Looks like we’re not the only ones enjoying all those Kinect hacks being dreamed up and implemented by hardworking enthusiasts the world o’er. That’s right: it was rumored early this year, and now it’s been confirmed — Microsoft will be releasing the Kinect for Windows SDK. According to Microsoft, “It will be available this spring as a free download, and will give academic researchers and enthusiasts access to key pieces of the Kinect system-such as the audio technology, system application programming interfaces and direct control of the Kinect sensor itself.” Commercial licensing details will be made available at some point thereafter. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Microsoft to release Kinect for Windows SDK this spring originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 15:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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The above pictured contraption, called Copernitron, features a PlayStation Move controller, a turntable, and a homebrew Helmholtz coil (you know, for canceling out interference caused by our planet’s magnetic field). By sending data to a Linux PC via Bluetooth, this bad boy will measure the Earth’s rotation, find geographic north, and determine altitude. Apparently, this is achieved by measuring the controller’s subtle movements as it spins around at 45 RPM. And while the PS Move gyros are much more accurate than those of any other controller on the market, they’re not too accurate: if they were, the designer points out, “ITAR might classify them as missile components. That’s why we can’t have nice motion tracking.” See it in action after the break. Continue reading PlayStation Move, turntable used to track the Earth’s rotation PlayStation Move, turntable used to track the Earth’s rotation originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Apple patent application opens the door to free-form acoustic gesture commands
February 21, 2011 No Comment
Another Apple patent application has come to light that’s making us stop the daily grind for a moment and ponder the possibilities. This one talks about scattering a bunch of acoustic transducers (basically, microphones) throughout the case of a laptop. No, they aren’t there to pick up the sweet sounds of your humming along with Rihanna and, while the application doesn’t make it perfectly clear what their purpose is for, we’re liking Patently Apple’s conclusion that this is to enable acoustic commands. The application describes a microprocessor that can “interpret electrical signals generated by the one or more acoustic transducers as input.” The idea is that these transducers detect a finger making contact with the chassis and register those vibrations as gestures. A similar concept is demonstrated in a video below, so watch that then start dreaming. Dragging your finger along the bezel to scroll? A non-capacitive touchpad as wide as the keyboard? Music games that finally let you show off your finger drumming prowess? Continue reading Apple patent application opens the door to free-form acoustic gesture commands Apple patent application opens the door to free-form acoustic gesture commands originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Facebook Messenger iPhone app gives you yet another VoIP option, Zuckerberg yet another good idea
February 21, 2011 No Comment
Think Facebook chat is cool? How’s about a billion Facebook chats… with your voice . A company by the name of Crisp App has just pushed out an iOS program that may or may not be pulled at any time. You see, the app essentially enables iPod touch and iPhone users to call their Facebook friends (even if they’re logged on via the web) using a VoIP protocol, but there doesn’t appear to be any affiliation with Zuckerberg and co. It also allows chatters to shoot over pictures, browse message history, view a friend’s wall, use emoticons, receive instant replies with Apple Push Notifications and setup sound notifications. Naturally, it supports background operation, but according to GigaOM , there’s still a significant amount of lag present while calling. Still, if you spend more time on Facebook than digging through your standard contact list, you may want to part ways with $2.99 now and pray for a fix in the future — we get the feeling that time’s ticking on this one. Facebook Messenger iPhone app gives you yet another VoIP option, Zuckerberg yet another good idea originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 14:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …AT&T’s HTC Inspire 4G can do HSUPA, has it disabled for some mysterious reason
February 21, 2011 No Comment
There’s a story going around the past couple days that HTC’s Inspire 4G for AT&T — a phone that you would assume to be wicked fast on both uploads and downloads in light of the name — doesn’t support HSUPA, a critical element to offering reasonable uplink speeds. Turns out it’s not quite that simple. Here’s what we’re hearing from trusted sources: Contrary to AT&T’s official line — which is flatly that the Inspire’s specs don’t include HSUPA — the hardware most certainly does support it. For some reason, HSUPA has been disabled in the current firmware, but could be easily enabled in a future update if HTC and AT&T were to agree to do so. For what it’s worth, we’re not even aware of an HSPA+ chipset that lacks support for HSUPA, so that definitely sounds right. We’ve also been told that AT&T’s network may simply have HSUPA disabled in 4G areas. That doesn’t necessarily make sense since other HSUPA-compliant devices on AT&T (like the iPhone 4 , to name an obvious example) can regularly hit HSUPA uplink speeds, but we suppose it’s possible that there’s some specific incompatibility between the infrastructure and the chipset used by the Inspire. An eerily-similar incident has happened in the past , after all. We’ll keep our ear to the ground as we get more on this situation, but the bottom line is that hope is not lost for heavy uploaders with Inspires — we just need to find out what it’s going to take to get HTC to push an update. AT&T’s HTC Inspire 4G can do HSUPA, has it disabled for some mysterious reason originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …US Navy’s free-electron laser breaks another record, takes aim at missiles next
