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Monday, May 02, 2011

Gaming gets immersive thanks to union of pico projector and eye tracking camera (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/gaming-gets-immersive-thanks-to-union-of-pico-projector-and-eye/

Although in the earliest stages of development, this virtual reality gaming rig already looks pretty intriguing. Engineered by clever kids at the University of Texas at Austin, it hot-wires an eye tracking camera to a motorised pico projector with the result that the player literally can't take their eyes off the screen. Wherever they look, that is where their view of the gaming world is projected. The rig makes most sense in a first-person shooter, although the students have also tried it in a flight simulator where the player uses their head to roll and pitch the aircraft. Yes, it looks rather similar to the Microvision PicoP laser projection gun we wielded at CES, but there's a key difference: the player does not need to hold anything or have anything attached to their body. This unencumbered Kinect-esque approach could potentially allow a greater sense of freedom -- except that, for it to work, the player is forced to sit directly in front of the eye tracker. Find a way to fix this, dear Longhorns, and you could be onto something. Video after the break.

Continue reading Gaming gets immersive thanks to union of pico projector and eye tracking camera (video)

Gaming gets immersive thanks to union of pico projector and eye tracking camera (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 09:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Compulab's Trim Slice on sale, for power users only

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/compulabs-trim-slice-on-sale-for-power-users-only/

Remember the Trim Slice, that Tegra 2-powered nettop that surfaced back in January? Well, it's finally on sale, but the company would prefer that casual consumers hold off on buying. To recap, the chassis, just six tenths of an inch thick, is home to a dual-core ARM Cortex A9 CPU, GeForce ULP chip, SATA SSD, 1GB of RAM, 802.11n WiFI, Bluetooth, and a cornucopia of I/O ports. It starts at $199 for a model that lacks internal WiFi and storage (you can add these via dongles), and graduates to models with 4GB of microSD storage and a WiFi dongle ($219) and a "Pro" version with a 32GB SSD and wireless and Bluetooth dongles ($319). Whichever iteration you choose, though, you'll be greeted by a warning that the software remains a work in progress, so you'll probably want to stay away for now. Unless, of course, you're a developer -- or you really know how to have a good time.

Continue reading Compulab's Trim Slice on sale, for power users only

Compulab's Trim Slice on sale, for power users only originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 11:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series now available for $649 Amazon pre-order

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/samsung-sliding-pc-7-series-now-available-for-649-amazon-pre-or/

Samsung has yet to announce a revised release date for its Sliding PC 7 Series tablet / laptop hybrid, but the 2.2-pound netvertible slider is already available for pre-order on Amazon. According to Amazon's listing, the 7 Series should ship with many of the same specs we noticed at this year's CES: a 10-inch touchscreen with 1366 x 768-resolution, dual front and rear cameras (1.3 and 3.0 megapixels, respectively), a 32GB SSD, 2GB of RAM and, of course, Intel's 1.5GHz Atom Oak Trail Z670 processor, which was originally scheduled to launch in March, before being pushed back to May. The slider will also run on Windows 7 Home Premium, and come equipped with 802.11b/g/n WiFi. When it debuted earlier this year, the Series 7 boasted optional 3G and WiMax features, as well as a six-cell battery that claimed to last up to nine hours on a single charge. Amazon doesn't mention either of these specs in its listing, but everything else checks out with what we've already heard. And, at $649, it's even a little cheaper than we expected.

Samsung Sliding PC 7 Series now available for $649 Amazon pre-order originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qualcomm shows off MSM8660's slick video performance on development kit (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/02/qualcomm-shows-off-msm8660s-slick-video-performance-on-developm/

If you've been closely tracking the development of Qualcomm's 1.5GHz dual-core MSM8660, you would've already seen AnandTech's impressive set of benchmark results back in early April. But of course, it'd be more convincing to actually see this chipset in action, so Qualcomm's latest videos of its Mobile Development Platform should satisfy your curiosity. As demoed after the break, this Snapdragon's Adreno 220 is seen effortlessly handling in-page HTML5 video streaming, Flash video streaming, and 1080p playback. And as a sideshow, Qualcomm even put its current-gen single-core QSD8255 head-to-head with a rival dual-core chipset -- no doubt a Tegra 2 in an LG Optimus 2x -- and easily won the Flash video contest. All of this might lure you into getting the MDP as your next everyday phone, but here's the bad news: this professional kit will cost you a dear $1,350. So unless you're feeling very generous, you'd probably want to wait for the consumer devices to arrive in the summer -- think EVO 3D, Sensation (with GSM-flavored MSM8260, naturally), Flyer, and TouchPad.

Continue reading Qualcomm shows off MSM8660's slick video performance on development kit (video)

Qualcomm shows off MSM8660's slick video performance on development kit (video) ori! ginally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 May 2011 04:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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