Hasta La Gadget!

What Dexim’s tiny AppSpeed Monster Truck lacks in actual car crushing prowess, it makes up in Apple device compatibility — and that’s gotta account for something, right? The little RC car can be controlled by users’ iPhones, iPads or iPod touches, with the help of the company’s iOS app, utilizing the devices’ built-in accelerometer for 360 degree control of the Monster Truck. The car will be available for $69. As for the app, that will be offered for free through iTunes. Video and PR after the break, break, break.

Continue reading AppSpeed Monster Truck is controlled by your iPad, iPad, iPad (video)

AppSpeed Monster Truck is controlled by your iPad, iPad, iPad (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 23:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know, we know — you’re anxiously awaiting the public launch of iTunes Match, but what if you’re one of those people? You know, the crowd that dips their toes into both Google and Apple offerings. It’s clearly not as blasphemous as you may have been led to believe, as the fine folks in Google’s mobile department have just produced an iOS-specific web app for Google Music Beta. For those who’ve forgotten, Music Beta was launched a few months back at Google I/O, giving audio archivists the chance to upload 20,000 of their favorite jams into the cloud; now, as you might imagine, it ain’t just Android users tapping into those libraries. Predictably, the Music Beta iOS web app enables iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users to login to their accounts and stream at will, and if you’re down to give it a go, the download link is just below — you’ll need to have been accepted previously into the beta, though.

We gave it a quick whirl on the iPad here at Engadget HQ, and it works beautifully. As you’d expect, the actual graphical elements are a bit lacking compared to the Android app, but all of the core functionality is there. Swiping left / right cruises through Artists, Albums, Songs, Playlists and Genres, and the track currently playing remains in a top bar regardless of what main window you’re in. The search function works as advertised, and on a basic cable connection our results populated within two seconds of getting the third letter down. All in all, it’s a fairly nice spread (see for yourself in the gallery below), but not quite as nice as we’re envisioning a dedicated app to be. Still holding out for one? Heh… we never said Google was that generous.

Google Music Beta crosses the aisle, launches for iOS via web app (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Sep 2011 18:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Carousel brings an optimized version of the Camera RAW rendering engine to iOS

Oh man. Apple’s PhotoStream can suck it. Adobe has just announced Carousel, an app which puts the Lightroom/Camera RAW rendering engine on the iPad and iPhone, and also lets you edit your photos and sync those edits between all your devices,
automatically.

Carousel doesn’t sync with your existing Lightroom library. Instead, you install the free Carousel app on your iOS devices and your Mac (Android and Windows versions are in the works) and the software syncs all photos and edits between devices, as well as storing a full-resolution copy on Adobe’s servers.

Here’s another shot of the interface, because I know you want to see it

You don’t get the full range of Lightroom’s power, either. Edits are limited to a variety of presets as well as basic image adjustments like saturation, exposure and cropping. But the exciting part is that it uses the same RAW rendering engine as Lightroom and Adobe Camera RAW. This makes great-looking photos with low, low noise. It should also mean (although Adobe hasn’t said so) that you can import these images, with their non-destructive edits, into Lightroom.

The apps are all free, and the service is subscription-based, which makes sense as Adobe is storing your photos for you. Subs will be $10 per month or $100 per year, with an introductory price of $6/$60. The apps should be out any time now.

Adobe Carousel [Adobe]

See Also:

• Photosmith Syncs iPad with Lightroom
• LRPAD, an iPad Multi-Touch Controller for Lightroom
• 5 Apps We Can't Wait to See on the iPad
• Photogene 2.0 for iPad: A Desktop Photo Editor on a Tablet

When not being pushed around by your iPhone, this RC monster truck will dance for your entertainment. Photo Dexim

“Enjoy three hundred and sixty degrees of excitement, right from your hand.”

That’s the promise of the AppSpeed Monster Truck, which — apparently unlike any other RC vehicle — is controlled by a handheld remote. In this case, the remote is an iPhone running the free AppSpeed app. Plug the RF dongle into the dock connector and you can steer using any iOS device using the rather hideous interface on the app, which consists of go and left/right buttons.

Better, you can ignore the eye-insulting app altogether and steer by tilting your iDevice, whereupon your over-compensated flailings will be transmitted to the truck.

The truck itself is regular RC-toy fare: a little cab atop giant wheels, and with a quick charger box with which to inject electricity from 3 AA batteries.

There is also a multiplayer mode that gives users “the option to race their RC vehicles with friends.” This wonderful feature has only previously been possible by using one’s eyes to look at RC cars to see who won. One genuinely new (but questionably useful) feature is a mode which lets makes the truck “zigzag, spin or dance” to music. Sigh.

The truck kit is available now, for a reasonably Christmas-gift-friendly $70.

AppSpeed Monster Truck product page [Dexim. Thanks, Alyshia!]

See Also:

• Control Griffin's Model Helicopter With Your iPhone
• Remote-Control Helicopter Driven by iPhone
• Remote Control Your Car With Your iPhone

We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Ryan, who can’t wait to get his kid fixated on the wonderful world of computers. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.

“My son (five years old) has commandeered my wife’s laptop for his game-playing pleasure lately, and it’s been driving her batty. He basically only plays the games she does (Plants vs. Zombies, Zuma, etc.). So far he’s able to find the games he wants (by their icons) and open them without issues using Windows 7, but now that I’m looking into getting him his own basic computer I’m beginning to wonder if there isn’t something more kid-friendly out there. I’ve had cursory experience with OS X and Linux (Ubuntu), and I’ll be doing all the installing and setup myself. Any thoughts from parents? Thanks!”

Kids and computers. Now that’s a recipe for awesomeness. Any new(ish) parents out there have any experience on their kids loving / hating a certain OS? Feel free to drop your advice in comments below — let’s keep it intelligent, okay?

Ask Engadget: best desktop OS for kids? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Sep 2011 23:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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