Hasta La Gadget!

Welcome to Tuesday evening, folks. A number of Samsung devices are threatened by Apple’s motion to ban their sale, but Samsung assured today that it will “take all necessary measures to ensure the availability” of those targeted devices in the US. Jury foreman Velvin Hogan spoke to Bloomberg about the Apple-Samsung trial today, discussing the difficulties the group ran into while trying to decide a winner in the case and the process of determining which company was in the right. It’s an interesting interview, so be sure to give it a watch.

On the same day that the NPD says that good tech service is the reason why Apple has so many repeat customers, a supposed Apple Genius training manual leaks, giving us a rare look at how Apple trains its employees. The T-Mobile Galaxy S II has been updated with support for NFC and Isis, and T-Mobile has some big plans for NFC. Speaking of T-Mobile, it looks like the company has a new plan to sell against the next iPhone when it (hopefully) launches next month. MetroPCS is offering a new phone to go along with its 4G LTE push, and Samsung has released a new Galaxy S III app aimed at making things easier for those who use their phone while driving.

The Nexus 7 has snuck onto the Google homepage, and the Google Election Hub is up and running today, offering coverage from the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Nokia users worldwide were treated to Nokia Belle Refresh today, and it appears that Motorola and Apple are close to striking a licensing deal in Germany. It seems that the iPhone 5 won’t be getting NFC capabilities as originally rumored, Steve Perlman actually isn’t staying on as CEO of OnLive following the asset acquisition by a silent investor, and Google has a new patent for an object recognition system that could be huge. Hopefully you’re ready to play the role of homeowner, because in Skyrim‘s new DLC, you’ll be doing just that.

The Samsung Galaxy S III is getting a handful of new color variations – we’re partial to the grey, to be honest – while the company also gave us some more details about its incoming Series 5 all-in-one PC. Curiosity has beamed back some new images of Mars, which is always exciting, and Garmin detailed its new Forerunner 10 smart watch with GPS. Radio Shack’s wireless rates for no contract phone plans leaked today, and same-day delivery service Shutl has received a significant investment from the folks at UPS.

Finally tonight, we have a review of the Acer Aspire V5 from Cory Gunther for you to check out. Enjoy the rest of your Tuesday evening everyone!

SlashGear Evening Wrap-Up: August 28, 2012 is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

TOTO, makers of the fanciest toilets and toilet seats on this side of reality, are so eager to get your to try out their hi-tech commodes, they’ve put together a list of all the restaurants in the USA that have installed a TOTO Washlet in their washroom! More »

We haven’t heard a lot about TiVo’s Stream transcoder since it was officially unveiled in May, but today emails went out to winners of a Facebook contest informing them they can pre-order one for $129 (plus shipping) and receive it on September 5th. In case you’ve forgotten what its capabilities are, the notice shown above from Zatz Not Funny also includes a description of its capabilities which include streaming shows to up to three different mobile devices (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch) in the home at once, streaming a show to your mobile as it’s recorded, or wirelessly transferring shows to the device to view them on the move, TiVoToGo-style. Those interested will of course need a Premiere series DVR that’s hard-wired to a router, but with that it’s just a one time fee to easily cut the tether on TV content. Interestingly, a few TiVo Community posters report being able to preorder from the listed number without being in the contest, so if you’re already intending to jump just pick up the phone and give it a shot.

[Thanks, @BrennokBob, Joe]

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

TiVo Stream DVR-to-iOS transcoder box pops up for $129 pre-orders early originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 19:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Check out this totally useless bike that makes you do all of the work. It’s called the Fliz and it doesn’t even have pedals. The idea is that you hang suspended from the frame above and run. It’s kinda like the Flintstones’ car.

Why bother? This is basically walking or running with a frame tied to your back. I guess if you have a bunch of downhill runs it wouldn’t be so bad. It’s a cool design I guess – it just doesn’t seem practical. Maybe it could be used for those older adults that need walkers. It would certainly make them faster.

Or maybe it’s for people who are just to lazy to walk with their bodies unsupported. I just don’t get it, but I still appreciate the effort of the design.

[via Geekologie]

Google has been granted a new patent that could potentially be pretty huge for the company. The patent is for automatic object recognition, which is usually quite difficult to pull off due to the need for human input. With Google’s patent, humans don’t need to do anything, as the system would make use of “feature vectors” to aid in the recognition of the objects in a video or still image.

Engadget reports that these feature vectors include things like color and movement to automatically recognize objects. These feature vectors are refined in the system’s learning process, where Google suggests that the system would use images from a “visual content repository” to become more familiar with the traits of the objects its meant to identify. It’s a very interesting patent, and the whole learning process could be helped along by content creators on YouTube who name and tag their videos accurately.

While it makes sense that Google would want to apply this patent to YouTube, it could also have some applications with Google Glass. Object recognition could be a huge feature of Google Glass should the company decide to implement something like this, so you can bet that Google is considering that avenue. At the moment, though, we don’t know how Google will utilize this freshly-granted patent, or if it even will to begin with.

Still, this could potentially lead to an object recognition system that’s completely automated, and that’s definitely something to get excited about. We’ll have to keep our eyes peeled for more information about this patent, but it might be a while before Google wants to talk about the system described in it. Stay tuned, folks.

Google Glass aimed patent grabs auto-recognition of everyday objects is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.