I love it when old people talk about technology. Further confirming the iPad 2′s two cameras is none other than Elton John, who at 1:15 in this interview with BBC’s Colin Paterson claims he’ll be picking up a ‘Skype iPad’ in April to communicate with his son. John openly admits he’s a Luddite, who can even memorize phone numbers – which as Paterson points out, is a ‘rare skill these days’. No kidding. I don’t even know my own number….
Once upon a time, Steve Jobs said that Apple didn’t want to get into touchscreen desktop computing because it was unnatural to use a vertical touchscreen for extended periods of time, and that it ultimately led to fatigue. Of course, Steve typically knows his interaction design well enough that you don’t mess with him when he makes such a proclamation – and if you’ve ever used a vertical touchscreen yourself, it isn’t long before you realize he’s right. Vertical touchscreens suck. Enter HP, who have clearly taken Steve’s words to heart and unveiled a new line of PCs that needn’t give you Carpal Tunnel…
The Woz has let fly a rumour that the iPhone 4′s delay is, in fact, due to the paint, of all things. During an appearance on The Engadget Show Live! last night, Woz explained that the painting process being used was allowing light to leak in and cause issues with camera performance. But those of you still clinging to your small shred of hope can breathe easy – the device still seems to be on course for its ‘spring’ release date, as a new painting process developed by a small Japanese company has squashed the problem. As light leaks are largely responsible for some of the most hipster photographs on the internet,…
If you want to get your nerd on, you already know that all it takes is a silly 3D TV and a pair of those freakishly unstylish and expensive 3D glasses. At over $100 a pop for those 3D glasses, you would think you’d get something that might be acceptable to wear outside of a pitch-black room: nope. Not yet, anyways; however, some of the biggest names in fashion have different plans. Gucci, Armani, Nautica, Calvin Klein already have their name stamped deep within the fashion industry, but they are about to rock the world of three dimensions with new, stylish 3D glasses. They are utilizing new technology…
There’s really no reason to get up in arms every time an Apple patent is dissected, but this is particularly interesting – especially if you’re a die-hard fan of a good, sturdy mouse. In other words: if you hated the Magic Trackpad, you’re really gonna hate this. Apple is apparently looking into yet more options to kill the world’s favourite rodent-inspired electronic peripheral, and one of them is this hybrid motion-sensitive keyboard. Four sensors located around the keys track the motion of your right hand, which you wave around like a Mac magician, moving the cursor on-screen. Your left hand…
If you planned on making the iPad 2 your be-all, end-all imaging tool, it would appear you may be SOL. 9 to 5 Mac is reporting that the rear-facing camera on the back of the unit will be a paltry one-megapixel – which wouldn’t seem so bad until you remember the iPhone 4′s camera is five… and some older flip phones are two or three. But, if it makes you feel any better, the front-facing camera is VGA, so by comparison, 1-megapixel isn’t the worst. Just don’t throw out your digital camera just yet. This revelation is especially odd considering it was previously said that OmniVision technologies had been…
FireWire, the largely forgotten interface standard, has been alive and well. While most of us probably haven’t noticed, the 1394 Trade Association has announced that over two billion FireWire ports have shipped worldwide. That’s quite a feat, although FireWire still isn’t as fast as USB 3.0. “The two billion ports represents a significant new milestone for 1394,” said Max Bassler, chairman, 1394 Trade Association. “Just as impressive is the innovative and creative application of FireWire in new generations of advanced industrial automation, vision systems, and production equipment….
The scene was one familiar to many tech geeks. It was after the launch of Netflix’s PS3 app, and I, breathlessly, excitedly, couldn’t wait to show my parents, who had a PS3 under their TV too. “Look!”, I said “you can watch an unlimited number of movies! There are new ones and classics and documentaries… trust me, you’ll love this.” My father’s brown furrowed a little. “Okay,” he said skeptically. “What do I have to do?” “Oh, it’s easy, I said. First, switch the input on the TV. Then pick up this remote and – well, you see that button with ‘P’ on it, press that. Okay, then see that circle pad? Use that to…
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is going to bring along a new wave of consumer HDTVs that feature what is being called ultra wide-screen displays with 21:9 aspect ratios. What does this mean? It means you’re going to be seeing a whole lot more than you ever have before on your television. But will anyone be able to afford it? Vizio will be the first company to bring ultra wide-screen televisions (called “Cinema HDTVs”) to the U.S., and while the pricing and availability is still relatively unknown, the prospects are quite high. This is yet another huge development in HDTV technology…
The reviews of Google’s Chrome OS have thus far been lukewarm at best, and tepid at worst – suffice it to say, no one really has strong feelings one way or the other. It’s doubtlessly cool, but most seem to agree that the majority of the public just isn’t ready to switch to computing on a cloud just yet. So now you’re sitting there with your CR-48, unsure of what to do. Why not install another operating system? Users at the Something Awful forums have figured it out, installing Windows 7 and OS X with little ease – assuming of course that you file removing the CR-48′s finicky bottom panel in order to properly…
The past year in technology was among the more surprising ones we’ve had. Even the most astute, insightful tech observers would have had trouble predicting some of the things that happened this year. The iPad and Kinect have become the fastest selling electronic devices in history. Android exploded at a rate few could have seen coming. Facebook and Twitter kept up their blistering expansion rates, while Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7… is actually good. But what about this coming year? What events and happenings will not only define 2011, but also cause tech-heads to look back in a year from now…
It’s a thing that the imagination can hardly conceive and the most avid gamer could only wish for. Intel has brought us a step closer to having the unicorn-like 1,000-core processor with a “proof of concept” that can perform nearly 20X faster than “modern computers.” A team of scientists lead by Dr. Wim Vanderbauwhede have used Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) technology to create the processor. Intel has been playing around with the super-processor concept for a few years now and shipped samples of its 48-core processor earlier this year. Intel’s Terascale Computing Research…
