Hasta La Gadget!

We got our first look at Project Shield — the NVIDIA-built gaming handheld — during CES 2013, where the company surprised everyone with the previously unheard of device. It’s essentially the marriage of an Xbox 360-style GamePad to a 5-inch screen, all powered by NVIDIA’s brand new Tegra 4 mobile CPU. But the device’s origins aren’t quite as glamorous as its form, even in prototype stage. “The first prototype, assembled in early 2012, was little more than a game controller fastened to a smartphone with wood,” reads NVIDIA’s boldly worded blog post detailing the history of Project Shield. That initial prototype saw heavy iteration across 2012, eventually culminating in the device unveiled last month.

However, just 10 days prior, the device was still locked away in NVIDIA’s Silicon Valley development offices, shrouded in secrecy. Even the models we eventually tried out were what NVIDIA reps repeatedly referred to as, “a project, not a product.” To take the device from prototype to production, NVIDIA’s modeling assembly on work its lead engineers did by hand just before CES. “Over the holiday break, NVIDIA’s engineers took over a small piece of floor space at a Silicon Valley contract manufacturer to assemble the units that would be shown off at CES,” the piece says. Of course, NVIDIA’s engineers won’t be hand-building the “tens of thousands more units” that arrive later this year — a team of “quick-turn manufacturing specialists” at NVIDIA is handling that. We assume the former group will be catching up on much needed sleep.

[Photo credit: NVIDIA]

Filed under: Gaming, Handhelds, NVIDIA

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Source: NVIDIA

Samsung may have had big screens on its mind at CES, but the company also previewed what might be the display the Galaxy S IV (aka Galaxy S4) is blessed with, together with the flexible AMOLED we’d really like it to have. Buried on the company’s stand was a display of curved AMOLED concepts under Samsung’s YOUM brand, AnandTech reports, with the panels curving around the edges and sides of the mock-up devices. More imminent, however, is a 4.99-inch 1080p Full HD screen running at a luscious 440ppi, which is likely to find its way into Samsung’s next Android flagship.

Launching in Q1 2013, the panel apparently brings not only a bump in resolution over Samsung’s previous AMOLEDs – the Galaxy S III, for instance, has a 4.8-inch 720p screen – but a cut in power consumption. The company claims the newer panels use 25-percent less juice than before, thanks to a switch-up in materials, while a low-power mode cuts the battery drain by almost half.

It’s YOUM technology we’d really like to see show up in the wild, however. Samsung’s mock-ups weren’t flexible in the sense of being bendable by the user, but instead wrapped the panel around the edges of the device; since AMOLEDs can selectively turn on sections of the display while leaving other parts shut off, that could mean the side of your phone might perpetually show a status ticker – with new message alerts, battery and signal indicators, IM previews, music playlist details, or other information – while consuming minimal power.

That’s an idea Nokia has flirted with in its Gem concept phone, though there the touchscreen was altogether more comprehensive, envisaged as wrapping around the whole device. Meanwhile, Samsung itself has dabbled in dual-displays, with the Continuum of late 2010 having a pair of screens. Since Samsung didn’t have flexible panels available at the time, however, it put both displays on the front of the handset.

Exactly when we can expect to see YOUM displays in shipping devices is unclear, however. Samsung’s original plan was to begin volume-production of the technology in 2012, but according to sources within the company opted to delay that roadmap and focus instead on regular AMOLED panels, which were still in high demand thanks to strong sellers like the Galaxy S III.

Samsung demos curved phone concepts (plus what’s likely the Galaxy S4 display) is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
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The Steamboxes are here! Well … sort of. The prototypes for various Steambox designs are certainly here at CES 2013, and we just spent a grip of time acquainting our lenses very closely with them. The devices range in size and form factor, as well as origin — several of the devices we saw originate from Valve internal, but inclusions like Alienware’s X51 and Digital Storm’s Bolt were also being held up as examples of the ongoing “Steam in your living room” initiative (note: all the controllers are off-the-shelf Logitech wireless devices, not prototypes). The idea here, as Valve hardware engineer Jeff Keyzer told us, was to show off a variety of form factors for living room-friendly designs. We’ll have more from our meeting later today, but for now you can feast your eyes on the elegant prototypes — as well as Xi3’s Pistin, and the aforementioned other two third-party PCs — that we’ll be sure to see more of as 2013 goes on.

Terrence O’Brien contributed to this report.

Filed under: Gaming, HD

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The Panasonic liveblog was barely finished when we saw this beauty calling out to us from the show floor. This is Panasonic’s 20″ 4K tablet, running Windows 8. It’s a prototype design right now, but seemed to be pretty well put together, and not something quickly knocked up for the show. Given that it’s not a full release model, details on specifications are sparse, but we can tell you that as well as that truly jaw dropping display, there is a front facing camera (no details on resolution, but possibly 2-megapixel), and an Intel Core i5 running the show. Input / output wise there wasn’t a lot going on, but there was micro-USB, microSD and at least WiFi. If you’re thinking that that display is going to pretty much keep you tethered to a wall to keep it powered, then we were told that it will at least give you two hours of use on the go.

Panasonic also told us that Anoto digital writing technology features in the tablet, which makes sense given that — judging by the display section for this device — that the tablet is aimed at marketing professionals, architects, photographers and other such business users. Given the tablet’s size, it’s not the sort of thing you are likely to be slinging in a rucksack and taking out on the road. That said, in our time with it, picking it up and moving it about wasn’t terrible, and you can imagine swanky design houses and media companies lining the walls of their offices with these things. No word on price or availability, but Panasonic were confident that this would make it to production.

Continue reading Panasonic 4K tablet prototype hands on (update: video)

Filed under: Displays, Tablets

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Are you eagerly waiting for Disney’s mind-blowing touch technology to become mainstream? You might want to settle for this touch sensor for the meantime. It’s called the EveryTouchFX, a system that’s meant to replace mechanical switches with a hidden touch-based switch.

I think the picture above sums up the magic of EveryTouchFX. The sensor itself is hidden under the rock, but as you’ll see in the video below you can touch just the rock and the sensor will still detect the input. The inventors didn’t elaborate on their technology in their Indiegogo write-up, only that EveryTouchFX is designed to recognize only the electric potential of the human body. It can also detect touch from behind insulation that’s up to 4″ thick. Combine those two capabilities and you can hide the sensor pretty much anywhere.

While it certainly has a lot of decorative and security-related applications, EveryTouchFX has one big drawback: it’s expensive. As of this writing you have to pledge at least $119 (USD) on its Indiegogo fundraiser to get one unit. I wonder if it’s possible to use the MaKey MaKey for the same purpose.