John Carmack-endorsed Oculus Rift VR project hits Kickstarter, developer kits start at $300

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/oculus-rift-kickstarter-john-carmack/

We heard late last month that the John Carmack-endorsed Oculus Rift VR headset would be hitting Kickstarter any day now, and it turns out today is that day. The project has just launched on the crowd-funding site with a goal of $250,000. To reach that, the team (led by company founder Palmer Lucky) is offering a variety pledge options, starting with posters and t-shirts for $15 and $25 (or $10 for a simple thanks), and of course the headset itself that is initially only being offered as a developer kit. It will set you back $300, which also includes a copy of Doom 3 BFG, and is expected to start shipping in December (signed kits and a complete bundle are available as well). Those that act fast can also snag one of 100 unassembled prototype kits, which run $275 and ship a month earlier in November. Despite that developer-only status, though, the project is already off to an impressive start -- it's raised over $50,000 as of this writing. You can find the usual video overview of the project after the break.

Update: The 100 prototype kits are now sold out, and the project itself has already sailed past the $100,000 mark. John Carmack also tweeted that he's not "backing" the project in any official capacity, only endorsing it as a "wonderful advancement in VR tech."

Continue reading John Carmack-endorsed Oculus Rift VR project hits Kickstarter, developer kits start at $300

Filed under: Peripherals, Wearables

John Carmack-endorsed Oculus Rift VR project hits Kickstarter, developer kits start at $300 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips' Mini Hi-Fi System lets you dock iPhones, spins them into turntables

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/philips-mini-hi-fi-system-300w-iphone-dock/

The iDevice clique's had no shortage of options when it comes to choosing DJ-friendly gear. Now one of the latest peripherals to enter the spinning market is Philips' Mini Hi-Fi System, which boasts a modest 300W total output power and offers a cozy turntable canvas that has docking room for a couple of iPhones -- in theory, iPod touches should be okay to fit as well. Furthermore, the beat-inducing apparatus is also compatible with that rather popular djay application for iOS, making it easier to mix, scratch and blast all your favorite tunes in one place. Philips launched this Mini Hi-Fi add-on a while back, but today it's finally placing it up for grabs in the UK for a hefty £300, or about $470 if you're this side of the Atlantic. Be sure to click on past the jump to quickly gaze at a largely appealing pic gallery.

Gallery: Philips Mini Hi-Fi System press shots

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

Philips' Mini Hi-Fi System lets you dock iPhones, spins them into turntables originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OUYA wrapping up funding with limited brown metal console, Vevo deal

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/ouya-wrapping-up-funding-with-limited-brown-metal-console-vevo/

To put it mildly, the OUYA console has had a better than expected funding run -- the project is now past the $6 million mark, or six times what it originally needed. The team still wants a little something to end the last week of fundraising with a bang. It just unveiled a limited edition brown, brushed metal version of the console with a controller to match; all it takes is a $140 pledge during the final push to August 9th and you've got the Yves Behar-chosen color for yourself. The special run should arrive as part of the wider March 2013 launch. If the original silver hue will do just nicely, thank you very much, OUYA has struck another content deal and will launch Vevo's music video hub side-by-side with the console. Click past the break for a peek at the controller, and consider a pledge on Kickstarter if you just can't stand the thought of having the same console as everyone else.

Continue reading OUYA wrapping up funding with limited brown metal console, Vevo deal

Filed under: Gaming

OUYA wrapping up funding with limited brown metal console, Vevo deal originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Retiree From Rural Michigan Tells Us The Moment He Figured Out How To Beat The State's Lottery

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-retiree-from-rural-michigan-tells-us-the-moment-he-figured-out-how-to-beat-the-states-lottery-2012-8

Gerald Selbee was never a big lotto guy.

The 73-year-old retired store owner from rural Michigan who still prefers paper to computers occasionally played Pick-3s and Pick-4s, and even more rarely instant games or scratch-offs.  

On Friday, Selbee and a host of others were named — but absolved of any wrongdoing — in a report from the Massachusetts Inspector General's office on how large-volume betters cracked that state's game. 

One day in 2003, while buying a soda at a convenience store, he picked up a brochure advertising Michigan's newest lotto game, a pick-5 called Winfall.

