Hasta La Gadget!

Ever heard of quantum tunneling? It’s the basis for the latest approach to gather steam in the never-ending quest to endue touchscreens with force recognition, and its promises are as lofty as you’d expect. Developed by UK researchers Peratech, this new methodology revolves around a 75-micrometer (less than a tenth of a millimeter) quantum tunneling composite, which display makers can add to their screens relatively cheaply and painlessly. The pressure-sensing layer consumes no power when it isn’t depressed and requires a miniscule two micrometers of movement to register a touch. Japanese display maker Nissha (who counts LG and Nintendo among its customers) has grabbed a license and we’re even hearing devices could be coming out as soon as April. Check the Peratech site for more info.

Pressure-sensitive touchscreens show up on the not too distant horizon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 04:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know, January is all but expired now. Gone are the heady (or is that headless?) days of CES 2010, and we’re nearly past the rumor euphoria of the decade, so what do we have to look forward to? According to CNET‘s sources, WinMo 7. This year. Sure, we heard as much from DigiTimes, but it’s always good to put a more legitimate source to what is quite the juicy forecast. Confirmation that Microsoft is planning to finalize all code by this summer also meshes with an earlier leak of an LG Windows Mobile 7 handset set for a September release, while the latest Pink phone rumors are also reiterated. At any rate, it all kicks off in Barcelona come February 15, with Microsoft also circling its MIX 2010 web development conference a month later as the time it’ll start dishing the dirt on how to code for the new OS. So there we have it, new consumer phones and a long overdue WinMo overhaul all coming to you within the next few months.

Windows Mobile 7 roadmap elucidated, starts with MWC 2010 demo originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple might think it’s going to change the world tomorrow with some sort of crazy tablet, but we’re here to tell you that the world has already changed. American humans will soon be able to buy a product called “Puppy Tweets,” a product actually designed, tested, and released by the Mattel corporation. First, you need a dog with a Twitter account. (Who doesn’t have one of those?) Then, you need to use $30 of your actual money to buy Puppy Tweets, a plastic sound-and-motion sensor that clips onto your dog’s collar and sends out several pre-written tweets that have extreme amounts of dignity, like “YAHOOOOOOO! Somedays you just gotta get your bark on.” Then you have to weep gently for the future of our society.

Puppy Tweets lets your puppy… tweet originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 23:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that Apple is supposedly set to introduce a tablet device (AKA the Apple Tablet, iSlate, etc.) at its latest event that will change the lives of every man, woman, and child on the planet. Sure, it could just be a fresh version of iLife and an 8GB iPhone 3GS, but we kinda doubt that. If you know what’s best for you, you’ll tune in for our minute-by-minute, live coverage of the event. There won’t be a better seat in the house… well, except for wherever Steve Jobs is sitting.

The show gets going on Wednesday, January 27th at 10AM PT.

You can follow updates on Twitter or Facebook as well.

Here’s the URL where you should park your browser, and below are starting times around the globe:

08:00AM – Hawaii
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
01:00PM – Eastern
06:00PM – London
07:00PM – Paris
09:00PM – Moscow
03:00AM – Tokyo (January 28th)

Our live coverage of the Apple ‘latest creation’ event starts tomorrow at 10:00AM PT / 1:00PM ET originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen plenty of ways for board games to be revitalized with large touchscreens, but a new concept from the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Ontario puts the screens and interactivity onto the gaming pieces themselves. The idea would be to use slim, networked touchscreen hexagonal tiles with edge-to-edge OLED displays. The proximity of the tiles to one another, along with gestures performed with the tiles, provides the interactivity, and the occasional branching touchscreen menu selection keeps play humming. Unfortunately, that enabling tech isn’t all there yet (at least in university-affordable forms), but the video demo after the break is pretty convincing in its presentation of these ideas in a top-down-projection simulation. Certainly promising, but we’re sure not expecting to see this sort of gaming priced within reach of your average Sorry! board anytime soon.

Continue reading Hexagonal interactive OLED gaming tiles likely to cost a bundle, would sure spice up our Wednesday nights

Hexagonal interactive OLED gaming tiles likely to cost a bundle, would sure spice up our Wednesday nights originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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