Bing and Google’s voice guidance software isn’t competing on the same mobile phones yet, but that didn’t stop us from comparing how well the two apps did directing us to the same destination. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-20005154-12.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Download Blog/a/p
It’s not a major update by any stretch. But Sonos owners are accustomed to regular software updates that extend or enhance the functionality of their distributed wireless audio system… for free. A good thing since a four room system can easily set you back a few thousand dollars — a hefty price compared to some brute force solutions but relatively cheap compared to custom solutions offering similar functionality but with the additional burden of extensive in-wall wiring. Today’s Sonos 3.2 update delivers crossfading to smooth the transition between songs and more sophisticated alarm settings allowing you to wake to any of Sonos’ vast music delivery options at any time and in any room of the house. The gang from Santa Barbara also added Japanese and Simplified Chinese language support and tossed in access to the streaming iheartradio music service giving US owners access to exclusive content and some 750 national radio stations. But the flagship feature is probably the ability to join any two S5 speaker systems to create a stereo pair — one S5 serving the left channel and the other serving the right. A union meant to achieve a balance indistinguishable from that of heaven and hell, yin and yang, or Nilay and Paul. Read our impressions after the break where you’ll also find a spectacular press release using plain, bold, and italicized text!
Continue reading Sonos 3.2 update and S5 stereo pairing put to the test
Sonos 3.2 update and S5 stereo pairing put to the test originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mercedes is using robots to test-drive cars performing critical automated driving maneuvers such as collision avoidance at intersections with crossing traffic.
While you’re zoning out with your iPad on the couch, there’s an app that can actually teach you a little something, too. When friends of mine are first becoming acquainted with the iPad, I like to show them Couch Traveler, an app that combines Google satellite images with Wikipedia entries to explore different landmarks throughout the world.
From a master list on the left, you can select landmarks by category: bridges, buildings, monuments, mysteries, theme parks and urban. Selecting the mysteries category, for example, you can hone in on a satellite image of Area 51, Stonehedge or the Giant Bunny in Italy. Tap the description button and you can view a Wikipedia entry pertaining to your selection to learn about what the heck you’re looking at.
I love this sort of edutainment; it’s an example of an app both children and adults can equally enjoy. It’s also a step toward more context-aware learning that the iPad is perfect for. I’m hoping more information-based apps will push the envelope a bit further and rethink the idea of the traditional book or newspaper, for instance, combining multimedia with text to be more engaging.
Couch Traveler costs $2 in the App Store.
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Verizon had already said that it anticipated launching its first LTE handsets in the first half of 2011, but as we’re rounding third base toward the launch of Big Red’s first commercial 4G markets, it’s shedding a little more light on how it thinks this’ll all go down. Basically, wireless chief Lowell McAdam says we can expect “up to” five handsets by May of 2011, exactly a year from now — which could mean anywhere between zero and five, as far as we’re concerned — and that Motorola, LG, HTC, and RIM are all in the running to serve up that first volley of hardware. What’s not clear is whether these will make voice calls over CDMA exclusively (a la EVO 4G) or if they’ll be compliant with the IMS-based (and GSMA-friendly) voice the company expects to eventually roll out on top of its LTE network, but either way, it’s good news.
Turning our attention to Verizon’s recent tablet hullabaloo, McAdam says that although “there’s no reason [the company] couldn’t have an iPad,” the first tablets it offers will be Android-based — yes, “tablets” plural — and that most of them will launch in the fourth from companies “including Motorola, Samsung and LG.” Interestingly, this dovetails rather conveniently with an NVIDIA-powered Motorola tablet with Verizon branding that was briefly (and quietly) shown off at CES this January, so we wouldn’t be surprised if that was the unit we ended up getting. None of these devices might end up with the iPad’s name recognition, obviously, but an LTE-powered Android tablet with HTC’s good design sense certainly can’t hurt.
Verizon to offer ‘up to’ five LTE handsets by next May, Android tablets from HTC and friends originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 17:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
An MIT team has come up with plans for two new airplanes that by 2035 could require 70 percent less fuel than today’s aircraft. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20005198-52.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Geek Gestalt/a/p
Seagate has been pushing the areal density envelope for years now, but by and large, these “developments” we hear about typically fade into the cold, harsh winter night without ever amounting to anything tangible. Not so this go ’round, with the company confirming to Thinq (and reaffirmed on our end) that it will be “announcing a 3TB drive later this year.” If you’ll recall, 2TB drives have held the crown for the world’s largest since early 2009, and if all goes to plan, we’ll be able to buy drives 50 percent larger than even those before the dawn of 2011. The company didn’t talk details — we’re still left to envision a price, release date and spindle speed — but it didn’t hesitate to mention a few issues that users with older operating systems may encounter. Essentially, you’ll need to have a rig that’s fully capable of handling the Long LBA (logical block addressing) standard, which means that you’ll need updated drivers, an updated BIOS and either a 64-bit copy of Vista, Windows 7 or “modified version of Linux.” As you’d expect, Windows XP users needn’t pay this platter any mind, and while Seagate is hopeful that industry players will all rally in short order to support the new HDD, there’s still a chance that these growing pains will lead to delays. What we’re most jazzed about here, crazily enough, isn’t the predictable jump in capacity — it’s the fantasies of über-cheap 2TB drives once they fall from the top.
[Thanks, JC]
Seagate confirms 3TB hard drive for 2010, possible 32-bit OS issues originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 17:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Phone Guitar, a project by a Dutch developer, places two Android phones, an iPod Touch and two Windows phones next to each other on a guitar frame and uses apps on the devices to play music.
As the video clip below shows, the developer ‘Steffest’ plays a version of Cracklin Rosie and its not the cacophony you would expect.
The original idea was to create the same mobile app on all three mobile platforms, he says. The app would be a small piano and drum sequencer.
That didn’t quite work out. “Audio latency is a b*tch and building the app from the same source proved to be possible but unusable,” writes Steffest on his blog. “I ended up writing it three times: in Java for Android, in C# for Windows Mobile and in Objective-C for iPhone.”
Instead what he did was combine his homebrewed app with other programs including the Pocket Stompbox for Windows Mobile that’s good for real time effects. There’s also iShred, an iPhone electric guitar app in the mix.
To play them all at once, he taped them on a piece of wood together with a battery powered speaker.
It’s not all that bad on the ears. Listen to it:
[via Make]
Photo/Video: Steffest
Continue reading OmniVision announces ‘world’s smallest’ 1080p camera module
OmniVision announces ‘world’s smallest’ 1080p camera module originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 16:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
In Alan Wake, you assume the role of an author who travels to a small mountain town on vacation. Almost immediately things take a turn for the worst and you must set out into woods to find your missing wife. A dark presence has taken over the town of Bright Falls, and you must find out what it is.
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