.::REALITYRECALL::.

Stop looking at me, you custom fabricated human animatronic eye mechanism without a socket you! STOP LOOKING AT ME, GODDAMMIT! More »

Lenovo’s ready to get specific with dates now that Google’s got itself an honest to goodness tablet OS. A company spokesman said that its LePad tablet — first announced by that name back in June 2010 but previewed at CES all the way back in January 2010 — will ship in its home country of China in March before making its way to the global stage in June. Unfortunately, Lenovo isn’t saying anything about final specs or which countries are first on its list — we already knew it was coming to the US in 2011. The company’s also not talking price. Last time we saw LePad in January it was sporting Android 2.2 with a custom “LeOS” skin riding a 1.3GHz Snapdragon processor and 10.1-inch 1280 x 800 pixel display with a price just north of $500. Question is: will Lenny set it free with vanilla Honeycomb or will it feel compelled to apply the LeOS skin in order to avoid becoming just another Android tablet?

Lenovo LePad set for a global June LeLaunch originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Feb 2011 02:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Uncharted 2: Among Thieves was the biggest video game of 2009. It sold more than 3.5 million copies worldwide, was identified by Metacritic as the most critically acclaimed game of the year, racked up more than 50 Game of the Year awards and set a new bar for artistry and storytelling in a video game. I spent more Saturday nights than I care to admit playing this game, so I was pretty excited when I found out that Robh Ruppel, Art Director at Naughty Dog Studios, used Google SketchUp to help design the game’s look and feel.

We sat down with Robh to hear how he used SketchUp to visualize Uncharted 2’s environments.

To hear more of our conversation with Robh and see some of his work, check out the Google SketchUp blog.

Posted by Gopal Shah, SketchUp Marketing team

Google Chrome added its own built-in PDF reader awhile back, and Gmail’s now using this plugin to view PDFs instead of the somewhat slower Google Docs. You can enable the PDF viewer from about:plugins in Chrome. [Google Operating System] More »

via

Charlie Sheen’s time off for rehabilitation is coming to an end. “Two and A Half Men” will resume production on February 28, EW has learned.

If you think of baldness as a disease then you’ll want to pay close attention to some research that’s being conducted in collaboration with teams from UCLA, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and the Oregon Health and Sciences University. The group seems to have accidentally stumbled on the cure for baldness while researching the relationship between stress and the gastrointestinal tract. The teams were testing the effects of a peptide called “astressin-B” on mice genetically engineered to be hyper-stressed (and bald as a result). Miraculously, the bald mice regrew the lost hair and the respect of women who drive Minis. They even maintained the re-hair for up to four months after receiving just one dose a day for five consecutive days — that’s 20 percent of a mouse’s two-year lifespan. Oh sure, the regrowth was on their backs but we’re sure they’ll sort out your preference for location by the time this begins human trials.

Baldness cure is no reason to quit a’stressin originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Feb 2011 08:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whatever you thought you knew about laser tag has just been completely shattered. Because that game that came after the pizza party and before the present opening at all the best 8th grade birthday parties is long gone. Light Strike, its next-gen replacement, includes fingerprint ID, a range of weapon blasts, a health meter, limited ammo, a built-in target—even a grenade launcher and recoiling machine gun. WITH LASERS. On sale later this year, but hopefully not too much later. More »

Google details some of the Honeycomb features coming to Ice Cream: action bar, ‘hologram’ visual style originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 16:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When we think about Tomb Raider, we think of Lara Croft. And when we see Lara Croft, we see Angelina Jolie and… Well, OK, that’s not really the point here. So, what is you ask? Well, Olivia Wilde, of course!

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There you have it, folks — the exhausting saga of the Xoom‘s pricing has finally been laid to rest by Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha. Reuters reports a $799 levy for the 32GB Honeycomb tablet when bought with 3G (which will be upgraded to 4G) connectivity from Verizon sans subsidies, while Jha is also quoted as saying that a WiFi-only version will set buyers back only $600. The latter price matches the 32GB iPad directly, however the 3G Xoom is $70 more expensive than the Apple alternative. Sanjay failed to say when said pricing or models will become available, but there have been strong indications that pre-orders or reservations will begin tomorrow (at least at Best Buy), with the tablet launching in full on Thursday next week.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Motorola Xoom price official: $799 unsubsidized on Verizon, $600 for WiFi-only originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Feb 2011 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The moment you’re semi-sure you’re getting a cold, get some zinc lozenges. That’s the result of a meta-analysis of 15 different scientific studies of the mineral, and cut the length of coughing and sneezing days by 40 percent. More »

Posted by Ping Chen, Software Engineer

For some of you, many of your memories are based around a place. It could be a cherished family cabin, an iconic landmark or a trip to an exotic locale. In Picasa Web Albums, you can leverage the GPS technology built into many cameras and mobile phones to tag where your images were taken. This makes sharing images of your trip to Yellowstone even more interesting by showing where inside the park they were taken.

Until today, you could manage the visibility of geographical information at the account level – you chose whether to display location information for your entire account. Now, you can control whether or not to include location information for each individual album rather than at the account level. Whenever you add a new album, location information will not display by default. Existing albums will follow your previous selection. You can easily change this setting for existing and new albums by checking or unchecking the box below the map on your album.

This way, you can show your friends the geographical location of the photos in your Yellowstone album, while keeping the location of a favorite beach your secret.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think. Please share your feedback in our forum.

Lithium-ion batteries! They’re in your phone, your laptop and pretty much every consumer electronic device that uses rechargeable batteries these days. How should you take care of them? Old wives tales of charging batteries don’t apply here, so forget everything you thought you knew. According to Ars Technica, this is how you should use your Li-ion battery: More »