Hasta La Gadget!

Word Lens for the iPhone is one of the most amazing apps we have ever seen. Take a look at this, but put down any hot liquids first.

It’s an augmented-reality, OCR-capable translation app, but that’s a poor description. A better one would be “magic.” World Lens looks at any printed text through the iPhone’s camera, reads it, translates between Spanish and English. That’s pretty impressive already — it does it in real time — but it also matches the color, font and perspective of the text, and remaps it onto the image. It’s as if the world itself has been translated.

Impressed? You’re not the only one. John Gruber of Daring Fireball puts it best: “[It’s] as though near-future time travelers started sending us apps instead of Terminators.”

We’ve tested the app, and it works just as shown in the video. In demo mode, it can rearrange (or blank out) any text in the camera’s field of vision. You need to purchase translation packs to do the actual translation.

In our tests, it worked smoothly, although the words had a tendency to wiggle around a bit, switching between English and Spanish and flipping between alternate translations. You could get the gist of a sentence, but not read it clearly. Holding the camera very steady helped mitigate the “wiggling” effect.

Word Lens is a taste of science fiction, something like a visual version of the universal translator or the Babelfish. Only instead of being a convenient device to avoid movie subtitles, it’s a real, functioning tool.

Word Lens is free, and will do some fancy rearranging of words to show you how it works. The Spanish-English and English-Spanish dictionaries are in-app purchases, for $5 each, and the app runs offline — perfect for when you’re traveling. You can pick your coffee back up, now.

Word Lens download [iTunes]

Word Lens product page [Quest Visual]

See Also:

• Augmented Reality App Identifies Strangers With Camera
• How it Works: Augmented Reality
• Augmented Reality Hobo Signs? There's an App for That
• Yelp Sneaks Augmented Reality Into iPhone App
• Augmented Reality Ghost Hunting Creeps Into App Store
• Bionic Eye: Augmented iPhone Awesomeness in App Store
• Video: Nearest Subway App Overlays Virtual Maps on Real World …

If a product doesn’t change for two years, it’s got to be doing something right, and such was the tale about Razer’s Destructor gaming surface. Alas, all good things must come to an end-of-life, if only to encourage people to buy the new hotness, which in this case is the shiny new Scarab. It’s a hard gaming mousepad doused in Razer’s Fractal 2.0 coating, ensuring uniform responsiveness and the right balance between speed and control. It includes a carrying case — because, as all serious gamers know, you’ve got to look good to play good — and that ever-elusive “feeling of awesomeness during usage.” The price is one of those hilarious, currency-agnostic ones, as the Scarab will cost you $39.99 in the US or €39.99 in Europe. We’re sure Euro gamers are laughing it up right now. You’ll find the PR after the break and the Scarab in stores later this month.

Continue reading Razer Scarab has regular mousepad looks, precision gaming DNA

Razer Scarab has regular mousepad looks, precision gaming DNA originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 05:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Budding hobbyists almost have it too easy these days, what with all the ready-made components, Mindstorms and Arduino boards, but there’s still a couple of folks out there kicking it old-school… and printing transistors at home. Yes, that’s a RepRap 3D printer you see there, with a MakerBot Unicorn pen head, depositing tiny dots of silver ink to form intricate rows of tiny electrodes. Sadly, the printer doesn’t currently automate the entire process, as you’ll also need to separately apply a dielectric material and a host of chemicals to get a working field effect transistor from scratch, but once the basic process is perfected the possibilities, as they say, are endless. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got a hot date with some vacuum tubes. Find the basic formula for DIY transistors at our source link.

RepRap prints transistors, but fabs have little to fear originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 04:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on November 23, 2007 by CyberNet.

There are a lot of features on the computer that we use everyday without ever knowing where they were derived from. So we thought it would be fun to give you a brief history lesson so that you can appreciate even the simplest features on your computer!

Below we’ll walk you through how the cut, copy, and paste commands developed into what we use today, and also tell you the real reason that Ctrl+Alt+Del was invented. Lets jump into the time machine!

–History of Cut/Copy/Paste  (Wikipedia)–

Could you imagine using a computer that never let you use the cut, copy, and paste commands? It has become such an essential part of our daily lives that it would be nearly impossible to live without.

Before computers were even born the term “cut and paste” was widely used when editing manuscripts, where people would literally cut something out on paper and paste it on another page. It wasn’t until 1974 that “cut and paste” was used when referring to a editing text on a computer, and it was Larry Tesler from Xerox who made the connection.

In 1981 Apple made “cut and paste” popular with the release of Lisa, which was a computer with a graphical interface. It was Apple who standardized the keyboard shortcuts, which at the time were the modifier key + X for cutting, C for copying, and V for pasting. Microsoft later adopted it into Windows with nearly identical key combinations.

–History of Ctrl+Alt+Del (Wikipedia)–

Ctrl+Alt+Del is well known as the way to shutdown unresponsive applications, restart the computer, and in some instances it is needed to login:

Who started the keyboard shortcut that has become a way of life for so many people? David Bradley, a designer of the original IBM PC, implemented it to reboot the computer after programs would hang. He got sick of having to power down the PC, wait a few seconds, and then go through the power up process all over again. Originally the shortcut was Ctrl+Alt+Esc, but he found that those keys could accidentally be pressed with just one hand. By using the Delete key instead of Escape he helped ensure that two hands were needed to perform a reboot.

Max posted a funny video over in the forum of Bradley being interviewed, where he said that “I may have invented [Control-Alt-Delete], but Bill [Gates] made it famous”:

So there you have it. You now know where and why two important pieces of computer history came from. Go tell your friends all about it so that they’ll know what a geek you really are.

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It was only a couple of weeks ago that BlockBuster Express and Warner Bros were trialling the release of DVD titles into the former company’s rental kiosks on their day of commercial release, but it seems like that’s a future we’re not going to see any more of. The pair have now announced a partnership whereby NCR’s Blockbuster Express will offer WB’s new DVD titles for rent 28 days after launch, matching Redbox and Netflix who are also subject to a four-week delay. This follows similar deals being concluded by NCR with Universal Studios and 20th Century Fox, with the major benefits being lower acquisition costs and a direct relationship with the studio.

Update: We initially conflated Blockbuster with Blockbuster Express-branded DVD kiosks operated by NCR. The post has now been updated to rectify this unforgivable misguidance.

Continue reading BlockBuster Express to distribute Warner Bros DVD rentals 28 days after release

BlockBuster Express to distribute Warner Bros DVD rentals 28 days after release originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Dec 2010 03:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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