Hasta La Gadget!

[CES 2013] Bluetooth speakers are dime a dozen, and it is almost customary for a particular gizmo to come with Bluetooth connectivity these days, otherwise it would be considered as a crime by certain quarters. Well, the portable speaker department too, has not been able to shake off this particular expectation, which is why we are faced with the NUU Splash Bluetooth speaker, and as the name suggests, it has a penchant for water, which makes perfect sense since it sports waterproof capability.

If you tend to spend plenty of time by the poolside or at the beach and absolutely love your tunes, then the NUU Splash would be the ideal portable speaker for you, although it would come highly recommended that you waterproof your streaming device as well through a case, or in the case of a notebook, you will just need to be extra careful. They don’t make waterproof notebooks yet the last time I checked.

All in all, the NUU Splash is made out of aircraft-grade aluminum, and is IP55 certified against dust and low pressure water jets, sporting a rated battery life of 10 hours play or 240 hours stand by, where you can choose from green, blue, gray, red and black colors at $99 apiece.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Outdoor Technology Announces CHIPS Wireless Drop-in Audio System , Krell Connect Announced,

Fans of Sigma’s compact series will be delighted by the news of this new camera. Dubbed the DP3 Merrill, this compact camera comes with the same 46-megapixel (15.3-megapixel equivalent) Foveon X3 APS-C sensor as seen on its two other DP Merrill siblings as well as the SD1 DSLR. Where the DP1 came with a 28mm-equivalent lens and the DP2 with a 45mm-equivalent, this new DP3 packs a 75mm-equivalent lens (marked 50mm), and yes, it’s still F2.8. The focal length might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it can still do macro at down to 22.6cm (with up to 1:3 magnification), and at 400g, this should still catch the interest of Foveon fans.

The DP3 Merrill uses True II image processing engine and boasts a ISO 100 to 6400, and it offers nine focal points, 7fps continuous shooting, a 3-inch 0.92-megapixel LCD and a more intuitive UI. Sadly, for video it’s still stuck with VGA resolution. We’ll let you guys know when we get a price and a date, so stay tuned.

Continue reading Sigma DP3 Merrill packs a Foveon X3 sensor and a fixed F2.8, 75mm-equivalent lens

Filed under: Cameras

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Via: Engadget Chinese

Source: Sigma

[CES 2013] Krell has just announced their Krell Connect, which is a device that intends to deliver “the ultimate in high-resolution audio streaming technology.” It does not matter if you are rocking to FLAC, WAV, MP3 or WMA formats, the Krell Connect is able to play those back up to 192kHz/24-bit audio in addition to Internet radio, all never falling under Krell’s highest fidelity standards as far as possible.

Needless to say, the Krell Connect is Wi-Fi-equipped, and it will be available in two forms: digital only, or with a built-in Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) module. The latter will boast of a 32-bit ESS Sabre chipset with discrete, direct-coupled analog circuitry outputting via RCA or balanced audio outputs. As for the former (digital-only version), it will come with both coax and Toslink optical outputs.

You can also navigate through your rather well stocked audio libraries in a jiffy thanks to Connect’s integrated 3.5-inch QVGA LCD display, and as an alternative, full-featured iOS and Android apps also deliver full control on your device as long as it is within range. Other file formats supported via streaming include Ogg, WMA, and MP3, where gapless playback is made possible so that there need not be any breaks between album tracks.

Those who are interested can pick up the Krell Connect from this March onwards for $2,500 (digital only) and $3,500 (w/ Internal DAC) a pop.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Outdoor Technology Announces CHIPS Wireless Drop-in Audio System , NUU Splash Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker,

The first Pebble developer SDK is already in limited testing, the company has confirmed, allowing coders to create custom watchfaces for the smartwatch. Pebble is paving the way for new features that won’t be in the initial feature-set, too; although it uses Bluetooth 2.1 to connect currently, there’s actually a Bluetooth 4.0 chip inside for lower-power wireless in the future, and there’s an ambient light sensor which developers will also be able to tap into. On the software side, there’s If This Then That integration for extra flexibility. Read on for more details.

Some of the initial watchfaces have already been released, with a mixture of analog and digital styles. There’s a Braun-esque analog, plus a binary one which would look at home on a Tokyoflash timepiece, and the Pebble team itself has created some fashionable written-text UIs, which say “Twenty past Nine” rather than showing numbers.

Pebble also demonstrated the music interface, with the smartwatch paired with an iPod and used to scroll through a playlist. The watch shows what’s currently playing on the display, and thanks to the waterproofing, you could even use it to control playback while you’re in the shower. The accelerometer is used for controlling the backlight, with a simple tap of the watch turning on the display.

As for message previews, they show your email subject and sender, as well as the content of the message; SMS, meanwhile, shows sender and the full content. Incoming phone calls show caller ID and number at the same time, and you can dismiss the call with a push of one of the side buttons. Phones can also send things like Facebook alerts, and developers will be able to use Pebble’s user-ID system to send notifications directly to their subscribers’ smartwatches.

Pebble has also jumped on If This Then That (IFTT), which allows for easy creation of macros to send notifications to the smartwatch when different criteria are met. So, you can set up a weather alert – pinging news to your wrist when the temperature reaches a certain point –  or a stock price alert online, and link Pebble in.

Installing new apps and watchfaces is a simple matter of using Pebble’s smartphone app, tapping the required content in the gallery and then watching it load on the smartwatch almost instantaneously. Software updates are delivered the same way, triggered from the app and pushed to the watch; Pebble says there’ll be updates every 2-3 weeks until the initially-promised features are working. That will include Runkeeper support, for instance.

That’s great for the Pebble side, but a persistent Bluetooth system takes its toll on your phone. Pebble says the watch will impact your phone’s battery by 5- to 10-percent per day, thanks to its 24/7 connection. The smartwatch will begin shipping later this month.

Pebble talks developers, apps, watchfaces and future-proofing is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Samsung’s second keynote, and the news keeps coming. The mobile giant has just annouced a new Exynos 5 Octa chip, based on the ARM big.LITTLE / Cortex A15 architecture. Designed to be a low powered, high performance mobile processor. Samsung claims that the 3D gaming performance is twice that of anything available at the moment. The demonstration given on stage by Dr Woo showed him searching for restaurants and watching an HD movie while singing the virtues of its fast performance and power sipping abilities. While we don’t have full details at the moment, this sounds very much like the \chips that we heard about back in November that is expected to run dual quad-core set ups (1.8GHz A15 for the hard work, 1.2GHz A7 for lighter tasks) all on a 28-nanometer process.

Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Mobile, Samsung

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