How does multitasking on iOS 4 devices work with respect to turn-by-turn navigation? Navigon demonstrates with its MobileNavigator app and an iPhone. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20008190-48.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Car Tech blog/a/p
IBM, whose ‘Deep Blue’ supercomputer took on and beat grandmaster Gerry Kasparov in chess, has a new challenge: “Jeopardy”. The company’s “Watson” supercomputer will take on human contestants as early as this fall, The New York Times reports.
The challenge is considered to be a difficult one because of the complexities of natural larguage parsing, pop cultrual references, and wordplay, all of which are hallmarks of the “Jeopardy” stable of questions.
The so-called Watson “Question Answering System” has been under development for more than three years, according to IBM. Like its human opponents, it is isolated, and not allowed to connect to the Internet. It receives its input via a text message.
Watson, a roomful of servers, apparently convincingly beat its human opponents. “Over the rest of the day, Watson went on a tear, winning four of six
games,” the Times reported. “It displayed remarkable facility with cultural trivia (‘This
action flick starring Roy Scheider in a high-tech police helicopter was
also briefly a TV series” — ‘What is ‘Blue Thunder”?’), science (‘The
greyhound originated more than 5,000 years ago in this African country,
where it was used to hunt gazelles’– ‘What is Egypt?’)” and so on.
Watson’s secret? Its database, its speed, and its more than a hundred algorithms, which parse a question in different ways, generating hundreds of possible
solutions. But it also has room for improvement; the story talks about its weird fixation with Tommy Lee Jones, for example.
Tired of The Man holding you down on the tablet front with his oppressive App Stores, his tyrannical carrier constraints, and other outrageous insults to your civil liberties? Well now you can break free of this stranglehold, thanks to a company called Liquidware and its open source, DIY tablet starter kit. The premise is simple: Liquidware provides a touchscreen OLED display (4.3-inch, 480 x 272, resistive touch), the BeagleBoard guts (a single-board computer driven by a 720MHz ARM Cortex-A8 OMAP3530 CPU, with 2GB of NAND and an SD card slot), and the BeagleJuice battery module, along with an SD card pre-loaded with Angstrom Linux. You put all the pieces together and then just basically go nuts, designing your own application marketplace, infrastructure for direct-to-consumer video and audio sales, and a revolutionary and magical user interface that blurs the lines between waking life and a hallucinatory dream-state where anything is possible, and the only limitation is yourself. Check the Moscone Center’s booking information below to see scheduling availability for your developer conference, and hit the source link to offer up your $393.61 to Liquidware.
DIY tablet kit is less than $400, more complicated than an iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Striking a little bit after the iron is hot, Earloomz is accepting pre-orders for Lakers-themed Bluetooth headsets. You can also pre-order Celtics-themed headsets, although I’m not sure why you’d want to.
The company is offering two designs for each team, with each model going for $59.95. Each uses Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR technology, has noise cancellation, and offers last number redial. Some people like Bluetooth headsets that are as inconspicuous as possible. Other people wear loud designs that advertise basketball teams.
“But what about us?” say the fans of all the other professional teams. Well, you haven’t been left out. Earloomz will formally announce the rest of the line beginning July 4th. Take a break from your fireworks and potato salad to search out the gaudy designs they have for the rest of the NBA.
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pToday’s episode of The 404 Podcast is all about techy gift recommendations for Father’s Day, a href=”http://youropenbook.org/”OpenBook/a exposing more Facebook privacy issues, and an amazing video of a a href=”http://cantdecide.tumblr.com/post/711689491/thedailywhat-super-mario-beatbox-of-the-day”Japanese beatboxer performing the Super Mario theme song/a./p
pWe begin the show by pulling our own version of a yellow card in response to the a href=”http://sports.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474978311645″questionable officiating/a in this morning’s World Cup match between USA and Slovenia, but you’ll have to tune in to hear our twist on the penalty./p
pFather’s Day is this weekend, and if you still don’t know what to get for your Dad, a title=”RadioShack to offer T-Mobile phones for free too — Thursday, Jun 17, 2010″ href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20008120-85.html”T-Mobile is offering free phones this Saturday/a, and not just the shoddy, old flip phones, either. Any phone in the store is free including the a class=”cnet-product” href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/t-mobile-mytouch-3g/4505-6452_7-34083291.html”MyTouch 3G Slide/a and the a class=”cnet-product” href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/htc-hd2-unlocked/4505-6452_7-33775409.html”HTC HD2/a that normally goes for nearly $200, but there’s a catch: the free phones only come with a family plan (either new or existing) and you might have to go through the hassle of a mail-in rebate as well./p
pa title=”RadioShack to offer T-Mobile phones for free too — Thursday, Jun 17, 2010″ href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20008120-85.html”RadioShack is offering a similar deal/a this Saturday, but its phones work on any plan and it also offers instant rebates in the store./p
pIf your Pops already has a phone, you might consider getting him an Apple iPad, and we run down a list of a href=”http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2010/06/5-reasons-why-your-mom-wants-an-ipad/58185/”five reasons why it makes the perfect gift for parents/a. In addition to being user-friendly, The Atlantic claims that parents desire the iPad because they simply don’t know that you can get wireless 3G access to work with their existing laptop or Netbook for much cheaper. They also argue that since Baby Boomers are less than tech-savvy, they’ll likely view the device as more novel than it actually is.
piStill/i can’t figure out what to get Dad? CNET has you covered with all our a href=”http://reviews.cnet.com/fathers-day-gift-ideas/”editors’ personal picks for the teched-out Fathers/a out there, so make it a good one! Happy Father’s Day!/p
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While you’re waiting (and waiting and waiting) for your Apple iPhone 4, study up on the cases that are available for it. Griffin has announced its first iPhone 4 accessories. The Elan Holster Metal (shown here) is a flip-top horizontal case with an integrated clip. A Velcro enclosure holds the flap shut. It lists for $34.99.
You can also choose the Elan Passport Wallet ($34.99) which has metal accents and card pockets. It not only keeps you iPhone protected, but helps you organize all the things you need to carry. The Reveal ($24.99) is an ultra-slim hard-shell case redesigned for the iPhone 4. It adds just a millimeter of thickness to the sides and back of your iPhone.
Well, lookie here — Logitech’s Revue is official, and it’s coming this Fall to make your HDTV even smarter. We knew from day one that Logi had been tapped to produce one of the first Google TV set-top boxes ever, and details on the little guy have been trickling out ever since. Described as a “Google TV companion box,” the device is expected to “combine everything on the web, cable and satellite [with] apps, video calling and more.” We’re told to be patient for specs and further deets, so we suppose we’ll do just that. While pouting.
[Thanks, Tom]
Logitech Revue gets official: Google TV companion box coming this Fall originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As usual, there was a broad spectrum of odd new Wii accessories at this year’s E3. On one side you’ve got that inflatable racecar that I told you about yesterday. On the other, there’s this machine gun from the folks at Digiwinner.
Having spoken with the product manager at the company and having had a little hands on time with the device, I get the sense that this control isn’t officially sanctioned from the seemingly good-natured folks at Nintendo. The words “Wii” and “machine gun” don’t really belong in the same sentence, let along product name.
Unlike most Wii peripherals, the machine gun is actually stand alone and doesn’t require a Wiimote for use. The D-Pad and buttons are located at the front of the device. No word on availability–or which games the machine gun is compatible with. Fingers cross that it works with Wii Fit.
Starting next month, retail giant Best Buy will begin offering a white version of the popular EVO 4G from Sprint. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20008169-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p
This is one of the rare hi-fi components cast out of solid copper right down to the knobs for a combined weight of 66 pounds.
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