Hasta La Gadget!

OTG, the restaurateur that made waves when it installed free access iPads in some of the world’s busiest international airport hubs last year, is improving its existing system with the deployment of a translation system that will allow it to provide translation of its restaurant menus in 13 different languages. The system is already live in test deployments at locations like Toronto’s Pearson airport, and CEO Rick Blatstein tells me it’s already having a positive impact on sales at OTG-run restaurants.

The effort will soon encompass 20 languages and see wider deployment in more of the airports where OTG is already operating in North America, including LaGuardia and Minneapolis-St. Paul. Blatstein said that his company quickly saw the value in offering multi-lingual support after realizing that at Pearson, for example, English is the first language of only around 40 percent of travelers at any given time on average.

“We have all of our menus and everything translated and tested ahead of time so that when you push the flag of your language, it automatically translates that for you,” Blatstein said. The idea is to make travelers feel more at ease, since they’re able to communicate in their own language. Ordering can happen right from the iPad kiosks, meaning there’s no chance of encountering language-barrier problems between travelers and serving staff.

OTG’s iPad deployment also provides travelers with access to Facebook, Twitter, flight status information, and more without charging them. The aim is to make air passengers feel less like a captive audience and more like treasured guests when spending time in the airports that frequent travelers likely know all too well. The translation service, applied at launch to restaurant offerings, is a first step, according to Blatstein, and one that will eventually make its way to the company’s offerings outside of its restaurateur endeavors, too. Customers could soon order commercial goods from iPads in the language of their choice, Blatstein suggests, or set up accommodations or ground transit at their destination ahead of time.

Airports can maintain multi-lingual staff, and cater to the most common languages spoken at their hubs, but you can’t cater to all the various people from every neck of the woods at every location all of the time. But with an iPad-supplemented customer-service model with built-in translation services, you actually might be able to be everything to everyone. OTG isn’t quite there yet, but it’s making big steps in that direction, and that could make air travel (or at least the parts in between) much more pleasant for all involved.

Just the other day photos of the Sony NEX-3n and Sony SLT-A58 were spotted, and lo-and-behold, Sony has officially announced both cameras. The NEX-3n will be part of Sony’s NEX mirrorless camera lineup, while the SLT-A58 will be part of Sony’s more professional camera lineup. The NEX-3n will sport a 16MP image sensor which Sony is touting to be the “world’s smallest, lightest interchangeable-lens camera with a large APS-C sensor”. It weighs 210g and will feature a 180-degree tilting screen, a zoom level, and an ISO range of 200-16,000. It is expected to be available mid-March and will cost around $617 with the standard 16-50mm lens bundle. A twin lens version with the 55-210mm lens will be priced at $926. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Olympus Stylus XZ-10, Sony A58 Photos Leaked,

Yahoo! has launched a new, refreshed homepage, with a greater emphasis on personalization together with aggregation of news, entertainment, Facebook recommendations, and more. Designed for both desktop and mobile browsers, whether on tablet or smartphone, the new Yahoo! experience includes an updated set of applications, including pulling Facebook birthdays in if you log in with your account, and fitting recommended news articles from friends into an infinite scroll feed.

That feed can be customized to suit your own interests, whether that be sports, world events, entertainment, or a mixture of them all. The new apps include local weather forecasts, stock tickers, and trending topics, and if you don’t want to use your Facebook credentials (or you don’t have an account) you can log in with your Yahoo! account and get suggested content from friends that way instead.

Times haven’t been easy for Yahoo! in recent years, with a deal with Microsoft to use Bing as the underlying search engine failing to produce the sort of results CEO Marissa Mayer was hoping for. The strategy remains at odds with that of Google’s pared-back simplicity, putting everything a user might want to see at first glance into one page.

Yahoo! says the new homescreen wil begin to roll out to US users over the next few days, with plenty more tweaks and changes planned in the coming months. No word on international launch timescales at this stage.

Yahoo gets personal with homepage revamp is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Bentley has revealed its new Flying Spur, billed as the fastest, most powerful four-door Bentley to-date, and packing even vaster quantities of technology into its cosseting wood, leather, and metal-clad cabin. Set to officially debut at the Geneva Motor Show in early March, the new Flying Spur squeezes a 6.0-litre, twin-turbo W12 powerplant under the hood, pushing out 616bhp and 800Nm of torque for a 200mph top speed and a 0-60mph dash in 4.3s. However, inside, there’s a combination of comfort and gadgetry, with a 1100W Naim audio system and touchscreen controls.

The W12 is hooked up via an eight-speed ZF auto transmission to the four-wheel drive system, which normally splits things 60:40 (rear:front) but can bias its output by up to 85-percent to the rear (or up to 65-percent to the front) depending on road conditions. Bentley also promises a bump in responsiveness at low-speed, and 580 lb-ft of torque at just 2,000 revs. Economy probably isn’t going to be too high on the agenda for most owners, but the Flying Spur will put in a 19.2mpg combined cycle, with 343g/km CO2 output.

Bentley Flying Spur preview:

Under the muscular haunches, there’s a new air suspension system that automatically lowers the car when it climbs above 121mph. It’s also capable of more comfort, however, not just adjusting for stability, with up to a 13-percent increase in softness for passengers. Outside, it’s a mixture of aluminum, polymer composite, and other lightweight materials, with a new, longer and lower trunk lid, more upright grill, some extra creasing to draw your eye along the waistline, and a 4-percent increase in rigidity. Despite all that, it’s actually 50kg lighter than the version it replaces (ditching the “Continental” branding in the process).

Step inside, and Bentley’s attention to detail becomes clear. The Flying Spur will be offered in both four and five seat versions, depending on how willing you are to share your luxury, with a new, softer leather, 14-way power adjustable seats (all with both heating and ventilation), and electric rear sunblinds, with the option of a no-cost glass roof. In the four-door, the center console sweeps all the way through the middle of the cabin; either way, a single veneer is used for the dash and the doors, so that it appears like an unbroken swathe of wood.

The standard audio system offers eight channels and eight speakers, while the Naim system steps up with individual subwoofers. Both can play CDs, DVDs, music from SD cards and iPod/iPhone, and the onboard hard-drive. A touchscreen remote system in the back allows control over multimedia, navigation, and heating/cooling. An option, meanwhile, is the Bentley Multi-Media Specification, which throws in an integrated mobile WiFi hotspot, 64GB of storage, two 10-inch LCD displays for the rear passengers, each with their own multimedia loading stations (for CD/DVD, SD, USB, and HDMI input) and wireless headphones.

Bentley is yet to confirm pricing for the new 2014 Flying Spur, which will begin hitting dealerships in summer this year. However, we’d expect somewhere in the region of the $210,000 starting price of the existing model, climbing rapidly the more customizations you ask of the company.

Bentley Flying Spur revealed: Most beastly 4-door to-date is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

First you’re taught that light is wave. Then you get a little older and your teacher explains that it’s actually particles called photons. Wait, which is it then? Particles? Waves? Both? Neither? This video should help explain. More »