Duke Nukem Forever Somewhat Confirmed For PAX (Really)

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments

OMG. Look at this: Duke Nukem Forever PAX booth material. The rumors were apparently true. Guess it kind of says the game is still in development and news should drop from PAX about its release. Amazing, but let’s try to hold off celebrating until it hits Steam or The Pirate Bay. Until then, the game is still vaporware.

New official MeeGo screenshots show promise, influence

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments
MeeGo's official user interface guidelines could easily end up determining whether the platform sinks or swims -- no one wants a phone whose UI looks like junk, after all. The minions at Nokia and Intel's little pet project have posted new OS shots as examples of how to properly implement the interface in third-party apps, and we've got to admit -- things are looking a lot cleaner, prettier, and generally more modern than the first round of pictures we saw back in June, thanks in part to a demonstration of the platform's comprehensive theming capability that can totally revamp how UI elements look. We're definitely seeing shades of webOS in the task switcher (pictured above), but then again, Nokia's no stranger to borrowing ideas it likes. That's all well and good as long as it makes for a great platform... and obviously, we'd need some hardware to do that. O N9, where art thou?

New official MeeGo screenshots show promise, influence originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 13:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ESPN Thanks Sony For ESPN 3D Help, Says ‘People Who See 3D Can’t Get Enough Of It’

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments

Without Sony’s support ESPN “probably would not have launched” ESPN 3D. So said Bryan Burns, Vice-President of ESPN, at IFA earlier today. Burns, talking before a reasonably crowded auditorium, reiterated ESPN’s commitment to 3D sports broadcasting while fully recognizing what we’ve all been going on about for months now: nobody’s going to buy an expensive 3D TV—have you seen the unemployment numbers of late?—when there’s nearly zero 3D content to be found.

Burns—and perhaps this is indicative of ESPN as a whole—seemingly forgot he was talking before a primarily European audience, with the 3D sports chosen to highlight including American college football and the Harlem Globetrotters. Pretty sure no one in Europe gives a toss about either of those, so why not take advantage of the fact that you’re in Europe, and show footage of the World Cup? Maybe one or two of the German goals, you know? No, let’s keep showing clips of Some College against Some Other College, that’ll keep the Europeans interested. Perhaps Sky should host a press conference in Iowa and shows scenes of a Liverpool darts competition.

ESPN, Burns noted, launched HDTV service back in 2002, and it wasn’t until enough HD content was available that its viewers began to buy HDTVs. That matters quite a bit because, on the whole, sports fans tend to be, if not the early adopters, then the trend-setters when it comes to home entertainment. Show a person a nature documentary in HD (or 3D) and you might get a polite shrug. Show that same person an NFL game or a World Cup game and they’ll say, “Now that’s awesome~!”

An interesting stat: still only 63 percent of households in the U.S. have an HDTV (and of those, 83 percent watch sports in HD). That leaves 37 percent of the households out there haven’t upgraded from their SDTV to an HDTV—perhaps they’ll skip HDTV and go straight to 3DTV? (Not at these prices, they won’t, the average price of a 3DTV currently projected to be in the $800s by 2015.)

ESPN 3D currently broadcasts to 60 million homes, including the addition of 15 or so million that will now have the channel on Time Warner. “People who have seen 3D can’t get enough of it,” said Burns, no doubt looking forward to next week’s mass in-store demo.

That’s right: next week, more than 1,000 retail stores in the U.S. will show ESPN 3D.

And since ESPN “simply cannot avoid 3D,” they’d better hope people see those 3D images and lose their minds in a giant OMG I NEED THIS flurry of excitement.

Xbox 360′s transforming D-pad controller gets handled on video

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments
Boy, we've gone from rumor to hands-on experience in just a couple of days with this thing. Microsoft's November 9-bound Xbox 360 controller refresh couldn't escape the clutches of Joystiq, who have put together a neat photo gallery and video overview. That chrometastic new D-pad is clearly the headliner here, and the early feedback is that it works well -- it takes a bit of effort to transform from a flat button to the elevated four-way navigator you see above, but that's apparently a good thing as it means you'll never flip modes by accident in the middle of a hot and heavy gaming session. The analog buttons have also been subjected to some nipping and tucking and there is of course a new desaturated color scheme to explore as well. You'll find a shot of the retail packaging after the break and a lot more at the source.

