Your smartphone could be powered by the latest and greatest processor, run on the most updated operating system and pack the most powerful camera, but none of them is useful if you do not have an equally good battery to compliment them. Over the weekend, Intel announced the winners from the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair and one of them is an 18-year old Eesha Khare (leftmost), who won USD$50,000 for creating a Supercapacitor that could charge up a battery in a matter of seconds.

Don’t get too happy yet though, at its initial stage, the Supercapacitor only works on LED lights, according to Eesha Khare, all she did was place the battery to charge for a mere 20-seconds, it was able to light an LED device. On top of super fast charging, it also allows for 10,000 recharge cycles, 10 times more than normal batteries.

Alright now, somebody please hire her so they can utilize this technology on phone batteries, as soon as possible.

(Source: Gizmodo, Intel)

3D printers are not only cool and amazing, they could be dangerous too. About 2 weeks back, a guy named Cody Wilson took up the challenge to print a gun entirely out of a 3D printer. He said that the project will be done in a couple of week’s time and it looks like the day is finally here. Few days back, Cody Wilson showed off the “Liberator” handgun that he printed, but will it work? Watch the video to find out.

The Liberator handgun consists of 16 parts, 15 of which are printed with a 3D printer while the last part is a simple nail you can get in any hardware store. The Liberator was then put through a series of tests whereby the trigger was pulled by a string. Cody Wilson then took the gun and fired a shot himself and the result? Here’s a spoiler in case you haven’t watched the video yet – both Cody and the gun survived with no damage at all though, the gun did receive a crack on a pin but I assume it could be printed back in no time.

Catch the video of the firing process below.

(Source: TheVerge, Forbes)

Now that Google has released the source codes for its revolutionary Google Glass, developers are discovering new features within the code for some cool new features. One of the first is the ability to snap pictures with just a wink, instead of voice command or tapping the side of the glasses.

Interestingly, while this feature is supported in the code, Google Glass is shipped with this feature disabled. Mike DiGiovanni, a Glass developer, unlocks this feature with his Winky app. According to Ars Technica, the app rearranges the priority of a wink gesture within a user’s Glass, where the default mode disregards all wink gestures that Glass detects. The app then “intercepts the wink with a higher priority than anything else”, so any wink gesture will snap a shot on Glass.

Unlike the NY Times app, however, the app is not compiled – a move to protect users’ personal info. Instead, those interested needs to compile and run it as an APK themselves.

(Source: Engadget, Ars Technica)

Yesterday, IBM took the curtains off its “world’s smallest movie” made using one of the smallest elements in the world – atom. Named “A Boy and His Atom”, the movie has been certified by the Guinness World of Record as the “World’s Smallest Stop-Motion Film”. How small is an atom? The images has to be enlarged by 100 million times – according to the team behind the movie, “if an atom was the size of an orange, then the orange would be the size of the whole planet earth”.

All images were taken using IBM’s very own 2-tons scanning tunneling microscope that operates at a temperature of negative 268 degree Celsius. To move the atoms around, the researchers had to use a super sharp needle only 1 nanometer away from the surface – the needle can physically attract atoms and molecules on the surface, thus allowing the researchers to move them around. The movie was made using thousands of atoms in 242 frames of stop-motion action.

Catch the atoms in action in the video below, or hit the break for more videos explaining how things work.

(Source: Engadget)

The first Explorer Edition of Google Glass has now shipped to developers, allowing for the development of third-party apps for one of the company’s most interesting products. Developers now can make use of Glass’ unique capabilities and deliver content using entirely new interfaces, utilizing Glass’ display as well as voice commands and the headset.

The New York Times, interestingly, has announced its app for Google Glass, making it the first third-party app to be made available for download for Glass owners. The app allows for hourly news updates to appear on the display, and also read off article summaries to users. In addition, users will also be alerted with Breaking News updates. The app also utilizes Glass’ gyrometer for navigating through articles and images on the app by quickly tilting the head.

The NYTimes app is the first of many other similar apps: TechCrunch notes that Evernote and Twitter are also working on apps for Glass.

(Source: TechCrunch)

ASUS has recently announced the company’s latest high-end GPU, the Radeon HD 7990. Featuring a twin-GPU setup that is based on AMD’s Graphics Core Next technology and a massive 6GB of GDDR5 memory, the Radeon HD 7990 easily renders games in Ultra settings and even renders in 4K Ultra HD resolutions.

The ASUS Radeon HD 7990 delivers the power of two HD 7970 GPUs, totaling 4096 Stream processors and 256 texture units. Users can fine-tune its performance with GPU Tweak, the company’s utility software, allowing users to adjust GPU core and video memory speeds and voltages, graphics card fan speed, and power consumption targets (or thresholds). In addition, multiple profiles for different games can be created and saved, all with instant ease and no learning curve.

Best of all, this DirectX 11.1-optimized card requires only one PCI Express 3.0 slot and delivers the performance of two GPUs without needing to use AMD CrossfireX multi-GPU bridging.

In addition, the ASUS Radeon HD 7990 GPU will come bundled with download codes of eight best-selling games, including:

• Tomb Raider
• Hitman: Absolution
• Sleeping Dogs
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
• Crysis 3
• Far Cry 3
• Far Cry: Blood Dragon
• BioShock Infinite

The ASUS Radeon HD 7990 GPU will be available worldwide from late May. However, the retail price has not been confirmed. For more information, head on to ASUS’ product page here.

Who knew that only a few years back, 1GB thumbdrives were all the rage? Remember when you didn’t let that sucker out of your sight because it cost you 2 arms and half a foot? If you had broken the 1GB barrier, you were either very rich or just very well hooked up. Nowadays, thumbdrives in the 4GB range are regarded as “disposable” and easily found for cheap. Perhaps one of the bigger names in portable memory, Apacer have upgraded their top of the range thumbdrives to an eye popping 128GB with a read speed of 180MB/s and 70MB/s write over USB3.0 and in a nutshell, that means transferring a 2 hour long HD movie in just 30 seconds.

Coming in at capacity of 32GB all the way up to the massive 128GB behemoth, the Apacer AH522 can read and write USB2.0 at 30MB/s and 25MB/s respectively as well. No word on the price, but safe to say, pop by your nearest IT mall and they should have it in stock.

Months ago, in fact, many months ago, Maxis and Astro signed a strategic partnership to combine existing Astro services with Maxis’ networking solutions. This means that customers from both companies will be able to enjoy Astro B.yond IPTV service using Maxis’ high speed fibre internet connectivity. If you’ve been patiently waiting for the arrival of the service, it looks like it’s here as Maxis announces its bundles on its main page.

All you need to do is pick a Maxis Home Fibre Internet Package with options from 10Mbps to 30Mbps, along with a Astro B.yond IPTV Package (Superpack, Value Pack or Family Pack), and you can enjoy freebies and extra discounts with savings of up to RM132.50. Get a 10Mbps Fibre Internet line with Astro SuperPack from only RM248/month; or sign up for 10Mbps Internet with Astro Family Pack from only RM185.95/month.

Visit Maxis for more information, pick your package, or to register now.