techtalk

Drawing faces is hard; and as children suckled at the teat of MTV we posses neither the patience nor the discipline required to learn the skill. So imagine our surprise to discover the Self-Portrait Machine, a device that snaps your photo and then forces you to draw your own face by dragging your bound hands around until the portrait is complete. Jen Hui Liao's project is the result of an observation that "our personal identities are represented by the products of the man-machine relationship." So it's like art and the intersection of philosophy... only it's not -- it's just a robot too lazy to make the portrait itself. See the video after the break.

Continue reading Video: Self-Portrait Machine binds your hands then bends your will

Filed under: Robots

Video: Self-Portrait Machine binds your hands then bends your will originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While AT&T's still claiming MicroCell will be out before the year's up, Sprint's bringing out the big words by boasting to Unstrung it'll be beating everyone to the market with its 3G femtocell solution. Company VP of device and technology development Mathew Oommen is pretty light on some of the finer details -- like actual release date, hardware supplier, pricing scheme, and pretty much every other piece of information we'd want -- but he did imply there'd be multiple options available for the CDMA EV-DO Rev. A extender, including a device more tailored for enterprise use. Look, you two can fight all you want over who gets first, but in the end, we just want our Pres and iPhones to live together and home in perfect-reception harmony -- think we can get that in time for Christmas?

[Via Slashgear]

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Sprint swaggers, promises to be first to release 3G Femtocell in US originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We're used to seeing nettops from the likes of Asus and Acer, but EMTEC's the newcomer in this field and let's see what we're working with. At about one inch thick by TechDigest's estimates, the G Box (working title) certainly compact, and we definitely give points to it running NVIDIA's Ion platform, Windows XP, at least six USB ports, and a 160GB hard drive. Unfortunately, there's no HDMI port -- that's coming in a later model -- and at £179 ($293 US), we'd be hard pressed to pick this over the HDMI-equipped AspireRevo, but we'll await judgment until we can try this thing out for ourselves. In the meantime, hit up the read link for a brief video hands-on.

Continue reading EMTEC dips toes into nettop market with Ion-based G Box

Filed under: Desktops

EMTEC dips toes into nettop market with Ion-based G Box originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s the latest mini spy button camera from Thanko. This micro sized camera comes with 4GB of storage and has the capability to capture 640 x 480 video at 15fps or 1280 x 1024 still images. Available now from GeekStuff4U for just $69.

[Product Page]

Continue reading DARPA contractor shows off tiny robo-hummingbird UAV

Filed under: Robots

DARPA contractor shows off tiny robo-hummingbird UAV originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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	Psystar bounces back from Chapter 11, intros new high-end hardware Psystar's new Open(7) hardware runs Intel Nehalem Xeon, which should provide a nice performance jolt to hackintosh land.		Sony exec says UMD-less PSP was "always the plan" Sony "needed to prepare the right environment for it first - things like the transferal of content with the PS3 and PSN, and PC software to manage content like music and movies such as Media Go."
	Apple patching nasty iPhone SMS vulnerability Given the hype surrounding Apple's iPhone, we're actually surprised that we haven't seen more holes to plug over the years.	Other news of import Apple patent applications offer glimpses of haptic screens, RFID readers, fingerprint ID Toshiba's TG01 outed on Orange UK D-Link's Xtreme N DIR-685 storage router hands-on and impressions UK moviegoers treated to industry's first interactive 3D game
	How to relocate a HD set-top-box and still have it work with an HDTV We know how it goes, you pick up a nice big HDTV and a wall-mount only to get it all setup then realize you still need a place to put your HD set-top-box.		HTC Hero hits FCC with US 3G For the record, Bands II and V are 1900 and 850MHz, respectively, which is exactly the combo AT&T subscribers would need to flip the switch on high-speed data.
TiVo HD upgrade program helps you save as much as $100 Ask Engadget HD: How can I get my home theater ready for 3D, right now?		Ovi Maps graduates from beta Samsung's SCH-W760 with infrared video conferencing is ready for your parole hearing

