Items tagged with Santa
It may be time for Christmas and other December holidays, but Tesla has decided to inject some Easter into the current season. Just days ago, the company released yet another Easter egg; and in this holiday season, it couldn't be more appropriate. Once the latest Easter egg is activated, your Tesla infotainment system on the in-dash display will switch into Santa Mode with the jolly old elf on his sled. And when using autopilot, it changes all of the surrounding traffic into reindeer. You could say that Tesla really sleighed this one! To access the hidden treat, you need to have your vehicle updated to the 2017.50.2 firmware. At that point, you must tap and hold the T in "Tesla" on the main...
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NORAD may have decided to power their Santa Tracker engine with Bing maps this year but Google is stepping up to the mistletoe, with yuletide vigor, to help those on the "nice" list keep track of Santa's activities and of course that magical journey on Christmas eve. Google's Santa Tracker page is loaded with goodies for good girls and boys. And heck, maybe if you've been a tad naughty this year (who hasn't?), you can hop on the Santa HOT line and instant chat with the big man in an effort to get in his good graces. Think about it. The office Christmas party this year was a bit of a blow-out. You remember that, right? Mum's the word... On December 24th, you...
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Ask any child who celebrates Christmas and he or she will tell you that the big day is just over a week away. They keep track of these things, the way adults keep tabs on their favorite sports team, and understandably so. How cool is it to wake up to a pile of loot that a man in a red suit delivered the night before? The logistics of Santa's travels on Christmas Eve is mind boggling, but it's also traceable thanks to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). Every year NORAD tracks Santa's travels around the globe, and this year, you and your child can follow along in Windows 8 with NORAD's new app. "If you have younger children, then you might want to know about the 'NORAD Tracks...
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A bustling shopping mall in Canada is ending a more than century old tradition of having kids line up for hours to sit on Santa's knee to tell the bearded gift giver what they want for Christmas. This year they'll need to sign up in advance for a one-hour story time session on Saturday morning, in which they'll also have a chance to sit on his knee and have their photo taken; the rest of the time he'll be on Skype. "Santa has gone digital! This year, only at the Toronto Eaton Centre, your child can have a one on one Skype with Santa!," the mall states on its website. Parents can register their child for a 10-minute Skype session with Santa Monday through Friday from 6PM to 8PM and never have...
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We'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, from our rather large, extended family here to you and yours. We hope whatever you had on your wish-list, naughty or nice, that your Yuletide dreams come true. But most of all, we wish you all, health, happiness and good times with loved ones and friends. And for our friends that celebrate Hanukkah, we give you Adam Sandler in this timeless classic - The Hanukkah Song. Happy Holidays!...
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I have a rule of thumb. Whenever I read anything about alternative energy of any kind, I simply skip over everything and look for the one thing that matters: Is it cheaper than oil and coal? Nothing else matters, really. Burning coal and oil to make energy to produce goods and services to tax to redistribute as subsidies to alternative energy producers is a colossal waste of time. I've read thousands of articles about solar power over the years, all missing that essential ingredient. So no one was more surprised than I when I read the following in an article about Nanosolar, a startup in Silicon Valley that's pioneering an inexpensive manufacturing process for solar panels:Nanosolar’s founder...
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The digital grassy knoll set's collective head is about to explode. Apple is collecting iPhone usage data, linked to the user's specific personal information. Apple gathers that personal information when you sign up for an iPhone, and may be doing something or nothing with it after associating it with your usage data. People's opinions on this seem to depend on the ratio of Apple fanboy to paranoid privacy nut you are. If you're 100% both, this is bad news:From this information, Apple could build a profile on users. Where they travel, where they spend their free time, where they work, where they invest their money, what they browse, etc etc. Obviously most users would like to...
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Last week at a small event at Milk Studios in New York City, we had a chance to meet with representatives from Intel to talk about their recently launched "Santa Rosa" mobile platform and get some hands on experience with a number of notebooks and small form factor systems based on the technology. If you're unfamiliar with the codename "Santa Rosa" it was basically an internal name given to the latest version of Intel's Centrino mobile platform that encompasses not only the processor, but the core logic chipset, and wireless network controller as well....
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Marco spent time with Intel at the swank offices of Milk Studios in New York city last week, at the Santa Rosa mobile platform launch event. Among various slabs of thin, speedy techno-goodness was Lenovo's new Thinkpad T61. Dig on the new protective top cover "roll cage"... Specs Type: Business, Small Business Operating System: Microsoft Windows Vista Business Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo T7700 Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz...
