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Here’s an interesting little project that, while it’s unlikely to grow into a major product, nevertheless demonstrates the potential of alternative interfaces. Bruno Zamborlin’s Mogees (an abbreviation of “mosaicing gestural surface”) takes input from a contact microphone and analyzes it to determine the placement and direction of gestures on any surface through which vibrations can be detected.
I wrote a while back about how the “finger on a glass touchscreen” wasn’t the be-all and end-all of user interaction. The stylus, for example, has much life left in it. And interfaces we haven’t even thought of will emerge as well. Why not a puck that turns your table into a touchable surface?
It really has to be seen to be understood. → Read More
Poor Kodak. At this point, they’re just along for the ride. The last few years have been rough on them, and they’ve made a few big decisions that haven’t panned out. I must admit that while my unsolicited advice to them was sound, it probably would have to have been put in place a decade ago for them to have avoided the current state of things. As it is, the WSJ has word that they are planning to file Chapter 11 and do a court-supervised auction of their many digital imaging patents.
It’s sad, but the truth is that while Kodak is very much still a valuable company, it’s simply not a viable business any more. Their efforts to change the business they’re in came too late — and now they’re in the business of going under. → Read More
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AT&T is slowly and steadily building up their portfolio of LTE-capable devices, and it looks like yet another has just broken cover. Due to be officially unveiled on January 8, the Pantech Element is AT&T’s newest LTE tablet, and is the first in AT&T’s lineup not to cost an absurd amount of money with a contract. → Read More
Smart TVs are great and all — who doesn’t want a dash of WiFi with their daily dose of reality television? — but the segment will face challenges in the market. For one, a $49 Roku LT is a much better value proposition than a $1,000+ smart TV. Secondly, the hardware moves at such a rapid pace that even with solid software updates, your smart TV will likely be outdated much sooner than you’re ready to buy a new one.
But even with the hardships to be faced by the smart TV segment, Roku still wants a piece of the pie. Enter: the Roku Streaming Stick. It’s a little USB drive-sized stick that packs a processor, memory, software and WiFi to virtually transform your regular old television into a Smart TV, with access to all of Roku’s 400+ channels. → Read More
If you ever wanted to be able to read text on a street sign or on a menu in a restaurant when abroad, your smartphone might be able to help you soon. Japanese electronics company Omron has developed a smartphone application that can instantly translate (short) foreign texts you come across – firing up the app and pointing the phone’s camera at the text in question is enough.
Omron says that in its current form, the app (which isn’t available yet) can handle English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Translations are superimposed over the text shown on the display (in the picture below, you can see three items on a Korean menu shown in yellow Japanese letters). → Read More
There is a surefire way to improve the look and feel of any audio device: add vacuum tubes. These ancient electronic valves drip with nostalgia. Traditionally only high-end analog audio devices employ vacuum tubes as audio nerds proclaim they produce a richer, warmer sound. But Samsung is smart. They know that simply adding several trivial vacuum tubes to an otherwise mundane wireless speaker will increase its appeal (and justify a higher price tag). It’s working on this wannabe audiophile. I want this speaker. → Read More
While many big companies are putting on big press conferences next week at CES, many smaller ones are getting their new gadgets out there early so people will want to drop by their booth. Velocity Micro just dropped a few new things, and we’ll be sure to swing by their corner of the show if we’re in the area.
They’ve got a pair of budget tablets that won’t really blow anyone away, but their new Shine pico projector looks really nice. → Read More
Do you like nature? Do you have a beard? Then you’ll love these things. Cubelets are essentially robotic building blocks. By connecting sensors, motors, and feedback devices, you can create clever little automatons that can interact with the world around them (within reason). Most important, however, is that Cubelets has decided to feature a bearded, Dutch spokes-mountain-man to sell their product, an excellent choice for almost any kit-based robotics project.
→ Read More
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Apple this morning announced that its massively popular smartphone, the iPhone 4S, will be available in China and 21 additional countries on Friday, January 13.
According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, that means the iPhone 4S will shortly be available in a total of 90 countries.
It also means the phone will indeed launch in China before the Chinese New Year (January 23), which is sort of the equivalent of Black Friday in the United States.
