Hasta La Gadget!

Momentous moment alert — the EU has just closed the book on its lengthy investigation into potential Microsoft antitrust violations. Lasting through nearly the entire noughties, The European Commission’s dissatisfaction with what it perceived as monopolistic practices from Redmond has resulted in some hefty fines over the years, but the conclusion to hostilities has been pleasingly amicable. In exchange for Microsoft’s legally binding promise to offer up to 12 other browsers alongside its own, the European executive will give the company a clean bill of competition-friendly health. All this means is that the ballot screen will be around on Windows operating systems for at least the next five years (starting in mid-March 2010), which should give the EU plenty of time to think up the next batch of allegations to throw Microsoft’s way.

EU settles affairs with Microsoft, no fines this time originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

Americans love gadgets and hate housework. Not surprisingly, Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, has become a hit among consumers.

Now, a new home robot promises to offer some competition to iRobot’s Roomba.

Meet Neato, a vacuum cleaner that at the push of a button sucks up dirt and dust from floors and carpets quickly and efficiently. Neato has a “Room Positioning System” that lets the robot use laser vision to map your entire floor space and avoid most obstacles that systems like Roomba can only detect by impact.

Though millions of vacuum cleaners are sold in the United States every year, a very small percentage of them are robotic vacuums. IRobot has been the only company to offer a robotic cleaner that can pick up dirt without requiring someone to push it around.

IRobot introduced the first Roomba automated vacuum cleaner in 2002. Since then, the company has sold more than 3 million Roombas and the gadget has become a big hit among technophiles looking for a quick fix to daily chores. In 2005, iRobot launched a robotic floor mop called Scooba.

Despite a passionate community of users, Roomba has faced a few criticisms. The gadget uses a randomized algorithm to clean a room, which has led to complaints that it doesn’t always cover an area completely. Roomba has also suffered from a small bin that limits how much it can clean on a single battery charge. That also limits its ability to clean multiple rooms.

Neato can solve some of those problems, says the company, because it is smarter. The device has a mapping technology that allows it to get a 360-degree view of a room. When first powered up, Neato maps the details of the room such as the walls, furniture and doorways within a 4-meter range.

So instead of the zigzag pattern that the Roomba uses, the Neato cleans in a precise back-and-forth movement.

But like the Roomba, the Neato can work with both hardwood floors and carpets. Users can also schedule Neato to clean. The robot will automatically return to its docking station once it completes a cleaning cycle or if it needs to recharge its batteries.

The D-shaped Neato also has a low profile — it is about 4 inches high — so it can slide under beds, couches and other crevices easily.

But unlike the Roomba, the Neato comes in only one flavor and a single price tag. The Neato costs $400, while the cheapest version of the Roomba is $130. The Neato will start shipping in February.

See Also:

• Long Exposure Shows Weblike Roomba Light-Trail
• Roomba Tweak for Neat Freaks
• Hack: Control Roomba Vacuum Cleaner Using Wii Fit
• Roomba Maker Will Build Blob Bots
• Researchers Tweak Roomba to Respond to Emotions

Photo: Neato Robotics

Google is expected to sell the Nexus One Googlephone direct from its site in “early January”. If a semi-secret countdown displayed in huge letters on the Google.com homepage is any kind of hint, then “early January” could mean January 1st 2010.

To see the mystery countdown, go to Google.com and, without entering a query, hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button (see, it is still good for something). Up will pop a countdown, currently at around 1,335,200. It appears to be ticking away the seconds, and it will hit zero in just under 15.5 days, which is January 1st, 2010.

Of course, it could just be a countdown to the New Year, but as Google has a habit of advertising some of its biggest products (the G1 handset, for example) on the front page of Google.com, it could also be the Nexus One. It would also continue Google’s annoying habit of making big product announcements on weekends and holidays, the times that tech bloggers traditionally are too drunk to write.

Mystery page [Google]

See Also:

• Google Phone's Existence Confirmed; It's Unlocked, Thinner Than …
• Nexus One Hardware Details Revealed
• Nexus
• The Blade Runner Nexus

When we first mentioned D-Wave way back in early 2007 we immediately compared it to Steorn — less than optimal beginnings. The company was promising quantum computing for the masses and, while it did demonstrate a machine that exhibited qubit-like behavior, the company never really silenced critics who believed the underpinnings of the machine were rather more binary in nature. Those disbelievers are surely shutting up now, with word hitting the street that Google has signed on, building new image search algorithms that run on D-Wave’s C4 Chimera chip. The first task was to learn to spot automobiles in pictures, something that the quantum machine apparently learned to do simply by looking at other pictures of cars. It all sounds rather neural-networkish to us, but don’t let our fuzzy logic cloud your excitement over the prospect of honest to gosh commercial quantum computing.

Google working with D-Wave on what may or may not be quantum computing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink ars technica  |  Google Research Blog  | Email this | Comments

We know, we know — the original Roomba saves children from peril, plays real-life Pacman, and steals its owners’ hearts away, but let’s give LG’s refreshed autonomous robovac a chance, shall we? Now equipped with two cameras (claimed to be an industry first) and lowering operational noise to a more bearable 50dB, the RoboKing is back in town and pining for your attention. It’s more compact than its previous iteration, stretching up to only 90mm, and it’s also said to be 30 percent faster on the job. Nice gains, to be sure, but we’d still like to see how this machine handles before we’re convinced. Bonus video after the break.

Continue reading LG RoboKing adds second camera, seeks to escape Roomba shadow

LG RoboKing adds second camera, seeks to escape Roomba shadow originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Dec 2009 06:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Akihabara News  |  LG Korea  | Email this | Comments