Hasta La Gadget!

The living room wars move on to the remote control. Motorola takes on TiVo Slide with NYXboard, its own version of the keyboard remote control.

The NYXboard remote packs in a compact QWERTY-keyboard on the back of its standard cable box remote. Sensors recognize which side is facing up  and deactivate the side not in use. No more worrying about accidentally changing the channel while using the keyboard side of the remote!

The remote controls both the cable TV set-top box and the television set.

Motorola is expected to make the remote available by the end of the year, but it will be up to the individual cable companies as to whether customers will actually receive the keyboard remote with their cable TV boxes.

Still in concept, the Gesture Remote
looks quite capable of solving the age-old remote problem.

The universal remote is handy for
turning on the TV easily. There is no need for a TV remote just to
turn it on, the cable remote to change channels, or a stereo remote
to adjust volume. Throw the DVR, DVD player, and other devices in the
mix, though, and there are too many buttons and functions. The
universal remote can’t handle the load.

Enter the Gesture Remote from IDENT
Technology. This would allow you to surf TV channels and digital media using
gesture. Using touch-technology, there are no buttons or keypads to
deal with. Imagine the Gesture Remote as the Apple Magic Trackpad for the palm.

Just like a mouse, you can easily drag
and drop or select content on the screen. Select the highlighted item
by tapping the thumb. Scroll, flick, rotate, or zoom in and out for
volume control and channel selection. It’s that easy.

The Gesture Remote would have to be
able to talk to any kind of box, such as satellite, cable, and FiOS,
as well as other devices. Here is to hoping this becomes reality.

It’s been a long, long time since we first got our hands on the Boxee Box QWERTY remote. Since then the device went through something of an existential crisis before suffering a sad delay. Now we have some encouraging news for its planned November release date: the QWERTY remote has hit the FCC. Called simply the “Remote controller” (model numbers DSM-221, DSM-22), it looks to have passed with flying colors, the FCC celebrating by ripping it to bits and photographing every piece of exposed silicon. Want to see the cruel results? We have a taste after the break, but for the rest of the grisly photos you’ll have to hit that source link.

Continue reading Boxee Box QWERTY remote hits the FCC, its innards splayed asunder

Boxee Box QWERTY remote hits the FCC, its innards splayed asunder originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  FCC  | Email this | Comments

You’re a photographer: Imagine being able not only to walk around your subject, but to whisk yourself away and shoot from anywhere you choose, however high your want, like James Cameron guiding his virtual cameras in Avatar. With Anthony Jacobs’ new autonomous camera-copter, you can.

The new rig is the sequel to the HD video-camera we saw swept into the skies of New York by a remote-controlled quadrocopter last year. Jacobs, the photographer and inveterate tinkerer behind that setup, is back, and this time he’s using GPS and lifting video-shooting DSLRs into the air. Jacobs is pitching this new platform at photojournalists, and here’s why:

Say you are on the ground at a natural disaster site (or perhaps BP’s heavies are trying to prevent you from grabbing your shot). You fire up the four-rotor copter and fly your camera into position. Hit a switch and the GPS-control kicks in. Combined with the inherent stability of a quadrocopter and its gyroscopes, the platform stays exactly where it is, even in wind.

The photographer can now drop the remote and concentrate on taking photos or video. A live video-feed is sent back from the camera to an 8-inch LCD-screen for composition, and a three-axis gimbal, controlled by another remote, allows the camera to be swung independently into position. This allows the photographer to capture shots otherwise impossible to get, or too dangerous to shoot by hand. It could also give amazing perspectives on sports games (although we guess it could all be brought down by an unlucky football).

And when you’re done, you just hit the “home” button and the camera will fly itself right back to you. But there’s more: Are you an indie-filmmaker looking to add some expensive looking boom-shots and fly-bys to your movie? Check this out:

With one person piloting and the other working the camera, this is a lot cheaper than renting a helicopter. For the photojournalist working alone, the whole thing packs into a single Pelican case, making it portable and tough enough to take anywhere. As Jacobs says in the email he sent me, “I believe this […] would make a lot of readers drool!” He’s dead right.

Canon 5D Mark II Aerial Drone – Autonomous GPS Position Hold [Perpective Aerials. Thanks, Anthony!]

See Also:

• Flying Copter-Cam Swoops Over New York City
• Helicam Combines Toy Helicopter and Camera for HD Videos

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

This amazing robotic ball is called the Smart Ball. Built into a small plastic sphere, the robot inside is controlled via your Bluetooth cellphone (Android only right now, but any phone could do it) and rolls in the direction you tell it. The control interface is the phone itself: You tilt it and the accelerometers pass on the info to the ball, controlling speed and directions. Imaging playing Super Monkey Ball in real life and you pretty much have it.

The balls are actually prototypes for a real commercial product, and were made by hacker group Gearbox. The Gearbox folks have already opened up the APIs (the parts that let programmers create apps to control the balls) and have been running hack weekends where people can come along and try them out.

Controlling a ball’s roll is pretty cool, but other uses are even cooler. For instance, one commenter suggests having a GPS app control the Smart Ball: input your destination and the ball would roll away, guiding you to your goal like a benign willow-the-wisp.

The Gearbox people are aiming for a price of around $25, and already have games planned or written. Sumo, for instance pits one ball against the other, with two people trying to knock each others’ ball off a table. The phone would keep track of things and offer stats and league tables. Neat.

We’ll be keeping an eye on the Gearbox blog to see when these are available to buy.

Smart Ball [Gearbox via Make]

See Also:

• Video: Pool-Playing Robot Is Unbeatable
• Human Beats 340-Pound Robot in Football Kick-off
• Robot