Yamaha InfoSound prototype talks to your phone as you zone out during TV commercials
December 20, 2010 No Comment
Of all the things that the ol’ boob tube does well, directing viewers to advertiser’s websites is not one of them. In an era where most TVs are still not internet connected , Yamaha has dreamt up a canny work around: the technique, dubbed InfoSound, plays an inaudible (18 kHz or higher) signal over your TV’s audio track that can be picked up by your smartphone’s mic and read with a custom app. Of course, the thing is not exactly high bandwidth, but even with a range of roughly 33 feet and a rate of 80 bps, this should be fine for transmitting a URL. Just imagine! Never again will you have to choose between the Saturday afternoon Weekend at Bernie’s double-header and printing out a coupon for the Jiffy Lube. Yamaha InfoSound prototype talks to your phone as you zone out during TV commercials originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Google body browser now getting down and you know it’s you know it’s crush grooving
December 20, 2010 No Comment
We got a brief glimpse of Google’s body browser at the Chrome event earlier this month, and wouldn’t ya know it, the violation of privacy simulator / learning tool is hanging out in Google labs. A browser with WebGL support is required, which means Firefox 4 and Chrome 9 betas (or Chrome 8 if you enable it in the “about:flags” menu). The visualization options are interesting and the search tool works like a charm, so… why not? Exactly. Continue reading Google body browser now getting down and you know it’s you know it’s crush grooving Google body browser now getting down and you know it’s you know it’s crush grooving originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 16:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Does Peek’s future lay in low-powered feature phones, emerging markets?
December 20, 2010 No Comment
The overriding philosophy at Peek is “keep it simple,” and we have to agree that as these things go, this is a pretty sound principle (even if we don’t necessarily have much use for dedicated Twitter hardware ). If the big payoff for the company isn’t in the gadget-addicted states, it’s been a good start: the company has sold some 50,000 units in two years while developing the back-end technology that CEO Amol Sarva believes can supply cheap, low-powered feature phones and other devices for emerging markets — devices that could retail for as little as $50. “This is a huge opportunity for us,” Sarva told GigaOm . “We’ve built technology that no one cared about but now we’re suddenly being approached by guys who have the hardware that want to make it smart.” And if that doesn’t pan out, we have a suggestion: FourPeek, the dedicated Foursquare device. Does Peek’s future lay in low-powered feature phones, emerging markets? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Yes, that’s a woman with a dog in a Baby Björn throwing prototype Nokias
December 20, 2010 No Comment
So here’s how the story goes: employees at Nokia facilities in Oulu and Tampere, Finland, were fed up with negotiations being held between their representatives and the company over planned layoffs , and decided to do something about it. But really, why strike or organize a rally when you can just socialize, use a few prototype devices for target practice, and get your Cavalier King Charles spaniel some fresh air at the same time? If this keeps up long enough, these staffers might have second careers as competition-level phone tossers . Hit up the source link for the full video — but be warned, if you love Nokias, you might find the video graphic, violent, and objectionable. [Thanks, Juuso H.] Yes, that’s a woman with a dog in a Baby Björn throwing prototype Nokias originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 15:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide ! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today’s bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the holiday season. Desktops don’t get much love these days, what with newfangled “laptops” hogging all the spotlight, but it’s still an incredibly vibrant category, full of cutthroat competition, insanely powerful computers, and superfluous LED lighting. The result is tons of hot deals , particularly if you don’t mind bringing your own monitor, wrangling wires behind an entertainment center, or being chained to a desk. In return you’ll get performance that simply isn’t possible on a laptop, expandability should you choose take advantage of it, and so many hot deals . Follow along after the break as we show you some of our favorites. Continue reading Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Desktops Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Desktops originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Samsung’s Bada 2.0 to move to ‘web-centric’ apps, getting ad framework and multitasking
December 20, 2010 No Comment
