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Monday, July 18, 2011

Ideum's MT-55 'Platform' multitouch table goes ultrathin, demands but $18,000

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/18/ideums-mt-55-platform-multitouch-table-goes-ultrathin-demand/

It's been a hot minute since we've heard from the fine folks at Ideum, but when the image above floated into our inbox... well, it's safe to say our interest was piqued. We last heard from these guys back in the fall of 2009, and while The Platform is certainly a bit smaller than the 100-inch MT-50 that came before it, it's also a heck of a lot more practical for average consumers. Well, save for the price. Looking beyond that for a moment, you'll find a devilishly thin (3-inches) table, complete with 55-inches of 1080p gorgeousness, a 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio, 178-degree viewing angle and support for a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Professional. The internal computer includes a dual-core Core i5 CPU (2.66GHz), 8GB of memory and a 128GB SSD; you'll also find WiFi, Bluetooth and a slew of "hidden ports." The entire thing is constructed from aircraft-grade aluminum, and it supports a total of 32 touch points. We'll leave it to you to discover what it'll be used for in your future abode, but if you've got the $17,950 to take one home, you've probably got the brains to figure it out.

Ideum's MT-55 'Platform' multitouch table goes ultrathin, demands but $18,000 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Asus updates Xtion Pro motion sensor, makes it even more like Kinect

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/18/asus-updates-xtion-pro-motion-sensor-makes-it-even-more-like-ki/

Remember the Xtion Pro and Wavi Xtion motion sensors that Asus showed off at CES? Well, fast-forward six months and there's already an updated model on the market: the Windows- and Linux-compatible Xtion Pro Live. The new version complements the original's IR and depth sensors with a Kinect-like VGA webcam and a pair of microphones, while also jacking up the bill to a distinctly un-Kinect-like 175 Euros ($300). That price tag won't make us shift our living room furniture around anytime soon, especially since Kinect is already officially heading to the PC. However, that isn't really the point: the Pro Live edition is primarily meant to help developers design better games and apps for the more consumer-focused but as yet unreleased Wavi. Soon as they develop a game that rewards rather than punishes us for dancing like Tina Turner, we'll be right there.

[Thanks, TheLostSwede]

Asus updates Xtion Pro motion sensor, makes it even more like Kinect originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/18/amazon-rolls-out-textbook-rentals-for-kindle-promises-discounts/

Students can already save a few bucks by opting for a digital version of a textbook over a hardcover, and they can now save even more courtesy of Amazon if they aren't too intent on hanging onto the book after they're done with it. The company has just announced textbook rentals for Kindle, which promises to let students save "up to 80 percent" off the list price of those often pricey textbooks. That discount varies depending on the rental period -- which can be anywhere from 30 to 360 days -- and the option is already available on "tens of thousands" of textbooks from a number of publishers including John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. What's more, you can also rest assured that all of your annotations will be saved even after the rental has expired, and be accessible at any time on the Kindle website (or in the book itself if you ever decide to rent it again for old time's sake). Press release is after the break.

Continue reading Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent

Amazon rolls out textbook rentals for Kindle, promises discounts up to 80 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 11:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Singbox SV-606's MP3 milkshake brings the portable audio love to your yard

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/17/singbox-sv-606s-mp3-milkshake-brings-the-portable-audio-love-to/

See that line up of multi-colored, chromatic doodads above? Those are not, in fact, a host of shiny USB-powered kazoos. Le sigh, we know -- maybe next time. What are they, then? Try the super spiffy-looking Korean line of Singbox SV-606 speaker / MP3 players that pack an FM radio, microSD card reader and headphone jack into an 85mm by 35mm bullet shell-shaped design. While these digital audio players won't be useful in slaying any rainbow-obsessed werewolves, they will probably help get a few heads-a-turning as you strut your Saturday Night Fever stuff down the boulevard. Hit the source for a translated view of these sold-out beauties.

