Android app tethers handsets to Canon cams, live view fanboys rejoice (video)
August 6, 2011 No Comment
We’re living in a post-pc world, folks. High time you got with the program and junked that heavy and outmoded relic called the computer. But how does one take tethered snaps from a Canon, sans EOS Utility? Meet DSLR Controller, an Android app from Chainfire that turns your little green robot into an external live view monitor, and gives you complete control over your shooter’s finer sensibilities. It lets you tweak exposure, aperture, shutter, white balance and focus with sensuous swipes of your fingertip. To make the whole shindig work, you’ll need an Android device packing a USB host port and an “on-the-go” USB cable — which lets your handset wear the pants in the phone / DSLR relationship. We should also warn you that the $8.51 application is currently still in beta and thus streams video in live view mode at a less than optimal 15fps. Those and other foibles may be remedied by the final release, but if you’re looking to practice your tethering voodoo immediately, hit the source below, and watch a vid of your photographic future after the break. Continue reading Android app tethers handsets to Canon cams, live view fanboys rejoice (video) Android app tethers handsets to Canon cams, live view fanboys rejoice (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Aug 2011 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …HTC posts record sales (again), getting itself something nice (Dashwire) to celebrate
August 6, 2011 No Comment
While the top three smartphone makers (Apple, Samsung, and Nokia) garner most of the press, HTC is quietly becoming a juggernaut. IDC’s number five just posted yet another month of record sales , hitting $1.56 billion — almost twice what the company moved in July of last year. To celebrate its continued meteoric rise, the Taiwanese manufacturer has announced it plans to acquire Dashwire, the cloud services company behind the awesome brilliant Awesome Drop, for $18.5 million. The only question is, how long HTC can keep this growth up? After all, common sense says what goes up, must come down — just ask Nokia. HTC posts record sales (again), getting itself something nice (Dashwire) to celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …RIM BlackBerry App World 3.0 beta adds home screen search, social media features
August 6, 2011 No Comment
How better to celebrate your billionth download than with a brand new app store? RIM just rolled out App World 3.0 beta to its Beta Zone users, bringing with it a redesigned home screen created to “let you quickly find what BlackBerry app, game or theme you’re looking for.” Seems a bit overdue if you ask us, but better late than never, as the idiom goes. There are also new home screen icons for Games and BlackBerry Themes — the store’s two most popular categories. (Yes, Themes really is one of the two most popular categories… behind Games, we hope.) You can also flick between app summaries, screenshots, and reviews from one screen, and share links to your favorite apps over Twitter, Facebook, email, SMS, and BBM. You may find it difficult to get too excited about an app store update, but for those of us who use BlackBerrys despite the occasionally less-than-stellar app experience, anything RIM can do to streamline the procurement process is more than welcome. RIM BlackBerry App World 3.0 beta adds home screen search, social media features originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Aug 2011 02:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Smart Modular’s 1.6TB Optimus SSD reads up to 1GB/s, claims to be the largest and fastest
August 5, 2011 No Comment
We love us a good speed record and today’s comes paired with another superlative: biggest and baddest. Smart Modular Technologies just announced the Optimus SSD, a drive with up to a record 1.6TB in storage that can also read up to a gigabyte of data per second. The 2.5-inch drive also promises write speeds of 500MB/s and will be available in smaller 200GB, 400GB, and 800GB capacities, in addition to that 1.6GB monster. No word on pricing except that Smart Modular insists they’ll be “cost-effective.” Then again, the company expects IT departments will snap these up for corporate use, so your guess is as good as ours as to how accessible these will be for run-of-the-mill hobbyists. Continue reading Smart Modular’s 1.6TB Optimus SSD reads up to 1GB/s, claims to be the largest and fastest Smart Modular’s 1.6TB Optimus SSD reads up to 1GB/s, claims to be the largest and fastest originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …RED EPIC scores a Canon EOS mount, Laforet gets some extraordinary footage (video)
August 5, 2011 No Comment
We’ve seen some mind-blowing footage from RED’s EPIC , as one might expect from a $39,500 camera with a 5K sensor and up to 120 fps video capture (at 4K). But video shooter and all-around photo wiz Vincent Laforet got to take an exclusive early look at the company’s new Canon EOS mount, which pairs the EPIC-M with Canon’s enormous collection of top-quality glass, including the 600mm f/4 L lens Laforet used for his shoot at Mono Lake in California. That lens, used with a 2x Canon teleconverter and the RED’s multiplication factor, yields a 35mm-equivalent focal length of 3400mm, which as you’ll see in the video below, enabled some pretty incredible video captures . RED has yet to officially announce availability for the Canon EOS mount, but has shared that it will cost $2,000 (pennies compared to the EPIC’s $58,000 kit price), and will be