February 21, 2011 No Comment
The US Navy’s free-electron laser has broken a few records already, but it’s just plowed through another fairly big one — one that its creators say could put it on the fast track to actually being used to shoot down missiles. That particular record involved running the system for eight hours at 500 kilovolts, which is a level they’ve been trying to achieve for the past six years and, according to the researchers, “definitely shortens” the time frame for getting to their ultimate goal of 100 kilowatts. What’s more, while this particular test didn’t actually involve blowing anything up, the Navy seems confident that the laser will eventually be able to do just that, as it’s just recently awarded Boeing a $163 million contract to package the laser in a weapons system that would be deployed on ships and be able to detect, track, and destroy missiles (or presumably anything else ). According the Office of Naval Research, the Navy hopes to meet that goal by 2015. [Image: Wired / Danger Room ] US Navy’s free-electron laser breaks another record, takes aim at missiles next originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 13:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …We know you had a rough weekend, managing your micro-bloggin’ and social networkin’ with a web interface of all things, so we’ll keep this one short and sweet: the kids at UberMedia have their once-banned apps back online! That includes Twidroyd and UberTwitter — the latter being renamed UberSocial, but one of a few changes that the company made to ensure that it wasn’t violating Twitter’s usage policies. If only everything could be resolved this quickly, right? Twidroyd and UberTwitter (now called UberSocial) back online originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Microsoft pushing small update to Windows Phones to prepare for copy and paste update later on
February 21, 2011 No Comment
Don’t get too excited when you see this update notification pop up — as far as we can tell, it’s got nothing users will notice — but we’ve just been told by Microsoft that the company is getting ready to send out the first software upgrade to Windows Phone 7 devices in the field early this week. It’s being billed as a “minor update to help prepare” for the copy and paste stuff (which we’re assuming is still targeted for early- to mid-March, per Ballmer’s MWC keynote), though the exact timing of this first one will vary a bit depending on carrier. Oh, and a note before you hook up to try to grab it: it also required a recently-pushed update to the Zune software (or the Connector for Mac OS), so you’ll need to get that first before restarting the app and looking for the phone firmware. Microsoft pushing small update to Windows Phones to prepare for copy and paste update later on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Toyota decrees the plural of ‘Prius’ is ‘Prii,’ your Latin teacher looks on admonishingly
February 21, 2011 No Comment
The world faces many challenges and concerns when it comes to the future of transportation, but one of the biggest hurdles to a utopian future has finally been overcome. Toyota , using the might of its international team of engineers and wordsmiths, has finally decided what you should say when you see multiples of the company’s hybrids parked together. They are to be called Prii — not Priuses, not Priuples, not Boring Cars. Just Prii. Remember it. Continue reading Toyota decrees the plural of ‘Prius’ is ‘Prii,’ your Latin teacher looks on admonishingly Toyota decrees the plural of ‘Prius’ is ‘Prii,’ your Latin teacher looks on admonishingly originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Anaheim school district handing out GPS trackers to chronically absent students
February 21, 2011 No Comment
So, it’s like this — if you’re a California gang member, you’re assigned a GPS tracker . And if you’re on track to become a California gang member, you’re also assigned a GPS tracker. Lovely. According to The Orange County Register , the Anaheim Union High School District is handing out GPS trackers to chronically absent seventh and eighth graders, with the six-week pilot program expected to break the habit of skipping by nagging the ever-loving heck out of minors. The plan breaks down as such: if you’ve netted four unexcused absences this year, you and your parents (but mostly your parents) can “volunteer” to have a tracker assigned to the child in question. From there, they’ll need to enter a code five times per day in order to pass muster, and they’ll also be required to field at least three calls per week from a coach — someone who will be checking in on one’s “progress.” The school hopes that having more kids in school will result in fewer kids getting wrapped up in gang activity, and based on successful trials in San Antonio and Baltimore, hopes are understandably high. All told, around 75 students at Dale and South junior high schools are taking part in the pilot program, and district officials are expected to make an expansion decision in due time. Meanwhile, attendance in the weekly Hackers Club has risen significantly in recent weeks, solving the original issue in a very different, roundabout way. Anaheim school district handing out GPS trackers to chronically absent students originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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