iPhone 5s fingerprint reader has a timed safeguard, dislikes sweaty digits

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/iphone-5s-fingerprint-reader-extras/

Beyond the basics, Apple has said little of how the iPhone 5s Touch ID fingerprint reader works -- we mostly know that it's inaccessible to the outside world. Thankfully, the company has shed further light on Touch ID through statements to the Wall Street Journal. To start, iPhone owners will have to unlock with a passcode if they either reboot or haven't unlocked within 48 hours. The safeguard prevents hackers from simply biding their time while they look for a workaround, Apple says. Legitimate users will also want to keep their hands dry, as the reader doesn't work well with fingers covered in sweat and other liquids. You won't want to try unlocking immediately after running, then, but it's evident that Apple already knows many of Touch ID's real-world limitations.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple

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Source: Wall Street Journal (1), (2)

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HP, Acer, ASUS and Toshiba all announce new Haswell Chromebooks; HP model arriving in the holiday season for $300

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/google-and-intel-announces-new-haswell-chromebooks/

Intel has just announced a new line of Chromebooks that run on Haswell. Chromebooks have previously run lower-powered processors like ARM and Atom, though the Pixel did break the mold by running on a dual-core 1.8GHz Intel Core i5. Upcoming Haswell Chromebooks include new iterations from Acer and HP, along with Chrome OS newbies ASUS and Toshiba. Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome and Android, came on stage to say that Haswell will offer superb battery life without compromising performance. At first glance, the Acer Chromebook on stage is a slim and light affair, while the HP model sports a larger display. Intel even showed off a special ASUS Chromebox that serves to be an extremely lightweight PC. As you might expect, there's no announcement of pricing or availability just yet, though we did hear we'll see them "over the coming months."

Update: The New Acer Chromebook and the HP Chromebook 14 pages are now live. So far, we have the most details about the Chromebook 14, which will arrive sometime this holiday shopping season for $300. It will have a 14-inch, 1,366 x 768 display and 16GB of built-in storage with HDMI, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 ports. Unusually, too, it will be available in an array of punch colors, including "Snow White," "Ocean Turquoise" and "Coral Peach." Find the full press release embedded below.

Filed under: Laptops, Google, Intel

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Source: Chrome Blog

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New Acer Chromebook with Haswell hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/new-acer-chromebook-with-haswell-hands-on/

One of the first Chromebooks to come blessed with Intel's Haswell processor is the new Acer Chromebook, and we had a chance to get a closer look at it today. If it wasn't for the "new" moniker that Acer has so kindly bestowed on it, we would be hard-pressed to find much different about it when compared to its C7 predecessor at first glance. Yet it does seem just a touch lighter and slimmer, measuring around 0.75 inch thin and weighing in at about 2.76 pounds. However, the new Acer Chromebook has a supposedly much longer battery life, boasting up to 8.5 hours of continuous use. It also sports an HDMI port, two USB ports and an SD card slot on the side. The 11.6-inch 1366 x 768 resolution display is a little on the small side, but still looked crisp and colorful enough to our eyes. The raised chiclet keys on the keyboard felt tactile and comfortable to use, and should be familiar to anyone who's ever used a Chromebook. While we don't know its price just yet, we do know that you'll get a 100GB of Google Drive storage for free for two years with every purchase. We don't have much more information about the new Acer Chromebook to impart to you, unfortunately, but we'll be sure to update this post once we do. In the meantime, have a peek at the hands-on gallery and video after the break. %Gallery-slideshow83878%

Filed under: Laptops, Google, Intel

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WiFi-equipped Arduino Yun now available for $69 (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/arduino-yun-now-available/

If you were wondering what happened to the Arduino Yun after it missed its original June release target, you can relax: it's now on sale worldwide. As promised, the $69 (€52) design combines a garden variety Leonardo board with a WiFi system-on-chip running Limino, giving owners a customizable wireless access point with Ethernet, USB and a microSD slot. Tinkerers can also program the Arduino component over the air using a newly updated developer environment. Those already sold on the concept can buy an Arduino Yun at the source link, while newcomers can check out an introductory video after the break.

Filed under: Misc, Networking

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Via: Arduino Blog

Source: Arduino Store

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Gogo's hybrid GTO technology bringing 60Mbps download capability to airlines in 2014

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/gogoshybrid-gto-in-flight-wifi-enhanced-speeds/

In a way, in-flight WiFi still seems like the future. It's the internet, in the air, while traveling at 30,000+ feet. Clearly, just having access isn't good enough, as a smattering of opponents have stepped into a segment long dominated by Gogo with snazzier, satellite-based alternatives. Over the past few years, ViaSat has stepped up in an effort to offer flyers something that Gogo's existing services won't: streaming video. While Gogo's air-to-ground network is great for latency, it struggles with bandwidth, as anyone on a crowded flight from JFK to SFO will likely attest. Today, Gogo has taken the wraps off of GTO (Ground to Orbit), described as a hybrid technology that will be "capable of delivering more than 60Mbps to the aircraft." For those keeping score, that's a 20-fold increase from where Gogo started just a few years ago.

