Solar Powered 3D Printer Uses Sand to Print

Student creates 3D printer that utilizes the desert's sun and sand to create objects.

Designed by Markus Kayser, this innovative 3D printer utilizes the desert's virtually endless sun and sand to create 3D objects. Dubbed the Solar Sinter, this 3D printer utilizes solar panels to create sustainable energy that harnesses the sun's heat rays to melt the silica in the desert's sand and create 3D objects. Although the objects may not be as precise as a 3D laser printer, the fact that this device creates anything out of the sun and sand is incredible.

Patriot, Super Talent Launch SSDs with SF-220

Both Patriot Memory and Super Talent have launched new SSDs using SandForce's SF-2200 controller.

On Monday Patriot Memory said that it's now shipping the new series of Wildfire SSDs featuring the SandForce SF-2200 controller. This provides the new line with up to 555 MB/s sequential read and up to 520 MB/s sequential write speeds when connected to a SATA 6 Gb/s interface.

"The Patriot Wildfire is the fastest SSD drive we have ever released," says William Lai, Patriot Memory's Product Manager. "Although we are a bit late to market, we wanted to ensure that the technology was rock-solid. We are confident with the latest firmware, Patriot’s reputation for quality and performance stand second-to-none."

Sony Hacker GeoHot Now Working at Facebook

George Hotz, better known in some circles as GeoHot, garnered quite a lot of attention when he was sued by Sony for his PlayStation 3 hack. However, it seems things are going quite well for the 21-year-old now.

Hacker George Hotz is best known for his work in cracking the iPhone and the PS3, but it seems he's now picked up a day job at Facebook. TechUnwrapped reports that Joshua Hill, a member of the Chronic-Dev Team group responsible for iOS jailbreak tool greenpois0n, said during a recent interview that Hotz had declined a challenge to find a bootrom exploit for the iPad 2. Hotz apparently said no because he wanted to keep publicity to a minimum and focus on his day job at Facebook.

VOTW: A Dual-screen Folding Smartphone Tablet

We’ve seen dual-screen tablets from several companies but have we seen a dual-screen, folding phone?

This is a tablet phone prototype from a company called Imerj. The device is an Android 2.3 Gingerbread smartphone that can turn into a 6-inch tablet at a moments notice. When in its smartphone state, the Imerj prototype is about 50 percent thicker than an iPhone. When unfolded, it’s thinner than a Galaxy Tab 10.1 (one of the skinniest tablets available today).

Specswise, you’re looking at two 4-inch WVGA AMOLED displays, a dual-core TI OMAP CPU (clock speed not yet known), 1GB of DDR3 RAM, up to 128GB of storage, and a 1,750mAh battery. No word on pricing and availability just yet, but we’ll let you know if we hear anything.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbhaWn_AWQw&feature=player_embedded

USA Teaching 8-Year-Olds How to Be Hackers

Have things gotten so bad online security-wise that the government is now recruiting adolescents?

Want to teach your kids how to hack? There's a conference for that.

Reuters reports that the first-ever Defcon Kids conference will take place this August in Las Vegas, and will teach children ranging from ages eight to sixteen the basics of computer hacking, and how to protect themselves against cyber attacks. It will also serve as a recruiting farm for U.S. federal agents looking for the next-generation of "digital crime fighters."

Nokia's First Windows Phone 7 Device Leaked

Images and video of Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 device have been leaked.

Earlier this week, Nokia was making a big fuss over the its first MeeGo device and the shipping dates for the latest version of its proprietary OS, Symbian Anna. However, it seems today has brought news of a much more interesting ‘first’ for Nokia -- the company’s first Windows Phone 7 handset.

Here are photos of Nokia’s first smartphone running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. Of course, anyone can take a couple of low quality photos and claim they depict an unreleased and highly anticipated handset. To that end, there’s also video footage that leaves very little doubt that this is the real deal. It shows Nokia CEO Stephen Elop unveiling the device at a private event. Despite the Chief Executive’s request to turn off all cameras because he was going to show something ‘super confidential [they] do not want to see it out in the blogosphere,’ one wily attendee managed to catch a glimpse of the phone on camera and has posted it to YouTube for all the world to see.

