Aug/100
Japanese Yakuza PSP demo available now
4Gamer has posted a downloadable demo for the PSP’s Black Panther: New Yakuza Chapter, allowing those interested in the dramatic tale of one teenager beating up a bunch of dudes to check out the game with ease. You won’t need to load up the Japanese PlayStation Store or anything fancy like that — just go to this site and click the pink box in the middle of the page.
Andriasang reports that you’ll receive a password following the completion of the demo, which will unlock unspecified content in the full game. This game features customizable multiplayer (and hostess) avatars, so we’re guessing you’ll get some kind of exclusive clothing item.
Japanese Yakuza PSP demo available now originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
Eigenharp Alpha unboxed by one lucky musician (video)
Continue reading Eigenharp Alpha unboxed by one lucky musician (video)
Eigenharp Alpha unboxed by one lucky musician (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on
Kno promised to launch a double-screened Linux-based e-reader designed for students at D8, and the undercover startup didn’t disappoint — believe us when we say it came out in a big way. That’s big as in freaking big: the Kno reader features dual 14.1-inch capacitive IPS displays (1440 x 900 each), weighs 5.5 pounds, and offers six to eight hours of battery life, all in a package that’s so comically large we thought it was a joke when we first saw the press shots. Kno says it’ll offer both pen and touch support, and it’ll come with a stylus out of the box. Under the hood, it’s running a Tegra 2 chip with 16GB of storage, and the entire experience is essentially a WebKit instance. Yes, it’s sort of like the Courier, but larger — much, much larger.
We had a chance to go hands-on with the device as well as speak to some members of the team developing the Kno, and while it’s clear that there are major bumps in the UI and user experience, it seems like the company is aware of them. What we saw today was clearly unfinished, with a lot of laggy, stuttery behavior in the interface, a crash or two, and some very inaccurate finger tracking, but Kno says its hard at work on eradicating those issues. Even with the UI fixes, it’s a hard sell at “under $1000,” but Kno is putting together partnerships with publishers to make that a little easier to swallow, as they say ultimately it will be less expensive than buying regular old text books. It’s an audacious idea, for sure… and we’re still completely confused by one of the company’s press pics featuring a bunch of dudes running around in their underwear, but we digress. Check out some shots from the demo, PR pics, and our hands-on with the device below.
Gallery: Kno hands-on
Gallery: Kno eyes-on at D8
Gallery: Kno press pics
Continue reading Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on
Kno dual-screen tablet appears at D8, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 16:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
Ebook publishers seek universal format, lament Apple and Amazon’s closed ecosystems
You don’t need to sit down, we’re not about to hit you with any shocking news, but a recent BookExpo America convention has given publishers the chance to air out their laundry list of complaints. Seriously, do these guys ever have anything positive to say? Now they’ve managed to pinpoint a flaw in the Kindle and iPad’s resounding success, identifying the two ebook reading platforms as closed, and expressing a yearning for a universal and open format that all books can be published and consumed on. Of course, they wouldn’t be publishers if they didn’t also lust after robust DRM measures, which might explain why they’re not roundly supporting the readily available EPUB format. It has DRM options, but perhaps they’re not gnarly enough for the dudes responsible for bringing us the psychological horror of the Twilight series. We still don’t like the suggestion that the people, Amazon primarily, who popularized this market should just open it up out of the goodness of their own hearts — maybe we would if publishers ever showed themselves capable of doing similarly noble things.
Ebook publishers seek universal format, lament Apple and Amazon’s closed ecosystems originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 06:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apr/100
Allerta’s inPulse watch for BlackBerry spied at WES, turns on this time
You might recall that we got a quick look at the inPulse back at CES, but it didn’t turn on back then, so we were excited to see the Allerta dudes back in action here at WES this week with a more functional prototype. This time, we were able to see the Bluetooth-connected watch flash its AMOLED display and it was plenty readable in harsh meeting room lighting; outdoor readability is another matter altogether, but we won’t be able to answer that until we’ve got a review unit secured. What we saw was just a demo unit without a functional connection to a phone, but it was pre-loaded with enough content so that we got the basic idea of how it’s going to work.
From the quick run-through of the UI, it seemed clear to us that Allerta understands its target demographic — they’re not trying to do anything with the inPulse other than present enough message, calendar, and caller ID content to get you by during that meeting when you’d feel uncomfortable pulling your phone out of your pocket. We’re told that the hardware we’re seeing here represents final ID — paying customers will get exactly what you see here — but they still don’t have a firm shipping date, simply saying that they’ll send them off to customers as soon as they have them in their hands. We’re told the company has compatibility for other platforms in the works, but there’s no date on that; for now, it’s all BlackBerry, all the time. Oh, and the neatest trick? Firmware updates happen over the Bluetooth connection from your phone. Check it out in the gallery below.
