Hasta La Gadget!

MasterImage and its parallax barrier 3D technology have been around for a while. Though nothing major — excepting the Hitachi H001 in Japan — has ever come of this company’s efforts, it’s back at Computex this year with a trio of reference display, showing off glasses-free 3D at 4.3-inch, 7-inch and 10-inch form factors. Resolution on both the 7- and 4.3-inch panels is 800 x 480 at the moment, but there’s a 1280 x 800 7-incher in the works that could be ready for production by the end of this year. The parallax barrier allowing for the autostereoscopic effect to happen adds only 1mm to the screen’s thickness, though it does halve vertical resolution — meaning an 800 x 480 screen will only show a 400 x 480 image when flipped to 3D mode. MasterImage builds the LCDs and controllers in these 3D imagers and is currently in discussions with what we’re told are “first tier” manufacturers of both smartphones and tablets. You can see the 7-inch display on video after the break — we found it able to match the 3D effect produced by displays requiring glasses, which is a good thing in relative terms, but as you see above, the two frames can and do get split up if you’re not perfectly positioned to soak up the third dimension.

Continue reading MasterImage touts 4.3-, 7- and 10-inch glasses-free 3D displays, interest from ‘first tier’ device makers

MasterImage touts 4.3-, 7- and 10-inch glasses-free 3D displays, interest from ‘first tier’ device makers originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Jun 2011 17:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint now offers the 16GB Wi-Fi-only BlackBerry PlayBook for $499. The news comes after a Sprint employee leaked the news last week in a blog post.

Originally posted at Dialed In

Much-rumored phone may be close to making its debut, if the appearance of three brief but official-looking video tutorials on YouTube is any indication.

Here in the states, Sony’s 13-inch VAIO Z series has been missing from the company’s online store for months, but in Europe, at least, it lives on — a quartet of Z21 series laptops have surfaced on various e-tailers as the possible successor to last year’s Z11. So far, we’re seeing a pair of configurations with a Core i5-2410M processor and 128GB of solid-state storage and two more with a Core i7-2620M CPU and 256GB in storage. Judging by this sample, at least, 1600 x 900 resolution is standard, as is a backlit keyboard, 3G SIM card slot, fingerprint reader, 3D output, and an HD webcam with Sony’s Exmor imaging technology. Alas, the available specs suggest Thunderbolt’s a no-show, though rumor has it Sony’s implementation of Intel’s Light Peak technology will use USB connectors, of which this has three. Here’s to wishful thinking, right?

The peculiar thing is, you can’t actually buy it yet. F2F lists staggering prices ranging from €1,809 ($2,642) to €2,839 ($4,146), though it’s not, in fact, available. Meanwhile, search results turn up mentions on staticICE UK and Belgium’s Execute, but they’ve been scrubbed from the actual pages. So, it looks like it’s up to Sony to announce this already — and dish up some pictures while it’s at it.

[Thanks, Ihor]

Sony VAIO Z21 Series mentioned on various European sites, isn’t actually for sale yet originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Jun 2011 14:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not normally all that stoked with motherboards, but Gigabyte’s awkwardly named Z68XP-UD3-iSSD just about got our attention at Computex. The highlight here is the Intel 20GB SLC SSD latched onto the board’s mSATA slot, which is right next to the LGA1155 CPU socket and the four DDR3 RAM slots (together supporting up to 32GB). Alas, Gigabyte says it won’t be offering upgrade options for the SSD, though there are certainly alternatives out there in the wild if you dare to venture. But if none of this interests you, then there’s always our multi-screen Angry Birds hands-on video after the break.

Continue reading Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-iSSD motherboard eyes-on

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-iSSD motherboard eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Jun 2011 13:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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