There’s lot going on in home automation giant Crestron’s new Core 3 OS, but up there is the fact that it runs on basically anything—from the iPhone and iPad to the Samsung Galaxy tablets sprinkled around their booth.

Core 3 supports HTML5, Flash, h.264 video, and from it you can control AV equipment, lighting, climate control and pretty much anything else networked into the system. [Crestron]

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Services like Gazelle and ecoNew are great, because you can sell them your old, unwanted gadgets for a decent price, and they’ll be recycled, which is better than just throwing them in the trash. Ecosquid makes this process easy.

Instead of manually entering in your info on multiple sites, Ecosquid acts like an Expedia or a Priceline or an Orbitz, searching all those sites for you and spitting out the best offers. An example!

Above is the 16GB iPhone 3GS. The top four offers are there, giving you a pretty comparable payout for sending in the phone. There are some more results below too, like AT&T, Motorola, Best Buy, reconnect, Apple and Cell Phones for Soldiers, plus two more pages of various organizations that offer $0 for your stuff. My guess is you won’t make it past page one most of the time.

Ecosquid! Just like you’re not going to search individual airline sites unless you’re married to one specific carrier for luxury or points reasons, you probably don’t care which recycling service your old junk goes to. [Ecosquid]

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The BlackBerry tablet is here, and it looks astoundingly nice. Nicer than anybody expected it to be. Here’s what you need to know about the PlayBook, in 10 easy steps.

It’s a 7-inch tablet with a 1024×600 screen that weighs 0.9 pounds

Meaning it’s smaller and lighter than the iPad, with a more pixel-dense screen (i.e., text is gonna look cleaner and less pixel-y). It’s a little bigger and heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, on the other hand. (Then again, the Galaxy Tab looks more like a really big phone.)

It’s running BlackBerry Tablet OS

As rumored, the BlackBerry PlayBook isn’t running “BlackBerry 6,” but the BlackBerry tablet OS, which is “powered by QNX technology.” QNX is a software company RIM bought in April, whose software is used in products by Cisco and GE, among others. The OS is built on QNX’s Neutrino microkernel.

It supports a whole bunch of standard platforms and technologies, like POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry 6, WebKit, Java, Adobe Flash and AIR, along with RIM’s new BlackBerry WebWorks platform. Apps written for WebWorks will run on BlackBerry 6 or the PlayBook, while Java makes it easier for developers to port Java-based BlackBerry 6 apps. Oh, and OpenGL means there’s serious potential for graphically intense games.

It’s got a tablet-optimized UI and multitasks out of the gate, unlike the iPad. And unlike Android, it has a nicer interface for navigating through applications, like a cross between webOS’s cards and Apple’s CoverFlow. It’s got an onscreen keyboard for typing. The snippets of App World in the preview video look a lot like what you have on BlackBerry phones, a grid of tiles. The music player looks a bit like the iPod app on the iPad, but skinned in a slate color.

Dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB RAM

That means it’s got the horsepower to multitask, output 1080p video and run high-powered apps. The 1GB of RAM is particularly important for running applications in the background, and opening multiple tabs in the web browser, as iPad owners know from opening more than a few tabs in Safari and watching them get flushed as the iPad runs out of memory.

It’s got “true” multitasking

By saying the PlayBook has “true” multitasking, RIM seems to be pointing at the fact that multitasking on the iPad is still limited in a lot of ways. Apps can’t fully run in the background on the iPad like on a full computer, they can simply perform select actions, like playback audio or finish a download in a given amount of time. The implication is that the PlayBook will let things run willy nilly in the background, more like a standard BlackBerry phone.

“Flash-Loving,” with Adobe Flash 10.1 and Adobe AIR built in

It runs Flash and AIR, which means Flash sites that don’t work on the iPad will at least be viewable on the PlayBook. It’ll be interesting to see how well Flash works on the PlayBook versus less powerful Android phones, where it can run into performance issues. AIR, on the other hand, opens the door for some app opportunities. Combined with the WebKit browser, it should be a pretty decent web experience.

Dual cameras with video conferencing and lots o’ ports

This is swanky. The rear camera is a 5-megapixel shooter, while the front is three megapixels. From the back, it shoots video and from the front you can video chat.

It supports a handful of video formats—in 1080p—like h.264, WMV, DivX and MPEG, and it’ll output video through a mini HDMI port. Also, it’s got a standard micro USB port.

