Hasta La Gadget!

Though “Neofonie” is the most apt name for a vaporware company we’ve heard since “Phantom,” it’s looking like that very firm’s 11.6-inch WePad tablet is actually the real deal. Fed up with all the skepticism it has received of late, the German firm just held a press conference in Berlin to show off a pair of working devices and allay our fears. Netbooknews.de was on the scene, and they took a pair of high-res videos that prove the tablets do, in fact, have a working (though somewhat laggy) touchscreen, and that fancy-pants vertical UI is quite functional. Full screen YouTube videos were choppy, but they played, and the Atom N450 CPU loaded OpenOffice and flipped through browser windows without a hitch. But don’t take our word for it — watch the whole 25-minute demonstration after the break, plus a bonus video from AndroidPIT. Then, if you’d be so kind, tell us what the nice company reps are saying.

Continue reading Neofonie’s WePad tablet shown to German journalists, seems legit

Neofonie’s WePad tablet shown to German journalists, seems legit originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ilan Spillinger, Microsoft’s Xbox 360 VP, was on hand in Tel Aviv yesterday for a showcase of Project Natal. Although there wasn’t much in the way of groundbreaking stuff, the resulting video does show off the motion control system’s gender recognition (done through Natal’s facial recognition … you filthy child) and ability to track two players within the frame at the same time. A tipster from the audience tells us that earlier lag issues have been eradicated, although some jitter was indeed apparent when the second person stepped into Natal’s field of vision. Either way, it’s looking like Microsoft’s Xbox 360 peripheral is progressing well toward its release near the end of this year. Go past the break to see for yourself.

[Thanks, Roy]

Continue reading Microsoft gives us a look through Project Natal’s eyes (video)

Microsoft gives us a look through Project Natal’s eyes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A little gear news from today’s DEMO Conference in Palm Desert, California: MEDL Technology showed a prototype of The Panel, the first fully functional portable LED monitor. It’s meant for laptop users, to give them a lightweight second display that they can easily pack up and take with them. It has a 13-inch screen and weighs just 2.2 pounds. The Panel is battery-operated so it can work in any location.

Connect The Panel to a Mac or Windows computer via a USB port and it’s ready to go in less than 10 seconds. The company claims a 5-hour battery life, fantastic LED brightness, and high-resolution clarity. While laptop users are the target audience, MEDL is quick to say that it can be used with portable video players, iPhones, gaming consoles, and more.

No word on when The Panel will reach stores or how much it will cost, but you can sign up for updates on the company’s site.

We’re still not happy with NVIDIA’s failure to publish anything on its site alerting users about the doom that may befall them if they switched to the 196.75 drivers, but the company’s making an effort to get back into our good books with the first official video of its forthcoming GeForce GTX 480 and even a benchmark run against ATI’s flagship single-GPU card, the HD 5870. It looks like you’ll need to jack in a pair of auxiliary power connectors — one 8-pin and one 6-pin — to power the first Fermi card, as well as plenty of clearance in your case to accommodate its full length (stop giggling!). NVIDIA’s benchmarking stressed the GTX 480’s superior tesselation performance over the HD 5870, but it was level pegging between the two cards during the more conventional moments. It’s all well and good being able to handle extreme amounts of tesselation, but it’ll only matter to the end user if game designers use it as extensively as this benchmark did. As ever, wait for the real benchmarks (i.e. games) before deciding who wins, but we’re slightly disappointed that NVIDIA’s latest and greatest didn’t just blow ATI’s six-month old right out of the water. Benchmarking result awaits after the break, along with video of the new graphics card and a quick look at NVIDIA’s 3D Vision Surround setup. Go fill your eyes.

Continue reading NVIDIA GTX 480 makes benchmarking debut, matches ATI HD 5870 performance (video)

NVIDIA GTX 480 makes benchmarking debut, matches ATI HD 5870 performance (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Explaining automatic graphics switching and the benefits thereof can be a somewhat dry affair. You have to tell people about usability improvements and battery life savings and whatnot… it’s much more fun if you just take a nice big engineering board, strap the discrete GPU on its own card and insert an LED light for the viewer to follow. NVIDIA has done just that with its Optimus technology — coming to a laptop or Ion 2-equipped netbook near you — and topped it off by actually pulling out the GPU card when it wasn’t active, then reinserting it and carrying on with its use as if nothing had happened. This was done to illustrate the fact that Optimus shuts down the GPU electrically, which is that little bit more energy efficient than dropping it into an idle state. Shimmy past the break to see the video.

Continue reading NVIDIA’s Optimus technology shows its graphics switching adroitness on video

NVIDIA’s Optimus technology shows its graphics switching adroitness on video originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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