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Posts Tagged ‘Fingers’

Leaked Dell Streak flyer shows multitude of color options, confirmed specifications

There’s no denying that the Mini 5 is real, but up until now, we’ve had to provide all of our own promotional material. At long last, it seems as if the suits in Round Rock are finally getting around to crafting the first advertisements for the upcoming slate, and while we knew about the 5-inch WVGA (800 x 480) touchscreen, 5 megapixel camera with autofocus and flash, capacitive touch front buttons, front-facing VGA camera (for video chatting) and the 30-pin docking connector, we weren’t aware of Dell’s plans to reveal a slew of vivacious color options. If this here flyer proves legitimate, we could eventually see the Mini 5 available in an array of premium finishes and hues (thanks, Design Studio!), and we’re hoping for a few different spec builds as well. So, are you opting for the pink, or are you crossing your fingers in hopes that Dell allows you to print that embarrassing shot of you and Mr. T on the rear of one?

Update: Oh, snap! We just landed a few more official slides from an internal Dell document, and it’s safe to say that the company is going to call this beauty the Streak. Or, at least that’s the internal codename. Better still, it looks as if it’ll launch with an Amazon content partnership, which will bring a Kindle e-book reader app, Amazon MP3, Amazon video streams and pretty much any other material that Amazon sells in digital form right to the slate. C’mon now — how’s about a ship date and a price?

Leaked Dell Streak flyer shows multitude of color options, confirmed specifications originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T announces slew of network investments for 2010
AT&T’s preaching about the mucho dinero it’s dropping into renovating its network to pretty much anyone who’ll listen these days, and a veritable cornucopia of press releases this week start to go into detail on some of the upgrades we’ll be seeing over the course of 2010. We’re counting at least a dozen here, covering everything from New York City to Florida to Oklahoma, but the message is basically the same in every one: more cell sites, more 3G coverage, more backhaul. AT&T liberally pimps its nine-figure investments in most states over the past several years, too — but of course, phones need spectrum to communicate, not blank checks and promises. Let’s see how we finish the year after those iPads, next-gen iPhones, and AT&T-compatible Nexus Ones (our fingers are crossed) have had a chance to slam the airwaves for a bit, shall we?

AT&T announces slew of network investments for 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 11:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Skinput: because touchscreens never felt right anyway (video)

Microsoft looks to be on a bit of a hot streak with innovations lately, and though this here project hasn’t received much hype (yet), we’d say it’s one of the most ingenious user interface concepts we’ve come across. Skinput is based on an armband straddling the wearer’s biceps and detecting the small vibrations generated when the user taps the skin of his arm. Due to different bone densities, tissue mass and muscle size, unique acoustic signatures can be identified for particular parts of the arm or hand (including fingers), allowing people to literally control their gear by touching themselves. The added pico projector is there just for convenience, and we can totally see ourselves using this by simply memorizing the five input points (current maximum, 95.5 percent accuracy), particularly since the band works even if you’re running. Make your way past the break to see Tetris played in a whole new way.

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Skinput: because touchscreens never felt right anyway (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Frozen sausage as iPhone stylus

Filed under: Accessories, Hardware, Humor, Odds and ends, iPhone

Using an iPhone in the cold presents a quandry. You don’t want to freeze your fingers, but gloves make the touchscreen difficult to use. Unless you’ve got Dots Gloves.

Or sausages.

In South Korea, CJ Corporation noticed a sharp increase in sales of their frozen sausages. Not because they’re especially tasty, because cold commuters have discovered that they make an effective iPod stylus. It seems that they’re electrostatically compatible with the iPod’s touch screen, and nearly as effective as using a human finger.

Here’s a Google-translated story on the phenomenon from a Korean newspaper (the translation into English is quite poor, but you’ll get the idea).

I don’t know about you, but i’ll be buying a box of Jimmy Deans this weekend.

[Via Daring Fireball]

TUAWFrozen sausage as iPhone stylus originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Displax plastic film can turn any surface into a touchscreen

Displax is revealing a new plastic film with multitouch sensing. It can be placed over any display or even non-display surfaces, making them into interactive devices.

Portugal-based Displax calls this a “multitouch skin” which can be thinner than paper. The company has been working on it for the past decade and plans to launch commercial products in July.

If it works as billed, it could become an easy way to retrofit passive surfaces — glass, plastic or wood — so that they become interactive. All it takes is glue the plastic onto the surface — flat or curved — and then use the inputs from touch sensing to control functions on a computer attached to the screen. The surfaces range from 7 inches to nine feet, diagonally. The plastic film is about 100 microns, or the width of a human hair.

It works like this. Displax places a grid of nanowires that can detect the presence of up to 16 fingers (on a 50-inch screen) at any given time (that number will go up over time). When you press your finger on the grid, which is embedded in plastic, the wires send a signal showing the exact location of your finger to a controller, which can then pass the data to a computer. The plastic film can be applied to a liquid crystal display, even after the display is built. Currently, capacitive multitouch sensors have to be built into the TV’s glass during the manufacturing process. The screens can even detect if someone blows on a surface.

The uses for the multitouch skins could be myriad. You can put one over a flat-panel display in a museum to turn it into a multitouch kiosk. And since it can detect up to 16 fingers, more than one person can interact with the screen at any given time. The controller works with standard universal serial bus cables and ports.

“This opens up new possibilities for applications of multitouch technology,” said Miguel Fonseca, chief business
officer of Displax, in an interview.

Among the ideas are museum kiosks, multitouch flat-panel TVs, multitouch tables, and even interactive glass windows for storefronts. You could wrap it around a globe and then point at certain countries to trigger a video or audio explanation of the region. There are also expected applications in gaming. Fonseca said there are a number of pilot projects using the technology in Europe. Industries that could use it include telecom, retail, real estate, broadcast, pharmaceutics, finance and games.