Wi-Fi Enabled Fridge is Equipped With Apps, LCD

Samsung's new fridge comes with apps!

We've seen some pretty cool futuristic refrigerator concepts out there such as the self-cleaningfridge, and the cooking assistant fridge, but who knows how long we'll have to wait to be graced with some of their technological wonders. It might be awhile until we can rely on our refrigerators to clean themselves out and teach us how to cook but Samsung has brought us one step closer to high tech refrigerator awesomeness.The brand new Samsung Wi-Fi equipped refrigerator features an impressive 8 inch touch screen that allows you to play with eight included applications: Memos, Photos, Epicurious, Calendar, WeatherBug, AP, Pandora and Twitter. These applications make your stop to the fridge much more organized and informative by allowing you to write and view memos, notes, and calendar reminders. You can even immediately update your twitter status for emergency situations! "@Cheeseloverxoxo HELPP!!! NO MORE CHEESE!!"

Samsung's innovative fridge can even enhance your dining experience by acting as a digital picture frame or lightening the mood with some Pandora music. Although the fridge doesn't do anything fancy like cook your meals or stock itself, Samsung's Wi-Fi Fridge would be a great addition to any tech lover's home. Unfortunately for the price of $3,499 for the four door and $2,699 for the two door, it may be cheaper and more efficient to mount an iPad on top of your existing refrigerator.

Windows Much Safer After Microsoft Killed Autorun

A safer, more idiot proof autorun.

Autorun is one way for malware to trick a user into installing some nefarious software from removable storage media. An executable could reside on a USB flash drive and, when inserted into a PC, would prompt the user to click the autorun file.

Back in February, Microsoft released an update that curbed autorun behavior for all supported Windows platforms stretching back to Windows XP SP3 to Windows Vista SP2 (Windows 7 already had a "fixed" autorun behavior and Windows XP SP2 was no longer supported through updates).

When comparing stats before and after the Microsoft update, we clearly see that blocking the autorun of removable storage had a significant effect on the infection rate. It may have been a tweak to stop a certain action on the users' part, but it was certainly effective.

BestConfigs Is Back, And Powered By You!

BestConfigs is back, and we're ready to update our pre-defined configurations using the top hardware suggestions presented and voted-on by our community. Use our Tom's Hardware System Builder Facebook app or your BBCode-formatted submission!

Our BestConfigs section is atrociously outdated. We know this, are we’re going to rectify the situation as quickly as possible.

As a quick refresher, BestConfigs is a section of the site with recommended configurations that fit within a specific theme, and duck under a set budget. The last time we updated our nine builds, we used audience-suggested configurations that were presented by our readers and then voted on by the community. A software bug stopped us before we could get each winning configuration posted to the site. But that has since been fixed, and we’re ready to roll again (this time with one addition: a do-it-yourself NAS).

Microsoft Makes Justin Bieber Windows 7 Theme

Bieber Fever for Windows 7.

Microsoft wants Windows 7 to grow to surpass Windows XP as the most popular operating system in the world. While the problem in getting users to transition away from Windows XP may be just due to older hardware, Microsoft is still hitting all the demographics.

With that in mind, Microsoft has just made available the official Justin Bieber theme for Windows 7. That's right, images and other theme items are lifted from material related to the Justin Bieber film, "Never Say Never".

Intel 710 Lyndonville, 720 Ramsdale SSD Specs

There's some ludicrous speed.

German computer site Computer Base obtained some unreleased information regarding Intel's 710 'Lyndonville' and 720 'Ramsdale' SSDs that are coming down the pipe.

The 710 is using Intel's 25nm NAND flash on a SATA 3Gbps connection. Those will come in 100, 200 and 300 GB varieties and will have read and write speeds at up to 270 MB/s and 210 MB/s.

The real interesting bits are about the 720, which runs on the PCIe bus. The PCIe bus interface alludes to some pretty intense speeds, but our jaws are dropping at the read and write speeds of up to 2200 MB/s and 1800 MB/s, respectively, noted on the leaked specs sheet.

These SSDs are set to hit until Q3, so it should not be too much longer until we have the official word (and test units) from Intel.

