Sure, you’ve seen the announcement of Thunderbolt on the PC, the chips that’ll power it and a bevy of compatible accessories , but how about actual proof of Thunderbolt working on Windows? Hidden deep in the recesses of IDF’s technical showcase, we found just that and immortalized it on video for all to see. Essentially the same Chipzilla demo as when we first witnessed the interconnect on Macs, we watched the playback of four 1080p streams devour over 700MB of throughput off a PCIe attached SSD. You know the drill, serious bit slinging awaits in the gallery below and video after the break. Myriam Joire contributed to this report. Gallery: Eyes-on with Thunderbolt on Windows at IDF 2011 Continue reading Eyes-on with Thunderbolt on Windows at IDF 2011 (video) Eyes-on with Thunderbolt on Windows at IDF 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on: electroactive polymer giving a ‘high definition feel’
September 17, 2011 No Comment
Haptic feedback isn’t exactly something that’d blow people’s mind these days, with most mobile devices and gaming controllers already packing a little vibrator to spice up one’s gaming experience. While these motors do the job just fine for delivering the sensation of large engines and explosions, their monotonic performance and relatively high minimum output threshold means they can’t reproduce finer vibration. For instance, you wouldn’t be able to feel a guitar string fade away after a strum, nor would you feel the finer end of a spring recoil. This is where Bayer MaterialScience’s ViviTouch — previously dubbed Reflex — tries to fill the void. For those who aren’t familiar, the magic behind ViviTouch is its electroactive polymer (or EAP in short) — imagine a thin sheet that consists of two electrode layers sandwiching a dielectric elastomer film, and when a voltage is applied, the two attracting electrodes compress the entire sheet. This slim, low-powered ViviTouch actuator module can be placed underneath an inertial mass (usually a battery) on a tray, thus amplifying the haptic feedback produced by the host device’s audio signal between 50Hz and 300Hz (with a 5ms response time). Gallery: ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on Continue reading ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on: electroactive polymer giving a ‘high definition feel’ ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on: electroactive polymer giving a ‘high definition feel’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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This week was packed with news on the mobile front, so it was easy to miss a few stories here and there. Here’s some of the other stuff that happened in the wide world of wireless for the week of August 15, 2011: Vodacom South Africa has joined the data throttling club, though this carrier is taking a slightly different spin: BlackBerry users consuming more than 100MB of data each month will find their download speeds downgraded to GPRS or EDGE. The company claims this will only affect less than five percent of its BlackBerry customers. [via N4BB ] Bada fans: the Samsung Wave 578 is featured on Orange’s site as “coming soon.” [via The Inquirer ] Motorola announced the availability of the Fire and Fire XT in India this week. [via Motorola ] The Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray is now being sold at Vodafone UK . [via Vodafone ] Parrot announced the most recent addition to its lineup of Bluetooth products, called the Minikit+, a refresh of its popular hands-free speakerphone. The new model offers simultaneous pairing and voice commands. [via Parrot ] Research in Motion is hoping to put the NFC functionality in OS 7 to good use, as it announced that the BlackBerry Bold 9900 / 9330 as well as the Curve 9350 / 9360 will support HID’s iCLASS digital keys, which means corporate folks will able to use their smartphone as an access card. [via PhoneScoop ] While digging through the Droid Bionic’s webtop app, the names of two unknown Motorola phones were discovered: the Edison and the Common. Little is known about the Common, but a recent FCC filing mentioned the Edison and is speculated to be the follow-up to the Atrix, albeit sans LTE as originally hoped. [via Droid-Life ] The manager of the Windows Phone 7 Marketplace, Matt Bencke, wrote a post pleading developers to submit their Mango-compatible apps as soon as possible, as the new update is coming to existing phones soon and it’s obviously very important to have Windows Phone 7.5 run as smooth as possible. [via WMPowerUser ] A leaked Radio Shack roadmap indicates the HTC Vigor should be available in stores by October 20th, and the QWERTY-packing Samsung Stratosphere will be up for online ordering as early as October 6th. As this is a third-party retailer, we can’t say with surety that these dates reflect the carrier’s official release. [via Droid-Life ] Mobile Miscellany: week of September 12, 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Good news for secure data fans who aren’t fond of moving parts: Kingston ‘s shipping a new line of security-focused solid state drives for all your info-hiding needs. Despite being touted as an enterprise product, the new line will happily sit in any SATA-capable machine you wish, smoothly chugging along thanks to its beloved SandForce DuraClass technology . It’s not often you find a veritable plethora of features tucked between slabs of NAND, but these guys do have some smarts. Literally. S.M.A.R.T (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology — don’tcha know) is firmly onboard, as well as self-encrypting tech to keep any schadenfreude at bay. Beyond that, you can look forward to 6Gb/s throughput, backwards-compatibility with current SATA 2 systems, plus a pretty darn generous five years of warranty. For your cut of the action you’ll be shelling out $337 (120GB), $650 (240GB) or $1,270 (480GB), depending on how much data you just can’t walk away from. A not-at-all pushy infomercial is embedded after the break — for laughs, or learning. Continue reading Kingston’s high-performance KC100 SSD is S.M.A.R.Ter than yours Kingston’s high-performance KC100 SSD is S.M.A.R.Ter than yours originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 07:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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The Pantech Breakout , Verizon’s least-hyped LTE phone this side of the Droid Bionic , has seen a fair amount of time splayed out on paper without getting its fair share of closeups. This has finally changed, however, now that Droid-Life was able to get its hands on true-blue images of the device. It appears to be a unit that’s already arrived in a Verizon retail outlet, lending credence to the rumor that the 4-inch Android handset will be available for our purchase next week. Unfortunately, Verizon’s still acting as if the phone doesn’t exist, so we’ll just have to strum our fingers on the desk for (hopefully) just a few more days to see if it’ll get acknowledged. Pantech Breakout shows its darling face in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 06:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Clearwire announces deal with China Mobile to accelerate TD-LTE deployment
