Thursday, December 02, 2010

Strawberry-Pickin' Robot Only Picks the Red Berries [Video]

Strawberry-Pickin' Robot Only Picks the Red Berries [Video]

Strawberry-Pickin' Robot Only Picks the Red BerriesYet another field of expertise has been wiped out by some steel pincers—strawberry-pickers. Japan's robot detects which berries are at least 80 per cent red, and picks them gently off the vine.

It's being trained to pick other forms of berries, but if the 'bot gets to the point where it can be released safely into the wilds of strawberry farms, it'll supposedly reduce harvest time by 40 per cent. That means fewer jobs for humans, and even more 'bots handling our sweet little bombs of juice. The future is definitely mechanical—and doomed. [DigInfo via Technabob]

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Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S?

Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S?

Curious timing, no? Just last month, Google's own Eric Schmidt revealed that the Nexus S (manufactured by none other than Samsung) would have "NFC features," and he even went on to proclaim that this kind of technology would eventually supplant the tried-and-true credit card. Today, Sammy itself has revealed a new near field communications (NFC) chip with embedded flash memory, and we're told that this guy remains active for mobile payment even without battery power. Of course, we're still waiting for a confirmed price and release date for the aforesaid smartphone, but could Samsung's NFC mass production date of Q1 2011 be the clue we've been yearning for? Fingers and toes crossed, okay everyone?

Continue reading Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S?

Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem

Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem

We've just gotten our hands on the less-insane version of Verizon's LTE modems, the LG VL600. The company timed the shipment of these puppies to coincide with today's announcement of the coming 4G onslaught, set to begin December 5th -- which based on what we've seen thus far is going to be beyond awesome. Unless you're on a Mac (more on that after the break).

In case you haven't seen the device in question, it's a rather large (we mean seriously large) USB dongle, which thankfully comes with a clip and extra cable. Like all LTE devices, it uses a SIM which will look familiar to those in GSM devices, but is -- again -- almost comically large.

We haven't spent a load of time with the modem, but in the few short hours we've had to play with the device, the down- and upstream speeds we're getting are nothing short of phenomenal. In Brooklyn, which we're not even sure is really heavily covered by the LTE blanket (and was being battered by rain and wind at the time of testing), we saw consistent speeds which peaked at 7 Mbps down, and over 1 Mbps up. Overall, speeds held steady around 5 to 6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. By comparison, we saw around 4 Mbps down and less than 1 Mbps up when we did some testing with Sprint's WiMAX Overdrive 4G, and roughly 6.5 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up with Clear's iSpot.

Overall, browsing on our computer felt nearly identical to our home broadband, and even HD video playback on YouTube was snappy and responsive over the network. And did we mention we were only getting two out of four bars on our connection?

Update: We've added a link to SlashGear's hands-on of the modem below. As you can see, speeds vary by area, and SG was pulling 12 Mbps downstream and more than 5 Mbps up -- impressively matching Verizon's claimed numbers.

Update 2: With a little more testing, we're seeing speeds closer to Verizon's estimates. We've added a second image after the break, and as you can see, we're nabbing over 10 Mbps downstream and nearly 4 Mbps up.

Continue reading Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem

Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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aTV Flash (black) now in beta, ready to equip your new Apple TV with a browser

aTV Flash (black) now in beta, ready to equip your new Apple TV with a browser

It's always a bit of a funny business paying for hacks, but Fire Core's aTV Flash is a serious product and we can't blame them for trying to make a buck off the back of it. Now the sequel, aTV Flash (black), is here in beta form, bringing a subset of the aTV Flash's functionality to the brand new Apple TV, which runs that fancy new iOS-based 4.0 software. Most importantly, Fire Core brings a HTML5-compatible browser, but the Last.fm app and Plex Client are welcome tag alongs. "Coming soon" features include expanded media format support and networked storage support. The pre-order beta price is $20, while the final hack will retail for $30. For existing users, (black) is a free upgrade.

[Thanks, Gustavo]

aTV Flash (black) now in beta, ready to equip your new Apple TV with a browser originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Mobility's mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones

Motorola Mobility's mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones

Wonder why Motorola's set-top-box business got bundled in with the phones? If we had to guess, it's probably because Motorola Mobility is making a device that will wirelessly join both. Speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit, company president Daniel Moloney said that Motorola's working on a standalone device that will wirelessly sling video to tablets and phones in the home, and will later be integrated directly into new set-top-boxes the company rolls out. "It's one consumer proposition that will come sooner rather than later," he told the crowd, suggesting that the device would be available through "service providers" rather than sold off the shelf, and that said providers might charge an additional service fee for its use. Here's hoping not. Perhaps Qualcomm finally found a buyer for that FLO TV spectrum, though?

