You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
It’s no surprise that ASUS has a few surprises for us in 2013, and we’ll no doubt see a range of new tablets from the company shortly. Case in point: Some new juicy details about an Asus ME301T tablet have surfaced, and we’re looking at some pretty impressive specs, including an NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.
The Asus ME301T Memo Pad10, as it’ll be called, is a 10.1-inch tablet running Jelly Bean, and it will feature NVIDIA’s Tegra 3 quad-core processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It’s also said that it will come in two variants: WiFi only and WiFi+3G. We’re also looking at a 1280×800 HD display for the leaked device.
For what it’s worth, the company’s Nexus 7 was listed as the ME370T, and their new budget-minded rumored tablet is currently being listed as the ME172V, so the ME301T could be reminiscent of the Nexus 7 in some way, but we guarantee that ASUS will put their own spin on the device, including some sort of smooth aluminum shell.
Rumors point to a February release date with a price tag of just over €300, although, the price may be different once it hits the states. Other than that, ASUS might unveil the new tablet at CES 2013 next week, along with a slew of other new devices, so be prepared to get your ASUS fix starting in a few days.
[via Android Community]
ASUS ME301T 10-inch tablet leaks, Tegra 3 quad-core and Jelly Bean in tow is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
If you can judge a technology’s wow-factor by how much it’s accused of being vaporware, Leap Motion‘s gesture-tracking was a hit from the off; companies jumped on the idea, though it’s perhaps a surprise that the first should be ASUS, not Apple. The matchbox-sized gadget – which can track the movement of ten fingers individually, and 200x more accurately than kit like Microsoft’s Kinect – will soon be integrated into Windows 8 PCs from ASUS, according to a new deal announced today. Microsoft’s OS certainly loves fingers, but Apple’s moves to blend the best of OS X and iOS arguably make it and Leap Motion more obvious bedfellows.
If you missed it first time around, Leap Motion’s eponymous gizmo is a tiny, $70 box that hooks up via USB and creates a four cubic foot area above itself within which individual finger movements can be tracked. That’s at an accuracy of within 1/100th of a millimeter, and the system can differentiate between fingers and, say, a stylus being held for mid-air handwriting, as well as recognize when finger movements are intended to be linked, such as for pinch-zooming.
Leap Motion walkthrough:
So why would Apple be interested in Leap Motion’s tracking technology? It’s all down to the Cupertino firm’s dual stance on touchscreens. On the iPhone and iPad, Apple hasn’t been slow to adopt touch, driving the adoption of capacitive technology, but its Mac desktop and notebook ranges have stubbornly avoided finger-friendly displays.
“The ergonomics of touch aren’t suited to a notebook or desktop”
Apple’s argument has always been that the ergonomics of touch simply aren’t suited to a notebook or desktop form-factor. Reaching out across to a display – whether to your MacBook screen or to stab at an all-in-one – isn’t comfortable, so their argument goes, when compared with a large trackpad such as the company’s own Magic Trackpad.
It’s a strategy entirely at odds with where Microsoft has pushed Windows 8, with the new Metro-style interface of the latest OS expressly designed for touchscreen computing. ASUS’ deal with Leap Motion, however, means its future laptops and all-in-ones will also support gestural interaction, waving and grabbing at the air in front of the display so as to manipulate what’s on-screen.
That’s actually an area of research that Apple isn’t unfamiliar with: the company has previously filed patents for Kinect-like navigation, including around a 3D display, or by using infrared light bouncing off your hands above a keyboard. None of that research has actually ended up in shipping hardware, however.
OS X has borrowed an increasing number of features and usage concepts from iOS in its latest iterations; that’s only expected to increase with the launch of OS X 10.9 later this year. With iOS so finger-focused, however, the limitations of a trackpad or Magic Mouse will continue to keep the reach-out-and-tweak-it immediacy iPhone and iPad users are familiar with from the desktop experience. Leap Motion’s approach would’ve fit that paradigm perfectly, though I’d be surprised if Apple wasn’t cooking up its own approach as the gap between mobile and traditional computing narrows.