We’re still hesitant to call Bada a “smartphone platform” in the same breath as Android and iOS — but despite our best attempts to write it off, Samsung’s homegrown handset platform keeps chugging and expanding to new hardware. A developer event in South Korea appears to have yielded the first details on what Bada 2.0 will bring when it launches next year, and needless to say, it adds a bunch of smartphone-worthy stuff to the mix: an honest-to-goodness ad framework of some sort, better support for apps that use web technologies, multitasking, NFC capabilities, and an brand new SDK that’ll support Mac and Linux. We’re still going to see a whole lot more hardware — and a more cohesive story — to justify why even low-end “smartphones” should be using Bada over Android, but it’s an interesting development nonetheless. Samsung’s Bada 2.0 to move to ‘web-centric’ apps, getting ad framework and multitasking originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Notice how we said “hardware,” not “phones?” In light of that wild Motorola teaser we just saw and the fact that we know Verizon and Moto are working pretty closely on Android tablets , it’s entirely possible that phones won’t be the only items on Verizon’s docket when it starts pulling the covers off its first consumer-oriented LTE gear at CES in a couple weeks. The fact that there’ll be new LTE hardware intros from Verizon at CES is nothing new — they’ve been saying as much for a while now — but the specific mention of Android is a comforting confirmation that we’ll probably see the HTC Mecha , that unnamed LG , and perhaps a tablet or two on hand as opposed to MetroPCS’ unusual strategy of taking the dumbphone route . ‘Bout time the EVO 4G and Epic 4G had to watch their backs, isn’t it? Verizon teases Android LTE hardware for January 6th at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Our buddies over at Aldebaran Robotics in France, makers of the cute little Nao robot, have returned with a new elderly care robot, dubbed Romeo. The much larger humanoid stands 1.4 meters tall (a bit over four and half feet) in his gunmetal Speedo and weighs 40 kilograms (88 pounds). Romeo features 37-degrees of freedom, a four-vertebra backbone, articulated feet, a composite leg exoskeleton, and a revised actuator giving the robot safer control over its limbs. The clean-shaven bot also features a “partially soft torso” — at least until grandma unleashes her charms. The bot interacts via natural speech and gestures to perform tasks such as taking out the trash, lifting a cup with its four-fingered hand, or fetching food from the kitchen. Romeo will join a long line of robots destined to entertain and help care for the aged and infirmed when he’s unveiled in March at a cost of about €250,000 (about $330,000). Meet Romeo, grandma’s new french robot lover originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …NEC teases dual-screen Cloud Communicator Android tablet, promises more at CES
December 20, 2010 No Comment
Believe it or not, the crew at Engadget HQ will be packing up and headed to CES 2011 a fortnight from today, and it looks as if quite a few undercover products from NEC will be making the same trip. The company has just revealed that its single-screen Cloud Communicator tablet will be on display, but moreover, a dual -screen version will be making it awfully tough for the former to get any attention whatsoever. Now, dual-screen devices aren’t exactly new, but an Android tablet with a pair of 7-inch LCDs is definitely more inciting than Kno’s education-minded megabook and the two-faced e-readers that swarmed CES 2010. Details on the hardware are few and far betwixt, with NEC only revealing that both panels will be touch-enabled, WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth modules will be baked in and that a stylus will be included for good measure. Also, it’ll fully support the use of different programs on each LCD, which — if executed properly — could melt our faces into the desert sand below. Sadly, our prying for images got us nowhere, but we’re assured to see more at next month’s extravaganza. Hang tight. Continue reading NEC teases dual-screen Cloud Communicator Android tablet, promises more at CES NEC teases dual-screen Cloud Communicator Android tablet, promises more at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It’s on, suckers. Motorola just sent us this “Tablet Evolution” teaser video for their CES 2011 announcements, and it doesn’t mince any words — it calls the iPad a “giant iPhone” and says the Samsung Galaxy Tab is running Android “for a phone” before closing out with a buzzing bee over that new red Motorola logo . That certainly suggests some Honeycomb action to us — and it fits perfectly with Andy Rubin demonstrating the next-gen version of Android on a Motorola tablet back at D: Dive Into Mobile. You know, the tablet that’s since leaked out with a Verizon logo on it . Yeah, we’re ready for this to go down — and you know we’ll be there live as it happens. Motorola’s ‘Tablet Evolution’ video teases some Honeycomb at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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