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Thursday, December 02, 2010

Strawberry-Pickin' Robot Only Picks the Red Berries [Video]

Yet another field of expertise has been wiped out by some steel pincers—strawberry-pickers. Japan's robot detects which berries are at least 80 per cent red, and picks them gently off the vine.

It's being trained to pick other forms of berries, but if the 'bot gets to the point where it can be released safely into the wilds of strawberry farms, it'll supposedly reduce harvest time by 40 per cent. That means fewer jobs for humans, and even more 'bots handling our sweet little bombs of juice. The future is definitely mechanical—and doomed. [DigInfo via Technabob]

Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S?

Curious timing, no? Just last month, Google's own Eric Schmidt revealed that the Nexus S (manufactured by none other than Samsung) would have "NFC features," and he even went on to proclaim that this kind of technology would eventually supplant the tried-and-true credit card. Today, Sammy itself has revealed a new near field communications (NFC) chip with embedded flash memory, and we're told that this guy remains active for mobile payment even without battery power. Of course, we're still waiting for a confirmed price and release date for the aforesaid smartphone, but could Samsung's NFC mass production date of Q1 2011 be the clue we've been yearning for? Fingers and toes crossed, okay everyone?

Continue reading Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S?

Samsung cooks up its own NFC module, destined for the Nexus S? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 13:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem

We've just gotten our hands on the less-insane version of Verizon's LTE modems, the LG VL600. The company timed the shipment of these puppies to coincide with today's announcement of the coming 4G onslaught, set to begin December 5th -- which based on what we've seen thus far is going to be beyond awesome. Unless you're on a Mac (more on that after the break).

In case you haven't seen the device in question, it's a rather large (we mean seriously large) USB dongle, which thankfully comes with a clip and extra cable. Like all LTE devices, it uses a SIM which will look familiar to those in GSM devices, but is -- again -- almost comically large.

Gallery: LG VL600 LTE modem

We haven't spent a load of time with the modem, but in the few short hours we've had to play with the device, the down- and upstream speeds we're getting are nothing short of phenomenal. In Brooklyn, which we're not even sure is really heavily covered by the LTE blanket (and was being battered by rain and wind at the time of testing), we saw consistent speeds which peaked at 7 Mbps down, and over 1 Mbps up. Overall, speeds held steady around 5 to 6 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. By comparison, we saw around 4 Mbps down and less than 1 Mbps up when we did some testing with Sprint's WiMAX Overdrive 4G, and roughly 6.5 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up with Clear's iSpot.

Overall, browsing on our computer felt nearly identical to our home broadband, and even HD video playback on YouTube was snappy and responsive over the network. And did we mention we were only getting two out of four bars on our connection?

Update: We've added a link to SlashGear's hands-on of the modem below. As you can see, speeds vary by area, and SG was pulling 12 Mbps downstream and more than 5 Mbps up -- impressively matching Verizon's claimed numbers.

Update 2: With a little more testing, we're seeing speeds closer to Verizon's estimates. We've added a second image after the break, and as you can see, we're nabbing over 10 Mbps downstream and nearly 4 Mbps up.

Continue reading Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem

Verizon LTE / 4G preview with the LG VL600 modem originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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aTV Flash (black) now in beta, ready to equip your new Apple TV with a browser

It's always a bit of a funny business paying for hacks, but Fire Core's aTV Flash is a serious product and we can't blame them for trying to make a buck off the back of it. Now the sequel, aTV Flash (black), is here in beta form, bringing a subset of the aTV Flash's functionality to the brand new Apple TV, which runs that fancy new iOS-based 4.0 software. Most importantly, Fire Core brings a HTML5-compatible browser, but the Last.fm app and Plex Client are welcome tag alongs. "Coming soon" features include expanded media format support and networked storage support. The pre-order beta price is $20, while the final hack will retail for $30. For existing users, (black) is a free upgrade.

[Thanks, Gustavo]

aTV Flash (black) now in beta, ready to equip your new Apple TV with a browser originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 18:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Mobility's mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones

Wonder why Motorola's set-top-box business got bundled in with the phones? If we had to guess, it's probably because Motorola Mobility is making a device that will wirelessly join both. Speaking at the Reuters Global Media Summit, company president Daniel Moloney said that Motorola's working on a standalone device that will wirelessly sling video to tablets and phones in the home, and will later be integrated directly into new set-top-boxes the company rolls out. "It's one consumer proposition that will come sooner rather than later," he told the crowd, suggesting that the device would be available through "service providers" rather than sold off the shelf, and that said providers might charge an additional service fee for its use. Here's hoping not. Perhaps Qualcomm finally found a buyer for that FLO TV spectrum, though?

Motorola Mobility's mystery gadget streams video to tablets and phones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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