Eyes-on with Thunderbolt on Windows at IDF 2011 (video)

Sure, you’ve seen the announcement of Thunderbolt on the PC, the chips that’ll power it and a bevy of compatible accessories, but how about actual proof of Thunderbolt working on Windows? Hidden deep in the recesses of IDF’s technical showcase, we found just that and immortalized it on video for all to see. Essentially the same Chipzilla demo as when we first witnessed the interconnect on Macs, we watched the playback of four 1080p streams devour over 700MB of throughput off a PCIe attached SSD. You know the drill, serious bit slinging awaits in the gallery below and video after the break.

Myriam Joire contributed to this report.

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Eyes-on with Thunderbolt on Windows at IDF 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on: electroactive polymer giving a ‘high definition feel’

Haptic feedback isn’t exactly something that’d blow people’s mind these days, with most mobile devices and gaming controllers already packing a little vibrator to spice up one’s gaming experience. While these motors do the job just fine for delivering the sensation of large engines and explosions, their monotonic performance and relatively high minimum output threshold means they can’t reproduce finer vibration. For instance, you wouldn’t be able to feel a guitar string fade away after a strum, nor would you feel the finer end of a spring recoil. This is where Bayer MaterialScience’s ViviTouch — previously dubbed Reflex — tries to fill the void.

For those who aren’t familiar, the magic behind ViviTouch is its electroactive polymer (or EAP in short) — imagine a thin sheet that consists of two electrode layers sandwiching a dielectric elastomer film, and when a voltage is applied, the two attracting electrodes compress the entire sheet. This slim, low-powered ViviTouch actuator module can be placed underneath an inertial mass (usually a battery) on a tray, thus amplifying the haptic feedback produced by the host device’s audio signal between 50Hz and 300Hz (with a 5ms response time).

Continue reading ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on: electroactive polymer giving a ‘high definition feel’

ViviTouch haptic technology hands-on: electroactive polymer giving a ‘high definition feel’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Sep 2011 10:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Splitfish FragFX Shark 360 starts shipping for your first-person shooting pleasure

What better way to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Halo than the release of a new way to first-person shoot people on the Xbox 360? Splitfish today announced that its FragFX Shark mouse / analog stick hybrid controller device thingie is finally hitting the Microsoft console. The peripheral offers in-controller setup, customizable precision and should give you around 50 hours of play time on two AA batteries. The $80 device uses 2.4GHz wireless, but, as outlined before, requires a wired controller to get in on the action. More info in the press release after the break.

Continue reading Splitfish FragFX Shark 360 starts shipping for your first-person shooting pleasure

Splitfish FragFX Shark 360 starts shipping for your first-person shooting pleasure originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 22:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows 8 on a laptop in-depth preview (video)

Less than 24 hours after it went live on Microsoft’s site, Steve Ballmer reported a whopping 500,000 downloads of Windows 8 Developer Preview. That’s half a million copies, if not eager Windows fans. Well, you can count us among them. Although we were treated to some private hands-on time with a tablet optimized for the OS, we hadn’t, until now, had a chance to use it on a laptop — i.e., the computing environment where we spend most of our time, and the one where we’re most used to seeing Windows, in particular.

For the past three days, we’ve been doing just that: getting acquainted with Windows 8 using the good ‘ol mouse-and-keyboard combo. And while that might read like a redundant statement (what recent version of Windows hasn’t accommodated a cursor?), Win 8 is a peculiar breed — It’s the first version of the operating system where finger input wasn’t an afterthought, but a first-class citizen. It’s clear that this time around, Windows is optimized for touch, but we had to wonder if that Windows Phone-inspired UI would present a steep learning curve, if it would get in the way while we tried to go about business as usual. So how’s that working out for us? Suffice to say, we’re not in Kansas anymore, so find your most comfortable chair and meet us after the break — we’ve got oh-so many details to delve into.

Continue reading Windows 8 on a laptop in-depth preview (video)

Windows 8 on a laptop in-depth preview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Alpha NEX-5N makes clicking sound when moved, renders captured audio useless (video)

We’ve spent a few click days shooting click with click Sony’s new click NEX-5N click click click and were very click impressed with its click still image performance click click but click noticed some… Oh man, we’ve gotta hit Stop. As you can see, the camera suffers from a rather significant yet-to-be-diagnosed condition that outputs a mysterious clicking sound whenever you move it about. Since it’s quite faint, this is little more than a minor nuisance when shooting stills, but when you go to playback video click it’s impossible to ignore, rendering the audio component of your video virtually useless.

