Category: GReader

RCMP have laid charges against a Yorkton, Sask., man who is accused of approaching several women on the street, allegedly assaulting one of them.

Coffee is a big part of geek culture; check out this infographic to see how coffee compares to tea and what the health benefits and risks of drinking one over the other are.

Over at Killer Infographics they have a detailed infographic breaking down the differences between drinking coffee and tea including levels of caffeine, health benefits, and health risks. Hit up the link below for the full infographic.

The Health Benefits of Coffee vs. Tea [Killer Infographics]

Jailbreak Your Kindle for Dead Simple Screensaver Customization	How To Get Started With Minecraft, a Game Geeks Love	How to Enable Flashblock in Chrome (And Make it 5000% More Secure)

Many of us have a smartphone, set-top box, and a PC or two, and it’s always nice (and sometimes necessary) to have access to your data no matter which gadget you’ve got on hand. Enter D-Link’s newest ShareCenter NAS servers, the DNS-320 and DNS-325 to accomplish the task of digital distribution. Both pack dual SATA 3.5-inch drive bays for up to 4TB of total storage, a single USB 2.0 port, RAID support, integrated P2P, gigabit Ethernet, and a built in web file-server app (too bad they didn’t follow QNAP’s lead and give us a dedicated smartphone app as well). Available now, the $110 DNS-320’s got an 800MHz processor and 128MB of RAM, while those willing to pony up $200 for the DNS-325 get 1.2GHz silicon, 256MB of memory, photo gallery and audio streaming apps, plus the ability to host your blog directly from the device. If you want a 1TB drive pre-installed, prices jump to $200 for the DNS-320 and $280 for the DNS-325 when they drop next month. A small price to pay in preparation for World Backup Day, wouldn’t you say?

Continue reading D-Link does the NAS dance with new ShareCenter DNS-320 and DNS-325 home servers

D-Link does the NAS dance with new ShareCenter DNS-320 and DNS-325 home servers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Torch 2 gets an early hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Canadian dollar surged to a fresh 3.5-year high against the U.S. dollar Friday morning, flirting with the $1.05 mark, despite jobs data that missed expectations.

Adobe Flash compatibility  was among the top selling points for the Xoom when Mototola first showed off the device at this year's CES. After all, Apple's Steve Jobs has long held a firm, unwavering position that the software just doesn't work on mobile device–it's buggy, it crashes, it makes everything slower. And then, after all of that, the Xoom didn't even launch with the software.

Ladies and gentlemen, the days of spending $600 for an Android Honeycomb tablet are nearly done — on April 24th, the Acer Iconia Tab A500 will wash that price away with waves of brushed aluminum. That’s when the WiFi-only version of Acer’s Android 3.0 tablet will hit Best Buy and online retail for $450 sans contract, but with the same basic raft of specs as the WiFi-only Motorola Xoom: a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 250 SOC, a 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 LCD screen, 1GB of RAM, a 5 megapixel camera around back and a 2 megapixel imager up front, HDMI-out, not to mention a pair of 3260mAh batteries that Acer claims are capable of eight full hours of life while playing HD video. Sure, it’s a wee bit thicker and heavier and only sports half the flash storage (16GB), too, but if you’re attracted to shiny things, look for our review in the coming weeks — or wait until this summer to get one with AT&T. PR after the break.

Update: As Acer mentioned in its press release, pre-orders for the device are beginning exclusively at Best Buy today, and you can now get your order in online.

Continue reading Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 soaks up the WiFi rays, hits shelves April 24th for $450

Acer’s Iconia Tab A500 soaks up the WiFi rays, hits shelves April 24th for $450 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google will not be cracking down on the Android Market, IE9 now has a definitive release schedule, and Bing for iPad is kind of sexy. More »

The Saskatchewan government is hoping extra measures to protect highways in the province will reduce the risk of damage from flooding.

If you live in Hawaii, California, British Columbia, Alaska or Baja California, here is some bad news: According to computer models made by scientists at the International Pacific Research Center, University of Hawaii at Manoa, all the debris washed out by the Japan tsunami is coming your way. More »

Are video tutorials and leaked presentations still not enough to convince you of the BlackBerry Bold Touch’s existence? Well, if not, you can thank BGR for getting its real live hands on an honest-to-goodness prototype, which it says looks even better than the renders. The site also reports that the touchscreen is plenty responsive, which could help induce users to move their thumbs from the optical trackpad for navigation. It also reiterates a BlackBerry World launch, so if things stay on track we’ll be getting our own hands on one in just about one month’s time — we know you can’t wait.

BlackBerry Bold Touch prototype photographed, leaves a good impression originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stay on top of your favorite TV shows by logging them in Episode Calendar, a free episode tracking service that reminds you when your favorite show is on.

Sign up for a free account, search the massive database of first run and syndicated television shows, and plug them into your favorites list. You can then see the calendar (and export it in iCal format), check stats about the show (such as how popular it is), and receive email notifications. Episode Calendar is a free service and requires a basic email registration.

