Hasta La Gadget!

Not content with the sheer badassery of sending a humanoid robot to the moon in 2015, Japan has just unveiled a mission for 2020 that will involve setting up a whole robotic moon base. It will be unmanned in the flesh-and-blood sense, but will be populated with a 660 pound rolling bot. The station will be self-powered, and will let its citizen roam over 60+ miles of terrain, gathering scientific samples that can be sent back to earth. While rocks are great, we’re even more excited about the HDTV the station will be beaming back as well. The whole project will run somewhere in the ballpark of $2.2, and will be developed simultaneously with Japan’s manned moon program. We’re going to get working on our “I’m 660 pound a scientific exploration robot” costume right away.

Japan building a robot moon base in 2020, and you’re not invited originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 21:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reach out and touch whatever screen you’re reading this on. What if, instead of feeling the glass or plastic beneath your finger, you could experience the texture of a brush, woodgrain, or even a stone? Well, Toshiba’s working on just such a project, which operates on the basis of a film affixed to, say, a smartphone’s touch panel — electrical currents are sent through this layer, and your digits are shot up with the simulated sensation of touching those various surfaces. Senseg, the company behind this tech, has been around since 2008, but perhaps this recent prototype demo is a sign that things might actually start going places. It’s not like there’ll be a shortage of imaginative uses for such precise tactile feedback. Video after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba brings texture to touch (video)

Toshiba brings texture to touch (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 May 2010 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Japan hasn’t had a lot of time to get used to the PlayStation 3’s Torne digital TV tuner since it launched in March, but it’s already getting an update which will add a few more DVR features to improve the experience. Coming in June, v2.00 will enable MPEG-4 AVC compression to squeeze HDTV recordings by as much as 3x their original size as opposed to just copying the original MPEG-2 stream even while playing a game, plus the ability to start watching a program and fast forward/reverse while it’s still recording and update the user’s PSN status. The free update will be issued in June, until then Torne fans can argue with European and Australian PlayTV owners about whether or not their new features are better than Facebook integration while the U.S. sits out like the ginger kid of a previous marriage it is.

PS3’s Torne digital TV tuner / DVR adapter gets 2.00 software update next month originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 May 2010 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s comical, really — we can’t get a decently powerful Atom to save our lives, but the absolutely thrilling world of magnetic tape storage is bounding ahead at a record pace. Priorities, people. For the archivists and A-type pack rats in the crowd, you’ll probably be atypically elated to know that Hitachi Maxell and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have teamed up in order to develop the world’s most capacious tape cartridges. Back in January, IBM and Fujifilm celebrated a momentary victory by announcing a 35TB version of this same product, but this record shattering attempt takes areal density to spaces never before ventured into in order to hit the magical 50TB mark. ‘Course, you’ll probably never see one outside of your state’s largest library, but at least that 3TB HDD you’re drooling over for your next PC seems so much more bodacious now. Oh, wait.

Japanese gurus unveil 50TB magnetic tape cartridges, are officially ‘taking it way back’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 May 2010 11:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Demonstrated at the Wireless Technology Park 2010 exhibition last week, this automatic email generator from NTT DoCoMo promises to take just three words’ worth of input, whether spoken or typed in, and convert them into a fully fleshed out, anatomically correct email. An anthropomorphic genie creature serves as your guide on this journey into gimmick world, although some rather nice sophistication is also on the cards. The carrier’s rep informs us that the composition of the missive will be dependent on the sort of person that you are and your relationship to the recipient. Thus, an email from a teenager to his parents will read quite differently to one from an employee to her boss, even if both believe they’re writing to their draconian overlords. Check it out on video after the break.

Continue reading NTT DoCoMo shows off automatic email generator for mobiles (video)

NTT DoCoMo shows off automatic email generator for mobiles (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 May 2010 07:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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