so far so fantastic

O my, are we ever having a great time in Oregon. Hiking, meals as a family, good wine, down time, beach trip, feeding horses, beautiful scenery, beautiful people. (O, and free time to edit pictures and sleep in. I love grandparents.)

Chinese 'Red Pad' tablet reserved for top officials

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For the communist cadre who has everything, a shadowy Chinese company is offering a $1,590 tablet computer called the "Red Pad" reserved for the nation's top officials.

The pricey device, whose existence was publicised by state media this week, has drawn mocking comparisons to Apple's

Red is the colour of China's Communist Party and in the political context refers to someone who is patriotic.

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Red Pad Technology, reported to have links to China's powerful Ministry of Information Industry, will not sell the product to the public but only to bureaucrats, state media said.

The Red Pad, called the "

But the company selling the Red Pad appears to have grown publicity-shy, with its official website no longer accessible.

Chinese bloggers said only government officials could afford the tablet since they have access to state funds and illegal sources of income gained through their powerful positions.

"Your products should be aimed at those customers who do not spend their own money," said another microblog posting by Su Hailei.

In what appeared to be a joke, a seller on China's largest online shopping platform

NC State Unveils New DARPA Urban Challenge Driverless Vehicle

In a race that can only be described as futuristic, the Insight Racing team will field a driverless Lotus Elise to compete in the 2007 DARPA Urban Challenge. The team will modify the sports car with sensors and on-board computers that have been programmed to autonomously maneuver it through an urban setting complete with traffic, intersections and traffic circles – the vehicle will even have to park itself – all without the help of a human.

The product of a collaboration among North Carolina State University, Insight Technologies Inc., Lotus Engineering Inc. and the Advanced Vehicle Research Center (AVRC), the technology that will guide the Elise through city streets may one day revolutionize not only the way the military performs missions but also the way that commuters drive to work each day.

“The College of Engineering is excited about being a part of this event,” said Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, dean of the College of Engineering at NC State. “Our students will be able to use their engineering skills to solve real-world problems that will one day help save lives.”

Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Grand Challenge competition was created to answer a congressional mandate to convert one-third of military vehicles to driverless, computer-driven mode by 2015. The objective of the competition is to have teams design a completely autonomous vehicle with no human assistance that can maneuver through an urban setting while avoiding obstacles. The technology developed for the race will help DARPA reach its goal of having the autonomous vehicles perform missions that currently put military personnel in harm’s way.

Today, the Insight Racing team announced that Lotus Engineering had provided a Lotus Elise to use in the competition and will modify the controls interface. The Elise represents a leap up from the 1987 Chevy Suburban used in the 2005 competition, which took an overall 12th place from an original field of 196 applicants.

“Lotus is happy to support Insight Racing in the Urban Challenge,” says Don Graunstadt, chief executive officer and president of Lotus Engineering. “We are impressed with Insight’s proven record and are looking forward to working together.”

“We are proud to have Lotus as a sponsor,” says Grayson Randall, Insight Racing founder. “Lotus Engineering’s leadership will certainly contribute greatly to our efforts. The development of this smart vehicle technology has many applications and will ultimately change how we drive in the not too distant future.”

“It is exciting to think about the many ways this technology will change the automotive industry,” said Dick Dell, executive director of AVRC. “It is great to see North Carolina in a leadership position with this powerful Lotus-Insight partnership.”

Entered as one of the 78 Track B teams – and the only team representing North Carolina – in the 2007 Grand Challenge, the Insight Racing team will now face several elimination rounds to advance to the final Urban Challenge event in November 2007.

“We have a highly talented dynamic team that is composed of students from NC State University, members of the Triangle technical community and retired business executives,” Randall says. “The development of robotics technology will allow us to accomplish both human relief and military missions that pose a threat to our country’s personnel. We are thrilled to compete in this innovative race, which is moving autonomous driving ahead so rapidly.”

Source: NC State University

ATi Confirmed Launch Dates For R5xx GPUs

Some interesting info from an investor meeting held with ATI's CEO Dave Ortonon August 17th :

• Late September Launch Date Set for Three R500 Desktop Discrete Chips (R520,RV530, and RV515)
• The shipment dates will likely be staggered for the three chips, based on thedelivery cycles from TSMC, with one likely shipping at launch date and the othertwo within the first half of October
• R520 had been sampling since Dec/04, and although the architecture and 90nmprocess were not a problem, ATI was not able to run the clock fast enough due toa “soft ground” issue that was discovered in late July after debugging withseveral re-spins.
• R520 and RV530 had functional yields, but could not run at high speeds, whilethe RV515 and the C1 (the 90nm Xbox graphics chip) did not have any issues.
• In terms of performance, ATI believes the R520 should exceed the GeForce 7800GTX in benchmark tests if it can get the proper clock speed, but recognizes thatNVIDIA has some headroom to overclock the GeForce 7800 clock speeds.
• ATI unlikely to launch its R580 (speculated to have 32 pixel pipelines) inC2005 and expect a refresh of the R500 family beginning in spring 2006 withRV560, followed by RV540 and RV505.
• R600 targeted for (DirectX 10, targeting Vista and WGF 2.0) in Q4/F06 orQ1/F07