Looking for a new wearable instrument now that you’ve finally worn out your bongo drum t-shirt ? Then you might want to consider ThinkGeeks’ new synthesizer shirt, which packs five different sampled instruments, full polyphonic sound, and a handsome “wearable” amp. Head on past the break to get an idea of what the shirt’s capable of, and look for it to start shipping on November 29th for $29.99 to $32.98 depending on the size. Continue reading ThinkGeek’s synth shirt brings a new wave to your wardrobe ThinkGeek’s synth shirt brings a new wave to your wardrobe originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 03:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Japan’s uncannily realistic robots have been creeping us out for years, but one was deemed emotive enough to have a stint on stage — yesterday evening, Hiroshi Ishiguro’s Geminoid-F made its debut in a Japanese play. It’s a fairly small step for robotkind, really, as the android was completely controlled by a real-life human actress from a soundproof room behind the stage, and no attempt was made to pass off the robot as human, as Geminoid portrays a caretaker android assigned to a dying girl. Still, the possibilities must have Hollywood agents agape — it’s only a matter of time before the world’s highest paid actors can literally phone in their lines. Continue reading Geminoid-F takes the stage for Japanese play Geminoid-F takes the stage for Japanese play originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 02:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Way back at Computex , a little orange tablet brazenly called the Tycoon seared our retinas and won our hearts. Now it’s going on to charm early adopting tableteers everywhere. Well, everywhere in Taiwan, anyway, with maker FIC indicating it will sell its first tablet on Saturday, priced at NT$19,800. That equates to roughly $660 American, for which you’ll get a 10.1-inch model with Windows 7 installed on a 120GB HDD, powered by an Atom N455 processor with 2GB of memory. The OS is said to have been adjusted to make it more finger friendly, though we don’t have any details on exactly how, nor do we know when this little guy might be making an appearance outside of Taiwan. We just hope they kept the tangerine sheen. FIC launches 10.1-inch Windows 7 Tycoon tablet, prices it at $660 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We know it’s a little tough to get excited about a chip, even if that chip is the hotly anticipated Samsung Orion . Still, bear with us, because this isn’t your average slab of cellphone silicon — the Orion’s got a dual-core 1GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU and a quad-core Mali 400 GPU on board. We spotted it at the ARM Technology Conference this week where it was pimping “Linaro” Linux middleware , as well as some stock Android 2.2. Unfortunately, the development boards still have a few kinks, so representatives couldn’t show it pumping all those pixels to nearby HDTVs — though we did get a butter-smooth demo of Futuremark’s old Cyber Samurai benchmark running on the smaller screen. There are still rumors of this chip hitting some products late this year, but next year is much more likely. Either way, we’re expecting some pretty impressive benchmarks from this thing when it inevitably winds up in the next Galaxy Tab or a flagship phone of some sort . Gallery: Samsung Orion 1GHz SoC with Mali 400 GPU Samsung Orion dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip spotted in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Troy, who clearly longs to relive the glory days of WebTV. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com . “I can hardly believe I’m saying this, but I’ve got a curious desire for a good-to-great web browsing experience on my television. I know there are countless connected HDTVs out there, a few new Google TV options and the idea of using an HTPC. I’m not afraid of putting the legwork into hooking up a full-blown computer, but I’m trying to keep everything under $400 or $500, so that eliminates the high-end rigs with Blu-ray, CableCARD, and the like. I also am leaning towards the HTPC so I can have a standard user agent for viewing Hulu content, etc. Anyone in the same boat with any opinions?” With Google TV just hitting the marketplace, you’ve got more options than ever before. Hard to say just yet if that’s a boon or not, but surely a few readers have a couple pennies each to share on the matter. Toss out yours in comments below. Ask Engadget: best method for getting the internet on your HDTV? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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At the grand re-opening of a Verizon Plus store in Tampa today, Big Red was demoing its latest FiOS TV feature, Flex View. As announced , this feature lets you take your video on demand content with you on your PC as well as various other Verizon Wireless devices — no iOS support though as Apple doesn’t license its FairPlay and the Microsoft PlayReady DRM used doesn’t work on Apple’s products either. There are about 2,000 movies available for rent now, with a subset of them available for purchase. Currently they are all SD with stereo sound, but HD and discrete surround sound are planed for later versions. Unlike the FiOS VOD, you can download these shows from any internet connection and play them back on the go or at home — resume between devices is also in the coming-soon category. Overall the user interface looked good, but we did see lots of blocking artifacts that we just hope were a result of the in-store demo and not an indication of what customers can actually expect. The content is linked to your Verizon FiOS user ID, which means that purchased content can still be viewed even if you cancel your FiOS TV service. No word on if Verizon’s free VOD selection will ever become available, but we have to say we really like the idea of watching content on the go no matter how good our network connection isn’t. Gallery: Hands-on with FiOS Flex View Hands-on with FiOS Flex View originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 22:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Exclusive: Samsung ‘flagship’ phone with Gingerbread and huge display coming in early 2011
