Hasta La Gadget!

If you play games on the PC, you know exactly what time of year it is. Steam’s annual Summer Sale kicked off last week, and hundreds of gamers have already spent far more than they should, taking full advantage of the huge quantity of deep discounts.  As it turns out, it’s not just the deals that keep people buying – there’s a lot of psychology to the whole process, as well. 

Do you like drones? No? Do you want to shoot them out of the sky sometimes? Yes? Do you feel like you need the government’s permission to do so? Maybe? Well, head on over to Deer Trail, Colorado where drone-hunting dreams come true.

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Angry Birds Star Wars has invaded virtually every major mobile and desktop platform; as of October 29th, it will have a footprint on nearly every modern game console, too. The sci-fi bird flinging title will ship to the US that day for the 3DS, Wii, Wii U, PS3, PS Vita and Xbox 360, with international customers getting their turn on November 1st. Regardless of the platform, there’s a few rewards for patient gamers — the console editions will carry a raft of competitive and cooperative multiplayer modes, as well as 20 exclusive levels. We’re slightly surprised that there aren’t PS4 and Xbox One ports just to complete the picture, but the launch is still good news for those who’d rather play ABSW on the big screen than give its sequel a try.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Rovio Mobile (YouTube)

Samsung is teasing a new version of its flagship Exynos 5 Octa processor, the eight-core chip found in some versions of the Galaxy S 4, with a full reveal of the “more powerful” SoC next week. The new chip, Samsung took to Twitter to gloat about, is billed as an “evolution” of the existing Exynos 5 Octa, though aside from unspecified performance improvements the South Korean company is vague as to what changes we can expect.

The original Exynos 5 Octa went into production back in March, the first example of ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture. Although the chipset has eight processor cores in total, only four of them are ever active at the same time, depending on what the device is being asked to do.

In high load situations, such as when running games, the Exynos 5 Octa runs as a quadcore Cortex-A15 processor, for maximum performance. However, when less grunt is required – such as polling data connections while the phone or tablet is otherwise idle – a quartet of Cortex-A7 cores are switched on instead, which are less powerful but also more frugal.

There’s more on the Exynos 5 Octa chipset in our SlashGear 101.

One possibility is that the new version of the Exynos 5 Octa will simply increase the clock speed of the two sets of cores. Currently, the A15 cores run at 1.6GHz, while the A7 cores run at 1.2GHz. However, it could also be to do with LTE support, which is only found on select models of the Galaxy S 4 running the Exynos 5 Octa.

According to recent rumors, Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Note III will use the Octa chip in at least some of its variants. We’ll know more about the chip next week, when Samsung details it fully; the Note III will have to wait until September, at least according to the rumor-mill, and its expected IFA 2013 unveil.

Samsung Exynos 5 Octa update teased (in time for the Galaxy Note III) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The small handheld medical reader used by Dr. Leonard McCoy in “Star Trek” has been replaced by a smartphone. The real-life tricorder is a sleek, square device called a Scanadu Scout that works with your phone.

‘Star Trek’ tricorder becomes reality

The Scanadu can read your vitals in 10 seconds, measuring heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate, blood pressure, ECG, and emotional stress. You hold it to your forehead and the information is wirelessly transmitted to your smartphone. It works on iOS and Android devices.

(Credit: Scanadu)

Founder and CEO Walter De Brouwer explained the Scanadu Scout is not just for doctors. He’s looking to enable patients with an informative, easy-to-use device so they can play a larger role in the healing process.

“People need something cool, that they immediately understand and that they can have a relationship with their doctor.” De Brouwer joked, “We don’t want to make something just for retired engineers with a chronic disease.”

The device has 106 unique components, including an infrared thermometer, three accelerometers, and a microphone. De Brouwer says doctors and patients would use the same device, but the doctor version of the app would have more detailed information. He claims their algorithms are 95 percent accurate.

[Read more]

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