Hasta La Gadget!

Who said that Microsoft’s experimental prototypes never make it to market (well, apart from Vista)? Now the Sensecam, first shown off way back in January 2008, and in the labs since 2003, has finally become a real, buy-able product.

Kind of. Microsoft may have dropped the life-recording camera like it dropped its PlaysforSure DRM business partners, but a company called Vico has licensed the tech and renamed it the Revue. The Revue is kind of like a Black Box recorder for your life.

Sling it around your neck and switch it on. The Revue will then use a variety of sensors to trigger the shutter, snapping a picture through a fisheye lens. The camera can detect temperature, infra-red motion, light color and brightness, and inside there is also an accelerometer and a compass. In short, the Revue probably notices more about your surroundings than you do.

The camera will snap a few photos per minute, storing them on its 2GB memory. The battery should keep things ticking for “at least” 12-hours.

But why? The main reason for the product is as aid for those whose memories are fading. Taking time to review the day’s events can help to train the memory, says the blurb. This can be done one picture at a time, or you can have the companion desktop (OS X, Windows or Linux) stitch it into a movie.

I see it as being a great way to record a day, or an event, without getting stuck behind the camera. Parties, festival, sports tournaments (especially if you are also participating) would all be better for a candid movie like this.

And what if you need some privacy? The Revue has a switch which will pause it for four minutes. That should be long enough to take care of any business. I’d grab one of these in a second if it weren’t for one thing: It costs $500.

Revue product page [Vicon via Oh Gizmo]

See Also:

• Does SenseCam Make Any Sense?
• Microsoft Digicam for Alzheimer's Relief
• Microsoft Researcher Records His Life in Data

It’s oftentimes hard to gauge the proliferation of electronic devices into everyday life while looking at them from our little bubble of early adopter enthusiasm. A much better vantage point for these things can be provided from the arms of government, among the most change-resistant places on any planet, and American legislators are letting us know that tablets, not the children, are our future. Texas Representative Henry Cuellar recently took the House of Representatives floor with an iPad in tow, which broke with the chamber’s etiquette if not its rules. He’s not alone, however, in hoping that the House dispenses with its Omega Man-style prejudice against electronics and permits their widespread use by Representatives. If nothing else, distributing bills of law electronically should make a nice dent in the “multimillion” dollar budget currently set aside annually for printing. Let’s make it happen, guys.

iPad comes knocking on House of Representatives’ door originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 07:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just as seemingly every year the number of blades on a disposable razor inevitably increases, so every few months a new iPad dock adapter adds yet another input. In August we saw the 2-in-1 camera-connector, with USB and an SD-card slot. The just last week we were treated to the plasticky wonders of the 3-in-1 adapter, which added micrSD to the mix.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, behold the amazing, nay, astonishing 5-in-1 dock adapter. Slot this overachieving little widget into your iPad’s port and you get all of the above functions plus a mini-USB port (for charging the iPad or connecting to a computer) and an A/V-out port. This last lets you hook up an iPad (or a video-supporting iPod) to a TV.

That’s a whole lot of features packed into one small box and – if experience of these things is anything to go by – it will likely break soon after buying. On the other hand, this combines a whole shopping-cart full of Apple products into one, and even ships with the A/V and USB cables needed to use it.

What next? The same manufacturer also has an unholy version that will read Sony MemorySticks, but I’m hoping for something more practical (or plain weird). Comments, please: What oddity would you like to see here? MIDI would be nice for musicians. A crappy but functional webcam would be awesome for everyone. But I’m going to vote for a USB hand-warmer. Given the iPad’s huge battery, this should last at least a day, and keep me blogging from my cold, non-heated apartment.

5-in-1 adapter product page [Anguodz via MIC Gadget]

See Also:

• Chinese Knock-Off: Two-in-One iPad Connection Kit
• Dongle Adds USB, SD and MicroSD to iPad
• IPad Camera Connection Kit Supports External Hard Drives
• iPad USB Camera Connector Works With Keyboards, Audio In-Out …

Alienware M17x laptop said to be suffering from power-related GPU issues originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 05:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can’t be surprised at developments like these when you elect a political party whose very name is Conservative, but it’s still rather sad to hear that the current UK government is putting pressure on ISPs to “protect children” by universally blocking access to porn websites. It’s not outright censorship, you’ll be able to “opt in” and restore your freedom to explore adult content (or anything else that’s been inadvertently blocked), though it’s all a rather misguided effort in our eyes. Claire Perry, one of the leading voices behind this push, cites stats noting that 60 percent of nine- to 19-year olds have found pornography online, yet she fails to elaborate on what’s been so traumatizing or debilitating about the experience — or why violent content is getting a free pass. We still think good parenting — say, by using the local controls built into your OS or search engine — is a much cheaper option than some complex censorship wall, but that won’t prevent the Conservatives from pursuing legislation over the next couple of years if broadband providers don’t figure out blocking mechanisms of their own. For shame, Britain.

British government wants all porn filtered out of the web, all fun sucked out of life originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 04:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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