Hasta La Gadget!

Looking to spruce up that nondescript living room table? So are a smattering of folks from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. At this week’s SIGGRAPH E-tech event, a team from the entity dropped by to showcase the deadly cute MoleBot table. At its simplest, it’s a clever tabletop game designed to entertain folks aged 3 to 103; at the other extreme, it’s a radically new way of using Microsoft’s Kinect to interact with something that could double as a place to set your supper. Improving on similar projects in the past, this shape-display method uses a two-dimensional translating cam (mole cam), 15,000 closely packed hexagonal pins equivalent to cam followers, and a layer of spandex between the mole cam and the pins to reduce friction.

When we dropped by, the Kinect mode was disabled in favor of using an actual joystick to move the ground below. In theory, one could hover above the table and use hand gestures to move the “mole,” shifting to and fro in order to pick up magnetic balls and eventually affix the “tail” onto the kitty. The folks we spoke with seemed to think that there’s consumer promise here, as well as potential for daycares, arcades and other locales where entertaining young ones is a priority. Have a peek at a brief demonstration vid just after the break, and yes, you can bet we’ll keep you abreast of the whole “on sale” situation.

Continue reading MoleBot interactive gaming table hooks up with Kinect, puts Milton Bradley on watch (video)

MoleBot interactive gaming table hooks up with Kinect, puts Milton Bradley on watch (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Aug 2011 08:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes! Summer! Pool time! Aqua fun! Time to splish and splash! Get yer bathing suit! Round up your pals! Hop in the Banzai Whale Pool with three amigos! Wait, what’s that? It’s tiny and the box is deceptively photoshopped? Oh. More »

Every guitar player in history, no matter how cool he or she might be, has had one fatal flaw — that goofy stringed instrument. Finally, one brave company is liberating rockstars from their leash-like attachment to the thing. Flair’s Air Pick is an oversized guitar pick that features built-in jams like “Satisfaction,” “Born to be Wild,” “Smoke on the Water,” and “Sweet Home Alabama” — you know, the sort of songs you used to have to own a guitar or a funny-looking belt to play. The toys are set to hit stores in the next few weeks, so you may want to hold onto those real life guitars for a little bit longer.

Air Pick finally lets you ditch that dumb guitar originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 22:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you have kids and own a tablet, chances are you’ve passed it to the back seat on occasion, asking your five-year-old to help you navigate to the beach, or to beat an otherwise hopeless level in Angry Birds. Now, you can reward them with a tablet of their own. Available in green and pink, the $100 LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer includes a 5-inch, 480 x 272-pixel (16:9) touchscreen, 2GB of built-in storage, and a durable housing — but your 5-9 year old isn’t going to get caught up on specs. They will take notice to the built-in camera (with video capture), microphone, stylus, and accelerometer, however — all of which enable custom kid-friendly apps and educational games, including Disney Animation Studio, an interactive reader, and compatibility with over 100 downloadable apps and LeapFrog cartridges, which range in price from $5 to $25. There’s no wireless connectivity, so you’ll be tethering with Windows or Mac OS to download additional content, and to share your child’s creations with family and friends.

We’re certainly far outside LeapPad’s target demographic, but we did have a chance to go hands-on with the device earlier today, and felt that the tablet was solidly built, with a well-rounded feature set and sufficient expandability options — for a kids toy, of course. Games and apps took advantage of the Pad’s features, such as Roly Poly Picnic, which uses the accelerometer to navigate through a maze, spelling out simple, three-letter words along the way (like all apps and games, Picnic is adjustable based on your little one’s age and skill level). There’s also a video player (currently limited to 4:3 content), photo, and video capture apps. Shipping August 15th, the device doesn’t have a ton of horsepower under the hood — a 400MHz processor means apps won’t launch with the speed and grace of an iPad 2 — but for a $100 toy, the LeapPad will do just fine. PR and hands-on video are after the break.

Continue reading LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer tablet hands-on (video)

LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer tablet hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Jun 2011 12:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Among the various new toys exhibited at Tokyo’s 2011 Toy Show, on Happinet’s display stood a virtual ping pong game called High Tension Table Tennis, which operates based on sound and motion sensor technology. Offered in two grip types, shakehand and penhold style, this paddle-shaped cordless novelty toy gives users a realistic virtual experience of playing table tennis wherever they desire.

Using an ultra thin speaker built into the rubber of the paddle, it emits a rhythmic array of sounds that the player uses to play the game. Players rely on this along with their creativity to rally with their invisible opponent and the more they swing with the beat (which is played in three steps), the more the rally builds up. The toy uses motion sensor technology to determine the strength and force of the swing, changing the speed and power of the hit accordingly. This feature enables players to hit smashes which would generate an applause and cheering from a virtual crowd and if carried out successfully, would win them the point.

This game comes in two different modes: Rally Mode and Rhythm Mode, both of which have different levels ranging in difficulty from a short but fun exercise to whose who are determined to sweat as if in a real competition.

Priced at 2,000 yen (equivalent to US $25), this form of exercise is currently limited to only one player. We see this as unfortunate given that an updated version with an added feature where two players are able to link their paddles together and have a virtual match, would perhaps be much more exciting and attract a wider audience.

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