Techie Gist: Latest Gists on Technology & Gadgets!

[techieguy]

This is the view from the last drops of your water bottle. And here are 44 more brilliantly conceptualized photos from this week's Shooting Challenge:         



The perspective of my bottled water...I cut off the bottom of a one liter sized bottle of water, fit it over the lens and posed for it. It was more of challenge to turn it into a self portrait. I tried it with a beer bottle, but even the smaller 58mm (filter size) lenses didn't fit, I just ended up with several jaggedly broken beer bottles before i decided to try the perspective of the bottle i was actually drinking from...Shot with a Canon Rebel XSi, Sigma 17-70mm 2.8-4 Macro HSM Lens @ 58mm, ISO 100, 1/50, f/4.

-Esmer Olvera

45 Photos From Clever, Sometimes Unbelievable Perspectives [Photography]

[techieguy]

Adamantite! Rearden Metal! Uru! Durasteel! Dalekanium! Unobtanium! Thousands of fictional characters have fought and died for these equally fictional super-materials. So what is the real-life strongest substance on our puny, sun-warmed planet?

      

Mankind's pursuit of the "strongest" material hasn't exctly been a concerted, organized effort, but it figures into history in incredibly profound ways. Hell, anyone who's played Age of Empires or Civilization—or read a book—knows that historians name entire eras after materials. The Iron (and steel) Age followed the Bronze Age, which followed the Copper Age. Materials got stronger, and humanity advanced. The two were hugely correlated.

Giz Explains: What's the Strongest Material Known to Man? [Giz Explains]

[techieguy]

Barnes & Noble's touchscreen Nook Color—a reading-centric, 7-inch Android tablet with full color books, magazines, newspapers and apps is well, surprisingly good. It might be the best Android tablet yet, even. Update: Video!

   
Nook Color: Barnes & Noble's Full-Color Tablet With Apps, Mags and Books for $250 [Video]

[techieguy]

President Barack Obama has been informed that the US AIr Force lost complete command and control of one-ninth of their ICBM arsenal last Saturday. Administration officials stressed that the problem was only temporary, but that doesn't mean it wasn't big.

            

In fact, according to The Atlantic, a military officer briefed on the matter said that they have never experienced something so big: "[w]e can deal with maybe 5, 6, or 7 at a time, but we've never lost complete command and control and functionality of 50 ICBMs."

US Lost Command of One-Ninth of Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Arsenal Last Saturday [Nuclear]

[techieguy]

Windows Phone 7 could be amazing. It's not, yet. Right now, it's a good start. This is what's broken, and what Microsoft has to do to make it truly awesome.is-broken]More »[/url]             

1. Multitasking for third-party apps—or at least fix the damn resume time

Windows Phone 7 doesn't have multitasking for third-party apps, even though every other major smartphone OS out there does. That's already borderline unacceptable for some people, but what made it nearly tolerable on the iPhone was relatively quick app launches, persistently saved data and fast resumes. So far, the bag is mixed. If you lock the phone and immediately unlock it, with most apps right now, you'll be hit by a Windows Phone "resuming..." screen, and then you'll often have to wait for the whole goddamn app to reload, whether it's Twitter or a game that took you a minute to get going in the first place (Rocket Riot, I'm looking at you).

10 Ways to Fix Windows Phone [Windows Phone]

[techieguy]

Smartphones have the potential to be killer note-takers: they're always with you, constantly connected, have touchscreens and pack cameras. And with the right app, any Android or iOS device can put your Moleskine, legal pad or padlocked diary to shame.         



This is an app built for the true note-taker, a scribbling, short-term archivist who just needs to put ideas, quotes and scraps of information somewhere, anywhere, then if possible, everywhere. It's a shockingly simple app with one killer feature: instant syncing with other Simplenote apps, be they the web interface on the company's website, or a desktop app such as Notational Velocity. I find myself using this combo not just for notes, but for general short writing. Free, iOS

The Best Note-Taking Apps [Appbattle]

[techieguy]

China's stolen the US' chip-laden crown for building the world's fastest supercomputer. The National University of Defense Technology's Tianhe-1A PC uses "American" chips from Intel and Nvidia, and supposedly it solves math problems 29million times faster than 1976's supercomputer.         



The computer, which has over 7,168 M2050 graphics cards from Nvidia at a cost of $2,500 each, and 14,336 processors from Intel, is under lock and key with the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of Education prior to its big unveil later today.

China Just Kicked Our Asses In Supercomputing [Supercomputers]

[techieguy]

You've been getting by with the cheapie router you bought two years ago, so why should you upgrade now? Performance. And features. We asked seven manufacturers to send us the best consumer routers in their stables regardless of price tags.      


The Ultimate Router Battle [Reviews]

[techieguy]

Will you tell of your hopes and your dreams and the goodness you have seen? Or will you tell them of the darkness you've created with your own hands?         


The Church of the Sacred Hologram [Video]

[techieguy]

The Xbox 360 controller's biggest flaw is the craptastic directional pad plunked in the middle of it. Five years later, Microsoft's come up with a better way: a transforming controller.      



The Xbox 360 controller might be the best button-and-stick-filled manipulator of this generation. It's telling that Microsoft has deigned to fix its controller's most dinged feature—the d-pad—at the same time it's launching Kinect, which does away with controllers entirely. Personal movement trackers may be the future of gaming, but it's clear that that future is a little ways off. And in the present, we need a better controller.

Xbox 360 Transforming Controller Review: I've Got Blisters on Me Fingers [Video]