Friday, March 07, 2008

HTC launching MID devices in 2008?

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/247335404/

DigiTimes is back with another Taiwan industry rumor. This time they have HTC launching MID handsets in 2008. No surprise there as HTC jumped into the UMPC game long ago with the Shift. Of course, the whole thing becomes suspect when their source claims that MIDs will be "squeezing the market share currently enjoyed by UMPCs." Everyone and their monkey knows that UMPCs don't account for enough market share to warrant joy.

 

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Posted by Augustine at 7:56 AM

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Gigabyte M700 UMPC Has 2 GB RAM, 7-Inch Touchscreen [UMPCs]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/246378774/gigabyte-m700-umpc-has-2-gb-ram-7+inch-touchscreen

gigabyte-m700-468.jpgJust unveiled at CeBIT, Gigabyte's M700 UMPC comes with a surprising 2GB RAM. In addition to its hefty memory and bright design, the M700 manages to pack in a 7-inch, 1024x600 touchscreen and a 1.2 GHz Via C7-M processor. It also has Windows Vista Home Premium. Details on pricing and release are hush hush at this point. [Ubergizmo]


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Posted by Augustine at 8:06 AM

Acer: Eee PC killer on track for Q2/Q3

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/246422181/

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We had the chance to corner Acer at CeBIT to ask them about their plans for that Eee PC killer. We received confirmation from Stefan Engel, Managing Director and Country Manager for Acer Germany, that they were on target for a Q2/Q3 release. Incidentally, they will continue to offer the 7-inch Packard Bell EasyNote XS (aka, Everex CloudBook, NanoBook, FIC CD260) along side the Acer branded 7- to 9-incher even though Packard Bell is all but officially an Acer subsidiary.

 

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Posted by Augustine at 8:02 AM

Alienware brings quad graphics support to ALX CrossFireX

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/246506944/

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Believe it or not, Alienware's Aurora ALX rig was boasting quad SLI support two whole years ago. After yesterday's official launch of ATI's CrossFireX technology, now the ALX has another partner in quad GPU crime. Dubbed the Area-51 ALX CFX, this rig features a 3.0GHz Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor, up to 4GB of RAM, a bevy of HDD choices, optional Blu-ray burner, a 1,000-watt power supply and of course, twin 1GB Radeon HD 3870 X2 cards (four GPUs in all). Granted, this thing will run you at least $5,649 as a CrossFireX-equipped rig, so think carefully if slicing into your son's college fund is really worth 4x the graphical mayhem.

 

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Posted by Augustine at 8:01 AM

Kodak's 8-mm thin KTEL-30W 3-inch AMOLED TV

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/246601259/

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If you're fortunate enough to be living in Japan then this new Kodak ELiTe Vision KTEL-30W AMOLED TV can be yours sometime later this month. Measuring just 8-mm thick, this 3-inch 1Seg TV features a mono speaker, headphone jack (naturally), and a lithium polymer battery good for about 3.5 hours of continuous TV playback. Thing is, It'll cost you about ¥29,800 or about $287 for functionality already integrated into many Japanese phones.

[Via Impress]

 

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Posted by Augustine at 8:00 AM

Microsoft Surface going spherical?

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/246717837/

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While we've yet to see the rollout of Microsoft's Surface, rumor has it that other versions have at least made it to the prototype stage. According to ZDNET's sources, Microsoft has a "spherical Surface prototype" bouncing around the Redmond campus. What's intriguing is how they managed to stuff a rear projection unit and IR cameras into a ball. Presumably, we're talking about a different touch-sensitive technology to that used in the table-top surface. You know, assuming the rumor is true.

 

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Posted by Augustine at 7:59 AM

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

First Details, Screenshots of the Fire Eagle Launch

Source: http://gigaom.com/2008/03/05/first-details-screenshots-of-the-fire-eagle-launch/

Fire Eagle lead developer Tom Coates just announced at the ETech conference that Yahoo is launching Fire Eagle for developers today. Fire Eagle is meant to be a location broker that collects location information from a variety of services and devices and makes them available to other platforms. Fire Eagle offers open APIs both for data input and output, which means the service will coexist and possibly even enrich other location platforms. One of the first services plugging into Fire Eagle will be Dopplr.

