Hasta La Gadget!

If you’re not sold on the iPad and are tired of waiting for tablets from other PC makers to show up, try getting your hands dirty with a tablet you can build on your own.

Liquidware, an open source hardware company, is selling a $400 tablet starter kit. The DIY tablet targets developers who want to create a tablet of their dreams or write specialized software applications.

“The Beagle tablet is a portable modular open source handheld computer,” says Justin Huynh, director of product development at Liquidware. “It’s all about customizability and embedded development.”

The tablet kit contains a 4.3-inch OLED touchscreen that mounts directly on a BeagleBoard. The BeagleBoard is a single board computer from Texas Instruments that comes with a 1-GHz processor. There’s also a battery module and a 4-GB pre-formatted SD card to boot Angstrom Linux. But users can also run the Android operating system on it, says Huynh.

“Everything is modular and snaps on or mounts directly on a board so you have a very compact tablet-like device,” he says.

Since Apple iPad’s debut in April, tablets’ popularity has surged. Apple sold 2 million iPads in just 60 days of the product’s launch. That has left other companies scrambling to introduce tablets of their own. Both Samsung and Research In Motion have tablets in development. In the U.K., Dell has already introduced its first tablet called Streak, a 5-inch PSP-sized device that can also make phone calls.

But those gadgets have little appeal for tinkerers, says Huynh.

“With the iPad, you would have a hard time hacking it to read from a specialized sensor such as a temperature sensor or add your own custom hardware,” he says. “The Beagle tablet is all about innovation.”

Since the Beagle tablet doesn’t have any storage beyond the SD card, it is extremely lightweight, weighing just about 8 ounces. Users can increase the size of the SD card or plug in an external hard drive or a solid-state disk through the on-board USB port.

The battery life of the Beagle tablet can vary from three hours to six hours depending on the application, says Hyunh.

The Beagle tablet is a lot of work since you would have to load everything from an OS to different applications. But once you get it going, it could be a better conversation starter than the iPad.

See Also:

• BeagleBoard Gives New Power to Open Source Gadgets
• Build It. Share It. Profit. Can Open Source Hardware Work?
• Open Source Hardware Hackers Start P2P Bank
• Open Source Hardware Project RepRap Creates its First Circuit
• Hardware Hackers Create a Modular Motherboard

Photo: Liquidware

Spend a few days with a capacitive touch device and moving back to resistive can feel a bit… clumsy. Quanta and 3M are saying they have created a new type of touch sensitive screen that could make capacitive feel relatively just as vague, what they’re calling dispersive signal technology. DST is a layer of “specially-designed glass” that detects the pressure of a finger or a stylus (or, probably, other things too) with high precision, all without making the display thicker. We’re not sure how another layer could not make things at least a little bit beefier, but it at least won’t be an expensive addition, with DigiTimes saying “consumers should have no difficulty accepting the price.” There are, however, no comments on how well consumers will handle the other stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. Remember, we’re here for you.

Quanta and 3M’s DST touchscreens like styli and fingers too originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 09:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reach out and touch whatever screen you’re reading this on. What if, instead of feeling the glass or plastic beneath your finger, you could experience the texture of a brush, woodgrain, or even a stone? Well, Toshiba’s working on just such a project, which operates on the basis of a film affixed to, say, a smartphone’s touch panel — electrical currents are sent through this layer, and your digits are shot up with the simulated sensation of touching those various surfaces. Senseg, the company behind this tech, has been around since 2008, but perhaps this recent prototype demo is a sign that things might actually start going places. It’s not like there’ll be a shortage of imaginative uses for such precise tactile feedback. Video after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba brings texture to touch (video)

Toshiba brings texture to touch (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 May 2010 13:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Roger Linn. Ever heard of him? He’s only the man behind the modern day drum machine and the original MPC-60, and he’s also the man behind the concept you’re inevitably peering at above. For now, Roger’s calling this beaut the LinnStrument, and there’s quite a back story to go along with it. The design began way back in 2006, with the goal being to create a full-on multitouch instrument with the ability to let one’s finger dictate volume, timbre, pitch and pressure. No doubt, many have tried to concoct something similar, but Roger’s discovery of TouchCo enabled him to create one sans the limitations of imitators. Unfortunately, Amazon quietly scooped up the startup in January of this year (to have this sort of technology available for the Kindle product line), and in turn, shut down TouchCo’s involvement with the outside world. Now, Roger’s being forced to reveal his unfinished work in hopes of attracting investors or unearthing another company that could mimic this sort of awesomeness en masse. Jump on past the break and mash play to get a better idea of what the world’s missing out on, and be sure to tell Jeff Bezos “thanks” the next time you bump into him.

[Thanks, Peter]

Continue reading LinnStrument multitouch music maker gets demoed on video, grasps for investors

LinnStrument multitouch music maker gets demoed on video, grasps for investors originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 16 May 2010 11:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know that little sleep indicator light on the front of your new MacBook Pro — the one that simply disappears when your notebook is wide awake? Apple wants to do that for buttons, too. Cupertino’s latest patent application is for pressure-sensitive, capacitive touchscreen materials it could build right into the surface of its aluminum-clad devices, and identify with laser-cut, micro-perforated holes that let light shine from within. According to the filing, the technology could potentially be used to eliminate existing buttons in favor of a smooth, solid slab, and / or integrate new ones into surfaces that weren’t previously considered for use. Engineers imagine light-up controls on a laptop’s lid that could be used while closed for things like USB charging and media playback, and local heat and sound sensors that selectively light up interface opportunities when users are in close proximity. Not bad, Apple. As long as you let us keep our nice, springy keyboards, we’re all for revolutionizing the rest of modern input.

Apple applies for ‘disappearing button’ patent originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Apr 2010 07:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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