This Robot Can Play Your iPhone Games

quattro.jpg

…And it’ll probably beat you.

A company called Adept Technologies has built a robot, Quattro, which apparently does a pretty good job of playing iPhone games. Its “show off” game is 1to50, a simple title that asks players to do nothing more than tap the numbers “1” to “50” on a screen of jumbled numbers as quickly as possible.

A mere human can probably do it in 15-20 seconds if he’s good. The record currently sits at 7.85 seconds, but Quattro handily completed the task in just 6.67 seconds.

Quattro wasn’t designed exclusively to play casual mobile games. It’s used in industrial applications on assembly lines and sorting facilities. Gaming just happens to be something it does on the side.

Via Physorg.com

 

Sony goes to the matte with cheapest 2011 3D LED

The picture quality of Sony’s KDL-EX720 shows some flaws, but its efficiency, design, and well-stocked feature list will win plenty of converts.

First-gen iPad 3G gets $100 price cut by AT&T

AT&T is heavily discounting pricing on the first generation iPad, cutting up to $300 off the original price tag for the 3G versions of the device.

Originally posted at News – Apple

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 review

Admit it, when you look at the picture above, all you really see is a laptop with a design that hasn’t changed much in the last ten years. It’s true, based on its professional aesthetic alone, the ThinkPad X220 can’t really be distinguished from the other X Series laptops Lenovo’s released pretty much on an annual cycle, but there’s much more than meets the eye with that there ultraportable. The 12.5-inch machine is filled to the brim with the latest and greatest technology, including a new Intel Sandy Bridge Core i5 processor, an IPS display, and a six-cell battery. And if you look even closer, Lenovo’s made some small tweaks to the touchpad and keyboard, which make more difference than you’d ever think. The point is, that all-too-familiar ThinkPad can deceive you with its boring business looks, but it’s arguably one of the best laptops we’ve ever tested. Hit the break to find out why we think it’s so laudable.

Continue reading Lenovo ThinkPad X220 review

Lenovo ThinkPad X220 review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 17:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GM Adds 14 New Vehicles You Can Control with the OnStar Mobile App

OnStar - Unlock

Back at CES a couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to see the OnStar mobile app in action with a pre-production model of the Chevy Volt. Now that the Volt is on the roads and the OnStar mobile app works with a number of other GM vehicles, more and more people know the joy of being able to start your car, lock or unlock your doors, flash your lights, and even check your vehicle’s health from your iPhone, Android phone, or BlackBerry.
GM announced this week that they were expanding the mobile app services to 14 additional vehicles, including the 2010 Cadillac DTS, Escalade, Escalade ESV and EXT, the Buick Enclave and Lucerne, the GMC Yukon, Yukon XL, and Acadia, and the Chevrolet Impala, Avalanche, Suburban, Tahoe, and Traverse. This list is unfortunately dominated by large SUVs – the kind people are less inclined to buy at times like now when gasoline prices are high, but it’s good news for smartphone lovers who love their cars nonetheless. 
Owners of these new vehicles will be able to install the mobile app on their devices and use it to interface with their cars from anywhere they have cellular service, even if it’s on the other side of the world. GM said that there are even plans to expand navigation services to the mobile app, so drivers can search for destinations using their phone and then send it to their vehicle’s on-board OnStar device.

Drill Mounted Pencil Sharpener is Low-Tech Fun

Pencil Carpenter

This little gadget is essentially a standard pencil sharpener that most of us probably had in elementary school and many of us still have today – just attached to a drill bit so you can pop it into any standard hand-held drill. It may sound crazy, but the C.H. Hanson Pro-Sharp Finishing Pencil Carpenter is a real product, and you can buy it at Amazon for just under $8 US, not including shipping. 
Amazon reviewers are clearly fond of the device, but unless you’re a teacher who has to provide a room full of number 2 pencils to go with your next Scantron-based exam, it might be a little overkill. After all, you’re guaranteed to get strange looks from your classmates if you roll into your final exams with a cordless drill with the Pencil Carpenter mounted on the end and a box of pencils. 
Did we mention that the device comes with 4 finishing pencils you can use with the device? Clearly it’s a bargain.
[via NotCot]

AT&T Tells Free Tethering Customers It’s Time to Pay Up

The front and back of Apple's iPhone 4 are composed of glass. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

With some unauthorized hacks, you can share your smartphone’s internet connection with other devices, free of charge — and AT&T has had enough of that.

