Our dream library: Unlimited e-books for less than $10 a month

The new app Oyster is heralded as the "Netflix for books." Let's test-drive.

via Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com

Eyes-on with Samsung's 31.5-inch 4K PC monitor

Samsung's continuing the UHD TV march here at IFA with plenty of sets, but it's also showing a 4K (3,840 x 2,160) 31.5-inch monitor that's built to sit on your desktop. Crisp images deliver on the Ultra High Definition promise, but the colors are particularly vibrant, due in part to the LED panel's ability to reproduce 1.07 billion colors and pictures that can cram in 99 percent of Adobe's RGB color spectrum. Because of that, the set easily distances itself from others that have flat, dull image reproduction. However, viewing angles leave something to be desired, as standing far off to the side clouds the monitor. Not only does this piece of kit churn out good imagery, but it easily tilts and pivots into a vertical position, to boot. When it comes to connectivity, the screen packs four USB ports and slots for HDMI, DVI-DL and DPX2. If you're ready to hook up this display to your PC, there will be some waiting involved -- no pricing or release details have been divulged. If you'd like to gawk at the firm's hardware, look out below for our gallery.%Gallery-slideshow83282%

Filed under: Displays, HD, Samsung

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The NSA’s work to make crypto worse and better

Leaked documents say that the NSA has compromised encryption specs. It wasn't always this way.

via Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com

Simple.TV reveals second-gen streaming DVR and Version 2.0 interface

Simple.TV's first streaming DVR had its rough edges, but the company is clearly willing to make improvements -- it just announced the second generation of its set-top box. The redesign is more flexible, sporting both a second tuner and compatibility with international broadcast standards like DVB-C, DVB-S2, DVB-T2 and ISDB-T. Both first- and second-generation owners will also get a revamped Version 2.0 interface that offers personalized content, faster updates and new streaming clients for Android, iOS, Roku players and the web. Simple.TV doesn't yet have pricing for the new DVR, but it tells us that both the device and the Version 2.0 upgrade will reach the US by mid-to-late November; Europeans will get the hardware next spring.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: Simple.TV

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2”, $45 cube PC runs Android and Linux on Cortex-A9 ARM chip

Mini-computer goes up to quad-core, can be pre-ordered now for $45 to $120.

via Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com

HDMI 2.0 officially announced: 18Gbps bandwidth, 60fps 4K, 32 channel audio

Only just after it leaked out, the folks at HDMI Licensing are announcing HDMI 2.0 officially. Arriving just in time for the wide rollout of a new generation of Ultra HDTVs, it adds a few key capabilities to the connection standard. With a bandwidth capacity of up to 18Gbps, it has enough room to carry 3,840 x 2,160 resolution video at up to 60fps. It also has support for up to 32 audio channels, "dynamic auto lipsync" and additional CEC extensions. The connector itself is unchanged, which is good for backwards compatibility but may disappoint anyone hoping for something sturdier to support all of those suddenly-popular dongles. The cables won't change either, as the group claims current high-speed Category 2 wires can handle the increased bandwidth. Some companies have suggested upgrade paths for their UHDTVs already on the market -- hopefully we'll find out more about those plans this week at IFA 2013.

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: HDMI.org

via Engadget RSS Feed http://www.engadget.com

Acer outs 27-inch WQHD touch display for €799

Acer certainly takes the cake for most product announcements before IFA's even officially begun. In addition to outing a new smartphone, tablet, all-in-one (and a few Haswell updates), the company is introducing a 27-inch WQHD display. The T272HUL's edge-to-edge, 2,560 x 1,440-pixel panel offers 10-point multi-touch, and the monitor's stand allows you to tilt the display up to 60 degrees. (It's also wall-mountable, if you're fancy like that.) A 2MP webcam and an integrated mic are also on board for video calls. Connectivity options include dual-link DVI, DisplayPort, HDMI and three USB 3.0 ports. The T272HUL will retail for €799 in September -- just don't look for this guy to hit the US.

