Tech Today w/ Ken May

What’s got Bluetooth, big solar panels and an e-ink display? Not a heck of a lot of gadgets prior to today’s introduction of the Rukus portable sound system from Eton. The solar-power speaker system can stream music wirelessly from your Bluetooth devices, bumping it in style through two full-range speaker drivers. The system is powered by a solar panel (though you can also power it the old fashioned wired way, when the sun’s nowhere in sight), but don’t worry about reading the screen in the sunshine — the Rukus has an e-ink display, which also helps the thing conserve a fair amount of power. Eton also says that the player is “virtually indestructible,” a claim we’re sure some folks will want to put to the test when it drops in Q2 for $150.

Update: Check out our hands-on here!

Continue reading Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system thinks you should rock more in direct sunlight

Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system thinks you should rock more in direct sunlight originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rukus solar-powered Bluetooth sound system thinks you should rock more in direct sunlight

The iCade has come a long way from its humble beginnings as a ThinkGeek April Fool’s gag. After trading out a fictional 30-pin dock connector for a very real Bluetooth radio and well, actual existence, it even spawned a (notably competitive) copycat product. This week, ION is unveiling a pair of new iCade products at CES, streamlining the original nostalgic tablet dock, as well as expanding its tactile toggles to iPhone and iPod touch owners.

The iCade Core faithfully recreates the original rig’s control setup, Bluetooth connectivity, and passthrough charging cable, but kills the cabinet motif in favor of landscape support. Although there’s no word yet on pricing for slimmed down arcade dock, ION says it should launch sometime in 2012. The new iCade Mobile, on the other hand, is penned in for a Q2 launch; it’ll set you back $100 and score your iPod touch / iPhone four shoulder buttons, four face buttons and a classic D-Pad. The gamepad dock also swivels your device into landscape and portrait modes. Stay tuned for our hands on, or read on for the official PR.

Continue reading iCade cuts the fat for CES, introduces handheld brother

iCade cuts the fat for CES, introduces handheld brother originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iCade cuts the fat for CES, introduces handheld brother

Google Maps 6.0 brought a promise of indoor navigation back in November of last year, but outside of a few dozen airports, transit hubs and retail outlets, we had no idea where it was or wasn’t implemented. Turns out, Google (smartly) mapped out lots of Las Vegas before the annual Consumer Electronics Show, as many of our contemporaries have pointed out over at The Sands and Venetian. We also confirmed that indoor mapping worked here at CES Unveiled, and given the dearth of wireless connectivity inside most of Vegas’ frequented locales, it’s certainly a blessing that we’ll be taking advantage of.

Google Maps indoor navigation: yeah, it works at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Maps indoor navigation: yeah, it works at CES

OLPC announced the XO 3.0 tablet yesterday, and today we had a chance to sit down with the company’s CTO, Ed McNierney and Marvell’s Chief Marketing Officer Tom Hayes, who gave us a tour of the new tablet. The XO 3.0 is powered by Marvell Armada PXA618 silicon, which lowers the power requirements of the tablet to a scant 2 watts. That chip, along with the custom charging circuitry developed by OLPC and Marvell means that the tablet can be charged by a hand crank at a 10:1 ratio (10 minutes of usage time for every minute spent cranking), or by the optional four watt solar panel cover at a 2:1 ratio on sunny days. Like other OLPC devices, the XO 3.0 is customizable to customer needs — so you can get the CPU clocked at 800Mhz or 1GHz, a 1500 – 1800 mAh battery, and your choice of a Pixel Qi or standard LCD display. The slate comes with 512MB of RAM, 4GB of NAND storage, USB and USB On-The-Go ports, plus the standard OLPC power and sensor input ports as well.

When we inquired about what was so appealing about the tablet form factor, McNierney’s answer was simple: tablets have a lower cost and lower power requirements. That makes it easier to get the XO 3.0 in the hands of those in need around the world. To get the device to meet their goals, development took two years as the company played with multiple designs. Initially, the idea was to use plastic flexible displays (as evidenced by previous XO 3.0 renders), but degradation caused by the sun’s UV rays and plastic’s easily scratched surface forced the company to switch gears and use glass instead. Currently, the company hasn’t decided which glass it’ll use (Gorilla Glass 2, anyone?), but assured us that it’ll be a robust material. The final hardware won’t be finalized until the orders start rolling in, and the goal is for the XO 3.0 to hit a $100 price point, but mileage will vary depending upon configuration and the volume of orders. Want to know more? Check out the gallery below and our video interview with Tom and Ed after the break will be up shortly.

Continue reading OLPC’s XO 3.0 tablet hands-on (video)

OLPC’s XO 3.0 tablet hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OLPC’s XO 3.0 tablet hands-on (video)

Not surprisingly, Acer’s jumping on the quickly-expanding Ultrabook bandwagon here at CES 2012, with the Aspire S5 being the first out of the chute. It’s a 13.3-incher that’ll check it at under three pounds, offering up Instant On functionality, a magnesium-aluminum alloy cover (in Onyx Black), HDMI / USB 3.0 / Thunderbolt (!) ports and an SSD for good measure. We’re told that it’ll start shipping in Q2 of this year, but other details remain under wraps.

