Hasta La Gadget!

You know, sometimes working in an office with nothing but row after row of cubicles can get rather stifling. Back in the days where computers were not commonplace, and there was no such thing as a network (Intranet or Internet), sending one message to another person in the quickest way within the same office block would be through the phone’s extension line. The thing is, you will need to actually open your mouth and talk, and sometimes, some facts discussed over might be denied or misunderstood later on – with no black and white backing it up. This is why e-mail has proven to be the more convenient and formal form of communication, where folks are more careful with what they write because there is proof from the horse’s mouth afterwards.

Since all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, make sure your office does not consist of only working Jacks. Let your hair down sometimes as the department head, and you will see faces brighten up all across the floor. The $12.99 Air Mail Launcher is definitely one way of doing so, as it allows you to literally send your important message flying across the room without having to leave your chair. All you need to do is write a note on a sheet of the mail themed notes, crumple it and place it on the catapult, sending it flying towards the intended target. It will definitely take some practice to send it as close as possible to your target, although do bear in mind that its range is limited to just 15 feet.

[ Air Mail Launcher copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

With Windows 8 going on sale in just four days, Microsoft is doing a sensible thing and releasing a version of Skype optimized for Win 8. As you’d expect, Skype for Windows 8 has the same overarching look and feel as other apps, which is to say you can swipe from left to right to see different categories, such as recent activity, favorites and a complete contacts list. But the integration with Windows 8 goes a little deeper than that. Just as you can pinch your Live Tiles to zoom out and make them easier to navigate, you can use semantic zoom to sift through a long list of contacts. And, because Skype runs in the background, you can set up your Start Screen so that the Skype Live Tile shows notifications for things like missed calls. Additionally, Skype is now baked into the People Hub, so that someone’s Skype handle shows up alongside other forms of contact, like an email address or phone number.

The in-call experience has also been modified to take advantage of certain features in Win 8. For one, you can link your Skype and Microsoft account, so that when you log into your system using your Microsoft ID, you’ll already be logged into Skype. While on a call, you can conduct video chats using the whole screen, at which point chat messages from that person will show up as text bubbles on the side of the screen. At any time, you can swipe to see other recent activity, which could be handy if you’re juggling multiple IM conversations at once.

If you prefer, you can also dock Skype on the side of the screen, as you can with any other program in Win 8. With the Skype chat taking up just a third (or two thirds) of the screen, you can use that remaining real estate for an IM chat within Skype, or maybe a web search. Lastly, if you return to the home screen, there’s a large phone icon up top where you’ll find the dialer, whose number pad allow your fingers plenty of room to hit the right keys. You’ll see your balance listed there, too, in the event you’re not planning on making a free call to another Skype user. That’s our quick summary of what’s new, but if you like you’ll soon be able to experience it for yourself: the app will be available for free in the Windows Store on October 26th.

Continue reading Microsoft announces Skype for Windows 8: full-screen calls, push notifications and People Hub integration

Filed under: Software, Microsoft

Microsoft announces Skype for Windows 8: full-screen calls, push notifications and People Hub integration originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new wearable computer has gone on sale, with Motorola Solutions hoping that enterprise users will gladly sacrifice some style if it means they have both hands and a database-worth of information at all times. The Motorola HC1, based on Kopin’s Golden-i wearables technology, may not have the slick aesthetic of Google’s Glass, but for those in defense, utilities, telecommunications, aerospace, and aviation industries, it opens up persistent connectivity and remote support to the work day.

The HC1 system consists of a micro-display that’s suspended just in front, and below, of the wearer’s eyeline, running at SVGA 800 x 600 resolution to appear like a virtual 15-inch panel. It’s paired with a power-frugal 800MHz OMAP3 dualcore running Windows CE 6.0 professional with a custom speech recognition engine, WiFi b/g, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, and USB, along with a 9-axis head-tracking accelerometer with digital compass.

The twin bi-directional noise-canceling microphones can be used to talk with a remote support agent, with photos, video, and audio feedback through to the headset, as well as to use voice commands to navigate through the OS. There’s also a removable, positionable USB camera for showing them what the wearer is seeing (up to 2MP stills and 1080p 30fps video supported). If there’s no WiFi network around, the HC1 will work with mobile hotspots or a Bluetooth-tethered smartphone (with select Motorola phones, it can also pull over GPS data).

Motorola Solutions envisages the HC1 being particularly useful for fieldwork, where dispatching a number of regular engineers sporting the headset could be cheaper than flying out a specialist to each site. Instead, that specialist could monitor and instruct each engineer remotely. Meanwhile, a guide to creating apps and tools for the headset is here [pdf link], so that businesses can produce custom software to suit their particular industry.

It’s pretty much the same promise that Kopin has been making since the Golden-i concept of mid-2009, and which we tried out ourselves back in 2010. Motorola hasn’t confirmed pricing yet – the Golden-i has been available as a development kit direct from Kopin, priced at $2,500, since early last year.

Update: Motorola Solutions tells us that the list price for the HC1 “will be approximately $4,000-$5,000 per unit, with discounts for volume purchases which is how most of enterprise customers make purchases.”

Motorola Solutions HC1 wearable computer is your engineer’s Google Glass is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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LG Display is back in the news again, and we are pleased to say that it has nothing to do with the negative side of things, not that I am implying LG Display did flirt with such downside news in the past. The company recently announced that they have kickstarted the mass production of the world’s first 84-inch Ultra Definition (UD) LCD display which will see action in interactive whiteboards, and the kind of technological advancements introduced in this particular display will highlight the emerging trend integrating technology that has found its way into the classroom, with the objective of improving education for students worldwide.

Measuring 1.9m x 1.1m, LG Display’s latest 84” UD panel for interactive whiteboards would certainly place it as one of the largest LCD products of its kind, making it suitable for classroom installation as it measures the same size as conventional whiteboards that currently see action in schools. Not only that, the display itself boasts of a maximum brightness of 350 nits, which would rate it 3.5 times brighter compared to current projector-type interactive whiteboards; while it carries a UD resolution of 3840 x 2160 (approximately 8.3 million pixels), which makes it 8 times the image quality of current HD projectors.

Since it comes with superior brightness and clarity, you can be sure that the new whiteboard display will do away with weaknesses that were inherent in current projector-type whiteboards. No longer will teachers have to assign someone to turn off the lights or close multiple window blinds during the daytime when one is showing off educational content. Not only that, the new display does away with occurrences of images being blocked by silhouettes that are definitely disruptive to the class, as this has been discovered to be a major complaint among current projector-type interactive whiteboards.

LG Display has not forgotten on how touch sensitive our society has become as well, throwing in touch functionality so that users are able to annotate directly on the screen, doing so without having to rely on a separate touch-enabled whiteboard screen – something that projector-types require. There is no word on pricing, but LG Display will release their interactive whiteboards in South Korea and China before the year is over, sending it to North America and Europe in the first half of 2013.

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[ LG Display introduces first 84-inch Ultra Definition LCD Display for Interactive Whiteboards copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Craig Venter, the über-DNA jockey who quietly sequenced the human genome using his own DNA, then made “synthetic life” by outfitting a gutted bacterium with homemade genes, says his next trick will be emailing biological molecules, using 3D biological printers. The move that could revolutionise healthcare – and biological warfare. More »