Filed under: Displays, Acer

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Acer updates Aspire R7 with active pen and Haswell, brings touchscreens to the Aspire E Series

Acer's announcing a slew of new products today at IFA, but it's also updating a few existing models with a greater emphasis on touch. In addition to getting the mandatory upgrade to Intel's Haswell processors, the Aspire R7 will now come bundled with an Acer active pen for use on the 15.6-inch, 1080p touchscreen. Given that the notebook offers four usage modes (including an "Ezel mode" and tablet mode), having this additional input option certainly makes sense. To help you take advantage of the digitizer, the company is adding several apps to its pre-load: MemoryBinder for drawing on top of your photos, ScreenGrasp for capturing images with the pen and Scrapboard for collecting images and ideas, much like Evernote. There's also AccuFinger, which Acer says helps you select tiny items on-screen when you're using fingers rather than the pen. As for availability, the new R7 will hit Europe, the Middle East and Africa in late 2013, with the base price set at €999, though we're not sure when to expect it stateside just yet.

The Aspire E notebook series is also stepping up to Intel's fourth-gen processors, and Acer's adding in new AMD options as well. The biggest update, though, is the addition of 10-point multi-touch displays to upcoming models -- you'll appreciate having the option to navigate Windows 8.1 with your fingers, after all. Finally, the Aspire E will be offered in additional colors; you'll have your choice of Keyboard White, Misty Silver or Piano Black for the 14-inch model, while the 15.6-inch version comes in Cherry Red, Clarinet Black and Steel Grey. (Piano and Clarinet Black options, oh my!) The Aspire E1 will be available in mid-October with a starting price of €399 -- no word on US pricing just yet.

Filed under: Laptops, Acer

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Enblink turns any Google TV device into a home automation control center

Meet Enblink: a dongle that plugs into any Google TV device and turns it into a home automation control hub. Enblink works with any Z-Wave enabled gadget, from door locks and lamps to security sensors and video cameras. The dongle itself will serve as a Z-Wave radio (once it's passed through the Z-Wave certification process) when plugged into your GTV device of choice. From there, its software runs atop GTV's Android underpinnings and leverages the device's CPU to control the locks and lights in your abode. A companion app for Android turns your phone into a remote control and monitor for appliances hooked into the Enblink system, plus there's an iOS app currently in development. Input from mobile devices goes through Amazon Web Services, which relays commands to the dongle to execute your bidding from afar.

It's up for pre-order right now for $85, with the price rising to $99 when it officially goes on sale sometime in the next month or two. Of course, if you're streaming video to your mobile device, there's an ongoing fee (of undetermined cost) for the privilege once you've used up your free allotment of 30 seconds of streaming per day. Regardless, by leveraging existing GTV hardware and AWS to do the lifting on the backend, Enblink is a fraction of the cost of many purpose-built home automation base stations. So if you're a home automation geek that counts yourself among those very few with a Google TV and a slew of Z-Wave toasters, locks and light bulbs, your ship has, at long last, come in.

Filed under: Household, HD

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Source: Enblink

via Engadget RSS Feed http://www.engadget.com

Insane Omate TrueSmart smart watch has its own cell modem, camera, and GPS

A SIM card, GPS, and probably about 30 seconds of battery life

via Ars Technica http://arstechnica.com

Welsh: Empower airmen to do what they think is best

If it sounds stupid, don't do it, Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh advised airmen, supervisors and commanders Tuesday.

via airforcetimes.com http://www.airforcetimes.com

Pentagon's anti-Kony mission could stretch into 2015

The Pentagon mission to help four central African nations track warlord Joseph Kony could extend deep into 2015, according to records released Wednesday.

via airforcetimes.com http://www.airforcetimes.com

Official: DoD will 'aggressively' target military pay, troop levels

As the Defense Department maps out plans to absorb long-term budget cuts, military compensation and troop levels are among the primary targets, the Pentagon's top financial officer said.

via airforcetimes.com http://www.airforcetimes.com

Mormon Flix: LDS Movies

Mormon Flix (MormonFlix.com) has LDS movies to watch online for free, then purchase if you like them. Mormon Flix chooses movies that make you laugh, inspire, and give you a nice feeling after you watch them. They have compiled a list of every movie they could find so that you don’t have to search the […]

via LDS Media Talk http://ldsmediatalk.com

Hyper-V in my House - 2013

A while ago I talked about how I was using Hyper-V in my house.  These days I have a quite different configuration in place.  I updated my household deployment immediately after Windows Server 2012 was released.