November 12, 2010 No Comment
Okay, so you’re not feeling Samsung’s Nexus S . We’d say that’s a little premature, but still, we get it. We understand. How about this , then? Is this more to your liking? We’ve just been tipped with a few morsels on what should become Samsung’s flagship Android device early next year — February, to be specific, suggesting we could see an unveiling at MWC — and it’s looking promising. Different parts of the slide deck describe it as having either a 4.3- or 4.5-inch “sAMOLED2″ display, presumably standing for “Super AMOLED 2″ and implying that Sammy’s made some advancements over the screens we’ve been seeing on the Galaxy S series this year. It’ll naturally have Android Gingerbread and be equipped with an 8 megapixel camera capable of 1080p video capture, 14.4Mbps HSPA, Bluetooth 3.0, a 1.2GHz core of some sort, and 16GB of storage onboard. The deck describes it as having an “ultra sleek design,” and judging from the side shot, we’d tend to agree. So who’s holding out for this? Gallery: Samsung ‘flagship’ phone with Gingerbread and huge display coming in early 2011 Exclusive: Samsung ‘flagship’ phone with Gingerbread and huge display coming in early 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 21:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Unbelievably, against all odds and better judgment, we are able to independently confirm that Microsoft’s short-lived Kin One and Kin Two are coming back for an encore performance on Verizon, possibly as soon as this quarter — but it won’t quite be the same product you remember from earlier this year. The phones were famously bashed for the unrealistic plan pricing model that put them head-to-head with actual, full-fledged smartphones — despite the fact that the devices were targeted squarely at tweens, teens, and twentysomethings — and we’re hearing that the revised phones will be totally, completely debundled from data services. Data-centric features like the Loop “are out,” we’re told — but the good news is that you’ll still be able to use one of the product’s most redeeming qualities, Zune Pass , over WiFi if you’re not signed up for a proper data plan. Of course, the value proposition of a Kin without… well, without its only value proposition is questionable at best, so we’re thinking this might just be a way to clear huge backlogs of hardware inventory before pulling the plug on the program. Seriously, who wants a Kin without the unlimited photo uploads? Confirmed: Kin One and Two are returning to Verizon. Wait, what? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We gotta say, the last time we were this excited about hardware hacking For The Greater Good was when people started using the Wiimote for all sorts of awesome projects . Kinect is naturally a lot more complicated, but there’s also a lot of potential here, and we can’t wait to see what people come up with. Florian Echtler took that open source driver and hooked the Kinect into his own multitouch UI “TISCH” software library (which actually supports the Wiimote as an input already, funny enough). The result is a bit of MS Surface -style multitouch picture shuffling and zooming, but it uses full body tracking instead of touchscreen input, of course. The self-effacing Florian had this to say in the video description: “I thought I’d get the mandatory picture-browsing stuff done so it’s out of the way and everybody can focus on more interesting things.” You’re still a hero in our book, man. Always a hero. Feeling left out on all these Kinect shenanigans because you’re rocking a Mac? Well, libfreenect has also now been ported over to OS X by Theo Watson (who sounds unenthused about his accomplishment in the video embedded after the break). Also: once you’re done admiring your IR-rendered visage on your shiny Apple-built hardware, scrounge yourself up a working Linux box. All the cool people are doing it. Continue reading Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface Hacked Kinect taught to work as multitouch interface originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We happen to like our existing Xbox 360 controller, squeaky triggers and all, and though we’re eagerly awaiting an improved D-pad it hadn’t really occurred to us that some might prefer an overhaul. N-Control, however, has done just that with this insane lever-filled shell, which wraps around the gamepad to provide simultaneous control over a host of inputs at once. The idea is that you’ll never need to take your thumbs off the analog sticks to swap weapons or reload, because you’ll just flick one of those weighted levers instead. You’ll also apparently gain a split-second advantage over opponents on the draw since the contraption constantly applies tension to each of the controller’s triggers, making them easier to press. For $60, the Avenger even comes with a tripod, which could be a good move on the company’s part — it looks like you might need one to hold the beast up. Video after the break. Continue reading N-Control Avenger gives your Xbox 360 controller hair triggers (video) N-Control Avenger gives your Xbox 360 controller hair triggers (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Nov 2010 19:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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