Hasta La Gadget!

The fight between the active shutter glasses 3D technology favored by TV manufacturers like Samsung, Panasonic and Sony against the Film Pattern Retarder (FPR) passive glasses 3D technology being pushed by LG got uglier this week. The Wall Street Journal points out LG’s print ads currently running in Korea (they could be running here already, but we’d have to read physical magazines or newspapers to know for sure) claim that unlike the competition, it will work even when viewers lay down on their sides, though the effect may be slightly weakened. Samsung responded by citing experts recommending keeping your head horizontal to watch 3D since the cameras used to film it are aligned horizontally, and an executive apparently called LG’s engineers “stupid” at a press conference, although reports of a “yo mama so fat” diss could not be confirmed.

Of course, since these are the world’s two biggest TV manufacturers, they sell to end users and other manufacturers like Sony, which Reuters reports LG is waiting to hear from about using its technology in the future. Sony and Samsung are already tight when it comes to LCD manufacturing but it’s obvious LG is looking for a few more friends to line up alongside Vizio, Toshiba and Philips (which just announced its latest displays using active and passive glasses.) But back to the end users for a moment, if anyone’s going to buy any of these 3DTVs, it may be wise to start selling consumers on why the feature is worthwhile at all and pointing out the growing amount of content — this week’s Big East basketball tournament, Killzone 3, the NBA Finals or Blu-ray 3D releases like Tron: Legacy — before folks decide just waiting for 4D would be the wisest choice.

LG woos Sony while it battles with Samsung over which 3D is best originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 04:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s Jack Tretton told us the company intended to launch the Next Generation Portable in “at least one territory” by the end of 2011, and now we might know which one — MCVUK reports that the quad-core, OLED-equipped handheld may arrive in Europe first, and on November 11th specifically. While it’s probably a little too early to drop the hammer on a specific date — even one as rhetorically pleasing as 11/11/11 — the publication’s anonymous sources say that “development deadlines have been set to ensure key Western releases are finished before the end of the summer for deployment in the autumn.” Plenty of time to drop euros in your piggy bank.

Sony readying NGP for November 11th European release? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The future’s here, someone tell Starfleet. Scientists from Fudan University in Shanghai have developed a plan to make a tractor beam that is capable of moving molecules using only light. The device hasn’t been produced, but an NYU scientist is convinced that it can work. The physicist, David Grier, built the first ever working tractor beam last year, based on a similar design.

According to this article on ScienceNews, the theoretical machine developed by the Chinese scientists would focus a beam of light on an object, creating electromagnetic fields on it. The light scattered by these fields would push the object towards the beam, instead of away from it like in a traditional laser. Physicist Jun Chen at Fudan University said that this type of beam would work as a way to draw in particles using only light.

Grier’s beam, demonstrated in a paper published about a year ago, showed how light could be used to pull objects instead of push them in a lab. He wasn’t exactly using it to rearrange his furniture though; the device moved a 1.5 micrometer sphere about 8 micrometers. With that in mind, Grier said a similar type of beam could be used to pull a person, but it would have to carry about a terrawatt of power. Definitely not a safe amount of energy, as he was quoted saying “it would be a short trip.” Yikes.

Just knowing that something like this exist brings us that much closer to feeling like we’re living in a sci-fi movie. We may not have flying cars, but tractor beams? No problem.

[via ScienceNews]

Hoping to make some money advertising gadgets from Amazon on your blog? If you live in the state of Illinois, those dreams might have gotten a little further from reality thanks to an email from the online reseller. After the Illinois legislature passed a bill mandating that online stores collect sales tax if they have affiliates in the state, Amazon told members of their Amazon Associates program with addresses in Illinois that they will no longer be receiving payments from the company, starting on April 15.

“As a result of the new law, contracts with all Illinois affiliates of the Amazon Associates program will be terminated and those Illinois residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, or SmallParts.com,” Amazon said in an email.

The banning of Illinoisans participating in the program, which pays site owners for sales that result in referrals from their sites, is the latest step in a battle between state governments and physical stores on one side and online retailers on the other. Amazon has already stopped payments for Colorado and North Carolina affiliates because of similar laws passed in those states and California is considering a bill like the one signed into law in Illinois.

According to Bloomberg, brick-and-mortar stores like Sears, Wal-Mart and Barnes and Noble have begun trying to attract these former Amazon-linkers to their own affiliate programs.

[via Bloomberg, Direct Match Media]

Yahoo had been pegged a few weeks ago as the culprit behind excessive data usage on Windows Phone 7 devices, sending far more information in replies to requests from the phone than necessary — not really a big deal for those on unlimited data plans, but a legitimate cause for concern if you’ve got a data cap and overage to worry about (as more and more customers on AT&T do these days). Well, turns out Yahoo went ahead and updated its IMAP servers at some point in the last few days, fixing the issue and more or less obliterating the ravenous gobbling of kilobytes. If you don’t use Yahoo… well, this is of little concern, but for the rest of you — whether you’re on a Windows Phone, an iPhone, or pretty much anything else with a limited bucket — this should be music to your ears.

Yahoo Mail gets IMAP patch, Windows Phone 7 data consumption catches a break originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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