.::REALITYRECALL::.

The early bird may get the worm, but there’s something to be said about burning the midnight oil. In fact, according to a new study, staying up later and longer may increase alertness and productivity more than being an early riser.

Photo by myyorgda.

According to the study as reported by Scientific American:

An hour and a half after waking, early birds and night owls were equally alert and showed no difference in attention-related brain activity. But after being awake for 10 and a half hours, night owls had grown more alert, performing better on a reaction-time task requiring sustained attention and showing increased activity in brain areas linked to attention.

Of course we wouldn’t be surprised if another study were to come along touting the opposite conclusion, so it’s worth taking this news with a grain of salt, but the post is an interesting addition to the early bird versus night owl discussion. If you’re looking to find your peak performance time, check out our previous post on the best times morning people and night owls should get work done.

Want to show off a PDF or PowerPoint presentation on a web space without having to include an obligatory link to Adobe’s PDF viewer for the link-doesn’t-work crowd? You can embed those documents anywhere using Google’s document viewer.

Google Operating System points out an embed code that works for any PDF or PowerPoint file that’s hosted somewhere, anywhere online, and can be pasted into just about any web space that tolerates frames. Here’s an example of what that embedding looks like with an old 1040 tax form:

Hit the link for the cut-and-replace embed code, and check out the previously mentioned Scribd iPaper embedding for another no-software-needed document sharing solution.

Google also announced growth of 400% in the number of students using Google Apps on campus.

Not to speak ill of the fired — and not to jump to conclusions after a single day of rookie camp — but Brent Sutter has it all over Mike Keenan.

Keenan, sacked after two wheel-spinning winters at the helm of the Flames, was known for a rather laissez-faire approach to practice. In other words, few whistles, little plotting. Just a seemingly endless (and useless) blur of five on fives, four on fours, three on threes. And, everyone’s favourite, five on ohs.

Not Sutter.

Early in Wednesday morning’s session — his first time on the ice in Flames togs — Sutter was stopping drills, repositioning players, making them do it over (again and again). Dialogue, albeit of the one-way variety, was non-stop.

In short, this guy was actually coaching.

Quite a departure from the previous regime.

"Basically, we want to form our identity here A.S.A.P.," says Sutter, who, not surprisingly, concentrated on own-zone responsibility. "It’s important to get working on it the first day. I thought our first session was very good . . . and the kids were getting the hang of it. It’s repetition, it’s continually doing it over and over again till we have ‘er nailed. Get working on our details, gets working on how we want to play."

Sutter went on to assure the assembled media that the veterans, on the premises Saturday, will face the same philosophy — structure, structure, structure. Particularly for team defence. (Meaning that a number of well-heeled gentlemen, including your favourite player, will soon be getting re-acquainted with their own zone.)

"There’s got to be a mindset — every day, this is the way we practise, this is the way we do things," says Sutter.

Later in the conversation, Sutter had been asked which prospects stood out Wednesday. He had no answer.

With reason. A single morning’s drills prove nothing.

"It’s very important — you evaluate over time," says Sutter. "It’s the first day. Guys are just getting into the groove of things here. Every day, our practice habits and our intensity and our sharpness will pick up and get better. For the first day, it’s been pretty good."

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

A Microsoft spokesperson has confirmed to Betanews that the company is planning to demonstrate technology currently being planned for version 4 of Silverlight, its media distribution platform based on .NET, designed to provide both an interactivity layer and digital rights management services for movie studios and other content providers. These services, the company now says, are intended to “enable movie studios and retailers to provide the same rich interactive experiences via digital copy and Internet distribution as consumers get with DVD or Blu-ray.”

As many DVD and Blu-ray Disc collectors already know, “digital copy” in this instance refers to a separate file distributed with a disc that usually plays in ordinary DVD or BD players, but which plays interactively on PCs. If Microsoft’s plan as it currently describes it becomes successful, movie discs produced in the near future could bear the Silverlight logo.