The beta test is still invite-only, but you can sign up for one on the Fire Eagle web site. Coates said that 10,000 invitations were sent out today, and more will be available soon. Invited users also get a handful of invites to give away. Here are some screenshots:

fireeagle2.jpgfireeagle3.jpg

fireeagle12.jpg

End users at this time can do little more than update their location through the Fire Eagle web site and play with their privacy settings. Fire Eagle still has some problems recognizing locations that aren’t specified with a exact postal address. For example, it wouldn’t locate me at the “San Diego Marriott Hotel & Marina,” which is where ETech is happening this year, unless I entered the complete address. There is also activity stream that would be publicly available to the end user.

The service has some similarities to other locative platforms like Plazes.com, but it’s missing any social component. The reliance on third-party developers to actually make Fire Eagle work does have some important privacy implications: Yahoo doesn’t store any location history, but that doesn’t stop any other platform from starting a complete tracking profile.

It will be interesting to see what Fire Eagle developers inside and outside of the Yahoo Universe come up with. Yahoo is already working on a few basics, like a Facebook app and the ability to automatically update your location through your mobile phone that’s based on cell tower IDs, but the service could obviously also play a big role in future versions of Upcoming, Yahoo Local and other Yahoo services.

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Posted by Augustine at 5:30 PM

Google Offers Secondary Search Boxes

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/245800730/

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Google has started offering search boxes within their search results. In the example above, a search box is offered for Amazon. The new service seems to be restricted to larger sites with a slant towards retails sites. Borders, BestBuy and OfficeMax offer the secondary box, as does a search for Wikipedia and The NY Times.

On the surface it would appear to be yet another dilution of Google’s famed simple interface, the very interface that helped put Google where it is today. And yet, some my find it useful.

Do you like Google's new secondary search boxes?
Total Votes: 924 Started: March 4, 2008

(via: SEL)
g2.jpg

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

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Posted by Augustine at 3:56 PM

Innovid Preparing Technology for Placing Interactive Virtual Items into Videos

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/245972738/

I had the chance today to chat with Zvika Netter, the CEO and co-founder of a new Israeli startup called Innovid that is working on technology that will empower video content producers to place interactive virtual items into their videos.

Innovid has remained in stealth mode up to this point and has only begun discussing its work now that it has raised $3M from Genesis Partners in a Series A round (previous angel funding came from Jeff Pulver).

The virtual items facilitated by Innovid are basically 3D objects that producers insert into videos post-production. They’re intended to look as realistic as possible so that they blend in with the real physical environment recorded by the video. And yet, they can’t go entirely unnoticed because users are encouraged to click and perform mouse gestures with them to derive additional functionality (for example, to view a popup description about the particular item with links to external resources).

The most obvious use of these items would be to simply drop branded items into user generated content. If you’re looking to monetize your video, you could, for example, sign a deal with a beverage company and place their product on the table during an indoors scene. The virtual item representing the beverage could then respond to camera movements; when the camera moves around to the left, you also see the left side of the beverage appear. This is possible because the 3D object has been mapped to its calculated surroundings.

But with Innovid’s object placement, you could also make it so that users who click on the beverage see a description of it and the stores in which it’s sold. Or you could allow the user to even move the beverage to another location within the video or have it perform a special effect when clicked on. Whatever the complexity, the object becomes a more effective advertisement through its interactivity.

Since these are virtual objects, they can also be served up differently depending on the intended audience. Certain countries or languages could see their own types of beverages. And of course, things could be tailored to the individual as well depending on their personal preferences.

Netter isn’t saying exactly when the company plans to debut its product or even show a demo to the public, but I had a chance to watch a video of these virtual objects and I must say it looks very compelling even at this early stage. The 3D items can be made to look realistic and their integration into video is quite seamless. This is a company that should be watched as the online video industry figures out how to monetize its content most effectively.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

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Posted by Augustine at 3:48 PM

Microsoft working up StartKey Windows companion

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/246283917/

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If you'll recall, Microsoft announced that it was teaming up with SanDisk last May to conjure up a suitable U3 replacement. Not quite a year later, we're starting to hear the first whispers of what that replacement may be. Purportedly dubbed StartKey, the so-called Windows companion would essentially allow users to "carry their Windows and Windows Live settings with them" on any sort of flash memory device -- be it a USB drive, SD card, etc. Interestingly, it's also being reported that Redmond would like to "build an end-to-end StartKey environment," but aside from the tidbit that it should be out in at least beta form by the year's end, pretty much everything else remains murky.

