Hasta La Gadget!

Last week, the tech world focused on Berlin for IFA 2012. Those few days were jam packed full of 84-inch 4K televisions, super-sized smartphones and both Windows 8 slates and hybrids. In the latest edition of our weekly tablet mag, we take a look at the best of what IFA had to offer this time around — including all of the devices that made a lasting impression. In case you’ve been napping, the last few days have been all about phones. In “Hands-on” we take a closer look at what Nokia and Motorola revealed in recent press events. On the review front, we put the Canon EOS-1D X and the Sony Reader PRS-T2 through the wringer and offer our detailed analysis. “Eyes-on” catches a glimpse of the Jambox Remix, “Weekly Stat” compiles smartphone screen sizes, “IRL” has even more of our daily gadgetry and meme maker Mr. Weebl admits in the Q&A that all he really wants is a keytar. This week’s issue is bursting at its e-seams, so grab it via your download method of choice to get the weekend reading started.

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Filed under: Announcements, HD, Mobile

Distro Issue 56 is here with smartphones, Windows 8 hybrids and the best of the rest from IFA 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 09:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA just announced that its new Quadro K5000 GPU will be available on Mac Pros, offering 4K display compatibility and support for up to four displays, not to mention 4GB of graphics memory and about 2x faster performance than the Fermi-based Quadro 4000. While the Kepler-powered chip won’t actually hit Apple systems till later this year, we got a first look at the K500 on a Mac here at IBC. NVIDIA demoed Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro CS6 on a Mac Pro with dual K5000 GPUs.

As you’ll see in the video below, with 11 streams of 1080p video at 30 fps in Premiere Pro (and one overlay of the NVIDIA logo), GPU acceleration handles the workload seamlessly, letting us add effects in real time without any processing delay. Switching to software rendering mode in the editing program shows a night-and-day difference: video playback is extremely choppy, and processing moves at a crawl. Even with two K5000 chips in this desktop, Premiere Pro utilizes just one, but After Effects takes advantage of both GPUs. In this program, NVIDIA showed us ray-tracing, a computationally intensive 3D imaging feature, which only became available in After Effects with the release of CS6. Like in Premiere Pro, the program runs smoothly enough to let us edit images in real time. Take a look for yourself by heading past the break.

Continue reading NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU for Mac offers significant Premiere Pro performance boost, we go hands-on

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

NVIDIA Quadro K5000 GPU for Mac offers significant Premiere Pro performance boost, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Sep 2012 06:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The capacitive touch capabilities of today’s devices are perfect for a great many things — but traditional gaming just isn’t among them. When it comes to “fixing” gaming controls on touch devices, there are two avenues of approach, and SteelSeries is headed down both of them: touchscreen augmenting nubs, and wireless gamepads. The firm lumps both of these solutions into its new “freedom to play” line of accessories — and though both of them echo products we’ve seen before, these peripherals play their roles exceedingly well.

Continue reading SteelSeries Free Touchscreen Gaming Controls and Free Mobile Gaming Controller aren’t free, we go hands-on (video)

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

SteelSeries Free Touchscreen Gaming Controls and Free Mobile Gaming Controller aren’t free, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 20:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon made a ton of major announcements during its press event today, wowing the crowd with the reveal multiple new Kindle Fires including an HD variant. While the Kindle Fire HD is certainly something to get excited about, so is the Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon’s latest iteration in its line of Kindle eReaders. Don’t be fooled by your expectations for eReaders, though, because the Kindle Paperwhite brings a number of innovations to the table.

The first is obviously that gorgeous “Paperwhite” display. Amazon has upped the resolution of the screen over previous versions of the Kindle, and as a result, the text you see on screen is sharper than what you’ll get with other eReader displays. That’s helped along by the fact that you can change the font and its size with the Kindle Paperwhite, which is definitely an appreciated addition. Then we have the backlight, which is one of the more predictable features, but still nice to have along nonetheless. You can adjust the backlight strength depending on your surroundings, so you can always have the perfect amount of light to make sure that what’s on screen is easily readable.

One of the most exciting announcements Amazon made in relation to the Kindle Paperwhite is that its battery can last up to 8 weeks. That’s with the backlight kept on the entire time, which is absolutely nuts. There are few key features that come packed with the Kindle Paperwhite too, including X-Ray, “Time to Read” and Whispersync. X-Ray implementation in the Kindle Paperwhite serves as something as an on-demand glossary, giving you information on the characters in your story with a simple touch. Time to Read displays the amount of time you have left in your book at the bottom of the page you’re currently on, and the Whispersync feature syncs your audiobooks to your text books, allowing you to listen to the narrator as you read along.

There are two versions of the Kindle Paperwhite. The standard version is $119, while there’s a version with free 3G for $179. Like most eReaders, the Kindle Paperwhite is very lightweight, coming in at only 7.5 ounces and 9.1mm thick. The Kindle Paperwhite looks great, and with that bump to resolution – Amazon is touting 212 PPI – it sounds like the company has a winner on its hands.

So there you have it – even though a lot of attention will be on the Kindle Fire HD, the Kindle Paperwhite is by no means a slouch. It’s definitely one of the most impressive eReaders we’ve seen, and at $119 for the standard version, Amazon will have no problem winning over the eReader crowd. Both are available starting October 1 and are up for pre-order today, so if you want one, you won’t be left waiting long. Expect to hear more from the Kindle Paperwhite in the very near future.

Kindle Paperwhite hands-on is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Of course, today’s event wasn’t just about the Fires. Amazon’s still got a dog in the devoted e-reader race as well. The big news here, of course, is the company’s entry into the world of lighted E Ink readers — coming several months after the release of Barnes & Noble’s own Nook Simple Touch With GlowLight. The front-lit technology here is proprietary, of course. Amazon mentioned some four years in R&D on glowing alone. And the difference is pretty immediately clear: it’s all about distribution. Looking at the Nook for a second, you can immediately isolate the top as the light source, with a stronger concentration and somewhat even distribution. The Kindle’s light however, is hard to spot, thanks in part to a much thinner bezel: you can’t just angle the reader and see the lights here.

Hold the new Kindle up to the old and something else is immediately obvious: there’s a reason the company is calling this thing the Paperwhite. The contrast is like night and day here. That tinted display we’ve become accustomed to has been traded in for something much lighter, and the text is that much sharper. There’s a reason Amazon went hog wild with the font styles and sizes: they’re all visible here. Also, at first glance, there doesn’t seem to be any degradation in sharpness due to the addition of glow technology, which we saw in the new Nook.

The glow is quite bright, even with the lights on — we get Amazon’s point about wanting to keep it on at all times, so that increased battery life (eight weeks with the light on) is certainly a huge bonus here. We find ourselves turning it on and off a lot with the Nook — not here. Adjusting the light is also quite nice, with a dimmer switch that runs up and down and a whole lot of brightness levels.

The reader also just looks better. Physical buttons have been dropped altogether here (which is either a curse or a blessing, depending on who you ask) and the reader is a bit shorter and thinner than its predecessor. In place of the menu button is a white Kindle logo along the bottom bezel. The silver of the last version has been dropped for a matte black, which is really just nicer to look at, with a rubberized back that makes it harder for it to slip from your hands. Weight-wise, we’re talking roughly the same ballpark as the Kindle Touch. We still prefer the Nook’s trademark design for long-term reading — one of the downsides of a smaller bezel is that there’s less place for your fingers to go. And while there’s an indented Kindle logo on the back, we still prefer the Nook’s concave rear.

Continue reading Amazon Kindle Paperwhite hands-on (Update: video)

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite hands-on (Update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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