Rugged POV.HD video system captures 1080p through anything, for a price

The POV.HD video system is a new offering from V.I.O positioned as a more professional-grade alternative to other film-through-hell helmet cameras such as the GoPro HD or Drift Innovations HD170. Its two-ounce IP67 certified camera sports a six-element glass lens and a native 1080p CMOS sensor that can capture a 142 degree field-of-view -- claimed to be the widest on the market -- in full HD at 30fps. The head unit can also be adjusted to record 720p at 60fps with a 92 degree FOV for faster shots. A separate recording unit features Texas Instruments' latest Da Vinci DM368 processor and supports a real-time video pipeline while storing up to 4.3 hours of 1080p H.264 video footage on a 32GB of SDHC. It's also equipped with a two-inch LCD viewing screen with exposure and footage tagging controls. Priced at $600, V.I.O is currently accepting pre-orders, which if made between November 15th through December 17th, are guaranteed to arrive by December 22nd -- just in time for your family's' homebrew holiday response to Jackass.

Continue reading Rugged POV.HD video system captures 1080p through anything, for a price

Rugged POV.HD video system captures 1080p through anything, for a price originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid 2 Global hands-on

At this point we're completely amused that the Droid 2 Global has managed to leak out, get advertised, go on sale, and even arrive in customers' hands without so much as a PR peep from Verizon, so we leapt at the chance to get a quick hands-on with it last night here in NYC. Nothing here you wouldn't really expect, and we weren't able to run any performance tests on the speedbumped 1.2GHz processor, but we were able to solve the mystery of that camera bulge: turns out the Droid 2 Global is a hair thinner than the standard Droid 2, and the bulge pops out just enough to make up the difference. It's not dramatic, by any means -- if we hadn't been looking, we probably wouldn't have noticed. Oh, and it's definitely running Blur on top of Android 2.2, so you know, that's "awesome." Anyway, at the rate we're going we'll have a full review up and this thing will be discontinued before Verizon ever formally acknowledges it, so hit the gallery for a quick hands-on with The Droid That Doesn't... Exist.

Gallery: Motorola Droid 2 Global hands-on

Motorola Droid 2 Global hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic Lumix GF2 reviewed: smaller, simpler, and arguably better than the GF1

Panasonic's DMC-GF1 proved itself as a tasty go-between, filling the gap between high-end compact and DSLR. The GF2 will soon arrive and, according to Photography Blog, if anything it slots in a little closer to the compact side of things thanks to a new user interface that ditches many buttons and dials in favor of touchscreen menus. This will drive some users mad, but ultimately the up-rated features here still make this a worthy choice over the GF1, including video recording at 1080i60 and a new body that's a fifth smaller and seven percent lighter than before despite still containing a pop-up flash, 12.1 megapixel sensor, and image quality that's about as good as you're going to get out of a shooter this size.

Panasonic Lumix GF2 reviewed: smaller, simpler, and arguably better than the GF1 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 10:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon's Droid lineup available at Amazon for a penny per handset with no activation fee

Yeah, retailers are always undercutting carrier pricing, sometimes pretty dramatically, but Amazon's taking things to the limit this weekend. You can score any of Verizon's major Droid phones for a penny, and Verizon is also fronting the $35 Verizon line activation fee. Of course, you'll have to sign up for a two year contract, and you'd better not think about canceling out of it: Amazon has a $250 per device cancellation fee on top of Verizon's own hefty charge. Ah, the price of free.

Verizon's Droid lineup available at Amazon for a penny per handset with no activation fee originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 14:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TikTok and LunaTik iPod nano watch kits look awesome, despite Ke$ha naming convention

We know it seems like everyone and their mom is turning Apple's latest iPod nano into a watch, but the TikTok and LunaTik concepts by Scott Wilson of Minimal Studios are definitely the best looking "iWatch" accessories we've seen to date. We say concept, because technically the products are still pipe dreams flowing through the funding platform Kickstarter.com -- but seeing as it has already doubled its requested funding goal, there's a very good chance these concepts will actually ship out. The TikTok features a simple snap-in design for quick wrist-mounting and is tentatively priced at $35. The LunaTik, on the other hand, is marketed as a "premium conversion kit" that secures the Nano in a two-piece CNC-machined aluminum case held together with stainless steel bolts, and should ship for $70. As with many Kickstarter projects, pledging some funding to the cause can score you either model at a cheaper pre-order price. Now if only the iPod nano was actually a good watch... Video after the break.