constructed of titanium — tasked with the critical responsibility of reducing movement during those extended-lens shoots. Jump past the break for Laforet’s sample video, or check out his blog post at the source link for the full rundown. Gallery: RED EPIC-M Canon EOS Mount Continue reading RED EPIC scores a Canon EOS mount, Laforet gets some extraordinary footage (video) RED EPIC scores a Canon EOS mount, Laforet gets some extraordinary footage (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Now that eager hackers have actually managed to shoehorn the latest flavor of Android onto Logitech Revue units , the question is what does it actually look like? We got a few screenshots at Google I/O but now there’s pictures and videos popping up all over. One of our tipsters sent a few shots over, while the Channel Android folks on YouTube have posted a video walkthrough (embedded after the break). So far it looks good, with little remaining of the original Google TV UI, now replaced by widgets, box art-style listings of TV content and more. Thinking about dropping a Benjamin on one of these units and upgrading to Honeycomb yourself? Be warned — it’s very raw, so with no Netflix and not much app compatibility to speak of, remaining a voyeur is probably advisable for now. Gallery: Logitech Revue running Google TV Honeycomb beta [Thanks, Michael] Continue reading Logitech Revue running Honeycomb caught on camera, looks pretty good Logitech Revue running Honeycomb caught on camera, looks pretty good originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 23:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Stanford schooling unwashed masses with free online Intro to Artificial Intelligence (video)
August 5, 2011 No Comment
If you fancy yourself a Stanford (wo)man, but lack the requisite dollars to actually attend, now’s your chance to collect those collegiate bragging rights. Starting October 10th, you can join Professor Sebastian Thrun and Google’s Director of Research, Peter Norvig, in a free, online version of the school’s Introduction to Artificial Intelligence course. The class covers, “knowledge representation, inference, machine learning, planning and game playing, information retrieval, and computer vision and robotics,” and ambitiously aims to be the largest online AI course ever taught. If you’re feeling the ole red and white, you can register at the source link below, but if you’re looking for the official Stanford stamp of approval, we’re afraid you’re barking up the wrong tree — non-students will receive a certificate of completion from the instructors only. Still interested? Check out the video introduction after the break and hit the source for more details. Continue reading Stanford schooling unwashed masses with free online Intro to Artificial Intelligence (video) Stanford schooling unwashed masses with free online Intro to Artificial Intelligence (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 21:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Black Hat hackers demo Square card skimmer, feed it stolen credit card numbers
August 5, 2011 No Comment
Here’s some more fun out of Vegas, this time involving Jack Dorsey’s Square and a little thing we like to call credit card fraud. Researchers from Aperture Labs (seriously) held two demonstrations at the Black Hat Conference . The first used a script, written by Adam Laurie, to convert stolen credit card data into a series of audio tones that were then fed to the Square app via the headphone jack on a phone — removing the need to have a physical card. A second avenue of fraud, also using code authored by Laurie, turned the Square dongle into a skimmer. It intercepted incoming data, which is unencrypted, and spit out human readable numbers that could easily be used to clone a card. New hardware that encrypts information pulled from the magnetic strip is in the pipeline but, until then, it seems everyone’s favorite smartphone-based payment service has some troublesome holes to fill. Black Hat hackers demo Square card skimmer, feed it stolen credit card numbers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 17:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Military lightning gun parts sold on eBay, probably built in someone’s garage
August 5, 2011 No Comment
We’re not sure where to start with this one. It’s, in a word, unbelievable. Technologist Cody Oliver was digging through eBay for parts to build a robot car that Elon Musk could drive around Burning Man , when he came across surplus equipment from defense contractors Omnitech Robotics and Ionatron. The components were originally from the military’s Joint Improvised Explosive Device Neutralizers, or JINs — remote-controlled lightning guns designed to disable IEDs. But, the story quickly goes from interesting to terrifying. Oliver soon discovered the weapons were cobbled together largely from off-the-shelf parts, including a Linksys router with the serial numbers scraped off, and lacked even basic security. The now retired JINs were controlled over a standard 802.11 WiFi signal, with the encryption turned off — leaving the multimillion dollar devices vulnerable to insurgents. Ultimately the parts were deemed unfit for even Musk’s RC art car. You can read all of the horrifying details at the source link. [Thanks, Chris] [Image credit: Cody Oliver] Military lightning gun parts sold on eBay, probably built in someone’s garage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Aug 2011 20:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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