The Pentagon division is looking for someone to build a flying four-person vehicle that travels by road and air and takes off without a runway. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-20002587-42.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Military Tech/a/p
Opera’s new iPhone browser has capped over a million downloads the first day of widespread availability. Cue Dr. Evil. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-19512_7-20002593-233.html” class=”origPostedBlog”iPhone Atlas/a/p
The 2010 MacBook Pro lineup still lacks HDMI-out, but that doesn’t mean that a small but important tweak hasn’t been made.
After Nokia sold off its home automation assets to another Finnish firm by the name of There, the idea was that we’d finally see some product in the marketplace in early 2010. Well, here we are in the middle of April and there hasn’t been anything made available just yet, but we’d chalk this up as a good sign: the so-called ThereGate — the cerebral cortex of There’s system — just garnered FCC approval. As a refresher, this is a box that packs 6GB of internal storage (expandable with an SDHC slot), a 4-port gigabit router, 802.11n WiFi, and a GSM / 3G radio — which is all interesting in itself, but the real magic comes into play when you notice that it supports the Z-Wave short-range mesh networking protocol as well. Though There’s focus is on “energy saving and efficiency” with support for things like power meters, the Z-Wave radio should allow it to interact with a variety of compatible modules to control lighting, security, and the like — and naturally, There’s Nokia roots mean that you’ll be able to access the box remotely using your phone. We don’t know when this will be released exactly, but it’s got support for both European and US Z-Wave frequencies, so we might see a coordinated launch on both sides of the pond before too long.
There Corporation’s ThereGate passes FCC muster, Nokia-flavored home automation on the way originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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After weeks of rumors, HTC and Verizon Wireless finally announce the upcoming availability of HTC’s latest Android device, the Droid Incredible. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20002594-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p
Most consumers appreciate the way gadgets keep getting thinner and lighter. But soldiers who use gadgets in the midst of extreme combat situations demand even more. That’s why Hewlett-Packard says it is working on a prototype of a solar-powered, lightweight computer display that can be wrapped around a soldier’s wrist.
The flexible display, just about 200 microns thick, could show data such as maps or directions. It will be powered by solar cells.
“Soldiers in the infantry carry enormous amounts of batteries and gadgets that can weigh up to 70 pounds,” says Carl Taussig, director of HP’s Information Surfaces lab, which is working on the project. “We could make it easier for them.”
The first prototypes will be offered to the military starting early next year, says Taussig.
The displays would be use E Ink’s display technology. But they will be manufactured using a roll-to-roll process, similar to the way ink is printed on paper.
Flexible displays are paper-like computer displays made almost entirely of plastic. The Army has funded research at Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center that could bring in screens that are light and flexible enough to be rolled up and put into your backpack.
Flexibility isn’t just an advantage for the users. It also has the potential to simplify the process of display manufacturing. HP, and other companies, such as Ntera, are trying to create a manufacturing process that would allow the fabrication of thin-film transistor arrays on flexible materials such as plastic. The idea is to create displays that can be produced continuously, like newspapers rolling off a printing press, instead of the batch production that traditional displays use, which is more like the way cookies are cut. Roll-to-roll manufacturing would result in displays that are not just bendable but also relatively inexpensive to produce.
To create that for a real-world device, HP says it will have to re-engineer how the displays are made and powered. The company plans to use a black-and-white, low-power display technology from E Ink — the same technology that’s inside popular e-book readers such as the Kindle.
A thin layer of electronics will drive the E Ink screen. Optical and electronic components will be stamped onto the plastic. HP says it will work with a company called Phicot that it spun out recently to produce these displays.
Solar-powered cells that that are integrated into a piece of fabric will be connected to the flexible wrist displays.
The flexible wrist displays will be fairly small to begin with — around the size of an index card — but HP hopes that if they prove to be reliable enough, they can scale up production to slightly bigger versions.
“In the future, we think all displays will be made of plastic and our version of the Dick Tracy watch will be the first step towards it,” says Taussig.
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Top photo: Flexible solar cells printed on fabric/ HP
Oh sure, it’s not that we’ve never seen a 4K x 2K display before, but few are both a) this small and b) this connected. Introduced over at NAB 2010, the LUM-560W is quite a different beast from the two OLED sets already shown by TVLogic. Boasting a 56-inch 10-bit panel, a native 3,840 x 2,160 resolution, 1,500:1 contrast ratio and support for the company’s own color calibrator utility, the only major bummer is the totally corporate bezel that we’re forced to deal with. There’s also too many ports to count, but we’ll try: four HDMI inputs, four DVI-D inputs, four 3G/HD/SD-SDI inputs and four 3G/HD/SD-SDI outputs. There’s nary a mention of price of availability, but you’ll probably need a nice archive of raw RED footage before you genuinely care about either.
TVLogic debuts 56-inch LUM-560W 4K x 2K LCD a few years ahead of time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Got yourself a new PEN? If you’re nodding your head furiously up and down, you owe it to yourself to take ten minutes late next week and install a minty fresh update. Olympus has today let loose a new firmware build that improves auto focus performance for still images and high-definition video recording for the PEN E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1 cameras. Better still, it enables the menu and recorded image to be displayed on the E-P2 and E-PL1 LCD while the VF-2 electronic viewfinder is in use. Unfortunately, the bits and bytes you’re after won’t be available to download until next Thursday (the 22nd), but till then, you can keep on using your Micro Four Thirds shooter while imagining how much better your images will be in just a few short days.
Continue reading Olympus serves up autofocus update for PEN E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1 cameras
Olympus serves up autofocus update for PEN E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1 cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 11:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Give your car an upgrade: Toshiba just announced a 200GB hard disk drive for the car, the largest automotive-grade drive on the market. Known by the poetic name of MK2060GSC, this 4,200-rpm SATA drive provides vehicle-systems manufacturers with high-capacity storage for telematics, navigation, and entertainment systems.
Toshiba has already shipped 14 million automotive-grade HDDs worldwide, and had 75 percent of the global market in 2009. With more classes of auto offering in-dash infotainment systems, that number should only increase.
With the MK2060GSC, Toshiba is delivering a 78 percent improvement on internal transfer rates, a seek time of 12 milliseconds, and quiet operation. It will be commercially available in the third quarter.
Sony PlayTV getting Facebook, still no love for stateside PS3 owners originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 10:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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