Hasta La Gadget!

Motorola is indeed looking to go head to head with the iPad, just don’t expect a new consumer tablet from the company any time this year. Motorola co-chief executive Sanjay Jha told a crowd at the company’s investor conference, “we want to make sure that any tablet that we deliver is competitive in the marketplace, and I think all of us will make sure that we will only deliver that when that occurs.”

Such a tablet may arrive as early as next year, but there are still a number of roadblocks, not the least of which is the latest build of Google’s Android. The search giant is convinced that Froyo, Android 2.2, is not quite ready for the full-on tablet treatment. Jha said that his company will wait until the software is more tablet-friendly before going ahead with the product.

Motorola has been heavily invested in Google’s open operating system as of late, having released a number of Android-based smartphones, including the Charm, Cliq, Backflip, Devour, Droid, Droid 2, and Droid X.

Samsung last night revealed its own Android-based tablet, the Galaxy Tab, which runs Froyo.

With their infinitely configurable touch-screens, iDevices make pretty much perfect universal remotes. The iPhone and iPad can already be used to remote-control a DSLR, your iTunes-equipped PC or even your Sonos multi-room sound-system. Soon, you’ll be able to add Elinchrom’s RX flash lights to that list.

Elinchrom make those big, powerful flashes that you see in photographers’ studios, the ones that pull their juice from the mains or large external batteries and put out enough light to beat the Sun into submission. The company has just announced, through a coy, teasing blog post, that it is working on an iApp to let you control the power levels of your various flash-heads, pilot-lights and “many other features of the Elinchrom RX flash units”.

The actual workings of the apps are still top-secret:

We like to give our respected competition the chance to find out themselves. The EL-Skyport system idea lasted at least approximately 4 years, before other companies picked up this great idea.

We can make a guess, though. Elinchrom’s existing solution is a transmitter on the camera, and also a USB-dongle for control from a Mac or a PC. The picture above doesn’t show any extra hardware plugged into the iPhone or iPad, so I assume that the internal Wi-Fi radio of the iDevice is somehow being used. Either that or there is a dongle and it just isn’t in the picture.

We’ll find out soon enough, though, as Elinchrom will be showing off a demo at the Photokina show beginning next Thursday. The app will be available to buy for the “most modest price” in the early part of next year.

Remote Quadra RX with iPhone, iPad [Elinchrom]

Those wacky popsters OK Go are at it again. The Los Angeles-based indie pop group behind the YouTube favorite “Here It Goes Again” treadmill video have teamed up with Samsung for their next music video. The band filmed their latest video using the Samsung NX100 mirrorless compact camera.

While the video has yet to be actually released, Samsung has posted a teaser trailer and is unveiling behind the scenes info through its site. According to Samsung, “The clips show the creative brilliance of OK Go meeting the technical ingenuity of the i-Function Lens, as they create a piece of video art that will be viewed, downloaded, sent on and talked about across the world.”

Naturally, the clips will also show people why they should buy Samsung’s new camera.

The video itself will debut through Samsung’s Cre8YourWorld site, as well.

For just $13, you can have your own Leica camera. Petapixel will sell you a pair of stickers for your iPhone 4 which will turn it, magically, into a rangefinder camera worth many thousands of dollars. Or at least, it wil make it look like one.

For trademark-infringement reasons, the sticker set has no Leica logos, but it’s pretty clear from the big red dot that the Leica Look-Alike Skin for the iPhone 4 is inspired by the legendary German camera. There’s even a sticker for the front of the iPhone, although that might be taking things a little to far. The peel-off vinyl panels will also protect the phone from scratches, and may even fool the less perceptive that you’re a lot richer than you are. Available now.

Leica Look-Alike Skin for the iPhone 4 [Petapixel]

See Also:

• Likea: The Cardboard Fake Leica

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Heaven only knows if you could actually squeeze this thing into the overhead bin of an Airbus A319, but darn if we wouldn’t give our left arm to try. TravelTeq’s newest piece of luggage makes just about every other average piece of zip-up cloth look downright antediluvian, but with a price tag well north of $700, that’s certainly to be expected. It’s engineered to be toted onboard your aircraft, with the top doubling as a seat and a set of pull-out wheels ensuring that you never tip it over whilst darting from one end of PHX to the other. It’s fairly clear that the technophile was in mind during this unit’s creation, as it touts a dedicated laptop pouch, a reinforced aluminum exterior, inbuilt speaker system (two drivers and 15 total watts of power), a 3.5mm auxiliary input, and a port for charging your mobile (or anything else with a USB port, save for an iPad). The Trip Sound is up for order right now, and we’re guessing the toughest decision of all will be deciding between white or red wheels.

TravelTeq’s ‘The Trip Sound’ luggage boasts integrated speaker, USB charging port originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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