phoenix

Dungeons & Dragon perfumes: Smell like an orc

Eau de elf. Essential oil of orc. Chaotic cologne. The one feature that Dungeons & Dragons has always lacked is a sense of smell. It's incredible that nobody has come up with a scratch-and-sniff dungeon adventure. That vast oversight has now been remedied by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's RPG series of perfumes.

The idea is that you build your own scent just like you build a D&D character. Choose your alignment (such as lawful or chaotic), add your class (like cleric or paladin) and top it off with your race (including half-elf or orc). Layer the fragrances together and you get the odor of your D&D alter ego. Ah, the sweet smell of a 20-sided dice.

The perfume descriptions read like wine-tasting notes. The paladin perfume smells like "immaculate white musk, sweet frankincense, bourbon vanilla, white leather, and shining armor." I'm not sure what shining armor smells like, but I'd sure like to find out.… Read more

LG Thrive to be AT&T's first prepaid smartphone

No one likes signing their life away to cell phone contracts, but fortunately, most service providers offer some kind of prepaid solution, and they're slowly starting to diversify their phone offerings to include smartphones.

Case in point, today AT&T introduced the LG Thrive, the first smartphone to be available on its GoPhone prepaid service. The Android 2.2 device will start shipping on April 17 and will cost $179.99 and require a GoPhone smartphone data package, which comes in three flavors: $25 for 500MB; $15 for 100MB; or $5 for 10MB.

The Thrive features a 3.… Read more

Firefox set for the future in version 4

The bottom line: Firefox 4 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

Review: Firefox 4 had a rough time in its early development, but those days are over. The browser that you can download now is in the same speed category as its competition; offers many similar features (stronger in many areas and slightly weaker in others); includes broad, cross-platform support for hardware acceleration and other "future-Web" tech and standards; and is … Read more

Firefox set for the future in version 4

Editors' note: Mozilla released version 5 of Firefox on June 21, 2011. The updates are incremental and largely invisible to users. As such, most of this review is taken from our original Firefox 4 review (as is the video, which is still applicable). As we continue to test and use Firefox 5, we will update the review with any new information.

The bottom line: Firefox 5 is a worthy expression of Mozilla's ideals. The browser is competitively fast, sports a new minimalist look, and includes some excellently executed features. Unfortunately, that describes most of Firefox's competition, too.

Review: … Read more

Another look at Saab's Android infotainment platform

Although it's one of the smaller makes in the automotive industry, Saab revealed an infotainment system that shows it still can hang with the big boys.

Making its debut in the Phoenix concept car this week at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show, the Saab iQon is an Android-based infotainment system that uses downloadable apps to bring navigation, entertainment, and diagnostics functionality into the vehicle.

Saab's iQon similar to GM's MyLink or Toyota's Entune infotainment system--both of which use a QNX-based platform--but instead of relying on the user's mobile phone and data plan for a connection, … Read more

You've got mail!

Links from Monday's episode of Loaded:

Facebook gets ready to make an announcement about mail and messaging

AOL unveils its new Webmail client, Project Pheonix

The Sony Dash touch-screen device snags Hulu Plus

Netflix can now stream on Android but only on a select few handsets

Google Earth adds user-contributed panoramic photos

AOL's 'Project Phoenix' e-mail overhaul is here

Once ubiquitous, AOL e-mail has grown into such a punchline that the possession of an active @aol.com address is likely to result in many a playful Luddite joke. But on Sunday, AOL officially unveiled the results of "Project Phoenix," the long-anticipated overhaul of its e-mail system--and they even promise they won't make you use the @aol.com domain.

AOL's been engaging in an ongoing, across-the-board attempt to revive its flagging brand, but the timing of this particular announcement is telling. Facebook is rumored to be launching an expanded messaging service--perhaps as complex as … Read more

Getting a Windows PC to boot in under 10 seconds

How fast will PCs boot up in the future? I asked industry experts to explain what's involved and what could lead to PCs that boot up in seconds.

One of the key components in getting a PC to start quickly is the BIOS, or basic input/output system. The BIOS, which is present in every Windows PC and Apple computer, is the first piece of code run when the computer starts up, also referred to as firmware. The BIOS serves to initialize and identify system devices such as the hard-disk drive, DVD/CD drive, networking components, USB ports, the video card, keyboard, and mouse.

I chatted with Surendra Arora, vice president of business development at BIOS supplier Phoenix Technologies, and Stephen Jones, the company's chief technical officer, as well as Mark Doran, a senior principal engineer at Intel's Software and Services Group.

And I exchanged e-mail with Fadi Zuhayri, senior manager at the Intel Software & Services Group. Zuhayri said that UEFI, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, provides the foundation for reaching instant-on one day. But a number of factors, including the operating system, need to come together to achieve fast boot times in under 10 seconds. "So we are getting at near-parity to instant on. The technology foundation is there to make it happen," Zuhayri said. (Note that UEFI is already being used in Windows PCs from a number of PC makers.)

Q: What is UEFI and why is this replacing the traditional BIOS and why is it instrumental in achieving faster boot times? Surendra Arora (Phoenix): The reality is UEFI was started for various reasons. I'm not sure boot speed was one of the reasons that UEFI was started. The real reason was to move away from assembly code. That was what the bring-up process used to be. Hard-coded or machine-level coding. Now C [language] is being used. You can do it at an abstracted layer that's built on APIs [application programming interfaces]. This [UEFI] allows you to standardize things, use multi-threading. We've parallelized initialization so you can boot extremely fast.

Q: So how fast can boot times be now? For example, my Dell Adamo [laptop] that has a solid-state drive can boot to the Windows log-in in roughly 20 seconds. Arora: The OS and the components that you use lead to the complete experience. What we at Phoenix can do is hand off what we do to the OS extremely fast. It used to be 10 to 15 seconds and now… Read more

Microsoft team's Phoenix fails to rise

A Windows machine crashing just after launch wouldn't ordinarily be a news story, but in this case the machine was actually Redmond's entry in a glider contest.

Project Phoenix, created by eight members of Microsoft's Windows team, was one of about 35 human-powered flying devices entered in this past weekend's Red Bull Flugtag event in Long Beach, Calif.

Unfortunately for Project Phoenix, the glider only made it a few feet past the pier from which it was being launched.

Ben Rudolph, a blogger on the Windows team and a pusher of the glider said that the … Read more