Motorola Mobility's mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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XIM3 final hardware revealed, coming soon to give an unfair advantage in Xbox 360 shooters (video)

XIM3 final hardware revealed, coming soon to give an unfair advantage in Xbox 360 shooters (video)

XIM3 final hardware revealed, coming soon to give you an unfair advantage in Xbox 360 shooters (video)
It's been almost two years since the XIM2 finally became available, letting Xbox 360 gamers bring some additional inputs to their gaming -- namely a keyboard and a mouse. Now its successor is nearing availability and its final form has been unleashed to the world. This version is considerably more advanced than its predecessor, sporting a little LCD for easier programming and some very advanced game-specific tuning called "Smart Translators." These handle various settings for various games, automatically deleting the various sized and various shaped dead zones employed by various shooters, demonstrated in a video below. No price has been announced yet, but we're guessing it'll cost a good bit more than the (now discontinued) XIM2's $149.99.

[Thanks, K. Green]

Continue reading XIM3 final hardware revealed, coming soon to give an unfair advantage in Xbox 360 shooters (video)

XIM3 final hardware revealed, coming soon to give an unfair advantage in Xbox 360 shooters (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IBM breakthrough brings us one step closer to exascale computing, even more intense chess opponents

IBM breakthrough brings us one step closer to exascale computing, even more intense chess opponents

The path to exascale computing is a long and windy one, and it's dangerously close to slipping into our shunned bucket of "awesome things that'll never happen." But we'll hand it to IBM -- those guys and gals are working to create a smarter planet, and against our better judgment, we actually think they're onto something here. Scientists at the outfit recently revealed "a new chip technology that integrates electrical and optical devices on the same piece of silicon, enabling computer chips to communicate using pulses of light (instead of electrical signals), resulting in smaller, faster and more power-efficient chips than is possible with conventional technologies." The new tech is labeled CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics, and if executed properly, it could lead to exaflop-level computing, or computers that could handle one million trillion calculations per second. In other words, your average exascale computer would operate around one thousand times faster than the fastest machine today, and would almost certainly give Garry Kasparov all he could stand. When asked to comment on the advancement, Dr. Yurii A. Vlasov, Manager of the Silicon Nanophotonics Department at IBM Research, nodded and uttered the following quip: "I'm am IBMer, and exascale tomfoolery is what I'm working on."*

*Not really, but you believed it, didn't you?

IBM breakthrough brings us one step closer to exascale computing, even more intense chess opponents originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect theremin is just too late for the 'Day the Earth Stood Still' remake soundtrack (video)

Kinect theremin is just too late for the 'Day the Earth Stood Still' remake soundtrack (video)

Kinect theremin is here, too late for the awful 'Day the Earth Stood Still' remake soundtrack (video)
The sound of the original theremin frightened audiences of spooky and science fictiony movies in the '50s and '60s, and while this digital replication is perhaps a little less chilling it's also a lot less physical. It's the so-called Therenect from Martin Kaltenbrunner, created using the Open Frameworks and OpenKinect libraries. To play just hold your hands up, allow the software to detect them, and then let the digital falsetto flow, as Martin kindly demonstrates for you below.

Continue reading Kinect theremin is just too late for the 'Day the Earth Stood Still' remake soundtrack (video)

Kinect theremin is just too late for the 'Day the Earth Stood Still' remake soundtrack (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 01:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Create Digital Music  |  sourceTherenect (vimeo)  | Email this | Comments

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Sony 'Hybrid FPA' liquid crystal alignment technique sets LCD issues straight

Sony 'Hybrid FPA' liquid crystal alignment technique sets LCD issues straight

Sony has announced a new LCD display technology called Hybrid FPA (field-induced photo-reactive alignment), which it claims provides a bevy of improvements for LCDs in the areas of response time, contrast, panel stability, and production speed. For those of you who slept through display science in school (no shame), this boils down to Sony finding a better way to wrangle unruly liquid crystal molecules (LCMs) into more optimal alignments -- which is important since this affects how light passes and therefore how images are resolved. The new technique builds on earlier work, which focused on the vertical alignment of LCMs via an alignment layer. As the left diagram shows, through pre-tilt positioning at the substrate layer, LCMs were forced into a more stable vertical state, which made shifting them quicker and more precise while requiring less voltage. In other words, images resolved faster and more evenly, resulting in "cleaner" whites and blacks with less motion blur. Hybrid FPA simply improves the situation by aligning LCMs even more vertically, which produced response times of less than 3ms in tests. That's great news for 3D lovers and gamers, and should help Sony at least move units off of retailer shelves at some point, particularly if its plans for rapid commercialization of this tech hold true.

Continue reading Sony 'Hybrid FPA' liquid crystal alignment technique sets LCD issues straight

Sony 'Hybrid FPA' liquid crystal alignment technique sets LCD issues ! straight originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chrome sandboxes Flash Player in latest Dev channel release for Windows

Chrome sandboxes Flash Player in latest Dev channel release for Windows

Hey, Adobe's finally figured out how to make Flash secure -- have Google do it! The guys behind your favorite search engine have updated their latest Dev channel release of Chrome to include a new sandboxing facility for Flash Player content. It'll serve to limit access to sensitive system resources and make Flash's operation a generally less threatening proposition than it currently is. This also marks the fulfillment of a longstanding promise from Google to give Flash the same treatment it's afforded to JavaScript and HTML rendering for a while, and should be welcome news to Windows users eager to minimize "the potential attack surface" of their browser. Sorry, Mac fans, you're out in the unsecured cold for now. Of course, the Dev channel itself is one step less refined than beta software, so even if you're on Windows it might be advisable to wait it out a little bit.

