Hasta La Gadget!

Clean automobiles are starting to hit the streets of China, and just a few short months after BYD rolled its first plug-in hybrid out of the factory, Chery Automobile has followed suit… sort of, anyway. Unlike BYD’s alternative, the just announced S18 is purely electric, promising up to 150 kilometers on a single charge and a maximum speed of 120kph (around 72mph). The battery can be juiced from empty to full in around six hours using a standard 220-volt home outlet, while it can reach 80 percent capacity within just a half hour. Yuan Tao, vice president of Chery, confessed that the price would be “very suitable for families,” though he held back from giving specifics — you know, like an availability date, or a definite quantity of airbags.

Filed under: Transportation

China’s Chery Automobile produces its first plug-in electric car originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic has figured out a plan how to sell off its $70,000, 103-inch TVs in a tough economy. Sell them to companies in the business of building other niche applications, and have them put together a gadget that an even fewer number of people can appreciate.

That doesn’t sound economically feasible at all, you say. But I bet you didn’t take this into account: The plan’s begat a multi-touch version of air hockey! Sounds like a great plan to me.

First previewed at the Integrated Systems Europe 2009 show in Amsterdam last week (the European version of CEDIA), Multi-Touch Air Hockey is a venture between Panasonic and U-Touch. The hardware tweak was supplied by U-Touch, adding multitouch-capabilities, and the software was built by London-based ui Centric.

The way you play is by ‘holding on’ to a virtual air hockey mallet using your fingers, just like you would with the regular grip for air hockey. Already, some people have noted that the mallets don’t react fast enough to hand movements and that you probably don’t get the same satisfaction from hitting like in the real game.

What’s interesting about this is that using a touch screen changes up the spectator tension originally present in the game. Before, you’d watch in the off-chance that a hard-hit disc would spin out of the table and smack someone in the head. Here, players will inevitably use their upper body to put a lot of pressure on each of their touches, which will surely lead to fractured screens and too-excited players plunging through.

At the moment, the touch hockey game will be used as a demo at various functions to show off the technology. It isn’t yet on sale.

And to be fair, Panasonic actually has been more successful selling this giant TV in the last year than we’re letting on. They’ve fit in perfectly in various Las Vegas casinos, sports stadiums, and big-company headquarters. So don’t cry for them yet, and instead pressure them into building an ever bigger version of the table with their 150-inch TV. Giant touchscreen pong anyone?

The fate of the Sprint Treo Pro has been up in the air ever since the announcement of the Pre, with units sent to stores called back for testing and reports of endless delays, but it looks like we’ll finally be getting the HTC-built handset next month, since it’s in Best Buy Mobile’s March circular as the “Palm Pro” for the expected $249 on contract. That’s certainly better than the off-contract $699 price Big Blue posted last month, but what’s up with calling it the Palm Pro? Considering the tips we’ve already gotten confusing the Treo Pro with the Pre, we’d say truncating it down to just “Pro” is a disaster waiting to happen — might want to straighten this out, Palm.

[Thanks, Mike]

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm “Pro” shows up in March Best Buy Mobile ad for $249 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Nikon 18-105mm DX ED VR is sort of a kit lens on steroids; it has the all-plastic construction of a basic kit lens but adds VR and an extended zoom range. If you want to equip your Nikon DX dSLR with something more than the basic 18-55mm kit lens …

This article was written on January 03, 2008 by CyberNet.

Microsoft has obviously observed the request from users to bypass the User Account Control (UAC) prompts for specific applications. Just a few days ago they posted instructions on how to get around UAC prompts and a per application basis.

I decided to give this a whirl, and I can say first hand that it does work. There’s just one thing…it’s not quite as simple as a few clicks. The first time you go through the instructions it will probably take 3 or 4 minutes, but each program you setup after that will probably take just a minute since you’ll understand what needs to be done.

I’ve taken the liberty of modifying their directions ever so slightly to make them a bit easier, and I’ve also thrown in a few screenshots to guide you along the way:

1. Download (10.9MB) and install the Application Compatibility Toolkit.
2. In the Start menu find the shortcut Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0\Compatibility Administrator. Right click it and click Run as administrator.
3. In the left hand pane, right-click on the database under Custom Databases and select Create New, and select Application Fix.
   
4. Enter the name and other details of the application you want to alter behavior on and then browse to it to select it. Click Next.
5. Click Next until you are in the Compatibility Fixes screen. On the Compatibility Fixes screen, find the item RunAsInvoker, and check it. Click Next and then Finish.
6. Select File -> Save As. Save the file as a filename.SDB type file in a directory you will easily find it. Then copy the <filename>.sdb file to the Vista computer you want to alter the elevation prompt behavior on.
7. Click Start -> All Programs -> Accessories. Right click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator.
8. Run the command below:
   sdbinst <path>\<filename>.sdb
   For example, if you saved the .SDB file as abc.sdb in the c:\Windows folder, the command should be like this:
   sdbinst  c:\windows\abc.sdb
   It should prompt: Installation of <name> complete.
    
   

I’m *guessing* that, before saving the file in Step 6, you can go back to Step 3 and add more “Application Fixes” to the database. That way you can execute just one database in the remaining steps.

Microsoft Knowledgebase [via x(perts)64]

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