Huawei on Wednesday announced global availability of its flagship Ascend P1 smartphone. The Android 4.0-powered handset will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia by May, in Latin America by June and in Europe for the summer, with availability in other markets to follow. “The global availability of the Ascend P1, which combines smart features and a sexy design, represents a significant milestone for Huawei Device,” said Richard Yu, Chairman of Huawei. “We are sending strong signals of our intention to transform into a consumer-facing brand and extend our market leadership globally by strengthening our range of flagship products. We are also expanding our sales and distribution channels to move beyond a focus on operators.” The Ascend P1 is equipped with a 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED display, a dual-core TI OMAP 4460 processor clocked at 1.5GHz and an 8-megapixel rear camera. Read on for Huawei’s press release.

Huawei Announces Global Availability of the Ascend P1 – its Flagship Dual-Core Smartphone

Beijing, China, April 18, 2012: Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, today announced that the Huawei Ascend P1 will be available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Australia through operators and retailers by May 2012, in Latin America from June 2012 and in Europe from summer, with availability in other markets to follow.

“The global availability of the Ascend P1, which combines smart features and a sexy design, represents a significant milestone for Huawei Device. We are sending strong signals of our intention to transform into a consumer-facing brand and extend our market leadership globally by strengthening our range of flagship products. We are also expanding our sales and distribution channels to move beyond a focus on operators,� said Richard Yu, Chairman of Huawei Device.

The Ascend P1 is beauty meets brains – proof that technology and good looks can go hand-in-hand. It features a dual-core 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4460 Cortext-A9 processor and measures 7.69mm thin and 64.8 mm long, providing a very comfortable grip. With a 4.3-inch super AMOLED 960 x 540 touch screen with Corning® Gorilla® Glass, an 8-megapixel BSI rear-facing camera and Dolby Mobile 3.0 + 5.1 surround sound technology, the Ascend P1 provides a home theatre experience in the palm of your hands.

A core tenet of the human "fight or flight" response begs the question, is this guy bigger than me? A recent study suggests that answer depends on if he's wielding or not. Turns out, our brains might give a subconscious size advantage to opponents if they're holding a weapon. More »

Pitcher plants are so large that they can digest entire rats without thinking twice—that is, if they had brains or a nervous system. And at California Carnivores outside of Sebastopol, California, they have an entire nursery full of them. Venus fly traps too, and a whole collection of plants that have a taste for flesh. So let that digest for bit. [Cool Hunting] More »

Touchscreens can't differentiate between you, your friend or your cat. Truth is, they're actually amazingly simple pieces of technology without much in the way of brains. A new type of display shown off at the International Nanotechnology Exhibition & Conference in Tokyo last week does imbue the panels with at least enough smarts to tell people apart. Gunze Ltd pairs a special capacitive screen with electrodes, which a user touches with one hand while interacting with a game or app. The immediate use would be for table-top arcade games, which would differentiate between up to four different players based on what particular circuit they complete when touching the screen. We wouldn't be shocked if a version of the tech started showing up in multi-player video poker machines and bar games relatively soon.

Gunze's new touchscreen tech knows who's touching it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 16:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The iPad 3 is now in manufacturing and the inevitable leaks keep coming out from part manufacturers, including images of its double-resolution Retina-ish display and its brains. Now it's the turn of the outer aluminum shell, which reveals some interesting details. More »

When it's not bringing the crazy that is iNuke, Behringer turns out some pretty serious audio gear. The latest offering? Three new mixers that throw an iPad into the EQuation. A dedicated app serves as an interface, while the iPad provides the brains and the power source. They're no dumb terminals though, as you'll also find a dedicated audio interface, mic pre-amps and a new dual-engine KLARK-TEKNIK FX processor, complete with 32 configurable "studio grade" presets (reverb, chorus, flange and so on). The trio comes in three sizes: 16 channels for the iX1642, 24 on the iX2442, and 32 for the big ole iX3242. Behringer's keeping the volume down on pricing and availability right now, but they'll be on display at NAMM this week if you want to have a fiddle. Not going? Then fade-in the press release after the break for more info.

Continue reading Behringer outs three iPad-housing USB mixers

Behringer outs three iPad-housing USB mixers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading FXI's Cotton Candy could turn every screen you own into a cloud client

FXI's Cotton Candy could turn every screen you own into a cloud client originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 18:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Collision avoidance systems aren't exactly exciting new news any more. But most of these systems, even the ones that jerk the wheel out of your hands, simply detect obstacles -- they don't talk to each other. GM's new prototype uses Dedicated Short-Range Communication (DSRC) to share data with other vehicles. The cars not only detect other motorists, but construction zones, police activity, and slowed or stopped traffic. Unlike a similar concept from Ford, GM doesn't just talk to cars in the immediate area, but can detect trouble up to a quarter mile down the road, offering plenty of warning time for you to change course or hit those breaks. We think the company's estimate that such a system could avoid 81-percent of crashes in the US is a tad optimistic though -- clearly they don't realize how big of jerks most drivers are.

