Is it possible to see into a city’s future? Perhaps, if you’re backed by a company like IBM . The computing giant has teamed up with Portland, Oregon for its Systems Dynamics for Smarter Cities program, creating a simulation of the city (a veritable “Sim City,” as it were), so governmental leaders can see the ways in which public policies might affect its future. IBM approached the northwestern cultural mecca back in 2009, working with representatives from a number of professions, including teachers, economists, city planners, and business leaders in the interim. The information collected was combined with governmental data to create a computer-based model of the city. Among other things, city leaders have used the model to work out a plan to reduce the city’s carbon emissions 80 percent by the year 2050. Add in a guide to those famous Portland food carts and we’ll be 100 percent behind the project. Continue reading IBM and Portland team up to see into city’s future IBM and Portland team up to see into city’s future originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 22:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Microsoft’s designing women want to dress you up in wearable tech love (video)
August 9, 2011 No Comment
Microsoft’s no slouch when it comes to market expansion, with personal computing, mobile and even gaming under its Redmond wing — but fashion ? Well, it’s time for pigs to fly because two of MS’ very own took home Best Concept and Best in Show for their Printing Dress creation at the 15th Annual International Symposium on Wearable Computers. The dress, created by MS Research’s Asta Roseway and the Xbox division’s Sheridan Martin Small, incorporates a laptop, projector, four circuit boards and laser-cut, typewriter-shaped buttons into a black and white rice paper design. Wondering what all the gadgetry is for? Stressing the need for accountability in our age of anonymous, digital communication, the duo’s winning entry aims to have us all wearing what we tweet — literally, as messages typed via the bodice-sewn keys display on the gown’s lower half. It might seem a far-fetched goal now, but these “eRenaissance women” hope to lure tech back from the “cold, unyielding” brink and into the warmth of a “human age.” Jump past the break for a video peek at this ethical couture. Continue reading Microsoft’s designing women want to dress you up in wearable tech love (video) Microsoft’s designing women want to dress you up in wearable tech love (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 20:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Nintendo opens 5,000 free WiFi hotspots across the pond, connects your 3DS to The Cloud
August 9, 2011 No Comment
Still fuming over that 3DS price drop despite the Big N’s conciliatory make-goods ? If you happen to be a resident gamer in the UK, tack some 5,000 free WiFi hotspots onto the company’s apology. According to a report from International Business Times , the service, backed by BSkyB-controlled The Cloud, goes live today, bringing users access to all the console’s usual online features and should come in handy when in-game DLC becomes available later this year. No doubt the move from Nintendo’s British outfit is intended to add a little purchase incentive to the DS’ underwhelming successor, as well as boosting the gaming giant’s own declining earnings . No matter, with twenty free games and gratis WiFi — it’s looking good to be an early adopter. Nintendo opens 5,000 free WiFi hotspots across the pond, connects your 3DS to The Cloud originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Hello, and welcome to yet another installment of Engadget Laboratories. This time around we’re taking a pseudo scientific look at sub-$100 earbuds. We’ve all been caught out, headphoneless, and desperate to put some tunes in our ears. So, the question is, what exactly do you get for your money when you stumble into a Best Buy and pick up whatever happens to be hanging on the shelves? Clearly you’re trading convenience for selection when you shuffle into a big box shop for your audio needs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should just grab the cheapest thing hanging by the register, or the most expensive for that matter. We randomly selected four sets of phones, at four different price points, and put it to a group of average Joes and Janes to see if they could actually tell the difference between a $100 pair of buds and a $10 pair (while blindfolded and trapped inside a booth). Continue reading Big box earbuds put to a blind ‘taste’ test in the Engadget Labs Big box earbuds put to a blind ‘taste’ test in the Engadget Labs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Netflix Watch Instantly streaming now works on ChromeOS, when it’s working
August 9, 2011 No Comment
It didn’t make launch as was originally promised , but today the Netflix Twitter account officially announced it is up and running on Chromebooks (when it’s not suffering an outage, like it was last night during Amazon’s cloud server troubles). The Netflix ChromeOS plugin jumping to 1.0.2 a few days ago was a good indication it was on the way, but now you can take your CR-48s, Series 5s and the like straight to the Chrome Web Store and get outfitted for some Watch Instantly streaming. Unfortunately, despite rumors that it’s on the way in the next year or so, there’s no change for other environments outside of Silverlight -compatible OS X and Windows, but Linux users can always dream, right? [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Netflix Watch Instantly streaming now works on ChromeOS, when it’s working originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 19:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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If you’re on the island of Manhattan and are anywhere near Times Square, check out this lovely display of lights. For the next half-hour or so you’ll be able to check out Engadget on one heck of a big screen, right above the NASDAQ sign. You won’t even need those reading glasses! Wondering what this is all about? Check out the next Engadget Show , where all will be explained. Gallery: Engadget in Times Square Near Times Square? Come see Engadget on a really big screen originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …NVIDIA, Fusion-io and HP drive a dozen 1080p streams on four displays at SIGGRAPH (video)