The Daily Roundup: here's what you might've missed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vobis Computer is ready to launch their first Android phone for the Russian markets starting next week. Known as the HIGHSCREEN PP5420, this new smartphone sports a 3-inch WQVGA flat TFT-LCD touchscreen, a secondary OLED display/navpad, a 528MHz Qualcomm MSM7201ATM processor, a 3MP autofocus camera, an accelerometer sensor, a 256MB ROM, a 128MB RAM, a microSD card slot, an FM radio, GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, a mini USB port and runs on Google Android 1.5 OS. The PP5420 will cost around 360 EUR in Russia. [Unwiredview]

We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Sang-Jung, who is desperately in search of the perfect cordless critter to take some of the strain away from that trackpad.

"I'm heading to university next year, and I've purchased a MacBook. I'm also taking my four year old desktop, just in case I'm left with no computers when the MacBook is being repaired or whatnot. With only two USB ports on a MacBook, I want a Bluetooth mouse. Budget is about $100, and of course, it needs OS X support. Thanks for the help!"

Alright folks, it's time to get serious. Do you own a Bluetooth mouse that you can recommend? Recommend against? Be sure to spill your thoughts in comments below, and feel free to send in a question of your own to ask at engadget dawt com.

Filed under: Ask Engadget, Peripherals

Ask Engadget: Best Bluetooth mouse out there? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Engadget HD explains: Where to put your DVR when you wall-mount your HDTV originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 20:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung has finally launched its SCH-W760 cellphone in South Korea. The handset is actually the first handset in the world to come with an infrared camera allowing you to make video calls in low-light condition. Other features include a 3-megapixel camera, a 2.8-inch AMOLED display with 240 x 400 resolution, a 8GB of internal memory, a microSD memory card slot, S-DMB TV support and high speed 3G connectivity. If you are living in South Korea, then you can purchase the SCH-W760 for approximately $457.

[Akihabara]

Officially, Sony's PSPgo is only clocking in at 333MHz like the rest of its brothers and sisters, but as the gang at Sony Insider found out in the FCC filing, the internal processor actually maxes out at 480MHz. What that means for gamers is probably nothing in the near future, since the firmware'll underclock it to standard speeds and we've seen absolutely no sign Sony's interested in releasing software exclusively for the UMD-less iteration at this point. Of course, the opportunity to capitalize on the upped hardware is gonna be there, and we still remember a noticeable difference in the technical quality of games released after Sony bumped its original PSP's clockspeed from 266MHz to its max 333MHz, but for now, it's just something to keep in the back of your mind.

[Via Sony Insider]

Filed under: Gaming

PSPgo packs a 480MHz processor, probably not crossing 333MHz mark originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like the Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet has made it out of the labs (and controlled show floor settings) and into the hands of Crave UK, where that seemingly-amazing resistive touchscreen continues to impress -- so much so that they initially thought it was a capacitive unit. We actually pinged Crave ed Nate Lanxon to find out what was up, and the real story appears to be a mystery -- either Archos PR is mistaken in telling everyone that it's a resistive screen, or the company has somehow improved the tech to the point where it's virtually indistinguishable from a capacitive display. Given our experience with previous Archos resistive touchscreen devices that felt like mush, we've got to say we're going with Occam's Razor on this and that it's really capacitive, but we're definitely ready to be proven wrong -- hey Archos, you feel like sending us a new toy to play with?

