Sony SmartAR delivers high-speed markerless augmented reality, blows minds (video)

Some may agree that over the years, augmented reality’s been slowly losing its appeal given its sometimes laggy and unreliable performance — most implementations require a weird marker to be in clear sight, and the graphics rendering speed on your handheld device would rely on your slow and steady hands. As such, we were initially skeptical when Sony’s SmartAR announcement came along; but as you can see in the video above, said technology took us by surprise with its super slick responsiveness, and the markerless object recognition makes a compelling hassle-free selling point. What’s more, the same clip also shows off SmartAR handling large 3D space with ease — notice how the virtual objects continue to animate even when the original anchor object is out of sight. Sony hasn’t given any dates here, but there’s no doubt that once SmartAR is available to game developers and advertisers, it’ll rake in some nice pocket money for the electronics giant.

Continue reading Sony SmartAR delivers high-speed markerless augmented reality, blows minds (video)

Sony SmartAR delivers high-speed markerless augmented reality, blows minds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 01:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceSony (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments

Apple gets cozy with EMI, Universal, and Sony over cloud music licensing

Ah, so it’s all coming together now. Following a report on Warner Music inking a cloud streaming deal with Apple, CNET is back with fresh information that sees three more major record companies jumping on board. Citing “multiple music industry sources,” we’re told that EMI is the latest addition to Apple’s cloud music portfolio, while Universal and Sony are close to sealing the deal to permit this rumored iCloud service. If true, such endorsement will no doubt add pressure on Google and Amazon over their cheeky, license-free cloud streaming offerings — not a bad way to fend off competition, though it’s not clear how much money’s involved. Guess we’ll know more at WWDC next month.

Apple gets cozy with EMI, Universal, and Sony over cloud music licensing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 23:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceCNET  | Email this | Comments

450 Toronto school roofs to go solar

The Toronto District School Board and AMP Solar LP have teamed up to install solar panels on hundreds of school rooftops in a deal that could be worth $1.1 billion in green electricity generation over 20 years.

Evidence of webOS netbook and keyboard-less phone pop up in developer logs

webOS Netbook

Well this is interesting: a webOS dev spotted a pair unnamed devices in his log files — one sporting a 1024 x 768 screen and a non-sliding keyboard, and the other a smartphone with no physical QWERTY input. Don’t look so surprised: it was all but confirmed by leaked training materials that webOS was coming to netbooks and HP has already announced its intention to bring desktops and laptops into the fold. Of course, this could also just be a TouchPad connected to a certain special keyboard. All we know is something bigger than a phone with physical keys is out there running an unannounced version of the OS dubbed Nova Dartfish. The second mysterious “device” showing up in the logs may be that keyboard-less handset that posed for Mr. Blurrycam back in April. Whatever it is, it’s running webOS 3.0 and has a measly 480 x 320 screen like the Pre 2 — so it’s certainly not a high-end smartphone. The logs also reveal that neither is packing a removeable battery, which is sure to disappoint some of you. If you prefer your rumors delivered with lots of quotation marks and colons the full log reports are after the break.

Continue reading Evidence of webOS netbook and keyboard-less phone pop up in developer logs

Evidence of webOS netbook and keyboard-less phone pop up in developer logs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 20:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PalmPre-France  |  sourcePalmPre-France Forum, PalmPre-France Forum  | Email this | Comments

D-Wave One claims mantle of first commercial quantum computer

http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/18/d-wave-one-claims-mantle-of-first-commercial-quantum-computer/

Whether or not D-Wave has actually built a quantum computer is still a matter of debate (though, a study authored by the company and published in Nature claims to prove its success) but, whatever it is these crafty Canadians have created, you can order one now and start crunching qubits with abandon. The D-Wave One is the first commercially available quantum computer and, while its 128-qubit processor can only handle very specific tasks and is easily outperformed by traditional CPUs, it could represent a revolution in the field of supercomputing. As D-Wave scales up to thousands or tens-of-thousands of qubits, complex number theory problems and advanced cryptographic systems could crumble before the mighty power of quantum annealing… or at least give us faster Google searches. Just out of curiosity, we contacted D-Wave to see how much we’d have to cough up for a quantum desktop of our own, but we’ve yet to hear back.

Update: Joseph passed along an e-mail from the company with a little more information, including a price: $10,000,000. Yep, ten large, and we’re not sure that includes the liquid helium required to keep it cooled.

D-Wave One claims mantle of first commercial quantum computer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 16:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Forbes  |  sourceD-Wave  | Email this | Comments

Tiger Woods to fall out of top 10

Tiger Woods will fall out of the top 10 in the world ranking next week, ending an amazing streak of being top 10 in the world for 14 consecutive years. For his star power, he still ranks ahead of any other athlete according to Forbes.

