Dear friends, we’re going to be meta-liveblogging the Apple iPod music event. The actual mouth-flapping on stage starts 10:00 AM PT (1:00 PM ET), but the liveblogging fun starts way before that. More »
We’ve already heard LG talk up its forthcoming Optimus tablet, and it looks like we now have our first look at it. As you can see above in a slide apparently shown during LG’s pre-IFA Dealer Days event, the Android-based tablet is now apparently known as the “Optimus Pad,” and it’s described as boasting “superior performance” and being “thinner and lighter than many competitors’ tablets.” Not much more than that at the moment, unfortunately, but here’s hoping that “more information to come” teaser is a lead-up to a full announcement at IFA this week.
[Thanks, Nicole]
LG’s Android-based Optimus Pad gets pictured, looking tablet-like originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
E-books may be taking off for Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, but there’s one category of printed matter where digital hasn’t made a dent: textbooks.
It’s not for lack of trying. Most textbooks are massive tomes that weigh several pounds, are printed on hundreds of pages of glossy paper, can cost upwards of $100, and are often out of date as soon as they’re printed. You’d think someone would have figured out how to make e-textbooks work — and plenty of companies have tried.
Yet print still rules, with over 99 percent of the textbook market. But with the rise of tablets and e-readers, software developers and textbook publishers are making yet another effort to take textbooks digital.
Matt MacInnis is one of the new hopefuls. For eight years, he worked at Apple’s education division. But last year, when the iPad was still just a rumor, MacInnis started thinking about starting a digital textbooks venture. He left Apple to follow his dream, and the result is Inkling, which launched two months ago.
Inkling is an iPad app that turns textbooks into bite-sized, illustrated, interactive pieces of media. With Inkling, William Strunk’s Elements of Style is reinvented with humorous hints and cheeky cartoons, while a biology textbook has beautiful diagrams and color photos.
“With the iPad, there’s an obvious opportunity in education,” says MacInnis.
Inkling allows readers to jump into any chapter. Users don’t have to buy the entire textbook: They can just buy a few chapters and later get the entire textbook.
Inkling is just one of the companies looking for a way to make digital textbooks work. Earlier this year, textbook publishers such as McGraw Hill and Kaplan struck a partnership with software company ScrollMotion to bring textbooks to the iPad.
Digital textbooks have been struggling to take off for nearly a decade. Publishers were slow to adapt print editions to PCs and professors don’t usually recommend digital textbooks to their students. And for all their texting and video games, some say, students are not as comfortable with the technology as you might think.
“There is the issue of trust,” says Kenneth C. Green, founding director of The Campus Computing Project, which looks at use of IT in education. “Even though we think of this generation of students as being wired, they have dealt with print all their life for core education. They know how to master that but they are less certain of electronic material.”
Last year, digital textbooks generated an estimated $40 million in sales, according to Xplana, an educational software and consulting company. This year, it is expected to grow to $80 million — but that’s still just 1 percent of the total higher education textbook market. By 2015, Xplana estimates digital textbooks will be 20 percent of the total market.
But a lot has to change in the next four years before that prediction can become reality.
Despite their promise, digital textbooks haven’t taken off for two big reasons: ease of use and price.
Publishers have long been offering some textbooks for PCs but these digital editions have never entirely replaced their paper cousins.
Digital textbooks haven’t become really popular because they aren’t easy to use on computers, says MacInnis.
TranferBigFiles’ free iPhone app lets you upload and send video and photo files directly from the device without compressing or converting them first.
Smartphones are getting ever smarter and batteries ever better, but it seems that the poor things can just never catch up. It’s a thankless, tireless job powering your gadgets, and sometimes those cells need a little help. That’s where external batteries come in to lend a hand, giving your gadget those few precious extra hours of life — enough for you to find your way home after that impromptu third encore sing-along that seemed like it would never end. The $40 Primo Battery Cube from PhoneSuit is one of the latest, a 1,000mAh reserve tank for your thirsty mobile. But is it worth making room in your pocket for? Read on to find out.
Gallery: PhoneSuit Primo Battery Cube
Continue reading PhoneSuit Primo Battery Cube review
PhoneSuit Primo Battery Cube review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Overcoming some technical hurdles, the Japanese camera maker has made an exotic image sensor measuring 202x205mm. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20015176-264.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Deep Tech/a/p
Neat little update for Pogoplug owners today: the latest firmware update adds printing support, allowing iPhones, Android devices, and anything else that can hit the diminutive home server’s web interface to print files. Any HP or Epson printer from 2005 or later is supported over USB — network printers just need to be on the same network — and the firmware is rolling out now. Pogoplug is also shipping that 802.11 b/g/n wireless adapter it announced earlier this month today, as well as the more enterprise-focused Pogoplug Biz. We’re also told the new firmware will enable some other features, but there’s no breakdown yet — we’ll let you know when we find out. PR after the break.
Continue reading Pogoplug adds printing support, wireless adapter and Biz start shipping
Pogoplug adds printing support, wireless adapter and Biz start shipping originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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CNET’s (very astute) pics for the top 23-inch monitors.
While I’ve never experienced them firsthand, I’ve heard tales of Japan’s futuristic Buck Rogers toilets. While the US has become complacent with the singular functionality of our toilets, the Japanese are living it up in the bathroom with heated seats, water jets with pressure and temperature controls, hot-air dryers, and background music.
And now, the Japanese are rocketing their toilets into the information age.
The newest model offers an instant health check-up every time someone makes a deposit in the porcelain bank. The toilet has the ability to collect urine and measure it for sugar content, temperature checks, blood pressure, and more. The information can then be displayed on a wall-mounted display.
The so-called “Intelligence Toilet” is available from the Toto company for between $4,100 and $5,850.
If you’ve gotten through your adolescent, scatological tee-hee-ing, you will appreciate the role these toilets can serve for the well-being of the elderly and the sick. It can add an element of dignity and self-sufficiency to patients who otherwise might need the aid of a nurse or caretaker to take these measurements.
Thank you, Japan, for your magical toilets from the future.
via AFP
Hardly a day goes by that I don’t read a blog post that makes me utter the words “this isn’t going to end well” aloud. A headline on Slashdot this morning quickly launched itself to the top of that list, followed almost immediately by mental images of one-armed robed nerds wandering the streets in seek of medical attention.
The headline in question is “How to Make Authentic Lightsabers.” I guess the use of the phrase “authentic” should have immediately sent up a red flag–“authentic” like movie accurate? Or “authentic” like, I hope you’re not too attached to that hand, guy dressed like Anakin Skywalker?
While I’m sure that plenty of debates regarding the possibility of constructing a real-world lightsaber have ended in stalemates, I haven’t really seen anything to convince me that we’re not destined for an eternity of Star Wars fans swinging retractable plastic swords and neon lights at one another.
Authentic in this case, naturally, means movie accurate. Bradley W. Lewis, the game developer behind the aforementioned how tos featured on his site SlothFurnace.com, pledges, “where I can, I will use the same vintage parts used in the movies, or replicas machined as close as possible.” The results are lightsabers that are, “similar to the hasbro Force FX sabers, but brighter, louder, and more accurate to the films.”
All of that and you get to keep all of your fingers!
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
