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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Nokia UK have finally announced launch and pricing details for the Nokia X6, the company’s new Comes With Music flagship media phone.  Packing a 3.2-inch capacitive touchscreen, 32GB of integrated storage and a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, the Nokia X6 will arrive at UK retailer Phones4U on Friday November 27th, free with a £35 ($58) per month agreement.

Video demo after the cut

If you have an old Nseries Nokia you fancy trading in, you can knock £10 off that contract price and still take the X6 away without spending a penny on the handset itself.  It’s also available to preorder SIM-free online, at Nokia’s UK store, for a somewhat extravagant £449 ($746), though at time of writing we couldn’t find any sign of it.

Other features include 3G, up to 35 hours battery life for music playback, the Ovi apps store and a TV output and support for video recording.  It also has a touch-enabled browser with Flash Lite 3.0 support, Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi, A-GPS and a micro-USB port.  Check out our hands-on video with the Nokia X6 and live gallery below.

• Nokia N97 turns out to be fake
• Westinghouse LCD TV Stockpiled for Black Friday at BestBuy
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• Toshiba HD-A2 HD-DVD players under $100
• Nokia announces E61i and E65 in U.S

Read the rest here:
Nokia X6 arrives in UK this Friday

Nokia have outed two new budget sliders with a strong emphasis on media sharing, the Nokia 6700 Slide and the Nokia 7230.  The 6700 Slide packs a 5-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, together with onboard editing software, while the 7230 gets a more modest 3.2-megapixel camera.

Both have 3G for high-speed uploads (though only according to the press release; the 7230 data sheet only mentions EDGE), and integration with various (unspecified) social networks that we’re expecting to include Nokia’s own Ovi system and probably Facebook and MySpace.  The 6700 Slide has a 2.2-inch QVGA 16.7m color display, FM radio, mediaplayer and microSD card slot, while the 7230 has a 2.4-inch display.

Both handsets are expected to arrive in Q1 2010, with the Nokia 6700 Slide priced at around €160 ($239) and the Nokia 7230 at €100 ($150) (both pre-tax and pre-subsidy).  Each will be available in various colors.

Press Release:

Fresh looks and smart features: new Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230 unveiled
November 24, 2009

Espoo, Finland – Nokia today unveiled two new 3G slider phones, the Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230, made for the design-conscious consumer and optimized for socializing and sharing with those closest to you.

Available in various fresh colors, with great imaging features and quick access to popular social networking communities, the Nokia 6700 slide and Nokia 7230 make a real style statement.

Both devices are expected to become available in the first quarter of 2010, and the retail prices before taxes and subsidies are anticipated to be EUR 160 for the Nokia 6700 slide, and EUR 100 for the Nokia 7230.

Nokia 6700 slide – Capture and share quickly and easily
With a choice of six fresh and vivid colors – pink, red, petrol blue, aluminum, lime and purple – this slimline slider is sure to turn heads. Its compact size, modern design and aluminum finish feels great in the hand, and fits perfectly even in the smallest pocket or bag.

The smart capabilities of the Nokia 6700 slide are beautifully easy to use: The 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics is perfect for capturing and sharing moments as they happen. Favorite images can be edited on the go and uploaded to the web directly from the camera menu. The device’s high speed 3G connectivity ensures your favorite communities are always as close as your Nokia 6700 slide.

Nokia 7230 – Share in style
Being connected has never looked so good. The Nokia 7230’s compact slide design, colorful looks and solid set of features are a package that offers great value for money.

Sharing special moments and joy with friends and family is effortless, thanks to the 3.2 megapixel camera, large 2.4″ display and fast 3G connectivity. With the Nokia 7230 in your pocket, you also have quick access to email, instant messaging and social networks on the go, and the subtle illumination indicates if you have missed calls or messages from your friends.

• Nokia 6790 Surge (aka Mako) caught on video
• Nokia 2700 classic, 6700 classic and 6303 classic announced
• Nokia 6760 Slide is Europe’s AT&T Surge
• Phlash, you’re on camera
• Nokia 12-megapixel cameraphones with optical zoom in 2010?

Continued here:
Nokia 6700 Slide and 7230 budget cameraphones outed

HP reported their quarterly earnings today, and managed to beat expectations across the board, almost half a billion dollars above analyst predictions. Due to the positive news they’ve ramped up expectation for 2010 by $1-2 billion. Suck it, recession! [ZDNet]

Excerpt from:
HP Reports Q4 Profits, Raises Expectations for 2010 [Finance]

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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The lobster taser, which looks to me mostly like a lobster photocopier, is supposedly a more humane way of dispatching the delicious bottomfeeders than the normal “stab in the brain” or “boil alive” methods. Also, tasers.

Each stun, of about 110 volts, delivers a shock that immediately and effectively disables the lobster’s nervous system, allowing you to brain-stab or boil with no fear that you’ll be going to some sort of hell presided over by giant lobsters in which you’re boiled alive and served with a delicious lemon-butter-caper sauce and maybe some kind of side salad, even though you know the lobster that ends up eating you is going to ignore the salad because hello, human! Delicious!

The lobster taser is officially, and disappointingly, called the CrustaStun. Opportunity missed, Lobster Taser Inventors. [MAKE]

More here:
Lobster Taser: Now We’ve Tasered Everything [Tasers]

Life goes behind-the-scenes of the 1954 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea
Honda makes the ultimate Paperboy gaming system
Now blinking LEDs can transmit information to cell phones via light
Must-have: Illuminated JetBib Feeding System
Ringz: First (free) Android app with in-app purchase

Original post:
Daily Crunch: Deep Sea Edition

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]

There’s some grumbling going on in forums and other blogs about Core i7 iMacs showing up DOA much more often than you’d expect from a brand-new computer.

The two types of issues we’re seeing most are cracks in the screen and a completely dead computer on delivery. What’s most plausible is that the packaging just wasn’t designed to handle the size and weight of the giant 27-inch iMac as it gets tossed around the cab of a FedEx truck. Apple has so far been extremely responsive and effective in making repairs and exchanges, but it’s still a discomfiting sign—if you’re about to buy a new iMac, you might want to wait and see if Apple announces a fix for whatever’s going on before you take the plunge. [Apple Forums via Engadget]

Here is the original:
Some Core i7 iMacs Showing Up Dead [Apple]

This is certainly something all museums should attempt; not only does it allow for easy browsing of the museum’s pieces, as you see here, but if correctly done it could have maps, lectures, and all sorts of other stuff going on as well. It’s pretty easy to get lost in a labyrinth like the Louvre or V&A, but a system like this could both put people where they want to go and get them to buy more prints and mugs. Can you say credit card reader? I knew you could.

Of course, it’s nearly impossible to see this thing in action because the presentazione they’ve made is so unbelievably awful. Yes, showcase your state-of-the-art technology in a 320