.::REALITYRECALL::.

Turns out the rumor was true, Avatar Kinect is coming to the Xbox 360 this spring (for Xbox Live Gold members, at least). Details are sparse — a place where you can virtually hang out with your “friends” — but Kinect is shown to now be able to detect facial gestures like eyebrows, smiles, and laughs. Impressive, but after all we’ve seen with the Kinect hacks, can’t say we’re too surprised the camera’s capable of such detection.

Avatar Kinect for Xbox 360 is official, smile like you mean it originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Good news, Hulu Plus is finally coming to Xbox 360 this spring. Better news, both Hulu Plus and Netflix will be compatible with Kinect. We imagine it’ll be just like Zune Video’s interface, but there really wasn’t much of a demo during Ballmer’s keynote tonight. Excited? We are.

Netflix and Hulu Plus with Kinect coming this spring to Xbox 360 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 21:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

The past few weeks have been exciting ones for the Android team: we recently released Nexus S and Android 2.3, Gingerbread, and we’ve even had some of our most popular team members take a trip to space. But we haven’t stopped buzzing with excitement: today at the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas, we previewed Android 3.0, Honeycomb.

Honeycomb is the next version of the Android platform, designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly tablets. We’ve spent a lot of time refining the user experience in Honeycomb, and we’ve developed a brand new, truly virtual and holographic user interface. Many of Android’s existing features will really shine on Honeycomb: refined multi-tasking, elegant notifications, access to over 100,000 apps on Android Market, home screen customization with a new 3D experience and redesigned widgets that are richer and more interactive. We’ve also made some powerful upgrades to the web browser, including tabbed browsing, form auto-fill, syncing with your Google Chrome bookmarks, and incognito mode for private browsing.

Honeycomb also features the latest Google Mobile innovations including Google Maps 5 with 3D interactions and offline reliability, access to over 3 million Google eBooks, and Google Talk, which now allows you to video and voice chat with any other Google Talk enabled device (PC, tablet, etc).

Please stay tuned for more Honeycomb news from the Android team. For now, you can get a taste of Honeycomb by checking out this video.

Posted by Andy Rubin, VP of Engineering

The Saskatchewan Roughriders have hired Greg Marshall as the Canadian Football League team’s new head coach.

By Ed Oswald, Betanews

Microsoft is taking notice of industry trends, and told attendees Wednesday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas that the next version of Windows would run on ARM chips. The move is an acknowledgement of the changing face of consumer electronics — that smart phones, tablets, and portable devices are indeed the future.

The move is also significant for another reason — up until now, Microsoft on ARM was relegated to the stripped down versions of Windows, either Windows Mobile, CE, or Embedded. Having the capability to run a full version of the operating system natively on these mobile processors opens up more possibilities for manufacturers in developing compact devices, the Redmond company believes.

“We’ve reached a point in technology where everyone really does want everything from their computing experience,” Windows chief Steven Sinfosky said in explaining the decision. “Today’s demonstrations will highlight the work we have done on the architecture of Windows to enable the richness of the Windows platform to run natively on the ARM platform.”

Some manufacturers have already attempted to put Windows 7 on tablet devices, but the fact that the OS itself is still built for an x86 architecture does not make it optimal as it requires more battery life and power than can be fit into the smaller form factors of these devices effectively.

Other considerations are a native touch screen interface — something Windows 7 essentially lacks — and a user interface that works well with that type of input. It was not immediately clear if Microsoft also plans to make these necessary user interface tweaks as part of this new commitment.

Sinofsky was somewhat vague on bringing other critical applications — such as Office — to the ARM platform, only offering that Microsoft was “committed to making sure that Windows on [system-on-a-chip] architectures is a rich Windows experience.”

The Redmond company did not offer any guidance as to when Windows 8 (as it is thought to be called) may release, although it is likely not for another two years. That said, the question now becomes whether that time frame may be too late.

With the ever quicker pace of innovation in mobile computing, in two years ARM may be yesterday’s news, leaving Microsoft scrambling once again to keep pace.

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Continue reading Panasonic’s Android-based Viera Tablet unveiled at CES 2011

Panasonic’s Android-based Viera Tablet unveiled at CES 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 18:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

quote-book

Details have emerged today about new features that may be found in the next iteration of Microsoft’s operating system, Windows 8.

According to blogger Paul Thurrott, Windows 8 may include an all-new user interface for products such as tablet computers. Dubbed “Mosh”, it’s thought the new UI will be based around…

By Joe Wilcox, Betanews

Second-generation Intel Core Family processors are here, and laptop manufacturers are wasting no time announcing new models. Samsung has the eye-popper of the Consumer Electronics Show (OK, so far), and it’s sure to make MacBook Air owners whine with envy (that is if they’re between Apple Kool-Aid fixes). Hell, I want one. The Samsung 9 Series packs big performance in a little package.

