May 07
The rumor goes that Verizon won’t see the iPhone until next year because of a newer deal ATT cut with Apple over its tablet device.
May 07
Robotics and prosthetics designers have been making great advances in the power, sensitivity and humanity of their creations.
Case in point: The i-Limb Pulse is a new bionic arm that allows users to handle heavy objects or delicate items, as well as customize the grips to fit their needs.
With a design similar to Darth Vader’s bionic hand, this is one tough prosthetic device.
The maker, Touch Bionics, claims this prosthetic hand can handle more than 200 pounds, if your biceps are up to it. When grabbing an object, it can apply additional force by using a pulsing effect.
“This effect is generated by sending rapid, high-frequency electronic pulses to the finger motors, driving them to close more securely around an object,” the company explains on its website.
The i-Limb Pulse is customizable with software. Doctors and users can tweak i-Limb Pulse’s behavior, programming it with specific grip patterns to fit the customer’s needs. They then beam the new patterns to the hand with Bluetooth.
It comes in two sizes, to accommodate both genders. But a number of details have not been disclosed, including the price and artificial-skin options, which were available for the previous model.
Which, by the way, wasn’t exactly shabby. The I-Limb Hand was the first fully-functional artificial hand commercially available to people who needed a hand, according to Touch Bionics. Time magazine named it one of top 50 inventions of 2008 (to be fair, that list also included Dimitrij Ovtcharov’s new ping-pong serve).
According to Touch Bionics, i-Limb Hand has been fitted to more than 1,200 patients.
We’re not sure the same amount of commercial success will follow another interesting robotic arm concept that hit us in the past few days: an arm modeled after an elephant’s trunk.
Although its name includes the word “bionic,” the Bionic Handling Assistant is more of an industrial-level robotics device — and still not available for sale — but the makers, Festo, say it will offer a safe and flexible way to move stuff around.
Because contact between humans and current industrial robots can be hazardous, BHA’s human-friendly trunk retracts on contact (or so the company claims). As such, it would be a safer way to transfer things in hospitals or at home.
The idea of a robotic arm that looks like a trunk so it doesn’t violently murder you might sound silly. But a recent study by three German scientists showed that robotic arms could, in fact, violently murder you.
(Photo: Touch Bionics)
May 07
HTC EVO 4G earns FCC’s blessing, WiMAX and all
Posted in: Android, breaking news, BreakingNews, Google, HTC, Sprint, Today's Chili, WiMAX
Looking at hundreds of FCC documents each and every week, it’s pretty difficult for us to get too excited about any particular filing, but there are two words that do it for us each and every time: “LTE” and “WiMAX.” In this case, the latter word caught our eye all throughout the filing for HTC model PC36100, which runs WiMAX on Sprint’s (and Clearwire’s) 2500MHz band alongside the standard suite of CDMA bands with EV-DO. In other words, folks, yes — it’s true — you’re looking at the frickin’ EVO 4G for Sprint. There’s not much to see here, really; it’s still under confidentiality for the external photos, but at least they’ve cleared that all-important FCC hurdle on the way to retail, which will be… soon, Sprint? Right? Please?
HTC EVO 4G earns FCC’s blessing, WiMAX and all originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 May 2010 18:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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May 07
The social gaming giant is apparently at odds with Facebook over the percentage it would have to pay to use Facebook’s currency platform. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13772_3-20004499-52.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Geek Gestalt/a/p
May 07
Entelligence: Meet H/Pre
Posted in: column, hewlett-packard, HewlettPackard, HP, merger, palm, Today's ChiliEntelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.
Adding even more drama to an pivotal and transformative year in tech, last week HP announced it will buy Palm for the nice round sum of 1.2 billion dollars — a move that will position it as a major player in the crowded mobile market. HP is no stranger to mobility — the iPaq was once a defining mobile product — but over the years the company has been unable to replicate that success with similar efforts in as the dynamic shifted from PDAs to phones. Buying Palm is a quick way of getting back in the game.
This deal underscores the velocity of mobile and how that speed is affecting long term winners and losers. Many had written off Palm’s relevance in the market, which might have been a correct assessment if Palm had ended up elsewhere. But I think Palm found a good home. In addition to Todd Bradley, the former CEO of Palm who now leads HP’s Personal Systems Group, there are many Palm alumni at HP. This means that there should be a relatively smooth transition and overall good cultural fit. That’s important because time is of the essence — the market won’t wait around for HP to integrate Palm.
Continue reading Entelligence: Meet H/Pre
Entelligence: Meet H/Pre originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 May 2010 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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May 07
Roundup of recent midrange multicore gaming desktops.
May 07
Interview: The Man Who Really Built Iron Man [Movies]
Posted in: feature, Movies, Today's Chili, top
If you don’t know the name Shane Mahan, that’s your loss. He’s the real Tony Stark, the practical effects wizard leading the team who constructed the actual Iron Man suit for the Iron Man movies. And he’s a great interviewee: More »
May 07
The Motion Picture Association of America has been trying to get a waiver for the FCC Selectable Output Control (SoC) ban since it went into effect — the ability to only allow content to flow from a HDCP protected HDMI port. Up until now there has been lots of debate and no action. The bad news is that the MPAA can now use SoC to protect high value content, the good news is the FCC really locked down exactly when it can be used. Basically any movie that’s never been released on disc (DVD or Blu-ray) can be protected with SoC for 90 days. The reason the FCC granted this partial waiver was because the content affected isn’t currently available to cable and satellite anyways — in other words consumers who own older HDTVs, without HDMI ports, don’t currently expect access to these movies. So for those with older hardware nothing changes, and for those with the latest and greatest, you’ll be able to rent newer movies from home. And for everyone else there’s the HDfury2 — no, they’ll never learn that DRM is a big waste of time and money. Full waiver after the jump.
Continue reading FCC will let the MPAA disable analog outputs, kind of
FCC will let the MPAA disable analog outputs, kind of originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 May 2010 16:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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May 07
Environmental groups and people along the Gulf of Mexico are making booms and mats out of hair and fur to clean up the recent oil spill.
May 07
Fujitsu breathes new life into color e-paper: brighter, faster, lovelier
Posted in: e ink, e reader, e-book, e-books, e-readers, Today's Chili
Fujitsu’s been dabbling in the color e-paper market for years, showing off prototype readers during a time when the iPad was simply a twinkle in the eye of Steve-o. Now, the e-reader realm as a whole is having to reevaluate itself with the explosion of multifaceted tablets, but we’re not giving up hope just yet — Qualcomm’s downright stunning color Mirasol display could turn the tables once more later this year, and Fujitsu’s new and improved color e-paper might do the same later this month. Scheduled to debut at the Fujitsu Forum in Japan, this newly developed color electronic paper utilizes a redesigned panel structure and image re-write methods, and there’s also an improved contrast ratio to boot. Unfortunately, there’s no public commercialization plans just yet, but we’re hoping it’ll hit a few products sooner rather than later — time’s a wastin’, Fujitsu!
Fujitsu breathes new life into color e-paper: brighter, faster, lovelier originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 May 2010 16:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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