Hasta La Gadget!

The tongue, besides being creepy, offers plenty in the way of research opportunities, as you know if you’re a regular visitor to this space. In the past we’ve seen a tongue-based computer interface or two, the BrainPort sight-via-papillae solution, and this week, at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting, researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign introduced a sensor about the size of a business card that detects and identifies fourteen common sweeteners — including Splenda, Sugar in the Raw, and Sweet’n’Low. The product of a decade of research in colorimetric sensor arrays, it works when dipped into the substance, and takes about two minutes to get results. The team, led by a Professor Suslick (really!), hopes that this leads to a low-cost solution for anyone who needs to monitor their blood glucose levels, and eventually a way to monitor contaminants in food or in the environment at large. We recommend using with D+caf caffeine testing strips to ensure that you get nothing out of your morning coffee whatsoever.

[Via CNET]

Filed under: Science

Electronic tongue tastes, identifies sweeteners so you don’t have to originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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(Credit: LG)

It turns out LG is working on a sequel to the X110 it released last year. Not excited? We don’t blame you, but what if we tell you the new X130 is set to have arguably the longest battery life in the Netbook industry? Yes, we thought …

Ross Rubin (@rossrubin) contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

The Blu-ray Disc Association has positioned Toshiba joining its membership as the epilogue in the company’s once pitched battle for high-definition disc domination. It could, however, merely be a new chapter in the broader story of home entertainment as it uses the players not only to fill some product-line gaps but takes advantage of their connectivity to move to a future beyond any disc standard.

Back when it was tending to its fresh format war wounds, Toshiba did not always see this potential. After it exited– and effectively ended– the HD DVD market, the March 3, 2008 edition of The Wall Street Journal ran an interview with Toshiba chief executive Atsutoshi Nishida that detailed ambitious plans for avoiding Blu-ray. On the low end, Toshiba would improve DVD playback to seek near-parity with Blu-ray quality at lower cost. That idea was productized in Toshiba’s XDE DVD players and televisions. XDE was met with mixed reviews, however, and the plummeting prices of Blu-ray hardware last holiday season cut its viability short.

Flirting with connectivity on the high-end, Nishida noted that it was now possible to bridge PCs and televisions better, and that he wanted to put “even more energy” into video downloading. He may have been considering Toshiba’s Qosmio multimedia powerhouse notebooks as an engine for driving high-definition content to the television. However, the long-lingering idea of bridging the PC and television, while indeed becoming easier technologically, still simply isn’t worth the effort for most consumers. At CES 2009 as Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, Samsung, LG and Vizio showed off connected televisions, Toshiba didn’t announce any broadband content partnerships for its premium Regza line of TVs.

Continue reading Switched On: Toshiba and the Blu-ray Trojan Horse

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Switched On: Toshiba and the Blu-ray Trojan Horse originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sounds like RIM’s trying to do more than just bring the woeful BlackBerry browser up to par with the competition — Boy Genius Report says Waterloo’s trying to leap way out in front by building in full Flash and Silverlight support. BGR says it’ll be full Flash, not Flash Lite or the Open Screen Project’s mobile Flash 10 implementation, but don’t get too excited: it’ll be next summer before RIM ships devices fast enough to handle it, and even then things may be delayed since they’ll need HSPA or LTE data speeds to pull it off. Hey, maybe in the meantime all those engineers could maybe work on things like properly rendering a text page? Just an idea.

Filed under: Cellphones

BlackBerry browser to get full Flash and Silverlight support? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Aug 2009 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Canon Selphy ES40

(Credit: Canon USA)

Canon just added three new Pixma-branded printers and one Selphy standalone printer to its line of business and family-friendly devices. This debut also sees the materialization of Canon’s new Auto Fix II technology that takes one-click touch-ups to the next level of clarity, correcting many common photos including underexposed pictures or low-light backdrops.

Canon PIXMA MP990

(Credit: Canon USA)

Only the Pixma MP990 ($300) and MP640 ($220) printers will include this new feature, but both are also set up to print wireless (the MP640 has a built-in print server), vibrant photos thanks to Canon’s ChromaLife 100 ink system and the additional gray ink tank to enhance black and white snapshots.

Finally, the two Pixmas also include large LCD screens as well as Canon’s Easy-Scroll Wheel, which we first enjoyed on the Canon PIXMA MP980.

The Pixma iX7000 business inkjet rounds out the Pixma offering and contains auto duplexing, three paper feed trays, an extra large paper input, and Ethernet connectivity–all of which could help small business increase their printing productivity. The iX7000 will retail at $400.

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