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Wednesday, May 11, 2011

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OpenPaths lets you visualize your iPhone location data, donate it to science (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 11:18 AM PDT


What use could science possibly have for your iPhone location data? Well, you won't be curing cancer, but you could theoretically be contributing to epidemiology, land use surveys, or a study proving that people move around just as quickly on foot in New York as they do inching down the 405 in LA. At least that's the idea behind OpenPaths, a web-based tool that lets you securely and anonymously "donate" your cache. If you've upgraded to iOS 4.3.3, your iPhone will no longer store your location, but there should be plenty of coordinates spinning around on your hard drive to play with. After downloading the OpenPaths Uploader, you'll be able to visualize your own location information, and even if you've somehow deleted the data from your computer, the tool will search Time Machine backups (for Mac users) -- a little scary, no? Of course, there's always potential for misuse with any such service, but a researcher probably won't care that those late nights at the office were actually spent in Cindy's home office, unless that researcher also happens to be your wife.

Google adding Netflix, Hulu support, offline Gmail, Calendar and Docs to Chrome OS this summer, prices hardware at $20 per month

Posted: 11 May 2011 10:37 AM PDT

Google's currently in the process of detailing Chrome OS' latest improvements and there are a couple of big 'uns: Netflix and Hulu support will be available right out of the box for the pair of new Chromebooks -- one from Samsung and one from Acer. An improved file manager has also been added to the upcoming version of Chrome OS, plus offline versions of Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs -- all will be made available for Chromebook users this summer. You can learn more about these improvements in the video after the break.

Far more monumental, Google's also just announced the cost of these Chromebooks and there's no upfront payment to speak of. Instead, Chrome OS laptops will be distributed on the basis of a recurring monthly subscription, which will cost $28 per user for businesses and $20 per user for schools. That includes regular software and hardware upgrades. Hardware as a service, folks!
Chrome OS at Google I/O 2011
Chrome OS screenshots

Google teases Samsung-built Chromebox, desktop version of Chrome OS

Posted: 11 May 2011 10:36 AM PDT

In among all the hard news of today's second Google I/O keynote, we were treated to a tease of a Google Chrome OS nettop, which to our ears sounded like it was called a Chromebox. What we've no doubt about is that Google is planning a desktop version of its web-centric OS, which -- together with that Samsung-branded computer above -- is going to be showing up at some point in our collective future. Light on details, but rich on intrigue, just the way we like it.

Google unveils Acer Chromebook: $349, 11.6-inches with 6.5-hour battery

Posted: 11 May 2011 10:26 AM PDT

Google just showed off a new 11.6-inch Chromebook from Acer at Google I/O promising an eight second boot time with an Intel Atom N570 CPU, 16GB SDD, instant-on, two USB ports, webcam, HDMI and 6.5 hour battery life. It's cheaper than the Samsung Series 5 also announced, starting at $349 with optional world-mode 3G available for more cash and will be available for preorder on the same day -- June 15th from Amazon and Best Buy. Check more details at the source link below, with pics in the gallery and specs are after the break.
Google I/O Keynote day 2 Acer Chromebook


Show full PR text
Specifications

11.6" HD Widescreen CineCrystalTM LED-backlit LCD
2.95 lbs. | 1.34 kg.
6 hours of continuous usage 1
Intel® AtomTM Dual-Core Processor
Built in dual-band Wi-Fi and World-mode 3G (optional)
HD Webcam with noise cancelling microphone
High-Definition Audio Support
2 USB 2.0 ports
4-in-1 memory card slot
HDMI port
Fullsize Chrome keyboard
Oversize fully-clickable trackpad

Official: Samsung reveals Chrome OS laptop -- the Series 5

Posted: 11 May 2011 10:24 AM PDT

Rumors told us what, when and even how much to expect, but Google just made it official on stage -- Chrome OS netbooks are finally here, and Samsung is leading the way with a ultra-slim 0.79-inch thin machine. This is the Samsung Series 5 ChromeBook, which plays to Google's new standard "Chromebook" spec --in short means they'll each come with a dual-core Intel Atom processor and an "all-day" battery, which Google says will provide 8.5 hours of continuous usage here. Samsung's particular clamshell will have a 12.1-inch, 1280 x 800, 300 nit screen, weigh 3.26 pounds and come with dual-band 802.11 WiFi, optional global 3G, two USB 2.0 ports, an HD webcam and a clickable trackpad that Google tells us has thankfully been revamped since the CR-48. You'll be able to purchase one from Amazon or Best Buy beginning June 15th. It'll cost $429 for the WiFi version and $499 for worldwide 3G -- which includes 100MB of free Verizon data per month, just like the CR-48. PR after the break.

