Lightpack Ambient Lighting Kit

Lightpack Ambient Lighting KitPhilips and their Ambilight technology certainly ushered in something different for the mass market a few years back, and it is not something that you would be able to find on other non-Philips devices around the home. Well, the Lightpack is an idea that might change that situation eventually, where it is currently looking to raise funds on Kickstarter. Just what is Lightpack all about? It is actually a bunch of LEDs, accompanied by a few wires and a small black box, but do not take it at face value. Instead, check out what it can do in the long run – which is to create glowing effects which will mimic whatever is being shown.

Not quite the same idea as Ambilight, but imagine having the Lightpack “expand” the light and colors from the explosion on your screen onto the wall, and this also, assuming that you are viewing the latest action movie in a dark room with all other sources of light turned off. Not only that, Lightpack can also be programmed to send over colorful alerts from a range of other apps, with email, Twitter and Facebook alerts being just the beginning. Do you have faith that the Lightpack would make it big?

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Rocketmelt For iOS v3.0 Brings Speed And New Visuals, Meet Pars, The Aerial Rescue Robot ,

    

Archos 35, 50 and 53: New Affordable Unlocked Android Smartphones

Archos 35, 50 and 53: New Affordable Unlocked Android Smartphones

Archos has launched an affordable unlocked smartphone line today, with prices starting at $99. The Archos Platinum range of devices offers users IPS screens, quadcore processors and 8 megapixel cameras all in a sleek design. The three devices, Archos 35 Carbon, Archos 50 Platinum and Archos 53 Platinum are priced $99, $219.99 and $249.99 respectively. All three smartphones offer pure un-skinned Android experience and are Google certified for access to Google Play and Google Mobile Services, which includes Google Now.

The Archos 35 Carbon (above) is the entry level device in this smartphone range. It has a 3.5″ IPS touchscreen with 320 x 480 pixel resolution, a Qualcomm 7225A 1Ghz processor with 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. Both front and back cameras are VGA, there’s a microSD slot and a 1,300 mAh battery. It runs on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. (more…)

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Ubergizmo Giveaway: Monster White Tuxedo Headphones

Ubergizmo Giveaway: Monster White Tuxedo HeadphonesUbergizmo and Monster are joining forces to make one of you the happy owner of a brand new pair of Monster White Tuxedo DNA headphones, a product that was introduced this weekend at the 2013 MTV Movie awards. During the event, an autographed model was auctioned to support “Jewelry for a Cause”, which is a charity that intends to remove illegal guns from the streets.

How to enter: Tweet a photo of yourself dressed to the nines using hashtags #MonsterDNATuxedo #ubergizmo.

Get suited up or pull out the best looking pictures of yourselves dressed to the nines (Suit & Tie, Formal, Prom), and enter to win a pair of Tuxedo DNA Monster Headphones. Monster will ask a celebrity ambassador to pick the “Best Dressed” winner at random giving you some Monster Star Power!

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Google To Developers: Google Glass Is Off Limits For Ads

Google To Developers: Google Glass Is Off Limits For AdsEarlier this morning, we uncovered more information concerning the upcoming Google Glass, which is a pricey “toy” for big boys, and here are some additional information concerning Google Glass if you happen to be a developer who wants to roll out apps for what could very well be a new fad in the world of portable consumer electronics. It seems that Google has informed developers that they are not allowed to include ads within the Google Glass’ display – which could be seen as Google wanting to protect their “territory”, so to speak.

Not only that, the recently published terms and conditions for developers who are working on apps for Google Glass also seem to frown upon the charging of apps by companies. How will this affect app developers in the long run when it comes to Google Glass? Will developers continue to bite? Perhaps, as it is still a relatively new hardware market, and you would definitely want to be there when it “explodes”, where first mover advantage with a solid history or background would then see you start rolling in the big bucks.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Google Glass Explorer Edition Unboxed, Seiko Sports Watch Helps Your Training Sessions Be More Efficient,

    

Rocketmelt For iOS v3.0 Brings Speed And New Visuals

Rocketmelt For iOS v3.0 Brings Speed And New Visuals

Rockmelt today released a major update of its iOS app. Version 3.0 brings a lot of improvements, the company says that they’ve packed a “lot of goodness” in this big release. The app is now claimed to be twice as fast, user’s are said to feel the speed right away, especially when new content loads and they navigate around. The visuals have also been improved. Vibrant colors have been added to the navigation and side bars which gives the app a nice feel. Pictures view has also been updated.