Aiken Labs Creates First Non-Optical Motion Capture

Motion capture technology that works in the dark!

Last week at E3 we got an exclusive sneak peak at AikenLabs' incredible soon to be released Immersive Motion accessory product line. With a planned release date of June 30, this innovative product is sure to revolutionize the motion capture gaming industry. Unlike traditionally optical motion capture devices such as the Kinect and PS3 Move, Immersive Motion utilizes the latest sensor and radio wireless technologies to ensure your gaming experience goes uninterrupted by oncoming pet traffic, intrusive furniture and even a lack of sufficient lighting. 

Microsoft Warns of Internet Phone Scam

Internet phishers have turned to making actual phone calls to potential victims in order to steal hard-earned cash.

Thursday Microsoft said that there's an emerging form of Internet fraud that is costing victims an average of $875 USD. But unlike the typical phishing hooks that arrive via email and lead to identity-stealing malware, these scammers are making it personal by contacting consumers directly by phone, posing as computer security engineers.

HTC: Wait, the HTC Desire WILL Get Gingerbread

HTC has done an about face with regard to Gingerbread on its Desire handset.

HTC yesterday disappointed thousands of Desire users when it revealed that the device would not be getting Android’s Gingerbread update because there wasn’t enough RAM. HTC originally said that it would not be able to bring Gingerbread to the Desire because there wasn’t room enough for Gingerbread and the company’s own Sense UI. 

Skype Coming to Comcast TV's Later This Year

Later this year, Comcast will offer a Skype bundle including an HD webcam, an adapter box with Skype pre-loaded, and a modified cable box remote with a QWERTY keyboard.

FOX News reports that Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp will be providing Skype to its subscribers later this year. The VoIP software will be bundled with a high-quality HD webcam, an adapter box that plugs into the customer's HDTV, and a modified Comcast cable box remote with a built-in QWERTY keyboard.

Samsung Beats Nokia As Largest Smartphone Maker

Nokia is expected to suffer a major blow this quarter as Nomura analysts said that the company will lose its rank as largest smartphone manufacturer this quarter.

For the first time in 15 years, Nokia will drop below competitors: Samsung will take the lead, followed by Apple and Nokia, Nomura said.

Nokia maintains that it will be launching Windows Phone 7 devices later this year, but the company has been criticized that it virtually destroyed its current sales potential by telling consumers that it will phase its Symbian operating system out. All current Nokia phones have, at least as far as platform support is concerned, little to no value. Nokia's credibility is badly damaged these days and its sales appear to be in a free fall, as the company is not even providing a business outlook anymore. However, Microsoft will depend on Nokia to make Windows Phone 7 a success.

Developer Bringing Windows 8 UI to Windows 7

Indie developers inspired by tiles.

The Windows 8 tile interface that Microsoft showed off a couple weeks ago has been a big hit. The video that Microsoft released has hit 3.7 million views to date. (Click here to see that bit of news.)

While not everyone is thrilled by the tablet inspiration, Microsoft has made it clear that the new interface simply just exists on top of the current, familiar Windows desktop.

With that in mind, some independent developers are working to bring that tile-based UI to Windows 7.WinRumors has highlighted the early work of Italian developer Sergio James Bruccoleri, who is working on a public beta of a Windows 8-like interface that will layer on top of Windows 7.

Bruccoleri says that this demo is in a pre-beta state, and that a public beta will come with "effects and some cool stuffs."

ASUS Says Wintel PC Era Is Over

It is not really secret that both Intel and Microsoft have exploited their market dominance over the past two decades and not always treated system vendors in a friendly way.

It appears that the current PC era can't end fast enough for some PC makers and break free from Wintel.

Asustek chairman Jonney Shih told reporters that the Wintel era is "over" and that no CPU or OS vendor will be able to dominate PCs, tablets or smartphones as it was the case in the past. New platforms are fueling the hope that PC makers will have much more say and power over chip makers once the tablet has gained traction.

HP Wi-Fi Tablet Arriving Next Month for $499

The Wi-Fi version of HP's TouchPad will officially arrive next month. In the meantime, HP will begin taking pre-orders starting June 19.

