bridge alternative

Posted on by

Trinity is being aimed at ultrathin notebooks (not to be confused with Intel Ultrabooks), smaller form factor desktops and All-in-Ones, though traditional mainstream laptops and desktops will also see Trinity APUs. AMD will be launching five APUs today. The A10-4600M, A8-4500M, and A6-4400M are aimed at larger, mainstream notebooks, while the A10-4655M and A6-4455M are destined for sleeker ultrathin models.

AMD’s Trinity APUs will mark the debut of the company’s Piledriver microarchitecture, the successor to the ill-received Bulldozer. Trinity is still based on a 32nm process — Intel, by contrast, recently moved to 22nm with Ivy Bridge. Trinity’s die size is actually a bit larger than Llano’s: 246 square millimeters, compared to the first generation APU’s 228 square millimeters. Trinity also features a higher transistor count at 1.3 billion, but dials the TDP for its notebook variants down to 17W for dual-core CPUs, and 35W for quad-core CPUs, the same as Ivy Bridge — Llano APUs required 35W and 45W for dual- and quad-core, respectively. Desktop Trinity remain at the same 65 to 100W of its Llano predecessors. AMD claims that the dual-core Trinity APU will perform at the same level as the dual-core Llano APU, effectively doubling the performance per watt with the new generation. AMD also claims that Trinity notebooks can expect as 12 hours of battery life (when idle) on their energy efficient Piledriver cores.

via AMD launches Trinity processors: the Ivy Bridge alternative | The Verge.

Russian satellite’s 121-megapixel image of Earth is most detailed yet

Posted on by

There’s been a long history of NASA-provided “Blue Marble” images of Earth, but now we’re getting a different perspective thanks to photos taken by the Elektro-L No.1 Russian weather satellite. Unlike NASA’s pictures, this satellite produces 121-megapixel images that capture the Earth in one shot instead of a collection of pictures from multiple flybys stitched together. The result is the highest-resolution single picture of Earth yet. The image certainly looks different than what we’re used to seeing, and that’s because the sensor aboard the weather satellite combines data from three visible and one infrared wavelengths of light, a method that turns vegetation into the rust color that dominates the shot.

via Russian satellite’s 121-megapixel image of Earth is most detailed yet | The Verge.