Episode Calendar [via Make Use Of]

How To Get Started With Minecraft, a Game Geeks Love	How to Enable Flashblock in Chrome (And Make it 5000% More Secure)	How to Automatically Change Your Default Printer Based on Your Location

The Saskatchewan Roughriders were fined by the CFL on Thursday as the lone team to exceed last season’s salary cap.

A second earthquake—magnitude 7.4—has hit northeastern Japan, prompting a tsunami warning. The quake, strong enough to move buildings in Tokyo, hit 78 miles north of the devastated Fukushima plant at 11:32 pm, local time. More »

Official word from Samsung’s Finnish site informs us that local owners of its Galaxy S smartphone will be receiving their Gingerbread fix around the middle of this month. Less direct, but still pretty reliable, confirmation of this comes from UK carrier Three, who promises the same OS version will be arriving to its users of the handset “in a couple of weeks.” Considering an Android 2.3.2 build for the Galaxy S already leaked out way back in February, few should be surprised at the timing of this release, but prior experience still urges us to be wary when it comes to Samsung and its software update schedules.

[Thanks, Juho]

Gingerbread update for Samsung Galaxy S to start rolling out in mid-April originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 05:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The internet is a mighty big place that’s only growing larger each day. That makes it a perfectly unwieldy thing to measure, but the traffic it generates has nonetheless been subjected to a rigorous estimation project by a group of UC San Diego academics. Their findings, published online this month, reveal that in 2008 some 9.57 zettabytes made their way in and out of servers across the globe. Some data bits, such as an email passing through multiple servers, might be counted more than once in their accounting, but the overall result is still considered an under-estimation because it doesn’t address privately built servers, such as those Google, Microsoft and others run in their backyards. On a per-worker basis (using a 3.18 billion human workforce number), all this data consumption amounts to 12GB daily or around 3TB per year. So it seems that while we might not have yet reached the bliss of the paperless office, we’re guzzling down data as if we were. Check out the report below for fuller details on the study and its methodology.

Our annual data consumption estimated at 9.57 zettabytes or 9,570,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google got a lot of flak for withholding the Android 3.0 source code, and plenty more when Businessweek sources claimed the company had set aside its open stance to dictate from a throne, but today the man who would allegedly sit atop the royal seat says it isn’t so. Andy Rubin, the man in charge of Android, says that “there are no lock-downs or restrictions against customizing UIs” nor “any efforts to standardize the platform on any single chipset architecture” as have often been rumored before, and that when Honeycomb is finally ready for phones, Google will indeed release its source code. Overall, he claims that Android’s position when it comes to open source hasn’t changed since day one — which is nice for those who would like to believe that Google’s still sticking to its motto — but that’s not likely to appease companies cut out of the loop simply because they weren’t part of the early adopter club. If Google’s methods will reduce fragmentation, though, who are we to judge?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Android chief Andy Rubin tackles open source qualms, says Honeycomb isn’t ‘one size fits all’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 22:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Sara Goetz, Consumer Experience Specialist

Ever since I joined the Gmail team, my friends have been eager to tell me, “I love Gmail! Except for this one thing…” And every day, Gmail users share their “one thing” that would make Gmail better for them through our suggestions page. While we enjoy creating new solutions to old problems with features like Priority Inbox, those little annoyances and missing pieces are important, too. Recently, we’ve rolled out several small tweaks to Gmail to show it a little extra love.

Here’s a rundown:

• Auto-save contacts setting: Most people like that Gmail automatically saves every email address you send messages to; it can help recover forgotten addresses of former teachers, bosses, and people you contacted once but never thought you’d need to contact again. For some people, though, this feature can cause too much contacts clutter. Today, we’re rolling out a new setting to let you turn off the auto-save option. You’ll see it on the General tab of Gmail Settings.
• Better warnings for typos in email addresses: We all make typos, even when addressing email. In the old days, when you accidentally left out the “.” in your “.com”, Gmail would tell you there was an error but not point it out. Now, it’ll let you know which address has the problem — much easier when sorting through a long “To:” list.
• Fewer annoying error pop-ups: Gmail’s filters are really useful for organizing your messages automatically, but sometimes those filters can have unintended consequences, like sending mail you’d like to keep to the trash. When you replied to a message in the Trash, Gmail would show an error message you’d have to click through to continue working. Now, you’ll still see the error, but it’s no longer a pop up and it gives you an easy way to move the conversation out of Trash right from there.
• Easier transitions between certain actions: You can create filters quickly from the “Filter messages like this” option that shows up on some messages. Now, after you’ve saved your filter, Gmail will send you right back to the message you were reading so you can go right back to what you were doing before.
• Keyboard shortcut guide for everyone: Keyboard shortcuts can be a huge productivity boosters. If you’ve never tried them, try hitting Shift+? — that’s one keyboard shortcut that’s now automatically turned on and gives you a peek into the rest of them and a quick link to enable from there.
• Refresh button: For a long time, people have pointed out the inconsistency of having “Refresh” as a link in the menu bar, next to all of the buttons. We changed it to a button to match.

If any of these small fixes were your “one thing,” we hope you’ve noticed the changes as they rolled out. When you find the next little tweak that would make you love Gmail even more, let us know.