Hasta La Gadget!

Remember last month when Dell announced an all-in-one, Ultrabook and dockable 10-inch tablet, all aimed at enterprise users? Well, they’ve finally gotten some proper prices, and are now up for sale on Dell’s site. Starting with the Latitude 10 Windows 8 tablet, it starts at $650 — about right for a 10-inch, Atom-powered slate with an IPS display and 1,366 x 768 resolution. Other specs include two gigs of RAM, up to 128GB of eMMC NAND storage and, most notably, a swappable 60Wh battery. On the tablet itself, you’ve got a USB 2.0 port, a micro-USB socket for charging, mini-HDMI, a headphone port, micro-SIM slot and a full-size SD reader. The dock adds four USB 2.0 connections, along with Ethernet, HDMI and audio output.

Moving on, the Latitude 6430u Ultrabook has a 14-inch matte display with 1,366 x 768 resolution. As it happens, it’s one of those 14-inch displays crammed into a 13-inch chassis, so the bezels should be pretty narrow. Configuration options include your usual array of Core i3, i5 and i7 processors (vPro optional), with up to 8GB of RAM and up to 256GB of solid-state storage. Prices start at $900. Lastly, in case you missed it last month, the OptiPlex 9010 is a 23-inch all-in-one desktop with 1080p resolution and vPro-equipped processors. Design-wise, it’s identical to a model Dell announced earlier this year, only now it runs Windows 8, not 7. That starts at $1,200.

Filed under: Displays, Laptops, Tablets, Dell

Dell’s Latitude 10 tablet, OptiPlex 9010 all-in-one and Latitude 6430u Ultrabook all available now originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Oct 2012 12:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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By combining a camera that detects surfaces with one that perceives motion, Canadian university researchers and Autodesk have made a sensor that reads finger gestures based on which part of your body you swipe. The first camera can detect pre-programmed materials like clothing, which would allow finger movements made across your pants or or shirt to activate commands that call specific people or compose an email, for instance. Autodesk sees this type of input as a possible compliment to smartphones or Google Glasses (which lack a useful input device), though it says the motion detection camera isn’t accurate enough yet to replace a mouse. Anyway, if you wanted that kind of device for your digits, it already exists — in spades.

Continue reading Autodesk researchers develop ‘magic finger’ that reads gestures from any surface (video)

Filed under: Displays, Wearables

Autodesk researchers develop ‘magic finger’ that reads gestures from any surface (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Oct 2012 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A new study from NPD DisplaySearch today shows that on average, the diagonal size of LCD and other displays on electronic devices and public signboards is on the rise, with the notable exception of mobile PCs. In some areas, NPD is showing huge growth, like the whopping 38 percent projected increase in mobile phone screen size between 2010 and 2013.

Display sizes are also making modest increases in other areas, like the 5 percent change in desktop monitors (from 19.9-inches in 2010 to a projected 20.9-inches in 2013), or the 29 percent spike in portable media player size. Given that Apple has a huge portion of both the PMP and mobile phone spaces, its recent introduction of larger-screened iPhones, iPod touches and iPod nanos likely influenced the significant project growth in those areas. Android and Windows Phone 8-powered devices are also seeing screen sizes packing on extra inches, however, so the fire was already started long before Apple came along to help bring up the average.

Why are mobile PC screen sizes trending downwards? NPD says it’s because of a couple of factors, including the rising interest in ultrabooks (though there’s some debate about how interested customers actually are in that category), and more importantly, the growth of tablets. Average sizes are expected to fall from 13.6-inches to 12.2-inches between 2010 and 2013 in the mobile PC segment, and if Microsoft’s new Windows 8 OS makes the splash in tablets the company seems to be hoping it will with the Surface and third-party offerings, that number could go even lower as 10-inch devices flood the market.

In the end, that means consumers can continue to expect their video and digital image media devices to get larger and larger, for the most part, which is also good news for content producers and those working in advancing digital A/V tech. I’m just hoping all mobile phones don’t go on a Galaxy Note II growth spurt, because that would require too much rethinking in terms of how we design and build pants pockets.

A few weeks ago, Wacom started shipping a new version of its Cintiq 24HD pen display for creative pros that first broke from cover last September. The appropriately named Cintiq 24HD touch carries virtually the same outer styling as the OG model. An ergonomic base still cradles the massive 24-inch screen and can be configured to your particular seating preference. On the inside, though, there’s a host of changes. As the name suggests, the major difference between the two is the addition of multi-touch controls to the more recent offering. However, the added functionality does come with a pretty hefty price tag, as the Cintiq 24HD touch costs $1,100 more than its elder sibling. Are the additions of touch gestures and an improved display panel enough to justify forking over the extra coin, or will the less expensive option work just fine in a studio setting? Read on to find out as we tackle that very question.

Continue reading Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch review: the pen-enabled display tacks on multi-touch gestures

Filed under: Displays, Peripherals

Wacom Cintiq 24HD touch review: the pen-enabled display tacks on multi-touch gestures originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Oct 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I-O Data outs this morning in Japan a new monitor with the LCD-MF271CGBR. This new 27″ LED Backlight Monitor main feature is its WQHD (2560×1440) IPS Panel and its 420cd/m2 brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio and 4.3ms response time. Set for a launch nationwide at the end of this month at an announced price of 49,800 yen, the LCD-MF271CGBR comes with a pair if 2W integrated speakers, DVI-D (Dual Link), HDMI, D-SUB and DisplayPort.