Allerta’s inPulse watch for BlackBerry spied at WES, turns on this time originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apr/100
RIM’s Mike Lazaridis issues report from Bizarro World, says touchscreen devices like the iPhone ‘aren’t that popular,’ forgets he made the Storm
Both of RIM’s co-CEOs have reputations for being pretty opinionated dudes, and we feel like Mike Lazaridis in particular would go to the ends of the Earth to support BlackBerry’s business model — but at the cost of one of his own products? Speaking at a tech conference in Toronto today, Lazaridis apparently said that the long-term viability of the tablet market (iPad included) is in doubt, especially as smartphones get more powerful; that would probably serve to quash the rumors from a few days back that the company is working on its own large-display device for release later this year. More interestingly, though, were his comments that full touchscreen phones like the iPhone “aren’t that popular” — that’s news to us — and that many that end up buying them ultimately go back to a physical keyboard handset. You know, like a Bold or a Curve, for instance.
Whether Lazaridis is conveniently forgetting the existence of his own Storm and Storm2, suggesting that touchscreen devices don’t have a long-term future at RIM, or just saying that they’ll remain a niche play for the company going forward is unclear — but any way you slice it, we’d say it’s a pretty significant dis for the Storm series and its owners. Looking at the bigger picture, it might also be a sign that these guys are still very much on the fast track to becoming the next Windows Mobile — dinosaurs paralyzed by their own past successes — but who knows? Maybe there’ll always be limitless demand for an endless array of barely iterative hardware paired to a decade-old user interface.
RIM’s Mike Lazaridis issues report from Bizarro World, says touchscreen devices like the iPhone ‘aren’t that popular,’ forgets he made the Storm originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Apr 2010 20:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apr/100
HP touts memristor development, bleak future for transistors
Silicon transistors are the stuff all our dreams of android sheep are made of, but there will ultimately be a limit to how many of them you can squish together inside a processing chip. The progressive avoidance of physical limitations by moving to yet more minuscule dimensions is admirable, but some folks at HP seem to believe the answer lies in a whole different technology. The company has been talking to the New York Times about its memristor (memory resistor) development, which promises to perform both data processing and storage tasks (even without an electrical charge), while also being capable of stacking in a three-dimensional array that would allow for vast scaling potential down the line. Promises for the future include a three nanometer memristor that can switch on and off in a nanosecond, as well as a 20GB per square centimeter memory density that we might expect to arrive within three years. If we believe the dudes in the white coats, that is. The important thing is that memristor-based storage has already been tested to successfully perform “hundreds of thousands” of read and write operations without failing, so the potential is indeed there. Now we just need a bit of luck and a smidgen of patience.
HP touts memristor development, bleak future for transistors originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Apr 2010 08:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apr/100
FCC reveals iPad internals; you still don’t have one (update: iFixit has 3G pics!)
Wowsa, looks like those FCC folks really take their jobs seriously. With the iPad they didn’t just bother to test out the radiation and maybe take a little peek for themselves under the covers, but instead disassembled the whole machine on camera. Unfortunately they took it upon themselves to cover over the specific chips, so we’ll have to wait for one of those pro bono teardowns to get the full lay of the land, but it’s still a unique look at the makeup of this thing. Check it out in the gallery below.
Update: The dudes and dudettes over at iFixit are analyzing the board and the components in uncensored fashion — head on over if you considering yourself a “nerd.”
Update 2: iFixit’s now got photos of the iPad’s 3G communications board as well, even though it’ll be another month before the 3G version comes out!
Gallery: FCC reveals iPad internals
FCC reveals iPad internals; you still don’t have one (update: iFixit has 3G pics!) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 02 Apr 2010 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
Amazon patents packaging surveillance, says it’s for our own good
So here’s the sales pitch: Amazon wants to film the packaging and preparation of your goods as they get ready to ship out in order to make sure your order is properly fulfilled and addressed. Stills or the whole video are then forwarded along to you, in a perfectly measured act of shifting legal liability for missing or damaged goods to the delivery dudes or good old Joe Consumer. Granted yesterday, the patent for this oh so complex monitoring system also references verification of “collateral items,” which is a fancy way of saying it’ll be used to make sure third party fliers and advertisements make it into the box along with the stuff you actually want. This whole thing is such a rosy and endearing idea, we have to wonder why Amazon hasn’t done up a big press release to let us all know the good news.
[Thanks, JagsLive]
Amazon patents packaging surveillance, says it’s for our own good originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Mar 2010 09:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
Want more on the PlayStation Move? Head over to Joystiq!
Sony’s calling the PlayStation Move the “next generation” of motion gaming and planning to market it as heavily as an entirely new console, so it’s sort of a big deal — and that means our main dudes at Joystiq are all over it. We’ve already covered the main details, but hit the links below if you’re looking for some seriously deep dives.
- SOCOM 4 to support PlayStation Move
- EyePet to support PlayStation Move, hits North America holiday 2010
- Move supported by 36 companies, 20 games this fiscal year
- The PlayStation Move games (we know of)
- Hands-on: SOCOM 4 (with PlayStation Move!)
