Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that most epic triumph of human engineering and physics research has finally taken place, and strangely enough our planet’s still in one piece too. The search for the Higgs boson particle resumed yesterday, somewhere under the Franco-Swiss border, with the CERN research team successfully executing what the LHC was built to do — accelerating proton beams to nearly the speed of light, then filming the wreckage as they crash into each other.

Having encountered a number of bumps in the road, the researchers have had to significantly scale down the energy at which their early collisions will take place, with the very first ones said to have happened at 900 billion electron volts. Still, plans are afoot for an imminent shift up to 1.2 trillion electron volts (TeV), which would be the highest energy level any particle accelerator has achieved yet, before a ramp up to 7 TeV over the coming year if all goes well.

Large Hadron Collider reboots, makes first protonic bang! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Creative’s latest point-and-shoot camcorder has emerged, and though the feature list isn’t exactly overwhelming it’s a decent update over the second-gen version.  The new Creative Vado HD still grabs 720p high-definition footage but now the company are claiming improved low-light and bright-light performance together with out-of-the-box compatibility with both PCs and Macs.

There’s also more choice in terms of connectivity, with a freshly added stereo microphone port and headphones connector.  The Vado HD will also now take still photos, and can be used in a motion-activated mode.  HDMI connectivity, a pull-out USB cord and a wide-angle lens are still present, though the 8GB model appears to have been canned in favor of the 4GB version, which can store up to 120 minutes of HD footage or 7,000 still photos.

Most obviously, the somewhat bland casing of the previous versions has been replaced with a choice of glossy black or white, with red, blue and purple to follow.  It’ll be available to preorder imminently, priced at $179.99.

Press Release:

CREATIVE UNVEILS ELEGANT NEW DESIGN WITH THIRD GENERATION VADO HD

Creative, a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products, today announced the chic third generation Vado HD Pocket Video Cam, combining a sleek design with stunning HD video quality.

“We’ve won prestigious awards and accolades for the great performance, ease of use and compact form of our Vado HD cameras. The third generation Vado HD brings a cool new design and adds additional features to the already award-winning feature set. The design looks so cool people will stop you on the street and ask you where you got it,” said Steve Erickson, VP and GM for audio and video at Creative.

Building on the great features the Vado HD line is already known for, such as HDMI out and a wide-angle lens, the third generation Vado HD adds important additional features:

• Improved quality of video in low light or brightly lit conditions with manual exposure adjustments
• External stereo microphone support for better audio recording
• Headphone output for private listening
• Motion Detection Mode enables users to program the camera to begin recording as soon as motion is detected
• Out-of-the box Mac and PC compatibility
• Still Photo Capture Mode

The third generation Vado HD also features new Vado Central 3.0 software with more instant web uploading capabilities and integrated editing options. Users can simply select one-click uploading to a number of popular social media sites, including Facebook and YouTube, and their videos will be ready to view or share in a matter of minutes. For users who don’t want their videos to be shared publicly, videos can be uploaded to KinKast via one-click uploading and then those services offer a variety of other features, including an email invite option for a more private viewing experience. Simple video editing capabilities enable users to edit videos directly in Vado Central 3.0. For more advanced editing options, users can edit videos in other editing programs, including iMovie and Movie Maker.

The third generation Vado HD with better compression can still hold up to 120 minutes of HD quality video or up to 7,000 still photos in 4GB of onboard storage. The removable rechargeable battery provides more than two hours of recording or viewing. Users can easily recharge the battery via the flexible, pull-out USB cable, with no additional cables required. Extra batteries and a wall plug-in battery charger are also available.

Pricing and Availability

The 4GB third generation Vado HD is available in black or white and is available for pre-order from www.amazon.com and www.us.creative.com for US$179.99. For more information about the complete line of Creative Vado Pocket Video Cams and Vado Pocket Video Cam accessories visit www.us.creative.com.

• Creative Vado HD 720p $200 camcorder up for preorder
• Creative Vado point-and-shoot budget camcorder
• Flip Mino camcorder landing June 4th
• Creative Vado HD Gets Upgraded With Memory, Mac Support, and New Colors
• DXG launch 567V $179 high-def camcorder to take on Flip Mino

The rest is here:
Creative Vado HD camcorder boosts low-light performance

Google has obviously tired of waiting for handset manufacturers to push out Android 2.0 to existing handsets before users can play with the Google Maps Navigation beta, and as such has released the turn-by-turn software for Android 1.6 devices.  Available now in the Android Market, Google Maps Navigation for Android 1.6 delivers the same topographical layers, voice guidance and automatic rerouting as we found so useful on the Motorola DROID.

Unfortunately not all the functionality has made it across.  One of the more obvious missing features is the “navigate to” voice command shown in the demo video below; instead, Google suggest creating shortcuts to specific locations – such as your home or workplace – which can be placed directly onto the Android desktop.

As before, only US Android users have access to the Navigation beta; those outside of the country will have to wait until Google see fit to extend their testing.  If you’re in the US and you have a device such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G or the G1, you can download Google Maps Navigation now.