There’s a Kindle App on the way

The PlayBook is more book-sized than the iPad, so fortunately a Kindle app for reading is already on the way, Amazon confirms. We’re very excited about this.

Integrated with BlackBerry stuffs

It’ll pair with a BlackBerry phone, so you can use the tablet to look at anything that’s on the phone, like email, calendars or BBM without syncing the two. And it connects with BlackBerry Enterprise Server out of the box, along with all that entails.

It’s coming out next year, but don’t ask how much it costs

Specifically, RIM says it’s coming out in the US in early 2011, with other places getting it sometime after March. There’s gonna be 3G and 4G models in the future. RIM’s not saying how much it’s gonna cost yet, but since RIM loves the carriers, expect it to be offered through them for a discount. (In the preview video, it’s mentioned that it works with existing BlackBerry smartphone data plans, so we’ll see what that means.)

Overall, the PlayBook is a lot more exciting than anybody expected a BlackBerry tablet to be, especially given how thoroughly mediocre their last major product, the BlackBerry Torch, was. In fact, we’re a little more amped about it than the Galaxy Tab. Now RIM’s just gotta carry through the ball forward.

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It’s amazing to see how things change in a little more than a decade. Back then, Steve Jobs preached the new iMac as the center of your digital life, the internet machine. Now, the internet machine fits in your pocket.

But with sixteen times the memory, eight times the storage, and more than double its raw computational power. All in just a tiny fraction of the iMac’s size and at almost half the price. It truly boggles the mind. Back then, if you told this to anyone, they would have thought you were nuttier than Mel Gibson on speed.

It’s even more amazing to see how this tiny little thing has dwarfed the Mac. In 2009, Apple sold 10 million Macs—including the desktop and portables—compared to a whooping 45 million iPhones. And the 45 million is not counting the other iOS devices. Next year, the iPad alone is expected to surpass the sales of all Mac computers combined.

The difference in terms of revenue is about the same, so it’s not surprising to see iOS development at the core of their World Wide Developer Conferences. The usual suspects may scream, but the iPhone 4 and the rest of the iOS devices are now not only the bread and butter of the company, but also its heart.

[Graphic based on Brett Jordan's original via tuaw]

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We’ve seen numerous announcements of tablet computers in recent weeks, as the R&D labs of the world push out their hastily assembled attempts at competing with Apple’s game-changing iPad. But are any of them up to the job?

Last week alone saw ViewSonic, Toshiba and Samsung all officially unveil new models of keyboard-less computer, with a mish-mash of operating systems and screen sizes hoping to somehow build themselves a market in the wake of Apple’s market-leading device.

So here’s a summary of five of the best tablets out there and on the way this year. Or, to put it another way, the iPad +4.

Samsung Galaxy Tab

Screen: 7-inch Super TFT-LCD, 1024×600
Storage: 16GB internal, up to 32GB micro SD
Processor: Cortex A8 1.0GHz
OS: Android 2.2

The closest Android has got to Apple so far, at least in terms of hype and noise prior to its launch. Officially unveiled at IFA this week, the Samsung Galaxy Tab features a 7″ screen and the latest 2.2 version of Android at its core.

The internals are the same as those of the Samsung Galaxy S, offering the Cortex A8 processor that won so many fans when in mobile phone format. The hardware feature set closely adheres to Apple’s template, but also offering a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera for video chat—despite the fact that not many Android apps currently support the feature. Samsung has confirmed the Galaxy Tab has one big advantage over tablets—access to the Android Market.

Much more pocketable than the iPad with only a 7″ screen, it’s the best Android currently has when looking for a proper iPad competitor. Kat was certainly won over by it at IFA last week.

iPad

Screen: 9.7-inch LED backlit
Storage: 16, 32 or 64GB flash
Processor: Apple A4 1GHz
OS: iOS

The current tablet king, thanks to making tablet interfaces fashionable and usable. Apple’s tablet is typical of an Apple product—polished and beautifully functional as long as you don’t want to do anything outside of Apple’s closely controlled world.

Obviously the big winner here is compatibility with standard apps from Apple’s App Store, meaning iPad comes with the world’s biggest collection of apps and games from day one. Albeit most of them are upscaled, but high-res iPad reworkings are quickly becoming the norm from most top developers.

The hardware is fast and responsive, and although there’s no camera, USB connector or Flash support, for casual browsing of your feeds and blogs in Star Trek style there’s simply no better option.