- Hands-on: PlayStation Move’s ‘The Shoot’
- Hands-on: PlayStation Move’s ‘Move Party’
- Hands-on: PlayStation Move’s Sports Champions
- We touched it: PlayStation Move from every angle
- ‘Arc’ lives on in PlayStation Move’s logo
Want more on the PlayStation Move? Head over to Joystiq! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 01:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar/100
Art Lebedev’s Segmentus clock gives you a digital reading using its analog hands
We’re not quite sure whether you need a really active or a really idle mind to come up with this, but the dudes over at Art Lebedev Studio have just unveiled their latest conceptual design. Continuing the theme of faux-Latin names, this is branded the Segmentus clock, and sports hands just like an antiquated analog clock, but unlike an analog clock it seems to have a good 20 or 30 of them. Working in unison — you might call it like clockwork, but we’d rather you didn’t — they then produce a digital time reading, which might not be easy to read, but we’re sure will tickle all the artistes out there. Art Lebedev calls it “true postmodernism,” and you can find a live demo on the company’s site at the source link below.
[Thanks, Danil K.]
Art Lebedev’s Segmentus clock gives you a digital reading using its analog hands originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 02:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Feb/100
HUMAVIPS project could lead to humanoids with social skills, humans being tricked
You don’t think the Robot Apocalypse is upon us, but we assure you, it is. The HUMAVIPS project, which will span three years and hopefully result in robots being developed with “social skills,” may seem innocent — even beneficial — at first blush, but let’s think about it. Will “humanoids with auditory and visual abilities in populated spaces” have more power than you, as an Earthling, would like? If all goes well, these robotic dudes and dudettes will be able to mimic what’s known as the “cocktail party effect,” which is better explained as “the human ability to focus attention on just one person in the midst of other people, voices and background noise.” So yeah, this definitely goes two ways — on one hand, you could finally have a live-in robot that pays attention to your feelings as the world around you crumbles, but on the other, these guys won’t have any issue overlooking your wailing when it’s them bringing everything down. Yikes.
HUMAVIPS project could lead to humanoids with social skills, humans being tricked originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Feb/100
Two PowerBooks spliced into one epic snowboard (video)
We don’t know that this requires much more explanation than the title. A couple of rad dudes from the German-speaking parts of Europe have taken up tools against their old titanium PowerBooks G4s and produced the righteous bit of snow-surfing kit you see above. It was done for a competition asking for creative ways to re-utilize old gear, though judging by all the flopping and crashing that ensued in their tests, this isn’t exactly useful. See it on video after the break, and if it really catches your fancy, the PowerBook snowboard can be found on eBay, though no one has been mad enough to bid for it yet.
Continue reading Two PowerBooks spliced into one epic snowboard (video)
Two PowerBooks spliced into one epic snowboard (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Feb 2010 07:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Feb/100
Sanho crams 640GB of memories into your pocket with HyperDrive Album photo viewer
Photo viewers have been around for centuries (give or take a few score), but few have offered the capacity and speed found on the HyperDrive Album. Produced by none other than Sanho — the same dudes and dudettes responsible for those spectacular HyperMac batteries — this here device is essentially a 640GB pocket hard drive meant to suck down photos from your SD or CF card (it plays nice with both formats) as you shoot; it can either lighten the load on your memory card or act as on-site backup, and it’s reportedly capable of downloading 2GB per minute with full data verification. Better still, it’s capable of decoding and displaying RAW images on the 4.8-inch display (800 x 480 resolution), and the internal battery will last through 200GB worth of transfers. It’s available now for $599.99 (or less if you opt for a smaller / empty model), but don’t even bother if you’re looking for SDXC compatibility.
Continue reading Sanho crams 640GB of memories into your pocket with HyperDrive Album photo viewer
Sanho crams 640GB of memories into your pocket with HyperDrive Album photo viewer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Nov/090
Engadget’s Black Friday giveaway, part nine: win a Dualshock 3 Wireless controller for PS3!
Black Friday is one of those days you wish you could skip right over sometimes. The long lines, the disappointing deals, the stampedes and the arguments over Cabbage Patch Kids. We can sympathize. That’s why we’re hanging out here all day, with you! And we decided to pull out some things we stocked up on just to give away to you, our devoted readers. Read the full rules after the break and get commenting to win. Up now we have a Dualshock 3 Wireless controller for PS3 to give away. Just admit it: you want one (we can tell you that our dog really digs those little dudes).
Keep checking back all day — we’re doing a giveaway every hour or so.
Engadget’s Black Friday giveaway, part nine: win a Dualshock 3 Wireless controller for PS3! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Nov/090
Engadget’s Black Friday giveaway, part seven: win a copy of Squeeballs Party for Nintendo Wii!
Keep checking back all day — we’re doing a giveaway each hour!
Engadget’s Black Friday giveaway, part seven: win a copy of Squeeballs Party for Nintendo Wii! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/090
Always Innovating’s Touch Book now shipping
Filed under: Laptops
Always Innovating’s Touch Book now shipping originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 02 Aug 2009 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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