Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Motorola Televation turns cable TV into IPTV streams for the whole home

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/13/motorola-televation-turns-cable-tv-into-iptv-streams-for-the-who/

Motorola's latest wares are on display at the 2011 Cable Show (we suspect the sluggish cable boxes actually in service right now are rarely mentioned) including this "Live Streaming Device" aka Televation. Functioning as a cable company provided, in-home-only Slingbox, it transcodes the MPEG-2 TV broadcasts into MPEG-4 IP streams for viewing on other devices (Android or iOS tablets, IP-connected TVs, etc) that are on the same local network at whatever bitrate or resolution they can handle. Motorola figures this cuts out legal disputes like those encircling Time Warner's TWCable TV iPad app since it uses existing TV broadcasts. Collaborating on the project were engineers from Comcast, which could make for an existing branch on its existing plans for new boxes, IPTV, and mobile apps. Sling / Echostar has been trying to crack the cable box market with its more flexible solution for years and is expected to announce the new Aria platform tomorrow, so may the best platform -- and not just the one with the cheapest / sweetest deal for the cable company -- win.

Continue reading Motorola Televation turns cable TV into IPTV streams for the whole home

Motorola Televation turns cable TV into IPTV streams for the whole home originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 19:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:16 AM

Swype 3.0 gets Honeycomb support, intense promo video (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/13/swype-3-0-gets-honeycomb-support-intense-promo-video-video/

Swype: Get to da choppa
The folks at Swype sure know how to get our attention. The Android keyboard app has always inspired us to get a bit dramatic, but we had no idea that predictive text and moveable QWERTY pads were this intense. To celebrate the beta release of Swype 3.0 it appears the company hired Doug Liman (or at least some one who has studied the Bourne Identity very closely) to whip up a promo video. Enjoy the thrills of a resizable input area! Be wowed by the Honeycomb support! Get stunned by the auto-correct! Oh, and don't forget to head after the break to watch the clip.

Continue reading Swype 3.0 gets Honeycomb support, intense promo video (video)

Swype 3.0 gets Honeycomb support, intense promo video (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:16 AM

AMD's Fusion A-Series chips official: 10.5-hour battery life, DirectX11 graphics, and USB 3.0 support (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/13/amds-fusion-a-series-for-mainstream-laptops-official-10-5-hour/

AMD's Llano platform has been on our radar for more than two years, and finally, the company has come clean with its latest class of hybrid CPU / GPU chips, officially dubbed the Fusion A-Series. Unlike the low-power flavor of Fusion accerlated processing units already on the market, these 32-nanometer APUs were designed with desktops and mainstream laptops in mind, taking direct aim at Intel's Core 2011 processors with the promise of superior processing and discrete-level graphics, and 10-plus hours of battery life.

Aside from the assorted performance and battery life claims the company is making (much more on that in a moment), what this means is that as far as laptops go, AMD is completely stepping away from the standalone-CPU-plus-GPU paradigm. But, the company will still make dedicated Radeon cards, which can be coupled with an APU for a 75 percent boost in graphics performance -- a setup AMD is calling "Dual Graphics." All told, these chips measure just 228 square millimeters. To put this in context, check out the gallery of hands-on shots below, featuring the A-series next to a standalone CPU, discrete graphics card, and, for the sake of scale, the kind of low-power Fusion chip introduced back at CES.

A-Series-equipped PCs are already shipping, and AMD says we can expect to see at least 150 of them this year. That sounds promising indeed, but we've still got lots of technical details to rehash. Head on past the break for the full spill on what these APUs pledge to do, along with a video of AMD senior product marketing manager Raymond Dumbeck showing off some A-series laptops in action.

Continue reading AMD's Fusion A-Series chips official: 10.5-hour battery life, DirectX11 graphics, and USB 3.0 support (video)

AMD's Fusion A-Series chips official: 10.5-hour battery life, DirectX11 graphics, and USB 3.0 support (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Jun 2011 23:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:15 AM

Toshiba outs blingtastic Qosmio X770 for the US market, new P, C, and L series laptops

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/toshiba-outs-blingtastic-qosmio-x770-for-the-us-market-new-p-c/

See that refined beast? You're looking at the Toshiba Qosmio X770 -- that European gaming behemoth we ogled from afar last month -- and in a matter of weeks, it'll continue its world tour to land on US shores. To recap, the company shrunk the screen from 18.4 inches to a more manageable 17.3, gave it a paint job that ever-so-subtly fades from red to gunmetal gray, and added a matching red backlit keyboard. This beefy guy comes in $1,199 and $1,899 configurations, with the higher-end model packing a 3D display, quad-core Core i7 CPU, and a 1.25TB hybrid hard drive, and the lower end offering a dual-core Core i5 CPU and a 750GB HDD. Either way, though, you'll get NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics, 1.5GB of video memory, and MaxxAudio3 sound enhancement software.

Meanwhile, Toshiba streamlined its consumer laptops for those non-gamers in the back-to-school crowd, axing the A and M lines, and leaving just the P series, for "premium." It'll include 14-, 15.6-, and 17.3-inch models, all decked out in a textured, two-tone Fuxion X2 finish and featuring USB sleep-and-charge ports, HDMI-out, Harman Kardon speakers, and that same MaxxAudio 3 utility. Depending on the configuration, you can also score NVIDIA GeForce GT540M graphics, Intel Wireless Display, a 4G radio, a Blu-ray drive, and a 3D screen (only on the 15-incher). On the inside, you've got your choice of Intel Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs or a spankin' new A6-3400M accelerated processing unit from AMD. Look for the 14-inch P745 with a starting price of $699, and 15-inch P755 and the 17-inch P775 for $629 and up.

And, rounding out its portfolio, Toshiba refreshed its budget Satellite L700 series with Core 2011 processors and new AMD A4 and A6 APUs, while the entry-level Satellite C800 gets AMD Fusion C-50 and E-350 APU options. None of these laptops go on sale until later this month, so for now you can content yourself with those up-close-and-personal hands-on shots below.

Continue reading Toshiba outs blingtastic Qosmio X770 for the US market, new P, C, and L series laptops

Toshiba outs blingtastic Qosmio X770 for the US market, new P, C, and L series laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 03:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:15 AM

Project Blox is like any other toy that comes with 300 pages of documentation (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/14/project-blox-is-like-any-other-toy-that-comes-with-300-pages-of/

If your kid (or inner kid) turns their nose up at those delectable Sifteo Cubes, it'll obviously be because they want open source smart building blocks instead. So oblige the budding geek with Project Blox, courtesy of electrical engineering students at the University of Texas at Austin. Every toddler-friendly block has its own LCD and touch panels, plus motion sensors and wireless comms that let it interact with other blocks in weird and wonderful ways -- like the maze game you'll see in the video after the break. Project Blox is still very much a project, unfortunately, but its creators have put all their code and schematics online so baby Einstein can have a go at building his own.

Continue reading Project Blox is like any other toy that comes with 300 pages of documentation (video)

Project Blox is like any other toy that comes with 300 pages of documentation (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Jun 2011 05:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 8:15 AM

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