Tesla to open new Model S battery swap station next week!

My friends, this is the future. One of the downsides of all electric cars was the god awful recharge times. But what if you could swap out the depleted battery pack for a fresh one in just a few mins? That's what Tesla plans on doing with future Tesla vehicles. Hit the video below to see a comparison of the new Power pack swap vs a usual pit stop at one of those old fashioned gas station thingies.   

Fast Pack Swap Event from Tesla Motors on Vimeo.

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First Female Cosmonaut in 17 Years to launch to ISS tomorrow.

Yelena Serova

Yelena Serova will be the first female cosmonaut in over 17 years to travel into space. Yelena Kondakova was the last female cosmonaut to make the trek, she flew aboard sts-84 in 1997. This will be Serova's first trip to space and will mark only the 4th female cosmonaut to do so. The Previous Female cosmonauts are Valentina Tereshkova and Svetlana Savitskaya . Yelena Serova will blast off tomorrow Sep. 26^th aboard TMA-14M along with Expedition 41 Soyuz Commander Aleksandr Samokutyayev and NASA astronaut Barry E. Wilmore. The crew will linkup with the 3 existing crew members aboard the ISS. 

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ASUS Delivers Innovative CP Series Zero Client Monitor and Zero Client Box Solutions

Press Release
ASUS today announces availability of the CP220 and CP240 Zero Client Monitors along with CPX20 Zero Client Box that create an efficient and cost effective IT management system for enterprises looking to enhance their VMware®-based Virtual Desktop Infrastucture (VDI). ASUS’ innovative devices feature Teradici® PCoIP® (PC-over-IP) technology that compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the data center and transmits it as 'pixels only' to the CP series Zero Client Monitor or CPX20 Zero Client Box. Because all software and data are stored on a centralized platform, it minimizes the organization’s exposure to security risks and provides an easy to maintain network.

“With the introduction of the CP Series, ASUS is delivering a brand new portfolio of PCoIP zero client form factors that meet today’s most stringent enterprise computing requirements for security, performance and ease of IT manageability,” said, Ziad Lammam, Director of Product Management at Teradici. “We’re delighted to welcome ASUS as the newest member of Teradici’s robust partner ecosystem.”

ASUS CP Series Zero Client Monitor (CP220 / CP240)The innovative ASUS CP series Zero Client Monitors are VMware-ready displays with a built-in Teradici® Tera 2321 processor with onboard PCoIP® technology. This lets the CP series seamlessly integrate with VMware-based environments to create a VDI solution for enterprises. The PCoIP® remote display protocol allows users to access data and applications directly from a centralized server, doing away with the need for desktops, tablets or notebooks.

This frees users and administrators from routine PC maintenance tasks like downloading patches or updates, in addition to simplifying desktop management, increasing security and reducing infrastructure costs.

The ASUS CP series Zero Client Monitors deliver clear, detailed visuals in Full HD 1080p (1920x1080), and provides superior color accuracy and excellent backlight transmission for outstanding contrast and brightness. The top-of-the-line CP 240 utilizes an AH-IPS panel with a 178 degree wide-view angle for clear, vivid visuals with minimal color distortion that allows extended viewing of applications. Both monitors are ergonomically designed with a full range of tilt, pivot, swivel and height adjustment plus are compatible with standard VESA mounts. Each CP monitor features a 3-year ARR (Advance Rapid Replacement) warranty in North America.*

CPX20 Zero Client BoxThe CPX20 Zero Client Box features is a sleek, compact and lightweight design that can be easily mounted on the back of any VESA-compatible display. Once connected, the CPX20 turns any display into a VDI Zero Client monitor, freeing up desktop space for a clutter-free workstation.

AVAILABILITY & PRICINGProduct availability in North America will start on April 8, 2014 at leading VARs and distributors. The US MSRP for the CP240 is $529, CP220 is $499, and the CPX20 is $329. Please contact your local ASUS representative for further information.

