Hasta La Gadget!

The e-book market is an intense one to be in, and so is the tablet segment. Well, Barnes & Noble has just announced the launch of their very own Nook Video service that is happening later this fall, where Nook Video will allow users to purchase as well as watch their favorite movies and TV shows right there and then on their mobile devices and TVs. According to Barnes & Noble, Nook Video users can choose from an extensive collection of movies and shows, hailing from major studios such as HBO, Sony Pictures, Viacom and Warner Brothers. It would place Barnes & Noble in the direct firing line of online video providers, with Amazon.com and Apple being two of the bigwigs that most people would think of.

The Nook Video app will facilitate the downloading of videos as well as the ability to play back those videos. There is no word on pricing details as at press time, but if the price is right, do expect the uptake to be a rather impressive one, although we do think that it will in all probability, be competitive compared to their other rivals. You can forget about unlimited streaming services like Netflix from Barnes & Noble though.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nook Simple Touch runs a Sega Genesis emulator, Nook e-reader heads for the UK at long last,

If you follow Kickstarter closely, you must have stumbled across the idea of ‘HiddenRadio.’ The project was a  huge success at the crowdsourcing portal, being able to amass massive funds. And now, the idea has finally been transformed into reality with the ‘HiddenRadio’ being announced today.

The sleek design of this device packs a wireless speaker as well as a radio which renders it very useful for the users on the go. The wireless speaker easily pairs up with a wide range of smartphones and tablets through Bluetooth. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Xfire Safety Light creates an illuminated bike lane, Edic-mini Tiny B22 is a really small voice recorder,

We’ve seen the Kinect put to use to help you find your groceries, but the sensor’s image processing capabilities have some more safety-minded applications as well. The fine minds at MIT combined the Kinect with a laser range finder and a laptop to create a real-time mapping rig for firefighters and other rescue workers. The prototype, called SLAM (for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) received funding from the US Air Force and the Office of Naval Research, and it stands out among other indoor mapping systems for its focus on human (rather than robot) use and its ability to produce maps without the aid of any outside information, thanks to an on-board processor.

Continue reading MIT’s real-time indoor mapping system uses Kinect, lasers to aid rescue workers

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MIT’s real-time indoor mapping system uses Kinect, lasers to aid rescue workers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba has a spanking new ‘poster boy’ when it comes to media storage on your computers, and we are talking about the Toshiba Hybrid Drive. Also known as the MQ01ABDH series, it is said to deliver a careful balance of performance which you can find in solid state disks (SSDs) with the advantage of capacity and cost-effectiveness of hard disk drives (HDDs), sporting capacities up to 1TB. The new SATA Toshiba Hybrid Drive measures 2.5” in size, and is a mere 9.5mm in height, where it boasts of “self-learning” caching algorithms which will learn the system user’s data access patterns in order to optimize performance.

These self-learning caching algorithms also help manage just which particular user data is stored to the NAND Flash for a quicker response down the road, as well as how the data in the NAND Flash will be updated based on intelligent access pattern learning. Interested parties will be able to select from 750GB and 1TB capacities, where they should start making waves in standard-sized notebooks, gaming PCs, all-in-one and slimline desktops and other digital computing applications. [Press Release]

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Toshiba Introduces X-gale Series SSDs For MacBook Air Form Factor Devices, Toshiba HDD Platters Get 2.5Tb Of Data On Every Square Inch,

Devon Carrow is a fairly normal kid, except for the fact that his allergies are so severe that he has been compared to David Vetter, the boy who inspired the film The Boy In the Plastic Bubble. His allergies make it impossible to attend class with all of the other kids around.

The slightest thing could send Devon to the hospital. However, that doesn’t mean that he can’t attend school. Devon has a VGo telepresence robot that can travel the halls, sit at a desk and even go outside at recess time. While he is doing all of this through the robot, Devon is safe at home 5 miles away.

He controls the machine’s movements and camera from home, and interacts through the hi-def monitor and indicator lights on the VGo. This is the perfect example of how technology can make a major difference in our lives.

[via The Buffalo News via Neatorama]