Samsung unveils new Series 7 and Series 5 AIOs: Windows 8 and gesture recognition for $749 and up

Samsung unveils new Series 7 and Series 5 AIOs Windows 8 and gesture recognition for $749 and up

Samsung teased a Series 7 all-in-one running Windows 8 — on a 10-point touch display — at Computex in June, and today the machine gets official with pricing and specs. The Series 7 will be available in 23- and 27-inch flavors, both of which run Microsoft’s latest OS on a 1080p touchscreen. The setup includes a redesigned keyboard, which is small enough to tuck under the display’s metal stand, and the AIOs will support gesture recognition. The 23-inch Series 7 costs $1,099 and runs a Core i5 CPU with 6GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and Intel Graphics 4000. The 27-inch model offers a Core i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and discrete AMD Radeon HD 7850M graphics, all for $1,699.

In addition to refreshing its Series 7 machines, Samsung is introducing the 21.5-inch Series 5 all-in-one, which it describes as a “kitchen-style PC.” Its legs are on either end of the display, leaving room to stow the keyboard under the screen and freeing up your desk (or counter) space. The Series 5 will go for $749, and it includes a Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and 500GB of storage. All three AIOs have two USB 3.0 ports, three USB 2.0 connections, HDMI and a media card reader, and all will go on sale October 26th. You know the drill — head past the break for our hands-on photos.

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Samsung unveils new Series 7 and Series 5 AIOs: Windows 8 and gesture recognition for $749 and up originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 03:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG announces infrared-equipped Optimus Vu II and universal remote app

LG Qremote

LG just outed the Optimus Vu II for the Korean market, designed around a remote control app, QRemote. The company’s translated PR claims (erroneously) that the new device will be “the world’s first smartphone using infrared,” letting it operate gear like set-top boxes and home appliances, including other companies’ products. The device is scheduled to launch next month in the maker’s home country, around the time the Tegra 3-powered Optimus Vu will go on sale in the US as Verizon’s LG Intuition. The company hasn’t released any technical details for the phone — in fact, other than the remote functions, we don’t even know if there are any changes from the current pen-capable model. In any case, it might give pause to another Korean maker about to announce an awfully similar product.

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LG announces infrared-equipped Optimus Vu II and universal remote app originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Aug 2012 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tokyo Institute of Technology developed a Cooking simulator that will help you cook a perfect meal every time

This cooking simulator, being developed by a research group at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, features a force feedback fry pan and spatula to accurately recreate the sense of cooking.
This simulator calculates the heat transfer from the pan to the meat or vegetables that are being cooked, and displays the visible changes caused by heating. The fry pan interface allows for three dimensional input, and as well as moving the fry pan to aid the cooking process, the simulator can feed back the …

Ask Engadget: best robot cleaner for stone tile floors?

Ask Engadget

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Anthony, who needs some robotic help keeping his stone floors clean. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“We have stone tile floors in the kitchen and two kids. What wet floor cleaning robot would help us keep the floor clean, navigate the kitchen and handle the uneven stone floor tiles and grooves?”

We love original and different questions like this, the more original and different the better, so let’s help this gentleman out. It’s the old story of the high-tech being flustered by the stone age, but what’s the solution? Is it the iRobot Scooba, with its squeegee apparatus tucked underneath, or something else? Why not share your considerable experiences in the comments below.

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Ask Engadget: best robot cleaner for stone tile floors? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Aug 2012 23:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: docks and clocks

Welcome to Engadget’s back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn’t nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we have speaker docks in our sights — and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here.

DNP Engadget's back to school guide 2012 speaker docks

If there’s any post-adolescent period that deserves its own soundtrack, it’s your college years. Sure, our portable audio picks will let you jam on the go, but the best collegiate experiences are shared with friends — and listening to music should be no exception. Even if you’d prefer to keep your playlist out of your friends’ feed, be it in person or online, you’ll still need to wake up each morning, and what better way to ease into the waking world than with your favorite tracks? These speaker docks offer more functionality than your average smartphone clock, and they’re certainly better equipped to play DJ when it comes time to close the books. Join us past the break for our 2012 picks.