Filed under: Tablet PCs

Archos 9 Windows 7 tablet does a little hands-on time originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sitting pretty as the number three cell maker in the world would make many of the bigger names happy -- not to mention the usurped Sony Ericsson and Motorola a bit green -- but not LG, as it's now gunning for spot number two. In an interview with Yonhap, LG's president of its mobile business, Ahn Seung-kwon, stated that the company hoped to bump Samsung to the wayside by 2012 with the help of a serious new set and a premium brand. While the gaudiness of really expensive handsets disturbs us at times, we'll admit that mention that LG's looking at a foray into the über high end of the spectrum -- with the likes of Nokia's Vertu -- piques our curiosity a good deal. And what about that serious new set we mentioned? Apparently in Q4 of this year, LG will launch a new Black Label-branded device to compete directly with iPhone, which when coupled with dreams of more success from yet another Prada device (and if we're super fortunate, some more Transformers-branded stuff) is part of the master scheme to start down the path. Will they crack it? Well, if we were betting types, we'd lean towards not likely as long as the Samsung juggernaut's standing in the way -- but we're all for watching them try.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

LG eyes number two phone maker spot for 2012, premium brand in the works originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Sega Toys makes indoor fireworks infinitely safer, to Elvis Costello's dismay

Filed under: Displays

Sega Toys makes indoor fireworks infinitely safer, to Elvis Costello's dismay originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When you start reviewing BlackBerry smartphones, you soon learn to look closely at the details. RIM have made a habit of making relatively minute differentiations between what, at first glance, might seem very similar handsets; luckily their loyal fanbase has proved willing to put in that effort. The Verizon BlackBerry Tour, then, borrows some of the style of the entry-level Curve and the specifications of the altogether more grown-up Bold: have RIM ended up with the best of both, or a Frankenmonster mash-up?

First impressions are good. In the box there’s a slipcase with belt-clip, an AC adapter, USB charging/sync cable, wired stereo headset and the battery. The phone itself is smaller than the Bold at 4.4 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches, though a little heavier than the Curve. Up front there’s a gloriously crisp, bright and high-resolution 2.4-inch 480 x 360 display and a backlit QWERTY keyboard; in-between there’s a familiar RIM trackball and the usual call-handling and menu keys.

Down the left-hand side of the phone there’s the voice-control trigger button, while the right-hand side has a 3.5mm headphone socket (which we wish was up top or on the bottom), volume keys, microUSB port and a camera shortcut key. The base of the phone is blank, while there are two keys – for locking and muting – on the top.

BlackBerry handsets are judged in no small part by their keyboards, and the Tour obviously arrives bearing that in mind. The closely packed keys use the same curved bezels as on the Bold, which do a great job of guiding your fingertips or thumbs into place. There’s obviously slightly less room than on the Bold – which is 0.2-inches wider – but it seems a reasonable sacrifice for a more pocket-friendly device. As with the Bold key-feel is excellent, quiet but tactile.

That’s good, because much of the Tour’s strength lies in its messaging abilities. RIM is known for its email client, and that’s no different here: as well as Microsoft Exchange support there’s POP and IMAP account functionality, together with instant messaging for the popular formats.

Elsewhere it’s the same old BlackBerry OS, which means a serviceable if not exactly outstanding browser, fair media player and Office file viewing and editing via Documents To Go. There’s also access to the BlackBerry App World, though you can only install software to the Tour’s 256MB of internal storage, not to a microSD card. There are far fewer titles on offer than in Apple’s App Store, but more than you’ll find in Palm’s version. Happily the OS supports multitasking, which means you, can have audio from the onboard PMP app (or streaming via Pandora) in the background while browsing or checking email.

The browser, though capable of visiting mobile and full HTML sites, pales in comparison to its counterparts on the iPhone, Pre or other platforms. Thanks to the high-resolution display you can fit plenty of page on-screen at any one time; the flip side is that you’ll do plenty of zooming in order to actually read the text. Here, the iPhone 3GS storms ahead, drawing and re-drawing pages far quicker than the Tour can manage. You’ll be accessing all this over Verizon’s EVDO Rev.A network, too, as there’s no WiFi provision on the Tour. Verizon make strong claims about the extent of their coverage, but there are still times we’d rather use faster or more accessible WiFi networks in preference to 3G.

On the back of the Tour there’s a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording, which we found delivered mixed results. Still images are strong, with reasonable color reproduction; the LED light, like most of its kind, has a narrow sweet spot of effectiveness, outside which it’s either underpowered or prone to washing out detail. The 15fps video the Tour records, however, struggles with fast-moving scenes; that’s a common flaw for phone cameras.

