LG giving away ten free Windows Phone 7 apps every two months

Windows Phone 7 launched with a dizzying variety of handsets. On closer inspection though, all nine WP7 devices hitting retail space in 2010 feature the same processor and display resolution. So outside of a few notable hardware variations, software is going to be a big differentiator for consumers. That’s why LG has teamed up with Microsoft to offer a revolving portfolio of free, so-called “quality” apps to owners of LG Windows Phone 7 handsets. Ten free apps valued at more than $30 will be given away every 60 days via the LG Application Store — that’s 60 apps per year. These are in addition to the free apps already developed exclusively for LG handset owners like the PlayTo media streaming app we fawned over during our Optimus 7 review. Keep it up LG and your mobile handset division might finally pull itself out of the ditch. See the first ten apps listed after the break.

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LG giving away ten free Windows Phone 7 apps every two months originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kinect for Xbox 360 review

And just like that, all three of the major game consoles now have some semblance of motion controls. Unlike the Nintendo Wii and PlayStation Move, however, Microsoft’s Kinect for Xbox 360 opts to get rid of buttons altogether, relying on body gestures and voice commands. As the (estimated to be $500 million) ad campaign says, “you are the controller” — for better and for worse. Read on for our full review!

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Kinect for Xbox 360 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get your Kinect launch coverage at Joystiq!

It’s less than an hour away until Kinect drops in Times Square, as the motion-sensing peripheral is set to make its debut to a throng of freezing buyers. You know what that means — our brothers-from-other-mothers at Joystiq are on the scene, chatting with folks that have sat for over two days waiting for the camera-equipped controller. Head on over for the full scoop!

Get your Kinect launch coverage at Joystiq! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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How Motion Detection Works in Xbox Kinect

The prototype for Microsoft’s Kinect camera and microphone famously cost $30,000. At midnight Thursday morning, you’ll be able to buy it for $150 as an Xbox 360 peripheral.

Microsoft is projecting that it will sell 5 million units between now and Christmas. We’ll have more details and a review of the system soon, but for now it’s worth taking some time to think about how it all works.

Camera

Kinect’s camera is powered by both hardware and software. And it does two things: generate a three-dimensional (moving) image of the objects in its field of view, and recognize (moving) human beings among those objects.

Older software programs used differences in color and texture to distinguish objects from their backgrounds. PrimeSense, the company whose tech powers Kinect, and recent Microsoft acquisition Canesta use a different model. The camera transmits invisible near-infrared light and measures its “time of flight” after it reflects off the objects.

Time-of-flight works like sonar: If you know how long the light takes to return, you know how far away an object is. Cast a big field, with lots of pings going back and forth at the speed of light, and you can know how far away a lot of objects are.

Using an infrared generator also partially solves the problem of ambient light. Since the sensor isn’t designed to register visible light, it doesn’t get quite as many false positives.

PrimeSense and Kinect go one step further and encode information in the near-IR light. As that information is returned, some of it is deformed — which in turn can help generate a finer image of those objects’ 3-D texture, not just their depth.

With this tech, Kinect can distinguish objects’ depth within 1 centimeter and their height and width within 3 mm.

Story continues …


Tonight’s Release, Xbox Kinect: How Does It Work?

The prototype for Microsoft’s Kinect camera and microphone famously cost $30,000. At midnight tonight, the company is releasing it as a motion-capture Xbox 360 peripheral for $150.

Microsoft is projecting that it will sell five million units between now and Christmas. It’s worth taking some time to think about what’s happening here.

I’ve used Kinect to play video games without a controller, watch digital movies without a remote, and do audio-video chat from across the room. I’ve spent even more time researching the technology behind it and explaining how it works.

Kinect’s camera is powered by both hardware and software. And it does two things: generate a three-dimensional (moving) image of the objects in its field-of-view and recognize (moving) human beings among those objects.

Older software programs used differences in color and texture to distinguish objects from their backgrounds. PrimeSense, the company whose tech powers Kinect, and recent Microsoft acquisition Canesta use a different model. The camera transmits invisible near-infrared light and measures its time of flight after it reflects off the objects.

Time-of-flight works like sonar: if you know how long the light takes to return, you know how far away an object is. Cast a big field, with lots of pings going back and forth at the speed of light, and you can know how far away a lot of objects are.

Using an infrared generator also partially solves the problem of ambient light, which can throw off recognition like a random finger on a touchscreen: the sensor really isn’t designed to register visible light, so it doesn’t get quite as many false positives.

PrimeSense and Kinect go one step further and encode information in the near-IR light. As that information is returned, some of it is deformed — which in turn can help generate a finer image of those objects’ three-dimensional texture, not just their depth.

With this tech, Kinect can distinguish objects’ depth within 1cm and their height and width within 3mm.

Figure from PrimeSense Explaining the PrimeSensor Reference Design.

At this point, both the Kinect’s hardware — its camera and IR light projector — and its firmware (sometimes called “middleware”) of the receiver are operating. It has an onboard processor which is using algorithms to process the data to render the three-dimensional image.

The middleware also can recognize people: both distinguishing human body parts, joints, and movements and distinguishing individual human faces from one another. When you step in front of it, the camera knows who you are.

Please note: I’m keenly aware here of the standard caution against anthropomorphizing inanimate objects. But at a certain point, we have to accept that if the meaning of “to know” is its use, in the sense of familiarity, connaissance, whatever you want to call it, functionally, this camera knows who you are. It’s got your image — a kind of biometric — and can map it to a persona with very limited encounters, as naturally and nearly as accurately as a street cop looking at your mug shot and fingerprints.

Does it “know” you in the sense of embodied neurons firing, or the way your mother knows your personality or your priest your soul? Of course not. It’s a video game.

