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Japan may be famous for its bullet trains, but if China’s plans for a high-speed railway go forward, people could be zipping over from London to Beijing in under two days. The train would go on from Beijing to Singapore, and also connect to India and Pakistan, opening up the East to non-fliers.

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Chinese High-Speed Rail Project Will See Travel From London To Beijing In Just Two Days Possible [Trains]

I just don’t know what to think about this router. I’ve been staring at it for minutes now, wondering how in 802.11n’s name it was created in ASUS’ laboratory. ASUS hasn’t been too forthcoming with details on the RT-N56U, which was announced at CeBIT this week, and until we hear back from them we’ll just have to entertain you with these small slivers of detail: it has dual band support with the 5GHz band being used, is compatible with both printers and scanners, and is very fast apparently—with 300,000 concurrent sessions available.

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RT-N56U Router From The Starship Enterprise Lands…Err, From ASUS, I Mean [Routers]

While this is still my favorite computer rig and Gizmodo’s readers setups are still very impressive , I have to admit that Lifehacker’s reader Steve Price is only second to this other computer rig on space . The specs make me dizzy.

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40-Display Home Office or Secret Missile Launching Facility [DIY]

From what we can tell, the $175 Life Vest Messenger Bag , while quite fashionable, does not actually float. Thank goodness we clarified that before anyone got hurt on the way to some beach bound Starbucks. [ ehrensache via notcot via boingboing ]

Excerpt from:
The Life Vest Messenger Bag Is Stylish But Dangerously Misleading [Fashion]

From what we’ve heard about the development process of Windows Phone 7 , rumors about the OS predated its earliest seeds. How? The secret lies deep underground in Redmond, buried with a little project called Photon. We were posting about Windows Mobile 7 (and 8!) in great detail back in 2008, and we weren’t the only ones.

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What Windows Phone 7 Could Have Been [Windows Phone 7]

A Cornell University professor analyzed 150 of the highest grossing movies of the last 70 years. The more recent the movie, he found, the closer it adhered to the mathematical formula that describes the human attention span.

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The Formula For a Perfect Movie [Science]

You may have forgotten about it, but Microsoft got in to a bit of trouble with the European Commission for anti-competitive practices (including force-feeding customers IE ). Microsoft’s plea bargain was to add other browser options alongside its own. The new screen, seen here, will pop up for any European Windows (XP/Vista/7) user who has IE set as their default browser, starting around March 1st. It randomizes new choices for web browsers in an impartial manner, offering direct links to download.

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Microsoft’s Impartial, Antitrust-Friendly Browser Ballot Screen [Microsoft]

Cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL) backlights are fast disappearing due to the more efficient and brighter LED swaggering onto the TV scene, but the Japanese company Sanken Electric claims its new CCFL technology is 60 per cent cheaper to produce. Too little, too late for the unfashionable technology? Sanken reckons TVs perform just as well using two of its lamps as opposed to the six normally required. As production won’t start until this summer, it’s unlikely we won’t see them in TV sets for at least another year—and by then, LEDs will reign supreme

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60 Per-cent Cheaper CCFL Lamps Could Outshine LED Backlighting in TVs [TVs]

Apple’s corporate headquarters, PR megamachine and primary customer base are in the US. Their products, on the other hand, come directly from Chinese hardware manufacturers. Like Apple, they’re good at keeping secrets. Unlike Apple, they’re sometimes violent about it .

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Investigate Apple’s Chinese Supply Chain, Get Assaulted [Apple]

With MWC right around the corner, all eyes are on Microsoft for the launch of Windows Phone 7. And though we heard Project Pink was in trouble, this FCC filing suggests the Sharp-made Turtle may still be on its way.

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Microsoft’s Project Pink Phones Show Up On FCC [ProjectPink]