The game was structured so that if the jackpot hit $5 million but was not claimed, the money would "roll-down" to those who'd picked five, four and three numbers correctly.

While Selbee was not a frequent lottery player, he had earned a Bachelor's in mathematics and had started Master's degree in the subject.

So it took him "about 4 minutes," he told us from his home in Evart, Mich. to realize that if you bought enough tickets, the odds of taking home money became overwhelming.

"I couldn't believe it," he said.

His first attempt in Michigan was unlucky — he bought $2,400 dollars, and according to his calculations should have had two four-number winners, but only got one.

"So I lost 50 bucks," he said.

The next attempts were much more successful — $6,300 from $3,600 worth of tickets and $15,700 from $8,000 worth of tickets.

He eventually roped in friends and acquaintances to form GS Investment Strategies, LLC, and for the next nine years schooled the system. When Michigan shutdown its Winfall game, he moved onto Massachusetts, where a similar game was founded in 2005.

Selbee estimates that for the period, the group won between $7.5 million and $8 million.

What did he do with his share?

"Two of my grand kids graduated debt-free from the University of Michigan," he said.

And for his personal satisfaction? He bought gold.

"I think devaluation of the dollar is a certainty," he said. 

Click here to see the story of how he and others then went on to beat the Massachusetts lottery >

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Scientists Have Discovered A New Way To Predict How Smart You Are

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-may-eventually-be-able-to-scan-your-brain-to-determine-how-smart-you-are-2012-8

New research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that 10 percent of individual differences in intelligence can be figured out by looking at the strength of neural pathways.

Specifically, it involves the pathways that connect the left prefrontal cortex — a part of the brain that's linked to personality and cognitive behaviors — to the rest of the brain.

The findings, which were published in the Journal of Neuroscience, establish a new way to understand human intelligence. It's called "global brain connectivity."

It's a brand new model of brain function which could have "important implications" for the understanding of human intelligence, according to WUSTL.

Postdoctoral research fellow in cognitive neuroscience Michael W. Cole, the lead author of the study, explains in the university's writeup:

"There is evidence that the left prefrontal cortex is the brain region that ‘remembers’ (maintains) the goals and instructions that help you keep doing what is needed when you’re working on a task. So it makes sense that having this region communicating effectively with other regions (the ‘perceivers’ and ‘doers’ of the brain) would help you to accomplish tasks intelligently.

“We’re suggesting that the left prefrontal cortex functions like a feedback control system that is used often in engineering, that it helps implement cognitive control (which supports fluid intelligence), and that it doesn’t do this alone."

NOW SEE:

• 11 Uncomfortable Facts About How IQ Affects Your Life >
• Researchers Say This New Device Will 'Revolutionize' The Way We Measure IQ >

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Here's How The Poor, The Middle Class And The Rich Spend Their Money [INFOGRAPHIC]

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-rich-and-the-poor-spend-money-2012-8

NPR's Planet Money recently posted this cool infographic showing the differences between how the poor, the middle class and the rich spend their money. It might also reveal how they budget.

Turns out everyone's rent is way too high, as each demographic puts more than 25 percent of their monthly income towards housing. Each group also spends a lot on transportation & gasoline—the poor spend 20.4 percent, while the middle class drops 21.3 percent—not to mention a lot on food and healthcare. The poor spend the most on the latter category, with 8.2 percent going toward health care and health insurance expenses. 

Interestingly, the rich are doing a much better job at saving for retirement, beating both the middle class and the poor by socking away 15.9 percent of their incomes each year. The poor fare worse on this front, only squirreling away 2.6 percent percent. They also fall short when it comes to education, saving slightly more than the middle class (1.5 percent versus 1.3 percent), but significantly less than the rich (4.4 percent).  

Check out the figures below from the Consumer Expenditure Survey: 

SEE ALSO: 23 secrets to booking cheap flights > 

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Virtual HR Company TribeHR Scores Another $2.5 Million In Funding

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/virtual-hr-company-tribehr-funding-2012-7

TribeHR, a company that provides virtual HR services, just announced it has raised $2.5 million in funding, bringing its total to $3.6 million.