I had a couple of goals with my new architecture:

1. I wanted to minimize downtime due to hardware servicing.
   
   My Hyper-V server handles DHPC, DNS, Internet Connectivity, hosts the kids movies, etc…  All this means that if I need to turn it off for any reason – I have to do it after everyone else has gone to bed.  Not fun.
   
   
2. I wanted to minimize the frequency with which I needed to service hardware.
   
   The leading cause for me needing to work on hardware has been hard drive failure.  So logically, more hard drives means more weekends working on servers.  Fewer hard drives means fewer weekends working on servers.
   
   
3. I need high levels of data protection.
   
   My server has all the family photos on it – data loss is not an option!
   
   
4. I need lots of storage.
   
   At this point in time I have about 5TB of data on my family file server.  So realistically I need 7-8 TB of storage for my file server and all other virtual machines.
   
   
5. I want to keep the cost down.
   
   Hey, no one likes to waste money!

With all of this in mind – here is what I ended up deploying:

 
I setup two Hyper-V servers.  Each server has a single quad-core processor (I do not use a lot of CPU), 16 GB of ram and 3 1 gigabit network adapters.  Each server also has 6 hard disks.  The first two disks are configured in RAID1 using the onboard Intel RAID.  The next four disks are configured as a 6TB parity space to give me the most capacity possible (note – in practice these four disks are a mix of 2TB and 3TB disks).

I then run half of my virtual machines on each server, and use Hyper-V Replica to replicate them to the other server.

This configuration gives me a high level of data protection (both from a single disk failure and an entire server failure).  It also means that if I have to replace a physical disk / fix a hardware problem with one of the servers – I just move all the virtual machines to the working server, and get to take my time fixing the broken server.

I have been running this configuration for almost a year now – and for the most part it has worked just fine.  I have had three separate occasions where I needed to work on a server, and my family did not notice it (for the most part – other than the general cursing and complaining that I was making while working).  That said, there have been some lessons learned for me:

1. Low storage IOPs can really hurt sometimes.
   
   When I built this system I knew that the storage throughput of the 6TB data disk would not be great, but I accepted this as a reasonable trade off in the space / price / performance matrix.  For 90% of the time it has also not been an issue – but there have been a couple of times when I have been surprised by how long operations took.
   
   
2. I need more memory.
   
   My previous setup was a single server with 8GB of memory.  So two servers with 16GB should be huge – right?  This was my thinking when I built the system – but I was wrong.  First, I need to make sure that I do not oversubscribe my memory so that I can run all my virtual machines off of one server when I need too.  Thankfully dynamic memory makes this easy to do, and ensures that when my virtual machines are spread across both servers I get to use all the memory.  Second though, as soon as I had the memory available I started firing up new virtual machines simply because I could – and it was not long until I was at my limit again.

Anyway – now that I have gotten this all written down, I am planning to blog about some of the experience I have had with this setup over the last year, and the lessons learned in the process.

Cheers,
Ben 

via Ben Armstrong http://blogs.msdn.com/b/virtual_pc_guy/

Nexus 7 and Migration from other Platforms - The Doc's World

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Nexus 7 and Migration from other Platforms

Being in the tech field, we are always moving from one device to another based on current trends.  As we grow more and more reliant on these devices as well as stored data, switching from one to other is sometimes disastrous or at least can be.  To set the stage, I have been a iPad […]

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3 Samsung SSD’s in RAID 0

Inspired by success of one of a colleague at the homeservershow.com (See the post from Joe_Miner), I decided to create a RAID 0 using 3 of the new Samsung EVO solid state drives.  Because I bought these with a specific need, I used 2 of the 250 Gig units and one of the 120 Gig […]

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3 Samsung SSD’s in RAID 0 - The Doc's World

via The Doc's World

3 Samsung SSD’s in RAID 0 - The Doc's World

via The Doc's World