.::REALITYRECALL::.

The Toronto District School Board and AMP Solar LP have teamed up to install solar panels on hundreds of school rooftops in a deal that could be worth $1.1 billion in green electricity generation over 20 years.

Well this is interesting: a webOS dev spotted a pair unnamed devices in his log files — one sporting a 1024 x 768 screen and a non-sliding keyboard, and the other a smartphone with no physical QWERTY input. Don’t look so surprised: it was all but confirmed by leaked training materials that webOS was coming to netbooks and HP has already announced its intention to bring desktops and laptops into the fold. Of course, this could also just be a TouchPad connected to a certain special keyboard. All we know is something bigger than a phone with physical keys is out there running an unannounced version of the OS dubbed Nova Dartfish. The second mysterious “device” showing up in the logs may be that keyboard-less handset that posed for Mr. Blurrycam back in April. Whatever it is, it’s running webOS 3.0 and has a measly 480 x 320 screen like the Pre 2 — so it’s certainly not a high-end smartphone. The logs also reveal that neither is packing a removeable battery, which is sure to disappoint some of you. If you prefer your rumors delivered with lots of quotation marks and colons the full log reports are after the break.

Continue reading Evidence of webOS netbook and keyboard-less phone pop up in developer logs

Evidence of webOS netbook and keyboard-less phone pop up in developer logs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 20:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android Honeycomb 3.1‘s a small but totally excellent update for Android tablets. A slightly smoother interface is packaged with two substantial features: improved flash performance (it’s really, really better!) and USB device compatibility (like a real computer!). More »

Bad news for college students: Drinking in excess, defined as roughly five drinks for men and four for women, could affect the ability to learn.

Whether or not D-Wave has actually built a quantum computer is still a matter of debate (though, a study authored by the company and published in Nature claims to prove its success) but, whatever it is these crafty Canadians have created, you can order one now and start crunching qubits with abandon. The D-Wave One is the first commercially available quantum computer and, while its 128-qubit processor can only handle very specific tasks and is easily outperformed by traditional CPUs, it could represent a revolution in the field of supercomputing. As D-Wave scales up to thousands or tens-of-thousands of qubits, complex number theory problems and advanced cryptographic systems could crumble before the mighty power of quantum annealing… or at least give us faster Google searches. Just out of curiosity, we contacted D-Wave to see how much we’d have to cough up for a quantum desktop of our own, but we’ve yet to hear back.

Update: Joseph passed along an e-mail from the company with a little more information, including a price: $10,000,000. Yep, ten large, and we’re not sure that includes the liquid helium required to keep it cooled.

D-Wave One claims mantle of first commercial quantum computer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Preparations are being made for a possible postal strike as early as May 24, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers says.

Tiger Woods will fall out of the top 10 in the world ranking next week, ending an amazing streak of being top 10 in the world for 14 consecutive years. For his star power, he still ranks ahead of any other athlete according to Forbes.

A forensic psychiatrist has told a murder trial it’s quite possible Kim Walker does not remember shooting James Hayward.

Bride-to-be Li-Wan was so devastated when her fiance Wang Lu called off their wedding, that she climbed out on a window ledge 80 feet in the air in Changchun, China. Still in her wedding dress, she sobbed there as a crowd gathered to try to stop her from jumping. Unfortunately, jump she did — but not before an aid worker could rush up close. The worker, Guo Zhongfan, caught her in mid-air by the neck. Pinning her to the building, he managed to save her life with the help of others on a lower floor. He also managed to create the most intense photo op of the day.

Jilted bride in China jumps out window (photos) [NYP]

Read more posts by Chris Rovzar

Filed Under: photo op, brides, china, worst wedding ever

Google confirms Android security issue, server-side fix rolling out today originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Did you know that PowerPoint 2010 has a feature called Broadcast Slide Show with which you can share your presentation through the web to another computer, smartphone or any other device with a browser? Here’s how to use it.

Improve Your Photography by Learning the Elements of Exposure	Mac OS X Viruses: How to Remove and Prevent the Mac Protector Malware	How to Block All Cookies Except for Sites You Use

There may have been a good reason for that wide beta test Microsoft ran to test out its new disc format for the Xbox 360. While it will allow for an extra 1GB of storage space for new games and (it hopes) stop piracy, apparently some consoles contain drives that cannot read the new XGD3 discs. The details can be seen in the email pictured above posted by Reddit user Avery Penn and were verified as real by the Xbox Support Twitter account, but now it’s responding to inquiries by saying the replacements are in response to a previous update and not the upcoming one that has been in beta. Adding to the confusion, Microsoft Europe confirmed the initial report and points affected users towards the support page to get sorted out. One way or another, affected owners can expect to be mollified by getting their Xbox 360s replaced with new 250GB Xbox 360S models plus a free year of XBL for the trouble. We haven’t gotten an official response about the plan yet but are still checking, so your plan to hoard old consoles and get free replacements en masse is probably equal parts premature and Seinfeldian genius.

Update: Microsoft has responded, confirming that the earlier statement was incorrect and this is not related to the update being beta tested, and that something less than 10,000 of the 50 million or so Xbox 360s sold worldwide are affected. Check after the break for the official word, but if you have one of the boxes and are connected to XBL you should expect to recieve a notice in your email.

Continue reading Some Xbox 360s won’t read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL

Some Xbox 360s won’t read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Free Wi-Fi has comes to 1,000 McDonald’s in Canada today and will be another 400 locations by months end. This was made possible by Bell who also powers free Wi-Fi in Starbucks locations. In the release it states that “no purchase is required to use the service” and Joel Yashinsky of McDonald’s said “Providing value […]

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1. Bell offering free microSIM with an iPad 2 activation
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3. TELUS 72-hour sale puts the Milestone, Charm, Backflip and e72 free on 1-year

MacGyver was the greatest TV shows of all time, yes? Yes. But so much of it only exists in memory now. Or did, until someone came along and catalogued every single awesome thing Mac ever did, in convenient interactive form. More »

This isn’t as bad as it could have been — Sony’s PSN hasn’t exactly been hacked again — but what can only be described as a glaring oversight looks to have forced the company into hastily switching off PSN logins on its websites. The issue? If you legitimately forget your password and need to reset it, previously all you had to do was type in your e-mail address and date of birth, then choose a delightfully cunning new password. Sounds good? The problem is that if you were a PSN member before the hack then both your e-mail address and your date of birth (plus a lot of other frightening stuff) is known to the hackers. So, whoever has the millions of rows of data that were exposed could, in theory, re-exploit any account. Sony was made aware of the issue and those pages are now offline again, which should make the Japanese government feel just a little big smug.

Update: Sony has confirmed that there was “a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed.” However, the company indicates there was “no hack involved.” So, remember kiddies: exploits are not hacks — not until someone starts having fun with them, anyway.

PSN logins exploited again, Sony takes pages offline originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We couldn’t help but notice that a lot of you want to buy the Eee Pad Transformer; it’s just that your quest for one is turning up dry. We asked ASUS for an update on the shortage and the company said it’s cranking ’em out at a furious pace to meet strong demand. Here’s what a PR rep had to say:

We are ramping production every week to address the supply concerns, including almost daily air shipments into North America. We expect the supply line to improve significantly over the coming weeks.

So there you have it: if you live on the North American continent, at least, you’ll soon be able to find an elusive Transformer — and just in time for a much-appreciated Android 3.1 update.

ASUS ramping up Eee Pad Transformer production, says they’ll be easier to find in the ‘coming weeks’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 09:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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