Hasta La Gadget!

While we wait (rather impatiently, we might add) for Mango to make its official debut others are still playing with test builds, pouring over code, and digging up interesting tidbits about Microsoft’s mobile OS update. That WP7 will be getting improved HTML5 support is nothing new but, that it will specifically support in-browser audio and continue to stream even if you navigate away from the browser or lock the screen, is music (literally) to our ears. Snippets discovered in a recent Mango dump have also turned up mentions of Xbox Live Voice chat, parties, multiplayer gaming, and tighter integration with the 360 for pushing Live content to your big screen. If you hit the WPSauce source link you’ll find a whole host of other fascinating things in the WP7 code, and some details about just how deeply Facebook will be tied to the OS. But, before you go, check out the video of the HTML5 audio support in action after the break.

[Thanks, Charlie]

Continue reading More Mango features uncovered: in-browser audio streams, Xbox Live voice chats, and more (video)

More Mango features uncovered: in-browser audio streams, Xbox Live voice chats, and more (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 08:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For a medium heavily ridiculed for its zombie-making capabilities, television is certainly taking on more of an active role courtesy of Yahoo! Connected TV. Coming later this year to select Sony and Toshiba models, the interactive software that’s already in eight million homes gains two new features destined to either creep you out, or snag you a twofer on those wings — broadcast interactivity, and device control. While the latter enhancement merely transforms your smartphone or tablet into an extended remote, it’s the former that’ll turn your TV choices into a game of peeping Tom, delivering ads custom-fit for you. But the old, yodeling tech giant’s not stopping there — the company also plans to trot out an app store by the years’ end, which is currently in pilot testing with Ford and HSN (among others). If widget-based ads are your thing, you might want to hold off until the big manufacturer roll-out next year, or you could always consider that Google option. Brain-rot, please meet the tech loop.

Yahoo! Connected TV watches with you, delivers a more personal ad experience originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s creepy and it’s kooky, mysterious and spooky, it’s all together ooky…

If technology by researchers at the University of Tokyo ever ends up as a commercial product, then you could have the terrifying experience of your hand being possessed, moving itself without any commands from your own brain. You would, for all intents and purposes, become Bruce Campbell’s Ashley ‘Ash’ J. Williams in The Evil Dead.

The experimental device is actually called the PossessedHand, and controls your digits by shooting small electric currents into your wrist via electrodes strapped to your forearm. The PossessedHand runs on an Arduino micro-controller, and can auto calibrate itself to make sure it is twitching the corrects fingers and muscles inside your hand.

The theory is that the PossessedHand could be used to teach people to play musical instruments by training their fingers to move correctly. I’m not sure that this simple, mindless repetition would actually work without involving the brain. After all, “muscle memory” doesn’t actually reside in the muscles.

It could have medical benefits, teaching patients to use their hands again after strokes or accidents, and it would make a great gag gift to freak people out at parties.

Just make sure that the controls don’t get into the wrong hands (pun intended). Otherwise you, like Ash, could end the being strangled by your own hand.

PossessedHand: Techniques for controlling human hands using electrical muscles stimuli [Reikimoto Lab via PhysOrg]

See Also:

• German Researchers Build Terminator Robot Hand
• Hand of Man Robot Tries to Reach for the Gods
• Robotic Hand Handles Eggs, Runs On Compressed Air

Dennis Durkin is COO and CFO for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. He’s also a dude thoroughly disillusioned with the future of portable consoles. Speaking to IndustryGamers, Durkin explains that the “crowded” nature of the mobile gaming market right now makes it extremely difficult to launch a dedicated handheld gaming device successfully — in his colorful words, it’s “a very, very red ocean.” Whose blood is soiling those waters? The Nintendo 3DS, says Durkin, which has sold reasonably well, but has clearly failed to reach the lofty expectations set for it by fans and previous handhelds from the company. Likewise, the PS Vita invites a lot of skepticism from the Xbox chief, who says his excitement is reserved for what Microsoft can do with Kinect, Xbox Live and unique content. You might say it’s to be expected that an Xbox exec would be casting doubt over Sony’s great new hope, but what we learn in the process is that Microsoft has no intentions of squaring up to its home console nemesis on the mobile front. Not with dedicated hardware, anyway.

Xbox COO sees dedicated handheld market as a ‘red ocean,’ will let Sony and Nintendo swim in it originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Jun 2011 07:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There seem to be two distinct kinds of capacitive tablet stylus: fat and chunky, or slim and, well, less chunky. The Scribbly falls into the former category, and it is modeled on a regular white-board dry-erase marker, complete with chiseled tip.

It comes down to taste and also hand size, but of all the styluses I have tested I prefer the fatter ones. They’re easier to grip and, for people like us who seldom lift a pen to write more than a shopping list, they don’t tire your pampered fingers as fast. My current favorite is the pencil-shaped Alupen, but the Scribbly is even fatter and therefore — possibly — even comfier.

A cap protects the tip (until you lose it) and the plastic construction keeps it cheap. When it goes on sale, it will cost just £10, or $16. Available “soon.”

Scribbly product page [Scribbly via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Wacom Stylus for iPad Is Not What You're Hoping For
• Fingers-On With The Chunky Alupen iPad Stylus
• Brush Stylus Paints on iPad
• Nose Stylus for Phones Is Not to Be Sniffed At
• Magnetic Stylus Sticks to Your iPad
• Tip-Slip: Tablet Stylus Slides Onto Sharpie, Bic