Tag: the-end

Insert Coin semifinalist: Moedls brings 3D scanning to your phone

3D scanners are kinda old hat at this point. But, while we’ve seen more than our fair share of Kinect hacks, we haven’t come across too many phone-based systems. Moedls actually puts the power to create models like the one above in the palm of your hand… sort of. The heart of the system is either an iOS or Android app (sorry MeeGo fans), but there are actual lasers with a custom enclosure as part of the platform. Clearly, that does somewhat restrict portability, but it should all fit into a 10-inch x 10-inch x 4-inch box for storage or transportation. Creator John Fehr started the project as a way to save some of his daughter’s sculptures in digital form. After trying many different component options, Fehr settled on a combination of parts that totaled around $300. That included a custom enclosure and variable speed rotating platform have been sourced. Right now the iOS app is awaiting approval from Apple and the Google-fied equivalent is currently in development. Combine this with a 3D printer (we hear you’ve got quite a few choices at this point) and the world becomes your playground. You can see an example of what Moedls is capable of, even at this early stage, at the source. Check out the full list of Insert Coin: New Challengers semifinalists here — and don’t forget to pick a winner ! Filed under: Misc Comments Source: Moedls

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Insert Coin semifinalist: Moedls brings 3D scanning to your phone

Google announces Chromebook Pixel: 1.8GHz Core i5, 2,560 x 1,700 touchscreen, with LTE option; pre-order now, ships in April

Only yesterday we were being teased with the idea of a touchscreen Chromebook . Well, good news for people who hate waiting — it’s here, it’s called the Pixel, and you can pre-order today. The all-Google laptop is aimed at those who live in the cloud, but want a little more from their machine. Built from the ground up for the web, the 12.85-inch 3:2 ratio display claims to offer 18 percent more vertical space than 16:9 does. The screen the Pixel has is — as you can imagine — one of its proudest features, sporting a 2,560 x 1,700 resolution, giving a PPI of 239, and offers a brightness of 400nit. Oh, and of course, it’s touch-enabled so whatever your input preference, you’re covered. On the inside, there’s a dual-core 1.8Ghz Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and two SSD options — 32GB or 64GB. If that’s not enough, Google’s ahead of you, and is throwing in 1TB of Drive storage with every Pixel for three years — what it expects the life of the machine to be. You won’t be basing your choice just on storage though, as the smaller capacity model is WiFi only, while the 64GB comes with Verizon LTE baked right in, and a choice of plans. As for the rest of the features, the Pixel also has a triple-microphone configuration — with one under the keyboard — which helps improve noise cancellation, including the rattle of your typing during excited hangouts. This is also where the speakers are hidden, so it will be interesting to see how those play nice together. Other features include an “HD” camera, a custom keyboard action for less finger-fatigue, and an enhanced smooth glass trackpad. As for ins and outs, there are two USB ports, a mini displayport, a mic / headphone jack and an SD card reader — notably, no Ethernet. Wirelessly, you have WiFi a thru n and Bluetooth (plus that LTE if you opt in). Wondering what effect that display might have on the (59Wh) battery? Well Google claims its open-source test (available for criticism online) has rated the Pixel at five hours. If you want to get yourself some touchscreen Pixel action, you can order starting today from the Play store, or Best Buy starting tomorrow. The WiFi-only model will cost you $1,299, rising to $1,449 if you want some LTE (currently US / Verizon only). Not enough info for you right there? Why not head over to our minty-fresh hands-on . Filed under: Laptops , Google Comments

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Google announces Chromebook Pixel: 1.8GHz Core i5, 2,560 x 1,700 touchscreen, with LTE option; pre-order now, ships in April