Somehow, This Turned Out Okay

Bride-to-be Li-Wan was so devastated when her fiance Wang Lu called off their wedding, that she climbed out on a window ledge 80 feet in the air in Changchun, China. Still in her wedding dress, she sobbed there as a crowd gathered to try to stop her from jumping. Unfortunately, jump she did — but not before an aid worker could rush up close. The worker, Guo Zhongfan, caught her in mid-air by the neck. Pinning her to the building, he managed to save her life with the help of others on a lower floor. He also managed to create the most intense photo op of the day.

Jilted bride in China jumps out window (photos) [NYP]

Read more posts by Chris Rovzar

Filed Under: photo op, brides, china, worst wedding ever

Google confirms Android security issue, server-side fix rolling out today

No Android security flaw is good news for Google, but the recently discovered ClientLogin issue that left the OS vulnerable to impersonation attacks is surely at least a bit more welcome than some of the alternatives. That’s because the flaw can be fixed at the server-side level (rather than on millions of Android phones), and Google has now confirmed that a fix is rolling out today, although it may take a few more days for it to cover all users (there’s no action required on your part). The company’s not quite out of the woods just yet, though — while we’ve confirmed with Google that the fix addresses the issues with Calendar and Contacts, the problem with Picasa remains, and there’s still no indication of a fix for it. Incidentally, Google had already fixed the Calendar and Contacts issues on the phone-side with Android 2.3.4 (although that still left 99 percent of phones vulnerable), but it too is still stuck with the Picasa vulnerability.

Google confirms Android security issue, server-side fix rolling out today originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 13:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Next Web  |  sourceComputerworld  | Email this | Comments

How To Share Your Presentation Using PowerPoint 2010 Through the Web

image

Did you know that PowerPoint 2010 has a feature called Broadcast Slide Show with which you can share your presentation through the web to another computer, smartphone or any other device with a browser? Here’s how to use it.

Improve Your Photography by Learning the Elements of Exposure Mac OS X Viruses: How to Remove and Prevent the Mac Protector Malware How to Block All Cookies Except for Sites You Use

Some Xbox 360s won’t read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL

There may have been a good reason for that wide beta test Microsoft ran to test out its new disc format for the Xbox 360. While it will allow for an extra 1GB of storage space for new games and (it hopes) stop piracy, apparently some consoles contain drives that cannot read the new XGD3 discs. The details can be seen in the email pictured above posted by Reddit user Avery Penn and were verified as real by the Xbox Support Twitter account, but now it’s responding to inquiries by saying the replacements are in response to a previous update and not the upcoming one that has been in beta. Adding to the confusion, Microsoft Europe confirmed the initial report and points affected users towards the support page to get sorted out. One way or another, affected owners can expect to be mollified by getting their Xbox 360s replaced with new 250GB Xbox 360S models plus a free year of XBL for the trouble. We haven’t gotten an official response about the plan yet but are still checking, so your plan to hoard old consoles and get free replacements en masse is probably equal parts premature and Seinfeldian genius.

Update: Microsoft has responded, confirming that the earlier statement was incorrect and this is not related to the update being beta tested, and that something less than 10,000 of the 50 million or so Xbox 360s sold worldwide are affected. Check after the break for the official word, but if you have one of the boxes and are connected to XBL you should expect to recieve a notice in your email.

Continue reading Some Xbox 360s won’t read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL

Some Xbox 360s won’t read discs; Microsoft to comp owners with a new system, year of XBL originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 11:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq, Eurogamer, Kotaku  |  sourceReddit  | Email this | Comments

Free Wi-Fi comes to McDonald’s in Canada

Free Wi-Fi has comes to 1,000 McDonald’s in Canada today and will be another 400 locations by months end. This was made possible by Bell who also powers free Wi-Fi in Starbucks locations. In the release it states that “no purchase is required to use the service” and Joel Yashinsky of McDonald’s said “Providing value […]

Related posts:

  1. Bell offering free microSIM with an iPad 2 activation
  2. “WIND WORLD” & Facebook Zero both free for WIND subscribers
  3. TELUS 72-hour sale puts the Milestone, Charm, Backflip and e72 free on 1-year

PSN logins exploited again, Sony takes pages offline

PSN logins exploited again, Sony takes sign-in pages offline

This isn’t as bad as it could have been — Sony’s PSN hasn’t exactly been hacked again — but what can only be described as a glaring oversight looks to have forced the company into hastily switching off PSN logins on its websites. The issue? If you legitimately forget your password and need to reset it, previously all you had to do was type in your e-mail address and date of birth, then choose a delightfully cunning new password. Sounds good? The problem is that if you were a PSN member before the hack then both your e-mail address and your date of birth (plus a lot of other frightening stuff) is known to the hackers. So, whoever has the millions of rows of data that were exposed could, in theory, re-exploit any account. Sony was made aware of the issue and those pages are now offline again, which should make the Japanese government feel just a little big smug.

Update: Sony has confirmed that there was “a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed.” However, the company indicates there was “no hack involved.” So, remember kiddies: exploits are not hacks — not until someone starts having fun with them, anyway.

PSN logins exploited again, Sony takes pages offline originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 May 2011 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink MCV  |  sourceNyleveia  | Email this | Comments