There's not a lot of details available yet, but according to the Wall Street Journal, Comcast has begun testing features that rival what Google TV and TiVo are doing in the living room by letting cable set-top boxes access streaming video from the internet. Known to participants in Augusta, Georgia as Spectrum and within the company as Xcalibur it combines a DVR with unified search across cable VOD and the internet, plus social media tie-ins, but does not include a full web browser. So far the available content is described only as "limited," so we're going to guess that Netflix isn't on the menu but with rumors indicating it could launch to other areas in 2011 it could very soon be taking its place as the next Xfinity branded tie-in next to current efforts bringing TV content to iOS , Android and other platforms.

Comcast 'Xcalibur' test program brings web video, unified search to cable boxes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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FIRST SOLAR FINISAR

The LogicBUY deal for today is $150 off the 14? Sony VAIO EA-series laptop (in black) with aCore i3 2.4GHz CPU.  This laptop has a 500GB hard drive, 4GB DDR3 memory, a DVD +/-RW, webcam, Bluetooth, 802.11n wireless, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), and more. $849.99 – $150 coupon applied during checkout = $699.99 with [...]

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Holy QR codes, Batman! Scan the image after the break to install!

Continue reading Holy unspeakable awesomeness, Batman! It's Robinisms for Android!

Holy unspeakable awesomeness, Batman! It's Robinisms for Android! originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING AVNET BHARTI AIRTEL

Earlier this year, in June, I ran the first of my side-by-side deathmatches to try and work out which, if any, of the browsers is truly the hardware accelerated king. As it turned out, Firefox 4 and Internet Explorer 9 were pretty equally balanced. Just two months later, in August, Chrome had stolen the top spot and sent Firefox 4, in a fit of tears, to the bottom of the heap.

In the last five months, all three browsers have been maturing. Chrome has leapfrogged from version 7 to 9, Firefox has been working frantically on its JavaScript engine to catch Chrome, and Internet Explorer 9 has been quietly -- but confidently -- working behind the scenes on the entire package. The emergence of new features has all but ceased: all three vendors are now readying themselves for an epic market share battle at the start of 2011.

The good news is, at least for the users, is that all three browsers are very fast. All three browsers have significantly improved since August, both in speed and standards-compliance, and it's now clear that you'll enjoy the Web no matter your browser. The only real question mark hovers over Opera -- version 11 is meant to be hardware accelerated, but until we actually see it, who knows.

In this new deathmatch, there is no run-away winner. Firefox 4 certainly looks like the slowest of the three, and Chrome -- dirty, pulls-no-punches Chrome -- is definitely faster, but I still don't think it matches the shiny, smooth slickness of Microsoft's newest browser. Internet Explorer 9, if you watch its side-by-side performance and figure in its excellent results from other benchmarks, must surely be the current king of HTML5-enabled, hardware-accelerated browsers.

Continue reading 3-way hardware accelerated browser rematch: Internet Explorer 9 finally on top (video)

3-way hardware accelerated browser rematch: Internet Explorer 9 finally on top (video) originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SEAGATE TECHNOLOGY SCIENTIFIC GAMES SANDISK

If you want a laptop bag that doesn’t look like everybody else’s bag, check out Gnana handmade bags.  Gnana is a Sanskrit word that means “knowledge of the ultimate truth”, and the folks at Gnana thought it was an appropriate name for a bag designed to carry around an implement of learning.  The laptop bags [...]

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You have to go to great lengths these days to distinguish your iPod dock from the teeming horde, but that's exactly what Speakal did here. To state the obvious, it's a pig, wearing sunglasses, and filled with stereo components. The beast has four-watt stereo drivers for eyes, a down-firing 15 watt subwoofer in the belly, controls in the snout, and ports in the tail region. There's also an internal lithium ion battery good for up to eight untethered hours on a charge. We're not sure what would possess you to buy the hog, especially for its $150 asking price, but it could be just the item you've been looking for to bolster your eccentric reputation... or ward off particularly annoyed fowl.

Speakal's Cool iPig blasts iPod tunes with extra badassitude originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Dec 2010 12:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BT GROUP CANON MEMC ELECTRONIC MATERIALS

When it comes to building better batteries, building electrodes with greater surface area is key, and scientists are looking to exotic methods to attract the tiny particles they need. We've already seen graphene and carbon nanotubes soak up those electrons, but the University of Maryland has another idea -- they're using the Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) to generate usable patterns of nanorods on the surface of existing metal electrodes. By simply modifying the germ and letting it do its thing, then coating the surface with a conductive film, they're generating ten times the energy capacity of a standard lithium-ion battery while simultaneously rendering the nasty vegetarian bug inert.

Meanwhile, the Center for Integrated Nanotechnologies (CINT) at Sandia Labs was more curious how these tiny charges actually work without confusing the forest for the trees, so to speak, so a team of scientists set about constructing the world's smallest battery. Using a single tin dioxide nanowire as anode, a chunk of lithium cobalt dioxide as cathode, and piping some liquid electrolyte in between, they took a microscopic video of the charging process. See it in all its grey, goopy glory right after the break.

Continue reading World's smallest battery uses a single nanowire, plant-eating virus could improve Li-ion cells tenfold

World's smallest battery uses a single nanowire, plant-eating virus could improve Li-ion cells tenfold originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PRICELINECOM QIMONDA QUALCOMM

Holy QR codes, Batman! Scan the image after the break to install!

Continue reading Holy unspeakable awesomeness, Batman! It's Robinisms for Android!

Holy unspeakable awesomeness, Batman! It's Robinisms for Android! originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ROGERS COMMUNICATIONS SAIC SATYAM COMPUTER SERVICES

Google dominates this week's Gadget Lab podcast with a new computer operating system, a smartphone, an Android upgrade and big sales number for the Android-powered Galaxy Tab.

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We'll warn you that we have nothing but the word of an alleged Sprint employee that this is the real deal, but we don't know what else it could be -- if it walks like a duck and quacks like an EVO with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, we're inclined to believe it's the HTC EVO Shift 4G. Factor in the noticeable lack of front-facing camera, silver trackpad and those throwback flat keys, and we're even willing to forgive those hastily penciled watermarks on the keyboard and on top of the clearly 'shopped screen. Even if this shot is legit, we haven't seen the full device yet -- it sure looks like this Knight is wearing a suit of plastic armor around the edges.

In possibly related news, Android Central nabbed an alleged screenshot of a Sprint database showing an "HTC A7373" handset coming to Sprint on January 9th, and while one Russian e-tailer seems to think that codename refers to the GSM-friendly Desire Z, we have to imagine a Knight / Speedy / EVO Shift release is far more likely than a T-Mobile G2 redux on Sprint's CDMA frequencies.

Update: Just to be clear, there are a few things about this image that irk us, not least of which that pasted-on screen. We're inclined to think this might be a dummy unit that was touched up to look like a real phone.

HTC EVO Shift 4G (Knight / Speedy) gets leaked picture, January 9th release date? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Dec 2010 18:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NETWORK APPLIANCE NETGEAR NCR