Apr 17

LEGO Boombox looks sweet, still can’t make your kid’s music sound good

Posted in: lego, Today's Chili
The collaboration between LEGO and Digital Blue has already produced a couple of interesting gadgets for the wee ones, so here’s another one to add to the stack. The LEGO Boombox is a decidedley low-techish CD player / AM/FM radio, with two 1 watt speakers, and a few buttons to boot. The saving grace of this little guy is obviously its shape — which is awesome — but we really need to know if its going to come in other colors (like hot pink) before we can think about buying it. This bad boy is going to be available sometime this summer, and it’ll run $39.99

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LEGO Boombox looks sweet, still can’t make your kid’s music sound good originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 17

Bridgestone’s 13-inch color e-paper display handles pen input, has the future written all over it

Posted in: e ink, tablet, Today's Chili

While it’ll always be difficult to accept innovative technology from a company that makes our tires, there’s just no faulting Bridgestone’s work in the e-paper space, or their latest color entry, above. The 13-inch display, based on “QR-LPD” tech, has what looks to be great color depth, along with snappy 0.8 second screen refreshes (great for this screen size) and actual Wacom-based pen input. There’s video of it in action after the break, and if we didn’t know better we’d think they were putting a Sharpie to a perfectly good display. Unfortunately, the image does look a little dim at the moment, so hopefully that’s something Bridgestone can improve upon as they approach commercialization — whenever that might be.

Continue reading Bridgestone’s 13-inch color e-paper display handles pen input, has the future written all over it

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Bridgestone’s 13-inch color e-paper display handles pen input, has the future written all over it originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 17

Sneak a little office shut-eye with iNap@Work

Posted in: Today's Chili

Desperately seeking snoozing: iNap@Work generates the sounds of work so you don't have to.

If ever an iPhone app was created for the George Costanzas of the world, it’s this one: iNap@Work simulates office sounds so you can snooze while the people around you think …

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

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Apr 17

David Beckham bends it like a Terminator for Motorola’s Aura

Posted in: ad, commercial, motorola, Today's Chili

Never before in the history of humankind has a company that’s been doing so badly had such an enormous amount of money to waste. Enter Motorola, and, consequently, their new Aura advertisement featuring megahunk David Beckham doing what he does best: absolutely nothing. There’s not much that we can say that the Terminator-inspired ad won’t say for us, so putter on after the break and catch the ad itself, plus Beckster beefcaking it up like a pro and sharing his innermost insights on Moto’s $2,000 phone.

[Thanks, ugotamesij]

Continue reading David Beckham bends it like a Terminator for Motorola’s Aura

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David Beckham bends it like a Terminator for Motorola’s Aura originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 17

Autonomous sniper system combines Xbox 360 controller, .338 rifle for deadly drone action

Posted in: Today's Chili, xbox 360, Xbox360

You know how it is — we’re frightened and appalled by the thought of unmanned killing machines, but if they must exist we really, really want to play with one. The US Army’s latest nightmarish deathcopter / awesome tech toy is a little something called the Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System (ARSS). Essentially a .338-caliber rifle mounted to the bottom of a Vigilante unmanned helicopter (though it could eventually be made to work on a Predator drone, for instance), this bad boy utilizes a modified Xbox 360 game controller for targeting while the vehicle itself stays put courtesy of its autopilot functions. Never again will your favorite sniper need to leave the comfort of his barracks! Airborne testing begins in July, with autonomy to come soon after that and a possible robot apocalypse estimated for Q4 2011.

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Autonomous sniper system combines Xbox 360 controller, .338 rifle for deadly drone action originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 17

Verizon Pubs LTE Specs: Data Only, No CDMA Required

Posted in: Today's Chili, Verizon Wireless

lte-phone.jpgVerizon Wireless today put out their first round of specs for their upcoming 4G LTE network, and they want to remind folks: “Initially, Verizon Wireless will be providing packet data service over the Verizon Wireless LTE 3GPP Band 13 network.”

That means the first LTE devices will be more about tapping into LTE’s 8-12 Mbps data speeds than about making phone calls.