ViewSonic ViewPad 100

Screen: 10-inch LED backlit LCD, 1024×600
Storage: 16GB SSD, 32GB micro SD
Processor: Intel Atom N455 1.66GHz
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium, Android 1.6

The killer feature in the ViewSonic ViewPad 100 is dual-booting capabilities with Windows 7 and Android, so you can kill two birds (cell phone nerd, work use) with one stone.

The rather outdated Android 1.6 isn’t going to stand up against Windows 7 very well, though, which makes us think the Android support here is more of a tagged-on feature to help whip up a bit of excitement among Android fanatics. It’ll be good to see Android running on an Intel Atom, though.

The main worry here is that the ViewPad 100 is an awkward combination machine, either way too powerful for Android 1.6 or not man enough to operate Windows 7 with ease. And can Android 1.6 really cut it as a tablet OS? ViewSonic had better have one hell of a user interface skin lined up.

Toshiba Folio 100

Screen: 10.1-inch 1024×600
Storage: 16GB flash
Processor: Nvidia Tegra 2
OS: Android 2.2

Another tablet that clones iPad’s winning 10-inch screen size, we expect the Toshiba Folio 100 to operate at lightning speed thanks to the coupling of the next-gen Nvidia Tegra 2 chipset and the optimised Android 2.2 as its OS—so it’s also fully Flash-enabled.

You get a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, so you can tell people it’s got a front-facing camera. Even if you never, ever, actually use it. Plus there’s a mini HDMI port for proper HD media connectivity with your big TV.

Its other connectivity options are plentiful—802.11n Wi-Fi, SD/MMC card support, plus there’ll be a 3G version launching in Q1 2011.

Archos 7o Internet Tablet

Screen: 7-inch TFT LCD, 800×480
Storage: 8GB flash, up to 250GB HD
Processor: Arm Cortex A8
OS: Android 2.2

Archos is betting its family farm on Android, with a whole heap of Android tablets on the way. The top of the bunch has to be the Archos 7o, the 7″ version powered by the impressive ARM Cortex A8.

The media playing history of Archos means you get an over-sized hard drive in here for your massive legacy collection of MP3s, with the Archos 7o capable of housing anything up to a 250GB drive. Android 2.2 is the OS of choice, which ought to be a blisteringly fast experience on the Cortex A8. There’s USB and HDMI connectivity, with the 7o able to play 720p HD MP4 files at 30fps.

If you look at this one as a big media player rather than a small tablet, it ought to be a winner. You won’t be doing much productive business work on its 800×480 display, but having FroYo on a 7″ screen should make it a winner for the Android fans.

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What, pray tell, is this? It’s Dell’s new Inspiron Duo, a 10″ tablet that opens up and twirls its screen to transform itself into a netbook. Craziest of all? They’re saying it’ll be available before the end of the year.

Dell showed off the crazy little guy, which runs Windows 7 Premium and packs a dual-core Atom N550 processor, at the second day keynote of Intel’s IDF conference—you can catch a video of its transformation in action over at Engadget. There’s no word if they’ve made any concessions to make its version of Windows 7 more tablet friendly, but this Inspiron gets kudos for audacity alone. [Engadget]

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The Indian government has revealed its super-super-low-priced tablet computer, which it says it’ll start selling to students this year—for $35. It’s a bit bulky, but for $35 you can’t really whine about the bezel size.

Indian authorities expect to be able to make and sell the chunky computer for $35 at first, before economies of scale bring that down to $20—and eventually $10. But it won’t be a stripped-down, feature-light machine—the impressive hardware spec includes support for video conferencing, PDF and multimedia compatibility, internet access (with Flash!) and much more.

The full press release from the Indian government’s HR department can be read here. [TNW]

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Today Cisco has unveiled the Cius, a 7-inch business tablet capable of capturing and displaying high-resolution video among a bevy of other business oriented tasks for which the device is geared. With collaboration and communication portability in mind, the device weighs in at 1.15 pounds and supports HD video streaming, multi-party conferencing, and all the messaging and browsing you could ever need for business use. Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity insures employees in the field can easily stay in touch with headquarters.

The Android-based tablet won’t be available until 2011, though consumer trials will begin during Q3 of this year, but you probably can’t expect to see this tablet available directly to the consumer. Sales of the device will be targeted toward business and enterprise users through Cisco, which is a bit of a shame considering some of the truly cool features this tablet offers. I actually really dig the office phone docking station, too.

