When Apple quietly introduced the Unibody Mac Mini, many people wondered if it was the perfect HTPC. Considering that it packs a HDMI-port (a first for Apple) and is housed in a sleek design, it just may be. More »
Got a bunch of photovoltaic cells and a vehicle that requires electricity? Toshiba’s thought up a process dubbed “Charge Grid” by which you can juice the latter efficiently. When the sun’s out and the electrons are flowing, it doesn’t pay to put them into the grid, so this system stores them in a rechargeable battery ready to rapidly charge your EV. For nighttime when the electricity rates are low, a bidirectional inverter lets you hop right back on the neighborhood grid, so your solar cells are put to good use and your car is always well fed. The company tells Tech-On commercialization of the system is still a few years away, so you’ve plenty of time to raze that roof antenna in favor of some photosynthesized electricity.
Toshiba’s Charge Grid puts your solar panels to work, smartly charges your EV originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Biochip bracelets be damned — nanoengineers at UC San Diego want to put sensors in your skivvies. Researchers have begun prototyping a pair of tighty-whiteys coated with the requisite carbon electrodes to make electrochemical computing a reality, as it turns out the nether regions are a prime place to measure chemicals excreted in one’s sweat. Until recently, there was some question whether the enzyme sensor solution would handle the stresses of daily life, so to speak, but these briefs were up to the task — subjected to a torturous gauntlet of bending and stretching, a treated elastic waistband was still able to adequately measure chemicals as required. Funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, project leaders envision “smart underwear” that measures a soldier’s sweat for warning signs and automatically trigger an appropriate medical dosage. We think they might be getting a wee bit ahead of themselves, though — we don’t yet know how they handle detergent, let alone a quality color-safe bleach. Video after the break, but don’t expect any footage of the underpants actually being worn.
Continue reading Scientists create sweat-monitoring underwear, break them in (video)
Scientists create sweat-monitoring underwear, break them in (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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A week back we got word that Best Buy house brand Insignia was moving in on Dash territory with the eight-inch, 800 x 600 Infocast Internet Media Display, and that it’d be releasing on June 20. Sure enough it’s now available online, and is also sitting on a shelf at every local store we checked, meaning this is perhaps the quickest and easiest way to get your cuddle-free Chumby on. At $169 it’s $30 less than the Dash, meaning it makes a little more sense than Sony’s option, but whether or not it’s actually good value depends on just how smart you need your alarm clock to be.
[Thanks, Josh L.]
Insignia’s Infocast Internet Media Display, the Dash-aping Chumby frame, now available originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Barnes Noble makes an aggressive move to cut into Amazon’s lead in the e-book market, adding a new entry-level Nook and dropping the Nook 3G’s price.
Shimano thinks that an electric bike “has to be a bicycle.” To this end, a new component set is designed to integrate with an existing bike to convert it into a full-on e-bike, but still let it work as a regular bicycle.
The system is called STEPS, which stands for Shimano Total Electric Power System. In the full set you’ll get a 250-watt front hub motor (geared), a torque-sensing bottom-bracket, a rotation-sensing crankset, a rack-mounted battery with integrated rear lamp, a pair of brake levers with switches to control everything, a front lamp and a bar-mounted computer so you know what it is all doing.
Finally, at the back you have one of Shimano’s 8-speed Nexus hubs which has electronic shifting.
The STEPS system has all the modern features you’d expect, from regenerative-braking (switched on when you hit the brakes), a Li-Ion battery (a one-hour charge gives 25 or 37 miles range depending on power-mode) and a decent-enough top speed of 15 mph.
You can mix and match parts, swapping in V-brakes and the like, although having the powered-hub without the battery would be rather pointless. The price has not yet been announced, as the STEPS system will launch at Eurobike in September. And while you’ll surely be able to grab the parts yourself, you’re more likely to see STEPS showing up as an option on ready-made bikes.
E-Bikes are certainly getting popular, and if they get more people cycling that’s got to be a good thing, right?. What do you think? Are electric bikes a good or a bad thing?
Shimano Launches Components Range for Electric Bikes [Bike Europe via Bicycle Design and Bike Radar]
When Google listed which companies were diving head first into the Chrome OS pool, Dell was surprisingly spotted standing around without its floaties on. Of course, that didn’t stop the company from installing the OS on one of its netbooks just for fun. Now, hot on the heels of a Dell-specific Chrome configuration, we have word from Amit Midha, Dell’s President for Greater China and South Asia, that the two companies are in talks regarding future use of the blingy OS. Midha isn’t indicating just what that future use might be, saying only that his company just wants to be “one of the leaders” with the technology. With Acer seemingly ready to announce hardware any day now, Round Rock’s best had better get rolling.
Dell confirms talks with Google about Chrome OS originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Is there an HDMI 1.4-compatible Blu-ray player in your future? LG’s BX580 wants to be your player of today. The device is now shipping, more or less falling in line with the “month or two” estimate we got back in May, but clocking in at $100 less than the $400 we’d expected it at. Sure it’s listed on Amazon’s page at $399, but add it to your shopping cart and (spoiler alert) it’s actually just $299.86. That’s a relative bargain — though we’d still have a hard time choosing this over an equally 3D-ready PS3.
LG’s BX580 network 3D Blu-ray player now shipping for $100 less than expected originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Panasonic has released more details of its upcoming Micro Four Thirds (M4/3) camcorder, the mysterious AG-AF100, which was originally announced back in April. And while we have no price or firm launch date (we’re still looking at the end of the year), there is a lot for videographers to get excited about.
Most important, the camcorder will work with all of Panasonic’s G-series lenses, those made for the existing M4/3 stills cameras. This, by extension, means that you’ll also be able to use the available adapters to put just about any 35mm lens on the front.
Then come details of the shooting formats. The AF100 will shoot AVCHD video in 1080 and 720-line sizes, at frame rates of 59.94, 50, 29.97, 25 or 23.9p (this last mimics the frame rate of traditional film cameras). Up to 12-hours of footage can be captured to the twin SDXC card slots, and the camera will talk to microphones and other video hardware via standard XLR and HD-SDI sockets.
For a (presumably) budget-friendly price, a large-sensor camcorder with access to thousands of great lenses is a sweet prospect. It might not have the flexibility of video-shooting DSLRs like the Canon 5D MkII, but neither will you need to bolt on so many accessories that it ends up looking like a Borg. The (PDF) link to the product details is dead right now, but in the meantime you can read a little more at the intermediary DP Review page.
AG-AF100 details (PDF) [Panasonic via DP Review]
See Also:
New Exploratorium exhibit angles to move geometry from the textbook realm to the experiential realm with displays like cool 3D climbing structures.
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