[Via ArsTechnica, image courtesy of Tom's Hardware]

 

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Posted by Augustine at 3:45 PM

NBC: 77% of Users View Online Video as a Complement to TV

Source: http://www.centernetworks.com/nbc-rewind-study

NBC DirectNBC has released the results of a research study it completed with users of its NBC Direct service and the NBC Rewind player. NBC Direct is an online and downloadable client which allows a user to view full episodes of current on-air NBC shows at no charge. Video streams from NBC Direct are up 25% in 2008 vs. 2007 and uniques are up 7%. Interesting note, American Gladiators and Deal or No Deal are the two most popular shows on the online video service.

Here are some of the highlights of the study:

  • Dramatically higher brand recall for ad content created specifically for the internet vs. previous quarters (86% vs. 70%-75%)
  • High agreement that Rewind ads are less disruptive than ads on television, and a strong desire to interact with advertising. In fact, ads with interactive elements were more likely to elicit higher brand recall as well as higher agreement that ads were entertaining and relevant.
  • 77 percent of users streaming video as a complement to TV viewing (the majority report catching a missed episode online).
  • Over a quarter of respondents also reported sampling a new show while viewing online, with the majority continuing to watch the show after trial, both on air and online.

The real question is when will NBC integrate Hulu into the NBC properties and drop NBC Direct/Rewind? I understand that Hulu is in beta but the expenses of maintaining two video systems that have, at least, some overlap seems redundant. Also check out my rant about what I'd like in a video service.

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Posted by Augustine at 1:52 PM

Visualizations of IP and phone traffic from New York

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/246270611/visualizations-of-ip.html

MIT researchers are visualizing telecom traffic between New York City and the rest of the world. The project, titled New York Talk Exchange, is part of a the new "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. The system converts IP and voice data traffic into several animations revealing network flow over time between neighborhoods, international calls between more than 100 cities, and the like. Missing from the project though is a visualization showing the traffic routed through the NSA's headquarters. From MIT News:
Nyteeee "We are interested in visualizing and exploring the connections that New York entertains with the rest of the world, how they change over the course of a day, and how the city's neighborhoods differ from each other by maintaining special and distinct relationships with particular cities and countries," said Kristian Kloeckl, project leader at the senseable city laboratory...

Over the next few months the MIT team hopes to address some important research questions that loom behind the MoMA visualizations: How is the structure of global cities evolving? How could telecommunications data allow us to gain new insights into the dynamics of globalization? How do byte transfers across the globe affect the need for travel and physical displacement, thus suggesting ideas for better sustainability at a global level?

"Our cursory analysis illustrates how telecom data can help us to expand our conception of global cities and their role in the process of globalization," said Ratti. "In the end, the NYTE project reveals as much about the city of New York as it does about its worldwide counterparts, in areas such as business, culture and immigration. In other words, our visualizations demonstrate that in the information age, urban life is as global as it is local."
Link

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Posted by Augustine at 1:50 PM

Dell's M209X portable projector announced, reviewed: "better bring your sunglasses"

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/246157059/

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Dell's got another portable projector coming by way of its M209X. As successor to their 3400MP portable, the M209X weighs just 2.6-pounds yet pumps a rated 2000 ANSI lumens from VGA, S-Video, composite and HDMI connected sources. Available in the "next few weeks," according to Dell, although review units have already hit the street. The cats at GCN rendered a 1,220-lumen image (1,100 at the corners) from 10 feet which they claim makes it suitable for impromptu presentations in almost any environment. It also includes a laser pointer and PowerPoint controls in the included remote control. Bottom line: the M209X offers "excellent performance" and portability for $999. Or so they say.

[Via About Projectors]

Read -- Review
Read -- Announcement

 

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Posted by Augustine at 1:42 PM

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