Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re looking to get your motion-controlled gaming fix, there are plenty of ways to go — cameras, electromagnets and accelerometers, for starts — but most figure you’ll buy a single peripheral, a few plastic accessories, and call it a day. That’s not the Aiken way. North Carolina startup Aiken Labs wants to sell you a set of tiny boxes that you can stick on any body part or toy you own, each with a full inertial measurement package (three-axis accelerometer, magnetometer and gyroscope) inside. The boxes connect to a base station over 802.15.4 wireless that doubles as a USB recharging unit for the lot, and you can connect up to eight modules to track 24 degrees of freedom at a time. It’s not an elegant solution, to tell you the truth, particularly given the hacked-together nature of the prototype devices we saw on the CES 2011 floor, but we love the idea of simply affixing a box to a helmet to get instant head-tracking support in our favorite PC titles. Inventor Chris Aiken tells us a starter set will ship for about $300 with two sensors and the base station in the second quarter of this year — additional sensors should run $100 each — and you can see what it looks like in a video right after the break.

Continue reading Aiken Labs shows off modular motion-sensing game kit, we give it a swing (video)

Aiken Labs shows off modular motion-sensing game kit, we give it a swing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ViewSonic ViewPad 10 and 10s hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This fifth and final CES 2011 Showcast is multimedia-enhanced. You can order a CD-ROM of the Engadget Podcast Show 005 by faxing $14.99 + shipping and handling to Joshua Topolsky c/o The Little Yellow AOL Man, 9999 Microprocessor Circle, Silicon Valley, USA 99999. Act now and we’ll throw in a stress ball that’s shaped like the earth and an integrated circuit at the same time. Or just click on any of the hyperlinks listed below!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Guests: Chris Ziegler, Myriam Joire, Ross Miller, Ben Drawbaugh, Richard Lawler, Thomas Ricker
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Law & Order

00:06:56 – Live from AT&T’s Developer Summit
00:13:01 – Motorola Atrix 4G, HD multimedia dock, and laptop dock hands-on
00:24:20 – Razer Switchblade preview: 3G, Intel Oak Trail, almost definitely going on sale
00:33:10 – Audiovox to buy Klipsch, we can’t help but worry
00:35:43 – Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface hands-on with video! (update)
00:39:52 – Lady Gaga’s Polaroid digital camera, printer, and glasses hands-on
00:45:38 – Gateway Media Console with CableCARD and Windows Embedded Standard 7 hands-on
00:48:15 – Samsung will offer access to TV, VOD from Time Warner & Comcast on its Galaxy Tab, TVs
00:57:30 – Vizio CES hands-on with ultrawidescreen TV, passive 3DTV, OnLive and Android clock radios
01:11:30 – LG Thinq linqs your smart appliances with WiFi and smartphone apps
01:16:20 – Apple AirPlay devices set to explode in 2011
01:22:45 – Verizon iPhone: everything you need to know
01:32:18 – Motorola Xoom becomes official, headed to Verizon in Q1, upgradeable to 4G in Q2

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The Engadget Podcast Show 005: CES 2011 Part 5 – 01.10.2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Android tablets aren’t exactly in short supply at CES 2011, but the Enspert Identity Tab stands out — despite hailing from a manufacturer we’d never heard of before the show. Enspert’s got two slick 7-inch slates on the floor, and while the E201 mostly cribs from Samsung’s WiFi-only Galaxy Tab — right down to a 1GHz Samsung Hummingbird chip — the flagship Enspert E301 pumps up the pixel density with a 1024 x 600 capacitive touchscreen, adds an all-metal case, a mobile DTV antenna, and 3G connectivity. We poked and prodded these tablets all over and got a peek at the full spec sheets, so after you peruse our gallery below, hit the break for details!

Continue reading Enspert Identity Tab E301 and E201 hands-on preview

Enspert Identity Tab E301 and E201 hands-on preview originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, we’ve seen an iPad on a dashboard. Ready for some in-car PlayBook action? Recent RIM acquisition QNX is all over it, showing off what it calls simply QNX Car. It’s a basic reference implementation of some technology that will be running the infotainment systems of cars in the coming years — though they’ll surely look very different than this by then. QNX is showing how it can pull media from multiple sources, like an iPhone, use Message Access Protocol Bluetooth to pull data from a BlackBerry, and even use Terminal Mode to replicate the UI of something like the PlayBook. Plus, the PlayBook was able to change climate control settings in the car.

The company is also working on what it’s called the Simple UI Protocol. It’s basically a lowest-common-denominator smartphone integration — something like Ford’s AppLink that, in theory, will work regardless of the app or the hardware on the car. It’s very limited, allowing just two lines of text and a few icons to be sent from the phone to the car, and just two buttons (left and right) to be sent back to the phone as controls. The idea is to remove any aspect of driver distraction and to provide AppLink-like functionality in a standard, non OEM-specific way, which we like. But, it’s so limited in scope we’re not sure just how useful it would be. See for yourself after the break.

Continue reading QNX Car concept with PlayBook integration hands-on (video)

QNX Car concept with PlayBook integration hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 12:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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