Update: Amazon's Series 5 listing details some additional specs -- we're looking at a dual-core 1.66GHz Intel Atom N570 chip, a 1 megapixel webcam, and a 16GB mSATA solid state drive here, as well as an SDXC card reader, and VGA-out via an "optional" dongle.
Google I/O Keynote Day 2 Samsung Chrome Netbook
Samsung Series 5 ChromeBook
Show full PR text
SAMSUNG AND GOOGLE INTRODUCE THE WORLD'S FIRST CHROMEBOOK – SAMSUNG SERIES 5

Samsung creates another industry-first device.

SAN FRANCISCO - May 11, 2011- Samsung Electronics America Inc., a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Corporation, today announced its stylish Series 5 Chromebook, the world's first Chromebook built on the principles of speed, simplicity and security.

"With the creation of the Series 5 we are again pushing the boundaries of innovation by introducing an entirely new product category to the notebook market," said Scott Ledterman, director of mobile PC marketing at Samsung Enterprise Business Division. "This partnership has allowed us to combine Samsung's design and engineering expertise with Google's simple, secure software to provide consumers with a revolutionary notebook to fit today's web-centric lifestyle."

"Samsung's reputation for innovative design and hardware development makes it a great partner to introduce one of the first Chromebooks," said Caesar Sengupta, Director of Product Management, Google. "We look forward to bringing a much better computing experience built around the speed, simplicity and security of Chrome."

Elegant Design, Power Performance
With its elegant shape, slim 0.79-inch body and simple Titan Silver or White finish, the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook embodies fashion and function.

The 12.1-inch Super Bright display is both anti-reflective and anti-glare for a consistently vibrant visual experience across a variety of light conditions, from outdoors to dimly lit environments. The Series 5 display's 300nit brightness brings all forms of media alive in vibrant color.

Today mobility is a deciding factor for consumers. The Series 5 weighs 3.3 lbs. and has a battery life of up to 8.5 hours, including five hours of video play for all-day use without the need to recharge. The Series 5 battery has a lifespan up to 1,000 cycles, three times longer than conventional batteries, which reduces the need for replacements. *

The Samsung Series 5 packs power with an Intel® Core™2 Duo N570 1.66Ghz processor, giving you the versatility and performance you need for a one-of-a-kind web experience.

Simple, Secure User Experience
Google developed the Chrome operating system with three key factors in mind: speed, simplicity and security. The average out-of-the-box laptop starts up in 45 seconds. By contrast, the Series 5 starts up in less than ten seconds. When waking from sleep, a user simply opens the lid, and it's ready to go. This means that wherever you are and whatever you're doing, your computer won't slow you down.

For a secure experience, Chromebooks run the first consumer operating system designed from the ground up to defend against the ongoing threat of malware and viruses. They employ the principle of "defense in depth" to provide multiple layers of protection, including sandboxing, data encryption, and verified boot.

The Chromebook has also reduced concerns about security and data loss by moving everything to the cloud. If the Chromebook is ever broken or lost, all of your files are saved online.

Web-centric Entertainment, Unrelenting Workhorse
The Series 5 enables today's digital entertainment lifestyle by simplifying browsing, social networking, application usage and multi-media viewing. An optional VGA adaptor can connect to a second monitor or television, while audio inputs connect to a microphone, headphones or external speakers. The HD Webcam completes the Series 5's audio-visual package.

When there isn't time for entertainment, the Series 5 can get down to business. Productivity is enhanced with the Chromebook's stylish and comfortable island keyboard, which delivers performance that can't be matched by a virtual keyboard.

Connectivity
Samsung Series 5 will connect you to your data anytime, anywhere through 3G, WLAN and a 4-in-1 Card Reader. Verizon Wireless has partnered with Samsung and Google to provide 3G connectivity for the Series 5 in the U.S. Verizon will provide up to 100MBs per month of Mobile Broadband service included with device for two years. Simple and easy additional data packages are also available for users requiring additional space.

The Samsung Series 5 will launch in the U.S. June 15, 2011 from Amazon.com and BestBuy.com. The Wi-Fi + 3G model will retail at $499.99, and the Wi-Fi only model will retail at $429.99.

Key Specs:
0.79-inch thin case designed for comfort and mobility
Full-size Chrome keyboard
Oversized multi-touch trackpad
Intel® Core™2 Duo N570 1.66Ghz Processor
16:10 resolution
12.1-inch SuperBright Display – 36% brighter than standard display
Starts up in less than 10-seconds
Resumes instantly from standby
Up to 8.5 hours battery life*
HD Webcam, built-in digital microphone and stereo speakers
Two USB ports capable of charging mobile phones and accessories, connecting digital cameras and media storage devices
Support for removable media cards (SD, SDHC, MMC) for photos, videos, music and documents

Specifications and designs are subject to change without notice. Non-Metric weights and measurements are approximate MB = 1 million bytes, GB = 1 billion bytes, TB = 1 trillion bytes.

*Battery life will vary depending on the product model, configuration, power management settings, applications used, and wireless settings. The maximum capacity of the battery will decrease with time and use. Test results based on independent third party Mobile Mark (or Battery Mark) tests. Total amount of available memory may be less based on configuration.

Angry Birds gets a web version, coming to Chrome Web Store

Posted: 11 May 2011 09:55 AM PDT

Yet another platform has been conquered by the affronted fowl: the web! Angry Birds' web client is built in WebGL, so presumably browsers other than Google's Chrome should be able to run it as well, and even if you can't handle WebGL, there's Canvas support too. 60fps are promised on most modern PCs, and we've spotted SD and HD labels, suggesting there'll be a choice of quality to match your computer's performance. Offline gaming will also be available.

Chrome will get some exclusive content, such as "Chrome bombs" and other cutesy bits. Rovio just noted it's "really, really happy about the 5 percent," referring to Google's pricing model of charging a flat fee of 5 percent to developers on in-app purchases in the Chrome Web Store. Yes, the Mighty Eagle will be a purchasable option for the impatient among you. The game will be available in the Store immediately after Google's I/O 2011 keynote, so look out for it shortly.

Update: And the Angry Birds have landed. Hit up the source link below to obtain the free app.
Angry Birds for Chrome

Google makes Chrome Web Store available worldwide, adds in-app purchases and flat five percent fee

Posted: 11 May 2011 09:53 AM PDT

Google has just announced that it's making the Chrome Web Store available to the "entire userbase of Chrome" -- all 160 million, according to the company's latest numbers -- and in 41 different languages no less, although those outside the current markets will apparently only have access to free apps initially. What's more, it's also now added in-app purchases to the mix -- which it notes developers can add to their apps with "literally one line of code" -- and it's announced that it plans to "keep it simple" by simply charging developers a flat five percent fee instead of opting for some of the more complicated fee structures out there. As for how the Web Store has been doing so far, Google revealed that there has been 17 million app installs to date, although it provided few details beyond that.

Google I/O Keynote 2011 Day 2 Webstore

Live from Google I/O 2011's day 2 keynote!

Posted: 11 May 2011 09:23 AM PDT


1:39PM And that's a wrap! We're guessing we haven't heard the last of Chrome OS news for the day, though, so keep it locked here for more coverage throughout the day. Thanks for tuning in! Drive safe, and be sure to have your pets spayed or neutered.





1:38PM We can't get them today. Drat. They'll be available on June 15th, with the rest of the world. That's cool. We'll survive. Maybe.




1:37PM Everyone here is getting a Chromebook. People are losing their minds. Literally, I see some rolling around.

1:37PM "Many of you here helped Chrome gain traction." OMG.

1:37PM Chromebook: built for the web. Good stuff! "The web is what you make of it."

1:36PM "Everything can be saved to the web. That's crazy! I could throw this into a river, and I won't lose my stuff. No need for virus protection. No annoying updates. No patches. No patches for the patches." Man, serious blow at Microsoft. But it's true.

1:36PM Here comes a Chrome OS demo. More like an advertisement. Dropping some serious bombs on Windows. "No rolling hills of green. No messy desktops."


1:35PM Available June 15th, available for schools and governments and businesses, available direct from Google in the same seven nations mentioned earlier. Hit up google.com/chromebooks for more.


1:34PM This is also useful for educational institutions. And Google knows it. "We want every student to have a computer." Chromebooks for Education is priced at just $20 per user for schools and governmental entities. Huge applause. Now *this* is a game changer!



