Hasta La Gadget!

The inundation of tablets upon these very pages from day to day should give you an idea that manufacturers see this as a golden opportunity to grab a big chunk of a fledgling market. According to Gartner, though, the prospects are a little less rosy — for the next five years, anyway. Analyst estimates indicate that the tablet market will boom over the next five years, from 17,610,000 units last year to 294,093,000 in 2015. No, not 294,092,000. 294,093,000. Apple will be the dominant force, its market share not dropping below 50 percent until the terminal year of this study. Android will take up the lion share of the other half, with the remaining dredges shared by MeeGo, WebOS, and QNX. The latter, which powers RIM’s upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook, is scheduled to have a 10 percent share. That’ll be the closest thing to a threat that Google and Apple will face — if you believe any of this.

Update: The figures above are in thousands of units.

Gartner: Apple will dominate tablet space for years, Android won’t drink its milkshake until after 2015 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re not already running the Plex Media Server on one of the twenty-three beige boxes networked across your tiny domicile, you may be sorely tempted to install a copy this week, because the iOS app has just received a truly massive update. Where once the XBMC spinoff would have to transcode every video it delivered to your device across the ether, Plex claims it can now either bypass that CPU-intensive process or use an iOS-optimized technique, pumping H.264 video over the air far more efficiently. Second, it can deliver that content from iOS direct to your TV, via either a video-out cable or experimental support for AirPlay. Not bad, right? How’s universal search sound — the ability to type in a word and have the app reach out to local servers, remote servers, and online video services like YouTube and Vimeo too? Yeah, that $4.99 price tag is looking mighty affordable right about now, and there are plenty more improvements to peruse at the links below.

Plex 1.1 for iOS improves streaming over 3G, pipes video to your TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Apr 2011 06:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Silent FIlm Director iOS app lets you adjust a variety of settings to create your own vintage style silent film or home movie.

Nothing adds nostalgia to a just-taken iPhone video like retro visual effects and silent film-inspired title cards.

The Silent Film Director app for iPhones can transform any video you take into a ’60s-style home movie or a 1920s-esque silent film, taking that Instagram effect and amping it up a few notches.

The app is available in Standard and Pro versions. With the Standard version, you can record or upload video and render it with a variety of video effects (including Black & White, ’70s Home Video and Sepia), add a soundtrack (default, or your own), and adjust the playing speed and quality of the video. With the Pro version, you get additional advanced features like title cards and transitions, and the ability to mix photos and video with separate effects.

The app is pretty straightforward to use. In Standard Mode, you’re taken to a screen that lets you choose the desired effect, quality, soundtrack and time scale, then you can either make or load a video. If, instead, you click on Pro Mode, you can add a project by clicking on the plus sign in the upper right hand corner, or work on a previously started project.

After naming a new project, you can adjust the same properties as Standard Mode, and click Add to start inserting customizable title cards, editable video clips and photos. You can rearrange and edit each section of your video using the Timeline.

I tried out the Pro version of the app with a video taken of me trying out a remote-controlled mechanical chair at a warehouse robot party (yes, I said warehouse robot party).

Although I wish the preloaded music options automatically “finished” with a couple closing piano notes at the end, the app is easy to use and a fun way to spruce up some unexciting video footage … or create your silent film opus.

The Silent Film Director App is currently available for $0.99 in the App Store.

Thanks Alex!

Talking is something most of us take for granted, but a new app called MyVoice — currently available for iOS and coming soon to Android — is attempting to give the ability back to those who aren’t as fortunate. Developed by a group of University of Toronto students after being approached by a man who had a stroke, the location-based app allows users to “speak” pre-programmed text macros using text-to-speech. You can’t add new phrases from within the app just yet, though for now there’s an online portal that also allows relatives to configure strings and organize them into “places” for the ultimate user. We checked out the app and it seems to work as advertised — there’s a pretty extensive word pack that comes with it. You can score the free download at the more coverage link below, and we’ve got a video demo after the break.

Continue reading MyVoice app for iOS and Android enables the mute to talk (video)

MyVoice app for iOS and Android enables the mute to talk (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Peel remote adapter is supposed to be the normal human’s version of Logitech’s Harmony universal remotes. Harmony remotes, although incredibly competent in controlling everything in your AV system, practically begs for a community college class teaching people how to use it. More »