While DigiTimes spilled its cup of beans about the devices’ possible use of Fringe Field Switching displays and fabrication by Quanta Computer, the Wall Street Journal threw its two cents in with a report pegging a couple of new Kindles for Q3. Now loose-lipped sources are tipping DigiTimes with a leaked supplier parts list that has Wintek, J Touch and CPT providing touch panels with NVIDIA processors at the tabs’ cores. The Seattle-based company also purportedly plans to ship four million of these 7- and 10-inch slates by 2011′s end.

SOURCE via Slashgear

You put off grocery shopping until the weekend, curse your way through the irate Sunday morning hordes at Boulevard with your stomach almost bloated with the awesome dim sum at Causeway Bay, and then schlep your food all the way home only to realize you forgot to buy those dish soap with 20-percent sales and use those exchange coupons. Sounds awfully familiar aye?

Well, someone sure is paying attention. SK Telecom is trying out a new service that syncs items from a smartphone app — like a shopping list — to its tablet PC-equipped Smart Cart. Hailed by the company as the first of its kind, this real-time aide uses indoor positioning to provide product info, tips and discounts while you peruse those crowded aisles. The WiFi-connected in-cart display also makes use of augmented reality, offering coupon clippers a high-tech solution for their cost-cutting predilections.

If the current pilot test in China’s Shanghai Lotus Supermarkets proves a success, expect to see this “personalized smart shopping service” doling out recommendations based on purchase history and location. Hear that? That’s the sound of marketers licking their hyper targeting chops. Now, we’ll just need to convince Tesco and Giant.

What’s more fun than running through a five-kilometer obstacle course in the woods? Running through a five-kilometer obstacle course in the woods… while being chased by zombies!

The event is called Run For Your Lives, and while it doesn’t actually involve, you know, “real” zombies (which fortunately only exist in movies – we think), it does the next best thing. Participants pick a path through the woods, littered with man-made obstacles, with a flag belt tied ’round their waists. They’ve got to run the distance, overcome the obstacles and avoid losing their “health flags” to the legions of make-believe zombies chasing after them.

The first such event is scheduled for October 22 in Baltimore, with more locations to follow. So what does this have to do with cars, you ask? Well, it’s got zombies, so what more excuse do we need? It also happens to be sponsored by Subaru, which is building an advertising campaign around it, billing its go-anywhere-and-fast Impreza WRX as “The official escape vehicle of the Zombie Apocalypse”.

Cute, but when push comes to shove, there probably aren’t many vehicles we’d take over a WRX if we were, you know, actually being chased by the brain-hungry undead. What would you pick? Share your opinion in the Comments section below and follow the jump to watch the video. Read more…

A new car, updated livery and a fresh set of tires can only mean one thing for Ken Block – a new Gymkhana video is in the works, and it’s slated to take over YouTube sometime this summer. The new instrument of driving precision and rubber destruction is Block’s Ford Fiesta Hybrid Function Hoon Vehicle.

Gymkhana Four will no doubt be another internet sensation, one that will add to the constantly growing mass of people who’ve viewed the previous three videos. To date, Gymkhana installments one through three have been watched over 110 million times, with Gymkhana Three making its way on to YouTube’s list of Top 10 Videos of 2010.

Whether you think it’s merely a marketing stunt, a display of skill behind the wheel or something in between, there’s little doubt that you’re going to watch it. We’ll do the same, and you’ll be sure to find it here on Autoblog when Ken Block and DC Shoes release the finished version. For now, you can get a taste of what’s to come by checking out the image gallery above.

Toyota and The Braun Corporation have partnered to provide a unique wedding present to a very special bride. A little over a year ago, Rachelle Friedman was celebrating her bachelorette party when she was pushed into a swimming pool. When she fell, Friedman broke her C6 vertebra and became a quadriplegic in an instant. After 14 months of hospitals, physical therapy and daunting medical bills, Friedman and her fiancé finally tied the knot on July 22.

While the bride and her family were preparing for the wedding, Toyota and Braun, one of the leading manufacturers of wheelchair-accessible van conversions, lent Friedman a vehicle to help out. Before that, her mother had to carry her in and out of the family’s SUV. What Friedman didn’t know was that Toyota was planning to surprise the newlyweds with an accessible Sienna Rampvan of their very own.

The new vehicle has opened up a new level of comfort and independence, and Friedman says that she can’t wait to learn to drive on her own next. While most of us would have a hard time facing Friedman’s reality, the young woman has maintained a positive outlook throughout her ordeal that’s as inspirational as it is amazing. We wish Friedman and her husband, Chis Chapman, the best.

Not only is it a tedious bore, the real world can be such an unnecessary distraction when trying to listen for footsteps coming around the corner or place that last block on a Minecraft masterpiece, which is obviously why ASUS is launching a noise cancelling headset just for the likes of us.

They’re called the Republic of Gamers Vulcan ANC Pro. The acronym stands for ‘active noise cancelling’ – although they have been launched so close to Nelson Mandela’s 93rd birthday that I can’t help feel they’re missing a trick for South African sales of the bright red set of cans.

Read more…

The net is alive today with news that AMD is planning a 10 core CPU sometime next year, based on a revision to their Bulldozer design codenamed Piledriver.

The new processor was revealed in a deck of presentation slides leaked by the Chinese news site Zol.com.nc, and shows that these new processors won’t have on board graphics and will require a new motherboard socket, called FM2, which supercedes the current AM3+ board. Just behind these ‘up to 10 core’ CPUs is confirmation of the Trinity CPU/GPU hybrid that was announced at Computex, which will also use the Piledriver architecture and FM2 socket.

While we’re still waiting to see samples of the delayed Bulldozer CPUs – which will have up to eight cores and be known as the AMD FX when they launch – this isn’t surprising news. AMD had already said that they plan to launch 10 core server chips codenamed Sepang next year, so it makes sense that the desktop line will follow suit.

Not surprising, but still quite exciting. A decacore processor gives games developers an interesting target to work towards for elements of the game engine that can be heavily multithreaded.

SOURCE via The Inquirer