MIT imaging chip creates natural-looking flash photos

Mobile image processing in itself isn’t special when even high dynamic range shooting is virtually instant, at least with NVIDIA’s new Tegras . A new low-power MIT chip, however, may prove its worth by being a jack of all trades that works faster than software. It can apply HDR to photos and videos through near-immediate exposure bracketing, but it can also produce natural-looking flash images by combining the lit photo with an unassisted shot to fill in missing detail. Researchers further claim to have automatic noise reduction that safeguards detail through bilateral filtering, an established technique that uses brightness detection to avoid blurring edges. If you’re wondering whether or not MIT’s work will venture beyond the labs, don’t — the project was financed by contract manufacturing giant Foxconn , and it’s already catching the eye of Microsoft Research . As long as Foxconn maintains interest through to production, pristine mobile photography won’t be limited to a handful of devices. Filed under: Cameras , Science , Alt Comments Source: MIT

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MIT imaging chip creates natural-looking flash photos

PlayStation 4 games revealed: a preview of what’s to come

As with any gaming console, good hardware only tells half of the story. Today, Sony announced a stable of games that’ll play a large role in determining the early success of the PlayStation 4 , which is set for availability this holiday season. Leading the charge will be biggies such as Killzone Shadow Fall , Bungie’s next first-person shooter known as Destiny , Diablo III and a new installment of Final Fantasy . These games will be joined by creative efforts such as Knack , a game directed by the PlayStation 4’s lead architect, Mark Cerny, Watch Dogs from Ubisoft, and Driveclub , which aims to bring team-based racing to new levels. PS4 owners can also expect exclusives such as InFamous: Second Son and The Witness . Rounding out the list — for now, anyway — is a game from Capcom with the working title of Deep Down , along with an unnamed entry from Media Molecule. While it’s clear that Sony and the development community have a number of surprises that’ve yet to be revealed, you’re invited to check out a preview of what’s to come in the following gallery. Gallery: PS4 Titles Filed under: Gaming , Sony Comments

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PlayStation 4 games revealed: a preview of what’s to come

PlayStation 4 will not have native PS3 backwards compatibility

During today’s PlayStation event Gaikai ‘s Dave Perry revealed that the PS4 will not natively support PS3 games and that Sony’s next-gen console will instead stream PS1, PS2 and PS3 games from the cloud — something that the company has already confirmed on Twitter. Check out our liveblog of Sony’s event to get the latest news as it happens. Filed under: Gaming , Sony Comments Source: Sony (Twitter)

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PlayStation 4 will not have native PS3 backwards compatibility

CNN finally adds live TV streaming access to its Android phone app

While some of us try to avoid mainstream media and the accompanying Things You Should Be Afraid Of Today reporting, sometimes we need a place to go for 24/7 coverage of a disabled cruise ship, and CNN is always there. Now it’s there on Android too, after launching live streaming of both CNN and HLN on iOS back in 2011 a new update for its Android phone app has brought the feature (and the classic “This is CNN” greeting by James Earl Jones) to the platform. You’ll still need to be a subscriber to a participating cable TV service to actually watch the feed, but getting your dose of Anderson Cooper on the go is as simple as inputting your account details, and then you’re set. Feature parity — who doesn’t love it? (Android tablet owners, Windows 8 users, Symbian…) Filed under: Cellphones , Home Entertainment , HD , Mobile Comments Source: Google Play

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CNN finally adds live TV streaming access to its Android phone app

Apple pushes iOS 6.1.2 with Exchange bug fix

Apple said it was working on a solution for the Exchange bug in iOS 6.1, and that’s what it delivered: iOS 6.1.2 has appeared for all devices to address the calendar flaw. The release is targeted and doesn’t appear to fix much if anything else, but we’ll keep our ears to the ground for more. For now, check for an update in iTunes or on-device to cure at least some of your iOS gear’s recent battery woes. Filed under: Cellphones , Portable Audio/Video , Tablets , Mobile , Apple Comments Source: Apple

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Apple pushes iOS 6.1.2 with Exchange bug fix

NVIDIA unveils the GTX Titan, an enormous graphics card that costs $1,000 (eyes-on)

