Hasta La Gadget!

Hint: If you’re going to post pictures of a new, unannounced Nikon DSLR, don’t pick the worst one:

"I have more and better pictures if people are interested."

So ends the post from indyjb on the Something Awful “humor" forums, which you see above. We remain very skeptical of this snap, mostly due to the source and the fact that he didn’t bother putting up the “better" photographs. If real, we are seeing a Nikon SLR with a flip-out screen, something that doesn’t yet exist. It would certainly fit with Nikon’s innovative strategy to push new features other than plain magapixels counts.

The camera is thought to be a "D500", although it could be a replacement for the entry-level D40/D60 double-team. When would it appear? There is a Nikon event in Austria on Tuesday April 14th, a press breakfast featuring “exclusive new product highlights".

To add to the speculation, it is entirely likely that there will be a D60 replacement and a D300 replacement soon, and that the cheaper camera will shoot video just like the D90. We’ll have to wait and see. One thing we do know is that it will be something worth writing about — for the last year or so, almost every Nikon DSLR announcement has been exciting.

What should I do with spy photos of the new Nikon D500? [Something Awful via Photography Bay]

Yep, it is April 14 [Nikon Rumors]

Benjamin J. Heckendorn seems unusually enthused by his latest hack’n mod, calling the Commodore 64 laptop “probably one of, if not my favorite project I have done.” That’s saying something from the man who brought the “Benheck” finesse hammer down upon just about every modern and classic PC / game console and accessory you can think of. The C64 lappie features a C64C motherboard, a Gamecube power supply, and special 1541-III DTV device that emulates a floppy drive using a FAT-32 formatted SD card — all while keeping true to the beige 8-bit spirit of the original. And if we’re not mistaken, he’s controlling it with an Atari joystick seen in the video posted after the break. Then again, there could be an Xbox 360 controller hiding in that joystick knowing Ben.

[Via Nowhereelse]

Continue reading Ben Heck’s Commodore 64 laptop mod: like 1982 without the feathered hair

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

Ben Heck’s Commodore 64 laptop mod: like 1982 without the feathered hair originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 04:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on May 03, 2007 by CyberNet.

The first I had heard of Gender Genie was in our Forum when Max posted about it. Gender Genie is supposed to be able to determine the gender of an author by analyzing text using an algorithm. All you have to do is copy in a sample of the text, and it will give a male score, and a female score. If the female score is higher, then they presume the passage was written by a female, and visa versa.

Max tried it out with a post that Ryan wrote, and a post that I wrote, and it correctly determined that Ryan’s post was written by a male, and that my post was written by a female. Interesting, isn’t it? However a few of the people that tried it after didn’t have quite as much success. I thought I’d give it a try with tech bloggers around the web to see how well it could determine who wrote it:

1. Go2Web2 by Orli Yakuel (female) – Gender Genie thinks this author is male.
2. Techsploitation by Annalee Newitz (female) – Gender Genie thinks this author is male.
3. TechCrunch by Michael Arrington (male)– Gender Genie thinks this author is female.
4. GigaOm by Om Malik (male)– Gender Genie thinks this author is male.
5. GigaOm by Katie Fehrenbacher (female) – Gender Genie thinks this author is male.
6. Digg Blog by Kevin Rose (male) – Gender Genie thinks this author is female.
7. Lifehacker by Gina Trapani (female) – Gender Genie thinks this author is female.
8. Lifehacker by Adam Pash (male) – Gender Genie thinks this author is female.

After my eight different trials with four female writers, and four male writers, the results weren’t quite as good as I thought they would be. With female writers, it properly identified in one out of the four instances, and with males, it properly identified in one out of the four instances as well.

Gender Genie analyzes a passage by looking at words that it labels as masculine keywords and feminine keywords, however they all looked like common words that anybody would use.  For example, some of the masculine keywords that it looks for are: around, what, more, are, as , who, and below.  Examples of female keywords include: with, if, not, where, be, when, your, her we. All of those words seem like common words that anybody would use regularly, and not gender specific.

So maybe the Gender Genie is lacking with some of his magical powers? Regardless, it’s fun to try out.  Just find a passage that’s over 500 words (preferably) and copy and paste it into the Gender Genie to get your result.

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All caught up on your sleep? Good. ‘Cause our old friend the “Child-robot with Biomimetic Body,” or CB2, has now returned to haunt your nightmares. As you might expect, the bot hasn’t simply spent its past two years of existence terrifying the staff at Osaka University, it’s actually been learning, and it’s now apparently able to make use of its 51 air-powered motors to move itself through a room “quite smoothly” — with a helping hand, of course. What’s more, the researchers behind CB2 are now also starting to talk about some of their future projects, including a new “robo species” that they say will have learning abilities “somewhere between those of a human and other primate species such as the chimpanzee.” Yeah, we can’t wait to see what that looks like either.

Filed under: Robots

CB2 “Child Robot” returns: smarter, creepier than ever originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Apr 2009 02:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to documents obtained by the New York Times, T-Mobile’s set to release a home phone early next year, and a tablet PC after that, both of which are said to be powered by Android. We’re a bit light on details, but we do know the phone itself has a docking station and will come with another device for synchronization. That device’s supposed resemble a small, keyboard-less laptop with a 7-inch touchscreen and could check the mail and manage data for devices across the house. Here’s hoping T-Mo’s been taking notes watching its AT&T HomeManager / Verizon Hub predecessors.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs

NYT: T-Mobile to release Android-powered home phone, tablet PC next year originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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