Google has created an app for the iPhone that will give the handset advanced voice recognition, reports John Markoff from the NY Times. The app can answer location related questions (Finding the nearest Starbucks), give driving directions, respond to generic questions, and even search local data from the address book.
If the possibility of controlling all your PC applications Minority Report-style wasn’t enough to get you excited about Mgestyk Technologies’ gesture control system, the company’s now showing off its ability to work with other input devices. The disembodied hands of Mgestyk employees go all Jedi on us this time around, using a Nintendo Wiimote as a lightsaber and the extra hand to “Force Push.” There’s even a multiplayer mode! Once again, availability and pricing details were scarce, but the company said it would be demoing its tech at the Montreal International Game Summit next week. [Mgestyk]
In case you were wondering what somewhat troubled chip maker AMD was going to do in the next few years, the company’s now revealed its completely updated roadmap that addresses everything from high end all-in-one desktops to netbooks and UMPCs. Especially interesting is it’s treatment of its “Atom-killer”… which it says “won’t be going to the bottom where Atom is going.”
Ooh, and the battle between Foxtel and TiVo just keeps getting better. Foxtel have just upped the ante by offering the original iQ PVR for free to new customers for 12 months with no installation fee. That means that if you sign up to Foxtel, you get a free PVR for 12 months, although you’ll need to be paying at least $40 a month for the Foxtel service.
They’ve also introduced an incentive for potential iQ2 subscribers, which includes their four HD channels for free for seven months when you sign up for the iQ2.
There are apparently some special deals going for existing digital subscribers who want to upgrade to iQ in a multi-room capacity as well, but it depends on plans and is a bit confusing, so you’re best bet is to call 131999 to get the low-down on what they can offer.
[Foxtel]
newVideoPlayer("/watchmentrailer2.flv", 506, 423,""); There’s a new Watchmen trailer and this time around the blurry blue gonads are GONE. That’s right, Dr. Manhattan’s CG wang has been edited out by true-to-comic hating censors. But don’t let half-second flashes (or the lack of them) of superhero man meat let you down, the rest of the trailer contains explosions, arse kicking, and proof that the Silk Spectre can do more than just strut around and kiss people.
Kids today. They live and breathe Facebook, eat MySpace for breakfast and sleep in a bed made from Twitter tweets. That’s why they’re going to flock to the new INQ1 phone like tabloid journalists to Stephanie Rice’s Facebook profile.
The INQ1 (which is made by INQ, a new mobile phone manufacturer backed by Hutchison Whampoa) brings Facebook, Windows Live Messenger, Skype and email to the core of the user interface, as well has supporting RSS feeds and widgets for other social networks. The phone itself is a HSDPA-enabled handset with a 3.2MP camera, 2.2-inch QVGA screen, Bluetooth, USB connectivity and up to 324 minutes talk time and 327 hours standby. It weighs in at 100 grams and measures 47.6 x 14.4 x 97.0mm. It has upgradable memory to 4GB, comes in silver or black and has a two-year warranty.
If this sounds like your kind of social experience, the INQ1 will cost $179 on 3 prepaid, or available on contract from $39 a month, which includes a heap of stuff like free Skype to Skype calls.
Full presser is below for all you young’uns and Facebook addicts.
As you’ve probably heard by now, China’s been dealing with a massive tainted milk problem. Now that hundreds of tons of milk products have been recalled, precincts are scrambling to figure out what to do with the resulting trash. One city in Southern China has decided that one great way to get rid of all that melamine-laden fluid is to bake them into bricks and cement.
This zany lamp created by Marieke Staps outdoes most lamps in more ways than one: the electricity is powered through the organisms contained in the mud. The mud is enclosed in cells that contain copper and zinc, which conducts the electricity in the LED. Besides doing wonders for your energy bill, Staps claims that the only thing the lamp needs is a “splash of water” every now and then. I wouldn’t stand too close when you are doing it though, or the end result might be akin to sticking a live hair dryer in your bathwater. [Marieke Staps via MAKE]
One of the big reasons that Blu-ray isn’t gaining the same traction as DVDs (aside from the required spend on compatible hardware and cost of both the players and movies) is the fact that there have been several different, confusingly named standards. While we’ve been over it before and know the differences between the different BD profiles, it still bugs the hell out of us to see a product launch that announces that it’s “Final Standard Profile” when there’s nothing “Final” about it. Which is exactly what the latest player from Sharp does.
The Sharp BD-HP21X offers “Final Standard Profile”, which lets you watch Picture-in-Picture during playback of your Blu-ray movie. There’s no BD-Live support for those of you with compatible BD-Live movies (like Iron Man), meaning you’ll never be able to access all that extra downloadable content unless you buy a new player.
It’s not all bad - there’s a quick start mode and the player only pulls in 0.5W of power in standby, but for the same price as this $499 unit you can pick up Sony or Panasonic’s latest players which do do BD-Live. And that’s where we’d suggest you put your money, if you’re in a Blu-ray buying mood.
Huge astronomy news! For the first time EVER, galaxy researchers have taken pictures of planets orbiting a sun-star, much like our own. The first, taken by the much beloved Hubble Telescope, shows a planet orbiting the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis. The second picture, snapped by upstaging Hawaiian observatories Gemini and Keck, shows two young planets orbiting a completely different star located 130 light-years from us! Take that Hubble! But I warn you—like the ultrasounds your friends show you of their three-month old fetus—these pictures wow mostly because of what they are, not because of what they look like.
