Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Kinect Has Finally Found Its Way Into the Women's Change Room [Video]

Source: http://kotaku.com/5800705/kinect-has-finally-found-its-way-into-the-womens-change-room

European clothing giant TopShop ran a little test in a Moscow store recently: hook a Kinect camera up to a mirror and let the ladies try on clothes without having to actually try them on.

It sounds good in theory, and in some instances looks good in theory, but its practical use is limited somewhat by the fact they're at an actual store. With change rooms available, and the clothes actually in their hands. Why see a poorly-fitting virtual representation of an outfit when you can walk ten metres and see what it looks like in the flesh?

Still, it's a neat idea!

Link Chevron[via TDW]

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Google Music: An Island in the Cloud [Google]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5800597/google-music-an-island-in-the-cloud

Google Music: An Island in the CloudThe promise of Google Music is that it lets you listen to music anywhere. Aces! Except, for all the unifying promises of its online locker, Google Music does kinda the same thing as your hard drive: It isolates your songs.

It's basically the Skull Island of music services.

You know how it works: You take the music you already own and upload it to the Web where you can get at it from your phone or browser. Essentially, you're taking the island of music on your computer and dropping it in the cloud.

But it's still an island. It's still a self-contained unit. You have to manage it yourself. It won't grow unless you manually add tracks to it. There's no serendipitous discovery. No social component. No Pandora or Last.fm-style suggestions that drop tracks you've never heard before, but already love. Google isn't offering you a vast, new catalog. It's just offering to hold your shit for you.

You know what would have been a really exciting announcement? If Google announced that it was finally commoditizing music. That—not some online tune ghetto—is the next step for music services. That's the leap we need to make.

Consider NavTeq. Garmin, Magellan , Yahoo Maps, Mapquest, Lowrence, and even XM Radio all rely on the same NavTeq data set. Garmin and Magellan can set themselves apart with pricing, features and form factors, even though both use the same basic commodity to deliver what users ultimately want.

At some point in the future music services—like Rdio and Spotify and likely iTunes and God help me even fucking Rhapsody—will likely be completely commoditized. They'll all have the same catalogue, but will differentiate themselves by their discovery, sharing, interface and delivery features.

I don't want another place to simply store songs. I don't want to be isolated. I want to connect with new albums and people and artists. I don't want to just move from one island to another. I'm ready to be rescued.

*Assuming your library fits in Google or Amazon's locker. If it's too big, you're still going to have to keep some of it on that island in your desktop.

Image: Shutterstock

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The First Android Tablet Built for Humans [Tablets]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5800628/the-first-amazing-android-tablet

The First Android Tablet Built for HumansThe Galaxy Tab 10.1 is amazing in two ways.

It's the first tablet that's as immaterial as the iPad 2, in form and weight and feel. (In fact, it is slightly more so, by a gram and a millimeter.) That's amazing. What's more amazing, maybe, is the fact that it's amazing.

It's not quite as rigid, not as sturdy or deliberately constructed. That's because the back is plastic, glossy and thin. And like the Motorola Xoom, it's proportioned in a way that it's really meant to be used in landscape—it's too tall, too long in portrait mode. But it's still the first Android tablet, the first non-iPad tablet to feel the way that tablets this size should feel. (It's interesting how closely this resembles an iPad in practice, but anyways.) Every millimeter, every gram counts, and in the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the math is beautiful.

More on this later. But even if it's exactly the same as the Xoom and every other Android Honeycomb in terms of power, performance, features—this is the new Android tablet to buy. Because it's the first one to feel right.

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Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs, promises dead-simple home automation (hands-on)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/11/lighting-science-demos-android-home-bulbs-promises-dead-simpl/

'Tis amazing what a partnership with Google can do. Unless you're a frequent patron of Home Depot, there's a slim chance you'd ever heard of Lighting Science prior to this week's opening I/O keynote. Now, said company is leading the Android @ Home charge, and based on what we learned yesterday at its booth, we're feeling better than ever about home automation's chances in the mainstream market. Company representatives noted that this Google-led mesh networking solution -- which beams out commands on the 900MHz frequency band -- is the first HA solution that's truly designed to be ultra-low-cost and easy to implement. Compared to Z-Wave and Zigbee, there's far less technical expertise needed to start automating things in your home, and there's no need to take out a second mortgage to open your garage door with your handset. Oh, and there's zero chance anything fails due to congestion on the 2.4GHz band.

We pressed the company on pricing details, and it stated that the wirelessly enabled light shown above would be priced "at parity" with the non-wireless counterpart available today. At last check, that puts a single bulb at around $30. In order to make these kinds of devices compatible with existing Android phones and tablets, a couple of WiFi-to-900MHz adapters will be available. From Lighting Science alone, you'll soon see a light switch, security lamp and a regular wall wart on sale to handle the transfers. In other words, you can pick up a dirt-cheap plug, toss it in your guest room, and immediately give your Nexus One the ability to dictate Android @ Home products. Not too shabby, but what does this mean for the broader industry?

Continue reading Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs, promises dead-simple home automation (hands-on)

Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs, promises dead-simple home automation (hands-on) originally appeared on ! Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 06:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charlotte Motor Speedway, Panasonic flip the switch on the world's largest HD screen

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/11/charlotte-motor-speedway-panasonic-flip-the-switch-on-the-world/

Charlotte Motor Speedway and Panasonic held an event yesterday to celebrate the completion of the new world's largest HD screen, which measures at 16,000 square feet (200 feet wide and 80 feet tall). Of course, the only natural thing to do when face with a screen this size is to play videogames on it, and CMS got very meta by bringing out NASCAR driver and simulation racing fan Dale Earnhardt Jr. to turn a few laps on the track in iRacing on the brand new display. The 720p display, located on the backstretch, is big enough for fans seated along the front stretch of the track between turn four and turn one to have a clear view of replays, standings and stats all the way across the track. Its official debut will take place May 21st during the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and will also take a turn as a massive HDTV airing clips of Top Gear USA during a History Channel sponsored race the week after. You can see the videogame rig, screen and ceremonial oversized remote above while video of them actually playing is available at the source link.

[Thanks, Jeffery]

Charlotte Motor Speedway, Panasonic flip the switch on the world's largest HD screen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 08:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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