Chrome sandboxes Flash Player in latest Dev channel release for Windows originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 05:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Download Squad  |  sourceChromium Blog  | Email this | Comments

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Toshiba launches NB520 and NB500 netbooks, one with Harman Kardon sound, one without

Toshiba launches NB520 and NB500 netbooks, one with Harman Kardon sound, one without

NB520
When's the last time you said "Crank up the netbook, I love this song!" Yeah, probably never, but if you had a Toshiba mini NB520 you might -- or at least that's what Toshiba would like to envision you would do. It packs stereo Harman Kardon speakers that can crack the foundation and wake the dead with an amazing two watts each, apparently the smallest tweeters H/K has ever put on a laptop. That's paired with an Atom N550 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, a 250GB HDD, 10 hours of battery life, and a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 LED-backlit display. If that's too loud or you're too old, there's also the "no frills" NB500, offering the same specs but minus the petite sound system and stepping down to an Atom N455, though doing so at a lower price. What price? That we don't know, but we'll find out when both ship in the first quarter of 2011, which starts in a month. Yikes.

Continue reading Toshiba launches NB520 and NB500 netbooks, one with Harman Kardon sound, one without

Toshiba launches NB520 and NB500 netbooks, one with Harman Kardon sound, one without originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 08:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Verizon LTE plans start at $50/month for 5GB of data

Verizon LTE plans start at $50/month for 5GB of data

And here we go: Verizon just announced its 4G LTE pricing and full list of coverage areas. Some 38 markets will go live when the switch is flipped on December 5, including Chicago, New York, San Francisco, and LA, and pricing starts at $50/month for 5GB of data, with an $80/month plan for 10GB. Overages run $10 per GB, which isn't insane, and there's also supplemental coverage in around 60 airports. Check the full PR after the break.

Continue reading Verizon LTE plans start at $50/month for 5GB of data

Verizon LTE plans start at $50/month for 5GB of data originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mercedes-Benz Thinks Cars Like This Could Be Grown In Labs [Concept]

Mercedes-Benz Thinks Cars Like This Could Be Grown In Labs [Concept]

Mercedes-Benz Thinks Cars Like This Could Be Grown In LabsThe Los Angeles Design Challenge always brings some crazy idea, but this year one in particular caught our attention: The Mercedes-Benz BIOME concept car. It's an eco-friendly, biodegradable, ultra-light hybrid vehicle—which would be custom grown in a lab.

The folks behind the concept explain that the various parts of the vehicle would be grown separately:

The interior of the BIOME grows from the DNA in the Mercedes star on the front of the vehicle, while the exterior grows from the star on the rear. To accommodate specific customer requirements, the Mercedes star is genetically engineered in each case, and the vehicle grows when the genetic code is combined with the seed capsule. The wheels are grown from four separate seeds.

And apparently instead of running on regular fuel, the BIOME would run on a mysterious substance called "BioNectar4534" which leaves no by-product other than oxygen.

Yes, it's an insane idea and sounds damn near impossible. But that won't stop any of us from daydreaming about zipping around in a sleek, lab-grown car, now will it? [Gizmag]

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This Stack Of PS3s Is The 33rd Biggest Computer In The World [Military]

This Stack Of PS3s Is The 33rd Biggest Computer In The World [Military]

This Stack Of PS3s Is The 33rd Biggest Computer In The WorldRemember how the US Air Force bought a ton of PlayStation 3 consoles then strung them together? Ever wonder just why the military would do a thing like that? Well, it's not for playing Killzone on.

Indeed, you couldn't play it - or any other disc-based PS3 game - if you tried, as every PS3 you see pictured above has had its Blu-ray drive functionality removed.

In all, 1760 consoles have been joined with "168 separate graphical processing units and 84 coordinating servers" to form what the Air Force is calling "the fastest interactive computer in the entire Defense Department". It's also, the military claims, the 33rd largest computer of any kind in the world.

This "rat king" of PlayStation 3s will be used for things like research into AI, fast processing of satellite pictures and the enhancement of radar.

Interestingly, despite only recently going online with this monstrosity, the Air Force Research Lab's Mark Barnell recognises that the Cell technology powering the PS3 is no longer the bees knees, and says "we're looking forward to working with the next generation of architecture".

Which is formal talk for "we're looking forward to going out and buying 2000 PlayStation 4s in a few years time".

Defense Department discusses new Sony PlayStation supercomputer [Cleveland.com, via Gamasutra]

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Flexible OLED 3DTV From Samsung Wraps Around Walls...Or Anything, Really [Oled]

Flexible OLED 3DTV From Samsung Wraps Around Walls...Or Anything, Really [Oled]

Flexible OLED 3DTV From Samsung Wraps Around Walls...Or Anything, ReallyWe've seen all manner of crazy prototypes involving flexible OLED panels (even one which wrapped around a pencil), but a flexible OLED which just so happens to be 3D? Sign us up for warped Avatar viewing, Samsung. [SamsungOLED via OLED-Display]

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