Press Release Source: GE – Appliances & Lighting On Wednesday October 20, 2010, 9:29 am EDT
CLEVELAND--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Consumers searching for the latest hybrid can soon look beyond their local car dealership. Starting in 2011, GE Lighting brings hybrid technology to the lighting aisle in the form of a unique, new incandescent-shaped light bulb that combines the instant brightness of halogen technology with the energy efficiency and longer rated life of compact fluorescent (CFL) technology.
The initial product launch will bring U.S. and Canadian consumers GE Reveal® and GE Energy Smart® Soft White varieties that offer significantly greater instant brightness than current covered CFLs, while preserving the energy efficiency and long life attributes that have elevated CFLs as a lighting staple in many households.
"When you look at our prototype incandescent-shaped bulb with that little halogen capsule nestled inside our smallest compact fluorescent tube, you're seeing a byproduct of our intense customer focus and our innovation mindset," says Kristin Gibbs, general manager of North American consumer marketing, GE Lighting. "We've constantly improved the initial brightness of our CFLs but customers haven't been wholly satisfied. This is a giant leap forward."
The halogen capsule inside GE's new hybrid halogen-CFL bulb comes on instantly, allowing the bulb to operate noticeably brighter in less than a half a second. The capsule shuts off once the CFL comes to full brightness.
GE scientists engineered the bulb to operate with an exceptionally low level of mercury: 1 mg. Currently available CFLs range from 1.5 mg to 3.5 mg. The hybrid halogen-CFL bulbs will be RoHS compliant and offer eight times the life of incandescent bulbs (8,000 hours vs. 1,000 hours). Less frequent replacement due to longer light bulb life can reduce landfill waste.
First to launch will be 15-watt and 20-watt hybrid halogen-CFL bulbs that are considered viable replacements for 60-watt and 75-watt incandescent bulbs, respectively. Retail pricing and specific retail store availability will be announced in the coming months.
Lighting legislation overview
New lighting efficiency laws in the U.S. identify minimum light output levels for light bulbs based on energy use (wattage). A phase out of traditional light bulbs will begin in 2012 when 100-watt incandescent bulbs will no longer be produced, then 75-watt incandescent bulbs (2013), and finally 60-watt and 40-watt incandescent bulbs (2014). GE has consumers covered each step of the way with a variety of alternatives such as halogen, CFL and LED bulbs-available today-that already meet the new efficiency standards. Learn more at GELighting.com/2012.
About GE – Appliances & Lighting
GE – Appliances & Lighting spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliances, lighting, systems and services for commercial, industrial and residential use. Technology innovation and the company's ecomaginationSM initiative enable GE – Appliances & Lighting to aggressively bring to market products and solutions that help customers meet pressing environmental challenges. General Electric (NYSE:GE - News), imagination at work, sells products under the Monogram®, Profile™, GE®, Hotpoint®, Reveal® and Energy Smart® consumer brands, and Tetra®, Vio™ and Immersion® commercial brands. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com.
Garmin GPS MAP 60 CSx. The GPS MAP 60 CSx is one of the most popular GPS models for outdoor and marine use. It incorporates a barometric altimeter for extremely accurate elevation data and an electronic compass that displays an accurate heading while standing still. The 60CSx also features a removable microSD card for detailed mapping memory and a waterproof, rugged housing. The microSD card slot is located inside the waterproof battery compartment. You can load map data and transfer routes and waypoints through the fast USB connection. In addition, the GPS MAP 60C Sx has a new, highly sensitive GPS receiver that acquires satellites faster and lets you track your location in challenging conditions, such as heavy foliage or deep canyons. Electronic compass displays accurate heading while standing still; Barometric altimeter with automatic pressure trend recording; New high-sensitivity WAAS-capable GPS receiver by SiRF; Built-in quad-helix receiving antenna with remote antenna capability; Supports English, Spanish, Portuguese and French languages; MicroSD card slot allows for storage of optional Map Source detail (64 MB microSD included); LED backlit display and keyboard; Up to 18 hours of battery life from 2 AA alkaline batteries; Includes a built-in Americas autoroute basemap with automatic routing capabilities, including highways, exits and tide data (U.S. only); Internal memory is preloaded with a marine point database Enough memory for 1,000 user waypoints with n
The patented design of ARKON's Weighted Friction Dash Mount focuses on safety. Sewn into the backside of the Weighted Dash Mount is a Safety Loop. ARKON's Friction dash mount also includes a plastic hook that can be adhered to your dash. Though not required, once adhered to the dash, users connect the loop to the hook at any time to insure the stability of the weighted friction dash mount.