The specs describe basic requirements to connect to Verizon’s upcoming network, and they’re pretty much unreadable unless you have a degree in electrical engineering. But a quick perusal of the specs reveals two more interesting tidbits: IPv6 will be required, and support for Verizon’s 3G CDMA network will not.
In fact, the current version of the specs offers no guidance for people trying to manage CDMA-to-LTE handoffs, implying that the first round of devices may be LTE-only. Verizon says that the specs are incomplete and will be frequently revised, though, so CDMA-to-LTE handoff information may appear.
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Apr 17

Who says lunch can’t be hot and steamy?

Posted in: Today's Chili

(Credit: Brando)

Those of you who’ve adopted frugality during this recession know that packing a lunch is one of the best ways to cut down on spending. But waiting in line to use the microwave, washing your Tupperware out, and having your lunch stolen from the company refrigerator can …

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Apr 17

Panasonic expands Lumix FS line: DMC-FS12, DMC-FS62 and DMC-FS42

Posted in: camera, lumix, Panasonic, point and shoot, PointAndShoot, Today's Chili

We tell ya, that Panasonic FS line sure knows how to expand. Just months after we saw a few more added to the mix, the point-and-shoot Lumix family is growing yet again with three new members. Kicking things off is the 12.1 megapixel DMC-FS12, which boasts a 4x optical zoom, optical image stabilization, 2.7-inch LCD, a WVGA (848 x 480) movie mode and digital red-eye correction. The 10.1 megapixel DMC-FS62 packs most of the same features, though it does step down to a 2.5-inch LCD. Finishing up the trio is the DMC-FS42, a 10.1 megapixel shooter that does most everything the FS62 does save for the omission of optical image stabilization and a few other minor exclusions. The whole lot is expected to arrive soon in a variety of hues, though precise pricing and availability details are still missing.

Gallery: Panasonic expands Lumix FS line: DMC-FS12, DMC-FS62 and DMC-FS42

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Panasonic expands Lumix FS line: DMC-FS12, DMC-FS62 and DMC-FS42 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 17

Palm Pre Coming Soon? Sprint Rolls Out Print Ads

Posted in: Today's Chili

pre-tweet.jpgWhen companies start plunking down money on print ads, you know a device is coming soon. Sprint dropped a big color picture of the Palm Pre on the back of the Wall Street Journal today, paying Rupert Murdoch $264,000 for the privilege. (We’ve got an image of the full ad after the jump.)

The Pre has played a cameo role in Sprint’s most recent TV ad campaign, popping up at the very end, but here it stands out as if to say it’s the one gadget Sprint wants to associate with the Now Network. Sprint has also given Twitter a prominent role in the ad campaign, as shown by the blue bird in the picture.

AT&T started featuring the BlackBerry Bold in print ads about a month before the device launched, on November 4. Print ads also heralded the launch of the Palm Treo Pro on Sprint, but that launch process was such a mess that I don’t know if the timing was intentional or not.

We still don’t know when the Pre is coming out, though it will probably be sometime in May. Full ad after the jump.

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Apr 17

Yoichi Yamazaki’s latest bot has hungry eyes, nothing else

Posted in: robot, Today's Chili
Yoichi Yamazaki's latest bot has hungry eyes, nothing else

A quick glance can say a lot, but sometimes its meaning can get lost in translation. For example, there’s not a lot of difference between a dirty look and a, uh, dirty look, but Yoichi Yamazaki and cohorts at the Tokyo Institute of Technology hope to quantify that (and many more) by creating a so-called Eye Robot. It’s a pair of disembodied eyeballs that create expressions in concert with pink eyelids; a user views each expression and then indicates how it makes him or her feel. At this point it seems like something of a scatter-shot affair, throwing out expressions at random and seeing which elicit a reaction, but hopefully in the near future Yamazaki’s metrics will help make the vacant gaze of other bots a little less disconcerting.

[Via Engadget Poland]

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Yoichi Yamazaki’s latest bot has hungry eyes, nothing else originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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