Thursday HP said that the Wi-Fi version of its upcomingTouchPad tablet can be pre-ordered directly from HP or from participating retailers nationwide (and in Europe) starting June 19. The tablet won't actually launch here in the United States until July 1, 2011. The 16 GB model will retail for $499.99 and the 32 GB model for $599.99.

Panasonic Using ARM Cortex-A9 in Smart TV SoC

Both ARM and Panasonic revealed that the new UniPhier MN2WS0220 SoC for smart TVs will feature a dual-core Cortex-A9 MPCore design, a 3D graphics engine and other surprising features.

Usually when we hear the name "ARM," it means technology used for tablets and smartphones. But on Wednesday ARM said that its technology is now being used in Panasonic Corporation's just-announced UniPhier (short for UniversalPlatform for High-quality Image Enhancing Revolution) MN2WS0220 System on Chip (SoC).

Win8 Will Push ARM into 40% of Netbooks By 2015

ARM's CEO thinks that Windows 8 will push ARM-based chips into 40-percent of the market's netbooks by 2015.

There was a time when Intel and AMD were butting heads just about every week, fighting to gain the hearts of general consumers, gamers and enthusiasts alike. Then AMD seemingly took a step back to handle personal business and to let Intel thrive on the market, enough so that the competitor gathered its troops to invade the mobile sector. Now the war seems to be between ARM and Intel as the former invades the space of the latter and vice versa.

Intel Finally Has a Real 4 GHz CPU

Intel has quietly introduced its first CPU that is capable of running at 4 GHz clock speed off the shelf.

An updated spec sheet reveals that the recently introduced Xeon E3-1290 runs at 3.6 GHz with four cores, but the chip's turbo boost will scale the clock speed to 4.0 GHz when running on only one core. What makes this processor particularly interesting is the fact that it is closely related to the i7-2000 Sandy Bridge series, which would indicate that Intel could be launching a 4 GHz desktop processor as well.

Kingston Reveals its First SandForce-based SSD

his week at Computex, Kingston revealed its very first 2.5-inch SSD using a SandForce controller targeting 

enthusiasts, gamers and performance users. Dubbed as the Kingston HyperX, the SSD is based on SandForce SF-2281 controllers and a SATA 6 Gb/s interface, and ships next month in 120 and 240 GB capacities.

"This launch is very exciting for us at Kingston," said Ariel Perez, SSD business manager. "The SandForce controller allows us to deliver the high-end performance that is needed for power-users, gamers, and enthusiasts. Integrating a final production quality controller and firmware, and undergoing extensive testing has been an exacting process, but well worth the wait. By pairing SandForce’s latest controller with Intel 25-nm compute NAND (P/E 5K), we have built an SSD that meets the requirements set by true enthusiasts.”

Motorola Site Leaks Xoom 2, Dick Tracy Watch

Oops!

If ever there was a perfect week to accidentally release photos of a not-yet announced product, Computex week would be that week. With so much happening in Taipei and so many companies announcing new products, the focus on news outside of the convention is greatly reduced. Still, that doesn’t mean people are going to miss it completely.

It seems someone over at Motorola Mobility made the mistake of accidentally publishing pictures of several new products online. According to PocketNow, which managed to snag a few screenshots, the company was in the middle of a site redesign when the following images cropped up:

Intel Ships 100 Million Atom CPUs in Three Years

Not bad for three years of availability.

There was a time, in the height of the netbook craze, when Intel’s Atom processor seemed to be in every single small computer that hit the market. Since then, the company’s seen some stiff competition from the likes of AMD, Nvidia and ARM, but that hasn’t stopped the steady shipment of Atoms.
Intel is this week celebrating a milestone for the Atom processor. The company today spent part of its Computex keynote wishing Atom a happy birthday (it’s three years old this year) and revealed that to date, the company has shipped a whopping one hundred million Atom CPUs.

Hackers Target Lockheed Martin with 'Significant Attack'

Lockheed Martin this past weekend confirmed that it had been the target of a ‘significant’ cyber attack launched earlier in the month.

If nothing else, the disastrous breach suffered by Sony has highlighted the need for companies to take network security seriously. Another incident, which occurred earlier this month and involved the United States’ largest defense contractor, is driving that same point home once again.