Highlights:

The Cisco Cius is a lightweight portable business computing tablet offered with an optional HD audio station equipped with a telephone handset speakerphone, HD DisplayPort and USB ports.

The Cisco Cius tablet features a front-mounted 720p HD camera which refreshes at up to 30 frames per second; a seven inch, high-resolution widescreen super VGA touch-target display for real-time and streamed video, and single-button TelePresence interoperability that can be utilized either when the tablet is docked, or being used remotely via Wi-Fi.

The tablet has a 5-megapixel rear facing camera that can transmit streaming VGA quality video and capture still images, and dual noise-cancelling microphones for audio conferencing.

Cisco Cius features an eloquent contacts-driven user experience, designed to enables users to quickly reach their important contacts.

An on-board accelerometer readily orients applications for viewing in portrait or landscape modes as the user rotates the device to their preferred viewing orientation

Cisco Cius supports 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi for enterprise campus mobility and 3G cellular services when off-campus. 4G services will be available at a later date. Bluetooth and Micro-USB means users can work untethered and share data with a PC.

A detachable and serviceable battery offers eight hours life under normal usage.

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Dell’s Inspiron line has never been stodgy, exactly. They’re steady, workaday notebooks that you’d take to college or have kicking around the living room. And that’s been just fine! The R series, though, adds a bit more flair.

The new Inspirons that Dell’s announcing today don’t represent much of a spec upgrade—the line’s been packing Core i3/i5 since January—but with colors options like “Peacock Blue” and “Lotus Pink,” it’s clear that Dell wants to amp up their style quotient.

How successful were they? Well, that’s a matter of personal preference. There’s certainly enough here to like, though: a forward hinge, lifted from the Inspiron Mini 10, allows you to open the display further than before. The 6-cell battery is well hidden. And the design just feels more modern, more smooth. All good things!

One problem that persists, though: the lids aren’t smudge-resistant, meaning that no matter how pretty the notebook is, it’s soon going to be filled up with your murky thumb impressions.

As for the guts, you’ve got the Core i3/i5 options I mentioned earlier, along with optional 1GB discrete ATI graphics (though no Nvidia Optimus for easy switching) and optional Intel Wi-Di.

The R series comes in 14, 15, and 17-inch flavors, and however gussied up the bodies are, the most attractive thing about them might be the starting price of $449.

Update: The Inspiron model originally pictured in this post was not in the R series, will be available at some point later this year. [Dell]

GORGEOUS, INTUITIVE AND ENTERTAINING, SAY HELLO TO THE

NEW INSPIRON R LAPTOPS FROM DELL

* Dell’s Most Popular Laptops Designed to Keep Families Organized and Entertained
* Available at Dell’s Newest U.S. Retail Partner, Fry’s Electronics on June 25

ROUND ROCK, Texas, June 21, 2010 – Today, more than ever, families are looking to technology as an extra set of hands – one that helps them stay connected, quickly cross items off daily ‘to-do’ lists, and keep them entertained. The new Inspiron R laptops were designed with this in mind – making it easier than ever to access personal files and securely share photos and videos wirelessly, as well to enjoy the ideal mobile personal entertainment hub, offering smooth video playback, surround sound and a built-in Webcam.

Wrapped in curvy edges, smooth lines and available in four unique colorful finishes with chrome accents, the Inspiron R laptops are as beautifully designed as they are useful. With several display sizes ranging from 14-inch models that fit perfectly in a messenger bag, to home and dorm room-friendly 15- and 17-inch versions, the Inspiron R boasts a contemporary and sleek appearance that will make anyone feel good about bringing it out in the classroom or the local coffee shop.

Dell also built in unique features and timesavers like the Dell Dock, which reduces time searching applications and files – photos, videos and most commonly used apps are placed right at the top of the screen. For those who choose the optional Intel Wireless Display* feature, the Inspiron R makes it easy to project what is on the laptop display on a nearby HDTV without the need for cables. Students have the option to purchase any version of Microsoft Office 2010 pre-installed on their Inspiron R laptops, to ensure they have the tools they need to kick off the school year.

“The Inspiron R takes the rock solid Inspiron line and amps up the cool factor with a sexy and practical machine for entertainment, and social networking along with all the usual home, school and work functions,” said Glen Robson, vice president, product marketing, Dell. “Photos, videos and personal files can also be securely stored and shared with DataSafeOnline for peace of mind right out of the box. This is a laptop that moms will love and youths will ask for.”

