You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Filed under: Misc
Fun fact: IRL was inspired by long-term car reviews — the sort of detailed write-ups you can’t expect after just a week of testing. Appropriately enough, then, we’ve got some impressions of the Chevy Volt from Engadget Spanish editor Jose Andrade, who’s already on his second model. Meanwhile, you’ll also find some thoughts on the BlackBerry Q10 from who else but Canadian editor Jon Fingas.
Filed under: Misc, Blackberry
Here’s some gear that’ll ensure you’ll never again have to fight for space in that hyper-competitive spin class. The Peloton Bike is two grand’s worth of static bike that’s designed to bring the gym experience to your home with a number of innovative touches. First up, the Android 4.1-running unit is controlled by a 1.5GHz TI OMAP 4470 with 1GB of RAM and 16GB storage with 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, ANT+, Bluetooth 4.0 and Ethernet. It’s connected to a 21.5-inch 1080p multitouch display, which’ll let you stream classes from Peloton’s NYC studio live and on-demand. The display also holds a webcam and microphone, so you can still swear at your friends / the instructor as if you were there in real life.
Secondly, the New York design house has abandoned the bike chain — replacing it with a belt drive that’ll prevent your training getting too noisy, and a magnetic resistance system to reduce wear and tear on the flywheel. The company has taken to Kickstarter to raise funds for the initial production run, requesting $250,000 before it can release the hardware. Pre-ordering now means that you can get the bike for $1,700 with a year’s worth of subscription to the spin classes, after which point will cost you $40 a month. Interested in learning more? There’s a video after the break.
Filed under: Misc
Source: Kickstarter
Imgur, a reservoir of viral photos, adorable kittens and vapid memes, is going mobile: it’s releasing an official Android app today. Technically, the app has been floating around Google Play since April, albeit in beta form. The final build allows users to view and comment on photos, as well as to upload their own — basically everything the service’s full website offers. Read on for the company’s full press release, or check out the source link below to fuel your mindless addiction.
Source: Google Play
On June 22, 2013, the Japanese symbolic mountain, Mt. Fuji (Fujisan), which is the highest mountain in Japan and is a traditionally popular destination for tourists, was finally officially designated as a World Heritage site by UNESCO, announced at the annual UNESCO conference held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This is the 17th Japanese World Heritage site.
As soon as this much-awaited good news arrived in Japan, people, especially those who live around the area, started sharing the joy of the occasion.
There are 3 kinds of classifications for World Heritage site: natural world heritage site, cultural world heritage site, and mixed heritage site, and UNESCO granted Mt. Fuji a cultural world heritage status. The reason is that Mt. Fuji has been a very important place for Japan’s ancient mountain worship and also it’s been a favorite theme for many old and new artists whose art is highly valued overseas – including world famous Ukiyoe artist, Katsushika Hokusai.
A scenic area called Miho no Matsubara, which is 45km away from Mt.Fuji, was also included as a part of Mt.Fuji and registered as World Heritage site.
We expect that it will lead to more interest in Japanese tourism.
You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Filed under: Misc
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.
This week, the MS Tûranor PlanetSolar — the world’s largest solar-powered boat — docked in downtown Manhattan, and Inhabitat was on the scene to tour the 115-foot Swiss catamaran and learn about its latest trans-Atlantic voyage. The PlanetSolar team isn’t the only one pioneering new technologies, though. Google announced plans to deploy fleets of solar-powered balloons to bring the internet to remote locations around the world. A pair of British men debuted the world’s first flying bicycle, which combines a bike with a fan-powered paraglider. A 16-year-old developed a cleaner, more efficient way to create biofuel from algae, and Coca-Cola produced a classic Coke bottle that’s made entirely from ice that melts away when you’re finished with it.
Sometimes, when a remote-control car and a remote-control helicopter love each other very much, they come together and produce something like the B. Well, okay, that’s not exactly how this small flying car came about, but it’s a nice story. Witold Mielniczek, a computational engineering Ph.D. candidate at the University of Southampton, is currently running a Kickstarter for the simply named B, a hybrid car-helicopter that can handle both challenging terrains and limited air travel. Equipped with a sleek polycarbonate chassis, four propeller driving units (a fancy way of saying wheels) and an HD 1,280 x 720 camera to record one’s travels, B seems to be the little flying car that could. In the greater scheme of things, Mielniczek hopes that B will one day be able to operate on water in addition to land and air. While it’s no Avengers helicarrier, we suppose every journey begins with a single step. To see B in action, check out the video after the break.
Filed under: Misc
Source: Kickstarter
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
In each issue of Distro, editor-in-chief Tim Stevens publishes a wrap-up of the week in news.
It’s not too often that we call a tech news story stunning, but that seems like an apt description for our reaction when Microsoft decided to pull an abrupt about-face and nix its controversial rights management for the Xbox One. We learned at the Seattle launch event that the system would have to call home once every 24 hours or every game installed from a disc would be disabled — even if you had the disc in the drive — and quickly the rumblings from the gamers started. They grew louder at E3 when Microsoft detailed the system’s DRM, a stream of complaints that quickly reached deafening levels on online forums and the like.
Yet, through all that, Microsoft stayed true to the party line, that the advantages of this system (being able to digitally share games, being able to change games without having to swap discs, etc.) outweighed the overwhelmingly negative reaction brewing among online gamers. That corporate message seemed to get bitter at times, weary at others, but never showed a sign of changing. Until, suddenly, a complete about-face this week.
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