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Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: docks and clocks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring

Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring

There’s plenty of sensor gear around for hobbyists to play with, but not so many polished products for the monitoring-obsessed. Cao Gadgets is attempting to fill that niche with its functionally named Wireless Sensor Tags — small devices which monitor movement and temperature, notifying you if anything’s amiss. A magnetometer registers movement by changes in its orientation, and can inform you of door openings or similar disturbances, while the temperature triggers are based on upper or lower thresholds. The $15 sensors (or $12 if you want three or more) have a battery life that should last several years depending on their setup, but there is one catch — you also need the Tag Manager hub ($50), which plugs into your router via Ethernet. It keeps in frequent contact with any subordinates in its 200-foot range, and if after several attempts it finds one MIA, a warning can be sent in case any of your home guards have walked or fallen asleep. The tags also have inbuilt beepers which can be pinged to track down any rogue possessions they’re partnered with, like your keys.

A lot of thought has been put into micromanaging the tags, which are customizable through web-based, Android or iOS apps, and will send out alerts via email, Twitter, or push notifications on slates and phones (text-to-speech is available if you’re too lazy to read). If you’re into your data, you can also access trigger statistics from the software, complete with graphs. The home monitoring kit is available now, and instead of crashing your browser with too many embeds, we’ve decided to point you to the source below for the half-dozen demo vids.

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Wireless Sensor Tags alert you to movement and temperature changes, fit on your keyring originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 22:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: accessories

Welcome to Engadget’s back to school guide! The end of summer vacation isn’t nearly as much fun as the weeks that come before, but a chance to update your tech tools likely helps to ease the pain. Today, we’ve got a slew of accessories — and you can head to the back to school hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the month. Be sure to keep checking back — at the end of the month we’ll be giving away a ton of the gear featured in our guides — and hit up the hub page right here!

DNP Engadget's back to school guide 2012 accessories

Sure, you may need ultraportables and such to get the bulk of your work done, but you also need a few add-ons to make tasks just a bit easier. In this installment of the back to school guide, we’ll offer a collection of accessories that will do just that. From extra batteries to external hard drives and peripherals, what you’ll find here should help you get through a day of back-to-back classes, without the need to worry about losing all those term papers if something goes wrong with the SSD. Of course, not all of these are meant to aid in serious, head-down studies. We also tackle a few options for keeping fit and iPad-powered study breaks, too. So head on past the break for the rundown on a gadget stash that’ll help you ease back into the flow of things this fall.

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Engadget’s back to school guide 2012: accessories originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Honda’s Miimo robotic lawn mower beats the heat, won’t pour your lemonade

Honda's Miimo robotic lawn mower beats the heat, won't pour your lemonade

If you’re looking to plan ahead for next summer’s grueling yard chores, Honda has something that will help you sweat a bit less. The company has unveiled Miimo, a robotic lawn mower that trims 2-3mm of grass in several shifts during the course of a week. The green-thumbed robot navigates with a combination of controls, timers and sensors while working inside the constraints of a buried boundary wire. As you might expect, you’ll be able to ditch the gas can as well thanks to a lithium-ion battery and docking station (similar to a Roomba). If you’re worried about adjustments, cutting height can be set between 20mm (0.79 inches) and 60mm (2.36 inches) with three operation modes will suite the size of each job. When the unit arrives in Europe in early 2013, 300 and 500 models will be available sporting monikers that indicate their respective maximum cut perimeter in meters (about 328 yard for the former and 547 yards for the latter). For a few more details, head on past the break for the full PR.

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Honda’s Miimo robotic lawn mower beats the heat, won’t pour your lemonade originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic expands smart home appliance line, adds Android Smart App, cloud services

Panasonic expands smart home appliance line, adds Android Smart App, cloud services

If a wireless light bulb wasn’t quite the Jetson’s style future you were hoping for, perhaps Panasonic‘s planned expansion of its smart home appliances will better scratch that itch. From next month, there’ll be an Android app to let you remotely operate appliances, view energy savings and program settings via NFC. Hardware-wise, the electronics giant is introducing connected air conditioners, refrigerators, washer-dryers as well as smaller devices such as blood pressure monitors and calorie meters. Along with remote control, there appears to be some supportive cloud-based services too, such as reporting device faults to customer service and generating reports (from the healthcare products). When can you get a taste of the future? September 25th if you live in Orbit City Japan. As for the rest of the world? We’ll just have to be patient.

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Panasonic expands smart home appliance line, adds Android Smart App, cloud services originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 05:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic to Expand Smart Home Appliance Lineup with Full-Scale Launch of Smart Cloud Services

Panasonic today announced the significant expansion of its lineup of smart home appliances and the full-scale launch of cloud-based services in Japan dedicated to Panasonic’s home appliances ranging from white goods, such as air conditioners and refrigerators, to kitchen appliances and healthcare devices. Dubbed Panasonic Smart App and available from late September, the application will allow users of compatible Panasonic home appliances to remotely operate their appliances, program …