Hasta La Gadget!

An interesting concept from Sony has come to light courtesy of the US Patent & Trademark Office, deftly titled: “Image forming device, having an ejection tray, and a display is mounted to a cover.” That’s a lot of words to describe what is basically a Surface-like touchscreen mounted onto a flat, clamshell printer (shown open after the break). The idea is for users to set their cameras down, view and manipulate images wirelessly, and then print them directly to honest to gosh paper. It appears to be quite a bit smaller than Microsoft’s uber-table, and a lot less likely to get Al Roker’s groove on too, but it also looks rather more practical and affordable; something you might actually expect to see in someone’s home in the next few years. But, don’t get too excited about the real-world prospects here — your guess is as good as ours about Sony’s plans for bringing this to market.

Continue reading Patent app for touchscreen printer from Sony Surfaces

Filed under: Displays

Patent app for touchscreen printer from Sony Surfaces originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 08:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen plenty of swollen and exploding batteries ’round here, but this is the first Li-Polymer battery (a technology generally assumed to be more stable and less prone to swelling and fire than Li-Ion) that we can recall ballooning into such a possible danger. Reader Christian sent us these pics of what’s normally a 4-mm thick battery (pictured right) inside his W880i handset now swollen to a full 7-mm. The BST-33 sits at the heart of a long list of SE phones, a list we’ve included after the break along with one more picture. Do let us know if you’re seeing similar issues.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson’s BST-33 Li-Polymer batteries swelling into a lawsuit?

Filed under: Cellphones

Sony Ericsson’s BST-33 Li-Polymer batteries swelling into a lawsuit? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We won’t lie — we’ve always been harsh on Vertu handsets. As a rule, they’re technologically inferior to handsets that are a twelfth the price, and honestly, they’re usually pretty unsightly. But you know, Boy Genius Report‘s hands-on experience with the stainless steel Signature S Design really has us back on the fence. Sure, it’s the price of a decent subcompact, but man, it’s as sleek as sleek could ever hope to be. Have a look in the read link for a hands-on gallery that’s sure to make you envious — whether you’re willing to admit it or not.

Filed under: Cellphones

Vertu’s overpriced Signature S Design gets hands-on treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DS owners in Japan have been enjoying the spoils of the KORG DS-10 synthesizer for over half a year, but at long (long!) last, we Americans are about to receive equal treatment. The game itself, which is graciously priced at just $29.99, is now up for pre-order on GameStop’s website. The listed ship date is February 9th, but we wouldn’t go betting the farm on that being entirely accurate. Nevertheless, we’re down to counting days and hours rather than months and weeks before we’ll be able to shove a synth in our pockets without paying import prices. Huzzah!

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

KORG DS-10 synthesizer up for pre-order in America originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If camera hacks had heels, then this story would come hot on those of yesterday’s Canon DSLR video recording hack. Actually inspired by that story, ace programmer Olivier Giroux decided to try it out with his Nikon D700.

Olivier grabbed the software development kit from Nikon’s site and set to coding. A few scant hours later he had an application which would capture video using Nikon’s low-light wonder. Like the Canon hack, Olivier’s method just captures the live view stream from the camera’s sensor — you have to hook the cam up to a computer via USB and from there the software records the information sent over the wire. Olivier:

Good news: it is a viable video source. It’s fast enough, and the quality is sufficient.

Bad news: it’s a bit too low-quality to be really exciting. It’s roughly 30% below 480p resolution.  The most unfortunate thing is they create the Live-View image by decimating the sensor data rather than downsampling it – as a result it aliases, moirés and looks terrible in low light.

That’s it for the bad news though.  The feed travels over the wire at 100fps (I measured), within which maybe 30fps’ worth are unique frames.  Each frame is basically a NEF embedded thumbnail, each one is a fully-formed high quality JPEG file.  The result has the potential to look as good (or bad) as a DVD, roughly.

This isn’t going to be a replacement for a real video camera, but if Olivier gets around to releasing the software, it should certainly be fun to play around with.

D700 Shoots Video [Mutable Conclusions via Nikon Rumors]

See Also:

• Hack Adds Hi-Def Video to All Canon DSLRs
• Hands-On With the Nikon D700
• HD Video Shot With Canon 5D MKII Looks Stellar
• Nikon D90: First SLR With Hi-Def Movie Mode