But it’s a pretty remarkable video game. You can’t quite get the fine detail of a table tennis slice, but the first iteration of the WiiMote couldn’t get that either. And all the jury-rigged foot pads and Nunchuks strapped to thighs can’t capture whole-body running or dancing like Kinect can.

That’s where the Xbox’s processor comes in: translating the movements captured by the Kinect camera into meaningful on-screen events. These are context-specific. If a river rafting game requires jumping and leaning, it’s going to look for jumping and leaning. If navigating a Netflix Watch Instantly menu requires horizontal and vertical hand-waving, that’s what will register on the screen.

It has an easier time recognizing some gestures and postures than others. As Kotaku noted this summer, recognizing human movement — at least, any movement more subtle than a hand-wave — is easier to do when someone is standing up (with all of their joints articulated) than sitting down.

So you can move your arms to navigate menus, watch TV and movies, or browse the internet. You can’t sit on the couch wiggling your thumbs and pretending you’re playing Street Fighter II. It’s not a magic trick cooked up by MI-6. It’s a camera that costs $150.

Continue Reading…

Kinect will use only a ‘single-digit’ percentage of Xbox 360 CPU power

What do you know, someone’s been busy working in Microsoft’s labs while we’ve been waiting for the company’s Kinect motion control peripheral to launch itself into our living rooms. The highly sophisticated webcam has undergone some algorithmic optimizations and now Alex Kipman, lead software developer for what used to be known as Natal, tells us that its processing overhead for the Xbox 360 console will be no greater than a “single-digit” percentage. That contrasts very nicely with the last number Alex gave us, which indicated there’d be a 10 to 15 percent penalty for using Microsoft’s new motion controller, and should mean your petting sessions with Kinectimals will be running smooth as butter when Kinect hits stores tomorrow. Great news, eh?

Kinect will use only a ‘single-digit’ percentage of Xbox 360 CPU power originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Nov 2010 04:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EU Fines Microsoft… Again

This article was written on February 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

microsoft fine Back in September last year we wrote about how the European Court finally ruled on an antitrust case that was started back in 2004 against Microsoft. The ruling? Microsoft was fined $690 million dollars. For this particular fine, it was because the EU felt Microsoft needed to make a version of Windows without Media Player included. At that point, it was a record fine but now the EU is fining them again for a new record fine of $1.3 billion dollars. In all, Microsoft is expected to pay under $2.5 billion in fines.

According to the Associated Press, the issue this time is that EU regulators claim “the company charged “unreasonable prices” until last October to software developers who wanted to make products compatible with the Windows desktop operating system.” More specifically, the unreasonable prices were charged for access to “interface documentation for work group servers.”  The fines this time are the result of “non-compliance” says the EU and they believe Microsoft is still restricting their competitors. Microsoft has said that those issues that they are being fined for have already been resolved so it looks as though Microsoft is going to have to do some fighting to prove their case.

So what are the “unreasonable prices” Microsoft is charging?

  • Originally, Microsoft set the royalty rate at 3.87 percent of a licensee’s product revenues
  • Companies wanting communication information were required to pay 2.98 percent of their products’ revenues
  • At this point, Microsoft has lowered the patent rate to 0.8 percent (only in Europe)
  • The Communication Information rate was lowered to 0.5 percent (only in Europe)

We don’t know all of the in’s and out’s regarding EU rules and regulations, but at this point it seems as though they are getting a little fine happy and going after Microsoft simply because they can. Or perhaps they’re just trying to make a point. Any thoughts? Did Microsoft deserve to have another fine slapped on them?

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The Worst Video Game Peripherals of All Time

power_glove_power_play.jpg

The on-going console war will likely be fought on the
peripheral front this holiday season. After all, the Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation
3, and Nintendo Wii have all been around for a number of years, and consumers
are looking for something new out of their systems.

In 2010, we’re looking at a battle between the PlayStation
Move, the Kinect for Xbox 360, and the Wii Motion Plus. It’s still a bit early,
but it seems like all three products will be reasonably well received–or at the
very list, none will likely wind up on a “Worst Peripherals of All Time” list.

The same, obviously, can’t be said for the devices after the
jump. It’s a mix of the misguided, the overhyped, and the flat-out creepy. 

W3C tests HTML5 browser compatibility, crowns IE9 the champ

The World Wide Web Consortium — you know, the team responsible for certifying and standardizing HTML5 — has put together its first table of official conformance test results, giving us an idea of how well prepared each of the most popular browsers is for the oncoming web standards revolution. The data show Internet Explorer 9 as the most adroit performer (again), though Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and Safari don’t seem to be too far behind in their HTML5 compliance, either. Of course, these checks don’t cover the entire spec, which in itself isn’t even finalized yet, but they provide us with a glimpse into a brave new world where Microsoft actually cares about coders keen on maximizing interoperability by adhering to web-wide standards. Good stuff. Check out the full results at the source link below.

[Thanks, Mehran]

W3C tests HTML5 browser compatibility, crowns IE9 the champ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 11:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google suing US Department of the Interior for Google Apps snub

Google has filed a lawsuit in the US Court of Federal Claims against the US Department of the Interior for being what it claims as “unduly restrictive of competition.” Apparently the DOI wrote up procurement requirements for a hosted email and collaboration solution (it’s currently hobbling along with 13 different platforms for its 88,000 users) that specifically stated the software had to be part of the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Google thinks there should be a competitive procurement process for the $59 million contract, allowing for potential alternatives to Microsoft (like Google Apps, for instance). The DOI says it’s up for open competition on the contract, but it’s “standardized” on Microsoft tech. We’ll have to see how this plays out.

Google suing US Department of the Interior for Google Apps snub originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Nov 2010 10:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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