We spoke to a company representative leading up to the reveal, who confirmed that GTO is a proprietary offering, and will lean on satellites for the downlink while using existing ground-based transceivers for the uplink. For users, that means that latency will remain low, uploads will remain sluggish, and downloads will improve dramatically. Gogo points out that precious little will need to change for airlines to take advantage; there's a new antenna, which is actually half as large as the existing one, but most everything else will remain the same. Virgin America will be the launch partner of the new service, which is expected to be available in the second half of 2014; we asked if any other airlines were onboard beyond that, but were left to make assumptions for ourselves.

Filed under: Transportation, Internet

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Source: Gogo

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Intel details Z3000 Bay Trail chips for tablets and hybrids, claims up to 2x CPU and 3x GPU performance

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/intel-announces-new-bay-trail/

Intel barely existed on the mobile scene two years ago, and yet the company's Clover Trail chips for low-power tablets and hybrids have already had a huge impact on the Windows PC market -- not least by rendering Windows for ARM (aka Windows RT) largely redundant. But Clover Trail's performance in devices like the Acer Iconia W3 or Lenovo IdeaTab Lynx is far from perfect, especially with Windows 8 desktop applications and anything that involves 3D graphics, and that's why we're more than ready for its successor: Bay Trail, which is based on the next-generation 22nm Silvermont architecture. Intel has today detailed three families of Bay Trail chips, the most interesting of which is undoubtedly the Z3000-series for tablet form factors, and you can catch up on these new SoCs right after the break.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Tablets, Intel

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This Plan To End Smartphone Obsolescence With Lego-Like Block Components Is Mindboggling

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/phonebloks-2013-9

When smartphones crap out, it's all too often that they end up in a landfill and they stick around for a few centuries and make friends with the rest of our garbage.

Dave Hakkens sees things a different way, however. He notes that when a smartphone kicks the bucket, it's usually just a single component that needs to be fixed. What if there were a device that were part Android and part Legos, literally enabling you to build a custom phone from prefabricated parts to meet your needs. Instead of colorful plastic bricks, however, you're recombining GPS, Wi-Fi, battery, and other smartphone components until you have the phone that's right for you.

This is all still just an idea (though the site touts a September 16 launch), but you can see how far ahead Hakkens is thinking. For people who don't care about on-device storage, they can get set up with a bigger battery. For photobugs, they can attach a higher-quality camera

If you're interested and want to help make this phone a reality, you can learn more here. Check out the video below to get the whole picture.

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This Gaming PC Is Smaller Than a Controller But Still Packs a Punch

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-gaming-pc-is-smaller-than-a-controller-but-still-p-1291326222

There are plenty of gaming PCs designed to replace consoles, but if you're short on space that normally means accepting something underpowered like the Ouya. But this little guy, called the Gigabyte Brix II, is both powerful and petite.

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DisplayLink's adaptor streams 4K content over USB 2.0 and 3.0 (eyes-on)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/displaylink-4k-video-over-usb/

DisplayLink's been wringing all kinds of connectivity out of our computer's USB ports for years, turning one connection into many. It should come as no surprise, then, that the company's using its considerable compression expertise to send high-resolution 4K video through that very same pipe. Ideally, the system shoots video over USB 3.0, while still giving users the full connectivity options of any compatible DisplayLink device -- but it can also function using USB 2.0, though the dynamically compensating data compression at work may cause some frames to drop.

We chatted with Displaylink's Director of Marketing, Andy Davis, about the feature and he informed us that the new 4K capability comes courtesy of a chip design first revealed back at CES that, while upping the max resolution of transmitted video, has no trouble driving multiple displays. In theory,the number of 4K screens the chip can drive is only limited by the graphics drivers and video decoding capabilities of the computer it's connected to. And, the new architecture also enables wireless streaming of 4K video using 802.11ad and can stream 1080p video over 802.11ac (4K over 802.11ac is in the works). We got to see a brief demo of the technology in action, and the video played back flawlessly over USB 3.0 for the few minutes we saw it work. Using 2.0, we noticed a slight flicker once or twice during playback, but the feed was still quite watchable. All in all, its a nice addition to the DisplayLink feature set. Now if they'd just let us know when we'll actually see it implemented in something we can buy.