The company provides HR software to small and medium-sized businesses. It provides support in recruiting, managing vacation days, remembering salary history, and other tasks. The price range from $2 to $10 a user per month.

The round was led by Relay Ventures with Matrix Partners also participating.  

"This new round of funding will allow us to enhance our solutions by adding both social and mobile features which will lead to increased effectiveness of the HR manager,” said TribeHR CEO Joseph Fung.

TribeHR is based in Kitchener, Ontario. The company had previously raised a seed round from Matrix Partners.

Fung cofounded Lewis Media, an online provider of website-building tools.

 

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House of Lords wants UK TV to go fully online and leave airwaves clear for cellphones

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/house-of-lords-internet-tv-spectrum-plan/

The UK House of Lords' Communications Committee has suggested that all broadcast TV should be moved to the internet to free up wireless spectrum for cellphones. In its report, the panel found that whilst such a network would be cheaper and more efficient in the long run, it would also require extensive re-building of the country's archaic communications infrastructure. Given that the analog-to-digital switchover is currently in progress, it seems unlikely that a further transition will be timetabled -- especially since there are still concerns over the cost of bringing fiber-optic broadband to rural areas. Any change in the plan will need to be rubber-stamped by Government, but perhaps it'd be more amenable if they saw how good 8K video looks on one of those connections.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, Internet

House of Lords wants UK TV to go fully online and leave airwaves clear for cellphones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 02:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect Toolbox update turns hand gestures into mouse input, physical contact into distant memory

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/kinect-toolbox-update-turns-hand-gestures-into-mouse-input/

Using Microsoft's Kinect to replace a mouse is often considered the Holy Grail of developers; there have been hacks and other tricks to get it working well before Kinect for Windows was even an option. A lead Technical Evangelist for Microsoft in France, David Catuhe, has just provided a less makeshift approach. The 1.2 update to his Kinect Toolbox side project introduces hooks to control the mouse outright, including 'magnetic' control to draw the mouse from its original position. To help keep the newly fashioned input (among other gestures) under control, Catuhe has also taken advantage of the SDK 1.5 release to check that the would-be hand-waver is sitting and staring at the Kinect before accepting any input. The open-source Windows software is available to grab for experimentation today, so if you think hands-free belongs as much on the PC desktop as in a car, you now have a ready-made way to make the dream a reality... at least, until you have to type.

Filed under: Peripherals, Software

Kinect Toolbox update turns hand gestures into mouse input, physical contact into distant memory originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 03:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New TI power chips save energy, move towards universal charging

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/new-ti-power-chips-save-energy-move-towards-universal-charging/

TI isn't just in the business of making ARM-based processors. The company makes all manner of components and chips. Amongst the things in its vast repertoire of silicon are charging controllers. Texas Instruments' latest offering, the UCC28700, not only draws an impressively low sub-30mW when idle (meeting new five-star rating requirements from the European Commission), but does so in a tiny package that eliminates the need for an opto-feedback circuit or other external components. A second new controller, the TPS2511, tackles the problem of multiple chargers by moving to a 5V universal system for tablets and smartphones using the USB Battery Charging 1.2 specification. This could mean not only lower electricity bills (if only nominally so), but smaller wall warts that can be used across numerous devices. For more, check out the PR after the break.

Continue reading New TI power chips save energy, move towards universal charging

Filed under: T! ablet PC s

New TI power chips save energy, move towards universal charging originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 03:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CHART OF THE DAY: Smartphones Are Still For The Young And Rich

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-smartphone-demographics-still-skew-young-and-moneyed-2012-7

This chart comes from Business Insider Intelligence, a new research and and analysis service focused on the mobile and Internet industries. Sign up for a free trial here.

Smartphone adoption is highest among young consumers with more disposable income.

According to Nielsen, Americans aged 25 to 34 earning more than $100,000 a year have the highest smartphone usage, with penetration at an astounding 81 percent. At the other end of the spectrum, even the highest income Americans over the age of 65 "only" have 42 percent adoption, well below national penetration (which Nielsen measured at 55 percent in June).

Most interesting though is that Americans aged 18 to 24 making less than $50,000 a year still have 59 percent penetration, indicating that they view smartphones as a necessity.