Microsoft “buried the lede,” in this case, in an announcement late yesterday that ostensibly referred to the company’s pending demonstration next week at a broadcasting conference in Amsterdam, of the next generation of streaming media for its Internet Information Services Web server platform, which is being upgraded to version 7.5 for Windows Server 2008 R2. But that streaming platform is for Web sites that publish video; arguably, you don’t need IIS to watch a disc. Or at least you shouldn’t, perhaps except for the fact that Microsoft is intending Silverlight 4 to pave the way for its latest DRM platform. PlayReady DRM was announced in 2007, and Microsoft’s first partnerships were revealed a full year and a half ago.

But that was when the platform was being discussed as the “mobile version” of Microsoft’s desktop-level DRM, which either was being called PlaysForSure or waiting on a new name, depending upon whom at Microsoft one asked. Now it appears that name will be PlayReady; and this week’s news appears to indicate its lead-off product will not be on mobile platforms after all.

Though distribution of Silverlight 3 has been ongoing for the last two months, and what was described as an “official launch” took place last July 10, Microsoft held what its marketing team described as an “official Silverlight 3 launch event” yesterday at the Amsterdam conference. There, S3 shared the stage with Expression 3, the company’s Web development system geared toward designers, which utilizes the S3 platform. But the “official” official launch event appears to have been the debut, at least in the public conscience, of Silverlight 4, with what promises to be a next-generation smooth streaming system building on the 1080p, H.264-based model that debuted in S3.

Conceivably, movie discs bearing the Silverlight logo may very well also make use of the IIS 7.5 Web platform, essentially as an authentication system for S4’s PlayReady DRM.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2009

Click to see the video

So yep, Windows 7 on T91 is good for sofa surfing too…

Details, News and Links for Asus Eee PC T91

We wouldn’t want to jump to conclusions, but Archos might just be onto something with its upcoming 9pctablet, which is due to launch alongside Windows 7. The Windows 7 bit isn’t an accident, since it’s really the first OS from Microsoft that makes it conceivable to use much of the OS with a finger, rather than the stylus. It’s not all there, of course: Archos had to build its own touchscreen keyboard to replace Microsoft’s woefully inadequate implementation, and there’s an optical mouse sensor on the side of the display and a stylus buried within to pick up the slack.

Overall the hardware seems very solid and astonishingly dense, and despite the recent advancements we’ve seen in thin and light laptops, it’s pretty incredible that Archos has a full Atom-based PC running inside this thin, fanless slab. What wasn’t so incredible was the resistive touchscreen, at least on the unit we were playing with. Our touches kept getting misread inexplicably as an inch below where we were tapping, and it didn’t feel like a “light touch” resistive model at all — no confusing what we felt with capacitive, though perhaps we got a faulty unit. This is probably a scenario where resistive makes sense, but we’d say Archos has a lot of work to do on the drivers or **something to make this more usable. The good news is that there will be an optional, super-slim external keyboard, which should make input on the 9 a bit less of a chore.

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Archos 9pctablet hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Sep 2009 09:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re probably not going to see an Apple tablet tomorrow, but the Archos 9 could hold us over. The “netblet” (yea, my portmanteau of the words netbook and tablet) runs Windows 7, but I’m not sure I’d shell out $500.

The 0.63-inch thin Archos 9 feels pretty sturdy, but one major complaint is that it feels heavy. Archos says it only weighs 1.2 pounds, but something about the balance is wrong, because it felt heavier than that in my hands. The hardware is pretty simple—a 9-inch resistive touchscreen (no multitouch) with a few surrounding physical buttons.

There is a Ctrl+Alt+Delete button and a keyboard trigger on the right, the latter which quickly launches Win 7’s finger-friendly keyboard. (Archos will also market a USB keyboard along with a case.) If you don’t like using your finger on the screen, there is a tiny optical trackpad on the right and two mouse buttons on the left side. The touchscreen is pretty responsive, and there is a stylus on the back, so I don’t see the need to really reach for the bitty mouse. I’ve always found optical trackpad annoying as hell.

