Callaway Upro mx offers touchscreen GPS to golfers

The folks at Callaway just announced the Upro mx, a followup to the device they so humbly referred to as the "iPhone of golf GPS technology." PNDs for golfers aren't exactly rare, but the new Upro claims to be the only one packing "hi-resolution actual aerial photography" of 25,000 different courses. It also boasts a multi-gesture touchscreen and optical finger navigation, as well a slew of viewing modes: Virtual Green offers exact putting distances, Smart View displays the best angle for each shot, and ProMode features video flyovers. Who knows, if they could land a Bill Murray tie-in we might actually be enticed to pick up a club and ... Oh, who are we kidding? The Upro mx hits stores in May at $199, and you can check out a video of the device in action after the jump -- that is, if you swing that way.

Via : engadget

LG Optimus 2X and Optimus Black priced at €499 by Amazon Germany

Amazon's German outlet has started listing LG's two latest and undoubtedly greatest phones: the Optimus 2X (seemingly renamed the Optimus Speed here) and the Optimus Black. Both run Android 2.2 on 4-inch screens, with the former offering a dual-core Tegra 2 processor capable of 1080p video recording and HDMI output, and the latter cranking up the display brightness to a quite unreasonable 700 nits. The Optimus Black also has one of the thinnest profiles on a smartphone of its class at 9.2mm, and will be one of the first phones to offer WiFi Direct connectivity.

Via : engadget

Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps

Layar's been the go-to platform for augmented reality on Android since 2009, bringing you the useful, the creepy, and the just plain weird -- and now it's unleashing the beast on iOS, again (it's already available as a dedicated app). The Netherlands-based company just launched Layar Player, a free tool that allows anyone -- with a little developer know-how -- to create their very own AR iPhone app. Accompanying the announcement are three brand new Layar Player-enabled apps: the Bing-sponsored Snowboard Hero, which incorporates a special AR mode for collecting points; a contractor locator called Layer Trade; and VerbeterdeBuurt, an app that acts as an AR community bulletin board. The company's press release touts the "democratization of augmented reality," and while we can get behind their AR-for-alll message, we've already seen Layar used in ways that give us the willies.

Via : engadget

Intel SSD 310 Series 80GB Review

At the end of last year Intel announced a new SSD product, diminutive in size but not performance, the Intel SSD 310. Available in 40GB and 80GB capacities, the mSATA SSD promises to deliver mainstream SSD speeds in a form factor an eighth of the standard 2.5" SSD size. The SSD 310 is finding its way into a variety of products - serving as the main drive in ruggedized tablets to duty as a dedicated boot drive in standard notebook PCs. No matter how it's used though, the Intel SSD 310 may be a glimpse into the future as SSD form factors shrink and shift away from typical 2.5" drive bay constraints.

Via : storagereview

Intel SSD 310 Series 80GB Review

At the end of last year Intel announced a new SSD product, diminutive in size but not performance, the Intel SSD 310. Available in 40GB and 80GB capacities, the mSATA SSD promises to deliver mainstream SSD speeds in a form factor an eighth of the standard 2.5" SSD size. The SSD 310 is finding its way into a variety of products - serving as the main drive in ruggedized tablets to duty as a dedicated boot drive in standard notebook PCs. No matter how it's used though, the Intel SSD 310 may be a glimpse into the future as SSD form factors shrink and shift away from typical 2.5" drive bay constraints.

Via : storagereview

Intel 310 Series 80GB SSD Review – A New Way To Look at Notebooks!

Our featured picture does a great job of portraying how truly small Intels new 310 Series 80GB SSD really is.

It offers the punch of the X-25m in 1/8th of the size and Intel is gambling that this is going to add a whole new dimension to notebook configurations. First up to bat with the 310 will be new Lenovo Thinkpads destined for market in 2011 but don’t think other oems aren’t far behind.

The 310 series SSD started shipping in units of 1000 to oems in December with prices at $99 (40GB) and $179 (80GB) per and don’t be surprised to see a healthy premium on these new notebooks when combined with a hard drive. Its a combination that may be the best push forward in bringing the SSD into mainstream sales as now anyone can have the power of the SSD with the storage of a hard drive in a factory purchased laptop.

Via : thessdreview

Intel's mSATA SSD 310 reviewed

The forecast for speedy, razor-thin laptops is looking pretty sunny right about now, because it seems Intel's SSD 310 truly does bring the power of a full-sized solid state drive on a tiny little board. Storage Review and The SSD Review thoroughly benchmarked the tiny 80GB mSATA module this week, and found it performs even better than advertised -- easily tearing through 200MB / sec reads and 70 MB / sec writes -- which put it slightly behind Intel's legendary X25-M series but well ahead of the company's X25-V boot drives. While we're still not seeing Sandforce speeds from Intel's tried-and-true controller and 34nm silicon and they might not make Toshiba's Blade run for the hills, we can't wait to test it out in some new Lenovo ThinkPads when they integrate the SSD 310 later this year. Oh, by the way, that big green board up above isn't the drive. It's actually the tiny one on top.

Via : engadget

Toshiba intros laptop that CHANGES COLOUR

Toshiba has come up with a laptop, the Dynabook Qosmio T750, which has a lid which changes colour - the first of its kind, the Japanese giant claimed.

Well, sort of. The blue-lidded box – the colour is called "shiny ocean" – sports "shimmering" metallic colours that run from turquoise through to deep blue and purple depending on the angle at which you're looking at it.

The trick lies in Toshiba's use of several polyester laminate films, each comprising thousands "nano-technology" layers, and which together give a metallic look without actually using any metal – so it's good for the environment, Toshiba claimed.

Via : reghardware

Toshiba Dynabook Qosmio T750 laptop

It's been a long time since we used a laptop that had a monochromatic display -- it was a giant white block of a thing that is not missed -- but flip around just about every laptop we use today and you find a backside that stubbornly refuses to change color no matter the light that hits it. Is that a problem? Not really, we think it's quite fine since we're not often staring at that bit, but for Toshiba such tedium simply won't do, so it's introducing the Dynabook Qosmio T750 with a color-shifting lid.

Via : engadget

BlackBerry Curve Touch Revealed, Could Lack Physical Keyboard

Research in Motion could be planning to make a radical change to its long-running Curve series -- an upcoming model will reportedly forgo a keyboard and instead be designed around a touchscreen.

An image and some of the specifications for the BlackBerry Curve Touch have appeared on the Web. If these are not a hoax, they give the world its first glimpse of a new strategy from RIM to produce consumer-oriented touchscreen-only models.

The long-running Curve series has sold by the million, and over the years has been through a number of redesigns. But whatever the details, every Curve model has a physical keyboard.

This won't be true if the Curve Touch is released, as it's reportedly going to happen late this year or early next year.

Via : brighthand