U.S. federal agents used Urban Dictionary to bust an Indiana man accused of sending a barely comprehensible death threat on Facebook to a gun store manager, according to a U.S. District Court complaint. Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives searched the slang decoder after Justin Kemble, 27, dim-wittedly wrote he wanted
Continue reading …AR.Drone control finally comes to Android, lazy quadrocopter enthusiasts rejoice
September 2, 2011 No Comment
The folks at Parrot have been promising us an Android app for the AR.Drone since pretty much day one . Well, it certainly took long enough (it’s been over a year since the app was demoed at Google I/O), but pre-made quadrocopter fans no longer have to reach for unofficial solutions to pilot their unmanned vehicle with their Droids. Sadly, games for the flying augmented reality platform are still MIA, but at least you can fire up AR.FreeFlight and have the $299 UAV tear around your block and annoy your neighbors. But, it shouldn’t take long for some one to whip up something fun with the SDK. Check out the video and PR after the break, and hit up the more coverage link to download the free app now. Continue reading AR.Drone control finally comes to Android, lazy quadrocopter enthusiasts rejoice AR.Drone control finally comes to Android, lazy quadrocopter enthusiasts rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 16:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Eye-Fi’s wireless cards push photos straight from digital cameras without cables, but what if you want to pull some pics back the other way? Toshiba’s solving that problem with the two-way FlashAir, an 802.11 b/g/n enabled 8GB SD Card that can also exchange data directly with compatible devices. If pushing photos to a camera isn’t your bag you can always always use FlashAir as a mountable wireless drive in your SD-enabled tablet. Sales won’t begin in Japan until February 2012 and the price is rumored to be around $90 — close to that of the equivalent Eye-Fi. Toshiba FlashAir WiFi SD Card will make your Eye-Fi’s water originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We’ve all got that one friend who just cannot believe you’d listen to 128kbps MP3s. Well, forget the rent, slap a handful of Benjamins down, slot this AeroSystem One next to your IKEA furniture, and then continue to play those low bit rate tracks — it should drive’em nuts. Designed with a decidedly anti-regressive approach to sound quality, Jarre’s lamp-like audiophile rig is the Lady Liberty of digital music, accepting not only all generations of Apple’s iPods and iPhones, but also tunes recorded in any digital format. The stainless steel and toughened glass-made sound system, measuring about three and a half feet tall and weighing about 32lbs, pumps up those iTunes jams with the aid of two 30W satellite speakers and one 60W subwoofer. Oh, and that cost? Yeah, the sound of this music’s gonna run you 799 Euros (or $1,135), but hey — a month or three of ramen never hurt anybody. Right? [Thanks, Nick] Jarre AeroSystem One’s music makes the audiophiles come together originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Welcome to Growing Up Geek , an ongoing feature where we take a look back at our youth and tell stories of growing up to be the nerds that we are. Today, we have our very own Associate Editor, Sean Buckley . The hardest question I was ever asked as a kid was “what do you want to be when you grow up?” When the boys all cried “Fireman!,” and the girls unanimously pledged their life to marine biology, I came up short. Growing up? I hadn’t planned on that. Peter Pan complex (and book collection) aside, I had it as good as any boy during the 80s / 90s split. I grew-up in the pre-internet stone-age, when the world was still a mystery that couldn’t be Wiki’d away. Playground rumors went without debunk, and wild stories ran amok across the schoolyard — pixies in England, aliens in New Mexico, and magical robot cars in Japan. The world was a fantastic, impossible place. It still is, but I’d be lying if I said the finality of reality isn’t a small disappointment compared to the lies I loved as a child. With the information superhighway still under construction, I had to find other ways to spend my summers. Sure, countless hours were wasted well spent saving 8-bit princesses (and the world of course), but the best weeks of summer were had at Boy Scout camp, the County Fair, and trudging across the country on family road trips. Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Sean Buckley Growing Up Geek: Sean Buckley originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Verizon launching Droid Bionic September 8th, giving some away through an AR scavenger hunt
September 2, 2011 No Comment
