Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re using both hands to play a musical instrument, the last thing you want to worry about is turning the pages of sheet-music as you play. The traditional solution was to make somebody do it for you, or to quickly reach up and do it yourself.

Tech has helped. These days a laptop with a USB foot-pedal is the way to go, but there have been all manner of spring-loaded and hydraulic contraptions invented to turn actual paper pages. These were, as you might expect, less than reliable.

Airturn, maker of sheet-music-reading software and hardware, has come up with a solution for the iPad. Apple’s tablet would seem to be the perfect device for reading music: it’s big enough to replace a piece of paper, whilst still slim and light enough to put on a music stand. Combined with Airturn’s new Bluetooth foot-switch, it makes a reliable, wire-free and practical solution.

The BT-105, as it is called, has a pair of switches, one to page forward, and one to page back. The switch doesn’t just work with the company’s own software, either. The video demo shows it controlling a third-party app with a zoom feature. In this case, the switch can tell the app to flip half a page at a time or, more accurately, to show the second half of the page before it flips to the next one.

The switch is in development right now, but should be available in the last quarter of this year.

iPad Bluetooth page turner footswitch prototype [Airturn. Thanks, Hugh!]

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Lithium-ion battery technology keeps improving by (theoretical) leaps and bounds, but what good’s that to you when you’re faced with a dead TV remote? Brother Industries has a plan, and it doesn’t involve ink for once — the Japanese printer company’s developed a set of prototype batteries you simply shake to charge. AA and AAA models are already in the works, though you shouldn’t expect to slot them into cameras or R/C cars, as the miniature electromagnetic induction generators inside are designed for infrequently used gadgets and provide as little as 10mW (or as much as 180mW) when shook. Of course, when it comes to TV remotes there’s an even lazier way for couch potatoes to squeeze the juice, but we have to imagine standard-sized cells have a slightly better chance at market.

Brother shakes up expectations with vibration-charged low-power batteries originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yeah, it’s true — Okoro Media Systems is shamelessly hopping on the tablet PC bandwagon, and it’s actually bundling an iPad with each GX series HTPC in order to give customers an elegant way to control their multi-zone audio setup (or whatever else you feel like controlling). ‘Course, the GX line ain’t the cheapest on the block, with starting prices just south of five large. That said, if you’re looking for the most bodacious HTPC on the planet and you can’t find the time to build your own, you can look forward to a Core i7 processor, upwards of 6GB of RAM, an 80GB SSD boot drive (paired with a 2TB 6Gbps media HDD), Blu-ray support, USB 3.0 ports and a quad CableCARD tuner. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Tap that source link if you’re interested in customizing your own, but only if you’re kosher with never leaving your home again in order to finance it.

Continue reading Okoro’s GX series HTPCs ship with SSD, USB 3.0, Core i7 and… an iPad?

Okoro’s GX series HTPCs ship with SSD, USB 3.0, Core i7 and… an iPad? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tablet control for HTPCs is nothing new to VidaBox, but with users quickly buying up tablets of their own it’s switched focus from the proprietary vPad and $2,600 TouchClient to wider compatibility through web apps. This iPad control interface demonstrated at the Asian Pacific CEDIA Expo, lets users browse and control their Media Center PC’s videos and music with cover art and related information right in the palm of their hands. Built on the company’s vAutomation 2.0 platform the software can control other connected devices including lights and cable boxes, while integration with online sources like Rhapsody and Pandora is also in the works. The iPad version is scheduled to make it to dealers and integrators in Q3 and its web based roots should make Android or other platform support a snap, though you will need to own one of the company’s systems to take advantage.

Continue reading VidaBox adds tablet control for its Media Center PCs, iPad is first in line

VidaBox adds tablet control for its Media Center PCs, iPad is first in line originally appeared on Engadget HD on Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SoftBank develops robot cameras for that lucrative pet surveillance market originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 23 May 2010 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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