Monday, May 30, 2011

NVIDIA's new wired 3D Vision glasses give up some freedom for a lower price

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/nvidia-new-wired-3d-vision-glasses-give-up-some-freedom-for-a-lo/

NVIDIA has been pushing its 3D Vision platform for a couple of years and at this year's Computex it is looking to pull in more PC users with new wired LCD active shutter glasses. The original wireless specs rely on the same IR sync tech and battery power seen in glasses for many HDTVs, but these get power and data over a 10-foot USB cable. While that might not work for living room viewing, a single user application like PC gaming or watching a Blu-ray 3D on a laptop doesn't suffer for the cable restriction. Besides foregoing the sometimes finicky IR sync these are also cheaper, with a $99 MSRP when they go on sale in "late June" compared to $149 for the wireless version. The company hopes the combination of a lower entry price and ability to be secured to the PC make it a viable option for gamers who may already have a compatible LCD and GPU, or gaming cafes that want to run a few Starcraft II tournaments in 3D -- check the rest of the details in the press release after the break.

Continue reading NVIDIA's new wired 3D Vision glasses give up some freedom for a lower price

NVIDIA's new wired 3D Vision glasses give up some freedom for a lower price originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 May 2011 20:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:22 AM

NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El used to demo next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/nvidias-quad-core-kal-el-used-to-demo-next-gen-mobile-graphics/

You might think yourself too grown-up to be wowed by shiny, glittery things, but we doubt many will be able to watch NVIDIA's new Glow Ball tech demo without a smidgen of childlike glee. Built to run on the company's quad-core Kal-El processor, it shows us the first example of true dynamic lighting on mobile devices and also throws in some impressive physics calculations like fully modeled cloth motion. Instead of the pre-canned, static lights that we see on mobile games today, NVIDIA's new hardware will make it possible to create lighting that moves, fluctuates in intensity, and responds realistically to its environment -- all rendered in real time. The titular glow ball can be skinned with different textures, each one allowing a different amount and hue of illumination to escape to surrounding objects, and is directed around the screen using the accelerometer in your tablet or smartphone.

NVIDIA demoed the new goodness on a Honeycomb slate with 1280 x 800 resolution and the frame rates remained smooth throughout. In order to emphasize the generational leap that we can expect with Kal-El, the company switched off two of the four cores momentarily, which plunged performance down to less than 10fps. That means the simulations we're watching require a full quartet of processing cores on top of the 12-core GPU NVIDIA has in Kal-El. Mind-boggling stuff. Glow Ball will be available as a game on Android tablets once this crazy new chip makes its way into retail devices -- which are still expected in the latter half of this year, August if everything goes perfectly to plan. One final note if you're still feeling jaded: NVIDIA promises the production chip will be 25 to 30 percent faster than the one on display today. Full video demo follows after the break.

Continue reading NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El used to demo next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (video)

NVIDIA's quad-core Kal-El used to demo next-gen mobile graphics, blow minds (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 May 2011 23:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:22 AM

Linaro and Samsung roll out Exynos 4210-based Origen development board for $199

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/29/linaro-and-samsung-roll-out-exynos-4210-based-origen-development/

You may recall a little group of Linux-loving chums called Linaro, which was formed almost a year ago in the hopes of speeding up Linux development. Today at Computex, the company's taking one step further with the announcement of the Origen development board. Based on Samsung's beefy Exynos 4210 dual core chipset, the kit packs all the essential ports -- including HDMI, USB 2.0 host, SD slot, etc. -- for keen developers to get their hands dirty on, and its base board is also removable to accommodate future chipsets. Potential buyers are told to keep an eye on Insignal, which will soon be offering the basic Origen package for $199, along with optional parts at an extra cost.

Continue reading Linaro and Samsung roll out Exynos 4210-based Origen development board for $199

Linaro and Samsung roll out Exynos 4210-based Origen development board for $199 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 May 2011 23:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:22 AM

CUPP PunkThis hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/30/cupp-punkthis-hands-on-video/

It's not the first time we're run into CUPP Computing's unique ability to blend the x86 and ARM platforms into one device -- at least in prototype form -- and just before the start of Computex 2011 here in Taipei we got a chance to experience the company's latest iteration called PunkThis. The product is meant to replace your computer's 2.5-inch SATA hard drive with a board featuring a complete ARM-based system along with a mini-PCIe socket -- the latter capable of accommodating a physically smaller SATA SSD to handle the missing storage for the x86 host. PunkThis is built around a Texas Instruments DM3730 ARM CPU with 512 MB of RAM and includes a WiFi radio, as well as connectors and cables to interface the board with existing video, audio, and USB facilities on the host computer (no soldering required).

The netbook we got to play with was running Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) but was lacking WiFi support. It ran perfectly alongside Windows 7 which was powered by the existing Atom processor. Switching OS-es is just a hotkey away, and battery life is supposedly doubled when the main x86 CPU is shut down and the only the daughter board is operational. PunkThis also provides two microSD card slots -- one for system storage used by the ARM-based OS (Android in this case), the other for mass storage visible to both environments (shared space). Pricing is supposed to remain below $200 and availability is expected in 8 weeks. That's pretty hardcore, but with a name like PunkThis would you expect anything less? Feast your eyes on our gallery and peek after the break for our hands-on video along with the obligatory PR.

Continue reading CUPP PunkThis hands-on (video)

CUPP PunkThis hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 May 2011 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:22 AM

Samsung teases 4G tablet for 2011, Galaxy S III in first half of 2012

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/30/samsung-teases-4g-tablet-for-2011-galaxy-s-iii-in-first-half-of/

Don't expect a lawsuit or two to keep a good chaebol down. Not if J.K. Shin has his way. The president of Samsung's mobile communication division is telling us to expect an "enhanced" 4G Galaxy Tab (without providing any detail) sometime later this year, following the launch of the company's 8.9-inch Tab this summer and 10.1-inch Tab next month -- the latter priced between $499 and $599. He also teased a third version of the wildly popular Galaxy S handset series for the first half of 2012. A proclamation arriving on news that the delectabled Galaxy S II has just set a record for the fastest selling smartphone in Korea after unloading one million handsets in the first month of domestic sales.

Naturally, Shin also had a bit to say about Samsung's ongoing legal battle with Apple. "We didn't copy Apple's design," he said bluntly, adding that Apple's allegations "will not be legally problematic." Sure Sammy, tell it to the judge.

Update: The Wall Street Journal updated its story calling for the 8.9-inch Galaxy Tab to launch this summer, not in June as originally stated.

Samsung teases 4G tablet for 2011, Galaxy S III in first half of 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 May 2011 01:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:21 AM

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