Gallery: TikTok and LunaTik iPod Nano Watch Accessory Gallery

Continue reading TikTok and LunaTik iPod nano watch kits look awesome, despite Ke$ha naming convention

TikTok and LunaTik iPod nano watch kits look awesome, despite Ke$ha naming convention originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Archos 101 now shipping, Android tablet game really heating up

We were really digging this 10-inch Android tablet when we spotted it back in August, and now it's shipping for a totally palatable $300 pricetag. It's powerful enough to play 720p video, has a 1024 x 600 screen, HDMI out, 802.11n WiFi and even a front facing camera. Plus there's even the somewhat comforting notion that this isn't Archos' first time to the Android tablet rodeo. Of course, the big drawback is the lack of Android Market, but there are always hacks to solve that, and Archos preloads some good apps to get you started. The tablet is shipping with Android 2.1, but Archos pinky swears it'll be getting 2.2 by the end of the month. Can't handle 10 whole inches of Android? Try the 7-incher Archos 70 on for size. You can't say they aren't trying.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Archos 101 now shipping, Android tablet game really heating up originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet (video)

Hey Xbox 360 Kinect owners, want to spice up those family shadow puppet shows? Then check out the installation prototype created by Emily Gobeille and Theo Watson using an Xbox Kinect connected to a laptop using the libfreenect Kinect drivers and ofxKinect. The openFrameworks system tracks the elbow, wrist, thumb, and tips of the fingers to map a skeleton onto the movement and posture of an animated puppet. And get this: it was made in a day. So just imagine the Kinect homebrew we'll have around this time next year. See it in action after the break.

[Thanks, Pradeep]

Continue reading Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet (video)

Kinect hack creates world's greatest shadow puppet (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PCI Express makes the 3.0 leap, doubles bandwidth over PCIe 2.0 spec

First Bluetooth, then USB and now PCI Express. It's clearly the era of version 3.0, and given that the PCI Express specification has been humming along at 2.0 speeds for over two years now, we'd say an update was definitely due. Thankfully, the PCI-SIG has announced the availability of the PCIe Base 3.0 specification to its members today, and the highlights are certainly notable. There's a new 128b/130b encoding scheme and a data rate of 8 gigatransfers per second (GT/s), doubling the interconnect bandwidth over the PCIe 2.0 specification. And since we're sure you're fretting it, we'll go ahead and affirm that it maintains backward compatibility with previous PCIe architectures. We're also told that based on this data rate expansion, "it is possible for products designed to the PCIe 3.0 architecture to achieve bandwidth near 1 gigabyte per second (GB/s) in one direction on a single-lane (x1) configuration and scale to an aggregate approaching 32 GB/s on a sixteen-lane (x16) configuration." A lot of technobabble, sure, but one thing's for sure: your next graphics card is bound to murder your current one if paired with a PCIe 3.0 motherboard.

Continue reading PCI Express makes the 3.0 leap, doubles bandwidth over PCIe 2.0 spec

PCI Express makes the 3.0 leap, doubles bandwidth over PCIe 2.0 spec originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Nov 2010 03:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lego Laser 3D Scanner Scans Lego Pieces to Make More Lego [Video]

There's no limit, no limit I tell you, to the power of Lego. This is a do-it-your-self 3D laser scanner made of Lego used to scan Lego pieces to use it in a Lego 3D design software to build more Lego.

The scanner uses a NXT controller, Lego pieces and modifications to connect the laser reader to the software. The results are incredibly good. These are the scanned pieces, in the 3D CAD software LDraw:

I love the idea of Lego scanning Lego to create Lego. You know where all this is going: It involves paradoxes, judgment day, bleeding goats and inter-dimensional portals. [Brothers Brick]

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LaCie's Newest Flash Drive Is Tiny and Supa-USB 3.0 Fast [FlashDrives]

LaCie's got their hands on what they say is the smallest current USB 3.0 flash drive—about the size of a pack of gum. (Clearly not Orbit gum!). Sizes up to 120GB, and speeds up to 260MB/s.

