What better way to bookend another successful CES than an interview with Gary Shapiro? The CES president joins us to talk about the week that was.
Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: show wrapup with the CEA’s Gary Shapiro
Toys? Toys. We’ll be talking to ThinkGeek about running a successful online business, how to stay novel in a world of noise and Toys. Mostly toys.
Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with ThinkGeek
Filed under: Misc
Fleksy, the new mobile keyboard that debuted on iOS back in August, was showing its stuff at CES this year. The trick of automatically predicting what you’re typing without requiring much more than your relative tap position and word length is no less impressive than it has been in the past, but Fleksy now has a new trick up its sleeve, too: an Android version that can actually replace your stock keyboard, something that isn’t possible on iOS.
Fleksy also adds a space bar to its default, extremely sparse UI as part of making the move to Android, which can be optionally hidden if the user so chooses. Likewise, you can actually make it so that the entire keyboard chrome itself disappears and you can type using the trademark Fleksy no-look method. The Android version is still in limited beta, however, so you’ll have to sign up and wait to get let in by the Fleksy development team.
The tech takes a little getting used to, but only because it’s so intuitive I found myself typing nonsense to see what it would come up with instead of just trying to make actual words. It’s also almost like you can’t quite bring yourself to trust Fleksy to get things right, which makes you slow down, but after a little while it’s clear this is much better than your standard input methods and predictive text engines.
On iOS, Fleksy is really little more than a tech demo, since it can’t be used to replace the default keyboard. Android is the platform where it’ll really shine, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of response the beta receives from users.
Huawei made waves with three major phone announcements at this year’s CES, but the Chinese phone maker brought along another unannounced device to show off in its booth. Called the Ascend G350, this lower-specced handset’s main feature is its IP68 certification, which means the device is dustproof and waterproof (Huawei reps specified waterproof, not water-resistant). Aside from that, the dual-core 1GHz processor, Android 4.1, AT&T-compatible HSPA (7.2Mbps) and UMTS, 5MP rear-facing camera and VGA front-facing cam are the headlining features.
Because of the phone’s durability, the G350 is on the pudgy side at 12mm thick. However, the 4-inch WVGA display makes it a little easier to maintain a good grip, so it’s not overwhelmingly large by any means. If anything, the biggest issue we had with the phone was the dim display; cranked up at full brightness on the show floor, we still had an incredibly difficult time seeing anything with clarity. No pricing or availability has been announced yet, but we suspect that this device will be a lower-end phone geared toward anyone working in extreme weather or other harsh conditions. Check out our photo gallery and video overview below.
Gallery: Huawei G350 hands-on
Continue reading Huawei Ascend G350 hands-on (video)
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
For a few years now, Sculpteo has taken a different approach to goal of mainstreaming 3D printing. While the competition races to produce the first popular consumer printer, Sculpteo keeps its eyes on the cloud. We’ll be discussing the company with co-founder and CEO Clement Moreau.
Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Update: video embedded
Filed under: Science
We heard from our friends over at TechCrunch (thanks, John Biggs!) that a company called Zivix has been showing off a cool little MIDI guitar at CES, so here it is! Dubbed the JamStik, this digital instrument serves the same purpose as the already-available You Rock, except this one comes with real guitar strings, works wirelessly over WiFi, features a lower latency (under 10ms instead of about 20ms, according to Zivix’s lab test), and it also has a shorter neck plus a much smaller body for the sake of portability — even for some casual plucking on the plane. The JamStik also supports string bending thanks to the way it detects finger movement on the neck — the rows of infrared lights and sensors under the strings make the magic happen.
Of course, you’d need a PC or an iOS device (with CoreMIDI-compatible apps like GarageBand and Animoog) to get the audio, and for the latter, Zivix will be offering three apps: JamTutor guitar teaching suite, JamHero game (very much like Guitar Hero and Rock Band) and Jam Live music remixer. We had a go using a wired prototype JamStik, and apart from the slight delay between our strumming and the audio output (which will be further fine-tuned before going retail), we had a lot of fun with it. Check out the demo videos after the break, and expect to see the JamStik hit the market this summer for somewhere around $249 to $299.
Continue reading JamStik portable MIDI guitar lets you play and learn on the iPad wirelessly
Filed under: Misc
I lost a bet with myself at CES 2013. In the gaming preview we published ahead of this week’s big show, I wrote, “As per usual, the games industry and CES are acquaintances at best — at least from what we’ve heard thus far. Perhaps this will be the year that bucks the years-long trend, but we’re not betting on it.” Wrong. Wrong. But hey, this is one of those, “glad to be wrong” situations. NVIDIA shocked everyone with its first Tegra 4 device, Project Shield, which is essentially NVIDIA’s first in-house dedicated gaming handheld. Not only does it play Android games, but more importantly, it streams full retail games from your NVIDIA GPU-based PC, all on its high-res 5-inch screen. Heck, it even has Steam’s Big Picture Mode built right in, allowing you to explore Steam and purchase games, as well as push them directly to your television (employing Shield as your controller).
And then Valve’s internal hardware prototypes popped up, confirming what we’ve heard murmurs of for months: the company’s head down on creating a PC for your living room. Not exactly shocking, but certainly exciting; the plans are still nebulous, but Valve’s confirmed we’ll see hardware in 2013. We even saw some third-parties stepping up with their own versions of Valve’s initiative. Xi3’s Piston is the first such creation revealed, though the company’s staying tight-lipped about specs — we do know that Xi3’s working directly with Valve on its tiny, modular PC. It’s barely 2013, and already Valve’s Steambox initiative is dominating gaming news. Let’s call it right here — this is the year that Valve attacks.
Continue reading 2013: The year that Valve attacks
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Software, HD, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
More gadgets, more gadgets, more gadgets. If you were wondering what to expect from today’s podcast, may we refer you to the previous sentence? Brian, Tim and a host of other guests (including our competition winner Dan Orren!), grace the stage once more, all in the name of technology. Jump on the audio below to get involved.
Hosts: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater
Producer: James Trew
Hear the podcast
Continue reading Engadget Podcast 325: CES 2013 Day 3 – 01.11.2013
Filed under: Podcasts
Wearable domination at this year’s show? Vuzix certainly had quite a presence at CES with those Smart Glasses we’ve been hearing so much about. We’ll be discussing the product and the state of wearables with the company’s CEO, Wearable domination at this year’s show? Vuzix certainly had quite a presence at CES with those Smart Glasses we’ve been hearing so much about. We’ll be discussing the product and the state of wearables with the company’s CEO, Paul Travers.
Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with Vuzix’s Paul Travers
Filed under: Wearables
iRobot had a few surprises up its mechanical sleeves this week, including the Mirra 530 pool cleaning ‘bot. We’ll be speaking with the company’s outdoor product manager, Jeff Karlson about that device and the rest of the company’s diverse roster of products.
Check out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with iRobot’s Craig Henricksen
Filed under: Robots
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