It’s been a long and tortuous road for the Droid Bionic. From our first taste of its dual-core potential at CES , to the stream of leaked specs , shots and release dates of the phone in the months since. Well, the wait officially ends on September 8th, as Verizon just confirmed the release date with a new version of the robotic battle teaser ad we saw a couple weeks ago. Big Red has also launched a Droid Does website with info on VZW’s Droids and its new Arena augmented reality scavenger hunt — where deft digital orienteers can win a Bionic, HDTV, laptop, tablet, or quadrocopter. For more info, hit the second source link below and head on past the break to see the vid for yourself. Feel free to enjoy the blade work of a raven-haired warrior slicing up cyborgs while you’re at it. Continue reading Verizon launching Droid Bionic September 8th, giving some away through an AR scavenger hunt Verizon launching Droid Bionic September 8th, giving some away through an AR scavenger hunt originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 12:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Finally, a HomeShare speaker with built-in AirPlay for wireless streaming from your iThing or Apple TV. It’ll cost you though: when the NS500 arrives in stores around late October or early November you can expect to see a booming $399 price tag strapped around its logarithmic neck. Sony assures us you’ll get some heavyweight audio for that money, thanks to four drivers and a sub-woofer positioned in a “unilateral manner” to pump David Guetta into every nook and cranny. We’ll hold out for some proper review time to tell you just how good he sounds. Sony SA-NS500 HomeShare speaker knows how to work a room originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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When it comes to having the world’s slimmest display, competition is fierce, and technicalities abound. One manufacturer in particular makes that class-leading claim more often than others, however, so it was no surprise when LG decided to show off a “world slimmest monitor” at its enormous IFA hall this year. The E2391VR is, as expected, incredibly thin. At 7.2mm, it’s noticeably skinnier than the 9.3mm iPhone 4, so if you actually spend time looking at the side of your display, you’ll probably really like this one. But — and this, as with other models, can be a very big but for some users — all of the ports, and most of the critical components, are in the TV’s base. The 23-inch model we saw is rather small to wall-mount, so that base shouldn’t be an issue for most. It offers 1080p video, a 2ms response time, HDMI, D-sub, headphone out, and a “10,000,000:1 contrast ratio” — and, well, it looks great too, though reflections were a glaring issue in the bright exhibit hall. No word on pricing or availability just yet, but jump past the break for some PR magic. Gallery: LG E2391VR LED LCD Monitor hands-on Continue reading LG E2391VR LED LCD Monitor hands-on LG E2391VR LED LCD Monitor hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 10:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Samsung took IFA by storm yesterday with its now-legendary ” S Pen ” (that Galaxy Note comes bundled ), so it’s only fair that LG gets its chance in the spotlight with a pen of its own. The company’s Pentouch comes with a plasma TV in tow, and lets you do super-slick stuff to your productivity suite — you can mark up Word docs, handwrite URLs in the browser, highlight elements in your PowerPoint presentations, or even flick one of those little red balls of fluff in Angry Birds . $2,199 will net you a 3D-enabled 60-inch LG PZ850 with Pentouch TV — a non-3D model is available for $1,699, and there’s a 50-inch version as well, priced at a mere $1,099. You’ll need to collect quite a few ingredients before you can get cookin’ here, including the TV, the pair of included pens, and a computer to pump content to your TV. If you’re planning to use the display with kids, a printer might be a good idea as well, so your little ones will have a platform to preserve all those on-screen sketched masterpieces (this thing puts coloring books to shame). Everything seemed to work as described (note: this isn’t a touchscreen, so you’ll need to use the pen), though the software did hiccup once while attempting to hand-write the Engadget URL. We see this being more of a hit for enterprise use, since there isn’t really any need to mark up photos or tap the screen to launch apps in your living room. Still thinking about taking the plunge? Jump past the break for a video walkthrough (yes, and yet another clip of Angry Birds ). Gallery: LG PZ850 Pentouch Plasma TV hands-on Continue reading LG PZ850 Pentouch Plasma TV hands-on (video) LG PZ850 Pentouch Plasma TV hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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What’s this, then? It’s the Nokia 500 , hanging out in the Vodafone booth. The 3.2-inch handset is awaiting an official release on the European carrier, which should be hitting around the October time frame here in Germany, according the rep we spoke with. Still no word on pricing from the carrier, but it was suggested to us that the handset would likely run €99 or less, on contract. We managed to get some hands-on time with the Symbian Anna handset, and can’t say we were all that impressed by the hardware on what feels like a relatively low end phone for Nokia, a company that has offered up some of the best hardware designs in the business. The screen feels quite narrow, and the device itself a bit chunky. The phone has 256MB of RAM and a 1GHz processor, which do the job reasonably well, though the Anna interface will likely leave something to be desired for many smartphone users. There’s also a five megapixel rear-facing camera and an microSD slot — oh, and the rep we spoke with seemed particularly excited about the different color back plates, which will be available for the phone. It’s not the most exciting phone out there from the Finnish handset maker, but for those looking for a relatively low-cost smartphone from the company, the 500 certainly gets the job done. Gallery: Nokia 500 hands-on Nokia 500 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Sep 2011 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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