The Archos 9 comes with Windows 7 Starter (remember that means no wallpaper changing or Aero) and its 1.2GHz Intel Atom Z515 processor and 1GB of RAM run it well. Watching a 720p Windows Media clip was decent, and when I fired up Wi-Fi and launched a browser, I was able to watch some streaming Hulu videos.

It only has 60GB of storage space, which could get cramped if you plan on keeping loads of video on it but doesn’t seem like a deal breaker to me. My biggest worry is battery life. It has a 4-cell battery (which is actually swappable) but I am guessing it won’t get more than 3 hours of juice.

I'll withhold final judgment until the full review. I am in search of a tablet like this for sitting back on the couch and surfing. The Archos could be it—though $500 is a bit much—but I've also still got my fingers crossed for a thinner and lighter Apple one.

We’ve referred to Windows 7’s Libraries as a top thing to look forward to, and then as one of the best underhyped features—but if you really can't get used to them, you can disable it.

The new Libraries feature in Windows 7 creates what are essentially virtual folders—you can combine multiple document folders together into a single library that combines them all into a single folder, create new libraries, and access them from common file open dialogs.

It's an excellent feature that's a huge step forwards in Windows file management—but if you aren't able to get used to a new way of doing things, the Tweaking with Vishal blog has a registry hack to completely eliminate them. Simply download, extract, and double-click on the provided registry hack file, then restart your computer and you'll see that the Libraries are completely gone. There's also an uninstall registry script provided just in case.

As a rule, you could always wait to buy a laptop, and find a better, cheaper one later. But believe me, now is one of those times when you have to. Here's why you should wait—just two months.

Gallery haters, click here to remove that gallery framework.

A Way Better Operating System

We have been blunt about it: Windows 7 kicks ass, especially Vista’s. Sure you can upgrade a current Vista laptop to Windows 7 but there’s a hassle involved. Buy a laptop now and you get a free upgrade to Win 7, but the laptop manufacturer (not Microsoft) has to send you the install disc via snail mail after October 22. A clean install of the OS done at the factory is more likely to be hassle-free. On top of that, a number of laptops will be optimized for Windows 7, meaning they will have new hardware features that will take advantage of the new operating system which brings us to point number two.

More Power

If you have been looking for the opposite of a netbook and a high-end mobile machine, you’ll have your pick come November (actually, late October). That’s when Intel ought to roll out the latest edition of the Centrino platform, codenamed Calpella. This chipset is expected to feature a less power-hungry version of the Core i7 desktop processor we like so much, with perhaps mobile Core i5 and Core i3 versions on the way later. We expect a slew of these laptops to hit then. We already know that MSI will ship 15.4 and 17-inch notebooks powered by Intel’s new Core i7 7200M, Core i7 8200M, and Core i7 920XM with Windows 7.

Mac users take note: The Centrino platform is also found in all manner of MacBook—just without the Intel sticker—so this applies to you, too. And fans of the shiny white plastic MacBook know that it's due for a cosmetic upgrade, so whether you want the faster processors in a unibody MacBook Pro, or a full makeover, inside and out, on the plastic MacBook, it pays to wait.

The arrival of 64-bit-savvy Windows 7 and Snow Leopard means that system builders will also be able to bump up the RAM. Now it will make sense to go beyond 4GB, pushing us out of the current RAM rut, though perhaps at an added cost.

Serious Weight Loss

The thin-and-light laptops that are coming are so thin they make me hungry. If you don't care about the kind of horsepower needed for games and 1080p video, Intel is also shipping new dual-core ULV processors. Laptops that used to cost north of $1,500 now thanks to Intel's ULV (once called CULV) are gonna be under a grand. The new dual-core chips are aimed at ultra thin laptops (those right in between netbooks and mainstreamers, like the Acer Timeline). MSI told us about the new Core 2 Duo SU4100 and SU7300 chips—it is our guess that these are the same chips that will be in Sony's rail-thin X Series and Samsung’s X120.