Singbox SV-606's MP3 milkshake brings the portable audio love to your yard originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Switched On: The bedeviled bezel

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/17/switched-on-the-bedeviled-bezel/

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

One of the few homages that the Palm Pre paid to the Palm Pilot was the gesture area, a separate part of the display face below the screen used for swipes just as the Pilot had a separate area devoted to entering Graffiti strokes. Unfortunately (like Graffiti before it), the gesture area was one of the least intuitive aspects of the Pre's operation, and HP has been moving away from it as a required navigation element. On the TouchPad, the gesture area has been scrapped in favor of an iPad-like bottom button.

But HP hasn't outright ignored the bezel on the TouchPad. Users can still swipe inbound from the bezel as an alternative way of bringing up its card view. Indeed, in 2011, it seems like nearly everyone has been taking a swipe at the bezel around touchscreen displays. First, RIM introduced inbound bezel swipes as a key navigation element on the PlayBook for activating menus, bringing up applications to launch, and its own webOS-like app switching interface. Microsoft showed how inbound bezel swipes will be part of the navigation for touchscreen devices in Windows 8. And MeeGo also uses the inbound bezel swipe as its keystone user interface element on smartphones...

Continue reading Switched On: The bedeviled bezel

Switched On: The bedeviled bezel originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jul 2011 17:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Alienware M14x review roundup: a lovely blend of poise and power

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/16/alienware-m14x-review-roundup-a-lovely-blend-of-poise-and-power/

Know what happens when you split the difference between an M18x and an M11x? The M14x, of course! We managed a bit of hands-on time with Alienware's middleman back in April, and now the web at large has had a chance to spit their opinions on it. By and large, critics were overwhelmingly pleased with performance, and hardly anyone could find too many griping points. Hot Hardware dished out an Editor's Choice badge, noting that the 14-incher exhibited a near-perfect blend of portability and power -- it's not often that a machine capable of running today's latest 3D titles can also get four hours of battery life. Having Optimus onboard is certainly a boon, but just about everyone also suggested springing for an SSD to really round things out. Folks also seemed to love the apparent lack of bloatware, and while the $2,000+ price tag was certainly steep, the top-tier numbers it delivered definitely helped soften the blow. The long and short of it? Folks looking for a nice balance of mobility and raw horsepower need look no further, but you can humor yourself anyway by digging into the links below.

Alienware M14x review roundup: a lovely blend of poise and power originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 21:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer TravelMate 8481 lands late August, Â£700 price tag in tow

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/17/acer-travelmate-8481-lands-late-august-700-price-tag-in-tow/

Back in May, we caught a glimpse of Acer's TravelMate 8481, rocking an extra thin bezel and 13 hours of battery life for the road-weary sojourner. At the time, Acer was touting a mid-June launch, but we've just received word that the Core i7-packing notebook won't make it into carry-ons until late August. As of now, we've only got UK pricing -- £699, to be exact -- leading us to wonder when the thing will make the journey stateside. As per usual, we will keep you abreast of the details as they roll in. Until then, you can peep the full PR after the break.

Continue reading Acer TravelMate 8481 lands late August, £700 price tag in tow

Acer TravelMate 8481 lands late August, £700 price tag in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jul 2011 06:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple leaks Cinema Display refresh, teases dual-monitor Thunderbolt setup?

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/17/apple-leaks-cinema-display-refresh-teases-dual-monitor-thunderb/

The ~~cat~~ Apple is out of the bag, apparently. Thanks to a leak on its website, there's evidence that Cupertino's readying a formal introduction of Thunderbolt to more devices. Keen eyes from MacRumors have spotted products on the site now sporting OSX Lion backgrounds, notably, what appears to be T-bolt connected Cinema Displays. The images showing the hook-up no longer appear to be listed, but the dual-setup above sure looks nifty. Considering Lion's got about two weeks left to rear its head and meet that July release, we'd surmise it won't be long until you'll be able to opt for a similar rig. Now can we please just get an anti-glare option?

[Thanks, Trey]

Apple leaks Cinema Display refresh, teases dual-monitor Thunderbolt setup? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 17 Jul 2011 09:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saturday, July 16, 2011

Belkin N750 Dual Band Router [Stuff We Like]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5821766/belkin-n750-dual-band-router

I've tested many routers over the years, and this Belkin N750, because of the weird orientation of my house, is the only one that hold a consistent connection from my living room to my guest room. I'll explain why.