SPECIFICATIONS*

 * Specifications, content and product availability are all subject to change without notice and may differ from country to country. Actual performance may vary depending on applications, usage, environment and other factors.
Full specifications are available at www.asus.com

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SpaceX Live Launch Webcast

SpaceX is targeted to launch to the International Space Station next Monday at 4:58pm ET / 1:58pm PT. We’ll be webcasting the launch LIVE, starting at 4:20pm ET at www.spacex.com/webcast.

This represents the first time that a Falcon 9 will fly landing legs. Off-course they wont be used on this flight but they will be performing some sort of controlled re-entry of the first stage to minimize damage. These are the first crucial steps for +SpaceX in creating a fully reusable launch vehicle.

Dragon ready to fly.

F9-R horizontal in Space X hanger. landing legs clearly visible.

Dragon being mated to Falcon 9.

mating almost complete.

Falcon 9 Static Fire.

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Cyanogen Mod 11 M5 rolling out now.

M5 builds of Cyanogen Mod 11 are hitting servers now.

Changes for M5 build:

• Trebuchet – Fix last icon from hotseat disappearing

• Trebuchet – Fix custom home transition effect

• Volume Panel – Increase opacity of transparency (previous level led to visibility concerns)

• WhisperPush – Relocate to Privacy menu

• WhisperPush – fix NPE on viewing identity if unregistered

• Translations – Initial imports from CrowdIn (followup blog post next week)

• MultiSim – Additional support patches (25+)

• Privacy Guard – Additional AppOps permissions

• Additional Right-to-left (RTL) layout mirroring support

• Settings – Add ‘screen color’ support

• Quickboot support (device specific)

• Stylus – Fix eraser being disabled by palm rejection

• NavBar – Allow toggle in runtime (needs kernel support)

• Add ethernet icon support to status bar

• Dialer – Open Source forward/backward/incoming look-up

Hit up the download page to get the latest build for your device/

Source: Cyanogen Mod

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Lux: More efficient way to control screen brightness.

One thing I have never liked about android is the way it handles screen brightness. Stock Android provides an auto brightness option that attempts to adjust screen brightness depending on ambient light. This works for the most part but it's just not enough for my needs. In direct sunlight the display on my Nexus S is pretty good, I have no issues using the device in those conditions as the auto setting will ramp up the brightness all the way to max to compensate.

The problem I have however is during the night or in low light situations. The display just never seemed to dim down enough. It’s always brighter than it needs to be. So you’re probably asking what the big deal is right? Well the big deal is this. Your display consumes the most power on your device. It’s even worst with those huge 5inch 1080p panels that manufacturers are cramming into these devices. Simply put your poor battery just can’t keep up with the demands of these power hungry displays. Enter Lux, a wonderful little app that allows even more control over your display's backlight.


Once you have installed the app all you need to do is enable it by hitting the big power button. Once that is done, lux will settle in comfortably at the top of your notification tray. From there you have access to a few options.

Pulling down the notification tray you will have quick access for manually controlling the brightness or setting the app to auto, a power button that will allow you to quickly disable the app if needed. You can also pull up a more detailed menu by tapping the top of the menu.

From here you have a few more options. Just like the notification tray quick access, you have options to manually control screen brightness but now you can set different profiles depending on your environment. For example, there is a profile set-up for cinema which darkens the screen quite a bit. There is no need for the screen to be bright while you're in a pitch black cinema right? You can gain access to help, refresh, and astronomer mode/night mode. Diving deeper into the settings you will find a handy wizard that will guide you through a quick and easy setup process. A profile editor that allows you to edit ore even create your own profiles. Additional settings for brightness, Night/Astro Mode, Sunset location(requires premium version), Sample collection and Advanced.

Lux is a simple and easy way to circumnavigate Android's display brightness limitations. Not only can it lighten the load on your battery, if you do a lot of reading on your device at night it can also go a long way to preventing eye strain by enabling night mode or dimming the light down to a more modest levels.

Lux comes in two versions, a free Lite version and a premium version for $3.67.

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AMD RADEON 295X2 smiles for the camera.

