Hasta La Gadget!

Now that Kinect competitors have begun to spring up, Microsoft’s tipped its hand — CEO Steve Ballmer told the BBC that his company will officially support the depth camera in Windows PCs at some undisclosed point in the future, confirming earlier suspicions. Whether that will just be part of a risky new operating system or just another notch in Games for Windows‘ belt is hard to say, but it’s nice to know that there will be uses for those eight million cameras when we’re done hacking and dancing our hearts out.

Ballmer: Microsoft will eventually support Kinect on PC originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 12:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re an avid Engadget reader, you’re familiar with a dream of ours — we have always wanted a netbook / tablet hybrid (netverible as we like to call ’em) that actually works really well. We don’t want to get our hopes up too much, but the Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series could be it. While we got a chance to see the 10.1-inch tablet with its slide out keyboard just a few days ago, we caught some one-on-one time with the device behind closed doors here at the show and came out having a lot of hope in the product. The unit we saw, and the one being shown on the show floor here at CES, is still pre-production, but even so the sliding mechanism worked pretty smoothly. That’s not to say it doesn’t still feel delicate, but it actually auto-slides open once you start to push up the screen. As you’ll see in the video, it’s a rather exhilarating process, although, we were slightly worried that the back of the screen was going to shave off a keyboard key or two. Speaking of the keyboard, those smooth, shiny chiclet keys feel pretty good, though as you’d expect the layout is a little bit cramped.

When held in tablet mode the 2.18-pound device is a little heavy for one-handed use, but it’s nowhere near as thick or bulky as the Dell Inspiron Duo. However, to maintain those trim dimensions, Samsung has had to cut out a full sized USB port, and instead, the device will use its mini-HDMI port — it will come with a mini-HDMI-to-USB 2.0 adapter. It also has a MicroSD slot and 3G-card insert, and both front- and back-facing cameras. We didn’t get to spend too much with Samsung’s Touch Launcher, but it’s one of the nicer looking Windows 7 layers we’ve seen in our day, and it can be launched by just touching that bright blue strip on the screen bezel. Of course, we’re slightly worried that it will be sluggish, but Samsung is using Intel’s forthcoming 1.5GHz Oak Trail processor, which we’ve heard will speed up Win 7 and improve battery life. As for the 340-nit, 1366 x 768-resolution screen itself, it was nice and bright on maximum setting, and the viewing angles seemed to be fairly decent. Unfortunately, it’s also fairly glossy, so we’ll have to see how it holds up outdoors. It also supports up to 16 points of contact — we’re not sure how useful that is on a ten-inch screen, but it’s a nice bragging point. Samsung maintains the Sliding PC 7 Series should be hitting for $699 in May — don’t let us down Sammy, we’ve got dreams.

Sam Sheffer and Sean Hollister contributed to this report.

Updated: The price is said to be $699, not $599. We’ve heard different things on the release time frame so we’re sticking to May at the moment.

Continue reading Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hands-on preview (video)

Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series hands-on preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on May 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

More and more these days, there’s a push to “go green” and part of that effort is reducing the amount of paper that we consume. Many companies over the last several years have been trying to go paperless wherever possible. One such example is cell phone companies who offer their subscribers the option to sign-up for paperless billing. If they choose to sign-up, some offer something like a one-time $5 dollar credit because in the end they save money. Other examples include banks who no longer send you a copy of your checks, or monthly statements, instead you can access all of that information on their online websites. Often time credit card companies allow you to opt-out of receiving a paper bill as well and allow you to view your activity online.

When we talk about paperless services, I can’t help but think of that YouTube video of someone flipping through their 300+ page iPhone bill from AT&T. It was shortly after that video was posted that AT&T decided to push their paperless program.

With so many opportunities to opt-in to paperless billing and statements, we are curious how many people actually take advantage it, hence our new poll.

New Poll

Do You Take Advantage of Paperless Services (e.g., bills and statements)?

• Yes, whenever possible
• Yes, but only with certain things
• No

You can either cast your vote below if you have Flash enabled, or you can vote in the sidebar.

Previous Poll Wrap-up

In our last poll, we asked you what type of security protection you use on your wireless router. Here’s what we found:

• 31% of you use WPA2
• 26% of you use WEP
• 23% of you use WPA
• 9% of you don’t have a wireless router
• 5% of you don’t use security
• 4% of you said “other” including mac filtering
• 2% of you just aren’t quite sure what you’re using

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

Related Posts:

New Poll: What Do you Think of the New iPhone 3G?New Poll: Which Google Service Needs More Updates?New Poll: How Often do you Reformat your Computer?New Poll: Have you downloaded the Windows 7 Beta?New Poll: Which Online Music Service Do You Think is Best?

We just finished up a meeting with the folks from Snapstick and came away surprisingly impressed with their foray into the increasingly cramped space of the connected living room. Snapstick’s concept isn’t that different from other mobile phone to TV systems we’ve seen, but it’s implementation is definitely more unique than most other solutions currently available. Read on past the break for a quick rundown of the tech that makes the Snapstick system work, as well as a video of the system in action.

Continue reading Snapstick preview and hands-on

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Snapstick preview and hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CES isn’t even over yet, but Samsung’s already looking forward to its next big event: Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. That show gets started on February 14th, but Sammy plans to get things going early with an announcement of dual-core smartphones and new tablets on February 13th. Such is the word straight from the company’s mobile biz president, JK Shin, who says Samsung is “in a position to supply 4G smartphones and tablets to all the carriers in the US.” Naturally, this 4G strategy will include both LTE and WiMAX, while another major prong of the company’s future roadmap is to curtail its featurephone offering in favor of low-cost smartphone devices. Interesting times certainly lie ahead.

Samsung promises dual-core smartphones, new tablets for MWC 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 11:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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