Apple’s iPad, released Saturday, has been scrutinized by hundreds of reviewers, disassembled by iFixIt and others, and fiscally analyzed by Wall Street, but it wasn’t until Monday that the most pressing question about the “magical and revolutionary” device was answered.

That question, of course, is: Will it blend?

Tens of millions of YouTubers have watched Blendtec’s deadpan blendologist Tom Dickson over the years as he has popped a series of devices and ingredients into his company’s voracious Total Blender to answer that pressing question.

Into the maw of that industrial-strength yet designed-for-the-home machine have gone, among many other things, an iPhone, a half-dozen Bic lighters, a gaggle of glow sticks, and a can of Coca-Cola along with a rotisserie chicken - which resulted in the tasty smoothie known as a Cochicken.

Today, it was the iPad’s turn. Of course, you fans of the “Will It Blend?” series know well that the mouth of the Total Blender is too small into which to slip an iPad. But worry not, as Dickson has a straightforward methodology for overcoming that obstacle.

You can observe Dickson’s technique, and discover the fate of the fanbois’ delight here

Somewhere in a corner office at Cupertino’s One Infinite Loop, we can only imagine, a certain “CEO of the Decade” is not amused.

(Source: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/06/ipad_blend/ )

Just wanted to let all of you in on a bit of good news from the Mouse and Keyboard on the Xbox360 world.

For those of you who may already be familiar with the XIM (Xbox Input Machine), you know that it was capable of taking the XFPS’s capabilities and enhancing them 10-fold to make a usable mouse and keyboard experience with most games on the console. Since you’re familiar, read below for the good news.

For those of who who don’t know the XIM, read on. XIM started as an enhancement for the XFPS. Anyone who has used the XFPS regardless of which edition knows that no matter what you do it just doesn’t offer the same experience. The guy behind the project, OBsIV found that it was possible with the combination of additional hardware and a special piece of software that you could create a much more accurate experience with the mouse and keyboard in games like COD4 and Halo 3. But, this experience wasn’t quite as good as it could be due to the limitations in the hardware that the XIM used. So he went back to the drawing board and created a piece of hardware and new software that could deliver the experience that you’ve always hoped to get with a mouse and keyboard on a console, appropriately named XIM2.

So, what’s the good news in all of this blabbering? The XIM2 is now being pre-ordered and will ship in 2 weeks.

Official Site: http://xim360.com
Pre-ordered Thread: xim360.com

(Original Post )

Cisco take note: Juniper’s new EX 4200 switch not only fills a hole in a leading competitor’s product line, but also represents a credible alternative for enterprise access switching.

In Network World’s exclusive Clear Choice test, we subjected the EX 4200-48T switch to the same rigorous battery of benchmarks we used to assess seven other vendors’ 10G Ethernet access switches earlier this year. (See comparative 10G Ethernet switch test .)

The verdict: This is one fast box. The EX 4200 delivered line-rate throughput in every case, the only switch we’ve tested this year to do so. What’s more, 10G Ethernet latency is the lowest we’ve ever measured. We also were impressed by the EX 4200’s feature set and powerful JUNOS command-line interface (CLI).

That’s not to suggest Cisco and others should fold up their tents, though. This is Juniper’s first effort in enterprise switching, and that inexperience shows in a few places. Multicast support is still a bit rough, and our tests also uncovered a couple of security concerns. Still, this is an impressive device, especially for a first try. (Compare products .)

We tested the $16,800 EX 4200-48T, which offers 48 10/100/1000Mbps gigabit ports, two 10G Ethernet ports, PoE capability on 8 ports, and stacking capability for up to 10 switches. Juniper also offers the EX 4200-48P with 48 ports of PoE capacity from a single power supply for $18,400. Both devices offer optional redundant power supplies and support virtually all switching and routing protocols (see Features spreadsheet ).
Faster still
In access switch tests earlier this year we found throughput no longer is the differentiator as it once was, with most boxes pushing packets either nearly at, or within one percent of, line rate.

With Juniper’s EX 4200, there’s no need to say "nearly". Even under the heaviest loads our Spirent TestCenter traffic generator threw at it, the switch delivered line-rate throughput in every single unicast and multicast test, both in layer-2 and layer-3 configurations. No other switch did that.

Latency – often a more important metric than throughput, especially for time-sensitive voice and video traffic – was low and consistent across all tests. Measured at line rate, the Juniper switch delayed 64-byte frames across 10G Ethernet links for an average of 1.96 microsec and a maximum of 2.01 microsec.

(Original Post - Read More! )