Filed under: Displays, Misc, HD

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Exynos 5 Octa demos 8 cores working at once and other feats of CPU strength (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/11/exynos-5-octa-demos-8-cores-working-at-once-gpu-assist-and-ener/

Just in case yesterday's news that Samsung is ready to enable new features on its Exynos 5 Octa chips wasn't clear, ARM has published a few demo videos to show what it can do. All three are embedded after the break, and the first one highlights how the Exynos 5 Octa 5420 can activate some or all of its 8 cores to maximize responsiveness while launching and using Quickoffice. As you can see above in the screenshot, all eight cores are activated while launching the app, then unused ones switch off for more efficiency. Another video shows how it runs Angry Birds Rio on just the four Cortex-A7 "LITTLE" side of the CPU, rarely activating any of their more power-hungry A15 friends. The last demo video shows how its Mali-T628 GPU activates to process images faster and more efficiently than the CPU alone can.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Samsung

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Article: How Wi-Fi Direct Works As A Gateway To The Internet Of Things

Wi-Fi Direct is an emerging wireless standard that allows you to create a create a connection between any two devices without going through a wireless router. Want to create a Wi-Fi hotspot, connect your computer or smartphone to your printer or stream movies from your tablet to your television? ...

http://readwrite.com/2013/09/10/what-is-wi-fi-direct

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Article: Intel CEO Brian Krzanich shows working 14nm SoC laptop, announces sub $100 tablets at IDF 2013 Mobile

Many eyes may be shifted south of San Francisco to a shindig in Cupertino, but Intel's making some waves in the city. Just now onstage at IDF 2013, CEO Brian Krzanich showed off a functioning laptop running on a 14nm Intel SoC. Naturally, Krzanich didn't deal any other details about the laptop, b...

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/intel-ceo-brian-krzanich-shows-working-14nm-soc-laptop-announce/

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Intel announces Quark system on a chip, the company's smallest to date

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/intel-quark-soc/

The hits keep coming from IDF. After showing off svelte new 14nm silicon built for laptops, CEO Brian Krzanich announced a brand new SoC series named Quark. It's the smallest SoC the company has ever built, one-fifth the size of an Atom chip, and is built upon an open architecture meant so spur its use. Early on in his keynote, Krzanich said that Intel plans to "lead in every segment of computing," and Quark is positioned to put Intel in wearables -- and, in fact, he even showed off a prototype smartwatch platform Intel constructed to help drive wearable development. And, Intel President Renee James pointed out that Quark's designed for use in integrated systems, so we'll be seeing Quark in healthcare and municipal use cases, too. Unfortunately, no details about the new SoC's capabilities or specs are yet available, but we can give you some shots of Intel's wearable wristband prototype in our gallery below.%Gallery-slideshow83631%

Filed under: Intel

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iPhone 5s packs M7 motion-sensing chip, CoreMotion API for more accurate tracking

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/iphone-5s-m7-coremotion-motion-coprocessor/

Apple's new flagship iPhone 5s is about to have much more detailed information about how much its users are moving, thanks to a new M7 "Motion co-processor." Unveiled during today's live event, it works along with the new 64-bit A7 CPU to measure motion data continuously from the accelerometer, gyroscope and compass without draining the battery as heavily. It looks like the iPhone 5s will be ready to take over for hardware extras like the FitBit or Nike Fuel wristband, but with a new CoreMotion API, devs for those companies and others can pull the information into their apps. The CoreMotion API specifically works to identify user movement, and offers "optimizations based on contextual awareness." Overall, it's very similar to what we'd heard would be in the Moto X, although we haven't seen all of these extra sensors used for activity tracking quite in this way. Nike was on hand with a new Nike+ Move app that used the M7 and GPS to track users' activities, and we wouldn't be surprised if others follow closely behind. Nike called the Move app an "introductory experience" to Nike Fuel in a tweet, so maybe it's planning to upsell customers on (potentially?) more detailed tracking with its hardware add-ons afterward.

Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 'Special Event' 2013 event hub!

Filed under: Mobile, Apple

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Infinity Blade III to launch alongside iPhone 5s

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/10/infinity-blade-3-iphone-5s/

Donald Mustard, co-founder of Chair (owned by Epic Games), just hopped on stage at Apple's hardware reveal and pulled back the proverbial curtains on Infinity Blade III, the final installment in the series. The game's making use of the iPhone 5s' new 64-bit architecture, and it has the graphics prowess to prove it: combinations of rendering effects including depth of field, blur and full-screen vignettes. Not to mention lens flares "that would make J.J. Abrams proud." According to the developers, converting the game to 64-bit took just two hours, so developers with apps of their own need not fret. Infinity Blade III is slated to be "available alongside the new iPhone 5s," which should get a release date of its own in a few minutes.

Update: The iPhone 5s will be hitting shelves on September 20th, so Infinity Blade III should break into the App Store with it.

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Check out all the coverage at our iPhone 'Special Event' 2013 event hub!

Filed under: Gaming, Mobile

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