Hasta La Gadget!

Panasonic is teasing us with a few details of the Lumix Phone, containing a 13.2 megapixel CMOS sensor and a 3.3-inch VGA LCD*. It will be the same size as the iPhone, only twice as thick, at 17.7mm.

At this point, you’re probably expecting the standard rant about tiny sensors and high pixel-counts in cellphones. I don’t think that’s what we have here, though. It seems instead that this will be a proper camera with a cellphone built-in, rather than the other way around. This could be a fantastic idea. Why?

I carry a camera with me pretty much all the time. I also carry a cellphone, but use it only a few times a week. If I could make the odd call and send an SMS from my camera once in a while, I’d be happy.

What’s more, I could upload pictures to Flickr and other services, and have my photos geotagged automatically. And because I’d be thinking of this as a phone, I wouldn’t mind charging it every night.

The specs are being slowed teased onto the Lumix Phone site, but so far we know that the camera will have a flash, a dedicated shutter button and a flash. It will also have a touch-screen. An image and full details will be published on October 5th.

Lumix Phone product page [Panasonic]

Lumix Phone press release [Panasonic]

*Camera LCDs are usually measured in dots, which is actually triple the amount of pixels. This makes the Lumix Camera’s screen an impressive 900,000-dots: 640 x 480 x 3 = 921,600. I think. My maths is quite terrible.

See Also:

• Altek Leo, a 14 Megapixel, HD-Shooting Camera Phone
• Cellphones Edge out Inexpensive Digital Cameras
• Samsung CL80 More Like a Cellphone Than a Camera
• Sony Ericsson Brings 8.1 MP Camera Phone to AT&T

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Murata Seiko, or Murata Girl, is a pretty impressive, attractive little piece of work. The unicycling, dress-wearing robot brings smiles wherever she goes, we’re sure (when we had the chance to see her in person that was certainly the case). You may or may not have known that Murata also has a bike riding male counterpart called Little Seisaku? Well, they’ve both just gotten their upgrades for the year, and that, of course, gives us another opportunity to admire them in all their cuteness. While there aren’t any videos of their improvements yet, we know that Murata Girl’s now able to traverse an S-shaped balance beam in addition to her straight one, while Little Seisaku’s charging capabilities have been upgraded (he can now do so wirelessly), and he’s more efficient, too. Check out another shot below.

Continue reading Murata Seiko and her male counterpart get upgrades, we get another look at their awesome skills

Murata Seiko and her male counterpart get upgrades, we get another look at their awesome skills originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Panasonic Toughbook S9 claims to be the world’s lightest 12.1-inch laptop with a DVD drive, we believe it

Panasonic Toughbook S9 claims to be the world’s lightest 12.1-inch laptop with a DVD drive, we believe it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If Panasonic can build an exercise horse then surely a robot that washes your hair should come as no surprise. Imagine being lifted from your robotic bed by a plush care-assist robot and placed into a chair for an automatic shampoo and scalp massage. That is the future of care for the elderly and sick in Japan, or the rich and lazy everywhere else. Panasonic’s hair-washing robot scans each human head three-dimensionally to apply just the right amount of pressure during the shampoo, massage, and rinse phases. It recognizes repeat customers and then applies that person’s preferred massage course using its human-like sixteen “fingers.” Each arm contains a trio of motors to power swing, press, and massage motions… or to snap your spinal column should you decide to sass.

Continue reading Panasonic’s hair-washing robot: rinse, kill, repeat

Panasonic’s hair-washing robot: rinse, kill, repeat originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 07:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember Panasonic’s Toughbook CF-U1? Yeah, so it’s been a while (2008, in fact) since it was unveiled and then reviewed, which is exactly why Panny thought the time had come to update the rugged UMPC. Its Toughbook U1 has the same magnesium alloy chassis — we’re told it’s still the most rugged Toughbook of them all — but has been updated with “enhanced sunlight viewability.” It’s no PixelQi display, but the TransflectivePlus screen can be cranked up to 6000 nits for checking e-mails and other pertinent information in the bright light of day. Internally, the U1 has acquired a newer 1.6GHz Atom Z530 processor, 2GB of RAM, and a larger 64GB SSD with Windows 7. The optional two megapixel front-facing camera has also been tweaked with better auto-focus and white balance features. However, the updates aren’t just hardware-based: screen icons have been enlarged, and there’s a new virtual right click button and larger virtual keyboard with a zoom mode. Of course, military grade doesn’t come cheap — the street price has been set at whopping $2,799. That still makes it one of the most expensive Atom device out there, but then again can you really put a price on something that’s Rammer-resistant? We didn’t think so.

Continue reading Panasonic Toughbook U1 gets new sunlight-viewable screen, still solid to its Atom core

Panasonic Toughbook U1 gets new sunlight-viewable screen, still solid to its Atom core originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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