At 0.4 inches thick, the XPS is the thinnest notebook you can buy. It pulls off its trim profile by incorporating a new hinging kickstand configuration. The keyboard folds out about a third of the way up on the body from inside the recessed 13.4-inch display. When open, the whole thing rests atop the battery (that's the bottom third). There's no mechanical button release to open 'er up; instead, you rub your fingers over a heat sensor that releases the keyboard and the notebook slowly unfolds itself. The base configuration weighs in at 3 pounds.

That's about where the cool of the XPS wears off. It runs on an intel 1.4GHz ultra-low voltage processor -- not exactly befitting its premium price. It ships with a 128GB solid-state drive and 4GB of DDR3 800 memory and 64/bit Windows 7. Even with the concession of a low-voltage processor, battery life is still on the (extremely) short side, rating about 2 hours 30 minutes.

The Adamo XPS is right on the trend of ultra-thin computers like the Sony Vaio X series basically torpedoing their own chances of adoption with painful overpricing and sad li'l spec sheets. And we wish them luck; they're gonna need it.

The EP-2 is makes a few improvements over the EP-1, minor though many of them are. First, it's black. Cosmetically, everything else looks the same, save for a new port underneath the hotshoe accessory slot up top. The port is designed to work with Olympus' new VF-2 viewfinder (bundled), which replicates the 3-inch LCD when connected at 1.5-times magnification, and the company's EMA-1 external microphone connector (sold separately).

As far as shooting goes, the changes feel more like firmware upgrades than true hardware leaps. First up is autofocus AF tracking, which allows you to lock onto the subject and the camera will follow it in the frame to keep it in focus. In video mode, the EP-2, like the Panasonic GF1, now has full manual control over aperture and exposure settings -- but still only shoots 720p.

There are also two new art filters to tinker with: Diorama mode makes the picture look something like a 3-D model; and Cross Process plays around with color and contrast to create trippy snaps of purple apples or whathaveyou.

I leave the specs until last, because, well, the guts of the EP-2 are the guts of the EP-1. Both shoot 12.3 megapixels with a Live MOS sensor, and both have the same 4.74-by-2.75-by-1.37 inch (WHD) footprint and 11-ounce body.

If you don't have an EP-1: The E-P2 will be available in December bundles with the VF-2 viewfinder and either a ED 14-42mm f3.5/5.6 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens or 17mm f2.8 Zuiko Digital Zoom Lens. Both configs will run $1,100.

I love the juxtaposition of new and old tech here. If you've had a slow computing day like I have, this might explain your conundrum.

[via FFFFOUND]

(And the at-times-disappointing results)

So why try? Because it makes the entities floating in the vastness of the universe much more real than any Hubble wallpaper on your computer desktop can.

digg_url = 'http://digg.com/general_sciences/Why_Astrophotography_Is_Worth_the_Trouble';

Those images, as spectacular as they are, don't capture personal experience. Marvelous photos have been made of Yosemite, Monument Valley, and the Grand Canyon, but people still trek to see them in person. Similarly, astronomy—for me—is best experienced first-hand. No shot of Saturn, Jupiter, the Orion Nebula, or the Whirlpool Galaxy from the Hubble can equal--intellectually or emotionally--my own experiences at the eyepiece. The scenes, when delivered by nothing more than a few layers of precision-ground glass, are reality. Saturn is an actual object, floating in the blackness of space. Star clusters sparkle like diamonds on black velvet. Everything has scale, depth, and context. They're actual things, not abstractions. And far from making me feel like I'm an insignificant little nothing--unlike, say, watching an episode of Entourage--I actually feel like I'm part of something spectacular. Capturing images myself would be an extension of that first-person experience. I want to record these things, and share them, as I see them.

Astrophotography is a black art of the first order, and, frankly, I suck at it. Every one of my previous efforts over the last 10 or so years has ended in frustration, usually after sitting stock-still next to my scope for hours, shivering to death on fantastically cold nights. Fortunately, though, technology may finally be catching up with my own incompetence. The digital revolution swept amateur astrophotography a decade ago, and new cameras are more powerful and much easier to use than they were when CCD's first crashed in from outer space back then. You can now shoot the universe with everything from consumer DSLR's to $100 "planet cams" to ultra-sensitive, ultra-expensive CCD cameras that come with cooling fans, cryogenics, and finely tuned sensors. You also have exceptionally capable image-capturing and processing software that allows you to better control the camera and pull out the hidden details in these usually very dark shots. So with this in mind, I decided to finally commit myself to conquering my demon, to making an astro-image truly worth showing off.

