Fraunhofer FIT touch-free gesture-control for multiple users (video)

It seems like everyone is cooking up their own touch-free gesture-based control technology, just like every blogger is destined to refer to it as “Minority Report-like” or “Minority Report-esque,” or “Tom Cruise-tastic!” Fraunhofer’s FIT, the newest s…

  • Share/Bookmark

House passes Cellphone Contraband Act of 2010, prisoners go back to writing letters

Oh, we know all about doin’ time. We watched both Oz and The Wire in their entirety, and have seen Let’s Go To Prison, like, eight times. For instance, we know that you only do two days in the joint: the day you go in, and the day you go out. And we k…

  • Share/Bookmark

Rat lungs successfully grown in bioreactor: groundbreaking, yet also kind of gross

Bioartifical organs differ from, well, plain ol’ artificial organs because they consist of biomaterials and cells. And while bioartificial livers are becoming increasingly commonplace, it’s only recently that working lungs have been grown in a lab. Wo…

  • Share/Bookmark

Tokyo Institute of Technology announces SSD-packing, 2.39 petaflop supercomputer

IBM has announced plans to start using SandForce SSDs in its enterprise machines, and now it looks like the Tokyo Institute of Technology is doing one better, working with NEC and HP to produce Tsubame 2.0. This next-gen supercomputer will reportedly …

  • Share/Bookmark

Dual SIM watchphone gives us two reasons to be non-plussed

Oh, the humble watchphone… we’ve seen a few iterations, but very few that we’d wear for anything but a laugh. The gang at eSales China are offering a slight twist on the typical fare by throwing in dual SIM cards behind the 1.3-inch touchscreen, Blu…

  • Share/Bookmark

Sears and Kmart launch streaming video service this Christmas

As physical media sales continue to drop it looks like the smart money is in streaming content. Now Sears (and Kmart, which it owns) is getting in the game with the Alphaline Entertainment service. Powered by Sonic’s RoxioNow (which is the same archit…

  • Share/Bookmark

FLO TV to offer time-shifted viewing, pay-as-you-go, web-based content later this year

It looks like FLO TV is about to get a little more interesting. Alongside your automobile and your various smartphones, you’ll soon be able to turn to your smartbooks, e-readers, and tablets to access your mobile TV service. The diabolical plot begins when the company launches “new applications that integrate video with web-based content” for distributing “live mobile TV and rich mobile media services to a range of new devices.” What does all this mean, exactly? Aside from some additional interactivity for advertisers, the service is planning on announcing pay-as-you-go and pay-per-view billing, as well as time-shifted viewing (you know, like a DVR). We don’t know what existing hardware will be able to take advantage of this, but we’re sure that a combination of pausing shows and pay-as-you-go would make new devices much more attractive to the casual user. Look for things to start happening the second half of this year. PR after the break.

Continue reading FLO TV to offer time-shifted viewing, pay-as-you-go, web-based content later this year

FLO TV to offer time-shifted viewing, pay-as-you-go, web-based content later this year originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 17:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

  • Share/Bookmark

Bits from Bytes’ new 3D printer extrudes with the best of ‘em

We’ve seen a number of 3D printers lately, and this time we have a budget model for you (that is, if $3,000 is “budget” — and we suppose it is, compared to the $20,000 and more some of these bad boys can cost). Bits from Bytes has recently announced the BFB 3000, available with up to three print heads, an SD card reader, a printing area of 320mm x 300mm x 200mm, and a max print speed of 15mm3 per second. Available soon for about £2,000. We suppose you’ll be ordering a couple, right? Either way, get a closer look in the gallery below.

[Thanks, TMoney2007]

Bits from Bytes’ new 3D printer extrudes with the best of ‘em originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 15:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink CrunchGear  |  Bits from Bytes  | Email this | Comments

  • Share/Bookmark

MeeGo Gone Wild! Features detailed, companies come on board at IDF 2010 (updated)

Wow, the MeeGo news is flying fast and furious today! Our first stop is the Intel Developer Forum, where a recent talk detailed feature lists for netbooks and handhelds running (presumably) 1.0. For the former, you can expect to see it rockin’ Chrome (or Chromium), and overhauled social messaging, media, camera, email, and calendar apps. That’s in addition to touch and gesture support. As for handhelds, Fennec with Flash support popped up on the slides (probably a carry-over from Maemo, since they already have Mozilla with Flash), VOIP (at least until the carriers get involved), instant messaging, social networking, location-based services, cloud data syncing, and portrait mode support — not to mention “the Intel app-store framework that can be used to make branded 3rd-party app stores.” But that ain’t all! According to some freshly minted PR, the Hotel Kabuki in San Francisco will be lousy with developers starting Wednesday when the Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit begins in earnest. To be announced at tomorrow’s keynote are a host of companies that are throwing their lot in with the mobile OS, including: EA Mobile, BMW Group, Acer, Gameloft, Novell, ASUS, and more. Which is all well and good, but the question remains: when are we finally gonna get our hands on an LG GW990? PR after the break.

Update: We added a couple shots of the very in-progress UI from Intel’s slide show. See more after the break.

Continue reading MeeGo Gone Wild! Features detailed, companies come on board at IDF 2010 (updated)

MeeGo Gone Wild! Features detailed, companies come on board at IDF 2010 (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Carrypad  |   | Email this | Comments

  • Share/Bookmark

South Korea seeks to impose gaming curfew, makes computers ‘edgy’ and ‘cool’ in the process

Seems like China and the UK aren’t the only countries worried about their kid’s computing habits. According to the BBC, the South Korean government is currently mulling over plans to regulate just how much time — and at what time — kids play video games. It seems that a number of services are ready to follow through with suggestions made by the country’s Ministry of Culture, including: Maple Story, Mabinogi (no access granted to school-age gamers between midnight and 8 am) and Dungeon and Fighter (slowing down user’s connection after they’ve been logged in for a certain period of time). Nineteen games are said to be included in total, which is a significant portion of the country’s online gaming market. This will inevitably force kids to build their own underground games on disused servers, like Chia and her friends did in William Gibson’s Idoru. They’ll need to do something with those 1Gbps connections, right?

South Korea seeks to impose gaming curfew, makes computers ‘edgy’ and ‘cool’ in the process originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 11:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  BBC  | Email this | Comments

  • Share/Bookmark

Next Page »