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Engadget has the scoop on some brand new Asus laptops built around Intel's upcoming Santa Rosa platform. They've got some specifications and pics posted, and even mention some yet-to-be announced NVIDIA mobile GPUs. "Just in case the recent outpouring of Santa Rosa wasn't doing enough to keep you satisfied, ASUS just announced five laptops sporting the new mobile processor. None of 'em break much ground on the design or form factor side of things, but Santa Rosa isn't the only thing these laptops have going for them. The 17-inch A7S-7S006C runs a 2GHz T7300 Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB of RAM, a 1440 x 900 screen and perhaps most excitingly, the new NVIDIA GeForce 8400G mobile graphics card with...
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Over the past few years, AMD has moved from making value chips to having a pair of serious runs as the performance king in the desktop arena and finally making serious inroads into the server market. The only market where AMD was not able to move beyond their beachhead was in the Intel-dominated land of laptops. Unfortunately for AMD, laptops are a big seller these days. Current AMD mobile flagship product, the Turion X2, just doesn't catch the offerings from rival Intel in either performance or battery life. AMD has been working hard to close this gap, and it seems that the first big step will be ready at almost the same time Intel is ready to ship their next generation laptop platform....
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There are some very bad people out there in the world. But it goes beyond bad to put malicious code onto Santa Claus' .net webpage. "Nestled all snug in the bottom of his home page was a nice little bit of code containing a badware link," he added. The problem was soon resolved, but alas, while good boys and girls may fall asleep waiting for a visit from St. Nicholas, there's no delay at all when you're dealing with the bad guys. On Friday, malware had again cropped up on the Web site. Stopbadware.org is helping Kris Kringle get the offending code off his site, but you really have to wonder...
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X-Bit Labs reports that NVIDIA's CEO is indicating that the company will likely have a mobile variant of the new G80 architecture ready for the launch of both Windows Vista and Intel's new Centrino Pro platform in January 2007. An interesting tidbit from the article is the possibility that NVIDIA might make the upcoming GPU's exclusive to the Centrino Pro platform. Doing so would certainly make life easier for Intel, as they'll be trying to convince consumers to opt for the new platform and not for an earlier Napa-based model. "Santa Rosa notebooks are DirectX 10 notebooks. They are Vista, DX10, Blu-ray disk, high-definition video notebooks. And we are the only supplier of DX10...
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DigiTimes reports that Intel's PM96 and GM965 chipsets for the upcoming Santa Rosa platform are on track and aligned with the scheduled March 2007 debut. As Intel's fourth-generation of the wildly popular Centrino platform, "Santa Rosa" brings a host of new performance features such as an 800MHz FSB as well as DX10-caliber integrated graphics. Notebook vendors and mobile enthusiasts alike are waiting for this new platform with baited breath so it is certainly a positive bit of news to hear the wait is almost over. The timely introduction of the PM965/GM965 chipsets would enable the chip giant to launch the Santa Rosa...
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HKEPC has managed to get their hands on some Intel documents which suggest that the company is aiming to bring their upcoming Santa Rosa mobile platform to the embedded market to compete with VIA. Beyond the obvious mobile segment, Intel intends to use the Santa Rosa platform in MoDT (Mobile on Desktop) and MoEB (Mobile on Embedded). Here, the company has designed a reference platform dubbed "Matanzas" to aid in bringing designs to market as quickly as possible. Equipped with support for an 800MHz FSB, DDR2 667 memory, and a DX10 GPU this platform should give VIA's embedded solutions a serious run for their money. With the Santa Rosa platform tentatively scheduled to launch sometime...
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DigiTimes is claiming that their sources are indicating a pending delay for Intel's next generation Santa Rosa notebook platform. With initial indications showing a small delay into Q1 2006, it is somewhat surprising to hear that the shipping date is now rumored to fall somewhere in Q2 2006. Although no official word regarding the delay has come thus far, Intel has emphasized that the platform will ship in the first half of the year. The delay will affect Taiwan notebook makers' shipment plans for next year, which had already taken into consideration the new platform's launch, according to the sources....
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DigiTimes reports that Intel's next-generation mobile platform (Santa Rosa) will be purposely delayed from its expected arrival at the end of 2006 and is now expected in March of 2007. Although the delay would seem to hint at some hardware issues, the platform supposedly is progressing as planned. The pushback for the timeline is actually an intentional move to allow notebook ODM's the opportunity to have ample time to design their new platforms and give Napa-based notebooks more opportunity in the marketplace.Taiwan makers estimate that global notebook shipments will reach 82-85 million units in 2006, up from an estimate of 65 million units for 2005, the sources said. With the planned launch...
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