focus

Isolator is a small, simple application designed to enhance your productivity by reducing visual distractions. Isolator can blur, cover up, or hide all other application windows and the dock, with a quick keystroke or by clicking on Isolator's icon in the menu bar.

You can set blur intensity, background color, opacity, and fade speed, and you can choose from several options for how Isolator is activated and whether it opens on start-up. The developer behind Isolator has done an excellent job of adding functionality in successive updates (like the blur effect and support for multiple monitors) while making sure … Read more

Solar start-up SolFocus on Monday said it has signed an agreement in Greece to produce electricity from its concentrated solar arrays.

The installation will produce 1.6 megawatts, enough to power about a town of about 2,500 residents at any given moment. Renewable-energy developer Samaras Group will head the installation, which is expected to be completed in the spring of 2009.

SolFocus, formed in 2006, is one of the leading companies in a race to validate concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) technology for utility use. It already has a handful of customers, including some in Spain.

Concentrated photovoltaic technology takes different forms, … Read more

The Web site Dictionary.com defines the word focus as "a central point, as of attraction, attention, or activity." This is an apt description of McAfee's inaugural customer event, McAfee Focus.

McAfee customers received the message that the company is focused in three areas:

Growth through acquisition. McAfee is intent on becoming a one-stop shop for governance, compliance, and risk management. To this end, the company purchased outside firms like Reconnex, SafeBoot, and Secure Computing. Look for McAfee to continue this trend by buying companies in areas like application security, identity management, IT operations management, and security … Read more

SolFocus, a maker of concentrator photovoltaic systems, has signed a $103 million (80 euro) deal with Empe Solar, a Spanish group that promotes solar energy use.

Concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) systems typically use lenses and mirrors to concentrate light on solar cells to maximize the amount of electricity they can generate.

SolFocus plans to install over 10 megawatts of CPV systems across southern Spain for Empe Solar between now and 2010 as part of the deal.

SolFocus has already completed three utility-scale projects in Spain.

The 10-megawatt installation would collectively generate enough energy to supply a town of 40,000 residents, … Read more

We were recently given the opportunity to kick the tires of a wide variety of hybrid electric and alternative fuel vehicles.

There were a few clean diesels, including a CR-V with a 2.2-liter four cylinder that we should see reach production in a diesel variant of the 2010 Acura TSX. Ford brought out its hydrogen fuel cell, Focus, and a pair of hybrids, one of which was a plug-in model.

According to Ed Kjaer, a representative from Southern California Edison, plugging in electric hybrid vehicles on an overnight cycle is better for the electric grid, because it evens out … Read more

Let's not beat around the bush: TVs are great, but for the proper movie experience you need a projector, in a dark room, with an epic surround-sound system. Because that's the way to enjoy a really good film--it's even the way to enjoy a bad film. The problem is that projectors are rarely cheap, so when we heard about the InFocus X10, which will set you back a relatively reasonable 1,099 pounds ($2,165), we started to have dreams of a home cinema all of our own.

The X10 is a really smart-looking DLP projector … Read more

Tired of spending hours frantically trying to get that projector connected to your PC before your guests become incredibly disinterested in your summer driveway movie party? Or maybe you're having flashbacks to that last presentation you gave. You know, the one that just wasn't much of a presentation. I mean granted, you had no charisma or stage presence, but that's usually nothing a 90-page PowerPoint slide show can't fix. No, your real problem was that your assistant working the projector didn't know his VGA port from his LAN port.

Even if you're like me … Read more

There could not have been a better metaphor. The Pininfarina-designed retractable hardtop version of the Focus Focus on display here on the first morning of the Geneva auto show was unveiled in its full glory before the world's media. However, the salivating auto journalists could not get their hands on the car, which was raised above the show floor on a protected platform. A similar frustration will likely be felt by customers in the United States when they find out that this stylish addition to the Focus lineup will be not be making its way across the Atlantic. The … Read more

It's one of the oldest, most common problems in photography: that picture you thought would be the prize shot is out of focus.

Refocus Imaging, a Silicon Valley start-up, thinks its technology can be used to make cameras that can fix that problem--after you take the photo.

By fitting a camera's image sensor with a special lens and then processing the resulting data with new methods, Refocus Imaging's technology will let photographers fix their photos and exercise new creative control after the shutter is released, founder and Chief Executive Ren Ng said.

"There's a lot … Read more