Designed to stand up to the rigors of active families and students on the go Inspiron R models feature smudge-resistant palm rests, a full-size, comfortable keyboard and a stiffer frame for a solid, quality feel. Available Intel Core i3 and Core i5 processors and optional ATi graphics ensure great performance today and tomorrow.

Prices for Inspiron R laptops begin at $449 at www.dell.com. For students and families who need a laptop as soon as possible, popular configurations of the new Inspiron R are also available via Dell’s FastTrack* program, which can ship systems within 24 hours. By upgrading to next business day shipping,* new Inspiron R systems can arrive within 48 hours. The new Inspiron R laptops are also available through authorized retailers, including Dell’s newest retail partner in the U.S., Fry’s Electronics. Select Inspiron R laptops will be available in all 34 Fry’s Electronics stores starting June 25.

Common Technical Highlights for the Inspiron 14R, 15R and 17R:

* Intel Core i3 and i5 mobile processor options for outstanding everyday performance with Microsoft Windows 7
* Choice of models offering bright 14-, 15-, and 17-inch displays, with high definition (HD) resolution offered on all systems
* Choice of optional colors on select models : Mars Black, Peacock Blue, Tomato Red and Lotus Pink
* Built-in wireless connectivity
* Optional Intel Wireless Display that allows for a cable-free connection to most HDTVs when paired with a separate third party Intel Wireless Display TV adapter
* SRS Premium Sound provides an excellent stereo surround soundstage
* Built-in media card readers speed up transferring photo and video files.
* Optional 1GB ATi graphics provide realistic video effects
* Up to 640GB* hard disk drives on select models for storing large photos, music and video collections
* Up to 8GB* DDR3 memory performs tasks quickly and seamlessly
* Built-in Webcam enables Web chats on the go
* Touchpad with integrated scrolling and gestures makes using the laptop more intuitive and simple to use
* Dedicated 10-key number pad on the 15-and 17-inch systems that gives gamers additional keys for more shortcuts
* Dell Dock organizes music, videos and photos and puts most commonly-used apps right up top
* DataSafeOnline data backup & recovery keeps data & memories secure outside of the system
* DataSafeLocal, a secure, simple and reliable way to create backup copies of the factory image

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A computer that can have a conversation with you in real, human language is a hallmark of science fiction films, but has always seemed ludicrously unrealistic. Here’s the thing: IBM just built one.

With the goal of creating a computer that can win at Jeopardy, a group at IBM has been hard at work on Watson for years. Jeopardy is the perfect challenge for a computer who is designed to really understand language. With its wordplay and puns built into reverse-questions, it requires a knowledge not only of facts, but of how language is used in the day-to-day.

In order to do this, Watson uses an insane amount of computer power—it is a supercomputer, after all—to analyze loads of algorithms at once.

Watson’s speed allows it to try thousands of ways of simultaneously tackling a “Jeopardy!” clue. Most question-answering systems rely on a handful of algorithms, but Ferrucci decided this was why those systems do not work very well: no single algorithm can simulate the human ability to parse language and facts. Instead, Watson uses more than a hundred algorithms at the same time to analyze a question in different ways, generating hundreds of possible solutions. Another set of algorithms ranks these answers according to plausibility; for example, if dozens of algorithms working in different directions all arrive at the same answer, it’s more likely to be the right one. In essence, Watson thinks in probabilities. It produces not one single “right” answer, but an enormous number of possibilities, then ranks them by assessing how likely each one is to answer the question.

Of course, understanding complex human language and being able to respond with it are two different things. But clearly, we’re a lot closer to a HAL-style conversational computer than you might have thought. Crazy.

Be sure to check out the full story of Watson in the NY Times Sunday Magazine, and also try your hand at playing against Watson in a Jeopardy-style trivia game. Spoiler: he’ll beat you. [NY Times]

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DNA-based logic gates that could carry out calculations inside the body have been constructed for the first time. The work brings the prospect of injectable biocomputers programmed to target diseases as they arise.

“The biocomputer would sense biomarkers and immediately react by releasing counter-agents for the disease,” says Itamar Willner of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, who led the work.

The new logic gates are formed from short strands of DNA and their complementary strands, which in conjunction with some simple molecular machinery mimic their electronic equivalent. Two strands act as the input: each represents a 1 when present or a 0 when absent. The response to their presence or absence represents the output, which can also be a 1 or 0.

