Hasta La Gadget!

Heterogeneous System Architecture might not be a phrase that trips off your tongue right now, but if AMD, TI and – in a quiet addition – Samsung have their way, you could be taking advantage of it to interact with the computers of tomorrow. AMD VP Phil Rogers, president of the HSA Foundation, filled his IFA keynote with futurology and waxing lyrical about how PCs, tablets and other gadgets will react to not only touch and gestures, but body language and eye contact, among other things. Check out the concept demo after the cut.

Heterogeneous System Architecture is a catch-all for scalar CPU processing and parallel GPU processing, along with high-bandwidth memory access for boosting app performance while minimizing power consumption. In short, it’s what AMD has been pushing for with its APUs (and, elsewhere – though not involved with HSA – NVIDIA has with its CUDA cores), with the HSA seeing smartphones, desktops, laptops, consumer entertainment, cloud computing, and enterprise hardware all taking advantage of such a system.

While there were six new public additions to the Foundation, Samsung Electronics’ presence came as a surprise. The HSA was initially formed by AMD, ARM, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek, and Texas Instruments, but today’s presentation saw Samsung added to the slides and referred to as a founding member.

Samsung is no stranger to heterogeneous computing tech. Back in October 2011, the company created the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium (along with Micron) to push a new, ultra-dense memory system that – running at 15x the speed of DDR3 and requiring 70-percent less energy per bit – would be capable of keeping up with multicore technologies. The Cubes would be formed of a 3D stack of silicon layers, formed on the logic layer and then with memory layers densely stacked on top.

As for the concept, Rogers described a system which could not only learn from a user’s routine, but react to whether they were smiling or not, whereabouts at the display they were looking, and to more mundane cues such as voice and gesture. Such a system could offer up a search result and then, if the user was seen to be smiling at it, learn from that reaction to better shape future suggestions.

Exactly when we can expect such technology to show up on our desktop (or, indeed, in laptops, phones and tablets) isn’t clear. However, Samsung has already been experimenting with devices that react to the user in basic ways; the Galaxy S III, for instance, uses eye-recognition to keep the screen active even if it’s not being touched, while its camera app includes face- and smile-recognition.

Your next Samsung could learn to love your smile is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Welcome to Engadget’s back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn’t nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. The good news? We’re on to the fun stuff, the gear that isn’t always practical but will definitely help you let off some steam after a tough mid-term. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here!

Laptops, phones and e-readers might be slick pieces of tech, but they’ll all be used for business while you’re buried in term papers during the semester. We’re rounding up a set of gadgets meant purely to lift your spirits — whether it’s zapping fellow froshmates in a game of Lazer Tag or an electric motorbike to blast through the countryside on a long weekend. We’ve even got a few borderline sensible gadgets, such as a robot that will clean up after a wild party at the dorm. Jump past the break for our full collection of antidotes to the end-of-summer blues.

Continue reading Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: fun stuff!

Filed under: Misc

Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: fun stuff! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Now these are some seriously nice-looking headphones — and really, that’s sort of the thing here. After all, internally, these cans are quite similar to older models from Sennheiser, and spending a little time underneath them was a fully engrossing experience, the cups dampening out a lot of noise of the show floor even without music playing. What was even more immediately noticeable about the Momentum, however, was just how comfortable they were, thanks in no small part, to the use of hair-sheep skin straight out of Somerset, England — yep, if you’re anti-leather, these aren’t the headphones for you. But man, the material feels really, really nice.

The headphones are also quite light, which helps, so they shouldn’t be too much of a strain when you wear them on the go — and the Sennheiser rep we spoke with assured us that your ears still breathe well with them on, unlike a lot of over-ear pairs. The headband is made of a brushed stainless steel, which meets even more leather on the top of the headphones. Move down the wire and you’ll see a panel with three buttons — these control volume and let you pick up calls on your iPhone. Further down still ia a metal jack that bends, so you can keep the headphones at either a 180- or 90-degree angle from your device.

Of course, all that fine sheep leather and metal doesn’t come cheap — these guys will run you a cool $350 when they hit the states this fall. Check out a hands-on video after the break.

Continue reading Sennheiser’s Momentum headphones bring their leathery, metal goodness to IFA, we go hands-on (video)

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video

Sennheiser’s Momentum headphones bring their leathery, metal goodness to IFA, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Top aerospace and defense company Tupolev is developing a new stealth plane that will replace Russia’s mighty but aging nuclear strategic bomber fleet. Called the PAK-DA bomber, it will enter service in the mid-2020s, just in time to face the USAF’s new stealth strategic nuclear bombers. But that’s inoffensive compared to what’s coming next. More »

There’s a new mobile wireless speaker in town and it goes by the name Jabra Solemate – and it looks like a really strange shoe. This device is indeed as the manufacturer describes – about the size and weight of a water bottle – and is able to play wirelessly (with Bluetooth), with a standard 3.5mm audio cord, or with a USB cable. This device has an integrated subwoofer and dual tweeters to keep you banging even in the most mobile-minded of places.

What you’ll get here is a lovely little high-quality mobile speaker set up quite clearly to compete with similar-sized speakers – you know who that is. At the moment it’s not quite possible to tell which unit is “better” so to speak as we’ve not had a full test of this Jabra device. But given the quality of Jabra products we’ve worked with before, great things are bound to happen here.

This Jabra Solemate device is being shown off in collaboration with the platform known as ClubCreate, a User Generated Content group that makes music mixes across the world. With Jabra and the Solemate on their side, mobile music mixes are sure to be on the rise. And with the style and super odd look of the Solemate, we’re definitely going to be interested in sporting it in public.

Look at this little shoe device. It’s not mean to be worn on your foot, but the hook certainly is there. Stick to the surface and let the beats roll out! This device will be available extremely soon if not immediately (depending on when you’re reading this, of course) through a variety of major retailers and Jabra themselves for $199 MSRP. You’ll be able to pick up either white or black – your choice!

Jabra Solemate hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.