The company works with partners who can make applications that take advantage of the technology. It provides the software drivers that make the hardware work with Windows, Linux and Mac OS computers. Displax will include several business applications with its products at no cost. Those apps will let customers display photos and video, access Google Maps and social networks, and play games.

The project started as a research idea in 2000. The company started to work on a business plan in 2004 and has been working on its current products since 2004 as a division of the EDIGMA Group. The company has 52 employees.

Partners on pilot projects include Accenture and IBM. Pricing hasn’t been set yet. Investors include InovCapital, the Society of Risk Capital of reference of the Portuguese Ministry of Economy and Innovation. The company hasn’t disclosed how much money it has raised. Rivals include Microsoft and 3M.

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Apple wins two new patents including tablet proximity detector

Filed under: Hardware, Software, Odds and ends, Apple

Expectations and excitement are at a fever pitch for the hoped-for tablet announcement, but that hasn’t stopped Apple’s lawyers from earning their keep. Just in the past few days, they’ve nailed down two more patents, one of which has to do with tablet-style technology. That’s a “proximity detector,” which is supposed to track when an object is near but not touching a tablet’s screen. Unfortunately, the legalese is a little shadowy, so I’m not quite sure what a setup would be used for, but it appears that they’re talking about controlling something on screen when you move your fingers close to it — i.e., a keyboard that pops up when you are about to put your hands on the tablet itself. I’m sure there are other uses for that as well, though, and of course just because Apple is pursuing a patent doesn’t mean we’ll see that technology in the announcement.

The other patent has to do with video conferencing, and automatically determining bandwidth available in a connection and then making adjustments based on the range of that bandwidth. That simply sounds like a more reliable way of adjusting video quality in an application like iChat, and again, just because Apple has applied for a patent doesn’t mean we’ll see it running in the next version or at all. But even so soon before a big announcement like this one, we’re still seeing Apple go after some of their more original ideas.

TUAWApple wins two new patents including tablet proximity detector originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 26 Jan 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Reminder: nominate your favorite gadgets in the 2009 Engadget Awards!

We know it’s a really busy week, but we wanted to take a moment and remind all of you that there’s still time left to nominate your favorite gadgets of last year for the 2009 Engadget Awards!

For your voting (and nominating) pleasure, we present the sixth annual Engadget Awards! The premise is simple: 2009 may have slipped through our fingers, but all the memories of gadgets-past are still with us (some in a more favorable light than others). Here’s your chance to sound off on what you loved in 2009, and tell us what you’re psyched about for 2010.

This year we’ve got 24 categories up for grabs, with 48 total awards to be decided. All finalists for Engadget Awards are reader-nominated, and the editors of Engadget will then select the best of those nominations (usually somewhere between 4-6 devices or technologies) as finalists.

There are two awards per category, Reader’s Choice (voted on by you!), and Editors’ Choice (selected by us). The vote will take place in a few weeks once the nominees are picked, and winners will be announced shortly thereafter.

You can find all the info and nominees on a landing page we’ve built this year which should make it easier to get all your selections in (and vote once we’ve picked the finalists). Just click right here.

You’ve got until 11:59PM ET on Wednesday, January 27th, 2010 to get your entries in. Now, go nominate, or use the handy list after the break!

Continue reading Reminder: nominate your favorite gadgets in the 2009 Engadget Awards!

Filed under: Announcements

Reminder: nominate your favorite gadgets in the 2009 Engadget Awards! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Indie studio reveals cancelled, finger-powered Natal game

Many developers have been hard at work cooking up ideas for Microsoft’s ambitious Project Natal ever since the peripheral was announced at last year’s E3. But aside from Lionhead Studios’ Milo & Kate, we’ve seen very little of what we can expect when Natal gets released later this year. Now we have some details on an already canceled project by indie studio Arkedo.

The developer has posted some concept screenshots and parts of the game’s design document online, revealing what could have been a very interesting title. Called 2 Finger Heroes, the game was to be a traditional side-scrolling beat ‘em up, albeit with a unique control scheme. Characters would be controlled by moving your fingers, while special moves could be done by incorporating your whole hand. The environment could even be affected by moving your arms folded at your chest.

The design doc was created in 12 days, and was an attempt by Arkedo to prove it could make high-def games. The studio has already released a pair of DS titles as well as several Xbox Live Indie Games.

“So Natal had a great user interface, and we tried to play with concepts which were not possible before,” one of the developers wrote in a forum post. “Something that would not feel old, hopefully. And most important, something we would have fun making.”

The result was 2 Finger Heroes, which Arkedo describes like this: “a silly tale of friendly invaders who did not have enough time to scan the entire human body! So they are left on Earth as merely fingers (yup, scan was 3 percent complete), but with the WILL TO LIVE AND FIGHT THEIR NEMESIS, THE GIANT FOOT FROM OUTERSPACE!”

One of the more interesting aspects of this story is that it brings to light some of the drawbacks of Project Natal, something that hasn’t really been discussed before. While the gesture-based controls were interesting, they also provided some unique challenges.

“One of the design flaws of this, apart from the fact that it demanded some very precise pattern recognition from the Natal system, is that it would have been HELL to localize,” the developer wrote. “Yup, what can be understood as the victory sign in France, could be a terrible insult in the UK, for instance. And we are not even talking about Italian. Oh, the possibilities…”

While it’s disappointing that 2 Finger Heroes may never see a release, this at least gives us an example of the type of experiences that developers are thinking about. Hopefully we’ll get to see more of the actual software that will be available over the next few months leading up to the project’s release.

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