Reality Bites
In China, the development of residential and retail property in certain regions outstrips the government’s ability to keep these buildings occupied. An Australian film crew recently visited China’s vacant real estate and saw these strangely silent cities firsthand. More »
You didn’t think that Acer wouldn’t be sharing some of its new tablets with its still-kicking Packard Bell subsidiary, did you? The latter has now debuted the Liberty Tab, its own spin on Acer’s Iconia Tab A500. As you might expect, however, there aren’t many differences beyond the name, with this one packing the same styling, 10-inch screen, Tegra 2 processor, dual cameras, and Honeycomb OS as its more widely-available counterpart. Launch details are still a bit iffy, but you can apparently expect this one to hit Europe sometime in June, with pricing to vary by country. Head on past the break for a hands-on video courtesy of Notebook Italia.
[Thanks, Marco]
Continue reading Packard Bell debuts Liberty Tab Honeycomb tablet, clearly adores freedom
Packard Bell debuts Liberty Tab Honeycomb tablet, clearly adores freedom originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 09:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We’ve seen augmented reality done what seems like a million different ways, but we’ve never seen it quite like this. The New York Times reported Wednesday on a forthcoming iPhone app called Aurasma that has the power to turn ink-and-paper publications into interactive mine fields. Aurasma, conceived by enterprise software firm Autonomy, uses a scaled down version of the outfit’s IDOL pattern recognizer to identify images stored in a vast database, and then converts those images into related video. Unfortunately, the first release of the app, scheduled for sometime next month, comes in the form of an AR advertisement / game for an unidentified upcoming movie, and the company’s founder seems solidly focused on the technology’s marketing potential. No word yet on when or if we can expect to see our New York Times come to life, as seen in the video at the source link below, but if this is the future of augmented reality, count us in.
Continue reading Aurasma’s AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video)
Aurasma’s AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
How do you improve on the month’s best diapered baby twins jibber jabber video? Make that same video… with overweight men. Specifically, Commish Michael Chiklis and funnyman Patton Oswalt, who gibberish with the best of ’em. More »
While YouTube mostly serves up pre-uploaded videos for on demand viewing, they’ve streamed a few live events in the past, and today they started making it a regular occurrence. If you head to YouTube’s new Live channel, you’ll see a list of upcoming events that you can watch live, and chat with other YouTube users watching with you. Right now, they’re rolling it out gradually, but quite a few popular channels are already streaming, like Hak5, Beyond The Trailer, and Geek Beat TV (pictured above). Head over to the Live channel to check out the upcoming events, and check out YouTube’s blog post for more info. More »
[Thanks, Johan]
3LiveShop woos you into phone contracts by touching your screen from the other side (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 05:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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SpaceX promised something big, and it’s now delivered. The company today revealed its plans for the Falcon Heavy, which promises to be the “world’s most powerful rocket.” Just how powerful is that? SpaceX says the 22-story rocket will be able to carry satellites or spacecraft weighing over 53 metric tons (or 117,000 pounds) into low earth orbit, which is nearly twice what the Space Shuttle is able to carry. What’s more, this isn’t just a far off promise. SpaceX says the rocket will be “ready” sometime next year, and the first test flight is planned for 2013. The rocket’s sheer size isn’t it’s only selling point, though — it also promises to drastically reduce the cost of sending things into space, with each launch expected to cost “only” $100 million. Head on past the break for a taste of what’s in store.
Continue reading SpaceX reveals plans for world’s most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy
SpaceX reveals plans for world’s most powerful rocket, the Falcon Heavy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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As we all know, the beauty of Android stems from the fact that you get a wide variety of choices when it comes to devices and interface, though the latter can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Luckily, users who are fed up with their bloated Android UI but don’t want to (or can’t) mess around with ROMs now have another easy solution. Joining the handful of Android launchers is SPB’s Shell 3D app, which installs as a replacement (but removable) home screen that comes with some nifty widgets (radio switches, backlight dimmer, weather forecast with a 3D chart, clock with over 60 skins, world time with a 3D globe, etc.) and resizeable folders.
As you can see above, the highlight of the show here is a cool-looking 3D carousel for switching between up to 16 panels, and you can trigger it by either tapping or horizontally dragging the bottom-center button. Whilst in carousel mode, you can also rearrange the panels, change their colors, or flick away excess panels. All of this required no manual reading on our end, so it’s safe to say that this is a pretty intuitive app. Read on to see what the performance is like.
