honeywell

Honeywell doesn't do so well in review

Honeywell's Altura MLX, a budget 42-inch LCD TV with a 120Hz refresh rate, looks promising on paper but doesn't quite live up to the promise in person.

This is one of the least-expensive TVs with 120Hz, and it even includes the smoothing processing, aka dejudder, that the kids seem to like these days. But we're generally not big fans of the effect, so we like to have the capability to actually turn off dejudder. One problem with the Altura is that it doesn't have that capability. Inexplicably, with this set it's dejudder or bust.

We liked the Honeywell's styling, but couldn't find much to like about its picture quality. Lighter black levels and less-accurate color are big culprits, as is a very dark gamma that makes the whole picture appear too dull regardless of any adjustments we tried. In case you're still interested, there's plenty more detail after the jump.

Check out the full review of the Honeywell Altura MLX.… Read more

GPS camera now comes with compass

If the question "Where am I?" is a recurring issue for you, Ricoh has added a feature to its GPS-ready digital camera that you may want to check out.

The Ricoh 500SE GPS camera now includes something called an SE-3 GPS module, a three-axis compass developed by Honeywell that nails down the position and direction (azimuth), then displays it on the camera's LCD.

The data, in the form of point coordinates, is embedded into an image as it is captured.

This gives the user a 3D "cones-of-view" perspective, indicating the direction the camera was facing. … Read more

Biofuel gets lift from Honeywell, Airbus, JetBlue

Algae may someday become a part of the jet set.

The pond plant is getting a boost from a joint biofuel effort announced Thursday that involves some marquee names in the aviation industry--Airbus and JetBlue Airways--along with International Aero Engines, Honeywell Aerospace, and a second Honeywell company called UOP. The group plans to study ways to make commercial aviation fuels out of so-called second-generation feedstocks such as algae.

Success with algae would be a salve for biofuel boosters who are feeling the sting of a backlash against early hype. Hailed just a few years ago as a potentially quick … Read more

Open-source history: See Multics source code

In a move more likely to appeal to technology historians than coders, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has published the source code of Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service), a precursor to the Unix operating system begun as a research project at the university in 1965.

The code is hosted on MIT's Multics Web site. MIT, General Electric, and Bell Labs worked to commercialize it, but Bell--originator of the more influential and still widely used Unix operating system--dropped out in 1969. Honeywell took over GE's computer business, and Honeywell became Bull, which donated the source code at the … Read more