Hasta La Gadget!

Smarter headlights could guide you out of a rainstorm, but intelligent tail lights could enable communication between vehicles. At least, that’s the idea behind a collaborative Connected Vehicle Safety project between Intel and National Taiwan University. Its purpose is so that you’ll be able to know just what the vehicles around you are up to — whether they’re speeding or braking or making a left — by receiving data from their tail lights. Your vehicle could then stop or accelerate automatically without you needing to intervene, or you could choose to react manually if desired. We saw a demonstration of the concept at a Research @ Intel event in San Francisco with a couple of scooters, so head on past the break to learn how it all works, with video to boot.

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HTC may have its Mini Bluetooth handset, but Sony thinks such implementation works best as a big clip without the numeric pad. Dubbed the SBH52, this splashproof device comes with FM radio, a headphone jack plus a small OLED display to show caller ID and text messages, so in a way it’s similar to its predecessors. What’s new is that you now get NFC as well as an earpiece — the latter lets you use the clip as a mini phone. Expect to see this on the shelves in Q3 this year.

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless

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LeapFrog’s latest tablet just couldn’t wait to show off for the camera, making its on-screen debut over at the FCC’s site a few weeks back. The kid-friendly tech company was finally ready to show the thing off for real this week, almost exactly a year after letting us take a look at the previous-generation device. The slate, naturally, maintains the kid-friendly software and rugged design that have become customary across LeapFrog’s hardware offerings, while adding enough new features to let the company confidently refer to the LeapPad Ultra as “the ultimate kids learning tablet.” Though they might be just a tad biased when it comes to such overarching statements.

The Ultra’s got a 7-inch, 1,024 x 600 touchscreen display that works with an stylus to help kids learn to write with something other than their fingers (making it not too unlike the LeapReader in that respect). There are front- and rear-facing cameras for its built-in imaging programs and 8GB of storage for downloading some of the 800-plus LeapFrog-approved apps downloadable from the company’s App Center (which wasn’t ready to demo when we looked at the hardware). The choices include proprietary apps and selections from partners like Pixar and Sesame Street. The tablet’s got all kinds of parental protection, including secure WiFi and a four-digit code for updating. And while there’s an included chat app (Pet Chat), communication is limited to other LeapPads, using a limited number of canned responses.

Filed under: Tablets

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Slowly but surely Leap Motion is making its way toward a commercial release. Today, the company has announced it’s moving into the next phase of beta testing and that it will be opening up its developer portal to the public later in the week. While this still won’t get folks a Leap device any faster, it will let them dig into Leap’s tools and code base in preparation for when they finally get one. The move marks a shift from the company’s previous SDK-focused beta to a consumer-focused one that’ll serve to refine the UX in Windows and OSX. Within each operating system, there will be two levels of Leap control: basic, which essentially allows you to use Leap in place of a touchscreen, and advanced to allow for more 3D controls enabled by Leap’s ability to detect the pitch and yaw of hands in space.

CEO Michael Buckwald gave us this good news himself, and also gave us a preview of Airspace, Leap’s app store, and a few app demos for good measure. As it turns out, Airspace is a two-pronged affair — Airspace Store is showcase for all software utilizing the Leap API and Airspace Home is a launcher that keeps all the Leap apps that you own in one convenient place. There will be 50 apps in Airspace at the start of the beta, with offerings from pro tools and utility apps to casual games, and we got to see a few examples.

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Let’s face it: no rugged phone is going to get more attention today than the Galaxy S4 Active. Just the same, NEC is showing off the Terrain, its first handset for the US market since 2005. The phone, which is hitting AT&T for $99 with a two-year agreement, is mainly aimed at the enterprise (read: field technicians and other mobile workers). Since it’s unlikely to reach mainstream consumers, we won’t be running a full-on review, but we did take the opportunity to get hands-on. As you’d expect of a device that can be immersed in water up to 30 minutes, this thing’s coated in rubber, with a sealed USB port and a secure (but removable) battery cover. It’s a bit chunky for a phone, to be sure, but at 6.06 ounces it’s still eminently portable. In fact, the rounded edges and soft finish make it more comfortable to hold than some of the more minimal handsets we’ve seen recently.

Other than that, you’ll be pleased to find an unskinned version of Android, though it’s 4.0 and not a newer build like 4.2. The capacitive screen responds well to taps and swipes, though the 640 x 480 resolution isn’t going to knock anyone’e socks off — and neither will the washed-out colors. Performance-wise, the dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 8960 processor means transitions happen quickly, and there isn’t any tiling in the Chrome browser. We also got on well with the QWERTY keyboard, though the buttons are packed in quite tightly. And that’s a good thing: it’s slim pickings for anyone who wants a portrait QWERTY Android phone. Finishing up our tour, you’ll find a microSD slot (to support the 8GB of built-in storage), dedicated speaker and push-to-talk buttons and dual 5MP / 0.3MP cameras, with an NFC radio under the hood. It’ll be available tomorrow on AT&T’s LTE network, through the carrier’s business channel, specifically. Check out the hands-on photos below — we even got a requisite shot of it in a fish tank.

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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