Continue reading Xbox 360's transforming D-pad controller gets handled on video

Xbox 360's transforming D-pad controller gets handled on video originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rydeen hopes to cash in on tablet fever with Android-based, Armada-powered PND

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments
You may never have heard of auto electronics provider Rydeen Mobile, but it certainly knows of you -- or more specifically, your desire to obtain a slick new tablet PC -- and has thus created an 7-inch Android tablet that integrates the dedicated map functionality of its GPS machines. The "gPad" GCOM701 won't be a terribly high-end device, mind you, with an 800MHz ARMADA 166 SOC, 256MB of RAM, bring-your-own-microSD-storage and what we're led to believe is a resistive touchscreen, but it sounds like at least Rydeen isn't being stingy on the software front. You'll find a full suite of Google Apps, Adobe Flash Lite 4 and AVI support, not to mention 4 million points of interest thanks to the integrated Navteq client. Connectivity include GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, both mini and full-sized USB ports, plus a front-facing camera for video chat, and there's a 2400mAh battery the company claims will provide six hours of solid use. Find it this November at an unspecified price, no doubt alongside the pictured (but not mentioned) car dock.

Continue reading Rydeen hopes to cash in on tablet fever with Android-based, Armada-powered PND

Rydeen hopes to cash in on tablet fever with Android-based, Armada-powered PND originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New Jersey transit looks to add WiFi to its rail lines and stations, New Yorkers to pretend they didn’t hear that

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments
A New Jersey Transit spokesperson has announced that its seeking a company to install WiFi on its rail lines and at its train stations. The installation would make New Jersey one of the few major transit systems in the country to have WiFi on its 165 stations and 12 lines. The spokesperson also said they hope to get the installation under way quickly, and to have the hotspots available to riders by next year.

New Jersey transit looks to add WiFi to its rail lines and stations, New Yorkers to pretend they didn't hear that originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 12:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iSAVE: Airbags Attached To The Outside Of Cars

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments

I am not sure if this is a good way to protect pedestrians, but a team of Japanese researchers developed them: airbags for use on the outside of vehicles. It may sound bizarre at first, but this is not some silly experiment. The air bags (or special car body panels, to be more exact) are the brain child of several Hiroshima-based companies and the local university.

Dubbed iSAVE (sigh…), the airbags deflate rapidly upon impact, just like conventional airbags, to soften the effects of a crash for pedestrians. The prototype car equipped with iSAVE that you can see on the pic above was shown earlier this week and is said to be the first of its kind. iSAVE can be used with electric cars only.

The research team behind the airbags says it expects to sell up to 50 units by year end for 3-wheeled cars before fully commercializing them in 2011 for four-wheeled vehicles. The iSAVE system for 4-wheeled cars will likely be priced at $17,800.

Sorry to say there’s no video available at this point (I looked everywhere).

Via Asahi Shimbun [JP]

iHome teases first AirPlay-compatible portable speaker dock

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments
No surprise that iHome is first out of the gate with a speaker dock that's compatible with Apple's newly-open AirPlay music streaming system, but unfortunately the teaser page is maddeningly light on details -- all we know is that it'll have a rechargeable battery and be available for the holidays. We're actually pretty stoked for AirPlay gear -- the idea of setting up a quick mix-and-match whole-home audio system that can stream lossless audio straight from iTunes seems awfully hard to resist -- so we're eager to hear more about this thing, as well as the other third-party AirPlay devices like receivers and stereos that have been promised. We'll keep digging for more, so stay tuned.

[Thanks, Fred]

iHome teases first AirPlay-compatible portable speaker dock originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plex Inks A Deal With LG, Could Be The Start Of Something Huge For Both Companies

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments


Plex is about to get big. The offshoot of the XBMC project just announced that LG will be using its media platform in upcoming Netcast HDTVs and Blu-ray players, in turn, making these devices about the best media streamers imaginable — even better than the upcoming Boxee Box or just-refreshed Apple TV.

After all, Plex already works with Netflix, Hulu, BBC’s iPlayer, and supports playback of just about every media format ever created via the best interface in the business. There’s even an iOS remote viewing app coming soon. Forget about having an extra box sitting on your TV stand just to stream random content, it’s going to be built into your HDTV. Welcome to the future, ladies and gentleman.

Plex is not only gorgeous, but also robust. The underpinnings have been around for most of this decade as it’s built on Mplayer, the same basis for Boxee and others. It can playback nearly anything, including 1080p content with ease. It’s traditionally a Mac-only program, but this partnership with LG makes our mind swirl with all sorts of possibilities.

