Hasta La Gadget!

Outside of the D3S’s ridiculous low-light performance, Samsung’s i-Function lenses just might be the best thing to happen to digital photography in the past five years. Sure, some of you are probably spitting out your morning Cup of Joe at the thought, but it’s one of those things that you truly have to use to appreciate. For those out of the loop, have a peek back at our NX100 preview, and once you’re sold, feast your eyes on five new ones in the 2011 NX Series stable. The new range is comprised of Samsung’s 18-200mm multi-purpose Long Zoom Lens, a light, compact 16mm F2.4 ultra-wide pancake lens, a 60mm macro, 85mm F1.4 CSC lens (for those low-light shoots needing plenty of bokeh) and a 16-80mm standard zoom. Hit the source link for all of the specifics, but don’t go hunting for prices or release dates — those are still hidden in the background, regrettably.

Continue reading Samsung launches five more i-Function NX Series lenses, we long for broader compatibility

Samsung launches five more i-Function NX Series lenses, we long for broader compatibility originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 22:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So it turns out that NVIDIA roadmap we saw last month was as true and pure as driven snow. The barely conceivable quad-core Tegra chip that it listed has now been made official by none other than NVIDIA itself, with the company also informing us that the new silicon is already sampling out to prospective clients. Known as Kal-El internally, this will most likely turn into NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 as and when it’s ready to enter the consumer market. Tonight NVIDIA whetted our appetite for what’s to come with a demo that can most fittingly be described as an exhibition of unadulterated computational muscle. A 2560 x 1440 stream was being decoded on a developmental device, scaled down to that slate’s native 1366 x 768 resolution, and additionally displayed on a connected 30-inch, 2560 x 1600 monitor. That entire voluminous workload was being handled in real time by Kal-El and we saw no signs of it struggling.

By NVIDIA’s own estimation, the quad-core newbie provides roughly double the processing power of Tegra 2 and triple the graphics-crunching prowess. In the second demonstration of the evening, we saw an instance of Great Battles Medieval — ran at 720p with 650 enemy soldiers on the field — on both a Tegra 2 and a Kal-El platform, which showed the baby superhero handily dusting its still very new brethren. This was in large part down to the full dozen GPU cores contained within Kal-El, though before you freak out about battery-draining insanity, NVIDIA claims things are much, much more efficient as well — up to 12 hours of HD video playback are promised under the right circumstances.

It’s a big fat wedge of awesome boasts we’ve heard from the GeForce maker today, however the company’s given us a schedule to hold it to as well. The “August timeframe” is when the quad-core Kal-El is expected to land in tablets, while smartphones will have to wait until the holiday season to benefit from what’s likely to be a slightly downgraded variant. Skip past the break to eye the future Tegra roadmap for the next few years plus video of the wildly impressive demos we were witness to.

Continue reading NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video)

NVIDIA announces quad-core Kal-El SOC, promises it in tablets by August (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Feb 2011 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Acer Liquid mt, everybody! Oh come on, don’t be such snobs, so what if it only has an 800MHz CPU, a humble 3.6-inch screen and standard 800 x 480 resolution? It’s a pocketable and delightfully rotund little device, and Acer’s added a couple of tweaks that we actually found quite useful. The biggest is a part of Acer’s skin atop Android 2.2, which is set to be upgraded to Gingerbread “soon,” a boilerplate promise with any device not running Google’s latest. The Liquid mt offers multiple lock screens, allowing you to do things like control media and check your messaging inbox without having to unlock the phone and enter an app. It’s a pretty sweet implementation, as is the simulated page-turning unlocking animation. The handset’s rear features a 5 megapixel autofocus camera and the stainless backplate that gives it its name (mt standing for “metal”), but its top is most intriguing — it has multiple status lights integrated under the metallic surface, which light up to give you alerts for things like low battery status or unread messages. Check out more of this handset in the gallery below.

Acer Liquid mt hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lookie here. Intel may have been the jilted bride left at the altar by Nokia, but it’s not giving up on MeeGo just yet. The above poster has been hung up here in Barcelona, in the area us humble journalists still aren’t in allowed yet, and shows a smartphone and tablet running Intel’s Linux variant as their OS. There are plenty of details to pore over, such as the multiplicity of home screen items on the tablet that includes Big Buck Bunny — a favorite for testing HD video playback — in its top right corner; the handset, meanwhile, could very well be that Aava Mobile device we’ve been hearing about lately. MWC is opening its doors tomorrow, so even if Intel doesn’t announce these devices in full, we’ll snoop its booth out and find out for ourselves.

Intel promises, teases MeeGo smartphone and tablet for MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Feb 2011 09:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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To those who are still convinced that loud motorcycles make you more safe: it’s best you look away now. The quietest bikes in the business just got even more silent. Zero Motorcycles just has unveiled its 2011 lineup of electric motorcycles and among a suite of generally tidy enhancements comes a change to belt drive. This means no more chains, no more chain lube, and no more rattling and grating noises. There’s nothing but the sound of the wind and the faint scream of the motor, which you can hear for yourself in the video below. Also new is a 12.5 percent boost in battery capacity and a quick-charge option that drops charging times in half — but does so at an up-front cost of $595. That’s on top of the $9,995 for a road-going Zero S. Meanwhile the dual-sport Zero DS starts at $10,495, off-road Zero X at $7,995, and the higher-spec Zero MX $9,495. All are available for order right now.

Update: We spoke with the kind folks at Zero and got a little more information on that new trick charger. A current Zero S or Zero DS will take about four hours to charge, but if you opt for the $595 quick-charge it’ll go down to just two hours — though you can get a 90 percent in about an hour. The X and MX, meanwhile, can be fully charged in about an hour. This is without requiring any fancy plugs or DC converters, it’s still just a standard 110 outlet!

[Thanks, Darius]

Continue reading Zero Motorcycles unveils faster-charging, even quieter 2011 motorcycle lineup (video)

Zero Motorcycles unveils faster-charging, even quieter 2011 motorcycle lineup (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Feb 2011 10:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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