Hasta La Gadget!

The race to develop a mass-market color e-ink display is at fever pitch, and there’s a new challenger on the scene: electrofluidic display, or EFD. Developed at the University of Cincinnati in partnership with a handful of private companies, the new tech apparently blows everything else out of the water — according to professor Jason Heikenfeld, EFD has superior brightness, color saturation, and video speed, all in a 15-micron thick panel that can eventually be used in rollable displays. No word on when we’ll see any products, but the partnership is spinning off a new company called Gamma Dynamics to commercialize the tech, so hopefully it’ll be soon.

[Thanks, Wendy]

Read – University of Cincinnati press release
Read – EFD paper in Nature

Filed under: Displays

Electrofluidic display tech improves color e-ink, makes you sound smarter originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 01:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We tend to go a little weak in the knees for anything in miniature, so this iMac G4 “Junior” made with a 7-inch digital photo frame and a bunch of LEGOs sent us into hysterics. DIY-er Bjarne Tveskov says the creation is inspired by the film Luxo Jr., and though it has no functional G4 innards, it does do dislay basic, totally adorable smiley faces. One more shot after the break, and hit the read link for the entire set.

[Via Boing Boing]

Continue reading LEGO iMac G4 Junior is iMac G4’s smaller, friendlier sibling

Filed under: Desktops

LEGO iMac G4 Junior is iMac G4’s smaller, friendlier sibling originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What better way to give you a look at Flip Video’s new Ultra HD camcorder than by reviewing it on video… shot with the Ultra HD. The specs are simple: 720p / 30 FPS, 8GB of storage on-board, HDMI out, and pretty much nothing else. Still, a camera this cheap ($199.99) and this small definitely has its uses. Of course, you’ll probably be distracted (like we were) by the bad, bad image stabilization issues. But don’t just read about it — take a look at the gallery below to scope out what the thing looks like, then watch the videos after the break to hear (and see) our thoughts, and catch the cam in some heavier — shakier — action. Needless to say, both videos are available in HD.

Continue reading Flip Video Ultra HD video review

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Flip Video Ultra HD video review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Flip UltraHD is the true sequel to the cheap, crappy-but-good enough camcorder that’s smuggled 13 percent of the market and was once our favorite cheap camcorder.

Short answer: Just like the Ultra, but um, HD. The Flip UltraHD is actually not the first HD Flip camcorder—the runt of the litter, the Mino went high def first, and we thought for a while the fattie Flip Ultra was going to rot and die.

But it hasn’t. It’s been reincarnated with HD—720P shot in H.264 at 30FPS. I mean that fairly literally—if you were to take an Ultra and an UltraHD side by side, the only giveaway besides the branding is the Mini HDMI port on the side of the UltraHD. It’s got the same 2X digital zoom, the same fat ass. It’s like the MinoHD’s guts and soul inside of the Ultra’s body. Which is actually what annoys me the most about it. Its bigger, brighter, better screen is the antidote to my biggest problem with the MinoHD, but it’s so goddamn thick you can’t comfortably shove it in your pocket like the Mino. Keep the the width and height, but it should be thinner, even considering the depth needed for the little zoom lens. This is also pretty much the last camera Pure Digital can make like this—it feels like they’ve exhausted everything this particular package of camera and features can do. Whatever comes next needs to be actually different.

These comparison videos were filmed holding the MinoHD and UltraHD side-by-side—outside in the afternoon, and then outside at night, with crappy lighting to test and compare how well they handle low-lighting. (Sorry, in GA, I had nothing more interesting to shoot than my dog.) To me, the footage virtually looks the same coming out both from a quality standpoint. Clear with good lighting, visible but noisy as balls in low-lighting. Though, the UltraHD’s zoom lens does give you appreciated flexibility. (Update: It’s just digital zoom, my bad.) Overall, compared to the rest of the cheap camcorder market, if you consider the UltraHD’s quality equivalent to the MinoHD’s it looks like it’s still about tops, though not the best.

Our model’s got 8GB of storage and promises 120 minute of video out of it. If you don’t use the HDMI cable to plug it into your TV, you interface with it the same as always, via the pop-out USB jack. It comes with a rechargeable pair of batteries, but you can pop in some standard AA if you want.

At $200 retail it’s not the cheapest cheapcam in the pack by any means—you can pick up the slightly older Kodak Zi6, another pocket HD camcorder that we like a bunch and shoots slightly cleaner video for $140 or its weatherproof cousin for $150, though you have to add in the cost of additional SDHC storage. That said, compared to the MinoHD, you get twice the recording capacity and bigger, brighter screen for about the same price, with the cost being the fatass. So it really depends what part of the triangle is most important to you: Size, storage and video quality. But you can’t go too wrong with the UltraHD. [Flip]

It’s pretty rare that a portable solar-based device offers much more utility than impressing your friends, but PiSAT Solar’s K-Light won’t only make you the coolest kid on your block: it might actually prove useful the next time you take a hike or find yourself hanging out in a developing country. In 10 hours of daylight charging the unit gathers up to 20 hours worth of battery power for use in the low-power 8 LED mode, or 10 hours of life if used in 16 LED mode. It’s also switchable between flashlight and lantern modes. That should be great for campers, but where the K-Light really “shines” (so to speak) is in places like Africa, where villagers without electricity often use makeshift kerosene lanterns for light at night. K-Light is designed for up to 10 years of full daily use in such a scenario, and PiSAT is working on an adapter to let the lantern’s battery also charge a cellphone. At $50 a pop, the barrier to entry isn’t incredibly high, and PiSAT is working with the Koinonia Foundation to provide start-up grants of K-Lights to groups of African women to create local businesses selling the lights. One-off purchases are also available now online for us non-entrepreneurial types.

Filed under: Household

PiSAT Solar’s K-Light boasts a one-to-one charging ratio originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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