Hasta La Gadget!

Polaroid’s second chance has a price, and it’s $299. At that amount though, it’s hard to tell how much the novelty of instant-printing is worth in comparison to less kitschy and more capable options. What’s more, Socialmatic is confirmed to ship with Android. Just imagine what a sepia-tinged faded print will look like six months on.

[Thanks, Christian]

Filed under: Cameras

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Source: Socialmatic (Facebook)

It looks like China’s TCL isn’t just working with Google to grace its line of flat-screen TVs. The TV maker has just announced that its next line of Smart TVs will be powered by yet another well-known web brand — Opera. Indeed, TCL’s E5691, E5510, F3250 and F3500 series of HDTVs will be built on top of Opera’s devices SDK for Linux-based devices, and will feature Opera’s TV browser and TV Store. Aside from apps and the usual online entertainment options, Opera’s TV platform also seeks to offer an enhanced TV experience, so that you can check your Twitter stream while watching your favorite episode of Game of Thrones, for example. Other features of the new line of TCL sets include 3D viewing, multi-screen interaction and the ability to use your phone as a remote control. They’re slated to debut in Australia, Europe and Latin America later this year for a yet to be determined price, with no word on their North American presence. This is not the first time Opera has entered the Smart TV space, but TCL’s adoption does lend additional legitimacy to the company’s silver screen venture.

Filed under: HD

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NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) will soon bring a much-needed data link speed increase between satellites, spacecraft and Earth using laser beams, according to Nature. ESA will get the ball rolling on July 25th when it launches the Alphasat, which will communicate at 300 Mbps with the German Tandem-X satellite over an experimental optical communication terminal. NASA’s LADEE Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (which launches September 5th) will take a different tack, however. That mission will communicate directly with the Earth all the way from the moon’s orbit, thanks to an atmosphere-penetrating AM-style modulated infrared laser beam and eight ground telescopes. The use of lasers helps both missions avoid radio interference in space and on earth, while bringing six times greater speed from the moon than a radio-based system. Just to be on the safe side, though, NASA does have a backup radio link for LADEE — as good as lasers are, they can’t cut through a solid cloud layer.

Filed under: Science, Internet, Alt

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Via: The Register

Source: Nature

Richard insists Pacific Room is just a movie with a light plot (rather than a dumb action flick), while Ben explains his general distaste for pre-feature trailers. Mix those discussion with the HD news highlights from the last week and you’ve got episode 358 of the Engadget HD Podcast. Stream it below.

Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh (@bjdraw), Richard Lawler (@rjcc)

Producer: Joe Pollicino (@akaTRENT)

Hear the podcast

Filed under: Podcasts, HD

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Early this year, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. movie studios chose Dolby Digital Plus as their preferred means to deliver surround sound for their UltraViolet common file format (CFF) downloads. Paramount Pictures, however, has decided to go with Dolby’s competitor, DTS, announcing today that the DTS-HD codec will be used in its UltraViolet CCF offerings. Like Dolby, the DTS codec delivers up to 7.1 channels of surround sound for Paramount’s UV catalog — though your cloud-based audio/visual bliss will have to wait, UltraViolet CFF isn’t slated for release until sometime in the latter half of 2013.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: The Verge