Social features have been revamped too. Support for @mentions and hashtags has been added, which makes it easier to share your favorite content with your friends, and interact with the content they’ve shared. Tapping on a hashtag will bring up all stories across Rockmelt that carry that tag. Rockmelt for iOS v3.0 is available for download from iTunes App Store. The company also released Rockmelt for Web earlier today, which brings most of the features mentioned here over to the desktop. Though currently in invite-only beta, existing Rockmelt users will be the first ones to get the invites.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Meet Pars, The Aerial Rescue Robot , NVIDIA Volta Next-Gen GPU Architecture Provides Huge Bandwidth Boost,

    

Sailfish Mobile OS Demo by Jolla’s CEO Marc Dillon

After CeBIT in Germany, I went to Finland to meet a few of the very talented technology companies that this country has produced. In Helsinki, I met with Marc Dillon, CEO, Jolla, and one of the four co-founders of this startup which is building the next open source mobile OS, a.k.a. Sailfish.

At MWC 2013, Jolla launched its Sailfish SDK that was made available for download at sailfish.org. According to marc Dillon the first application was developed 30 minutes after the SDK was officially released, according to Marc Dillon.

Check the video demo of Sailfish above and the story behind it in the full article below.

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Meet Pars, The Aerial Rescue Robot

Meet Pars, The Aerial Rescue Robot
RTS Lab
, based in Iran, has developed Pars, which is an aerial rescue robot designed and made for “saving human lives”. The purpose behind building Pars is to rescue people who are drowning near coastlines. The robot can quickly move towards people who’re drowning off the coastline by user guidance and then activate its savior system which releases life tubes. It can also be used for maritime monitoring, aid in firefighting, precise positioning and recording film from dangerous pathways for rescue missions. RTS Lab says that Pars uses new technologies that help guide and navigate it, these technologies include sound and image processing, autopilot, artificial intelligence and an array of sensors.

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NVIDIA Volta Next-Gen GPU Architecture Provides Huge Bandwidth Boost

NVIDIA Volta Next Gen GPU Architecture Provides Huge Bandwidth Boost

Earlier today, we saw NVIDIA present Volta, it’s next-generation GPU architecture that is designed to increase performance by addressing one of the “eternal” problems linked to GPUs more than any other processor type: memory bandwidth. Volta is going to use RAM that is layered on top of the GPU silicon to reduce energy consumption and latency during memory accesses. With this, NVIDIA says that it will be able to push 1 Terabytes of data per second through the chip. This is 5X superior to the GeForce Titan, which tops 192GB/s. (more…)

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Apple Criticizes Android Ahead of Galaxy S4 Launch

Apple Criticizes Android Ahead of Galaxy S4 LaunchIn an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Apple’s Phil Schiller who leads the marketing efforts for the brand went on the offensive against Android and its eco-system. Among the many criticisms that he had against Android, the interesting ones were fragmentation, poor user experience and lower value. “Android is often given as a free replacement for a feature phone and the experience isn’t as good as an iPhone.” he said, and added “When you take an Android device out of the box, you have to sign up to nine accounts with different vendors to get the experience iOS comes with,”…”They don’t work seamlessly together.”

Customers don’t relate to that

While the points that he makes are worth looking at, they are also mostly irrelevant to most Android potential customer. The Android fragmentation may be a real issue for developers who can struggle to reach a 100% compatibility with their apps, but most now only target the most popular Android devices. Android customers who buy one of those don’t really need to worry, and with all the handsets that we have tested or played with at Ubergizmo, we have yet to bump into any compatibility problems.

Sure, structurally, Android as a whole is much more fragmented than iOS which gets faster OS updates, but it also provides more choices to the consumers and that’s why it has become so popular. In any case, half of the Android phones sold in the USA comes from one vendor -Samsung- so the compatibility problem isn’t so bad in reality, even if the OS updates can remain a sore topic of discussion for some users. (more…)

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Valve Claims “No Involvement” With Xi3’s Piston, EA Apologizes For SimCity Snafu,

Valve Claims “No Involvement” With Xi3′s Piston

Valve Claims No Involvement With Xi3s PistonRemember earlier today we reported that Xi3′s Piston gaming machine went up for pre-order? Well if you were thinking about getting your hands on the device because Valve supposedly was involved with it, you might want to rethink that. Valve’s Doug Lombardi has stepped forward and has confirmed (via Eurogamer) that the company has “no involvement” with Xi3′s Piston, which many had come to associate with Valve’s Steam Box, a console-like device that Valve is building in hopes to steal some market share away from traditional consoles like the Xbox, PlayStation and Wii. In reality, Xi3′s Piston has nothing to do with Valve, with the exception that it made an appearance at Valve’s booth at CES earlier this year, as well as having received funding from the company.

Lombardi admits that Valve and Xi3 were involved in some exploratory work last year, but does not have any involvement with any product of theirs. Gabe Newell has also confirmed that the Xi3 is not the Steam Box that Valve is currently working on, so we guess that will be another product reveal for another day. We’re not sure what to make of this; after all the Xi3 Piston is a pretty decent machine by itself, with or without Valve’s backing. Sure it is pretty pricey but to squeeze that power into such a small chassis? We’re sure that there are some who would gladly pay for the convenience and mobility.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: EA Apologizes For SimCity Snafu, TeleSound Kickstarter Project ,