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This Wireless Home Theater System Always Makes Sure You Have the Best Sound [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5930661/this-wireless-home-theater-system--always-makes-sure-you-have-the-best-sound

Wireless audio is supposed to make our lives easier. Between the little Airplay and Bluetooth speakers out there it does—Sort of. There are drawbacks. This home theater system is wireless audio the way it should be, but it'll cost you.

The Aperion Intimus 4T Summit Wireless Home Theater Speaker System is the most seamless and intelligent concept of its kind we've seen. The 5.1 channel surround sound system uses no speaker wire and configures itself automatically for the best sound. Rather than run cables from a central A/V receiver, the signal from you DVD player, CD player, etc feeds into a wireless transmitter from which it's beamed to the powered speakers. (Each speaker needs to plug into your house's power.)

That's already more than what anything else offers, but what's really exciting is the system's brain. It detects where you've placed each of the speakers a room, and automatically beams the correct sound channel to each of them. No configuration necessary. And it gets better because using the system's included remote, it can detect where you are sitting, too, and it adjusts the levels of each channel so that it's perfectly balanced for your location.

Oh, and Aperion Audio promises banging sound. The system supposedly transfers uncompressed 24-Bit, 96 KHz audio wirelessly. That could be incredible, but we'll believe it when we hear it.

This Aperion system is so sophisticated it's practically self-aware, but of course, we have no idea how well it works or sounds. Maybe it'll flop, but it's nice to see wireless design pushing the boundaries. There are plenty of AirPlay speakers out there for your smartphone, thank you very much. But be warned, the innovation will cost you: The Intimus 4T Summit Wireless Home Theater System costs three grand and it's available for order now. [Aperion Audio]

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Crucial outs v4 SSD for solid-state storage on a budget

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/crucial-v4-budget-ssd/

Solid-state drives cost just a fraction of what they did a few years ago, but with prices that can still exceed $1,000, you could hardly label them as cheap. Crucial still aims to put solid-state storage within reach of those on a budget, however, releasing its 2.5-inch v4 drive with pricing that starts at $50. That entry-level model will net you just 32 gigs of storage -- hardly a lust-worthy sum -- but the series is also available in configurations of 64GB ($70), 128GB ($100) and 256GB ($190), offering read speeds of up to 230 MB/s and write speeds of up to 190 MB/s with SATA 2-capable desktops and laptops. The v4 joins Crucial's higher-end m4, which offers much speedier performance and Ultrabook-friendly configurations to boot. You'll find full details in the PR after the break.

Continue reading Crucial outs v4 SSD for solid-state storage on a budget

Filed under: Storage

Crucial outs v4 SSD for solid-state storage on a budget originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rogers LTE Rocket Hub supports up to 15 simultaneous users, requires electrical outlet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/01/rogers-lte-rocket-hub/

Looking for a mobile hotspot that's a bit less mobile? Rogers' exclusive LTE Rocket Hub may be the pick for you, delivering 40 Mbps average download speeds with support for up to 15 simultaneous wireless device connections. LTE service is currently available in 28 cities above the border, but locales without the latest network can hop on HSPA+ to get connected. The device is set to ship beginning August 2nd, and unlike the carrier's existing Rocket Mobile Hotspot, this larger flavor will require an electrical outlet -- but with more than a dozen connections and a 10 gig LTE cap (which we presume applies here as well), you will need to unplug once in a while. More details at the source link below.

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

Rogers LTE Rocket Hub supports up to 15 simultaneous users, requires electrical outlet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 01:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gmail for iOS adds option to save photos, becomes a smoother operator

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/31/gmail-for-ios-adds-option-to-save-photos/

Google's Gmail app for iOS has been docked by some potential adopters for feeling like a poor cousin to other native apps. It may be worth revisiting: the 1.3 update has just arrived with a much-requested ability to save common image attachments to an iOS device's photo collection. Should that not be enough, Google has smoothed out animations and scrolling for iPhone and iPod touch owners. The new version has pushed live for everyone, leaving just a quick download between us and saving our parents' vacation photos for posterity.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Gmail for iOS adds option to save photos, becomes a smoother operator originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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