Though we wish it had been fitted somewhere else on the Tour’s body, the 3.5mm headphone socket is a useful touch for anybody planning to make the smartphone their PMP. Tracks can be loaded directly via a microSD card or copied over with a USB connection. There’s also Verizon’s own V Cast Music Store, which charges a significant $1.99 per song; a 4GB memory card is in the box. The Tour is also comparable with Rhapsody, offering unlimited tracks for a $14.99 subscription. Audio quality is good, especially when you ditch the cheap included headset and replace it with your own. We were pleasantly surprised by the integrated speaker, which manages to produce loud and – until you reach the top end of the volume range – mainly crackle-free sound.

That’s handy, as Verizon offer their VZ Navigator GPS app pre-loaded on the Tour, and one of its more appealing features is voice-guidance. VZ Navigator is exactly the same here as it is on other Verizon phones, though the Tour does a decent job of finding – and keeping track of – a GPS signal. After the initial cold fix was past, the Tour could generally re-acquire a lock in under twenty seconds.

The business users that are drawn to BlackBerry devices prize their voice call ability, and the Tour can hold its head up here, too. Whether with a Bluetooth headset (which paired with no problems) or otherwise, sound quality at both ends was very high. Since the Tour offers global roaming, courtesy of an integrated GSM radio and SIM card, you can also use it when abroad; be aware, though, that Verizon’s per-minute fees for this are on the costly side, as is data roaming.

RIM rate the Tour as good for five hours talktime or up to 14 days standby. With heavy use during our initial testing we blasted through more than three-quarters of the indicated charge; more typical use will likely see the Tour go two days without needing attention.

There are a few obvious flaws with the BlackBerry Tour. The absence of WiFi may be mitigated somewhat by the prevalence and speed of Verizon’s EVDO Rev.A network, but it’s still an omission that feels miserly. RIM’s OS, too, may look the best it has in years, but newer rivals such as Palm’s webOS do show it up somewhat. Finally, the browser is reasonable but nothing special, and again other smartphones edge ahead with their Webkit-based apps.

Having looked through Verizon’s call-cost list, we’re a little surprised (and not in a good way) about the cost of international roaming. We suppose we should be grateful that an ostensibly CDMA device has any GSM capabilities whatsoever, but we can’t help thinking that frequent travelers would be better served with an unlocked device and a wallet full of pre-pay SIM cards.

Nonetheless, we won’t level that carrier criticism against the Tour. It does – noted exceptions aside – pretty much everything you ask of it, and in a sturdy, attractive and usable form-factor. The slimmed casing and rock-solid email functionality are a great combination to business-people and messaging-obsessed personal users, to which decent multimedia functionality is the icing on the cake. If a hardware keyboard is a must, then the BlackBerry Tour may just be Verizon’s best device.

BlackBerry Tour for Verizon hands-on demo:

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Tiny, printable batteries promise to change the face of obnoxious greeting cards forever originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take advantage of Wirefly’s exlusive pre-order opportunity and reserve your Verizon Wireless BlackBerry Tour today. $179.99 for new customers. $199.99 for upgrades. The BlackBerry Tour 9630 can best be thought of as the long-awaited next generation of the 8830 World Edition. The Tour offers an impressive feature set and sleek design, and supports CDMA and high-speed [...]

Filed under: Cellphones

iPhone facing potential trademark issues in China? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal has won an all-out "bidding war" over the film rights to Atari's classic Asteroids video game. We're not entirely sure who all was involved in this "war," but the conflict couldn't possibly be prompted over the universal themes tackled by the story of the plucky little triangular spaceship and the asteroid field it inhabits. As the Reporter, um, reports: "As opposed to today's games, there is no story line or fancy world-building mythology." Michael Bay is rumored to be very interested in directing.

[Via George Ruiz]

Filed under: Gaming

'Asteroids' heading towards the big screen? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Gaming

Sony exec says UMD-less PSP was "always the plan" originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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