Hasta La Gadget!

Taking aim at the multi-billion dollar gaming industry, NVIDIA today revealed its own mobile gaming console, codenamed “Project Shield,” which is designed to combine the best of Android handheld devices with the best of console gaming.

The compact handheld is powered by NVIDIA’s powerful new Tegra 4 processor, which has a whopping 72 GPU cores, and 4 A15 CPU cores (though it’s not clear if it comes with the 4G LTE modem processor that’s offered in the Tegra 4.) It’s got a full console-quality controller built in, complete with dual analog sticks, a D-Pad and all the buttons you’re used to. You’ll also find a pair of tuned-port bass-reflex speakers which are supposed to provide higher-quality audio than typically found in a handheld.

It also has standard HDMI, microUSB and 3.5mm jacks, as well as a microSD slot for storage. At 5″ diagonal, its 720p touchscreen display is only about the size of a large smartphone.

There’s a complete Android Jelly Bean-based system built into the lid of the Shield, providing full HD video when connected to a TV via HDMI. They also are expecting to offer a wireless video capability like AirPlay down the road. It can even play 4K video, if you’ve got a high enough res TV for that. Of course, you can always play games, videos and music directly on the handheld’s small screen.

During the launch demo for CES 2013, they showed a set of Project Shield handhelds playing Hawken head-to-head, so it’s definitely capable of supporting multiplayer gaming. The device can even wirelessly stream and play games from your PC if it has a GeForce GTX GPU, though the CES 2013 demo of this capability stumbled a bit.

There’s no word yet on pricing or a release date for Project Shield, but I’m certain we’ll hear much more about it in the coming months.

Are you a problem-solving field agent who refuses to use a gun to defend yourself? Or are you an Equalist looking to cover your subpar chi blocking skills? Then you’re as real as my readers. Badum-tish! You’ll also appreciate this stun baton made from off-the-shelf electronics and some recycled bits and pieces.

The baton is a pet project of UltraKeet member PodeCoet. It works by stepping up the voltage of a 4v battery to 10,000 volts through several stages, starting from two booster converter circuits, then to an inverter and finally to a voltage multiplier. Watch the result in the video below:

Head to UltraKeet for the full instructions. If you haven’t guessed by now this involves next level hackjutsu and is extremely dangerous. Also PodeCoet’s walkthrough is funny but it’s also made with colorful language, so best leave the young ones off of this one. Here’s an excerpt:

You need only get close to, and not phsyically touch these components to get a jolt, which may lead to Ventricular Fibrillation.

You can die (or sh*t your pants, sometimes both) while building this device. We are not liable for any losses or injuries, and cannot answer any support queries regarding this build.

Edit: Yes, you can still die, even if you know how to program an Arduino.

[via Hacked Gadgets]

As we already know, prisoners can be very inventive with all of that time they have on their hands. Now, it turns out that inmates at one prison have been using a very sly and clever way to sneak contraband tools and gadgets in – using a cat.

According to the Associated Press, guards at a medium-security prison in Brazil grew suspicious when they saw a cat sauntering around the prison grounds on New Years Eve. When the cat was captured, they found a cellphone, drills, small saws and other contraband taped to its body.

They don’t know which inmate(s) are responsible for the tom-cat-foolery, and they’ll probably never know for sure, since their cat conspirator isn’t saying a word. There’s no word on the status of the mischievous feline, who remains in the custody of animal control, but hopefully it will be put up for adoption.

[via Digg on Twitter and G1]

Days before CES 2013, a mysterious new tablet computer has emerged, along with a short film that gives us a brief look at the device. Apparently, the enchantMOON is some sort of “hypertext authoring tablet” designed for the creation of HTML5 content.

Specifically, enchantMOON is described as “a digitizer pen-driven tablet device designed to let anyone program and share HTML5 games, applications, and interactive publications without writing code.” Presumably, the tablet renders code using the Open Source enchant.js framework, since it appears they’re both coming from the same company, Ubiquitous Entertainment.

The concept sketches here by designer Yoshitoshi Abe doesn’t really tell us much about the tablet, other than the fact that it doesn’t look like any other tablet out there.

Nor does the early prototype photo taken here with Ubiquitious Entertainment CEO Ryo Shimizu:

Image: AV Watch

It’s got a science-fictiony look to it that makes it look like some sort of gadget out The Matrix, with a built in handle that can be used for carrying or as a stand. From an article over on Japan’s AV Watch [JP], I’ve gleaned that the tablet will have a magnesium alloy body, and a 7-inch screen. It will also have a minimal user white-on-black interface which is centered around the use of handwriting recognition and converting drawn images to vector art. Specs are sketchy at this point, but it appears that it will run on a ARM Cortex A8 CPU with a Mali400 GPU, with Android deep under the hood.

Image: AV Watch

And to go along with the Sci-Fi/Anime theme, they’ve created an enchantMOON short film series, inspired by Alduos Huxley’s Brave New World, and directed by Hiroaki Yuasa. Japanese film director and animator Shinji Higuchi (Evangelion, Gamera, The Floating Castle) is also involved in the project as “CVO” – Chief Visionary Officer. Gee, I’d like a title like that. I guess since I’m the boss, I can do that.

Here’s the first part:

And here’s part two:

Nope, still doesn’t tell us much about the tablet, but they’re definitely going after a part of the market that other tablet makers haven’t been too successful at – content authoring. I think my iPad is a stellar device for content consumption, but I’ll still take my desktop or laptop over it in a heartbeat for web development and authoring. I’m hoping that they’ve got something special up their sleeves, but if nothing else, they’ve piqued my curiosity.

We’ll have to wait a few days until CES starts to find out what all the mystery is about enchantMOON, but I’m definitely intrigued.

Previous attempts at turning TVs and monitors into huge tablets were either very expensive or were DIY projects. We’ve seen cheap Android-on-a-stick devices, but they don’t have the full functionality of a tablet, i.e. multitouch. Archos wants to cover all bases – availability, price and features – with the TV Connect.

Unlike Android sticks, the TV Connect is barely portable. It’s clearly meant to be your HDTV or monitor’s permanent sidekick. The unit itself sits on top of your TV like a Kinect. It runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, has a 1.5GHz “multi-core” CPU, 1GB RAM and 8GB of Flash storage that you can augment with microSD cards. It also has a front-facing camera, an Ethernet port, Wi-Fi connectivity, mini-HDMI-to-HDMI output, a micro-USB port and a USB host port. Then there’s the huge-ass controller.

The controller makes it possible to use touch commands even though you don’t have a touchscreen TV or monitor. You can move the entire controller to use it like a mouse cursor, while you can use the thumb sticks to emulate multitouch gestures like pinching or scrolling. Archos also claims that you can map virtual buttons in games to the TV Connect’s gamepad buttons using their software. Beyond giving you access to Android’s apps, the TV Connect also has a built-in media player.

The controller looks silly and its weight – which Archos didn’t mention yet – could be a dealbreaker. Still, if it does the job I wouldn’t be surprised if this product takes off. I think an integrated sensor like the Leap would be a much better control solution though. The TV Connect should be available by February for $130 (USD), although I’m sure you’ll be able to pre-order it later this month.

[via Archos]