How little a package? The 9 Series has a “.64-inch profile,” (16.3 mm) according to Samsung. MacBook Air thickness ranges .11-.68 inches (3-17 mm) Both laptops weigh 2.9 pounds (1.73 kg). The two thin-and-lights feature 13.3-inch displays with 1366 x 768 resolution, DDR3 memory and no optical drive. But the 9 is two full Intel processor generations ahead of the Air, with second-generation 1.4GHz i5 Core processor compared to the aged 1.86GHz Core 2 Duo processor.

I often harp about the importance of good design and out-of-box experience. Perhaps Samsung gets it. “When designing a premium laptop like the 9 Series, Samsung wanted to offer an unforgettable experience without limitations. The 9 Series laptop successfully combines elegant styling, performance and ease of use in an ultra thin and lightweight package,” Scott Ledterman, Samsung’s director of Enterprise Business Division mobile PC marketing, said in a statement. Look at the photo and dare to disagree. But, first, please, wipe the drool off your existing laptop.

Full specs: 1.4GHz Intel Core i5 processor (2537M), with 3MB cache and turbo boost to 2.3GHz; 13.3-inch backlit-LED display (400 nit); 1366×768 screen resolution; 128GB sold-state drive; 4GB DDR3 memory; Intel HD GT2 integrated graphics; 3 watt (1.5W x 2) stereo speakers with 1.5 watt sub-woofer; USB 3.0; Bluetooth 3.0; 802.11b/g/n; WiMax; Windows 7 Home Premium or Professional (64-bit for both); 6.5 hours claimed battery life.

What will this beauty cost? Gulp, it starts at $1,599 (available in February), and with Samsung listing 128GB SSD storage as “max,” the configuration above will likely cost quite a bit more. There, 13.3-inch MacBook Air, which starts at $1,299, will have price advantage. The higher-end config is $1,599, with twice the storage but half the memory.

Would you buy the Samsung Series 9?

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

Now that’s love. Forget a hot dinner – what you’d want after a long day at work is a Nerf fight! – via The Daily What

Now that’s love. Forget a hot dinner – what you’d want after a long day at work is a Nerf fight! – via The Daily What

A study suggests Saskatchewan students’ reading levels are falling, Adam Hunter reports.

North Korea is calling for “unconditional and early” talks with rival South Korea to put an end to months of tensions, but Seoul quickly dismissed the offer as insincere.

After Google’s big reveal of their Chrome OS platform, it seems people aren’t so keen on paying for web apps. TechCrunch says that the most purchased paid app in the Chrome web store gets about 65 weekly purchases. Ouch. More »

It’s shaping up to be a big week for everyone’s favorite sling-shooting fowl. Earlier today we took note of the fact that Angry Birds is set to hit the PlayStation Network. Now it seems that the wildly popular mobile gaming phenomenon will also be making its way onto laptops everywhere, courtesy of Intel’s AppUp store.

Rovio created an exclusive version of the game, which is available through the Intel store and AppUp storefronts from Best Buy, Best Buy Canada, Future Shop, Dixons, Asus, Croma, HSN, NewEgg, TigerDirect, and more. The app store runs on Windows XP and 7.

The PC version of the game is quite a bit pricier than its mobile counterpart, running $9.99 — though AppUp is offering a limited time discount of $4.99. Probably best to get on that, ASAP, considering all of the paid work you’re likely to miss playing the thing.

Here they are: ASUS’s duo of Tegra 2-powered, 10.1-inch tablets with unique physical keyboards. Starting with the craziest of them, is the Eee Pad Slider (pictured on the left), which reminds us a lot of HTC’s old school Shift with its slide out QWERTY keyboard. The device is planned to run Google’s Honeycomb, sports a IPS, 1280 x 800-resolution display, and houses mini-HDMI and miniUSB ports as well as a microSD card slot. The 2.2-pound / .5-inch thick slab also has dual cameras — a 1.2 megapixel front-facing one and a 5 megapixel one with an LED flash on the back. We have to say we love the idea of always having that keyboard around, but if you don’t want to drag along a physical keyboard all the time, ASUS has something for you too. It’s the Transformer, and like the Eee Pad we saw at Computex, it’s a 10.1-inch tablet that will come with a laptop like dock with a full size keyboard and touchpad. The tablet part — like the Slider — will run Android 3.0 and packs a dual-core Tegra 2 processor, two cameras, and a 1280 x 800-resolution IPS display, however, the dock has an integrated battery that will keep the tablet running for 16 hours on a charge — the tablet on its own should last eight. We’re obviously aching in our seats here waiting to get these two in our hands so stay tuned for some crazy videos of the two in action — until then we leave you with the specs after the break.

Update: How much will it cost you to keyboard-ify your slate and how long will you have to wait? ASUS says the Transformer will run between $400 and $700 and the Slider from $500 to $800. Expect them in April and May respectively.

Continue reading ASUS Eee Pad Slider and Transformer are here for those that can’t imagine using a tablet without a physical keyboard

ASUS Eee Pad Slider and Transformer are here for those that can’t imagine using a tablet without a physical keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 17:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments