PayPal Here mobile card reader: it's like Square, but with way more frozen accounts

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/15/paypal-introduces-mobile-card-reader-square-rival/

Hear that? That's the sound of coins hitting the mental floor at a breakneck pace, and if PayPal's meteoric success is any indication of how it'll do in mobile... well, stockholders should be pleased. Nearly three years after first hearing of Jack Dorsey's Square (formerly 'Squirrel') project, the most hated division of eBay is coming out with a rival. President and CEO of eBay John Donahoe took the wraps off of the device at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco today, with an aim to bring PayPal to "merchants in the offline world." The plastic triangle module plays a familiar role: pop it into an iPhone, load up an app and swipe until you just can't sell anything else. We're hearing that PayPal will charge merchants 2.7 percent (just 0.05 percent less than Square), but further details -- and even the thing's name -- are still developing.

As much as we jest about PayPal's polarizing nature, we've been victim to one too many unjustified account freezes to become overly joyous here, but we won't kvetch about a little competition. Here's hoping we see rates and fees on the decline thanks to another major player stepping up to bat, but something tells us those kinds of dreams are dreamt only by fools. That aside, the fact that famed designer Yves Behar (profiled here on The Engadget Show) and Fuseproject were tapped to engineer it gets a major thumbs-up from us.

Update: Looks like it'll go by the name Here. PayPal Here. Moreover, the hardware and app will be gratis, and shipments will begin to go out in the US, Canada, Hong Kong, and Australia today. Everyone else will need to sit tight for a few weeks, and we're still digging for information on compatibility beyond the iPhone.

Update 2: Look like Android support will be here at launch, but iOS devices will need to run iOS 4.0 or higher.

Continue reading PayPal Here mobile card reader: it's like Square, but with way more frozen accounts

PayPal Here mobile card reader: it's like Square, but with way more frozen accounts originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google to switch on 'semantic search' within months, emphasize things as well as words

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/15/google-semantic-search/

A search engine should be about more than just keywords. MC Hammer believes that passionately and Google must do too, because over the next few months and years it'll gradually adjust its own algorithms to put greater emphasis on "semantic search". Under this system, search queries are run through a vast knowledge database that discovers relationships with other words and facts. A Mountain View exec explained it thus: If you search for "Lake Tahoe", you won't just get ranked websites containing those two words but also key attributes about the lake, such as its location, altitude, average temperature and Bigfoot population. If a piece of knowledge isn't the in the ever-expanding database, the search engine will still use semantic search to help it recognize and evaluate information held on websites. In doing this, Big G hopes to compete with social networks that are amassing their own valuable (and sometimes intrusive) databases full of personal information, while also encouraging people to stay longer on its site and see more targeted ads. Google, who is Viviane Reding?

Google to switch on 'semantic search' within months, emphasize things as well as words originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Mar 2012 04:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 brings an NVIDIA Kepler GPU to the ultrabook party

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/13/acer-aspire-ultra-timeline-m3-brings-an-nvidia-kepler-gpu-to-the/

Acer unveiled several new Ultrabooks at CeBIT last week (we spent time with the V5 and V3) but its M3 may be the most special one of all. NVIDIA mentions it will not only be the first with a discrete GPU -- beating Lenovo's T430u to the punch -- but that the included GeForce GT640M is based on the long-awaited 28nm Kepler architecture. That should give it enough power to run the latest games while still remaining true to the ultrabook tag with a 20mm thick frame and (promised) 8 hours of battery life thanks to Optimus technology. The 15-inch Aspire Timeline M3 Ultra also breaks the mold by squeezing in a DVD drive for games you can't get from Steam, along with options for either a hybrid hard drive / SSD or SSD-only storage setup. Neither company has included a pricetag in their joyful announcements, but these no-compromise packages are expected to begin shipping later this month.

Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 brings an NVIDIA Kepler GPU to the ultrabook party originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung considering Android-based digital camera

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/03/14/samsung-researching-android-based-digital-camera/

Android on a mainstream digital camera? Yes, you could live to see the day. We're at Samsung's Korean headquarters this week, where we had an opportunity to sit down with the company's research and development team to talk about the past, present and future of digital imaging. One interesting bit of discussion: Samsung is considering an "open" camera operating system. It's still early days and nothing is confirmed but, given the company's support for Android on other platforms, that OS would be a logical choice. What we know is that Samsung R&D has been researching bringing Android to its digital cameras -- a move that would be far from shocking, considering that development teams do tend to collaborate, and the company clearly has experience with the Google OS. And while there are likely to be such open OS prototypes buried deep within Sammy HQ, they're mere experiments at this point -- at least from a production perspective.

What exactly would an OS like Android mean for digital camera users? It could be a major breakthrough from a usability standpoint, opening up the in-camera ecosystem to third-party developers. We could see Twitter and Facebook apps that let you not only publish your photos directly with a familiar interface, but also see photos shared by your friends. A capacitive touchscreen would let you type in comments directly as well. You could publish to web-based services, utilize apps that enable post-capture creativity or receive firmware updates directly over WiFi. That hotshoe or USB port could acc! ommodate a variety of different accessories, like a microphone or 4G modem that could be used with several models, including those from other manufacturers. While there's nothing making Android integration impossible from a technical standpoint, there are obvious disadvantages as well -- especially for camera makers. Stability would become an issue -- your camera could need a reboot just as often as your smartphone -- and such a powerful imaging device could theoretically cannibalize tablets and smartphones, though on a limited scale. Sadly this is merely educated speculation at this point, pending a product announcement from Samsung, though we wouldn't be surprised to come to fruition -- perhaps even before the next CES.

Update: Samsung reached out to us asking to clarify that this is simply something under consideration; nothing is confirmed yet. We've updated the post above to match.

Samsung considering Android-based digital camera originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Mar 2012 10:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ARM's Super-Efficient New Chip Can Get "Years of Battery Life" [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5892873/arms-super+efficient-new-chip-can-get-years-of-battery-life

With processors, it's easy to get caught up in gigahertz and petaflops and the top-end specs. But blazing fast speed doesn't mean all that much for, say, your refrigerator. ARM's says its Cortex-M0+ chip will connect your dumb appliances to a smart grid, and offer "years" of battery life on some of them.

The Cortex-M0+ chip is capable of 32-bit processing, measures 1mm x 1mm, and is based on Flycatcher architecture. ARM says it's the world's most energy-efficient design. It's even more efficient than the 8- and 16-bit MCUs it's replacing.

The idea is that if the "Internet of Things"—that near-future sci-fi aspiration where your toaster knows when your dishwasher is using too much power—is ever going to happen, we'll need super low power chips to make it possible. [ARM via Geek, BBC]

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