Well lookie what we got here images of the upcoming R295X2! This is what you’re gonna get when you pop open that steel briefcase AMD plans on shipping this thing in. There was some debate on whether or not this card would be air cooled or liquid cooled. What we now have before us is a two slot hybrid water/air cooler keeping two 250w Hawaii chips in check. Each chip has all 2,816 stream processors enabled for a grand total of 5,632, 352 TMUs and 128 ROPs. Each chip sports 4GB VRAM for a total of 8GB and all that is wired to a massive 512-bit memory bus.  So it would seem that you’re getting two straight up bonafide Hawaii chips right? Well so far yes but we still don’t know anything about the clocks. Clock speeds will be crucial in determining final performance as well as power consumption and temperature levels.

Last but by no means least is the price. We have nothing concrete yet but rumors doing the rounds on the interwebs say that AMD could price “Vesuvius” (yes that’s its code name) at around $1,500, that’s half of what NVIDIA wants for the TITAN Z. With a price difference like that you could do a nice little system upgrade around the 295X2 and still have some cash left over  to get your self TITANFAL! See what I did there…..TITAN Z, TITANFALL? Ah forget it.

 Source: ChipHell

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Android 4.4.3 changelog shows up. Only bugfix release.

We have been hearing rumors of a 4.4.3 Android build out in the wild and it is to be expected as the nexus 5 camera bugs are still present. Turns out that this new build could be made available sooner rather than later. New evidence shows a Nexus 5 running a new KTU83 Build. If you’re wondering what new amazing features will be included however, don’t get too excited  as the new version most likely won’t add much in the way of features, it’s strictly a bug fix release. The changelog so far is as follows:

• frequent data connection dropout fix 

• mm-qcamera-daemon crash and optimization fixes 

• camera focus in regular and HDR modes fixes 

• Power Manager display wakelock fix 

• multiple Bluetooth fixes 

• fix for a random reboot 

• app shortcuts sometimes got removed from launcher after update 

• USB debugging security fix 

• app shortcuts security fix 

• Wi-Fi auto-connect fix 

• other camera fixes 

• MMS, Email/Exchange, Calendar, People/Dialer/Contacts, DSP, IPv6, VPN fixes 

• stuck in activation screen fix 

• missed call LED fix 

• subtitle fixes 

• data usage graph fix 

• Internet telephony fix 

• FCC compliance fix 

• miscellaneous fixes

This is by no means final as this build is still a test build so the change log could look a whole lot different by the time the final version starts rolling out to devices. One fix I’m glad to see included is for the frequent connection dropout, been suffering from this issue ever since the 4.4 update.

Source: AndroidPolice

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AMD Radeon R9 295X2 Incoming!

AMD's next Gen flagship graphics card could be just around the corner as the company has been teasing us with abstract images via twitter using the hash-tag #2betterthan1. The latest Tweet is a little bit more revealing stating “it’s coming. Do you have what it takes?” Accompanying that tweet is the image seen below. What we have here is either the design for the upcoming air cooler shroud or a full-coverage water block. Now if I am correct and this is a water block, this would mark the first time that a reference design card ships with a liquid cooler instead of traditional air cooling. Whatever the case the 295X2 has its work cut out for it as NVIDIA recently threw a monkey wrench into AMD’s game plans by releasing a dual chip monster of their own, the TITAN Z. Honestly I don’t know if the 295X2 will be as fast as the Z but one thing is for sure even if it is faster, it’s definitely not gonna cost $3,000!!! 

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Cut the Rope 2 now available on Android

So Cut the Rope 2 is finally out on Android but man oh man is it filled to the brim with in app purchases! I sure hope Zeptolab releases a paid version because this freemium model could be the death of a very creative and entertaining game. Every few rounds you have to sit through ads & more ads! Now ads in mobile games are nothing new however the latest trend is to have full on video ads for different products between gameplay. It’s sad really and I almost uninstalled the game because of how annoying these ads are! Now I’m not against in app purchasing, not at all but when publishers try to nickel and dime me out of my hard earned cash it annoys me. I will gladly pay for DLC such as additional stages, characters etc. but locking away key gameplay elements behind a pay gate is just cruel.

Cut the Rope is a great game and, it’s been one of my favourite mobile games since the very first version hit Android and I have all the subsequent mini sequels. I just hope that this freemium model doesn't ruin the wonderful series.

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