Dr. Raymond M. Soneira, President of DisplayMate Technologies, has never been one to mince words when it comes to holding display maker's feet to the fire. He's made a name for himself by shattering myths perpetuated by those whose jobs it is to hype and market LCD panels of all shapes and sizes, an attitude that meshes well with our "Minimum BS" motto. So when Dr. Soneira told us he wrote a lengthy piece on why existing brightness controls and light sensors in today's displays are effectively useless -- particularly on the iPhone, Android devices, and HDTVs -- we took a coffee break to read what he had to say.

"Although consumers currently don't pay much attention to them, the Automatic Brightness control and LIght Sensor on smartphones and HDTVs has a major impact on displayed image quality, screen viewability, and readability, as well as preventing eye strain and headaches when the screen is too bright or too dim for the current level of ambient lighting, which varies considerably," Dr. Soneira explains.

According to Dr. Soneira, "most smartphones and HDTVs run with the screen considerably brighter than it should be, which wastes a lot of power in addition to causing eyestrain." Throwing some hard numbers into the mix, Dr. Soneira points out that HDTVs use as much as 75 percent of the total TV power, which oftentimes translates to over 200 watts. With 330 million TVs in the U.S. alone beaming content 600 billion hours per year, "that adds up to a considerable amount of wasted energy, money, and oil."

Because of this, one would think smartphone and HDTV makers would pay particular attention to automatic brightness schemes, but according to Dr. Soneira's extensive lab testing, that isn't the case. Not by a long shot.

Hit the jump to learn more about what Dr. Soneira has dubbed "brightnessgate."

Depending on how much weight you want to put on Kotaku's "several sources," Sony's PSP2 console is shaping up to be a killer handheld.

Sources confirmed a previous rumor that there will be a touch panel on the back of the hardware, sort of like a giant trackpad. The PSP2 will also come with dual analog sticks, a feature that's missing on current iterations of the PSP.

Sony also decided to go with a larger screen (again, according to Kotaku's sources), which will be sharper than what's on current PSPs. Sony is said to be referring to the screen as "HD" behind closed doors.

Finally, the sources say the PSP2 will ship this Fall beating the holiday sales rush.

Fan created mockup of the PSP2, not an actual prototype.

Until price-per-gigabyte ratios come down to pedestrian levels, the sweet spot in solid state drives (SSDs) might be 128GB and under. More and more manufacturers are concentrating on low capacity SSDs, pitching them as affordable boot drives to improve overall performance. Enter Patriot, which just announced the availability of its Torqx TRB series.

The Torqx TRB line comes in 32GB and 64GB flavors, enough to install Linux or Windows (Windows 7 requires a minimum of 16GB in 32-bit form, or 20GB for 64-bit) and a handful of programs. These drives are built around the once-dreaded JMicron controller, though Patriot says the latest generation (JMF616) doesn't suffer the same stuttering problem as previous versions. Towards that end, the drives also include 64MB of DDR2 cache memory.

"As solid-state drive technology advances, we are able to develop SSD solutions that provide the performance users want while reaching the affordable price points they demand. Patriot’s objective is to offer the latest technology while providing the best performance and price options," states Les Henry, Vice President of Engineering at Patriot. "Our Torqx TRB family of SSDs meet these goals. Users upgrading with a Torqx TRB SSD will benefit from improved transfer rates, quicker boot times and the reliability of solid-state storage in their boot drive option. Including a Torqx SSD in your desktop or notebook upgrade plans provides one of the best bang-for-the buck improvements you can make to your system."

Patriot rates the 32GB at up to 245MB/s read and up to 60MB/s write speeds, while the 64GB checks in with up to 260MB/s read and up to 115MB/s write speeds.

Despite the supposed "immediate availability" of these drives, we didn't spot any listed at the usual online hangouts (Newegg, Amazon, and the like). Suffice to say, no word yet on price, either MSRP or street.

Image Credit: Patriot