LG’s Thinq automated oven, refrigerator, and washer / dryer are the future now (hands-on)

Ah, the connected home… the ultimate Jetsonian fantasy that refuses to come true. LG’s doing its best to change that with its Thinq lineup of connected appliances announced and demonstrated for the first time here in Las Vegas. The details of connectivity and interoperability are scarce but we do know that the appliances support both WiFi and ZigBee connectivity in order to communicate with each other, your in-home smart meter, and with smartphones when outside of the home. So far, LG has announced four Thinq devices including a vacuum, fridge, oven, and washer and dryer pair. That’s a pretty strong foundation to build from especially if your home is already equipped with ZigBee devices like automated light switches, window controllers, and locks. Each LG appliance brings a rather lengthy list of features many of which are accessible remotely on a smartphone app (Android was demonstrated). It’s just hard to fathom how useful they are without a humanoid robot capable of moving the finished wash into the dryer or putting the porkroast in the oven. And while being able to look up the contents of your fridge as you enter the supermarket sounds compelling, knowing that the owner has to manage the list manually (there’s no UPC code scanner and RFID is still just a dream) tarnishes our enthusiasm quite a bit. Still, Thinq is definitely a step in the right direction. Watch LG make its pitch after the break.

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LG’s Thinq automated oven, refrigerator, and washer / dryer are the future now (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 19:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hanvon brings world’s first color E Ink reader to CES, we go hands-on (video)

Hanvon is aiming to fill the chasm between monochromatic e-readers and color LCD-based tablets at CES this year with its all-new color e-reader. It features the famed 9.7-inch color E Ink panel, the first of its kind, and offers the rather spectacular resolution of 1200 x 1600. We managed to spend a few precious moments with a prototype unit and were impressed by the solid and thin construction and the excellent viewing angles on offer. Sadly, there’s plenty of bad news here too: the E920’s colors are muted and not really on par with what you’d expect from even a mediocre LCD, refresh rates are pretty glacial, and the touchscreen functionality is of the resistive kind, meaning you’ll have to resort to using the integrated stylus for navigation. The biggest downer, however, is that China, the first market for this e-reader, won’t be getting it until May at the earliest. That’s a long time to wait for a $500-ish slate. Video after the break.

Update: There was some initial confusion about the device’s name and specs, which has since been rectified and the post updated accordingly. [Thanks, Michalis]

Continue reading Hanvon brings world’s first color E Ink reader to CES, we go hands-on (video)

Hanvon brings world’s first color E Ink reader to CES, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung shows flexible and transparent displays at CES 2011 (video)

We spent a few minutes at the show this week ogling the prototype displays that Samsung’s Mobile Display unit has produced over the last few months, headlined by some particularly awesome 4.5-inch flexible and 19-inch transparent AMOLEDs. Let’s start with the flexible unit: Sammy seems to be particularly excited about this one, demonstrating on video that it’s shatter-proof by bashing it repeatedly with a sledgehammer — compare that to the inevitably disastrous consequences of dropping an iPhone onto concrete, and they’ve already won us over. Although the company still has some manufacturing challenges to overcome, commercial interest seems to be strong and they’ll eventually be on the market (though not in 2011, sadly).

The picture for the transparent displays is a little murkier — both physically and from a business perspective. Though they’re not as clear as regular glass or as crisp and bright as a traditional AMOLED display, you’ve got to marvel at what they’re doing here: full see-through color at effectively small television sizes. Interestingly, Samsung tells us that they’re really close to being production-ready with these — possibly even close than the flexible screens — but they’re still looking for business cases that’d make mass-producing them a worthwhile venture. Follow the break for some video of these bad boys, along with a 7-inch Super AMOLED that’s looking Galaxy Tab-ready (and some other goodies)!

Continue reading Samsung shows flexible and transparent displays at CES 2011 (video)

Samsung shows flexible and transparent displays at CES 2011 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 18:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Quanta’s 7-inch Android tablet dummy spotted at CES

In case you’re not already sick of tablets, here’s another one that we spotted at a small Taiwanese booth at CES. Sure, this Anadem Q07 — a rebadged Quanta device — was just a dummy, but even this could easily beat the lot of cheap Android slates in a beauty contest. Encased within the chrome bezel and silver body will be a 7-inch 800 x 480 display (which is slightly underwhelming), along with a Samsung S5PV210 processor — essentially the Hummingbird chip but in a different package — underclocked to 800MHz, but still capable of handling 1080p video playback. There’s not much else on the spec sheet, but we did see a micro-USB port, HDMI mini connector, microSD slot, SIM card slot, and stereo speakers on the Q07. Naturally, you’ll hear from us when we stumble upon this Froyo tablet again.

Quanta’s 7-inch Android tablet dummy spotted at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toyota Entune infotainment system hands-on (video)

Toyota Entune infotainment system hands-on

Toyota‘s still the biggest auto manufacturer in the world, handily trumping GM and Ford, and with the Prius celebrating its 10 year anniversary it’s clear the company can certainly lead the industry when it wants to. Not so much with advanced infotainment and smartphone integration. There the company has been lagging behind the competition, Ford’s SYNC and the like, but now it’s making a big step forward with Entune, and it chose this year’s CES to do it. Toyota was kind enough to let us run a very early demo unit through its paces. Keep on reading for our impressions.