September 17, 2011 No Comment
The world’s largest mobile operator and the heretofore scrappy WiMAX provider have linked arms to accelerate the rollout and adoption of time-division LTE ( TD-LTE ) across China. While there’s little chatter about an infrastructure build-up itself, China Mobile and Clearwire have established an agreement “to cultivate a robust device ecosystem that supports multi-mode, multi-band devices with minimum component complexity and cost,” with particular emphasis on the common 2.5GHz spectrum. More specifically, the collaboration will work to build up a high volume of TD-LTE chipsets and devices for commercial availability in 2012. If Sprint were to purchase (or make a significant investment in) Clearwire, this deal could be especially important, but for the time being, the company is finding some independence from the uncomfortable love triangle that’s brewing between itself, Sprint and LightSquared. While there’s no telling what sort announcement will come on October 7th , it’s nice to see Clearwire secure an international lover that’s willing to commit to a shared LTE vision. You’ll find the full PR after the break. Continue reading Clearwire announces deal with China Mobile to accelerate TD-LTE deployment Clearwire announces deal with China Mobile to accelerate TD-LTE deployment originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Mix Master Gloves keep your hands warm, control your iPod. Q-bert mitts still MIA (video)
September 17, 2011 No Comment
There’s plenty of options for keeping your digits toasty while you peruse the music on your iPhone or iPod, but most of those still require you to fish the device out of your pocket to skip that Audioslave track that sneaked on there. Burton’s Mix Master gloves skip all that physical interaction nonsense by sticking a wireless remote in the back of one of the mitts. You just plug a small dongle into your iDevice and it pairs up with the music-controlling hand-wear. Of course, if you’re not the exceedingly lazy type, you could just sew a few cents worth of conductive thread into any standard pair of gloves and avoid coughing up $160 for the Mix Masters. If you’re still curious there’s a video after the break. Continue reading Mix Master Gloves keep your hands warm, control your iPod. Q-bert mitts still MIA (video) Mix Master Gloves keep your hands warm, control your iPod. Q-bert mitts still MIA (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 05:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Targus to release new WiFi PAN-equipped Laser Mouse this September, flips Bluetooth the bird
September 17, 2011 No Comment
Back in 2008, Ozmo Devices paired up with Intel to get its WiFi PAN (WiFi Personal Area Network) tech into low-power devices . Fast-forward to a few years later, tack on a new partnership with Targus and get ready for the first of those Bluetooth-less peripherals to hit the market. The company’s new accessory teammate is planning to rollout a line of WiFi Laser mice that incorporate the OZMO2000 chip, with the first mouse to hit sometime this September. The unreleased AMW58US model will connect directly to your computer’s WiFi receiver and packs a four-way scroll wheel, laser sensor and compatibility for Windows 7 — batteries included. There’s no pre-order page available at the moment, so you’ll just have to sit tight and wait it out. Official PR awaits you after the break. Continue reading Targus to release new WiFi PAN-equipped Laser Mouse this September, flips Bluetooth the bird Targus to release new WiFi PAN-equipped Laser Mouse this September, flips Bluetooth the bird originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 04:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Watching two people play Tetris against each other is only slightly more entertaining than watching your stoner friends duke it in marathon Tekken sessions (read: not entertaining at all). But, we gaurantee the video after the break is more interesting than it sounds. A trio of MIT students recreated the classic falling block game with six-foot tall arrays of LEDs (no cutesy Russia-inspired graphics here) and passed control duties off to a pair of Dance Dance Revolution mats. Look, just check out the video below and, if you’re the ambitious type, you can get the code to create your own Tetris installation at the more source link. [Thanks, Russell] Continue reading Tetris played on 6-foot LED matrix, controlled by DDR mat Tetris played on 6-foot LED matrix, controlled by DDR mat originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 01:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Love the ocean, but hate holding your for breath for extended periods? Good news: a team of software engineers, composers, Oscar-winning animators and more have come together to recreate Davy Jones’ locker in the cloud. Wemo Media is looking for a few thousand good artists for the project, to help create a massive simulation of life under the seas built on its Maker Platform. The project has been around for a bit, but is still in closed beta, making it a private development beach of sorts. You can watch an introductory video and request an invite at the source link below. Oscar winners crowd-sourcing the ocean with The Blu originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 02:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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