[via Xatakamovil]

Relevant Entries on SlashGear

• Google Maps Navigation beta for Android 2.0: turn-by-turn, Car UI, more [Video]
• GSM Motorola MILESTONE lacks turn-by-turn in Android 2.0 Maps [Update: Confirmed]
• HTC Hero Android 2.0 update confirmed in works
• Google “doing exactly what Microsoft did” says angry GPS app dev
• Rubin confirms 18-20 Android phones on sale by end of year

See original here:
Android 1.6 phones get Google Maps Navigation beta

Even though Broadcom, Atheros, and Qualcomm have all been sampling phone-ready draft 802.11n chipsets for some time now, you’re still not seeing the tech swiftly overtake 802.11g in the mobile arena — in fact, we dare you to find a single phone in your carrier’s store that can do it. Odds are you can’t, but HTC HD2 owners can win a few quid off their skeptical (non-Engadget-reading) friends by enabling support after the fact. Looks like draft-n support got buried in the company’s WinMo monster — a fitting device to add such a rare display of raw, savage wireless power, if we do say so ourselves — but it got turned off in the shipping firmware for some reason, possibly concerns over increased battery draw, flakiness, or a stark realization that the benefits of 802.11n might not be fully appreciated in a device hamstrung more by a crappy browser than by slow WiFi. If you want to live on the edge anyway and flip the switch, xda-developers has the registry hack you need — and if you’re using an HD2 in the States without 3G right now, let’s be honest: you kinda need all the speed-boosting wireless hacks you can dig up.

HTC HD2 can be coaxed into doing 802.11n, if you know how to sweet-talk it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you like your software homebrewed with just a hint of alpha then boy do we have an app for you. The WebOS homebrew community just released Precorder; an app that lets your Palm Pre record audio and 30fps 480×320 pixel video in H.264/AVC format — you can can even control the built-in LED for recording in low-light situations. Unfortunately, there’s no video preview presented while recording but hey, it’s alpha software bro… and it’s free. Check a video sample after the break.

Continue reading Palm Precorder brings video recording homebrew to the Pre

Palm Precorder brings video recording homebrew to the Pre originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve found yourself somewhat irked by the Kindle’s lackluster organizing abilities, you clearly aren’t alone. A post by The Kindle Team over on Facebook has made clear that Amazon is aware of the shortcoming, and it’s currently toiling away on a “better way to organize your growing Kindle libraries.” No details are given about the forthcoming solution, but the team does confess that it’ll be released as an over-the-air update “in the first half of next year.” Huzzah?

[Thanks, Anthony]

Amazon promises update to better ‘organize Kindle libraries’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The beating of a 12-year-old redheaded boy this past Friday is linked to two of the favorite punching bags of those unwilling to directly blame the jerk kids responsible: Facebook and South Park.

The boy, who attends middle school in Southern California, is the victim of a beating that seems to stem from a Facebook page proposing “Kick a Ginger Day,” which in turn is linked to a particular episode of South Park. The worst part? That poor kid was beaten up not once but twice, in the same day, by two separate groups of his classmates. Luckily it seems the kid was not seriously injured, though as of yet his attackers have not been arrested. As the proud coworker of two redheads, I hope the bullies get their asses kicked by a large Scottish man. [CNN]

Here is the original post:
Facebook Linked to Middle School Redhead Beating [Crime]

The recent embrace of digital 3D film is largely due to the efforts of an unexpected figure: James Cameron. Cameron both helped create the modern 3D camera and masterminded the spread of 3D, all so Avatar could blow your mind.

Avatar dates back to 1977, when Cameron was just a truck driver determined to “out-Lucas George Lucas” in the outer space epic genre, but it took decades to get the clout to make as outrageous a project as Avatar. When he first sat down to plan the movie, his tech people told him his vision simply was not possible—”‘If we make this, we’re doomed,’ one of the artists told him. ‘It can’t be done. The technology doesn’t exist.’” He had to wait until after Titanic before he could tackle the project again.

This time, he got more invested in the tech side of it. The problem: He needed an incredibly high-definition camera that could deliver both 2D and 3D, without the headaches that sometimes accompanied two hours of 3D watching. There was a camera that could handle it, made by Sony, but the giant 450-pound unit wasn’t feasible for Cameron’s style of directing—so in 2000, he went out to Japan and persuaded Sony to re-engineer the camera to his liking. They ended up separating the camera’s huge CPU unit from its lens, connected by a cable, thus bringing the handheld weight down to only 50 pounds.

Cameron lent the camera to filmmaker buddies to spread the gospel of 3D so his eventual release of Avatar would have the distribution it needed. Spy Kids 3-D and the Lord of the Rings trilogy opened the doors for technologically astounding epic films, just what Cameron orchestrated. His camera and belief in 3D is setting the stage for the current era of blockbusters—not necessarily something you’d expect from a guy who releases a movie about once every 15 years. [Wired]

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Avatar : The Result of a Quest for the Holy Grail of Cameras [Cameras]

Apple’s new Core i7-based iMac might be a performance monster, but it looks like the whole family’s having some problems getting out of the gate: in addition to the previously-noted performance issues with the Core 2 Duo models, a quick glance across Apple’s support forums and on other Mac boards around the web reveals that some machines are showing up DOA and / or with cracked screens. We’re a little more familiar with the DOA issue, since the new i7 we just bought doesn’t boot at all, but the cracked screen issue seems to be equally common and mostly affecting the bottom left corner, from what we can tell. Now, our review Core 2 Duo 27-inch iMac is perfectly fine, and Chris Ziegler’s new Core i7 machine doesn’t have any problems either, so these obviously aren’t universal issues, but if you’re about to stick one of these under the tree for someone it might be wise to do some surreptitious testing first.

Core i7 iMacs showing up DOA — including ours originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These aren’t teens crowded around a laptop in a dorm room. These are the President of the United States and his staffers crowded around a laptop on board the Air Force One. We don’t know what’s on the screen. Guesses?

I like to think that they’re figuring out how to set up a soccer ball controlled Guitar Hero game in the White House, but let’s be realistic. They’re probably watching a crazy YouTube video. Question is which one. [Pete Souza via Top Cultured]

Photo by Pete Souza

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What Are These Guys Looking At? [Image Cache]