Whiz Reviews

You know, there are times when you have to part ways with your adorable kitties at home, and you might not be so keen on getting a cat sitter in case he or she touches your precious game consoles (even if it's an old granny). We've seen the lazy man's solution before, but Britain's Mathew Newton has brought us a new DIY internet-enabled cat feeder just in time for a new decade. Rather than using a CD-ROM tray to push-release unknown quantities of cat food, Mathew's version has a motor-driven cereal dispenser controlled by signal from port status LEDs on a Cisco switch -- an ingenious way to avoid expensive Ethernet relay units. When it's feeding time the user logs onto a web interface to choose the dispensing quantity, or you can also have an automatic feed schedule set up if you trust the system -- Mathew said he "can rely on it 100%," and his cats do appear to be healthy. Fortunately, you can always check the live video stream just in case you have doubts. All is explained in the video after the break.

Continue reading DIY cat feeder now enabled by a Cisco switch, streams food and video

DIY cat feeder now enabled by a Cisco switch, streams food and video originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those incredibly sexy (as far as portable storage capacities are concerned) 64GB SDXC cards coming on the horizon? You're gonna want some hardware to work with it, and according to DailyTech, three of the largest computer manufacturers are looking to bring the upgrade with Intel's forthcoming Arrandale CPUs. Lenovo, HP, and Dell are reportedly working on new designs that'll contain both the new 32nm chipsets and SDXC readers. Not that we're surprised to see new SDHC's time running out, but it does give you something to look forward to.

Dell, HP, and Lenovo bringing SDXC to laptops alongside 32nm Intel chipsets? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The path back to LCD leadership for Sharp begins at its just opened Sakai City manufacturing facility. Being a 10th generation facility means it can roll out more and bigger displays, producing six 60-inch LCDs from each glass substrate, 60% more than older 8g facilities. Check out the pics for a peek at where 72,000 substrates per month will be made, delivering those slim LED backlit televisions getting so much love, along with solar panels (also being installed on the roofs for that extra green vibe that's in vogue these days) and a few of the more than 100,000 energy efficient LEDs lighting the factory itself. Whether your closest HDTV purchase is a turkey fueled memory from last weekend or yet to come, bargain hunters and AV fans alike can appreciate an eyeful of the robots and testing equipment slicing, dicing and stamping screens headed for shelves nearby, whether bearing an Aquos brand or any number of other nameplates.

Inside Sharp's new LCD factory, we can see our next HDTV from here originally appeared on Engadget HD on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apparently us Yanks have been spoiled by the warm embrace of Google Maps Navigation, forgetting that our friends in the UK don't have the same luxury. Leave it to Electricpig to connect worlds, finding a somewhat hack-induced way to bring the app upgrade to British Android 1.6 devices. Instructions are pretty easy, so if you're game, don your DIY hat and click over.

Update: As indicated, the gang at xda-developers forum have been doing this for some time now. Consider the tutorial provided here as very straightforward and easy to follow -- anyone with an Android 1.6 device would be remiss not to give Navigation a shot now.

Filed under: Cellphones

Google Maps Navigation makes trip across the pond, thanks to some hackery originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Chevy Volt is one vehicle we can really get behind. It's hard not to be a little excited over it -- we have, after all, been watching its development for quite a long time now. The electric car gets an impressive 230 miles per gallon in the city (and, all shaky rating practices aside, that's nothing to scoff at). Autoblog Green's just taken one of Chevy's 80 IVER pre-production prototypes for a little spin, and they seem to have come away pretty impressed with the car. They report that the brakes are better than most hybrid vehicles, and said that when the engine does kick in after the battery's depleted, they didn't even notice it until they stopped and heard it running quietly. It was a short spin, so they weren't able to gauge, for instance, whether the car can actually pull the full 40 miles per battery charge that Chevrolet claims it gets, but check out their full, detailed observations at the Source link.

2011 Chevrolet Volt gets taken for a test drive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Praktica unleashes a slew of 10 and 12-megapixel shooters originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 19:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Flexio solar powered FM radio doubles as bookmark

Flexio solar powered FM radio doubles as bookmark originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hey, it's just what you've always wanted: to use your Xbox 360 controller on your old NES. Using a Cortex M3 processor left over from a school robotics project, Francois Gervais managed to rig his wireless pad to control something decidedly less advanced than a game of Modern Warfare 2. There's a video of the controller in action after the break, and you can grab some of the code being used in the Google link below -- perhaps one of you brainiacs will finally hack the Wiimote to control a Jaguar. A tech writer can dream...

Continue reading Xbox 360 controller ingeniously hacked for NES use

Xbox 360 controller ingeniously hacked for NES use originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hardware construction is a funny thing. Sometimes, regardless of the money you throw at something, you just can't get products to come together any quicker. Evidently that's the case with Barnes & Noble's Nook, which has seen its estimated ship date slip from today to sometime after the holidays, and now to January 11th. There's still a sliver of hope that you'll be able to snag one from a high-traffic retail location on December 7th, but unless you're planning on abandoning ship and helping the Kindle have its new best month ever, the realistic choices are pretty clear: a) pay Tickle Me Elmo-like prices on eBay or b) drop an IOU in a nicely wrapped box, preferably with a cute puppy. We suggest the latter.

[Thanks, Dave and Wes]

P.S. - We're also hearing that pre-orders (even those placed moments after it was announced) are also being pushed back, though hopefully they'll still be received before December 25th.

Nook ship date slips to January 11th, supply chain managers weep originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So last week the New York Times Magazine published a piece called "Against Camel Case" which argues that intercapped product names like iPhone and TiVo are "medieval," because they harken back to a time in which people mostly read aloud, slowly sounding out each word as they tried to understand them. Proper word spacing, says the Times, "eventually made possible phenomena like irony, pornography and freedom of conscience."

That's sort of a crazy coincidence -- while we're not so sure word spacing and porn have anything to do with each other, we did just re-do our style guide when we launched our jazzy new redesign, and we actually thought long and hard about how to handle intercapped, all-capped, and otherwise non-standard product names. This is something we deal with a hundred times a day, and we simply weren't going to let Motorola tell us to write MILESTONE over and over again, completely contradicting our own sense of style and taste -- as the Times says, "Writers of the world, fight back!" Well, we can't say no to that, so we thought we'd share our four newly-minted rules for writing out non-standard product names:

1. Product and company names that are regular English words shall be treated like proper English nouns, complete with proper capitalization. Example: DROID becomes Droid and nook becomes Nook.
2. Product and company names that are not regular English words shall be capitalized first as proper nouns, and then as the company treats them. Example: RAZR stays RAZR, but chumby would become Chumby.
3. Intercapped product and company names should generally be treated as the company treats them, unless it's egregious and / or looks weird. Example: iPhone stays iPhone, BlackBerry stays BlackBerry and TiVo stays TiVo, but ASUSTeK becomes Asustek. This rule is subject to many exceptions based on usage and history, and also functions as the "this is stupid" loophole.
4. Acronyms should obviously be in all-caps.

We think these rules are flexible to handle most situations, although there are some edge cases and blatant Rule 3 violations out there. Still, it's a start -- unlike the Times, we're pretty sure "iPhone" and "MasterCard" are here to stay, but we feel like our rules are a small step towards making our site clearer and more readable. Either that, or we're just crazy in the head.

Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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