I turned to one of the leaders in the astro-photo biz, the Santa Barbara Instrument Group, or SBIG. They sent over an ST-4000XCM, a 4.2 megapixel color camera with an integrated cooling fan--this minimizes visual "noise" in your images that an overheated sensor can cause--and a built-in autoguider. This technology helps compensate for minor errors in your telescope's alignment, which is critical when you start taking exposures longer than a minute or so. Essentially, the autoguider analyzes the view, locks on to specific stars, and makes constant adjustments to the telescope to keep everything in alignment. You won't have images with stars burning streaks across the frame--they'll remain fine points.

Having been an avid telescope consumer my entire adult life--I have, like, nine--I had a good head start in terms of the rest of the basic equipment. One of my scopes happens to be great for astrophotography. It's a computerized, 8-inch aperture Schmidt-Cassegrain from Celestron. (Schmidt-Cassegrains use a combination of mirrors and lenses to cram a lot of focal length and aperture into a compact tube. And the more aperture you have, the more light, and detail, you can bring in.) I'm able to align the motorized mount so that it can track smoothly, and I've got the super-sturdy mount option to minimize the shakes.

One my first night, my target was Jupiter, which is positioned nicely in the sky right now--fairly low on the horizon and centered along the ecliptic in the early evening. After spending about an hour installing and experimenting with SBIG's CCDOPS software, I wired everything up to the scope. The computer recognized the camera and began pulling in data about its temperature and various other parameters that I've yet to fully comprehend. Before I attached the camera, I'd centered the scope on the planet, and she looked beautiful through the eyepiece--three moons visible, nice detail in the cloud bands. When I took the eyepiece out and put the camera back in, the image on my laptop showed barely a hint of yellow blob. Since the eyepiece and camera focus at different points, the crisp view was long gone. The CCDOPS software solves this with a Focus function--it takes a steady stream of quick images so you can make adjustments between each shot. Within a few minutes, I was pleased to see a much more defined yellow blob. It was obviously overexposed, but I figured the camera would help me tame the shot in good time.

Finally, I started grabbing images. I tried exposures from 1/30th of a second down to 1/60th and up through a full second. Each time the image came back looking roughly the same. I also tried the software's Planet Master function, in which the computer takes over and tries to grab the best shots in a rapid sequence. I had no better luck. This, however, I'd anticipated. It was my first night with an extremely sophisticated and complicated camera. I was just going to learn its rough functionality and then dive in with the manual once I'd had some degree of familiarity with it. So I packed it in, sent my shot to Michael Barber, an engineer at SBIG, and cracked open the book. Within a few minutes, Michael got back to me. I'd assumed that my shot was badly out of focus, but I was actually just being too ambitious. "That shot's actually pretty well focused," Barber told me. "The problem with planets is the great dynamic range and the brightness. The exposure is too long and the planet is saturated and burned out. You need to shorten the exposure time for Jupiter."

So even at less than 1/60th of a second, I was shooting too long. Barber followed up with some more advice. "The temptation for beginners is always to try the moon and Jupiter first because they are so easy to find and so bright," he said. "But this also makes them very difficult to image [see the image at the top of the article]. Try a globular cluster or other dense star field to get the feel of the camera and to see how much guiding plays a part in taking a good image. Very short exposures of less than a minute will appear grainy, and this will be worse in light-polluted skies. Longer exposures will be far less grainy."

A glob? No problem--globular clusters are among my favorite sights. These clusters of tens of thousands of stars are fascinating targets. You can stare at M13 in Hercules for hours and watch it unpack more and more individual stars as your eyes adapt to the sight. The next night, I went straight for Hercules.

My luck improved. I focused the camera and started experimenting with exposures. I tried three minutes, two minutes, 60 seconds, and 45 seconds. Each time, I got something that actually looked something like my view at the eyepiece. There are clearly still problems with my technique--the image still needs a few focus tweaks, and I suspect that there are settings I'm not familiar with that will help refine my shooting. But it's my first successful, coherent astrophotograph. It's a fine image, if I do say so myself--thanks to some contrast adjustments to darken the background--but it's still a first try from a CCD novice, and it doesn't quite capture the experience the way I want it to. Plus, I haven't even scratched the surface of this camera's capability--there are plenty of other features that can enhance my imaging, and plenty of ways I can tweak the image on the computer to get the best possible results.

Next, after some further schooling, I'll go back to Jupiter, try M13 again, and then, hopefully, go intergalactic.

Halloween's not over yet, folks. Nintendo ups the creepy game applications with a crying Wiimote-powered doll

The game uses motion control to create 18 game modes that include the usual feeding, coddling and playing activities which keep hordes of zombie-like parents awake long into the wee hours. There's even balance board support for rocking this Rosemary's baby to sleep, burping it, or teaching it to walk. Note: if nothing else, we would definitely advise against teaching the terrifying tot to walk.