Chances are the software will be included as an App within the LG products and the whole TV or Blu-ray player itself will not run on Plex — although that would be astounding. However, having Plex integrated within the TV will eliminate the need for other boxes such as the Apple TV or Boxee Box because the TV itself will actually have more functions. Hopefully there will be enough raw processing power to provide a smooth interface and the same sort of media playback. Without that, most of the appeal would be lost.

The LG HDTVs and Blu-ray players are scheduled for a 2011 launch and will no doubt be one of the highlights of the company’s CES 2011 booth. Hopefully the deal isn’t exclusive to LG and deals with other manufacturers are coming soon as well.

PLEX TO ENABLE NEXT GENERATION OF NETCAST™ CONNECTED TV’S
San Francisco, CA & Berlin, Germany (IFA) – September 3, 2010 – Today, Plex (www.plexapp.com), a leading software provider of an open platform for media management and consumption, announced the availability of the newest version of Plex, the first open, three-screen media platform (PC, TV and mobile) designed to simplify and improve the way people experience personal, commercial and streaming content sources across a range of connected devices. Additionally, Plex revealed that LG Electronics will be integrating the Plex platform technology into its 2011 Netcast™ enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray devices, making media and applications accessible through a range of products.

“After considering many alternative solutions, LG Electronics chose to utilize Plex’s media server platform technology as a part of its next generation NetCast™ enabled home entertainment products because of the breadth of available applications and content and the ease of developing new services,” said Hojun Nam, Director of LCD TV R&D at LG Electronics. “Plex’s capabilities offer our customers’ additional methods of displaying their content on LG’s next generation TVs and that is exciting to us.”

With its rapidly expanding open platform, Plex is the first and only truly comprehensive digital media management solution that spans both personal and online content. The solution’s simple-to-use and intuitive user interface allows consumers to search, navigate, consume, store and sync digital content from multiple platforms and devices. It requires no additional hardware or technology knowledge, ensuring even the most novice user will easily be able to access their favorite TV programs, movies, photos and more – no matter where they are or what device they want to access it with.

“Plex was developed to provide a simple solution for navigating an increasingly complex digital media landscape. As our access to a greater variety of high-quality content continues to grow and we create more of our own content, it is clear that we need a new way to enjoy and provide a consistent experience across the expanding universe of disparate content sources,” said Cayce Ullman, CEO and co-founder, Plex. “Plex enables LG to more easily offer a wide variety of content sources to consumers using the NetCast™ services.”

Compatibility with mainstream mobile devices, such as iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone products, and soon to be announced Android based products including mobile phones and tablets, ensures that the Plex solution is the industry’s first truly integrated three-screen media platform, allowing a seamless experience across devices and media sources. Plex’s mobile compatibility also allows users access to their content from anywhere, making content consumption and management seamless across all device types – whenever and wherever users prefer.

“We’ve been working hard to build this killer platform, and we have an amazing community who has enabled access to over one hundred online content sources to date” noted Elan Feingold, CTO and co-founder, Plex. “It’s exciting that this content will now be available in a seamless manner on LG’s 2011 NetCast™ enabled TVs and Blu-ray players.”

Third-party developers and owners of content have the ability to develop Plex plug-ins, which will then be available to all Plex users across all devices. Currently, there are nearly 200 plug-ins available through Plex’s service including iTunes, Netflix, CNN, Revision3, YouTube, and many others. Plex for OS X is downloadable for free, with a Windows version to be available later this year. For more information, please visit www.plexapp.com.

Stealth’s rugged USB keyboard is extremely tough, extremely pricey

September 3 2010 by Gadgets in Gadgets |No Comments
There are no hard and fast rules in the gadget game, but there is one bit of wisdom we generally stand by: everything benefits by being ruggedized. Sure, we know this speaks to a deep-seated need to smash things, drown things, run 'em over in a truck or shoot them -- and we're not making any excuses. Housed in vandal resistant stainless steel, the Stealth KYBX-400-DT-BL-TB-USB keyboard feature an optical trackball mouse, and NVIS-compliant red adjustable backlighting (just the thing for when you dig out the night vision goggles). If that weren't enough, the whole thing is environmentally sealed to NEMA 4, 4X, IP65 specifications (whatever that means). Yours now for $695! Get a closer look below.

Gallery: Stealth Desktop Industrial Keyboards

Stealth's rugged USB keyboard is extremely tough, extremely pricey originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 11:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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