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Thursday, January 10, 2013

Western Digital shows off upcoming WD Black hybrid drives, we go eyes-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/western-digital-shows-off-upcoming-wd-black-hybrid-drives/

Western Digital shows off upcoming WD Black hybrid drives, we goes eyeson

As devices get thinner and thinner, there's no place in the world for chunky hard drives, and to that end Western Digital has been talking about bringing ultra-thin 5mm hybrid drive technology to the market. We just got a look at the new drives, which will be branded WD Black -- two 2.5-inch models consisting of a 500GB, 5mm thick (or thin) unit with 24GB of NAND memory, along with a 1TB, 7mm drive that also has 24GB of NAND. A spokesperson said that NAND could eventually go up to 32GB. There's no performance figures or pricing available yet, but WD has already started shipping copies of the new models to OEMs, and expects that they'll land in the laps of consumers within the next 6 months. For a brief video tour of the new products, head after the break.

Gallery: Western Digital WD Black hybrid drive

Continue reading Western Digital shows off upcoming WD Black hybrid drives, we go eyes-on (video)

Filed under: Storage

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Gigabyte shows off an extra-tiny desktop PC with a Core i7, April release date

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/gigabyte-shows-off-an-extra-tiny-desktop-pc-with-core-i7-due-in/

Gigabyte shows off an extratiny desktop PC with Core i7, due in April

There was a surprise waiting alongside Gigabyte's Windows 8 tablet duo at CES: an exceptionally small desktop. The as yet unnamed mini PC is a minor marvel of engineering that's much smaller than a Mac mini at an 0.3-liter volume (10 fluid ounces), but still manages to cram in a Core i3, i5 or i7 processor. We're also looking at up to 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD for heavy duty tasks. Expansion is about the only sacrifice, as there's just two USB ports, Ethernet and a rather curious choice of two HDMI ports on the pre-production model we saw. Gigabyte didn't have the system ready to test, but it should ship worldwide in April, with a price to be set later.

Filed under: Desktops

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Source: Engadget Chinese (translated)

LG Ultra HD Touch Display hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/lg-ultra-hd-touch-display-hands-on/

We bet you're yawning at the mention of 4K TVs by now, but here's a slight twist on that high-res concept. LG is showing off the so-called Ultra HD Touch display at its CES booth. It's pretty much what it sounds like: a 4K TV with five-point multitouch. LG isn't demoing this product as a TV -- though technically it could work as your standard set; instead it has the Ultra HD Touch running an interactive program created by the French company Intuiface. We could tap to select and enlarge information on different periods of art history, and we could rotate and perform pinch-to-zoom with individual elements on-screen. We could also dive into a drawing app, which included different pen options for doodling directly on the display.

Obviously, this sort of educational setup would be perfectly suited for a museum, though LG hasn't committed to any particular application of this display. Essentially, the idea is to demonstrate that touch technology on a giant 4K TV is quite possible -- and pretty neat, if you ask us -- rather than to debut a new high-brow product. But we have a feeling there will be more of such setups to come. For now, at least, you can check out our hands-on video past the break.

Continue reading LG Ultra HD Touch Display hands-on (video)

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD, LG

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Nuance Wintermute hands-on: a cross-platform, cloud-based personal assistant

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/nuance-wintermute-hands-on-a-cross-platform-cloud-based-person/

Nuance Wintermute hands-on

It's becoming increasingly clear that the next wave of mobile computing is going to be voice driven. Mobile assistants like Siri and Google Now are garnering plenty of media attention and earning legions of fans. Nuance, the company behind Dragon -- often cited as the gold standard in voice recognition software -- wants to make sure it doesn't get left behind after pioneering the art of speaking to your computer. Dragon Mobile Assistant was the first step towards that goal, but it stuck primarily to searches and a few simple tasks. After leaving our stage here at CES, the company was nice enough to take us back to a suite where it demoed a project codenamed Wintermute. Besides throwing a bone to William Gibson fans, the project aims to make Nuance's personal assistant truly personal and platform agnostic by building a profile of individual users in the cloud.

While clearly very much in the early stages, what we saw was none the less impressive. The mobile app, was able to easily recognize queries such as "what is the score of the Celtics game" and obey commands like "play music by the Rolling Stones." Nuance even threw in a bit of snide, Siri-like personality -- the assistant quipped about the rep being too young to listen to the Stones. That response was obviously triggered by the fact that the app knew Sean Brown, a senior manager at the company, was born well after the band's hey day.

Continue reading Nuance Wintermute hands-on: a cross-platform, cloud-based personal assistant

Filed under: Software, HD, Mobile

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Eyes-on with LG's streaming Smart Sound Bar

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/09/eyes-on-with-lg-streaming-smart-sound-bar/

Among the many, many things that LG is unveiling at CES this year is the curious addition of a sound bar with built-in video streaming. That still sounds like a contradiction of purpose to us, but the Smart Sound Bar, also known as the NB3730A, is more fascinating once you dive into the details. The large-sized bar pumps out 300W across its 2.1 channels, and its WiFi takes internet audio and video from CinemaNow, general internet radio, Netflix, Pandora and Vudu. Bluetooth audio is built-in as well. It's ultimately built for those who don't have an online-capable TV, Blu-ray player or media hub at their disposal -- a group whose ranks are thinning quickly, but certainly still exists.

We got a quick glance at the Smart Sound Bar for ourselves. From a design perspective, it's simple to operate and thin, if not exactly short. This won't be a good fit for that small TV in the basement, then, although it's perfect for that big wall-mounted set. We'd like to tell you how well it works in real life, but expo conditions dictate otherwise: LG unfortunately lacks an internet connection for the sound bar on demo, and an extra-crowded booth isn't the ideal environment for gauging audio quality. If you're mostly wondering whether or not it will fit into the living room decor, however, we've got a gallery for you below.

Gallery: LG Smart Sound Bar eyes-on