Sweet Deals

It may still seem too early think about holidays but, hey, autumn starts in two weeks. Many of these new notebooks will be released at the end of October to coincide with Windows 7’s Oct. 22 official launch date, and a scant month later we hit Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the biggest sales days of the year. Retailers and manufacturers would be stupid if they didn’t mark down even the newest stuff, so if you hold out just a few weeks, you will not only get the best laptops out there but you’ll get them at some unbelievable prices.

Future Features

We don’t necessarily expect you to wait for GScreen’s dual-screen laptop, but some other pretty great new technology will start hitting notebooks before year’s end. SuperSpeed USB (aka USB 3.0) will be showing up soon, and after Windows 7 arrives, more and more laptops will be built with multitouch capability. Additionally, chances are good that the price of solid-state drives will start dropping, and that more laptop manufacturers will also start selecting the faster SSD models.

The future is upon us. So don’t buy anything right now. Save your money, handcuff yourself to a piece of furniture, and wait it out. Just two months, that’s it.

The feature film that taught us Greed is Good will soon see a sequel, and Charlie Sheen’s character Bud Fox will make a cameo appearance in the upcoming Wall Street sequel.

Worst Previews offers:

He is the highest paid actor on TV, earning $860,000 per episode and working and traveling much less than he would have to do for a feature film.

But even though Sheen has a different life now, director Oliver Stone has just confirmed to NY Times that the actor will make a cameo in his upcoming “Wall Street” sequel as Bud Fox, the young trader from the original film.

There is no word on just how they will work in Bud Fox’s character in the film that will return Michael Douglas’ Gekko character to the world of finance looking for that second chance.

One franchise that I have enjoyed off and on throughout the years is Star Trek. Granted it’s origin predates even my birth, and I was 5 when Star Wars came out and was a far bigger fan of that. But the undeniable presence of Star Trek began on this day 43 years ago!

Chud shares:

On September 8th 1966 Star Trek premiered on NBC with the episode The Man Trap. 43 years ago the USS Enterprise began boldly going where no television show had gone before, and this summer it proved that there was more than enough dilithium crystals in the old warp nacelles to keep going for some time yet.

So after 5 Television series and now 11 feature films, Trek went from a devoted cult following, to a successful run of TV shows to modest feature film boxoffices and finally fading out before a new reboot/sequel sparked new interest.

Star Trek The Original Series
Star Trek The Next Generation
Star Trek Deep Space Nine
Star Trek Voyager
Star Trek Enterprise
Star Trek (new film)

Each had its own flavour and approach the the Trek universe. Which one appealed most to you?

Scientists at the Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing, China believe this footage of an unidentified flying object is the evidence we have all been waiting for.

Michael Bishop threw three second-half interceptions to sink any rally attempt by the visiting Winnipeg Blue Bombers, who dropped their fifth straight Labour Day Classic, 29-14 to Saskatchewan, on Sunday.

If Fujitsu was going for sexy, it certainly missed the mark with the LIFEBOOK T4310, one of the least attractive machines of its kind, but where the T4310 tablet falls short on style, it certainly makes up for with its excellent multitouch-friendly capacitive touchscreen. Playing with Windows 7’s new touch features, it almost seems feasible to use the OS with a finger (gasp!), and the screen can also accept pen input (based on pressure-sensitive Wacom technology) when your blunt jabs aren’t getting the job done. The multitouch prowess is most evident using Microsoft’s Surface-inspired Touch Pack applications, which come pre-installed, but it’s also a nice way to get around in Internet Explorer. Other perks of the machine include a 360-degree rotating hinge, a hot-swappable drive bay, and all the internal accouterments (SSD, 3G) one could ask for. Video demo is after the break.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Continue reading Fujitsu’s multitouch LIFEBOOK T4310 tablet makes quick work of Microsoft’s Touch Pack

Fujitsu’s multitouch LIFEBOOK T4310 tablet makes quick work of Microsoft’s Touch Pack originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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