Hasta La Gadget!

Sure, Project Natal is the hotness and a little bird tells us PlayStation Move is pretty bodacious, but you don’t have to buy a fancy game console to sooth your motion-tracking blues. When students at Cornell University wanted to play Human Tetris (and ace a final project to boot), they taught a 20Mhz, 8-bit microcontroller how to follow their moves. Combined with an NTSC camera, the resulting system can display a 39 x 60 pixel space at 24 frames per second, apparently enough to slot your body into some grooves — and as you’ll see in videos after the break, it plays a mean game of Breakout, too. Full codebase and plans to build your own at the source link. Eat your heart out, geeks.

Continue reading Students program Human Tetris into 8-bit microcontroller, give away schematics for free (video)

Students program Human Tetris into 8-bit microcontroller, give away schematics for free (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My, talk about a breath of fresh air. Canadian wireless subscribers have long since dealt with inhumane three-year contracts on mainstays like Rogers and Bell, signing over their cellular soul on a whim in order to get a marginally subsidized phone and a guaranteed bill for 36 months. We’ve heard for awhile now that Mobilicity was jonesing to change things up in the Great White North, and change it has. Shortly after receiving an all-important green light from the CRTC, the company has gone live with mobile service in Toronto, with a number of other large Canadian cities to follow in the months ahead. What’s most unique about the service, however, is that every single plan it sells is unlimited in nature, and there’s nary a contract to be found — you simply pick the phone you want, the plan you want, and then you pay upfront. It’s most akin to the various prepaid options here in the States (Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, etc.), but still — it’s a lovely alternative to have if you’re a Canuck. Unlimited calling and texting can be had for just $35 per month, while $65 per month nets you unlimited everything (including global texting, US long distance calling and data usage). The phone selection ain’t half bad either, with the only major “gotcha” being that extra roaming fees can apply if you use your mobile outside of metro Toronto (or in the future, away from the carrier’s specific coverage cities). Hit up the source link to get the facts straight from the horse’s moose’s mouth.

[Thanks, Endi]

Mobilicity launches service in Toronto: all plans unlimited, no contracts to speak of originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 04:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t you just love it when a plan comes together? Just a week after hearing that HP would soon be refreshing its TouchSmart tm2 convertible tablet with Core i3 and Core i5 options, in flies this: an Amazon product page confirming as much. The 12.1-inch, 4.72-pound TouchSmart tm2-2050us is currently in pre-order status, rocking a 2.13GHz Core i3-330M processor, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 640GB hard drive (5400RPM), Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), a WXGA LED-backlit display, Intel’s integrated graphics set, Altec Lansing speakers, a 5-in-1 card reader and gigabit Ethernet. You’ll also get a brushed aluminum finish, inbuilt webcam and fingerprint reader, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth, a trio of USB 2.0 sockets, HDMI / VGA outputs, audio in / out and a battery good for around four hours of use. You can get in line now in exchange for $949.99, and if we were the betting type, we’d surmise that a Core i5 version was just around the bend.

[Thanks, Daniel]

HP’s $950 TouchSmart tm2 surfaces at Amazon with Core i3-330M originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 May 2010 23:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 08, 2008 by CyberNet.

CNBC and other media outlets are reporting that the writer’s strike is over.  They quote former Walt Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner as saying, “It’s Over. A deal has been made and they’ll be back to work very soon.” Could it really be over? There’s been no official word from the Writers Guild of America on whether or not this is for real, but I’m sure we’ll be hearing one way or another, officially, very soon.

It’s hard to believe that the strike started back on November 5th, 2007. It’s already been three months since writers have been out of a job, and a Wikipedia article on the topic says that the strike has already cost the industry over $1 billion dollars in those three months. One of the biggest issues with the strike was that there was conflict on how the writers should be compensated for “new media,” or in other words, online content which most of us are all familiar with.

CNBC interviewed Eisner about the strike and he was quoted as saying “If there was going to be a strike I think it should have been 3 years from now when (the writers) really understood the definition of the online business and where the revenues are coming from.” That was a great point that he made because the online business for media is still developing. One example of this is NBC who is trying to see what they can do online with Hulu. At this point I think it’s still an experiment for them.  Who’s to say what the online business for media will be like in just three years from now.  At that point in time, I believe everybody will have a better idea of how the online business for TV shows and movies will work and how everybody should be compensated for their work.

Hopefully it is over because I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for some of my favorite shows to return. I’ve been waiting patiently for too long now for 24 to start again…

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On May 16, 1960, Theodore Maiman did something totally awesome at Hughes Lab: he fired the first functional laser and sent the future of arena rock and the rave scene well on its way. Hughes Lab has since moved on to become the military skunkworks Raytheon and the laser has moved into history as one of the coolest things to ever come out of a laboratory. Not a week goes by that we don’t see someone doing something amazing with the things, whether it’s blowing up ballistic missiles or just beaming your home movies on the wall. So, to everyone involved in the creation of the laser (including the great Albert Einstein himself), we salute you with this commemorative video embedded below.

Continue reading The laser turns 50, we hope to still be that cool at that age (video)

The laser turns 50, we hope to still be that cool at that age (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 15 May 2010 18:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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