posted Oct 21st 2010 11:57AM 
![Independence Day [VHS]](/71TEN1TNW7LSL500.gif)
In Independence Day, a scientist played by Jeff Goldblum once actually had a fistfight with a man (Bill Pullman) who is now president of the United States. That same president, late in the film, personally flies a jet fighter to deliver a payload of missiles against an attack by extraterrestrials. Independence Day is the kind of movie so giddy with its own outrageousness that one doesn't even blink at such howlers in the plot. Directed by Roland Emmerich, Independence Day is a pastiche of conventions from flying-saucer movies from the 1940s and 1950s, replete with icky monsters and bizarre coincidences that create convenient shortcuts in the story. (Such as the way the girlfriend of one of the film's heroes--played by Will Smith--just happens to run across the president's injured wife, who are then both rescued by Smith's character who somehow runs across them in alien-ravaged Los Angeles County.) The movie is just sheer fun, aided by a cast that knows how to balance the retro requirements of the genre with a more contemporary feel. --Tom Keogh
Here's a blast from the past: Winamp, that mainstay media player of college dorms and LAN parties since time immemorial (er, 1997 or so) has made the leap from PC to handset with the release of Winamp for Android. This bad boy is available for Android 2.1 and up, and features a playback widget for the Android desktop and Last.fm integration. But that ain't all! If you install Winamp 5.59 beta on your PC, you can sync and manage your libraries via USB or WiFI. Pretty sweet! We only have one questions, really: will it still whip the llama's ass? Check out the QR code after the break (or search the Android Market) for the mobile app. Winamp 5.59 beta is available in the Winamp forums (More Coverage link, below). 
COBY DUAL POSITION CD/MD
13" MacBook Satin Purple
Paperback
You may be able to watch The Office on your Google TV, but perhaps not on demand -- ABC, CBS and NBC are barring Sony and Logitech's web-infused TVs and set-top-boxes from accessing full episodes of streaming video content. The Wall Street Journal reports that all three networks have confirmed the ban, and that Fox hasn't yet reached a decision on whether it will ban Google TV as well. For its part, Google says that it's "ultimately the content owners' choice to restrict their fans from accessing their content on the platform," so don't expect the search company to pitch in, unless it can work out some premium arrangements for all parties involved. This is the part where we'd normally direct you to the simple browser tweak that made Hulu accessible when it pulled the very same stunt, but alas, we're finding Hulu too is once again blocked. 
Microsoft Win Home Prem 7 English Version Upgrade US Only DVD
This heavyweight t-shirt features a vibrant print of the Superman shield logo on the front. Show how super you are by wearing the logo of DC Comics original hero Superman! This logo is world-famous and definitely a classic! This Superman logo t-shirt is composed of 100% cotton. Officially licensed.
Mediabridge Ultra Series - High Speed HDMI® Cable with Ethernet - Supports 3D, Audio Return Channel and Up To 4K Resolution 
elay Bake Breadmaker 2 LB
By Paul Miller 
Can you believe it's only been a year since Windows 7 hit the market? So much has happened in the interim, we could swear it's been a decade. Of course, Microsoft is celebrating Windows 7's birthday the best way it knows how: sales numbers. Turns out the little OS has done pretty well for itself, with 240 million licenses sold, giving it a 17 percent global operating system market share, and making it a healthy chunk of the 1.2 billion Windows PCs out there. As for the slow-to-adopt businesses out there, Microsoft still has some work to do, but it says 90 percent of companies have upgraded or "started their move" to 7. So, we've got the cold hard facts out of the way, any precious, personal, heartfelt memories of your time with the OS you'd like to share? We've got dibs on Steve Ballmer dropping by the Engadget Show on launch week. 
PCIe SSD solutions tend to be two things: stupidly fast and stupidly expensive. With read performance of up to 1GB/s and writes happening at up to 900MB/s the Angelbird Wings solution certainly has the speed. And, at a starting price of $239 for a 16GB model, the pricing isn't too bad -- for this sort of setup, anyway. What you're getting for that money is an expandable PCIe controller board with slots for up to four SSDs of 120GB in size, each offering SandForce 1200 controllers. With one board you'll get pedestrian read and write speeds of just under 300MB/s. But, with each new drive you basically multiply that, with the maximum figures quoted above coming with four. Interestingly, the controller comes with its own onboard Linux flavor called Virtue, a full UI that you can boot directly into and get all your RAID ducks in a row. Full cost for a fully kitted out system with four boards? $1399, which is hardly cheap for a mere 500GB or so of storage, but is a solid price for 1GB/s performance. 
3 Pack of Premium Crystal Clear Screen Protector for Apple iPad
We've already seen what the Eigenharp (and smaller Eigenharp Pico) can do on its own but, as the folks from Studio Imaginaire have now shown, that's only just the beginning of what's possible. With a little help from the oh-so-versatile Arduino, they've paired the instrument with a WiFi-enabled RGB lamp that -- you guessed it -- changes colors when you play the Eigenharp. Ready for an audio-visual feast? Turn down the lights and head on past the break.
