Hasta La Gadget!

We don’t usually associate RCA with new and innovative technologies, but we think know they’re on to something with its Airnergy power system, which harvests energy from WiFi signals. Shipping this summer, the pocketable dongle picks up WiFi signals from the air and manages to charge an internal battery through some magic inside. You don’t have to connect to a network, you just have to be in a place that has signal, and it will automatically charge up. As if we weren’t intrigued already, they told us that they’re planning on building the tech into actual cellphone batteries, so you would theoretically never need to plug in again and your device would always be topped off. Yeah, we want.

Continue reading Airnergy WiFi power system gives RCA a reason to exist (video)

Airnergy WiFi power system gives RCA a reason to exist (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In 2003~04, mobile carrier NTT Docomo released a series of “Vision 2010″ videos designed to show the world what the digital future would look like in less than a decade. Japan’s mobile ecosystem is surely the world’s most dynamic, but it’s interesting to see how lofty Docomo’s goals were. While other carriers have different focuses on their brands (Softbank on price, and AU on design), Docomo has long been a leader in future technology such as mobile payment.

Sure, we’re not doing full holographic mobile medical diagnosis in our automated robot cars (and our kids don’t look like Dr. Spock), but there’s still quite a lot that’s happened in the last seven years in the global mobile industry that can be seen in these videos.

Was Docomo too bold in these predictions? After all, 6~7 years isn’t much to accomplish such lofty mobile goals, but it’s a perfect demonstration of how Japanese companies aren’t just looking for the obvious answers.

A great example is the AT&T “You will” ads from 1993 that “predicted” with pretty good accuracy what our digital future will look like. Of course, they were completely wrong about who would actually be bringing the technology, and it’s also notable that even in 1993 they had their video-calling mother using a phone booth!

The Docomo videos are also filled with people doing video calls from all around the world. This is an interesting case study, because the technology and infrastructure to support these calls has been around for several years, and many Japanese are already carrying handsets with forward-facing cameras. However, it’s lack of consumer demand that has put off our video calling future. Even if the video calling function were paid for from the “all you can eat” data plans most Japanese have (rather than as an extra charge as it is now), we’re skeptical that it would get much use in the current environment.

Below you can find Docomo’s latest video (released in 2008), “The Road to Hokusai’s Waterfall“. Let’s come back to this one in ten years and see where we stand.

Thanks to Stephan Kinsella for the tip

Like simple and unsophisticated tests? Here’s one sure to generate some heated discussion. MOTO, a group of super brains that assists companies from startups to Microsoft in their product development, has devised a dead-simple test to measure the accuracy of touchscreen devices. The test involves slowly drawing a few diagonal lines across the display using any drawing program on your device. Straight lines are good — stair-stepping is bad. Now, assuming the app isn’t doing some kind of smoothing algorithm then what you see above is symbolic of the accuracy of the iPhone, Droid Eris, Droid, and Nexus One (moving left to right). We met with Morgan Venable, Senior Project Lead / Electical Engineer at MOTO, and saw this test performed live here at CES. Compelling stuff. Video after the break.

Update: Test under medium pressure after the break.

Continue reading MOTO gives straight advice on smartphone touchscreen quality (video)

MOTO gives straight advice on smartphone touchscreen quality (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 15:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh UMID mBook BZ, it’s not easy being the unwanted offspring of a netbook and a MID, is it? Well, it sure isn’t easy on us either. After spending a bit of time with the hand-sized device, we just don’t really see how anyone could use the small clamshell for more than a few minutes at a time. But hit the break for some hands-on impressions and a video of the $549 lilliputian laptop and decide for yourself.

Continue reading UMID mBook BZ two-fingers on

UMID mBook BZ two-fingers on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jasmine and Donald report live from the show floor on the Best of CES finalists and all of Monster’s shenanigans.

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Originally posted at MP3 Insider