Neonode's zForce optical touchscreens hitting ASUS tablets later this year

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/neonodes-zforce-optical-touchscreens-hitting-asus-tablets-later/

It's been over a year since Neonode coyly said some nameless "Asian companies" would use its multitouch zForce displays in future products. Now one of them, at least, is coming out of the woodwork -- ASUS said it plans to ship a "series of products" with these optical touchscreens later this year. What does this mean for consumers? Neonode's screens don't tack any additional layers on top of the touchscreen, making this line of 5 to 13-inch displays different from more common capacitive and resistive ones. The result, Neonode says, is thinner and -- one would hope -- more responsive screens. No word on when these products will hit (nor how creative ASUS will get with its designs), but feel to dig for details in the terse press release.

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Neonode's zForce optical touchscreens hitting ASUS tablets later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 03:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 8 to feature USB-runnable Portable Workspaces, sales of 16GB thumb drives set to soar

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/windows-8-to-feature-usb-runnable-portable-workspaces-sales-of/

There are endless flavors of "Linux on a stick," tasty downloadable versions of that OS which run from removable storage and let you take Linus' progeny for a spin without dedicating any of your partitions to the cause. There have been ways of making this work with Windows, too, but now Microsoft is getting into the game properly. That leaked version of Windows 8 we looked at recently contains a feature called Portable Workspaces, which enables you to take a 16GB (or greater) external storage device and dump a bootable, runnable copy of Win 8 on there. It remains to be seen just how many copies one could create, and whether they ever expire or, indeed, whether they can themselves be copied onto an HDD like a ghost image, but it's easy to see this as a boon for support personnel. Well, support personnel of the future, anyway.

[Thanks, Peter]

Windows 8 to feature USB-runnable Portable Workspaces, sales of 16GB thumb drives set to soar originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/15/htc-sensation-versus-the-rest-of-the-dual-core-world-smartphone/

We got to feeling a bit curious about how exactly HTC's latest Android superphone, the Sensation 4G, stacks up against its fellow dual-core competition, so we did what every geek does in such situations, we compiled a chart. Included in this list are the finest and brightest Android handsets from each of the major manufacturers that have gone dual-core so far: the Galaxy S II, the Atrix 4G, the Optimus 2X / G2X, and HTC's own EVO 3D. As it turns out, there are quite a few commonalities among these phones (besides the benchmark-crushing performance). They all boast screens of either 4 or 4.3 inches in size, the minimum amount of RAM among them is 512MB, the smallest battery is 1500mAh, and yes, they all have front-facing video cameras. Basically, it's the future of smartphones, reduced to a stat sheet. As such, it must also come with the warning that specs aren't everything, and user experience will most often depend on the software available on each device and on the preferences of the human holding it. With that proviso fully digested, join us after the break for the data.

Continue reading HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown

HTC Sensation versus the rest of the dual-core world: smartphone spec sheet smackdown originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now This is an Amplifier... [Desired]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5791968/now-this-is-an-amplifier

...Even if it is just a prototype. In fact, it's a student's project from a Krakow fine arts university, which just goes to show that some of the best designs don't necessarily come from the R&D labs of tech companies.

Made from stainless steel and aluminum, the amplifier houses the various components in individual compartments, to avoid any possible electromagnetic interference. I'm not sure about the tech behind it—after all, this is just a prototype—but Mateusz Główka looks to be on the right career path. [Mateusz Główka via Yanko]

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Microsoft's Official Kinect Software Is Better Than Most Hackers' [We Built This City]

Source: http://kotaku.com/#!5791981/microsofts-official-kinect-software-is-better-than-most-hackers

Looking to remind people, hey, we made this thing, Microsoft's upcoming Kinect software development kit for the PC (which anyone can grab) will include a variety of features most hackers and code enthusiasts haven't been able to manage on their own.

One of those features is the ability for the camera to track the skeletal movements of two people, not just one. It'll also give people access to all four elements of Kinect's microphone, along with its noise cancellation features.

Other things you'll get with the software development kit (SDK) include a ton of documentation, speech recognition tools and "depth data, which provides the distance of an object from the Kinect camera".

So...you could jerk around with code the hard way, or grab this and let Microsoft do some of the work for you.

Before you ask if this will help, say, games, unless they're free the answer is "no", as the SDK can only be used for non-commercial purposes.

[Kinect, via Gamasutra]

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