August 9, 2011 No Comment
A dozen uncompressed 1080p video feeds, simultaneously running off a single workstation. Yep, you’re looking at it. NVIDIA’s showcase piece here at SIGGRAPH was undoubtedly this wall — a monster that trumps even Intel’s CES wall in terms of underlying horsepower. A relatively stock HP Z800 workstation was loaded with the NVIDIA QuadroPlex 7000 Visual Computing System (that’s four GPUs, for those counting) in order to push four HD panels. A pair of Fusion-io’s ioDrive Duos were pushing a total of three gigabytes per second, enabling all 12 of the feeds to cycle through with nary a hint of lag. We’re still a few years out from this being affordable enough for the common Earthling, but who says you need to wait that long to get a taste? Vid’s after the break, hombre. Gallery: NVIDIA, Fusion-io and HP drive a dozen 1080p streams on four displays Continue reading NVIDIA, Fusion-io and HP drive a dozen 1080p streams on four displays at SIGGRAPH (video) NVIDIA, Fusion-io and HP drive a dozen 1080p streams on four displays at SIGGRAPH (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 17:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Microsoft’s KinectFusion research project offers real-time 3D reconstruction, wild AR possibilities
August 9, 2011 No Comment
It’s a little shocking to think about the impact that Microsoft’s Kinect camera has had on the gaming industry at large, let alone the 3D modeling industry . Here at SIGGRAPH 2011, we attended a KinectFusion research talk hosted by Microsoft, where a fascinating new look at real-time 3D reconstruction was detailed. To better appreciate what’s happening here, we’d actually encourage you to hop back and have a gander at our hands-on with PrimeSense’s raw motion sensing hardware from GDC 2010 — for those who’ve forgotten, that very hardware was finally outed as the guts behind what consumers simply know as “Kinect.” The breakthrough wasn’t in how it allowed gamers to control common software titles sans a joystick — the breakthrough was the price. The Kinect took 3D sensing to the mainstream, and moreover, allowed researchers to pick up a commodity product and go absolutely nuts. Turns out, that’s precisely what a smattering of highly intelligent blokes in the UK have done, and they’ve built a new method for reconstructing 3D scenes (read: real-life) in real-time by using a simple Xbox 360 peripheral. The actual technobabble ran deep — not shocking given the academic nature of the conference — but the demos shown were nothing short of jaw-dropping. There’s no question that this methodology could be used to spark the next generation of gaming interaction and augmented reality, taking a user’s surroundings and making it a live part of the experience. Moreover, game design could be significantly impacted, with live scenes able to be acted out and stored in real-time rather than having to build something frame by frame within an application. According to the presenter, the tech that’s been created here can “extract surface geometry in real-time,” right down to the millimeter level. Of course, the Kinect’s camera and abilities are relatively limited when it comes to resolution; you won’t be building 1080p scenes with a $150 camera, but as CPUs and GPUs become more powerful, there’s nothing stopping this from scaling with the future. Have a peek at the links below if you’re interested in diving deeper — don’t be shocked if you can’t find the exit, though. Gallery: Microsoft’s KinectFusion research project at SIGGRAPH 2011 Microsoft’s KinectFusion research project offers real-time 3D reconstruction, wild AR possibilities originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 14:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Sixaxis Controller Android app makes firing off hadoukens easy as pie (video)
August 9, 2011 No Comment
N900 owners have been able to press their Sixaxis controllers into service on their handsets for quite sometime, but Android tablets have been stubbornly stuck to a USB tether . That is, until now. Dancing Pixel Studios’ Sixaxis Controller app for Android does exactly what you expect — allows you wirelessly control games on your Google-powered device with a PS3 gamepad. It’s not the simplest setup on Earth. You’ll need to be rooted, and before you can pair it with your phone or tablet you’ll have to connect to a PC via USB and fire up the SixaxisPairTool . The app also doesn’t play nice with most HTC devices or newer Samsung ones. Thankfully, before you drop your hard-earned $1.67 on the app you can download the free Sixaxis Compatibility Checker . Don’t miss the video after the break, and hit up the source links to download both now and make pulling off a hadouken that much easier. Continue reading Sixaxis Controller Android app makes firing off hadoukens easy as pie (video) Sixaxis Controller Android app makes firing off hadoukens easy as pie (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory are talking up a type of millimeter-sized microbots that can swim and use their “jaws” to move around objects multiple times their own weight. The tiny ‘bots are made up of microparticles and don’t do much on their own, but once magnets are applied, they form star shapes and swim around, even opening and closing to push around non-magnetic objects. The “asters,” as they’re known, will also reshuffle their parts, if they lose any particles, effectively reassembling themselves. Videos of tiny robot dance numbers after the break. Continue reading Microbots do heavy-lifting, self-repair, dance aquatic ballet (video) Microbots do heavy-lifting, self-repair, dance aquatic ballet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Aug 2011 13:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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