GM demos accident avoidance system with brains and long range originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's been coming into the spotlight more recently but NFL players have been dealing with brain injuries since the sport was first played. Combine the endless hard hits with the bigger, faster, stronger athletes and brains that weren't meant to be jiggled like that? Serious problems. More »

It's been just over 30 years since IBM released its first PC and shook the whole world up. Hoping to do some more world-shaking, they've built two chips that function more similarly to our brains than normal chips do. More »

Release date info for Nokia's sweet slab of Meego has been scarce, but now Orange Switzerland's webpage announces the N9 is coming its way September 15th. Last month Swedish carrier 3 Group promised it would arrive there September 23rd, while some retailer in Kazakhstan is apparently listing them for sale August 19th. We're not quite ready to whip out our passport and translator for a taste of the (not) zombie OS's brains yet, but we'll keep an eye out for any more release date information as it comes.

[Thanks, StinkyFinger]

Orange Switzerland is expecting Nokia's N9 on September 15th originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jul 2011 21:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Many simpler forms of life on this planet, including some of our earliest ancestors, don't have proper brains. Instead they have networks of neurons that fire in response to stimuli, triggering reactions. Scientists from Caltech have actually figured out how to create such a primitive pre-brain using strands of DNA. Researchers, led by Lulu Qian, strung together DNA molecules to create bio-mechanical circuits. By sequencing the four bases of our genetic code in a particular way, they were able to program it to respond differently to various inputs. To prove their success the team quizzed the organic circuit, essentially playing 20 questions, feeding it clues to the identity of a particular scientist using more DNA strands. The artificial neural network nailed answer every time. Check out the PR and pair of videos that dig a little deeper into the experiment after the break.

Continue reading DNA-based artificial neural network is a primitive brain in a test tube (video)

DNA-based artificial neural network is a primitive brain in a test tube (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 30 Jul 2011 16:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you haven't already gotten whiplash from the ongoing cellphone-cancer debate, a freshly released scientific review might just do the trick. In the paper, published Friday, a panel of experts from Britain, Sweden and the US conducted a thorough survey of previous studies, before concluding that existing literature is "increasingly against" the theory that cellphone use causes brain tumors in adults. The researchers also questioned the biological mechanisms underpinning this hypothesis, while acknowledging some lingering uncertainties, since data on childhood tumors and longer-term research are still lacking.

The results come just a few weeks after the World Health Organization released its own literature review, in which it claimed that cell phones should be considered "potentially carcinogenic." But Anthony Swerdlow, a professor at Britain's Institute of Cancer Research and leader of the most recent investigation, said his group's work doesn't necessarily contradict the WHO, since the latter was simply seeking to evaluate cancer risks according to its own "pre-set classification system" -- under which things like pickled vegetables and coffee are also considered "potentially carcinogenic." Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that the debate will die down anytime soon, though Swerdlow expects more definitive conclusions within the next few years -- assuming, of course, that all of our brains haven't turned to oatmeal by then.

Cellphones are dangerous / not dangerous: cancer experts say 'What, me worry?' originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Jul 2011 06:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When an international incident occurs—say, a nuclear meltdown in Japan, revolution in Egypt, a SEAL raid in Pakistan, or something along those lines—the State Department knows every detail possible. How? A buzzing room of plugged-in, insomniac brains. More »

Going green is de rigeur, so the sun is becoming a much-preferred source of power. However, solar cells' inefficient harvesting of helical energies is a major reason they haven't usurped the power of petroleum. Good thing the big brains at Oak Ridge National Labratory are looking to change that with nanocone-based solar technology. The teeny-tiny cones are made of zinc oxide and create "an intrinsic electric field distribution" to improve electrical charge transport within solar cells. We aren't sure what that means, but we do know the prickly-looking design provides a 3.2 percent light-to-power conversion efficiency that's a substantial improvement over the meager 1.8 percent offered by today's flat photovoltaics made of similar materials. That's 80 percent more efficient, and 100 percent more awesome.

Nanocones make solar cells more efficient, sinister looking originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 05:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Building a franken-brain has long been a holy grail of sorts for scientists, but now a team of engineering researchers have made what they claim to be a significant breakthrough towards that goal. Alice Parker and Chongwu Zhou of USC used carbon nanotubes to create synthetic synapse circuits that mimic neurons, the basic building blocks of the brain. This could be invaluable to AI research, though the team still hasn't tackled the problem of scope -- our brains are home to 100 billion neurons, each of which has 10,000 synapses. Moreover, these nanotubes are critically lacking in plasticity -- they can't form new connections, produce new neurons, or adapt with age. All told, the scientists say, we're decades away from having fake brains -- or even sections of it -- but if the technology advances as they hope it will, people might one day be able to recover from devastating brain injuries and drive cars smart enough to avert deadly accidents.

Continue reading Researchers build synthetic synapse circuit, prosthetic brains still decades away

Researchers build synthetic synapse circuit, prosthetic brains still decades away originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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