I expected Apple to jump on Leap Motion first, not ASUS is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Eager to start the year with a big bang, Leap Motion announced today that it has partnered with Asus to integrate its advanced motion-sensing technology into the Taiwanese giant’s computers. Via press release, the startup company said that Asus will bundle its very own revolutionary Leap Motion controller with select new computers, particularly new high-end notebooks and premium All-in-One (AiO) PCs this year. (more…)
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Scientists Probe Possibility That We Are Living In A Computer-Simulated Universe, Facebook Just Made The Best Couples Scrapbook,
Leap Motion has been working hard the past several months to get its gesture control technology in the hands of developers. It’s doing a great job so far, and it looks like all that hard work will pay off, because the company just partnered up with ASUS to bring the Kinect-like technology to the desktop.
ASUS will be bundling Leap’s motion control technology with select notebooks and desktops that will ship later this year, including the company’s all-in-one PCs and high-end notebooks. The Leap Motion app store will also come pre-installed on all of the qualified computers, and since ASUS will be shipping the products internationally, it will mark Leap’s international debut.
If you’re not sure what the heck Leap Motion does exactly, we’ll give you a quick refresher. The company’s motion-tracking technology has a 150-degree field of view that tracks individual hands and all 10 fingers at 290 frames per second in order to provide ultra precise motion controls. It also offers 200x more accuracy than Microsoft’s Kinect, which already has its many drawbacks anyway.
Obviously, this new tech will encourage users to ditch the traditional keyboard and mouse interface in favor of a Minority Report-esque interface, but depending on how well ASUS implements the technology, we can’t imagine that it’d be hard to pry keyboards and mice out of diehard fans. Prices for the motion-control-equipped computers haven’t yet been discussed, but ASUS promises the new PC’s will be available around the world later this year.
ASUS partners with Leap Motion to bring gesture control to PCs is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Leap Motion’s amazing-looking gesture control debuted last May, and has had developers crawling all over it ever since. Now, Asus has announced that it’s teaming up with the company to produce a range of computers using the tech—and they should be here this year. More »
Leap Motion’s been working hard to get its 3D gesture control technology in the hands of developers — 12,000 thus far — since it was first revealed back in May of 2012. Today marks a big step towards getting it into the hands of consumers, as the company has announced its first OEM partner, ASUS. The Taiwanese firm plans to put the technology into new high-end notebooks and premium All-in-One PCs packing Intel’s Haswell silicon.
As a quick refresher for those unfamiliar with Leap, its tech has a 150-degree field of view that tracks individual hands and all 10 fingers at 290 frames per second to provide ultra precise motion controls. This news got you itchin’ to ditch that old machine with its archaic touchpad or mouse interface in favor of a gesture-controlled ASUS? We can’t tell you how much they’ll cost, but ASUS promises the PC’s will be available around the world later this year.
Continue reading ASUS partners up with Leap Motion, PCs with 3D motion control to debut in 2013
Filed under: ASUS
ASUS’ official dock for the Nexus 7 has been an elusive beast, to put it mildly: Americans, at least, have had to sit tight for half a year if they weren’t content with third-party hardware. We just might be reaching the end of that road, if B&H is right. The retailer is listing the audio-capable cradle as arriving January 10th for $40. The accessory could be tantalizingly close as a result, although we’ll believe it when we’re charging our tablets — we’ve seen as many retailers take stabs in the dark on release dates as those that use real information, so we may still be left waiting in a week’s time.
Filed under: Peripherals, Tablets, ASUS, Google
Via: Phandroid
Source: B&H
Netbooks, those tiny, underpowered computers that were once held up as the saviour of the laptop market, have long since fallen from favor. When Dell announced it was ending production the end was nigh—and now the last remaining manufacturers, Asus and Acer, have confirmed that the netbook is officially dead. More »
At one point it would seem that netbooks could be the next big thing. After all they were pretty tiny in size meaning that portability and mobility were not an issue. However over the years, especially with the introduction of smartphones and tablets, not to mention Ultrabooks, it would seem that the relevancy of netbooks was slowly dying and come 2013, it looks like some of the netbooks bigger manufacturers such as ASUS and Acer have announced that starting from the 1st of January 2013, they would be ceasing the production of their netbook lineup. This means that if you still want a netbook for whatever reason, you’ll probably have to move quick since remaining stock at retailers will not be replenished once they are gone. Personally the netbook did not have that big an impact on me as Ultrabooks and tablets did, but what do you guys think?
By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Samsung Chromebox Gets A New Look, Asus Zenbook Touch U500VZ Spotted On Asus Site,
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