Watch Astrid—Lego designer by day and awesome dancer and fencer by night—show and explain the newest set in the awesome Lego Creator Modular Building series: the 10232 Palace Cinema. Why? Because 1) it’s our desired Lego set of the month, 2) she’s one of its authors, and 3) she has an awesome Danish accent. More »
As a vital component of every desktop and notebook computer ever produced, the mild-mannered keyboard rarely stands out. Most keyboards are simple — if they input text, they’re at least doing something right. Gaming keyboards tend to be a little more complex, touting extra features designed to give the player a leg up in-game. Mad Catz’s S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard hopes to do just that, packing in a touchscreen, a handful of detachable components, alternate key caps and a software suite to help leverage the whole package. With far more bells and whistles than the average input device, it certainly caught our eye. Is it unique enough to warrant its $300 price tag? Read on to find out.
Gallery: Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 review
Continue reading Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 review: a more modular keyboard for the gaming crowd
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 review: a more modular keyboard for the gaming crowd originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Do you hate how the letters are arranged on all of the keyboards that are currently on the market? If your fingers never really got used to how the keys were arranged, then you’d better hope that this concept design called the ‘Puzzle Keyboard’ gets picked up someday.
It’s basically a modular keyboard where each key can be separated from the other. You can take the whole thing apart and re-arrange it from scratch to construct your own keyboard with the letters positioned exactly where you want them.
The Puzzle Keyboard was designed by Wan Fu Chuna and won a Red Dot design award in the Interaction and Communication category.
[via Red Dot via Bit Rebels]
There are keyboards, and then there are Mad Catz keyboards… and now, the company’s constructed a new pro peripheral to rest your wrists on — the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5. Just like the other mission control center we saw a few months ago, it features a modular design allowing various layouts, high-performance keys with customized backlighting, and 21 programmable macro buttons. The main difference here is the touchscreen component of the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 has been substituted for the “E.Y.E. OLED Command Module,” which is used for easy access to keyboard functions, quick-launch triggers, and can display respawn timers for coordinating those second-specific attacks. Cash-strapped pros will be pleased to hear the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 is cheaper than its predecessor, and you can head to the source link to sacrifice $200 on a pre-order now. Mad Catz won’t tell us what alien race is supplying the keyboards, nor an exact shipping date — all we know is that they’re expected “very soon.”
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Mad Catz announces the S.T.R.I.K.E. 5 keyboard for pro gamers, pre-order now for $200 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Oct 2012 06:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Keep lurking long enough and you’ll find the unexpected. Even at MobileCon 2012. Exhibit A: the Kupa UltraNote modular tablet running Windows 8. This 0.6-inch (15mm) thick slate is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor (Ivy Bridge) with 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 64GB SSD. It features a 10.1-inch 1920 x 1200-pixel IPS display with a ten-point capacitive multitouch layer and a Wacom-like digitizer for pen input. Other amenities include WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and 3G/4G (LTE) radios along with dual cameras (2MP in front, 5MP in back), NFC and a fingerprint reader. There’s a SIM slot, headphone jack, mini HDMI output and two USB 3.0 ports on the right side of the device, plus a proprietary power / docking connector on the bottom edge. A 45Wh slide-out Li-Ion battery is located on the left side.
While the specs are pretty much what you’d expect from a decent Windows 8 tablet, it’s the modular design that makes Kupa UltraNote unique. There’s an Asus Transformer-like keyboard dock which boasts an additional battery, power jack, SD card slot, Ethernet connector, VGA output and two USB 3.0 ports. Accessories such as credit card reader can be attached the left or right edge of the slate thanks to a built-in latch mechanism. It’s clear that the company is targeting the enterprise and vertical markets and even positioning itself as an ODM. We spent a few minutes with the device and were impressed with how lightweight it was (760g / 1.67 lbs). Build quality, however, left a lot to be desired, even for a prototype. Still, overall performance was solid, both in terms of speed and responsiveness.
There’s no word yet on pricing and availability, but take a look at our gallery and be sure to peek after the break for our hands-on video.
Brad Molen contributed to this report.
Continue reading Kupa UltraNote Windows 8 modular tablet hands-on (video)
Kupa UltraNote Windows 8 modular tablet hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 10 Oct 2012 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We can’t guarantee what this box contains, but if the list of specs is accurate then it’s definitely too good to gift-wrap. The photo above was posted to a Chinese forum thread entitled “Padfone 2 specs revealed” by a user called cj1024, and indeed the A68 model number at the top of the list does sound appropriate, considering the original Padfone was the A66. If we assume it’s legit, for the sake of argument, then maybe we can expect ASUS’s next modular phone to come with the same quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and 13-megapixel camera resolution that are already strutting around in the LG Optimus G, alongside an uncommonly bright, 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 Super IPS+ display, LTE and 2GB of RAM. You can digest the rest for yourself, or just wait until October 16th.
Update: Keen-eyed doubter Firuz has spotted a problem: the display icon says “SuperAMOLED” even though the specs state “Super IPS.” Dodgy ‘chop or actual packaging error? You decide.
Filed under: Cellphones
Packaging hints at ASUS Padfone 2 having 4.7-inch 720p display, 13MP camera, quad-core S4 Pro originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 06:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
In the hubbub of a late evening soiree in the center of Cologne, Mad Catz unveiled its new gaming keyboard. While the S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard is certainly punctuation-rich, it’s aiming to match all those periods with just as many functions and permutations. The keyboard has a modular design, including a new touchscreen interface offering up some new swipe and gesture controls across both gaming titles and day-to-day PC use. Mad Catz reckons it’s the final piece in their gaming range puzzle, complementing both the aforementioned R.A.T. mice and its F.R.E.Q gaming headsets. We take a closer look — and throw in the suitably bombastic promo video — after the break.
Continue reading Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 gaming keyboard announced at Gamescom (hands-on)
Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals
Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 gaming keyboard announced at Gamescom (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 05:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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