Hasta La Gadget!

If there’s one thing scarier than going to the hospital for some potentially harmful harmfulness, it’s getting sicker due to some minor slip-up in the carefully-observed hygiene practices of your own personal Zach Braff M.D. That’s where Vioguard’s newly shipping UVKB50 self-sanitizing keyboard comes in, with a proximity detector to let a set of freshly sanitized keys slide out for use by a health care professional, which slide back once they’re not in use to get re-sterilized with anti-bacterial ultraviolet light. The $899 pricetag isn’t too bad given the application, but it probably won’t be making our own cubicles safer any time soon. Video of the keyboard in action is after the break.

Continue reading Vioguard’s self-sanitizing keyboard means maybe we don’t all have to die this year

Filed under: Peripherals

Vioguard’s self-sanitizing keyboard means maybe we don’t all have to die this year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 14:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gaming is about to change–forever. One of the highlights of this year’s newly rejuvenated E3 conference was a couple of motion-controlled gaming interfaces from Sony and Microsoft. Sony’s prototype uses ice-cream-cone-like wands, with a special camera that puts you and your actions in the game. Microsoft’s Project Natal also uses a special camera, but has dropped the controllers entirely. All you need is your body.

The videos and on-stage demonstrations from the event looked amazing. Still, I was skeptical,–until I got to try it for myself. The new gaming technology was honored as part last week’s Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Awards, which meant Project Natal made a rare live appearance at the pre-and post awards ceremony festivities. I lined up along with a number of children and other event attendees for a few minutes with the still-in-development gaming control system.

In a word, it’s remarkable.

As long-time Netbook fans, we’ve been well aware of the platform’s limitations, from choppy video playback to a total lack of gaming ability. These sticking points have kept many people from …

We kind of doubt the departure of Genentech’s former chief executive from Google’s board of directors will close all of this out in the FTC’s eyes, but if you were curious about the impact of said probe, here’s your answer. Just two months after Google’s Eric Schmidt peaced out from Apple’s board due to a “conflict of interest,” Arthur Levinson has left Google’s board for presumably the same reason. Schmidt is still obviously fond of Sir Levinson, noting that he has “has been a key part of Google’s success these past five years,” and while he’s exiting the board, he’ll “always have a special place at Google.” So, now that all of this is cleared up, can we finally move on without worrying that the aforementioned search giant will buy up the world’s remaining inventory of dark fiber, fuse into Apple and create a telepathic iPod that would rule the world until the dawn of the Robot Apocalypse?

[Via New York Times]

Filed under: Software

Arthur Levinson departs Google board amid FTC probe originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If we were miniature people forced to scrape by an existence of hiding from The Bigs and wearing adorable hats made out of thimbles, we’d be totally eyeing this little abode for our winter digs. Warming our tiny, oh-so-precious hands at the warmth of the CPU, cradling our hot chocolate mugs that are really hollowed out marshmallows and telling stories of when little Timmy Tinykins almost got sucked out the power supply exhaust fan! Oh, what magical times we would have.

[Thanks, CJ Johnson]

Filed under: Desktops

World’s cutest pint-sized living room sets up shop in a PC case originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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