On the iPhone, for example, the hack MyWi has been a popular tool for “tethering” the handset’s internet connection for free, and just recently users of MyWi reported receiving text messages and e-mails from AT&T requiring them to “update” their plans.

Well, that was fun while it lasted,” a MyWi user posted in a forum. “It was a good 3 years. Goodbye iPhone tethering.”

AT&T is telling users of free tethering that they have three options:

  1. Stop using free tethering.
  2. Contact AT&T to activate a legitimate tethering plan and start paying up.
  3. Go ahead and keep tethering, and AT&T will automatically sign you up for a tethering plan and bill you.

Also known as mobile hot-spotting, the official tethering service provided by both AT&T and Verizon costs an additional $20 per month on top of data and voice plans. Free, unauthorized tethering has been accessible on the iPhone for years, and AT&T is only now beginning to crack down on people using the service without paying.

“We’ve just begun sending letters, e-mails, and text messages to a small number of smartphone customers who use their devices for tethering but aren’t on our required tethering plan,” an AT&T spokesman told Wired.com. “Our goal here is fairness for all of our customers.”

AT&T told Wired.com that it’s “able to determine if a smartphone customer is using the device as a broadband connection for other devices,” which isn’t surprising, because telecom carriers carefully monitor our mobile activities, counting the number of texts we send, voice-call minutes placed, and data used per month.

It’s unclear whether Verizon will take similar action on smartphone customers using free tethering tools. Verizon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wired readers: Take our poll below! If you’re an AT&T customer and you’ve been tethering with your phone, we want to know whether you’ve heard from the carrier about it.

See Also:


CTIA 2011 preview

As we approach CTIA 2011 in Orlando, Fla., CNET offers a preview of coming attractions for cell phones, tablets, and wireless.

Originally posted at CTIA 2011

Gadget Lab Podcast: Silicon Art, Office Warfare, Buddha Box

          

In this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, we breeze through our review of the iPad 2 (thinner, lighter, faster — you get the point) to get to a more interesting point: You don’t need to buy a 3G model thanks to widely available hot-spot capability.

In other tablet news, some chip analysts shaved away at the processor in the Samsung Galaxy Tab and found a secret message hidden inside, along with some quirky toons. Clever.

By the way — we have a winner for our Zibits giveaway: Congratulations, Wyatt Roy!

Mike Calore, Wired.com Reviews editor, joins the show to nerd out about some weapons of massive distraction: an automatic Nerf dart gun and a crazy bow-and-arrow toy — perfect for office warfare.

Calore closes the podcast with a look at the Buddha Machine, a handheld box that creates musical loops and plays them from a tiny speaker.

Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast on iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our unholy on-camera talent, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast No. 108

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0108.mp3


HTC Thunderbolt review

At a quick glance, without any background information, your eyes might tell you that the HTC Thunderbolt is little more than a Verizon remake of Sprint’s EVO 4G and AT&T’s Inspire 4G. After all — like its contemporaries — the Thunderbolt features a spacious 4.3-inch WVGA display, 8 megapixel camera, and dual-LED flash. In reality, though, the Thunderbolt is something more: from the Inspire, it borrows a better, crisper display with a wider viewing angle and a newer-generation (though still single-core) Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. From the EVO 4G, meanwhile, it borrows a cool integrated kickstand and the addition of a second “4G” radio, making this a spec Frankenstein of sorts — the best of both worlds. Of course, instead of Sprint’s WiMAX for that 4G radio, the Thunderbolt grants you access to Verizon’s LTE network — a network so fresh, it still has that new-network smell. There’s a lot of horsepower here.

In other words, the Thunderbolt has a very real opportunity to be the finest 4.3-inch device HTC has ever made — for the moment, anyway. Let’s see how it fares.

Continue reading HTC Thunderbolt review

HTC Thunderbolt review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Mar 2011 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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