In a world full of the shapely blobs we call computer mice, the Cyborg Rat stands out. It's skeletal, metallic, and almost completely asymetrical. Though most mice are one-size-fit-few, the Rat lets you transform the hardware itself to fit the shape of your hand. It's got two scroll wheels and a special button that lowers DPI while it's held -- and this new Rat 9, due out November, is completely wireless as well. Whereas Razer, Microsoft and Logitech all built their premium wireless gaming mice from scratch -- and with cord-based charging in mind -- the Rat 9 instead integrates a hot-swappable battery pack and a 2.4GHz radio into the same modular design. Is it a half-baked attempt at wireless bliss, or do we have a new king of mice? Find out after the break in our full review. 
Mice live and die by the placement of their buttons and the comfort of their grip, and adjusted properly the Rat 9 is fairly superb on both fronts. While both the left and right mouse buttons do require a solid press, they're large and responsive all the way up to the apex of the mouse, and there's actually only a single spot (on the extreme upper-right-hand corner of the right mouse button) where it won't actuate if pressed down. The main control surface is wide enough, in fact, that we could comfortably put three fingers on the top of the mouse, using the middle to control the mouse wheel and DPI sensitivity adjustment rocker (a nice touch in and of itself) without ever moving our index and ring finger from the all-important trigger buttons. The thumb grip's pair of programmable rockers similarly won our favor because of their ridges up top -- like the thumb keys on Logitech's G700, we could press these just by slightly shifting the base of our thumb, leaving our thumbtip free to hold the red sniper button -- a feature we'll talk about later. We never really found ourselves using the thumb wheel in our first-person shooters, but you can think of it as a two-way rotating programmable button if you will, and it spins in small enough increments to find use as a weapon or ability switcher. 
The Rat 9 uses the same 5600dpi sensor as the Rat 7, and it's as accurate as we could hope to test without being pro gamers ourselves. We certainly found we pulled off more crazy headshots, navigated to desktop items more easily and made more precise 'shops than with our standard Logitech MX518 mouse. The sensor's not without its quirks, as Rat 7 owners can attest, as the Z-tracking (how little the mouse moves when you lift it off a surface and set it back down) is a bit off, but there's a new filter now that reduces the jitter considerably, and it didn't disturb us in games. By the way, Mad Catz says this fix will be included on new Rat 7s as well. Five teflon feet keep the mouse gliding across most any surface, and we had no trouble using it on a veneered wooden desk, though the hard surface showed us the mouse has a slight forward-backward wobble, another carryover from the Rat 7 -- this can be reduced if not fixed by carefully tightening the thumb rest's main screw while the mouse is firmly held down. 
As customizable as its hardware is, the Rat 9 isn't quite leading the pack on the software front. Though it's got a handy light-up toggle next to the left mouse button that swaps between three preset modes, there are only five customizable buttons, and there's no onboard memory to store your profiles (nor even factory-preset variations) on the mouse itself. There are four well-spaced DPI adjustments in the mouse by default, however, and you can certainly game without the software if you find yourself in a pinch. 
Despite its customizable hardware, the Rat 9 won't fit everyone. It wouldn't fit our hand perfectly, though it was fairly comfortable. It won't fit pro gamers who scoff at a wireless-only mice for fear of interference at LAN events, even when confronted with its superb responsiveness. And at $130, it may not fit the budgets of those who don't play games for a living. Still, aside from the occasional nitpick, we couldn't find a thing wrong with this sleek transforming mouse. That's not something we get to say often. At least one Engadget editor is putting this on his Christmas wishlist right now. 
Surprise of surprises! On the day that Europeans finally got to dig into the Windows Phone 7 cake in earnest, Twitter's official app for the hot new platform has also gone live. We've downloaded it to our own WP7 device and are having a play around with it now. If you need a refresher as to what it looks like, check out the video after the break. 
Uncharted: Drakes Fortune PS3
The entire world saw the 13-inch MacBook Air exposed to the elements before it was announced on stage, but its 11.6-inch younger brother is just now getting the teardown treatment. iFixit tore the tiny machine asunder, and found even more miniature battery packs nestled in its 0.68-inch-thick frame. Like Apple's previous Air, the components here are proprietary, and the 2GB memory module's actually soldered to the board -- some tradeoffs had to be made for miniaturization, we suppose, and we can't deny the result is a beautiful machine inside and out. On the plus side, the Toshiba solid state drive seems to be modular, so there's some modest upgrade potential there if you can find a supplier of the mini-SATA boards. Still, kids -- don't try this at home.