Peter Jackson nabs thirty RED EPIC cameras to film The Hobbit, tempt you to blow your savings
November 28, 2010 No Comment
We’re still slightly bummed that Peter Jackson never made Halo , but this should patch things up a tad — the Lord of the Rings director will film The Hobbit in 3D entirely on thirty hand-machined RED EPIC cameras, starting early next year. That’s the news straight from RED founder Jim Jannard, but that’s not all, as a limited number of pre-production EPIC packages will be available to early adopters as well. $58,000 buys your deep-pocketed budding director a machined EPIC-M body, titanium PL mount, Bomb EVF and 5-inch touchscreen LCD, a REDmote, a four-pack of batteries, a charger and a solid state storage module with a four-pack of 128GB SSDs. Jannard expects to hand-assemble that first batch of 5K imagers in December or January, start the real assembly lines a month after that, and hopefully have widespread availability by NAB in April, though he’s not making any promises there. That’s how RED rolls . PR after the break. [Thanks, Patrick] Continue reading Peter Jackson nabs thirty RED EPIC cameras to film The Hobbit, tempt you to blow your savings Peter Jackson nabs thirty RED EPIC cameras to film The Hobbit, tempt you to blow your savings originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …DARwIn-OP humanoid revealed, ready to open source your robotics program
November 28, 2010 No Comment
The next version of the RoboCup-famous DARwIn bot is about ready to give the Nao a run for its money. The new DARwIn-OP from Robotis and Virginia Tech’s RoMeLa (led by Dr. Dennis Hong, who joined us on the Engadget Show earlier this year) is just about to land, and the first pictures of the finished thing have started to circulate. While the bot is designed to perform, with sensors and servos suitable for higher-end robotics, the main thrust of the design is the open source and modular nature of the hardware and software. The bot can be purchased as a product from Robotis, but the CAD files are publicly available, and its plastic parts can be fabricated by the end user to save money (you do have a 3D printer, right?). Rumor has it the robot will retail for around $8,000, around half the cost of its closed source Nao competition. The full unveil of the robot is due at the IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots a couple weeks from now. DARwIn-OP humanoid revealed, ready to open source your robotics program originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 10:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We’ve been following Aldebaran Robotics’ Nao humanoid robot literally since it took its first steps , and it looks like interested developers will finally be able to get their hands on a bot of their own quite soon. To do so, they’ll have to sign up and quality for the just-launched Nao developer program, which costs €3,600 (or roughly $4,800) and will initially be limited to just 200 participants. That hefty price does naturally include the robot itself, along with a complete software suite, and “privileged access” to Aldebaran Robotics’ source code. Interested? Hit up the link below for the complete details. Nao developer program kicks off: $4,800, robot included originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Given the dominance of Sony’s Walkman over in the Land of the Rising Sun, it’s a little surprising to think that Sony has been all but silent regarding the Japanese e-reader market. We heard back in May that the mega-corp was planning an e-reader launch in Japan by the year’s end, aiming to build out an elaborate e-book distribution platform with local telecom operator KDDI. Fast forward a few months, and it seems as if thing’s are finally falling into place. New reports are suggesting that the 5- and 6-inch Sony Reader devices will be on sale in Japan on December 10th, with pricing set for
Continue reading …Osram’s new LED package 50 percent brighter, promises cameraphone flashes that suck 50 percent less
November 28, 2010 No Comment
See those smiling twentysomethings up there? That, folks, is the kind of happiness that can only be achieved with 150 glorious lux of LED intensity. Fortunately, Siemens subsidiary Osram Opto Semiconductors has packaged a new LED chip that capable of putting up such impressive figures, a claimed 50 percent brighter than its predecessor — and that makes it capable of evenly illuminating a 90-centimeter area from a distance of one meter away. Cameraphone flashes are an obvious application, but pocket projectors are another obvious benefactor — it’s nearly impossible to eke enough light out of ‘em, and this should help. It’s not clear whether a brighter pocket projector would have the same positive effect on the demeanor of a bunch of stylish youths, though — more on that situation as we get it. Osram’s new LED package 50 percent brighter, promises cameraphone flashes that suck 50 percent less originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Nov 2010 02:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Nokia toys with context-aware smartphone settings switch, Jigsaw provides better context for apps like this
November 28, 2010 No Comment
