Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft to demo new slate PCs, Windows 8 tablet functionality at CES? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 20:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aptly named Athlete, bipedal robot developed in Japan takes a biomechanical approach to running in an attempt to mimic human flexibility and agility.

Despite a huge dropoff in cable subscribers this year, Forrester Research’s 40,000-strong survey pegs consumer TV consumption at about 13 hours weekly, same as it ever was. But lo and behold, reported internet use has also risen to 13 hours weekly, a veritable tie to which we naturally reply, “what took it so long?” This number represents a 121 percent uptake in the past five years and attributes its success to multitaskers and those who are spending less time with radio, newspaper, and magazines — again, nothing too mind-blowing to our perception of reality. If the survey has revealed anything surprise to us, it’s that email is only used by 92 percent of those questioned, leaving at least eight percent classically trained in case the post-apocalyptic world of Kevin Costner’s The Postman ever becomes reality.

[Image Credit: ICHC]

Shocker! Internet use now ties TV in time spent avoiding outdoor activity originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 19:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Can laptops catch up to the multitouch capabilities of tablets and smartphones? Synaptics’ new ClickPad will try.

Originally posted at CES 2011

It doesn’t appear to involve the biometric IDs that were first proposed by NATO, but the Afghanistan government has just announced plans to issue electronic ID cards to everyone in the country — an undertaking that it hopes will be complete in five years. That admittedly difficult effort got off to an official start today with the signing of a $101.5 million contract with Afghan company Grand Technology Resources, which will apparently be responsible for producing the wallet-sized cards themselves. In addition to the usual identification, those will each contain a chip that stores the individual’s drivers license, vehicle registration, signature and voting registration records — the latter of which is particularly key, as one of the main reasons for the cards existence is to ensure “fairer, more transparent and efficient” elections in the future.

Afghanistan moves ahead with plans for national electronic ID cards originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 18:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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