Gizmodo: ii

AMD Athlon II X4 620: Four Cores for $99

Danny Allen — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:20:00 EDT

AMD's new Athlon II X4 chips are like a Phenom II minus the L3 cache. But they're super-cheap: $99 (2.6GHz-620), and $122 (2.8Ghz-630). Also looks like they hold their own against the $150 Core 2 Quad 8200: [Maximum PC]

Palm Pre and Eos Possibly Amongst Storm 2, TouchPro2, and Omnia II in Verizon Leak

Danny Allen — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 06:30:00 EDT

We've gathered the Palm Pre is headed to Verizon early next year, and it may now have appeared in a leaked Verizon inventory database. Along with the other phones, the Palm 101 and P121 are listed: Pre and Eos code-names?

The internal inventory leak comes from a Phone Arena tipster, and it's not unimaginable to think it's the Palm Pre given Sprint calls it the P100.

The Blackberry Storm 2 could hit Verizon as soon as September, and we've seen the HTC TouchPro2 with Verizon branding. We also knew they were getting the Samsung Omnia II, but the Samsung Convoy U640 info is new.

You might want to hold off on your next phone if you're a Verizon subscriber…[Phone Arena]

Amateur Astronomer Captures Stunning Images of Atlantis, Hubble in the Face of the Sun

John Herrman — Fri, 15 May 2009 07:56:41 EDT

It's difficult to imagine a more epic scene, but this photo has modest origins: amateur Astronomer Thierry Legault shot it with nothing but his own telescope, a solar prism and a Canon 5D Mk II.

Shot just after launch, the image shows the faraway scene as viewed through a Takahashi TOA-130 refractor telescope (focal length 2200mm) and a Baader solar prism, which gives the Sun its muted look. Strapped to the back of the telescope, the 5D was set to ISO 100 and a 1/8000 shutter speed, the camera's extreme low and high settings, respectively [Edit: woops, the Mk II actually does ISO 50]. Legault used the free online Celestial Observer tool to calculate the best time to shoot from his location. Meanwhile, that little silhouette is the scene of an incredibly complex and dangerous Hubble rescue mission, which will repair a number of the craft's instruments, install a new camera and ensure that NASA's flagship orbital telescope keeps sending us amazing images for years to come.

Check out the unbelievable uncropped photos at Legault's site. —Note: It should be obvious, but don't try anything like this unless you know exactly what you're doing. Your eyes, they will burn. [Thierry Legault via Daily Mail]

AMD Phenom II Quad Core Reviewed: Great Today, But Tomorrow's Cloudy

matt buchanan — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:00:00 EST

Ars reviews AMD's latest quad-core, the Phenom II, against a barrage of Intel chips and finds that while it "puts AMD back on the map" against today's chips, AMD's got a "long-term problem." [Ars Technica]

Queen of England Buying the World's Largest Wind Turbine

Sean Fallon — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:00:00 EDT

We don't know how much it cost her, but word is that the Queen of England has put down some mega-bucks to buy the world's largest wind turbine. The 10-megawatt monster machine built by Clipper Windpower of Carpinteria, California will have a wingspan larger than two soccer fields and will stand 574 feet tall when completed. The windmill is expected to displace two million barrels of oil as well as 724,000 tons of CO2 over its lifetime. It will also serve as the flagship for Clipper's Britannia Project, an effort to produce massive new turbines on deep-sea floating platforms. If all goes as planned, the Queen's windmill will light up thousands of British homes starting in 2012. [CNN]

Canon EOS 5D Mark II Gets Spotted Bigfoot Style

Jason Chen — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:59:43 EDT

Found in the depths of some German forum, a DPreview member says these pictures are for the yet-to-be-announced Canon EOS 5D Mark II. No real details to this camera other than the fact that it's going to replace the 5D (obviously). See the back after the jump, but don't expect a "make me a professional photographer" button or anything.

eBay Watch: 40 Apple IIs For $999

Jason Chen — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 19:25:56 EST

Got a time machine? Then these 40 ~~Apple~~ Mac Classic II computers will be a steal. All you have to do is fix these up, hop in your time machine, and sell them to elementary schools in the 1980s.

What the hey, maybe you've done it already and we actually played on one of your computers back when we were kids! Wait, did you modify the startup screen to say "Mrs. Stevens sucks"? No? Wonder who did that then. – Jason Chen

eBay Auction - Thanks Chris!

Maxtor Shared Storage II Reviewed (Verdict: Easy Setup, But Pricey)

Jason Chen — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 18:18:38 EDT

John over at CrunchGear got his paws on a Maxtor Shared Storage II, which is a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device with 1TB of hard drive space. Thanks to the Gigabit Ethernet interface and the 7200RPM, 16MB cache hard drive, transfers to and from the NAS are going to be quite speedy.

As you can see from the shot on John's trademark "review deck", the buttons are metallic and "RAZR-esque". He had no trouble plugging it in, turning it on, and setting it up with both Mac and Windows. Their install program required a reboot, but everything else was smooth sailing. But at $899 for 1TB, the price may outweigh the convenience. – Jason Chen

Maxtor Shared Storage II Hands-on [CrunchGear]