Gigabyte P27K And P25W Gaming Notebooks - Tech Specs, Features & Price

Computex 2013 saw the launch of two new powerful gaming laptops from GIGABYTE. The company has come up with these gaming notebooks - P27K And P25W - with NVIDIA GeForce GTX cards. Designed like a sports car, both 15.6-inch P25 and 17-inch P27 sport FHD 1080p displays with full featured PC connectivity, 4th generation Intel Core i7 processors and backlit keyboards.

The P25W notebook, which is launching by late June at a price of $1299~$1799, comes with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770M graphics card in a chrome yellow, silver trim chassis. Boasting two 256GB mSATA SSDs and 1TB HDD that supports superior RAID 0 Technology, this notebook comes with a Blu-ray RW and Dolby Home Theater technology couples with audio on its 4.1 speaker system. Coming to Gigabyte's P27K notebook, which is releasing earlier in late July at a same price tag, the 2GB graphics card and an upgradeable memory space up to 24GB is what you will find on its features list. With ample storage – 256GB mSATA SSD plus additional two 1TB HDD, and Sound Blaster sound quality optimization technology to boot, the P27K comes in two colors – automotive orange or moonless black.

P25W/P27K Key Features and Specs:

• Nvidia® GeForce® GTX 770M DDR5 3GB/ GTX 765M DDR5 2GB
• Extremely Powerful 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-Processor.
• Massive Storage System*
• Backlit Keyboard
• Vivid Visual Enjoyment with 1080p Full HD Display.
• Dolby Home Theater/ Sound Quality Optimization Technology
• Dimensions: 392(W) x 263(D) x 32.1~38.3(H) mm / 413(W) x 277.5(D) x 17.5~48.8(H) mm
• Weight: 3kg – 6.6lbs (w/ODD and 8-cell battery) / 3.2kg - 7lbs (w/ODD and 8-cell battery)

 

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Honda & Top Gear UK Build Lawnmower With 130 mph Top Speed

Top Gear UK is well known for its ludicrous activities, whether it’s their plan of building a food blender with a V8 engine or sending a Reliant Robin as a space shuttle Top Gear have always lived up to their “ambitious but rubbish” tagline. Recently they came up with an idea to spice up the humble lawnmower that would break speed records while managing to clean up grass, so instead of fooling about they decided to call in some expert assistance. Soon Honda answered their call and sent in their Team Dynamics to get cracking. The team started with a Honda HF2620 mower fitted it with a VTR 1000cc engine and steering rack from a Morris Minor. The wheels and the tyres were taken from a racing quad bike and the back axle was out of a 250 cc go-kart. Since the team has not yet put a seatbelt the machine has not been able to test its actual performance on a track but they have calculated theoretically that this little monster is capable of going from 0-60 mph (0-96.5 kmph) in about 4 seconds and with a power to weight ratio of 520 brake horse power (bhp) per tonne it can reach speeds up to 130 mph.

But what about the grass cutting objective, you say? The team has got rid of the standard metal blades as they were too complicated and they got in the way of the new transmission system. The replacement was done by two electric motors on which a length brake cable was attached that spins a four thousand rpm capable of cutting anything that come across it. To make sure that the powerful lawnmower does not disturb your neighbours, a chain tensioning system has been set between the engine and the rear axle and lined up with plastic. All that remains to see is how this machine will be used in a garden by the tame racing driver of Top Gear, The Stig.

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Amazon India Launched - Should Flipkart And Other E-commerce Sites Worry?

While regular browsing and surfing on the internet, I came upon something fascinating. With an interest in window shopping and preparing a wish list for things I would like to buy later, I linger around online shopping portals frequently. The best part of online shopping portals is that you could right away compare the prices of a single product in various other portals and buy it from the one that offers you the cheapest price. I generally order things from Flipkart and books from Infibeam. I never trusted ebay, in reaction to all the terrible experiences people have had. And sometimes the biggest among these players, Amazon. This online shopping destination has been the most busiest in the world and the driving force of the e-commerce industry. And now they are entering India officially.