The AES 256 encryption-enabled FastKey is pretty chic looking too—encased in tough aluminum—and available in 30GB and 60GB versions as well, starting at $150. [LaCie]

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ITG xpPhone on sale at long last!

Feel like stretching the very definition of "phone" for the sake of functionality or sheer bravado? You get to be friends with us. We've always had a soft spot for ITG's bizarrely conceived xpPhone, which does indeed run Windows XP, albeit the Embedded version, and the monstrous thing is now on sale after almost two years of teasing. It's running for a mere $798 PayPal Bux in its 3G incarnation, $732 for 3G-free, and $666 (yes, that 666) for the 3G-less version with DOS instead of Windows. We could go on all day listing specs for this thing, so we recommend you hit up that source link and feast on them for yourselves -- just make sure to have your PayPal login handy for when the irresistible nerdery of this thing reaches out and grabs you and never ever lets go.

[Thanks, Eman Z]

ITG xpPhone on sale at long last! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon launching '4G' smack talk campaign against AT&T

Never ends, does it? The top four carriers in the US love slinging mud, but the trash-talking between Verizon and AT&T is always particularly vicious -- and it's showing no signs of ebbing. As you might expect, Verizon intends to use its new LTE network as a weapon in the fight, and like both Sprint and T-Mobile, Verizon will be very loudly labeling it "4G" to the ITU's chagrin. The latest promotional posters compare maps of Verizon's combined 3G / LTE network with AT&T's 3G-only network, but considering how limited Big Red's initial LTE launch is, there really isn't much difference with what they've shown in the past. The posters also proudly proclaim Verizon as having "the fastest 4G network in America," which is false on at least one level -- LTE isn't really 4G, as we said -- and remains to be seen on another. At any rate, as always, it'll be interesting to see how AT&T responds. Nerd fight!

[Thanks, Kal]

Verizon launching '4G' smack talk campaign against AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 18:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fooducate Scans Food Products to Provide You With Nutrition Facts [Ios]

iOS: Fooducate is a handy, free little app that scans food product barcodes and provides you with health and nutrition information. If the product doesn't meet your health needs, Fooducate can offer up some alternatives. More »

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Panasonic and Pentax pack a pair of pickled firmware updates, DMC-G2 gets 3D, K-5 better bursting

Well, lookie here, a couple of little firmware files have wandered into our midst. Panasonic gets credit for the most interesting with its 1.11 update for the DMC-G2, offering a "performance enhancement," an improved AE lock that holds even when using the touch shutter, and support for the new H-FT012 lens we recently played with -- the one that adds a third dimension to your otherwise 2D shooter. Pentax, meanwhile, has a 1.01 update for its K-5 that will let you capture 20 RAW images in a burst, which a lot more than the eight it can grab currently. Then there's "improved stability for general performance such as exposure range on HyP mode," which sounds awful nice too. Both are available now, so mosey those SD cards on over and click on through.

Panasonic and Pentax pack a pair of pickled firmware updates, DMC-G2 gets 3D, K-5 better bursting originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 09:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jabra debuts six touchscreen-paired headsets designed for Microsoft Lync

Microsoft's Lync, the supposed "next generation of unified communications" (a.k.a. the rebranded Office Communicator) just made its official debut this week, and it looks like it's already racking up some pretty big hardware partners. Among the first is Jabra, which has just rolled out no less than six new headsets that each come paired with their own touchscreen. Those all fall under the Jabra Pro 9400 and Jabra Go 6400 series, which each pack similar base units but come with headsets of varying portability, from a full-size set of headphones to a standard Bluetooth headset that you can also use with your phone. And just for good measure, Jabra has also rolled out its new Jabra SPEAK 410, which is the company's first USB-powered speakerphone. Of course, they all also come with some decidedly business-minded prices (upwards of $500), but it looks like they're all available immediately.

Continue reading Jabra debuts six touchscreen-paired headsets designed for Microsoft Lync

Jabra debuts six touchscreen-paired headsets designed for Microsoft Lync originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Nov 2010 12:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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