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Toyota Entune infotainment system hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 15:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer Iconia Windows 7 tablet hands-on

Acer has made something very clear here at CES — it’s going to enter the tablet market much like it entered the netbook one, with lots of options. In addition to the Android tablets (it’s got 4.8-, 7-, and 10-inch versions) and the dual-screen Iconia, the company will be bringing its 10.1-inch Windows 7 tablet to the US market for about $550 in the coming months. Just as we had heard, the tablet will use AMD’s Fusion platform and will come with a keyboard dock. We got a chance to check out the whole package and the dock / tablet fit together in a unique fashion — the tablet and keyboard are surrounded by magnetic borders that latch onto each other. When you pull ’em apart you can attach the tablet via USB to the keyboard or just use it on its own. The whole attachment mechanism felt very flimsy on the two units we saw at the show and the entire thing felt very top heavy when docked. The chiclet keyboard is different from Acer’s typical variety, but we really like the addition of the pointing stick in the center for navigating Windows 7.

We didn’t get to spend too much with the working unit but we were able to fire up Engadget in Internet Explorer 9 and scroll down the page rather smoothly. It’s unclear whether Acer will be using a skin on top of Windows 7 since we saw it on display in Microsoft’s booth and all of those tablets were running stock Windows. It should be rather interesting to see how AMD’s Fusion platform performs in a tablet and how it impacts the battery life, but until we can bring you a full review we leave you with the gallery below.

Acer Iconia Windows 7 tablet hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 12:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola’s CES 2011 booth tour

To say Motorola’s had a stellar show would be a massive understatement. Betwixt the Motorola Atrix 4G, the Xoom, Droid Bionic and to a lesser extent the Cliq 2, they’ve been reborn and are the star of the show. Of course, in order to peddle your wares at CES you need a booth — the more garish the better, typically — and Moto’s is massive and bedecked and badazzled in light with more flair than you’d need to work in a place like Chotchke’s. So, we wandered about, took in the sights, the sounds, and grabbed some pics and a short vid of what we saw.

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Motorola’s CES 2011 booth tour originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marvell-powered OLPC XO 1.75 only draws two watts of power, finally charges via hand crank

Here’s something you may not know — OLPC’s XO hand crank has never really worked to recharge the kiddie laptop. Why? Well, the previous versions were powered by x86 AMD and VIA processors that pulled too much power. However, things are different now with the XO 1.75 since OLPC has baked in Marvell’s 1GHz Armada chip. As a result, the entire system now only pulls two watts of power, and thus the battery can be given some more juice with a few turns of that neon green crank. It’s not meant to recharge the laptop completely — actually, according to OLPC’s CTO Edward McNierney, it would take about two hours of cranking to top off the system. Other than the fresh ARM CPU, the new model is identical to the previous versions — it has an outdoor readable PixelQi display, Flash storage, a rubber keyboard, and runs Sugar OS. On a different note, OLPC is hard at work on the tablet version of the XO and, according to McNierney, the only hold up is finding a more durable, plastic display — converting the current system into a tablet should be fairly easy since all the guts are in the display part already. The tablet is still on track for 2012, while the XO 1.75 should be with the hand-cranking children by the end of the summer.

Marvell-powered OLPC XO 1.75 only draws two watts of power, finally charges via hand crank originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marvell-powered OLPC XO 1.75 only draws 2 watts of power, finally charges via hand crank

Here’s something you may not know — OLPC’s XO hand crank has never really worked to recharge the kiddie laptop. Why? Well, the previous versions were powered by x86 AMD and VIA processors that pulled too much power. However, things are different now with the XO 1.75 since OLPC has baked in Marvell’s 1GHz Armada chip. As a result, the entire system now only pulls two watts of power, and thus the battery can be given some more juice with a few turns of that neon green crank. It’s not meant to recharge the laptop completely — actually, according to OLPC’s CTO Edward McNierney, it would take about two hours of cranking to top off the system. Other than the fresh ARM CPU, the new model is identical to the previous versions — it has an outdoor readable PixelQi display, Flash storage, a rubber keyboard, and runs Sugar OS. On a different note, OLPC is hard at work on the tablet version of the XO and, according to McNierney, the only hold up is finding a more durable, plastic display — converting the current system into a tablet should be fairly easy since all the guts are in the display part already. The tablet is still on track for 2012, while the XO 1.75 should be with the hand-cranking children by the end of the summer.

Marvell-powered OLPC XO 1.75 only draws 2 watts of power, finally charges via hand crank originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kenmore shows off smartphone / tablet-connected appliances at CES (hands-on)

We’ve already seen some smartphone-connected appliances in LG’s Thinq lineup, and it looks like Kenmore is now getting ready to join it in a big way with some fairly impressive “enhanced” appliances of its own — which we managed to get an early look at here at CES. Those will include things like washers, dryers, stoves and refrigerators, all of which will be able to be controlled via a “smartphone or smart tablet” (Apple and Android devices were specifically mentioned as getting a free app), or via a large touchscreen on the device itself (not removable as a tablet, unfortunately). What’s more, the appliances all boast Kenmore Connect, which allows for remote diagnostics that can be used to prepare technicians for in-home repairs, and they pack an array of energy management features that will let you conserve energy and keep watch on how much you’re using. Unfortunately, you’ll still have a bit of a wait before you can actually buy one — Kenmore says they’ll start rolling out in 2012. Hit up the gallery below for a closer look.

Continue reading Kenmore shows off smartphone / tablet-connected appliances at CES (hands-on)

Kenmore shows off smartphone / tablet-connected appliances at CES (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Jan 2011 23:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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