It’s a bit ironic that Apple’s consumer devices such as the iPhone and the iPad are such hot items in China that there is a considerable grey market import for the devices. After all, such products are made in China, only to be shipped out and later to be smuggled back in. The motivation behind the smuggling is to take advantage of the lower prices and taxes elsewhere.

Chinese authorities have put a stop to one of the more inventive smuggling rackets between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Smugglers made a zip line that stretched from the 21^st floor of a Hong Kong apartment that extended 300 meters over the Sha Tau Kok River.

Through the use of a crossbow to create the zip line and bags attached to hooks, iPads and iPhones could make the cross-border trip in 2 minutes.

It all came to an end when authorities acted on their surveillance efforts and arrested six individuals, and seized 50 iPad 2s and 50 iPhone 4s, which worth about three hundred thousand yuan (US$46,583).

Tuesday during SIGGRAPH 2011, Perceptive Pixel unveiled an 82-inch true multi-touch, projected capacitive (pro-cap) LCD display, the largest optically bonded flat-panel pro-cap display in existence. Typically the word “projected” is associated with “bulky,” but that’s not the case with this monster display: its form factor only measures six inches in depth.

“For computer graphics and animation professionals, touch interactivity has opened up new possibilities for how they interact with and showcase their work,” the company said during the show. “Perceptive Pixel’s new 82-inch wall display is ideal for use in creative, collaborative environments such as design reviews, concept pitches, storyboarding and brainstorming sessions, among others.”

According to the specs, the display offers a 1920 x 1080 Full HD resolution, a 120 Hz refresh rate, a touch response time of <1ms and “mission critical” reliability. As previously indicated, it’s optically bonded, has near-zero parallax, and can detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touches so that users can work independently or in a group setting.

“Multi-touch has become fundamental to the way we interact with technology,” said Jeff Han, founder and chief scientist, Perceptive Pixel. “Five years ago here at SIGGRAPH, we introduced the first large-scale true multi-touch display based on rear projection technology. I’m proud to be back at SIGGRAPH 2011 with another industry first – a truly flat-panel 82″ display featuring the highly responsive, unlimited multi-touch experience that is the hallmark of our company.”

SOURCE via Perceptive Pixel

Roller coasters: fun. Driving a Ferrari: also fun. And there’s only one place where the two meet. Nope, not in the parking lot at your local Six Flags. We’re talking about Ferrari World.

The theme park is finally open to the public, complete with all the attractions, from F1-themed coasters to a pit crew-themed acrobatic take on Cirque du Soleil. Unfortunately you’ll need to travel all the way to the Abu Dhabi to see it first hand, so if that’s not in the cards any time soon, or even if it is, you can follow the jump to watch the video and see what’s in store.

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Typically when we mention the name AMD, we’re talking about processors, chipsets and GPUs. That said, it seems a little strange connecting AMD to actual DDR3 chips – even more so seeing the actual sticks being held by human hands. But they’re real, and apparently already on the market in some territories.

On Saturday, images of AMD Radeon-branded DDR3 modules — photographed in Japan — went live, but according to reports, the memory sticks actually went on sale in Canada a few weeks ago. That means they’re not only available to OEMs, but to retail consumers as well.

AMD’s website reports that the Radeon Memory will come in three flavors: the Enterprise Series, the ULTRA PRO Gaming Series, and the Entertainment Series. The Enterprise version is marked as “to be determined,” but the Entertainment version will operate at 1333 MHz with timings of 9-9-9; the ULTRA PRO Gaming version will operate at 1600 MHz with timings of 11-11-11.

Otherwise, all three versions will come in 2 GB sticks and a PCB height of 30.0-mm. The package itself will be a 240-pin socket type dual in line memory module (DIMM), and will be both lead-free (RoHS compliant) and Halogen-free.

“AMD Radeon DDR3 System Modules are ideally suited to our CPU and APU products,” the company said. “Components are tested to the highest industry standards on AMD platforms to guarantee reliability and performance.”

Legit PC gamers sometimes have it pretty rough when games publishers decide to lace their products with DRM schemes that are quite strict.

Gamers who have purchased Ubisoft games Settlers 7, Silent Hunter V, Assassin’s Creed 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood know that a constant and reliable internet connection is required in order to play.

While this does make things harder for pirates, legit gamers who have a flakey internet connection or wish to play their games on a gaming laptop when away from a Wi-Fi hotspot are totally out of luck. Conversely, if Ubisoft’s servers go down, that’s also game over for players.

Despite all that, Ubisoft still sees its DRM scheme a success, and will be implementing it in its Driver: San Francisco that releases on August 30 in the US, and September 2 in Europe.

An Ubisoft representative told PC Gamer that the DRM scheme head led to “a clear reduction in piracy of our titles which required a persistent online connection, and from that point of view the requirement is a success.”

Foxconn’s employment practices often make the news and the company last week hit the headlines once again. This time, it’s the company’s intention to use robots to replace some of its staff that has chins wagging. Xinhua News Agency cites Foxconn founder and Chairman Terry Gou as saying the company plans to replace a portion of its staff with one million robots to cut rising labor expenses and improve efficiency. According to Xinhua, Foxconn currently uses 10,000 robots. The electronics giant aims to up this number to 300,000 next year and one million in three years’ time.

Foxconn currently employs over 900,000 people in its factories. Gou says the robots will be performing simple tasks such as spraying, welding and assembling. These are all tasks currently carried out by human employees.

Reuters cites Gartner analyst C.K. Lu who says thanks to sharply rising employment costs, Foxconn essentially has no choice but to replace workers with robots.

“Rising salary costs should be the key reason why Foxconn is doing this. This year’s wage increase has been quite significant and I don’t expect the pace to slow down next year,” Lu said, adding, “If they don’t do this, they will have to move their factories elsewhere.”

SOURCE via Reuters

Sony’s PS Vita isn’t expected to hit shelves for another couple of months, but that doesn’t mean the tech industry has lost interest in the device. In fact, new information regarding the console is making the headlines every week and this latest tidbit might be one of the most interesting things we’ve heard to date.

Eurogamer reports that Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers recently revealed the new portable can also be used as a controller for the PS3. Rogers revealed the feature while speaking to Develop 2011 attendees:

“PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it,” Rogers is quoted as saying. “You could use the unique features [of Vita] – gyroscope, touch front and back – as a control device for a PS3 game.

“You can run software on both devices and use the network to sync the game states. And that’s pretty good, because you then have the processing power of PS3 doing the work, while Vita [doing] fancy graphics – however you want to do it. You’re not sacrificing the PS3′s CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita.”

The news of Wii U-like compatibility with the PS3 makes the Vita even more interesting. Rogers said that Vita will also support cross-platform play (Wipeout 2048 being one of the titles that utilizes this feature) as well as other cross-platform features, like scoreboards.

SOURCE via Eurogamer