Friday, August 29, 2008
Cameras
Samsung’s New Cameras Are Cheap Excuse to Show Hot Biker Girl
11:23PM Jesus Diaz | For some strange and sick reason, Samsung is one of those manufacturers who doesn’t think that girl power is the future of gadgetry, and instead assumes that all digital camera buyers are sex-obsessed men, basement World of Warcraft players with a large hadron collider for all things leather and large female attributes, all of them eager to try their new Fall 2008 camera lineup on a blonde riding a bike. And they are right. Miss Samsung Biker Girl, we love you (but not more than we love Miss IFA). More »
Vehicles
Chevy Volt Dashboard Looks Like The Future If The Future is White Plastic
11:00PM Mark Wilson | We don’t write about car dashboards all that often here on the Giz, but when the dash is from an electric car/hybrid and it shares its white sheen with both classic iPods and Stormtrooper helmets, how could we possibly resist? Nearly buttonless, the Chevy Volt’s injection molded centre console features a large LCD that, from what we can tell from the picture, will be locked with the static image of 2/3 battery remaining. It’s certainly an interesting look, but I’m just not so sure it blends so well with the rest of the car. What do you think? [thecarlounge via Jalopnik] More »
Robots
Robo-One’s Robot Boxing Champion Reveals Combat Secrets
10:00PM Gizmodo US Edition | Naoki Maru may live in Hikone, north of Kyoto, down the road from a samurai castle full of katana swords and armour, but for him, the ancient Japanese art of bushido is best carried out with robots, not people. King Kizer, the Maru family robot, has dominated the Robo-One tourney over the past three years, collecting US$50,000 in prize money. Maru, a factory engineer by day, is trying to perfect a way to make Kizer even more of an arse kicker using a technique he had seen many times in anime: A harness that captures human movements and translates them into robotic attacks and other gestures. More »
Networks
Wireless Roaming Wi-Fi 802.11r Standard Beats 11n to Completion
9:39PM Kit Eaton | The 802.11n standard for Wi-Fi may still be technically a draft specification, but the IEEE has now completed the 802.11r specs, making a new standard for Wi-Fi roaming. Why should you care about this? It’s designed for those moments when a Wi-Fi-connected device moves between hotspots, something the original 802.11 specs didn’t have in mind. Typically a transition between spots involves a drop and re-associate delay of around 0.1 seconds, which is enough to drop a VoIP call: 802.11r allows re-association with the new Wi-Fi source in less than 0.05 seconds, which should keep your call connected. The specs and also cover security associations and reservation of QoS resources for roaming Wi-Fi connections and have been under development for four years. [DailyWireless] More »
Home
LG’s DVS450H Makes DVD Players Attractive Again, Plays DivX HD
8:52PM Kit Eaton | It’s becoming all about Blu-ray nowadays, but LG hasn’t forgotten the DVD player: its DVS450H is doubly interesting for its design and DivX playing. Check out those sleek lines—pretty sci-fi, especially with that concealed display and sliding-door disc tray lid. LG call its shape “floating”, and it can be desk or wall mounted. And its the first “DivX Certified(R) DVD player from a major manufacturer capable of playing HD video” according to LG, with playback capabilities from DVD or hard drives attached to its USB port. It’s due in October for around US$240. Press release below. More »
Software
Android Developers Challenge Ends: Winners Love Location-Based Services
8:03PM Kit Eaton | Back in May we brought you news of the round 1 winners of the Android Developer Challenge, and now the coding-fest has come to an end, and the winners have been announced. Of our five favourites from round 1, none made it to the 10 top finalists (each earning US$275,000 for the developing team) but there’s nevertheless a common theme in these 10: location-based services. Four of the ten make some use of your location, for shopping or other reasons and several of the second-place US$100,000 reward winners do too. Check out the Developers blog link for the full list—it makes for interesting reading. I bet you find yourself comparing the list to Apple’s App Store offerings. [Developers.blogspot] More »
Screens
Samsung Updates Syncmaster Monitor Range: 2233HZ and 2243HZ
7:41PM Kit Eaton | Among its raft of new products at IFA, Samsung has updated its Syncmaster range of monitors (last heard about with the double-screened edition) with two new 22-inchers that have “enhanced motion picture acceleration” tech for reduced ghosting. The new tech reduces the motion-picture response time from 27ms to 9ms, which Samsung says is good for gaming (though with 2ms monitors about, it seems pretty sucky.) Both have 1680 x 1050 pixels and a 30,000:1 contrast ratio, with the main differences between the 2233HZ and the 2243HZ being in styling: the 2233 is curvier, whereas the 2243 is more “corporate suit” square. There’s no info on price or release date, but for monitor fanatics, the press release is below. More »
Computers
Samsung X360 Laptop is Skinny, Marches into MacBook Air, Lenovo X300 Territory
7:09PM Kit Eaton | It’s pretty clear where Samsung is going with the X360 laptop when you notice it’s branded it as “lighter than air” and say it’s the “lightest notebook in its 13.3 inch class” since it weighs just 1.27 kg. Inside there’s a 45nm Core 2 Duo mobile processor, mated to a 1280 x 800 pixel LED-backlit screen, and the machine has no internal DVD drive: instead it comes with an external one. Sounds a little familiar, no? But the battery life is claimed to be 10 hours, by Samsung, and it’s got a full array of ports, including an RJ45 socket for wired LAN, a mic-in, three USB 2.0 sockets, a PCI express card slot and a HDMI socket. Somewhat strangely it’s also been “sprinkled” with nano silver ion powder to keep the keyboard bacteria-free. It’ll be available in September in some European countries, and Russia, China and Hong Kong, but there’s no info on the US release or pricing. Extensive press release below. More »
Home
3:58PM Nick Broughall | In case you missed it today, there’s a big conference happening in Europe called IFA at the moment. And while we haven’t yet seen the Panasonic presentation, the guys from Trusted Reviews did, and they scored a photo of the presentation slide for Panny’s new Blu-ray recorder. Although when we say new, we mean new to Europe, not new to Australia – the DMR-BW500 has been out in Australia for a couple of months.
But is it the same device? Eagle-eyed reader Anthony pointed out that the slide Panasonic showcased at IFA explicitly says that it features BD-Live technology, which we know for a fact that the Australian version doesn’t. Considering you need an Ethernet port (or inbuilt Wi-Fi, I guess) plus some dedicated storage on board to be able to use BD-Live, it would mean that the DMR-BW500 for Europe would have different hardware to the Australian model.
More »
Is Panasonic’s European BD Recorder Better Than Ours?
3:58PM Nick Broughall | In case you missed it today, there’s a big conference happening in Europe called IFA at the moment. And while we haven’t yet seen the Panasonic presentation, the guys from Trusted Reviews did, and they scored a photo of the presentation slide for Panny’s new Blu-ray recorder. Although when we say new, we mean new to Europe, not new to Australia – the DMR-BW500 has been out in Australia for a couple of months.
But is it the same device? Eagle-eyed reader Anthony pointed out that the slide Panasonic showcased at IFA explicitly says that it features BD-Live technology, which we know for a fact that the Australian version doesn’t. Considering you need an Ethernet port (or inbuilt Wi-Fi, I guess) plus some dedicated storage on board to be able to use BD-Live, it would mean that the DMR-BW500 for Europe would have different hardware to the Australian model.
More »
Games
2:20PM Nick Broughall | Outgoing Kotaku AU Ed Logan sent off a heap of questions to the Australian Classifications board a couple of weeks ago. And now they’ve gotten back to him. Seems that boy’s got connections.
Among the most revealing bits of information are that customs can seize any items contravening regulation (like an game refused classification) and you could be fined up to $110,000; that they board doesn’t actually play the games that they classify; and exactly what the reasoning was behind Fallout 3 being refused classification.
It’s an insightful read, even if it doesn’t alleviate the frustration at a flawed system. Make sure you check it out.
[Kotaku AU] More »
Australian Classifications Board Tells Us Why There’s No R18+ Rating And More
2:20PM Nick Broughall | Outgoing Kotaku AU Ed Logan sent off a heap of questions to the Australian Classifications board a couple of weeks ago. And now they’ve gotten back to him. Seems that boy’s got connections.
Among the most revealing bits of information are that customs can seize any items contravening regulation (like an game refused classification) and you could be fined up to $110,000; that they board doesn’t actually play the games that they classify; and exactly what the reasoning was behind Fallout 3 being refused classification.
It’s an insightful read, even if it doesn’t alleviate the frustration at a flawed system. Make sure you check it out.
[Kotaku AU] More » 