Here are two extreme scenarios for how your house is set up that will illustrate the point. (Click to make larger.)

In both scenarios, there's a wall between the router and the laptop, but in scenario 1, the wireless signal is going perpendicularly through the wall. Because of this, there's only a little bit of solid matter that the Wi-Fi has to punch through to get from your router to you. In scenario 2, however, because the laptop is at a steep angle to the router, the signal has to go through quite a bit more mass (the dotted red lines) to get where its going, which means a weaker signal. As you suspect, the throughput in scenario 1 is much higher than scenario 2, and the latter can even degrade to the point of unusability depending on your building materials.

Your setup should be somewhere inbetween the two extremes. Keep in mind that going through floors means you're compounding what happens in scenario 2 as well (which is what happens in my case).

What's this got to do with the Belkin N750? It's the only router I've tested that has enough power to sustain a usable signal to my guest room, which has an unfortunate placement that's similar to scenario 2. The router has three key features that makes this possible.

Uniform coverage: It doesn't matter what direction you orient this, because the coverage area looks more like a sphere than, figure 8 shape that bulges in front and behind, or above and below, like some other routers. That means more uniform coverage throughout your house, and no "wrong" way to set up the router.
It finds you: Once you establish a connection wirelessly, the router finds where you are and increases power to target you in your specific direction. Belkin tells me no other market right now does this.
Processing power: They've added a dedicated chip just for processing the wireless transmission rather than having all processing be done on one processor. That means that instead of topping out at around 500Mbps, like other routers, The N750 has a theoretical top rate of about a Gigabit per second. Very useful if you're moving large files around (or if you have a lot of devices).

Not only is this seemingly better at holding a connection than other higher-end routers I've tried, it's also cheaper. The Linksys E4200 and the Apple Airport Extreme are both $180, compared to the N750's $130.

For a primary router, this is great. Like its name implies, it's dual-band. The only complaint I have—and it's an oddball one—is that it seems to be not quite as easy to set this up to be a repeater. I use another router as my main, hooked up to the cable modem, so I set other routers as access points by only using the internal LAN ports and turning off features like DHCP. The N750 doesn't seem to like this very much, and will blink the front orange light angrily at you for as long as you don't use the main WAN port. Not a big deal if you're using this thing like a normal human being.

Turn Your Cubicle Into An Undersea World with Discovery Channel's New Live Stream [Sharks!]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5821810/keep-sharks-in-your-cubicle-with-discovery-channels-new-live-stream

As part of the run up to this year's Shark Week, the Discovery channel's teamed with the Georgia Aquarium and embedded a live webcam in the world's largest shark tank.

The 9.5 Olympic pool-sized (that's 6.3 million gallons) tank was originally built to contain Whale Sharks and is currently hosting the Ocean Voyager exhibit. Aside from the aquarium's seven shark species (including the whale variety), it also houses the only four captive manta rays in the United States. Viewers can peek in on the fish and watch the daily feedings until August 7. Shark Week begins July 31st on the Discovery Channel. [Shark Week uStream via Wired ]

Live video from your iPhone using Ustream

GScreen's dual-screen SpaceBook touts twin 17-inchers, now up for pre-order

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/15/gscreens-dual-screen-spacebook-touts-twin-17-inchers-now-up-fo/

Look out, ThinkPad W700ds -- there's a new dual-screen beast in town, and it's not settling for second best. After first appearing in September of 2009, we hadn't heard a peek from GScreen save for one brief blip in 2010. Now, however, it seems that a dream has become reality. The first run of SpaceBooks is now up for pre-order, with each one offering a pair of 17.3-inch displays that boast a 1920 x 1080 screen resolution. Each panel slides out horizontally (think wings, but on a laptop), and creates quite the spacious area for creative professionals to immerse themselves in. The entry-level piece is being hawked for $2,395, which nets you a 2.66GHz Core i5-560M CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, NVIDIA's GeForce GTS 250M (1GB), a 500GB HDD, DVD burner and a magnesium alloy frame. The pricier sibling is marked at $2,795, with that premium grabbing you a 1.73GHz Core i7-740QM, double the RAM and quadruple the bragging rights. There's no exact word on when these will ship out, but you'll need th in-between time just to wrap your mind around the object you're certainly still peering at above.

