More HTC Pyramid pics leak, now with less blurrycam and extra specs

It looks like the steady stream of leaked HTC Pyramid pictures shows no signs of slowing down. While we’ve recently seen shots of the back and the front of the device, we’re now getting the full monty, courtesy of xda-developers. Thankfully, Mr. Blurrycam toned things down this time around: there’s a spread of the phone with its battery cover removed, and screenshots detailing additional specs. The HTC Pyramid is expected to land on T-Mobile at some point with a 1.2GHz dual-core Snapdragon processor, 768MB or RAM, a 4.3-inch qHD (960×540) display, font-facing camera, 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, HSPA+, and Android 2.3.2 (Gingerbread) with Sense 3.0. Hit the source link for more photos.

[Thanks, egypt and Andrew]

More HTC Pyramid pics leak, now with less blurrycam and extra specs originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 21:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect dives into anime cyberspace, dares you to catch cute robot tanks (video)

If your foremost dream is to jack into a dystopian cyberpunk reality where hackers play with human brains (and you also happen to love Japanese anime), you’d best book your flight to Tokyo right now — a Shibuya department store has set up a basic cyberspace simulator straight out of Ghost in the Shell. That’s the film Ghost in the Shell: S.A.C. Solid State Society, to be precise, which just got a stereoscopic 3D re-release in Japan this week, and in its honor creative services company Kayac set about constructing a high-quality Kinect hack. Microsoft’s depth camera tracks the lean of your body, while the honeyed virtual reality is projected onto a pair of nearby walls, and it’s your objective to slap the Tachikoma tank silly without falling over yourself. Get a peek at what it’s like to play with in the video above.

Kinect dives into anime cyberspace, dares you to catch cute robot tanks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fox asks Time Warner to stop streaming its channels to customers’ iPads

While we’d heard many networks were unhappy with Time Warner’s decision to release its live TV streaming iPad app and there have even been whispers of cease-and-desist letters in the offing, Fox has put a request to have its channels excluded in writing. At issue is whether or not their agreement allows Time Warner to provide the channel on devices other than the TV — while TWC is confident it does since it only works within the customer’s home, the networks would apparently like to renegotiate before conceding anything. Senior VP of Fox Networks Group Scott Grogin confirmed the letter was sent but did not reveal any details about its contents. Following the battle plan of its last battle with Fox, Time Warner Cable has preemptively put up a IWantMyTWCableTVApp site asking customers to show support for the TWCable TV app against the networks. We’ll wait to see who blinks first and remember that Dish is already slinging channels to tablets with wild abandon while Comcast and Cablevision have plans for similar implementations on the way.

Fox asks Time Warner to stop streaming its channels to customers’ iPads originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 20:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How Much Did the iPad Crush Everyone Else in 2010 [Chart]

There’s not much else to say about this chart. According to Gartner, the world spent $9.6 billion in tablets. According to Apple’s official numbers, the iPad got $9.566 billion. More »

Gadget Lab Notes: 8-Bit Camera App Snaps Game Boy Camera-Style Photos

The 8-Bit Pocket Camera App gives your photos a nostalgic, pixelated feel

8-Bit Pocket Camera App Wastes Your Smartphone’s Megapixels for Fun Photos
5-megapixel cameras, 8-megapixel cameras? Totally unnecessary—at least that’s what the makers of the 8-Bit Pocket Camera app want you to think. This $1 iOS app lets you take 200 x 200 tiffs reminiscent of the pictures (and quality) that the Game Boy Camera used to take back in the day (which were 128 x 112). The black and white pixilated pics you snap with this app can also be stylized, distorted, or enhanced with a border or different paper color, and will export as PNG files when emailed or posted online.

Recreate the Game Boy Camera with 8-Bit Pocket Camera App [Cult of Mac]

A Mouse That Doesn’t Click? My Ears Rejoice!
Click. Click click. Clickety clickclick click. For those who find themselves eternally irritated by the noise associated with every mouse button push, Nexus has a product for you: the Silent Mouse. It’s built with a patented switch that makes no sound when it’s clicked. The Silent Mouse is wireless, connecting to your notebook or PC via a nano receiver. It’s also got a button for selecting 1000 or 1600 DPI sensitivity, which is great for those who work on a large monitor.

Nexus Silent Mouse [Nexus via Slashgear]

Samsung Ships Notebooks With Keylogger Installed
The StarLogger keylogger program has been found preinstalled and active on two new Samsung laptops. The software logs every keystroke and takes screen caps, and can regularly email the data it collects without the user ever knowing this has been done. The affected laptops were purchased by Mohamed Hassan and detected when he installed security software. The first notebook that had the keylogger installed was eventually returned due to a driver issue; its replacement had the same keylogger program installed.

Samsung Installs Keylogger on its Laptop Computers [Network World via Geek.com]

Touchscreen Interface Simulates a Stretchy, Flexible Surface
Rather than just pinching to zoom and swiping to slide your position further along a screen, researchers at Osaka University have developed a touchscreen display that appears to flex, as if it were made of elastic material. So when you drag your finger to change what part of a map you’re viewing, for instance, the screen visually resists that movement, squishing and stretching the map’s proportions to keep your original position in perspective until you release your finger, almost like the map is printed on a sheet of rubber.

New Flex Touchscreen Interface Demonstrated Using Google Maps [Diginfo.tv via Crunchgear]



The PiCycle Electric Bike is Frowning at You
The PiCycle e-bike uses a 48V brushless DC motor to help power you up steep hills, across vast distances, or just on your daily commute. It can take you up to 20 miles without a single pedal on your part and reach speeds up to 30mph. Other featuers include an internal hub transmission, a beltdrive system, shifting on-the-fly, a suspension seat post, and hydraulic brakes. Its perfectly arched frame looks like a rainbow, or a frownie face.