Put differently: ka-ching. → Read More
GrabCAD, which operates a community for (and founded by) mechanical engineers, where they can share knowledge and collaborate on CAD models, projects and whatnot, has raised $4 million in Series A to add to its its $1.1 million seed round from back in June 2011.
The Series A round was led by previous investor Matrix Partners; the firm’s David Skok will be taking a board seat. Other existing backers such as Atlas Venture also participated. → Read More
Here are some of yesterday’s Gadgets posts: → Read More
Ultrabooks are all the rage for 2012, and we’ll probably see quite a few of them at CES next week. But there are still some of us who prefer a more robust computing experience, which is why HP has today announced the Omni 27-inch all-in-one and the Pavilion HPE h9 Phoenix, the most powerful Pavilion model to date. → Read More
Google has posted a bit of new info to the Android Developers blog that is probably less of a big deal than people are making it into, but still worth looking at. The post details a requirement that all manufacturers include in their Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) devices the default Holo theme. They don’t have to use the theme, they just have to have the data composing it on the phone.
This is less a blow aimed at third-party UIs and more a general integrity check that ensures apps and services will have the choice to provide a consistent face to the user across many devices. → Read More
After a decade of iPods, Apple’s little white charging cable seem to be pretty much everywhere these days. Open a random drawer, there one will sit. Ask a pack of strangers, “Hey — anyone got an iPhone cable?” and half a dozen will be thrown your way. At this point, it’s almost hard to not be within reach of one… until you actually need one. Then the damned things seemingly don’t exist.
Looking to make sure no iThing owner is ever caught out-and-about without a charging cable in tow is the Cord-On-Board, a (rather cleverly named) shock-resistant iPhone case with a 9.5″ charging cable tucked inside. → Read More
The low-cost Indian tablet known as the Aakash, which we have followed in its career over the last year, is finally shipping. In late December they opened up orders for the first batch of 30,000 units, and brought so much traffic to their retail site that an Indian cyber regulation agency called to inform them they were possibly under attack. And in the last two weeks, they’ve racked up over 1.4 million pre-orders — iPad-scale numbers.
It’s being sold for Rs2500, which translates to just under $50. The government then subsidizes sales to students, bringing the cost down to $35. But while the government originally suggested a million devices would be on the ground before the end of 2011, the Indian manufacturer won’t be pushing out devices at a decent rate until this coming April, and at that point the Aakash may find itself an orphan device. → Read More
Until now the 4G LTE-capable Nokia Ace (or Lumia 900, if you prefer) has been largely a mystery. We got a peek at some leaked press shots last week (pictured), but all we’ve heard is that it’ll hit AT&T shelves on March 18, it’ll be powered by the Windows Phone platform, and that it’ll come equipped with an LTE radio.
Today, however, PocketNow claims to have confirmed the specs on this bad boy. → Read More
You may have forgotten that there was such a thing as “satellite radio,” what with all the streaming services available now, but it exists and its still going fairly strong. The latest way to listen to this form of radio is the Lynx, a Bluetooth and Wi-Fi capable player that records up to 200 hours of music and offers a full schedule of upcoming shows for your listening pleasure. → Read More
The Asus Transformer Prime was the latest tablet to wear the title of iPad killer. It was supposed to rise up, powered by the all-mighty quad-core Nvidia Terga 3, and finally stand tall against the iPad. It was supposed to use its keyboard dock as a mighty quarterstaff and deliver a memorable blow against Apple’s champion. But that didn’t happen. The Transformer Prime is dying at the hands of Asus. → Read More
You like cats. Even if you’re a “dog person,” or allergic, I still know your little cat-loving secret. And how do I know?
Well, since you’re here on TechCrunch it’s apparent that you’re at least mildly interested in the internet, which happens to be infested with cats. → Read More
When we first introduced the Siri clone Iris, I figured that would be the last of the outright Siri-alikes. I was wrong. Programmers are taking advantage of less experienced users and creating apps that are downright insulting to the average intelligence.
One app, called Siri for Android is a hard link to Google’s voice controls while another, called Speerit is a Korean clone that purports to connect to Apple’s servers (which is untrue). → Read More
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