GScreen's dual-screen SpaceBook touts twin 17-inchers, now up for pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 22:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microvision's SHOWWX+ pico projector gets HDMI upgrade

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/16/microvisions-showwx-pico-projector-gets-hdmi-upgrade/

Look who finally decided to join the HDMI game. It's Microvision's SHOWWX+, now aptly named the SHOWWX+ HDMI. It's still bringing the brightness with 15 laser lumens, a 5,000:1 native contrast ratio, and 2-hour battery life. As before, it supports all your iDevices, and, now, any HDMI-equipped machine, including the BlackBerry PlayBook, pictured above -- not all devices will support full video mirroring, however. Unfortunately, for HD purists, it's still pushing an 848 x 480 native resolution, but if 1080p's not topping your priority list, you can pre-order one now for $370.

Microvision's SHOWWX+ pico projector gets HDMI upgrade originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plick hitches an elastic ride on the DIY robotics train (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/16/plick-hitches-an-elastic-ride-on-the-diy-robotics-train-video/

Man, we hope Gumby's collecting some royalty checks for this one. One part incredible-stretching toy, and one part DIY robotics kit, the Plick project takes the traditional hobbyist approach to brick-building your own bot and slaps a little rubber all around it. The industrial design prototype from Brazilian engineer Gabriel Paciornik combines programmable robotic parts with an elastic wired connection suitable for strapping your mad scientist creations to everyday objects. So, what can you make? The kit packs a variety of sensor-based circles that react to distance and sound, giving your mod-jobs the power of movement and light. It's safe to say this not-for-market toy veers far from LEGO Mindstorms NXT territory -- and that's exactly the point. Far out video demo and its 60s beach music soundtrack after the break.

Continue reading Plick hitches an elastic ride on the DIY robotics train (video)

Plick hitches an elastic ride on the DIY robotics train (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 05:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hotmail adds 'My friend's been hacked!' feature to finger phishers

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/16/hotmail-adds-my-friends-been-hacked-feature-to-finger-phishe/

Hotmail adds

Hotmail's spent the past few years playing catch up with the competition, but for the most part, it hasn't done anything particularly groundbreaking with its services. Earth shattering might not be the appropriate descriptor for its latest addition, but Hotmail's added a helpful new feature to distinguish plain old spam from the kind that comes form a trusted source. Now, when you get an email from a friend that smells of something sea dwelling -- say a plea for some extra scratch from abroad -- you can select "My friend's been hacked!" from the "Mark as" menu, alerting the powers that be that your friend's account has been hacked. When you mark a missive as junk, you can likewise click a box that reads: "I think this person was hacked!" Once that's done, the spammers are kicked to the curb, and your friend is put through an "account recovery flow" the next time they attempt to log in. On the prevention front, Hotmail will soon roll out a new service that blocks users from selecting common passwords. It might not be enough to coax us over, but maybe this time the other guys could learn a few lessons.

Hotmail adds 'My friend's been hacked!' feature to finger phishers originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 10:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, July 15, 2011

New Thunderbolt-y Cinema Displays Leaked by Apple Itself [Leak]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5821687/new-thunderbolt+toting-cinema-displays-on-apples-own-site/gallery/

Well this is weird: Apple's gone and leaked one of its own products. MacRumors points out this image of a Lion-backgrounded Cinema Display that showed up today on Apple's website, along with a shot of two daisy-chained displays.

It was previously rumored that product number "MC914" would be attributed to an upcoming MacBook refresh. As evidenced by the URL of this image, which clearly labels the Cinema Display as MC914, this turns out not to be the case.

Why replace mini-DisplayPort with Thunderbolt? The latter lets you plug multiple monitors into one computer by linking them into one another. Of course, this would only work on Thunderbolt-equipped machines. [MacRumors]

Correction: This post originally referenced updated iMacs. That's incorrect, and we're sorry about the error.

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