Continue reading Acer announces ‘world’s thinnest’ 13.3-inch Aspire S5 Ultrabook at CES 2012 (update: pictures)

Acer announces ‘world’s thinnest’ 13.3-inch Aspire S5 Ultrabook at CES 2012 (update: pictures) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 15:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer announces ‘world’s thinnest’ 13.3-inch Aspire S5 Ultrabook at CES 2012 (update: pictures)

Touchable is a stretch when talking about Vermeer, but we’d definitely call it interactive. Instead of hiding the 360-degree display under an acrylic or glass dome it uses a parabolic reflector to float a 3D “object” in space and tracks hand motions with an IR sensor or Kinect. It’s not unlike RePro3D, but with slightly less bulky hardware. Don’t take our word for it though, check out the video after the break.

Continue reading Microsoft working on Vermeer, a ‘touchable’ 360-degree holographic display (video)

Microsoft working on Vermeer, a ‘touchable’ 360-degree holographic display (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 04:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft working on Vermeer, a ‘touchable’ 360-degree holographic display (video)

YouTube’s come quite a long way from its roots as a repository for random videos from the public. It’s gone from “Chocolate Rain” and the Tron guy to streaming Disney classics and now creating original, quality content. The New Yorker spoke extensively with YouTube’s Global Head of Content Robert Kyncl about the site’s future plans, and YouTube’s got its sights set on grabbing a big slice of TV’s $300 billion pie. Kyncl thinks the future of TV is in niche content, and YouTube’s original channels are just the vehicle to deliver it direct to your digital door. The site is commissioning people and companies to create the channels (as opposed to individual shows or pieces of content) which gives the creators freedom to program their channels as they see fit — all YouTube asks is that they provide a certain number of hours of programming per week. This production model is apparently pretty attractive to content producers, given the talent that’s on board and the amount of content that’ll be rolling out over the next six months.

The idea is that all the original content will get people watching YouTube for longer periods of time, and in turn grant more opportunities to reap ad revenue. Of course, these specialized channels don’t provide the wide advertising reach of traditional television, but they do allow advertisers to target very specific audiences with focused ads. That presumably provides them with better bang for their buck. Time will tell if YouTube’s new plan will win the war against traditional television and web TV (including Kyncl’s former employer Netflix), but free, quality on-demand content certainly sounds good to us. Get a fuller accounting of Kyncl’s vision at the source below, and feel free to sound off in the comments if you’re picking up what he’s putting down.

YouTube’s got big plans for web TV: specialized channels with niche and original content originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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YouTube’s got big plans for web TV: specialized channels with niche and original content

2011’s come and gone, but Nielsen’s media report on the year remains. The latest figures from the year that was have been published, and conventional television is still riding a wave of popularity. We’re told that 290 million Statesiders are still ogling at least one television, with around one in three American homes (35.9 million for the mathematicians) owning four or more of the things. Across the wire, some 211 million Americans are online, with a staggering 116 million aged 13 and up accessing the mobile web. Other figures include 253 million DVD players owned, 162 million game consoles, 129 million DVRs and 95 million satellite subscribers. There’s also some 111 million people watching timeshifted programming, and Netflix itself has four times the average viewing time per person, per month compared to the boob tube. Concerned about mobile? Android’s US market share (again, according to Nielsen) is pegged at 43 percent, while the iPhone has 28 percent and RIM’s BlackBerry OS claims 18 percent. Hit up the links below for more charts, numbers and things that your grandmother couldn’t possibly care less about.

Nielsen’s 2011 media usage report: conventional TV still rules, but online viewing is skyrocketing originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nielsen’s 2011 media usage report: conventional TV still rules, but online viewing is skyrocketing

Direct sunlight and Amazon’s Kindle have always gone hand in hand — you simply can’t read E-Ink without a strong light source. So, it would make sense to pair that lighting requirement with a solar panel, pack it into a convenient case, toss in a reading lamp and give readers the gift of effortlessly extended battery life — which is exactly what SolarFocus intends to do. Scheduled to be shown off at this week’s CES, the company’s SolarKindle adds three months of unplugged use, in addition to five hours for its included LED lamp. And unlike most innovations that take their sweet time getting to market, this cover’s slated for a January 15th bow, priced at $80. Take that paperbacks.

Continue reading SolarKindle cover basks in the sun’s rays, charges for days and days

SolarKindle cover basks in the sun’s rays, charges for days and days originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SolarKindle cover basks in the sun’s rays, charges for days and days

You might think they only make knives, but Victorinox also makes some of the best flash drives on the market (they’re certainly my favorite.) They’re well-built, extremely fast, and in a few days might be available in one terabyte capacities. More »

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Victorinox’s 1TB Flash Drive Makes It Easy To Lose a Thousand Gigabytes [Storage]