Hasta La Gadget!

Oh paper, ye olde guardian of human wisdom, culture, and history, why must you be so fragile and voluminous? Not a question we ask ourselves every day, admittedly, but when you’re talking about the British Library’s extensive collection of tomes from the 18th and 19th century, those books, pamphlets and periodicals do stack up pretty quickly. Thankfully, Google’s book digitization project has come to the rescue of bewildered researchers, with a new partnership with the British Library that will result in the availability of digital copies of works from that period — spanning the time of the French and Industrial Revolutions, the Crimean War, the invention of the telegraph, and the end of slavery. In total, some 250,000 such items, all of them long out of copyright, will find a home on Google Books and the British Library’s website, and Google has even been nice enough to bear the full cost of transforming them into web-accessible gems of knowledge. Jump past the break for the similarly digital press release.

Continue reading British Library and Google Books partner up to digitize 250,000 out-of-copyright works

British Library and Google Books partner up to digitize 250,000 out-of-copyright works originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Jun 2011 07:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Daily Telegraph  |  The British Library  | Email this | Comments

Oh Google, you didn’t think you were going to have all the mobile payment fun did you? While you’re beta testing in New York and San Francisco some big names across the pond are looking to dominate the entire UK. Vodafone, Telefonica, and Everything Everywhere (a joint venture between Orange and T-Mobile) are combining forces to create a mobile payment and marketing system that will take on Google Wallet and Offers before they even get off the ground in the British isles. The platform will be open to all comers, including Google, (you know, in case it decides to make Wallet a US only affair) and the companies have pledged to keep customer data out of the hands of third parties. The project is still in the very early stages of development, but the mobile providers aren’t dilly dallying — they expect their efforts to bear NFC fruit before the end of the year.

UK mobile companies take aim at Google Wallet, want in on the NFC action originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Jun 2011 19:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wall Street Journal  | Email this | Comments

We already knew that RIM’s PlayBook was on its way to the UK on June 16th, but antsy BlackBerry fans can now get their hands on the tab one day early. Phones 4u has just announced that it’s stocking the 7-inch slate in two brick-and-mortar stores today — one day ahead of the official release. If you just can’t wait another second, and happen to be in the vicinity of either the retailer’s Tottenham Court Road or Oxford Street locations in London, you could have a PlayBook in-hand in moments. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading BlackBerry PlayBook hits UK one day ahead of schedule

BlackBerry PlayBook hits UK one day ahead of schedule originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Phones 4u  | Email this | Comments

Yay for the UK, it’s now one step closer to catching up to the Japan of last decade. Mobile carrier Orange is today launching the UK’s first mobile phone contactless payment service, dubbed Quick Tap, for purchases up to £15. It works on MasterCard’s PayPass system and requires you to have a Barclays debit or credit card or, alternatively, a credit card from Orange itself. Gemalto is providing the SIM-based NFC compatibility, with Samsung’s entirely unrevolutionary Tocco Lite being the (admittedly affordable) launch handset. Then you just need to trust the Quick Pay app to be as secure as promised and you’ll be ready to go off and use your phone as a payment terminal at over 50,000 locations, including joints run by McDonald’s, Eat, Pret A Manger, Subway, and Wilkinson. A quick intro video and a more expansive press release follow after the break.

Continue reading Orange and Barclaycard launch ‘Quick Tap’ NFC mobile payments in the UK

Orange and Barclaycard launch ‘Quick Tap’ NFC mobile payments in the UK originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 May 2011 03:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Orange  | Email this | Comments

Jeffrey Martin is a busy man. Having already shot an 80 gigapixel panorama of London’s skyline and a 40 gigapixel peek inside a Czech library, he has now turned his attention to England’s hallowed Wembley Stadium. The recently rebuilt home of football served as the stage for a new 360-degree panorama, shot during the FA Cup Final this Saturday, which spans 10 20 gigapixels in total and has been made available online at the source link below. Recording was done using a DSLR mounted to a custom robot rig that would continually pump out imagery to an equally exclusive Fujitsu workstation equipped with 192GB of RAM and 24 processing cores. All that grunt was used to automatically stitch more than 1,000 high-res images together, earning the finished product the honor of being one of the world’s largest 360-degree sports panoramic photos. Give the source a bash to tag yourself if you were at the Final or to check who else was there.

[Thanks, Adam]

Update: We originally had this at 10 gigapixel, going from information on the FA’s website, but it turns out to be a 20 gigapixel pic. Its claim for being the largest sports panorama may actually be disputed by Essendon FC in Australia, who managed to pull together a 20 gigapixel image of their own at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in late April. You can see that jumbo pic here, or check out a couple more from Daytona and the NCAA Final Four this year.

20 gigapixel, 360-degree panorama of Wembley Stadium is among world’s largest, most detailed originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 04:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wembley 360  | Email this | Comments