Hasta La Gadget!

Ask any real gamer about gaming on a touchscreen, and the first thing you’ll hear is he or she lamenting over the lack of physical buttons. Ten One Design aims to remedy this legitimate complaint with its Fling joystick add-ons for the iPad. The product is simple enough, a twisted piece of plastic with capacitive contact points in the center and suction cups to stick it to the screen. They feel quite like the joysticks on a PSP, and make gaming on the device seriously more enjoyable — not to mention natural feeling — and other than that there’s not much else to say. Oh wait, did we mention they cost $25… each? Yeah, total buzzkill.

Fling iPad joystick thumbs-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, here’s an interesting tale. That render that Ocosmos teased us with at the front-end of this week? The version with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard has been nixed, so those hoping and praying for a release date on that one can keep right on dreaming. But the other units are mighty real, and the company swears up and down it’s on track to ship ’em both, despite not having a functioning unit here at CES. The OCS1U will be based on Intel’s Oak Trail platform (1.5GHz), and if all goes well, it’ll ship in the first half of this year. The device be based around Windows 7, and will be “priced competitively” compared to the iPad — so, in other words, around $500 or so.

Other specifications will include 802.11b/g/n WiFi, optional 3G, Bluetooth 3.0, GPS, a 5-inch capacitive touch panel (1024 x 600), a 32GB / 64GB SSD, microSD card slot, HDMI / USB ports, an inbuilt accelerometer and front (1.3 megapixel) / rear (3 megapixel) cameras. Furthermore, both of the joystick pads — which flank the screen on the left and right — will be totally customizable, so they can do one thing while in a game and another while handling Office duties. The OCS1E is a screen-only affair, with the same internal configuration. In order to add joysticks to this one, you’ll need either a magnetic dock or a folio case, both of which have Bluetooth joystick pads embedded. This guy’s expected to ship at the end of this year or in early 2012, but it’s obviously too early to estimate pricing. Take a closer look in the gallery below and the video just past the break.

Continue reading Ocosmos showcases next-gen OCS1 Windows 7 handhelds at CES 2011 (video)

Ocosmos showcases next-gen OCS1 Windows 7 handhelds at CES 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Launched back in October, Sprint ID is the carrier’s service for deeply skinning your Android device with a curated selection of wallpapers, ringtones, and apps — think of it as phone customization for people who don’t have the time (or patience) to find and install stuff they like. Currently available on three models — the LG Optimus S, Sanyo Zio, and Samsung Transform — we’d heard that the service would eventually be spreading to other phones and also to the Galaxy Tab, leading to the obvious question: how do the ID packs scale to the larger form factor and higher screen resolution?

Well, the short answer is that they don’t — at least, not yet. At a Sprint event last evening we had a chance to play with a Tab that had received the Sprint ID firmware update early, and existing packs designed for phones that we tried produced a variety of results ranging from force close messages to weird-looking home screens. That’s not to say that the packs can’t be designed to support the Tab, of course — the one for Sprint employees that was pre-installed and designed specifically to take advantage of the extra screen real estate looks great — but the packs out there now don’t seem to play nice. This might explain why the update hasn’t been released yet, because Sprint either needs to make sure every pack works with every ID-enabled product or set up the pack store to block Tab owners from downloading incompatible packs. Check out the gallery!

Sprint ID for Samsung Galaxy Tab hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LAS VEGAS — Xpand’s new universal 3D glasses not only adjust to suit the 3DTV you want to use them with: they also adjust to suit you. Dubbed “Youniversal”, the specs come in a range of sizes and can be further tweaked to change a numer of parameters.

Like other Xpand 3D glasses, these can be set to sync with any television that uses active-shutter 3D, and work with Bluetooth, RF, infra-red and DLP-link connections. Unlike other specs, these come with a companion smartphone app to tailor them for your eyes only.

Choose black, gray or red frames, and from two sizes, and fire up the app. You can adjust the glasses according to ambient brightness, whether you’re wearing prescription lenses already, and also the amount of the 3D effect – from in-your-face Jaws 3D-style to subtle Pixar’s Day & Night-style.

I like the look of these specs. They’re actually very similar to my everyday glasses. I do wonder how long it will take to get the ultimate in personalized 3D specs: prescription lenses.

Available April, price yet to be announced (but probably more than the regular $130 Xpand glasses).

Youniversal product page [Xpand via Harry McCracken]

See Also:

• Goofy Glasses Hold Key to 3-D's Future
• One Pair of 3-D Glasses to Bind Them All
• 3-D Tabletop Display Gets Rid of the Glasses

Talk about a long wait. Razer’s Chimaera — which first popped onto our radar in prototype form here in Vegas a year ago — is finally shipping to end users. That’s according to staff at the company’s booth today at CES, who seemed quite pleased that they could change their answer when asked about it from eager (read: impatient) customers. The website still hasn’t been updated, but the 5.1 channel surround sound headset ($199.99) should be more widely available to purchase soon. Also, a 2.1 version will be on sale for $129.99, rocking a fairly similar design and charging station. For those needing a refresher, this is a wireless Xbox 360 headset, complete with an equalizer, audio out jacks (on the station) and a flip-down microphone. Have a peek at the gallery below, and feel free to start checking your doorstep at an unhealthy clip.

Razer Chimaera emerges at CES 2011, starts shipping to consumers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 09:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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