Hasta La Gadget!

You have a lot of documents you’ve acquired over the years, hundreds or thousands in some semblance of order thanks to folders and whatnot. Now, imagine taking the output from hundreds or thousands of others, all with their own ideas about organization, and finding only those pages relevant to a certain topic. That’s what legal aides have to do in cases where a major corporation is being investigated, and we’re thinking that’s a major target market for Xerox‘s Smart Document Review. It’s a prototype touchscreen table that enables users to collaboratively filter documents, starting by indexing a giant pool and then allowing for the creation of “magnets” that contain keywords or other heuristics and dynamically pull out matches, all happening courtesy of animations that look only slightly less sophisticated than those seen in Hackers. Search results can then be dumped to a thumb drive. The prototype table dates back to earlier this year, but Xerox is now making them available as part of a pilot program exclusively for trendy law offices with unisex bathrooms.

[Thanks, Pradeep]

Continue reading Xerox shows off Smart Document Review table, a Surface that sifts through billions of docs (video)

Xerox shows off Smart Document Review table, a Surface that sifts through billions of docs (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink VentureBeat  |   | Email this | Comments

Remember the Misa Digital Guitar? Well, it’s called the Kitara now, it’s taken on a fresh lick of paint, and it’s ready to be pre-ordered now for an April delivery. The Kitara discards old fashioned strings and has you strumming along on a multitouch display instead, populating the fretboard with a litany of buttons that modify the aural output from your digital input. It has an onboard synthesizer, but the real magic will happen once you plug it into your own audio equipment and start experimenting. Basically, it’s like the Kinect of electronic music — just needs a few inventive souls to harness its potential properly. They’ll need fat wallets too, mind you, as turning this invention into a viable product has meant a lofty $849 starting price in the US. See a video demo and the full Kitara press release after the break.

Continue reading Misa Digital’s stringless Kitara goes up for pre-order: $849 for a truly unique musical instrument

Misa Digital’s stringless Kitara goes up for pre-order: $849 for a truly unique musical instrument originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Dec 2010 04:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Email this | Comments

“What’s this thing? It looks pretty cool. What pretty icons! Can I touch them? I can, really?” Etc. That basically describes our infantile thought process when we stumbled across the DreamScreen 400 (not to be confused with the DreamScreen photo frame line), a new all-in-one desktop from HP, but suddenly it all became clear: this thing is built for the Indian market, and us chubby Americans will have to keep on dreaming. Still, it’s an interesting thought experiment. HP has long sought to differentiate itself in its Windows-based offerings, and even at times abandoned its first OS love with its Mobile Internet Edition Ubuntu-based netbooks and now its upcoming webOS tablets. The DreamScreen 400, which runs some flavor of Linux with an extensive, touch-friendly HP skin on top, sort of demonstrates an alternate reality where HP decided to pursue Linux in the consumer desktop space — Microsoft be damned. Of course, this is also an actual reality: you should be able to buy this 18.5-inch desktop in India for Rs. 19,999 (about $450) in India right around nowish, and we’ll see where HP takes this software from here.

[Thanks, Chris J.]

Continue reading HP’s DreamScreen 400 is the touchscreen Linux desktop you’ll never own

HP’s DreamScreen 400 is the touchscreen Linux desktop you’ll never own originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 20:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Think touch screens are one of the biggest innovations of the past decade? As it turns out, that concept has been available to consumers longer than a lot of you reading this have been alive.

The MS DOS-powered HP-150 allowed users to maneuver around a very basic monotone interface. The screen was surrounded by a series of infrared emitters and detectors which would be able to roughly place any non-transparent object near the screen. The divots were often known to get clogged with dust, making the “touchscreen” unworkable. The touchscreen was later dropped as a standard feature in later incarnations before being dropped as a feature all together.

After the jump, check out some footage from the gripping television program: Computer Chronicles. The clip wasn’t of note just because of the forward-looking (if ultimately flopping) attempt on the part of HP, but check out how wound-up these guys are. They’re techies, but they’re all at least in their mid-30s and wearing suits. That sort of behavior just wouldn’t be acceptable in today’s tech world.

We’ve seen ridiculous fridge concepts from Electrolux before and covered Linux running on all types of gadgets, so it’s only natural that the OS has found its way into an icebox developed by Electrolux’s Brazilian subsidiary in partnership with ProFusion Embedded Systems. Dubbed the Infinity I-Kitchen, it sports a Linux-based 800 x 480 touchscreen computer built around a 400Mhz Freescale i.MX25 SoC — which itself is based on 400MHz ARM926EJ-S core and already used in some automotive systems. The touch UI was developed by the open source organization Enlightenment Foundation Libraries and allows users to control a variety of fridge functions like internal temperature in addition to running apps for notes, calendars, contacts, photos, and recipes. All of the particular open source code modifications developed for the fridge have also been shared back with the community in Tux-approved fashion and will soon be posted to Electrolux’s site too. Unfortunately, there’s no mention however of features like internet connectivity (WiFi or otherwise), USB ports, or SD Card slots being on the appliance. Likewise, details on pricing or availability are also unknown, so your iPhone can hold off on making those the jealousy-fueled fat jokes for now.

Infinity I-Kitchen sports Linux-based touch screen computer, kitchen sink still not included originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Linux for Devices  |  ProFusion Embedded Systems, Enlightenment.org  | Email this | Comments