Hasta La Gadget!

No, not that Yoshi, but the real, officially licensed critter with a penchant for chomping Goombas and dropping eggs. Nintendo’s 3DS handheld has, according to 3DS Buzz, been stolen from a Chinese manufacturing factory and leaked all over the Internet. This version is a little different than what we saw at E3 and even the “official” version from the September 29th announcement, the Select, Home, and Start buttons having been made flush into the screen bezel. Also, a 1300mAh battery is confirmed, as is 96MB of RAM. We have another picture of it below, showing it’s size compared to everything from a Game Boy Micro to a DSi XL, nicely demonstrating that Nintendo’s new hotness is a little bit smaller than even a standard DSi. That’s progress for ya, folks.

Update: David T. wrote in with a video of the thing in action — well, in non-action, really. It’s embedded below, and as you can see the poor backless 3DS is decidedly non-functional.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS escapes production line, strikes a pose with Yoshi (video)

Nintendo 3DS escapes production line, strikes a pose with Yoshi (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 07:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Consumer technology is advancing at such a rate that it is becoming increasingly common for such technology to find its way into various scientific applications. One of the more obvious examples is seen in the benefits high-performance computing has received from consumer graphics cards. We have also seen laptops used to measure earthquakes, and accelerometers such as those found in the Wiimote, iPhone, and other consumer electronics used to measure the flight patterns of the Malayan colugo.

In a recent paper in Water Resources Research, a team reports on the use of the Wiimote to measure evaporation. Natural evaporation rates are an important part of the water cycle; estimates of evaporation are required for weather forecasts, flood forecasts, and water resource planning, among other things.

One of the common means of measuring evaporation is simple enough: you set out a pan of water and measure the change in water level over time. Unfortunately, automated measurement typically requires a pressure transducer to accurately measure the water level, and those costs hundreds of dollars. The use of the Wiimote has the potential to substantially reduce the cost of measurement.

The methodology is simple enough. The Wiimote tracks the four brightest points in a near infrared image. Ordinarily, these four points will be the four Wii IR LEDs used to determine where the Wiimote is pointing. However, by affixing IR reflectors to a float in the water pan, the researchers were able to track the water level. This sounds simple enough, but these pans are often themselves floating in natural water bodies, and the combination of the two is likely to make waves.

To test the sensitivity of their technique to waves, the team used a small wave generator. A low-flow pump was used to change the water level. They found that even with substantial wave activity, they were able to measure changes in the average water level to within one millimeter.

However, they did find a slight bias in their absolute estimate of water level during wave activity. They hypothesize that this is due to a lag in the rates of rise and fall of their float that could be fixed with a modification. Using the Wiimote’s accelerometer to measure motion of the entire pan could also improve accuracy.

While I have to admit that I found this paper a bit mundane for what it was, the idea of using cheap sensors to measure environmental fields is one I find fascinating. For example, I wonder if the XBox 360’s depth-sensing Kinect camera could be used to measure particles such a large snowflakes in a wind field.

A first-order calculation suggests that its depth pixels are a few millimeters across for nearby objects, but it is not clear that the method it uses to calculate depth will work for small, fast-moving objects. Still, a $150 3D Particle Imaging Velocimeter would be a huge win. Environmental problems are prone to high time and space variability, and anything that can lower the cost of measurement has the potential to increase the number of measurements one can make.

The scientific community isn’t alone in getting excited about this tech. Its promise is also consistent with IBM’s recently-released Next 5 in 5 YouTube video: their prediction for the five innovations that will change our lives in the next five years. IBM predicts that simple sensor networks based in cell phones and laptops will be increasingly used to map environmental events. In addition, a large Department of Transportation project called IntelliDrive envisions using embedded sensors in cars to monitor environmental conditions.

Chime in below with your own ideas for scientific usage of consumer technology.

This story was written by Ethan Gutmann and originally published by Ars Technica on Dec. 28.

Photo: ginnerobot / Flickr

by John Timmer

Consumer electronics companies are betting that 3-D is going to be the next big thing, and several are heavily promoting the latest 3-D televisions. But the advent of consumer-level 3-D has been accompanied by concerns about what effect the hardware might have on the human visual system. Although there’s no evidence of harm, most of these companies have issued disclaimers warning against the use of this hardware by children.

Now, Nintendo Japan has joined them, warning against the use of its upcoming Nintendo 3DS system by anyone under the age of six.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the company posted the warning on its Japanese website in advance of an event promoting the device’s February release. According to its translation, the company is warning that, “For children under the age of six, looking at 3-D images for a long time could possibly have a negative impact on the growth of their eyes.”

We’ll hope that the “growth of their eyes” bit is just a bad translation. Concerns about the impact of 3-D are based on the fact that, outside of holograms, no system is actually capable of generating an actual 3-D image. Instead, various systems work by creating the illusion of depth by carefully manipulating the information received by the human visual system. In effect, 3-D involves playing tricks on our ability to perceive depth.

None of this will harm the actual eye itself, much less any growth it undergoes during childhood. The concern is that the portions of our visual systems that reside in the brain are adaptive; they adjust to the information we receive, and can remap connections in order to operate more efficiently on a typical input.

This is especially true in infants, as the visual system is still developing at the earliest stages of life. This ability to rewire our visual system on the fly is behind the 3-D health concerns. If our brains are fed a heavy diet of 3-D, they might start adjusting to process it more efficiently, and that process could come at the expense of regular vision.

As of now, however, there is no research indicating that there’s a anything to these worries. The last time a 3-D panic occurred—and they seem to occur every few years—we did an extensive literature search, and checked papers that people had pointed to as evidence of the technology’s harm. Most addressed other topics, and the few studies that were relevant were small and involved short-term disorientation in adults.

In short, Nintendo’s warning may be reasonable and cautious, but it doesn’t reflect a known health risk.

So far, factors other than health worries seem to be affecting the sales of 3-D televisions, and it’s probably safe to say that the sales of the 3DS will also be driven by the hardware, the price, and its game library.

This story was written by John Timmer and was originally published on Ars Technica.

Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired.com

Is Nintendo’s forthcoming portable gaming system hazardous to your health? The company has issued warnings about the 3DS ahead of its upcoming Nintendo World conference, suggesting that extended use of the console may be harmful for children under the age of six.

“Vision of children under the age of six has been said [to be in the] developmental stage,” the company said in a warning on its site, “delivers 3D images with different left and right eye images, [which] has a potential impact on the growth of children’s eyes.”

This isn’t the first time the company has issued such a warning for the glasses-free 3D console. When the device was announced back in June at E3, Nintendo America’s head, Reggie Fils-Aime, told Kotaku that the company was recommending a break after playing for an hour. Nintendo has since halved that number, suggesting that players take a break after 30 minutes,

Fortunately, the device lets the user dial down or turn off the 3D effect.

Retro gamers, take note — The Legend of Zelda is back, and this version’s more intriguing than ever. From the pits of a mythical, magical unknown lair has arisen an early build of the original FDS version of Zelda, and thanks to the wonders of the internet (along with a few dedicated Earthlings), we’re able to break down the differences between the prototype and the retail edition, download the FDS image and pore over the disk scans. From what we’ve been able to gather thus far, the early version is quite a bit easier to beat than the final build, with fewer enemies, easier money and more gullible partners. Sounds like our kind of place. Hit the links below to nerd out in fantastic fashion.

The Legend of Zelda prototype surfaces, makes itself readily available originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 09:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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