1:33PM Whoa, $28 per user -- software and hardware and services -- as a monthly subscription. That's insane. Small businesses just hung up on HP / Dell.


1:33PM "We want to make it really easy for companies to manage. We call this Chromebooks for Business. This is a service + hardware + software solution. IBM has to be shaking in its big, lumbering boots.


1:32PM Google's noticed that not everyone using Chrome OS wants or needs to be mobile. Here comes the desktop edition?


1:32PM Whoa, what's this? A Samsung-branded Chrome access box.

1:32PM The aforesaid Acer and Samsung Chromebooks will be available for businesses as well.

1:31PM "The city or Orlando is using Chromebooks right now, and in some cases, you'll find 'em within firetrucks and on the street." Also, Mickey Mouse is now sponsored by Google.



1:30PM InterContinental Hotels and Jason's Deli have been seeing great success in using Chromebooks.


1:30PM 50,000 companies applied to test the CR-48! That's wild!


1:30PM Talking enterprise adoption now -- is Google seriously about to push Chromebooks into the corporate world?

1:29PM "Most companies spend many thousands per computer, per year." It's true.

1:29PM Computing today means high upgrade costs, and old systems, while usage patterns have shifted dramatically. Desktop leads have been swapped by laptop gains. "All of this adds up costs for companies."


1:28PM There's a "full jailbreaking mode built in, and you can play around with the kernel all you want."


1:28PM "We want this to be fully jailbreakable." Yes! They'll be hackable from the start!

1:27PM UK: amazon.co.uk; Netherlands: laptopshop.nl; Germany: amazon.de; France: amazon.fr; Italy: Pixmania.com; Spain: pixmania.com / movistar



1:27PM At the same time, they'll hit six more countries -- Spain, France, UK, Netherlands, Germany and Italy.

1:27PM $429 in the US for the WiFi Samsung model, $499 for 3G. $399 for the Acer, "and up." June 15th availability through Best Buy and Amazon.

1:26PM Acer's next! 11.6-inch machine, always connected, available in WiFi and 3G models. We're leaving it to partners to detail more.


1:26PM Comes in "two colors." Lots of laughs.

1:25PM 12.1-inch, 300-nit display. "All-day battery usage." Headphone jack. Built-in WiFi, and there's a 3G *option* from Verizon in the US, other carriers overseas.


1:25PM The first Chromebook is from Samsung! Whoa! Sexy!

1:25PM "In fact, the connectivity piece of Chromebooks -- we've partnered internationally with leading carriers to make this same built-in 3G option available overseas."


1:24PM Acer, Intel, Samsung and Verizon are being talked up.



1:24PM New York Times, Huffington Post, Angry Birds, Salon, etc. -- tons of other apps are also supporting offline mode.

1:24PM Chromebook users will have that offline access "this summer." Huzzah!

1:23PM "We've been working hard on use cases. One of those is to use Chromebooks while offline. Three of the most important apps -- Gmail, Gcal, and Gdocs -- need to be offline accessible."

1:23PM Sundar's back on stage, pretty upset about having his Angry Birds session interrupted. We can't blame him.

1:22PM "We're working with Dropbox to provide similar support. It took Box.net just a single weekend to build this." So, spreading this to other services shouldn't take too awfully long.


1:21PM Kan's talking about third-party support now. Goog's been working with Box.net for similar file handling -- nice! Now we need this for Dropbox, and pretty much everything else.

1:21PM Now we're looking at document. "Since I'm a Google Docs user, that's also registered as a file handler." Needless to say, your life's going to be a heap of a lot easier if you use Google's suite of apps.

1:20PM Three photos are selected, and an option pops up to "Send To Picasa," and he's creating a new Private album. Things start uploading the background, and there's a notification system that pops up when it's done. Good thing he's on a T1, which greatly enhances the wow factor of this demo.


1:19PM "I can preview them, view a slideshow, and get them into the cloud. I'm a Picasa user, so I've installed the Picasa web app, which is now registered as a local file handler."


1:19PM Here's a demo -- he's got an SD card, just plugged it in. "Because Chromebooks are cloud devices, we wanted people to get their data into the cloud as soon as possible for easy sharing."


1:18PM Kan noted that Google had been "working closely" with Netflix, for whatever that's worth.