But that's not all. Kids who rock their Wii babies will also see themselves rocking a virtual baby on-screen in Baby and Me--after all, why not throw in some Ringu style horror elements?

The game even comes with a holster that allows players to attach the Wiimote to everything from household appliances to pets. That prospect alone seems more disturbing than any prior Wii applications, including the Wii saddle and using the Wiimote to practice home CPR.

Anyway, you've been warned. The doll arrives on store shelves November 10.

[Aussie Nintendo via Kotaku]

Though it's touted as the thinnest landscape slider cell phone (a little more than a half-inch), don't be fooled into thinking the Droid is light; at nearly 6 ounces it outweighs most BlackBerries and the iPhone -- but at least it feels sturdy. Its 3.7-inch display is responsive and beautifully high-res (480-by-854 pixels), and there's nice haptic feedback when you press, well, anything (I'm already finding myself defaulting to the virtual keyboard in landscape mode over sliding out the physical QWERTY).

So...this whole Android 2.0 thing: it's got some nifty tricks up its sleeve. The universal search pings everything on the handset and the Web from anywhere you navigate; if, for example, I'm listening to The Roots, I can search from their artist page in the media player and get hit back with everything local, plus extra goodies like YouTube videos (which render quickly and smoothly, by the way). As for the contacts integration, pulling all the myriad ways you have to ping one person (text, Facebook, e-mail, or gasp phone call) into one spot saves the trouble of clicking back and forth between apps and windows.

Speaking of windows, if a new e-mail or text message pops up, you don't have to abandon your current task (be it Web browsing or YouTube watching); you can pull up the Droid's Notification menu, see what's up, and hop back where you started. The Web browser is similarly smart, keeping tabs on multiple windows at a time and creating a thumbnail view of your bookmarks.

And, as we said earlier today, Google Navigation Maps ain't foolin' around. Though it couldn't do much to follow me around the corridors at PopSci, I was able to track the route to the beloved burgers of Shake Shack with turn-by-turn with street view, satellite view, and a traffic layer on top. I also to added a layer for gas stations along the route in two clicks. Oh, and I entered the destination by voice.

The Motorola Droid will be available to Verizon customers on Friday, November 6 for $200 with a two-year contract.

For more photos, see our hands-on gallery

Sure, previous versions of mobile Maps provided turn-by-turn directions, but this beta release takes it a step further and gets chatty. Like a standalone GPS, it will read directions aloud to you, and you can enter destinations by voice. Also, if you miss a turn, it will automatically recalculate your route.

Maps for 2.0 also takes advantage of all Google's views, including satellite images, Street View, and live traffic overlays. And, since all the maps are cloud-based, you don't have to download map updates or points of interest, since they're all stored on Google itself. Plus, searching (by either voice or text entry) is just like searching on the Google Maps homepage; you don't need to know the exact name of what you're looking for, so you can say things like "navigate to the bar across the street from Yankee Stadium."

There's tons to play with in the Beta, so we'll get back to you with plenty more, hands-on details when we get our mitts on an Android 2.0 phone, which should be very soon.

In the meantime, you can check out Google's video demo:

The second version of Google's mobile OS (codenamed Eclair) borrows ideas from existing (and upcoming?) phones for an improved user experience

The big news is in contacts handling. Developers can now add a widget called Quick Contact into their apps; QC pulls all the ways you can reach someone into one pop-up menu that can overlay any app in addition to Android's native address book. Also on the address-book-sorting-front: the new API can pull, save and sync contact information from any source a developer chooses to code.

Apps can also now control the device Bluetooth, which allows for more peer-to-peer play to share data or go head-to-head in games.

Screens on Android devices, like the Archos 5, have been outgrowing the original T-Mobile G1 for a few months now. 2.0 is finally catching up; one set if code will now render correctly on screens with varying sizes and resolutions. On their

Now, when you sign up for Google Voice, you will have the option to choose a Google number or to keep your own old number. Keeping your own number means you give up amenities like in-call voice recording and call forwarding. However, you get to keep the cream of Google Voice's offerings: Google Voicemail. The voicemail option will transcribe voicemails (to the best of its computer ability) just seconds after recording them and either text or email them to you. From there, it's easy to organize them on your PC or within your phone. You can also still set up personalized voicemail greetings for individual phone numbers.

Existing Google Voice users can also add Google Voicemail to individual numbers they've linked to their accounts. For those not in the Google Voice loop, it's invite-only, but you can request one here. Check the video below for more details on the full functionality of Google Voice.

[Google Blogs]