We’ve been able to isolate the sound to the camera body itself, so it’s completely independent of the lens and other accessories. We also happen to be testing a variety of new Sony products this week in San Diego, and had Sony reps on hand to acknowledge and confirm the issue, which seems to plague every NEX-5N that we’ve tried. This is still very fresh, so Sony doesn’t have a fix or even a statement to issue, but because 1080/60p video is one of this camera’s headline features, we’re going to recommend holding off on your purchase until the company can confirm what’s causing the issue. Jump past the break to hear it for yourself in our demo video.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Sony Alpha NEX-5N makes clicking sound when moved, renders captured audio useless (video)

Sony Alpha NEX-5N makes clicking sound when moved, renders captured audio useless (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars hands-on (video)

Sony’s imaging wing has been on a roll lately, with the brilliant NEX-7 and equally impressive Alpha A77 DSLR simply blowing us away with brand new features and excellent image quality. But these $2,000 digital binoculars? Yeah, we’re not so sure. We went hands-on with a pre-production sample of the 3D binocs, which replace the traditional optical finders with a pair of high-res LCD EVFs. But when you consider that high-end binoculars are a joy to use because of their excellent optical viewfinders, swapping in an electronic version puts the DEV-3 ($1,400) and DEV-5 ($2,000) in a completely new category — if an excellent (and traditional) viewing experience is what you’re after, these “cost-competitive” optics really won’t hit the spot. Jump past the break for our impressions.

Continue reading Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars hands-on (video)

Sony DEV-5 Digital Recording Binoculars hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Parrot Asteroid Android-powered car stereo hands-on

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/15/parrot-asteroid-android-powered-car-stereo-hands-on/

Parrot has been teasing us with its Asteroid head unit for quite some time now, first showing it off at CES way back in January. It’s finally coming to the US in October and we got a chance to try it out in Frankfurt. This Android-powered unit fits into a DIN slot in your car — easily replacing many standard car stereos (and some non-standard ones too). It comes with a flurry of cables that includes a GPS receiver (which can be stuck somewhere outside the car to get better reception) and inputs for USB, 3.5mm audio, and even an iDevice.

Through these you can pull tunes from just about anything to play on there, but if you tether the device with a phone to provide connectivity (or plug in a USB modem, or connect over WiFi) you can stream music directly on it. It also offers Google Navigation, including traffic and all the niceties you’ve come to expect from your smartphone — but on an admittedly tiny (3.2-inch) screen. Connect a music device over USB and it’ll index the contents via GraceNote, letting you speak any artist, album, or song to play it directly. The Asteroid ships to the US in October for $349. If you have room for a little more Android in your life, maybe it’s time to make a little more room in your dash.

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Parrot Asteroid Android-powered car stereo hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 09:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD Eyefinity eyes-on, prepare to fall for landscape goodness (video)

Sure we’ve seen it before, but we’d be remiss if we didn’t share what we stumbled upon at AMD’s Fusion Zone at IDF 2011. Laying before you is a 5 x 1 landscape Eyefinity setup, powered by an upcoming unreleased 8-core FX CPU paired with a single Radeon HD 6990. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s four displays connected via mini-DisplayPort and the fifth over DVI. Not much more to say, so peep the gallery below or hop past the break for a video of the bodacious rig running Dirt 3.

Myriam Joire contributed to this report.

Continue reading AMD Eyefinity eyes-on, prepare to fall for landscape goodness (video)

AMD Eyefinity eyes-on, prepare to fall for landscape goodness (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Corsair Vengeance gaming keyboards, mice, and headsets hands-on (video)

Hold on to your seats gaming enthusiasts, Corsair just unleashed an onslaught of Vengeance series peripherals aimed at helping you dominate that Call of Duty marathon… and we got our hands on all of ’em. There’s a lot to cover, so we’ll get right to it. The K60 gamer keyboard boasts Cherry MX Red interchangeable keys for rapid fire, 20-key rollover, windows key lock and crazy fast reporting rate at 1000 reports per second. Its companion, the M60 mouse, implements an Avago 5670 DPI sensor, adjustable center of gravity, custom lift detection and high-mass scroll wheel. In addition to all that, this bad boy features a dedicated sniper button which allows you to hone in on your target that much faster. Read on for the full rundown on the goods.

Continue reading Corsair Vengeance gaming keyboards, mice, and headsets hands-on (video)

Corsair Vengeance gaming keyboards, mice, and headsets hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bose unveils SoundLink wireless mobile speaker, fancies up A2DP for a premium (hands-on)

Ah, Bose — give it an audio product and it’ll be sure to add that seemingly unnecessary luxury feel, minus the hard hitting details. If you’ll recall, the Massachusetts-based company had quietly pushed some new ‘wares through the FCC this past week, but with not so much as a sliver of info. Today in the Big Apple, it finally let us in on one new item, the SoundLink wireless mobile speaker. Priced at $300 and up, this unit is a “portable” A2DP Bluetooth speaker weighing in at around three pounds with less than two-inches of depth — basically, it’s massive against similar speakers like the Jawbone Jambox or foxL v2. We had the opportunity today to spend a few minutes with this opulent gizmo, and you’ll find all the details just past the break.

Continue reading Bose unveils SoundLink wireless mobile speaker, fancies up A2DP for a premium (hands-on)

Bose unveils SoundLink wireless mobile speaker, fancies up A2DP for a premium (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Sep 2011 20:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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