Hasta La Gadget!

Four balls appear to roll uphill in an uncanny creation by Japanese researcher Kokichi Sugihara. The prize-winning illusion is one of many examples of what Sugihara calls “impossible motion.”

If you’re reading Engadget today (and let’s be honest, you’re reading it right now), then you might have noticed that Adobe has launched a pretty full-force campaign to call out Apple on its anti-Flash mission. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, it’s the advertisements that start with “We [heart] Apple.” Along with the web ads, the company has also snagged a full page in today’s Washington Post to address the battle in which the two companies have been engaged. All of this links back to a new statement from Adobe, as well as an open letter from founders Chuck Geschke and John Warnock (“Our thoughts on open markets”), addressing Apple’s recent spate of clear and direct attacks against the company and its products. Most of the reading should sound familiar to those of us who’ve been following the saga, but here are a few choice quotes from the duo:

We believe that consumers should be able to freely access their favorite content and applications, regardless of what computer they have, what browser they like, or what device suits their needs. No company – no matter how big or how creative – should dictate what you can create, how you create it, or what you can experience on the web.

When markets are open, anyone with a great idea has a chance to drive innovation and find new customers. Adobe’s business philosophy is based on a premise that, in an open market, the best products will win in the end – and the best way to compete is to create the best technology and innovate faster than your competitors.

We believe that Apple, by taking the opposite approach, has taken a step that could undermine this next chapter of the web – the chapter in which mobile devices outnumber computers, any individual can be a publisher, and content is accessed anywhere and at any time.

In the end, we believe the question is really this: Who controls the World Wide Web? And we believe the answer is: nobody – and everybody, but certainly not a single company.

So, it’s clear this issue isn’t going to die out any time soon, and it’s also clear that Adobe is going to go to great lengths to defend and protect its cash-cow. Of course, if they really want this message to hit home to the core iPad and iPhone users out there, they’re going to need to run that ad in HTML5.

Note: As you should know, the ad sales and editorial teams at Engadget are separate entities, so this campaign was as much a surprise to us as it probably is to you!

Adobe targets Apple in ad campaign launched today, publishes open letter from founders originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 07:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading N-trig demos advanced N-act multitouch gestures, coming to laptops and tablets later this year

N-trig demos advanced N-act multitouch gestures, coming to laptops and tablets later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 07:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips‘ Master LED bulbs may well have been forgotten in the US — as far as we can tell, they never showed up for that hot date last July — but it’s hard to be miffed when the company’s new bulbs, dubbed EnduraLED, are four times as bright. Due in the fourth quarter of the year, the 60W equivalent at left sucks down only 12 watts of electricity but emits a reported 806 lumens of soft white light — a ratio green enough to save the world, Philips claims, if only you’ll buy in. Problem is, people’s generosity typically depends on price, and a company rep told us we’ll shell out around $60 per bulb when the shiny silver socketables ship. Mind you, that’s just an initial figure, but until we hear different we’ll be going to Home Depot for our lighting needs, thank you very much. Press release after the break.

Continue reading Philips’ new LED light bulbs are brighter, more efficient, not cheap

Philips’ new LED light bulbs are brighter, more efficient, not cheap originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 May 2010 06:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The good, fun-loving folks at Mac software house Panic got an odd request in their inbox. Nerd artist Stewart Smith had spotted an old Apple ][e sitting in the Panic office in a photograph and asked if they would run some code on it for him and video the results. The code was used to make an amazing text-based animated promo for the band Grandaddy.

The Panic guys, being geeks to the core, agreed. There was one problem: how to get the software onto the computer? The code came in sonic form, meant to be loaded with a cassette player. Panic took a look around the office and saw the answer. An iPad.

They loaded up an MP3 of the program, plugged the iPad into the Apple and pressed play. Panic’s Cabel Sasser puts it thus “It’s an obvious solution in retrospect, but there is something very unreal and amazing about tapping a button on a multi-touch screen and watching an Apple //e fill up with data.”

And there is further irony. Panic’s flagship product is Transmit, an FTP program whose purpose is also to shift data from here to there. You’ll need to click on over to the Panic Blog to see the clip, as it comes in non-embeddable, non-Flash form and instead in nice clean HTML5-compliant H.264 or Ogg Vorbis.

An Apple //e, an iPad, and Jed [Panic Blog]