Gallery: App review: SPB Shell 3D for Android
Continue reading App review: SPB Shell 3D for Android
App review: SPB Shell 3D for Android originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Apr 2011 13:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
A slew of leaked video tutorials for upcoming BlackBerry devices is finally giving us a glimpse into what RIM has in store to keep its diehard fans from ditching the platform. Among some more video of the all-touchscreen BlackBerry Monaco / Touch, we’re finally seeing how the popular Bold form factor will benefit from some touchscreen magic in the aptly named Bold Touch. We’re longtime fans of the traditional form factor, but if anything, the addition looks to be more trouble than it’s worth. Like its sliding cousin, the Torch, touch input seems even more gimmicky given that all the same functions can be performed using the familiar (and beloved) optical trackpad — which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. Sure, touchscreens are all the rage these days and pinch-to-zoom is nice, but we can’t help but wonder if RIM is simply killing time until its dual-core QNX-equipped phones hit unsuspecting BBM’ers. Of course, the company has been impressing us with its use of touch on the Playbook, so there’s no telling what it might have in store come BlackBerry World. You can peep the Monaco action after the break, or check out a torrent of others at the source link as well.
[Thanks, Reagan M.]
Update: Uh oh, looks like the original Monaco video got yanked, but fret not, as Crackberry has just posted some more clips — we got one of the new ones after the break as well.
BlackBerry Bold Touch previewed in leaked tutorials: prepare to pinch-to-zoom (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you’re a Jeff Bridges fan, Tron: Legacy was a double dose of awesomesauce. But how on earth did they turn back the clock on the Dude to get a young Clu running the show? While I wish there were a fountain of youth—or some sort of Mission Impossible-style mask?—the time-bending technique is revealed in this exclusive video. More »
We’ve already seen Evoluce toy around with using a Kinect to control Windows, but it's now taken things one step further with its new "Win & I" software, which promises to let anyone do the same with minimal effort. That comes in both a home edition that offers gesture controls for Windows 7 itself, plus Media Center and other applications (which could be particularly handy for a home theater), as well as a business edition that apparently adds some extra controls specifically tailored to Microsoft Office, and PowerPoint in particular. Head on past the break for a quick video demonstration, and hit up the link below to snag the software if you're interested — the home edition runs €20, or just under $30 (Kinect not included, obviously).
Update: Well, it looks like Evoluce already has a bit of competition. Upstart company So Touch has now also released its Air Presenter software that will let you liven up your next presentation with more gesturing and hand-waving than usual.
Continue reading Evoluce releases Kinect-based 'Win & I' gesture interface for Windows 7
Evoluce releases Kinect-based 'Win & I' gesture interface for Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
As this amazing video shows, once you see what a simple wooden plank can do to a windshield, you may never drive again without 8-gauge steel armor and a periscope. You’ll also remember why it’s so ridiculously stupid to take camera phone video while driving. More »
No matter how hard Skype and others try to convince us otherwise, we still do most of our web communications via text or, if entirely unavoidable, by voice. Maybe we’re luddites or maybe video calling has yet to prove its value. Hoping to reverse such archaic views, researchers at the MIT Media Lab have harnessed a Kinect’s powers of depth and human perception to provide some newfangled videoconferencing functionality. First up, you can blur out everything on screen but the speaker to keep focus where it needs to be. Then, if you want to get fancier, you can freeze a frame of yourself in the still-moving video feed for when you need to do something off-camera, and to finish things off, you can even drop some 3D-aware augmented reality on your viewers. It’s all a little unrefined at the moment, but the ideas are there and well worth seeing. Jump past the break to do just that.
Continue reading Kinect used to make teleconferencing actually kind of cool (video)
Kinect used to make teleconferencing actually kind of cool (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Watch the same footage of the rebooted ThunderCats series that was screened at WonderCon today. Cartoon Network has certainly given these space kitties a brand new set of claws. Let’s all say it together: Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats Ho! More »
It had to happen. When Google showed off a new and revolutionary Gmail Motion control scheme yesterday, it failed to fool most people, but it didn’t fail to catch the attention of some motion control geeks with Kinect cameras on hand. Yep, the FAAST crew that’s already brought us a Kinect keyboard emulator for World of Warcraft has taken Google to task and actually cooked up the software to make Gmail Motion work. All your favorite gestures are here: opening an email as if it were an envelope, replying by throwing a thumb back and, of course, “licking the stamp” to send your response on its way. Marvelous stuff! Jump past the break to see it working, for real this time.
Continue reading Gmail Motion April Fools’ gag inevitably turned into reality using Kinect (video)
Gmail Motion April Fools’ gag inevitably turned into reality using Kinect (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 13:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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