If Intel prognosticated correctly , context is the future of apps — your device’s array of sensors will determine where you are and what you’re doing, and clever programs will guess from there. Problems arise, however, when one tries to run those accelerometers, microphones, radio antennas and GPS tracking devices constantly on the battery life of an average smartphone and determine what the raw data means, and that’s where a group of Dartmouth researchers (and one Nokia scholar) are trying to stake their claim. They’ve got a bundle of algorithms called Jigsaw for iPhone and Symbian that claims to be able to continually report what you’re up to (whether walking, running, cycling or driving) no matter where you place your device, and only pings the sensors as needed based on how active you are. (For better or for worse, Jigsaw also dodges the privacy concerns Intel’s cloud-based API might raise by storing all personal data on the phone.) Of course, we’ve had a very basic version of context-aware functionality for years in a little Android app known as Locale — which modifies your smartphone settings under very specific conditions you specify (GPS coordinates, WiFi locations, battery life and more) and it just so happens that Espoo’s doing much the same with an app called Nokia Situations. Presently in the experimental stage, Situations is a long ways away from the potential of frameworks like Jigsaw, but here you won’t have to wait — you can download a beta for Symbian^3, S60 5th Edition and S60 3.2 at our source links without further delay. Nokia toys with context-aware smartphone settings switch, Jigsaw provides better context for apps like this originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Australian Senate passes bill to split Telstra in two, pushes National Broadband Network closer to reality
November 28, 2010 No Comment
The future of Australian’s Labor Party-backed National Broadband Network is looking much brighter today. The Senate voted in favor of an A$11 billion bill for Telstra’s copper network that also has the Telecom company (and former government-owned entity) splitting into both a retail group and a wholesale network group. The House of Representatives will weigh in on Monday, with all signs pointing to passage there as well. The opposition party and its A$6.3 billion proposal ? A lost packet. Australian Senate passes bill to split Telstra in two, pushes National Broadband Network closer to reality originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 22:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Gateway stuffs Core i5-470UM, Bluetooth 3.0 into 11.6-inch EC19C-A52C/S laptop
November 28, 2010 No Comment
Don’t call it a netbook , capiche? Gateway has just outed a new 11.6-incher over in Japan, with the EC19C-A52C/S boasting some of the most impressive specifications we’ve seen in a unit this compact. A 1.33GHz dual-core Core i5-470UM processor sits at the heart of this here lappie, and it’s accompanied by a 320GB hard drive, 1366 x 768 resolution display, 2GB of RAM, HDMI / VGA outputs, an inbuilt Ethernet port and a six-cell battery that should last half a dozen hours (on a good day). As expected, you’ll also find a 1.3 megapixel webcam, 4-in-1 card reader, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) and Bluetooth 3.0 (a nice touch, we’ll confess), with sales expected to start right about now in the Land of the Rising Sun. As for pricing? Try
Continue reading …Keepin’ it real fake: ‘MacBook Pro’ runs ‘OS X,’ dodges questions on ‘legitimacy’
November 27, 2010 No Comment
Oh, sure — we’ve seen a litany of knockoff MacBook Pro units, but how’s about one that actually ships with OS X? As the level of nerve skyrockets towards infinity, an unnamed manufacturer in an unnamed section of China seems to be hawking a lookalike MBP with Snow Leopard onboard — a feat that even Psystar couldn’t achieve for long. As the story goes, around $466 buys you a 14-inch machine with a paltry 1.66GHz Atom D510 processor, 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and NVIDIA’s Ion 2 graphics platform. Oh, and a glowing Apple logo on the lid. Unfortunately, the dodgy specifications list seems somewhat reluctant to “admit” that “OS X” is actually loaded on, but it’s there. Trust us. We think. Keepin’ it real fake: ‘MacBook Pro’ runs ‘OS X,’ dodges questions on ‘legitimacy’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Tokyoflash , purveyor of all things awesome when it comes to watches, has just unveiled its latest addition. If you’re of the eagle-eyed variety, you’ve probably spotted it just to the right (or after the break in video form). The difference between this fellow and most of the timepieces found here is pretty simple: the RPM LED watch started as a fan render. Over the months, the company took this grand idea and made it a reality, now offering it to anyone with with more money than sense. The operation is semi -simple — the inner ring shows the hour, while the outer ring shows the minutes. There’s a group of five LEDs at the top that further explains the latter, and we’re hearing that the band itself pushes the IQ of the wearer higher by 12 to 15 points. Even if confirmed by a respected panel of mad scientists, we still say it’s not worth the $208.42 asking price, but you’re obviously free to disagree vehemently. Continue reading Tokyoflash brings RPM LED wristwatch concept to reality (video) Tokyoflash brings RPM LED wristwatch concept to reality (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Nov 2010 17:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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