While looking up on Amazon, I felt the need that this service needs to be here in India so that people could order things without worrying about the huge shipping prices. So, just to check I entered the domain for Amazon with a .in and voila, I was brought to the Indian portal of Amazon. This was great since now I can see people buying things here without worrying about security and sharing their credit card details since Amazon is a favourite and trusted among users.

Currently, amazon[dot]in only has books and movies and the other products are coming soon. This not only means Amazon's entry into the Indian market with a better strategy, but also means serious competition to other Indian counterparts like Flipkart, Infibeam, etc. Though the Indian ones have captured most of the market here, but still Amazon has a strong brand value. Another delightful thing is they are not charging anything for shipping on any product, and they say it would be for a limited period of time only.

Well, I have already started adding a couple of books to my cart at amazon[dot]in, and I think you should too. As soon as rest of the products are available, I would totally start ordering them right away. Go and have a look amazon.in

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Printed Electronics Made 10x Efficient With New Process

Researchers at Stanford University have developed a better way to control the flow of ink during the electronics printing process. The new method allows fewer defects in the end-product and also improves its overall electrical efficiency. Printed electronics is used to create lightweight & low-cost solar cells and also in manufacturing flexible electronics screens. However, the big problem with current methods is that the efficiency of these products is far lesser than than traditional electronics products. New process developed at Stanford is called FLUENCE aka fluid-enhanced crystal engineering. The research team expects that this new innovation will accelerate further adoption of printed electronics.

Dr Ying Diao, the lead author of the paper published in Nature Materials says that FLUENCE allows the process to be scaled up to meet the industry requirements. It's interesting to note that printed electronic devices are generally formed using semiconducting crystals. These crystals are grown using special inks containing organic chemicals. The distribution and even flow of ink, which often gets disturbed during rapid printing leads to defects in the final products.

Diao has designed a new printing blade with very tiny pillars embedded in it. These pillars mix the ink in such a way that it forms a uniform film. She has also designed a series of chemical patterns on the organic substrate to make sure that the crystals grow in a regular & uniform pattern. X-Ray studies were carried out at Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and it allowed Diao to inspect the progress and keep making improvements in the process. Diao and her team were finally able to produce better arranged crystal which are at least 10x longer than the crystal created with traditional process.

Diao and her team now wants to exhamine the relationship between process & the material. This would provide even better control over the final electronic properties of the printed electronic films.

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High Frequency Sound On Plant Matter To Create Biofuels - Iowa State University

Iowa State University researchers are employing high-frequency sound waves to break down plant substances for creation of bio-fuel. The research includes pretreating a wide range of feedstocks like witch grass, corn stover, and soft wood with constant ultrasound, thus enhancing the necessary chemical reactions needed to tansform the biomass into high-value biofuels and chemicals. All these findings shall be presented at the 21st International Congress on Acoustics (ICA 2013) being held from June2-7 in Montreal.

The researchers discovered that they could substantially up the efficiency of removing lignin (the substance that binds cellulose and hemicellulose together in plant cell walls) from biomass in solution. Generally enzymes or chemicals do the trick, but this time the researchers removed lignin by pretreating the plant matter with ultrasound. Once the lignin is removed via this technique, freed sugar gets dissolved within minutes for further processing into biofuel. The team also discovered that hydrolysis of corn starch could be greatly accelerated with ultrasonic. Traditionally, ground corn is steamed with jet cookers at high temperatures, to break down the corn and the remaining starch mash is then cooled and reacted with enzymes to release glucose for fermentation. Ultrasonically, the corn was grounded so small that it provided more surface area for enzymatic action. Economic rewards of this method are great, with less than an year payback period since installation.

A third application for ultrasound in biofuel production is the speeding up of transesterification, the major chemical reaction that transforms oil to bio-diesel. Ultrasounding soybean oil transformed it into bio-fuel within a minute, and not the regular time of 45 minutes.

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