PiCycle LTD Electric Bike [PiCycle via Uncrate]

Creative Coffee Table Is a Four-Person Pong Game
There’s no need for a coffee table in today’s world to be simply made of wood and just sit there. The coffee table is the perfect piece of furniture to transform into something interactive, like a four person game of pong played on a 30 x 30 matrix of red LEDs. Players use one of four knobs placed along each side to slide their bat left and right. The game can support up to 5 balls for more complicated play.

Super Pong Coffee Table [Instructables via Technabob]


ECOmove QBEAK EV unveiled, grows a roof but no actual beak (video)

ECOmove QBEAK EV unveiled, grows a roof but no actutal beak

You might expect a car with the word “beak” in its nose to have something of a pronounced proboscis. Not so. It’s the ECOmove QBEAK, a little, orange, all-electric car that’s now been shown in the actual flesh in both coupe and convertible form. The car seats an odd number of people, three or six depending on configuration (something we definitely like), yet is smaller than a Smart Fortwo. It does this thanks to motors that fit in the wheels and composite suspension that’s much more compact than your average strut setup. Range is up to 300km — 186 miles — but at this point we don’t know much more about when this tangerine dream might be rolling into showrooms for real. Video of its unveil below.

Continue reading ECOmove QBEAK EV unveiled, grows a roof but no actual beak (video)

ECOmove QBEAK EV unveiled, grows a roof but no actual beak (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skype 5 for Mac continues to frustrate — how’s it treating you?

It’s rare that a new piece of software generates only positive feedback, but the world’s most popular VoIP app has seemingly frustrated throngs of loyal Mac users, including a number of technologically savvy individuals within these very walls. A brilliant comparison of the old vs. new has emerged over at Ignore The Code (linked down below for your perusal), and it got us wondering — are average consumers seeing this any differently? There’s no question that Skype 5 for Mac looks a heck of a lot like the Windows build, but as the aforesaid article points out, it seems that the UI engineers lowered the standard of the OS X version rather than dragging the Windows variant up. What makes the new edition so difficult to swallow is just how ideal the prior model was — now, it’s a chore to spot contacts, initiate chats and handle the most basic of tasks that Skype should handle. So, we’ll leave it to you: is Skype heading in the wrong direction in terms of usability and functionality, or should the collective world just get a grip?

View Poll

Skype 5 for Mac continues to frustrate — how’s it treating you? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 19:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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One Month Later, Android Tablet Platform Has 50 Apps

Motorola's Xoom, the first Android tablet to run "Honeycomb." Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

Motorola’s Xoom tablet is the first promising alternative to Apple’s iPad, but the sickly condition of Android’s tablet app ecosystem may end up stalling the platform’s progress.

One month after its launch, the Xoom currently has about 50 native apps available for Android 3.0 Honeycomb, Google’s version of Android optimized for tablets.

That’s pitiful compared with the iPad, which was released last year with approximately 1,000 native apps on launch day. The Xoom debuted with a paltry 15 Honeycomb-native apps available for download in its catalog.

50 apps is a pretty small number, and the actual total may be even smaller. The official Android online market, as well as other online message forums for Android enthusiasts, place the number of Xoom apps somewhere close to 50. But this number hardly seems accurate, as it includes existing Android applications which have been re-sized to take advantage of the tablet’s larger screen. The number of apps with interfaces made specifically for the tablet is probably diminutive.

Still, it’s unclear why more developers haven’t taken the short cut and re-sized their apps for Honeycomb. It could be that developers aren’t sold on the idea of re-sizing their apps to fit more screen real estate, as opposed to “building a true tablet experience that takes advantage of the new platform’s possibilities,” iOS developer Justin Williams told Wired.com in an interview.

And even if developers wanted to create such a “true tablet experience,” they’re hard-pressed to do it without the source code for Honeycomb, which Google is currently keeping a tight reign over. The big device manufacturers working on Honeycomb-powered hardware — like HTC, Motorola and Samsung — all have early access to the code, but only after licensing agreements were made with Google. Smaller developers don’t have this luxury.

“Apple was wise to have the tools out there months in advance of launch,” Williams said, “as compared to Google who made them available only a short time before.”

To be fair, the Xoom is currently the only Android tablet on the market running Android 3.0. Once the glut of Honeycomb-running hardware devices arrives — like the June release of LePad from Chinese electronics manufacturer Lenovo, which was delayed specifically to ensure the tablet will run Honeycomb — we could reasonably expect to see more tablet-optimized applications available. Samsung’s redesigned Galaxy Tab 10.1 will also run Honeycomb, and will also launch this summer.

“Google needs more hardware,” says Williams, “and they need to get developers excited about building tablet experiences, not just larger screened phone apps.”

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

See Also:


Free iPhone app improves docs’ emergency response

A trial finds that doctors using an app called iResus perform significantly better during a simulated emergency than doctors who don’t.

Originally posted at News – Health Tech

Obama Has an iPad

obama.jpg

If Steve Jobs isn’t cool enough for you to think owning an iPad is an awesome thing to do, then what about our commander in chief?

President Barack Obama revealed in a recent event that he has Apple’s tablet and uses it regularly. During a question-and-answer segment, newscaster Jorge Ramos asked Obama if he owned an iPad, to which the pres replied, “I mean, Jorge, I’m the president of the United States. You think I’ve got to go borrow somebody’s computer?”

But he isn’t a total MacHead. Obama’s phone of choice is a Blackberry.

Via Market Watch