Take the “exclusive OR” or XOR logic gate. It produces an output when either of the two inputs is present but not when both are present or both are absent. To put the DNA version to the test, Willner and his team added molecules to both the complementary strands that caused them to fluoresce when each was present in isolation, representing a logical 1 as the output. But when both were present, the complementary strands combined and quenched the fluorescence, representing a 0 output.

Simultaneous calculations

One of DNA computing’s advantages is that it allows calculations to be carried out in parallel, if different types of logic gates are represented by different ingredients. The team tested this process by tossing the XOR ingredients into a test tube, along with those for two other gates, to produce the first few steps involved in binary addition and subtraction.

The team was also able to create logic gates that calculate in sequence. The trick here is to make the output from the first gate a new DNA string that can be used as the input for a second gate and so on. Such “cascading gates” allow for more complex calculations: the entire set of steps required for addition and subtraction, for example, or to deliver a multi-step drug treatment.

Previous DNA-based computers tended to slow down at each step as the DNA strands were used only once, and so became depleted with time. One significant advance claimed by Willner and his team is that their DNA strands reform after each step, allowing long sequences of calculations to be carried out easily for the first time.

Even a single logic gate could have useful medical applications, Willner says. His group built and tested a gate designed to reduce the activity of the blood-clotting enzyme thrombin, which can lead to brain damage following a head injury. The gate acts as a switch that is triggered by the presence of thrombin. Part of the gate consists of a DNA strand connected to a molecule that binds to thrombin. If thrombin is present, this molecule is released, otherwise it stays bound and inert. Such a smart drug could be injected into the bloodstream in advance and would only switch on when needed (Nature Nanotechnology, DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2010.88).

Another problem with earlier DNA computers is that they use enzymes to manipulate the DNA, and so function only in certain chemical environments that cannot easily be reproduced inside the body. Willner’s team use DNA-like molecules to do this job.

“Being enzyme-free, it has potential in future diagnostic and medical applications,” says Benny Gil of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. He is impressed with the new gate system but recognises that it will take years of research and development to bring “smart drugs” to medicine.

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Our present need for internet connectivity is so profound that secondary devices like the Nextep Computer are bound to happen. Developed to be worn as a bracelet, this computer concept is constructed out of a flexible OLED touchscreen. Earmarked for the year 2020, features like a holographic projector (for screen), pull-out extra keyboard panels and social networking compatibility, make the concept plausible. Ten years from now is not too far away, so how many of you think we’d be buying such gadgets?

Designer: Hiromi Kiriki

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Western Digital has updated its two-year-old Velociraptor range of hard drives with the SATA 3.0 drives, coming in 450 and 600GB capacities. They’re the fastest-writing hard drives around, transferring up to 6GBs a second.

They’re the only 10,000 RPM SATA hard drives available, and come in an IcePack mounting frame measuring 3.5-inches altogether. On sale now, the 450GB option is $299 and the 600GB one is $329. [Western Digital]

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Scientists have developed a new type of semiconductor structure—using microscopic crystals called magnetic quantum dots—that could more than double current hard drive storage capacity. That’s just for starters.

The crystals themselves aren’t new; they’ve been around for over a decade in computer chips, solar cells, and LEDs, according to CBC News. This particular application, though, is unprecedented:

The new work, reported today in the journal Nature Materials, describes a class of quantum dots that not only control electrons, but also have good magnetic properties allowing them to read the electron’s spin.

The research team claims it’s the first successful synthesis of magnetic quantum dots above room temperature.

The breakthrough came after two years of research, when the team was able to get the right concentration of manganese combined with the germanium matrix of the quantum dot. Makes perfect sense! But however high-level the science, the end result is clear: a new breed of semiconductor could be on the way, bringing with it speed, efficiency, and storage increases bordering on the exponential. The only question now is how long? [CBC News]

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5 inches by 3.7 inches—that’s the diminutive footprint of the fully loaded conga-BM57 Core i7 motherboard.

Despite its small stature, the conga-BM57 features an impressive spec list, including a 2.66 GHz Core i7, 8GB of RAM, integrated intel graphics, 5 PCI Express lanes, 8 USB 2.0 ports, 3 SATA, 1 EIDE and Gigabit Ethernet—plus support for dual displays over VGA, LVDS, HDMI, DisplayPort or SDVO.

The price and release date are still unknown, but at this size, it would make one heck of a HTPC that could double for some gaming. [SlashGear]

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