NVIDIA’s GTX Titan is rumor no more , as the American computer hardware company unveiled the superpowerful graphics card this morning. With 2,688 CUDA cores, 6GB of GDDR5 RAM, and 7.1 billion transistors packed into the 10.5-inch frame, Titan’s capable of pushing 4,500 Gigaflops of raw power — NVIDIA’s pitching Titan as the means to “power the world’s first gaming supercomputers.” The company even showed off the Titan in its mightiest form, bootstrapped to two others running together (three-way SLI), which powers graphics showcase Crysis 3 running at its highest settings: a whopping 5760×1080 resolution across three monitors. Of course, a setup like that would cost you quite a pretty penny; just one GTX Titan costs $1,000, not to mention three (nor all the other hardware required to support it). Should you prefer your gaming PCs to not be of the neon-lit, triple GPU, above-$10,000 variety, NVIDIA was also showing off the Titan in a Falcon Northwest boutique PC. The company’s working with a variety of boutique PC makers to incorporate the Titan (see: Maingear ), making NVIDIA’s top of the line a teensy bit more accessible to your average joe. GTX Titan is the new top of the line for NVIDIA, effectively pushing aside the GTX 690 and setting a new benchmark for performance. Of course, with a $1,000 price tag and freedom — nay, encouragement — to tweak its nitty gritty settings, the Titan isn’t really meant for your average anyone. The PC game-playing early adopters, however? Here’s your next GPU. Hopefully you’ve got a big, empty space in your rig, as you’ll need it. The GTX Titan arrives on February 25th for $999. Gallery: NVIDIA GTX Titan Filed under: Misc , Gaming , NVIDIA Comments

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NVIDIA unveils the GTX Titan, an enormous graphics card that costs $1,000 (eyes-on)

Outlook.com exits preview with 60 million active users, Hotmail UI to be retired this summer

It’s been so long since Microsoft launched Outlook.com that we forgot it was technically in preview mode. Well, that ended today, at 12:01AM ET on the dot. The company just announced that the email service is no longer in beta, and that the site has racked up 60 million active users — over a third of them Gmail converts. If you decide to join today, you’ll be getting the same feature set announced last summer, just with a smoother, less glitchy experience (not that it was ever that buggy to begin with, if you ask us). To lure in even more users, Microsoft is planning on launching a massive advertising campaign, one that will include TV and radio spots (see one of them after the break), online ads and even posters in subway stations. Basically, the sort of heavy promotion Microsoft is already doing for Surface. Regardless of how much success Microsoft has in converting Gmail loyalists, though, a lot more people are about to become acquainted with Outlook’s clean UI: the company has said it plans to switch Hotmail users over to the Outlook interface by summertime. To be clear, Microsoft says it has no plans to shut down the hotmail.com domain, so your existing Hotmail email address is safe, and you don’t even have to register for an Outlook.com addy if you don’t want to. Additionally, all of your folders and settings will be preserved. It’s just that you’re soon going to have to say goodbye to the old Hotmail. Onward, we say. Filed under: Software , Microsoft Comments Source: Microsoft

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Outlook.com exits preview with 60 million active users, Hotmail UI to be retired this summer

LG Display invests $655 million to expand OLED HDTV mass production next year

Sure, LG’s current 55-inch OLED HDTV is pretty pricey with a US MSRP of $12K, but that may start to change next year when panel supplier LG Display kicks its new 8G production line into full gear. LG Electronics holds a 38 percent stake in the company and although it supplies screens to many others as well, the next generation of 55EM9700s will likely be a large segment of the displays produced. Although LCD manufacturers ramped up 8G facilities capable of producing six 55-inch displays from one piece of glass in the late 2000s, oversupply caused prices to drop and manufacturing to slow down, including at LG Display . Now, new display technology is ramping up investment again, which will see this new line installed at its P9 plant in Paju, South Korea at a cost of 706 billion won ($655 million). Based on LG’s WRGB OLED evaporation process, it should be capable of working with as many as 26,000 input sheets per month once it’s up to full speed in the first half of 2014. Chief competitor Samsung showed off “production” OLED HDTVs last year and plenty of demo units at CES with a mid-year release planned, we’ll see if it manages to keep up before / if the tech goes mainstream. Filed under: Displays , Home Entertainment , HD , LG Comments

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LG Display invests $655 million to expand OLED HDTV mass production next year