Saturday, March 23, 2013

Article: Panasonic 2013 Smart TVs wield Nuance Dragon TV for voice control, text-to-speech

Panasonic and Nuance have been close partners on TV voice recognition in the past; we now know that they're getting a bit cozier for Panasonic's 2013 Smart TVs. The company's newer LCDs and plasmas with voice recognition use Nuance's Dragon TV for voice-only control of basics like volume as well ...

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/23/panasonics-2013-smart-tvs-lean-on-nuance-dragon-tv-for-voice/

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Friday, March 22, 2013

AMD intros Radeon HD 7790 graphics card for $149, promises cooler and quieter 1080p gaming

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/22/amd-radeon-hd-7790/

AMD intros Radeon HD 7790 graphics card for $149, promises cooler and quieter 1080p gaming

We were half expecting AMD's next graphics card to be some sort of supercomputing colossus, given all the buzz around NVIDIA's GTX Titan. As it turns out, though, we're looking at something more subtle and just slightly more affordable: the new Radeon HD 7790. It slots into a cosy niche between the 7770 and the 7850, targeting gamers who want a good helping of 28nm silicon and potential for CrossFire expansion but who don't want to stretch beyond $149. Efficiency tweaks allow the 7790 to offer almost 50 percent more processing power than the 7770 while only demanding a smidgen of extra wattage (85 W instead of 80 W), which bodes well for cooling and decibels. Relative to the 7850, which can now be had for under $200, you'd be getting a card with half the power consumption, half the memory (1GB GDDR5), half the memory bandwidth (128-bit) and around 30 percent less processing power.

Compare it to the closest rival from NVIDIA, the GTX 650 Ti, which currently fetches upwards of $140, and AMD claims the Radeon HD 7790 offers an average 20 percent advantage in frame rates at 1080p -- enough that you shouldn't need to worry about games like Tomb Raider or Hitman: Absolution at that resolution. Check out the slide deck for further details and official frame-rate charts, and expect to see the card reach retailers starting April 2nd.

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Thursday, March 21, 2013

A Solar-Powered Hand-Cranked Digital Camera Laughs At Your Limited Battery Life

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5991746/a-solar+powered-hand+cranked-digital-camera-laughs-at-your-limited-battery-life

A Solar-Powered Hand-Cranked Digital Camera Laughs At Your Limited Battery LifeWhat this $200, three-magapixel digital camera lacks in features, functionality, and image quality; it more than makes up for in battery life. Because in theory, as long as you've got sunlight or at least one arm, you can keep it powered indefinitely.

As its namesake implies, what really sets the Sun & Cloud digital camera apart from its competition is the inclusion of a solar panel on top, and a retractable generator crank on the side. So with a lot of sunlight and/or elbow grease, you can perpetually keep its battery charged. Besides a microSD memory card slot and 15 built-in digital filters, the camera unfortunately mostly disappoints with its limited photo resolution and basic 640x480 video capabilities. So while the Sun & Cloud can in theory run forever, will you really want it to?

A Solar-Powered Hand-Cranked Digital Camera Laughs At Your Limited Battery Life

[AC Gears]

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Visualized: Microsoft's homegrown 120-inch 4K television

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/21/visualized-microsofts-homegrown-120-inch-4k-television/

Visualized Microsoft's 120inch homegrown television

Samsung's $40k work of art has nothing on Redmond's non-existent TV division: Microsoft has built a 120-inch 4K display. Don't start pinching pennies, though -- this TV was created strictly for demo purposes, and won't be coming coming to stores any time soon. Check out Pocket-lint for all the details.

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Source: Pocket-lint

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Google Art Project adds nearly 2,000 works, from street art to prized photos

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/21/google-art-project-adds-nearly-2000-works/

Google Art Project adds nearly 2,000 works, from street art to prized photos

The Google Art Project could be considered a safeguard for culture when it's preserving work that's not just difficult to see, but may disappear at the drop of a hat. Witness Google's latest addition of 30 partners, and almost 2,000 pieces of art, as proof. The collection includes 100-plus examples of high-profile graffiti and street art from Sao Paulo, some of which aren't guaranteed to survive unscathed; there's also 300-plus photos from Spain's Fundacion MAPFRE and a famous Hungarian poem whose original copy is usually too fragile to show. Although the digital expansion won't replace booking a flight to visit the artwork first-hand, it may prevent some urban masterpieces from fading into obscurity.

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Via: Google Official Blog

Source: Google Art Project (1), (2), (3)

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