Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen dual view prototypes for ages now, but you can bank on said technology (dubbed Parallax Barrier) being front and center on Land Rover’s forthcoming flagship vehicle. Announced today at the New York Auto Show, the 2010 Range Rover will arrive with a 12-inch touchscreen infotainment system that puts off different images depending on the viewing angle. In order words, the driver can check out the route to grandma’s house while the lucky soul riding shotgun peeks a DVD — in theory, at least. The navigation system is HDD-based and also includes a USB socket and a dedicated iPod port. Land Rover even spruced up the voice activation system, giving motorists the ability to voice their concerns about climate and volume (and get instant results). Check the full snippet just past the break.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Continue reading 2010 Range Rover gets 12-inch ‘dual view’ touchscreen

Filed under: Displays, GPS, Transportation

2010 Range Rover gets 12-inch ‘dual view’ touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 09:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blockbuster just disclosed to the SEC there is “substantial doubt” about its ability to continue breathing, since there are no assurances it can meet the conditions of a $250 million loan that’s its current lifeline.

And even if the loan keeps going it still not “may not have sufficient liquidity to finance the ongoing obligations of our business, which raises substantial doubt about our ability to continue as a going concern.”

So, uh, who didn’t see this coming? Unlike Circuit City though, this doesn’t exactly make me sad. [MSNBC via Technologizer, Image CipherSwarm/Flickr]

The week is flying by, but don’t forget to stop and smell the roses once in a while. And, while you’re taking a break from your busy life, check out Gearlog’s deals for Thursday, March 5:

1. Get the Samsung WEP210 Bluetooth Headset from Woot.com today for just $9.99. Normally $49.99, the headset has 5.5 hours of talk time and 70 hours of standby time. Only weighing nine grams, the headset is super light. The deal ends today or while supplies last, whichever comes first.

2. The Canon PowerShot SD770 IS Digital Camera is on sale at Buy.com today for $154.99, down from $229.99. The camera has a 10-megapixel resolution and a 3x optical zoom lens.

3. Save 60 percent off the complete Seinfeld series today at Amazon.com. Down from $250.95, the collection is only $99.99 as part of Amazon’s Deal of the Day.

Who watches the Watchmen? I watched Watchmen (The Complete Motion Comic).

Price: $35 Blu-ray, $30 DVD

Verdict: So how are we watching Watchmen on Blu-ray before it’s even hit theaters? It’s actually the motion comic version that’s been available on iTunes for some time but has just been released to DVD and Blu-ray this week.

It’s an interesting idea that’s being adopted by Marvel and others—add a bit of motion to the original art and a comic book becomes a movie. Does it work for Watchmen?

Actually, yes, yes it works pretty well I’d say.
Even though I’m more of a comic book guy, seeing Dave Gibbons’ original art blown up on a 1080p big screen is a fantastic experience. Of course images are cropped, zoomed and panned for the widescreen format, but you can literally freeze any single frame of the six hours and capture a beautiful, poster-worthy still. That, in itself, is absurdly cool.

Animation is for the most part tasteful and smooth—if you didn’t know Watchmen was a comic, you might just believe that it was always meant for television. But there’s one major design flaw – the art is ALWAYS in motion. Either a camera is zooming or panning, or characters are moving this way or that. It sounds like a small point, but I found myself getting a bit motion sick watching the disc…and I don’t often become motion sick with games or television.

Some scenes do work very, very well with slight animation, though. When Dr. Manhattan becomes Dr. Manhattan, the famous panel is done incredible justice on screen. Or when Rorschach first interrogates a bar’s worth of patrons by breaking fingers for intel, I’d argue that the well-planned layering of movements crowd enhances the original art. But when Night Owl takes out his ship for a midnight cruise, the epic nature of his craft, bursting through a cloud of steam, is undermined by simplistic animation.
And then there’s the small matter of voice acting. In short, there isn’t any. The motion comic is merely narrated by actor/audiobook reader Tom Stechschulte. Predictably, his voices for each character were often so similar that, especially as lips do not move on screen, I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be talking. Oh, and have you ever listened to a rape scene between a man and a man acting like a woman? The lines lose some punch.

Buyers of the $30 DVD set will be disappointed by no real extras, while the $35 Blu-ray version lacks a menu system of merit and only includes a brief 3-minute behind-the-scenes of the Watchmen film by Dave Gibbons alongside an appreciated digital copy (PC only). You also score $7.50 off seeing the movie in theaters.

I’d still recommend people start with the actual Watchmen graphic novel. But if you never learned to read or just appreciate big, pretty pictures, the Watchmen Complete Motion Comic may be worth a viewing. At minimum, it’s a good use for your HDTV during your next hipster party.

Look, we don’t really “get” people who aren’t willing to buy the latest and greatest thing regardless of the price and / or current economic state, but evidently there’s a rather large sector still clinging to their antiquated DVD format. Blu-ray proponents Panasonic, Philips, and Sony are looking to change all that by knocking down the tab a few notches. The trio has revealed plans to form a single licensing firm for Blu-ray, which they anticipate will lower the cost of the license — and therefore the retail price — by “at least” 40 percent. They expect it’ll amount to $9.50 for read-only BD player, $14 for a burner, 11 cents for read-only discs, 12 cents for BD-Rs, and 15 cents for BD-RE rewritable discs. In its current form, hopeful BD makers have to seek out each company individually. The group also hopes a single licensing entity will help them spot unauthorized BD devices, so watch out, suspicious mom and pop Blu-ray stores.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Cheaper Blu-ray? Sony, Panasonic, and Philips say it’s coming, honestly originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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