1:18PM "More and more users are streaming for web services -- things like Music Beta by Google and Google Movies. All of your other favorite services -- Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, MOG, Pandora -- they all work out of the box as well.



1:17PM Now, let's a movie sample playing. Yet again, it opens in an instant in a pull-out box, so you can continue browsing if you don't want to activate full-screen mode.


1:16PM "A lot of users have music, media, etc. that they want to play on Chrome OS. Back to the file manager, looking at some of my favorite media. Let's open an MP3. It opens immediately to a newly added media player." Really simple, really basic, but hey -- it's fast!

1:16PM Mr. Liu's a zero inbox kind of guy. We like him already.


1:15PM Here comes Kan Liu, a product manager for Chrome OS. We're talking about new features within Chrome OS, not the CR-48 specifically.

1:15PM We've worked hard with Adobe for a seamless Flash experience on Chromebooks. A new CR-48 trackpad was just teased. Now, if you plug in a camera, something interesting happens...

1:14PM A million people applied to get one, and we've shipped "thousands of devices all over the world." Feedback has been great -- people have had meetups, written emails, printed shirts. Thrown raves. Just kidding on the last one.


1:13PM CR-48 is on stage! What a beaut!

1:13PM "Your Chromebooks will get faster after we publish updates. Every piece of software is encrypted, to make sure you're secure, and you're always within the Chrome sandbox. It's pretty unique."

1:13PM "The software experience is very unique as well, given that it's nothing but the web. You can have multiple Chromebooks, and each time you open them, you get the latest build. It just gets better over time, which isn't familiar to typical PC users. Most PCs degrade over time."


1:12PM Instant on, always connection, all-day battery life, access your stuff anywhere (anywhere? really? not inside Moscone West!)

1:11PM "Every Chromebook has instant turn-on. Up and running in three minutes. If you're one of the 160m Chrome users, Chrome Sync brings it all over within seconds. Each time you open the lid, you're connected before you can type a sentence."



1:11PM Chromebook! A new term!

1:11PM "We wanted to distill it down to the web. Chrome OS can be applied to various form factors, and we've focused on laptops so far because that's where the bulk of the browsing is."



1:10PM "Everytime you boot up the computer, it takes forever to boot into your computer. Once you're inside, it's up to you to manage things. You have to run anti-virus software. It's really, really complicated."

1:09PM "People spend all of their time on the web, within a browser. That's why we created Chrome OS." Here we go!

1:09PM Chromeexperiments.com/webgl is another one to check out -- have fun!


1:08PM Everything's being dubbed "a Chrome Experiement." RO.ME is the URL to check out.


1:08PM As we kid, this is seriously impressive modeling within a browser -- insanely smooth performance here.


1:07PM "I'm literally painting with geometry. I'm painting with shader effects." This is trippy. Really trippy. "You can explore various dream realities." Pretty sure Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page are behind this.



1:06PM Here comes the experience. Aaron's applying real-time shaders as the video plays on, and it's a totally interactive 3D playground that matches up with the music. We have to say, this would've been HUGE in the '70s.

1:05PM Aaron's talking a mile a minute. Seriously, we clocked it.


1:05PM "Some of your may remember The Wilderness Downtown with the Arcade Fire. Today, we're talking Three Dreams of Black. It's a highly interactive music environment for the web, and it's based off of music from Danger Mouse and co.

1:04PM "This is what we can do on the web today, but there's a ton more to come." For a glimpse into the future, here comes Aaron Koblin from the web team.


1:04PM Now, how does Sundar top that? He isn't. He's playing Angry Birds on Chrome.

1:03PM No qualms with faking your boss out, pretending that you're browsing some important files. "Let's pop some pigs!"

1:03PM "Playing Angry Birds all day is a good thing to do." Word to the wise.

1:03PM "Everything you see here was done in Java, it didn't take us that long to port the game over. We're hosting everything on App Engine, and it should be able to cope with all of you hitting the game up after the keynote." After? Pshhh... it's looking good right now!

1:02PM As soon as in-app payments are live, we'll be supporting that. Should be available "very, very soon." Mighty Eagle will be the standout in-app purchase.

1:01PM Rovio's pumped about the five percent model. Shocker of shockers! "We're all for lower taxes." We knew Rovio was the heat.



1:01PM The birds are being flung into Chrome icons. Total geekfest. People are unbelievably elated. Like, first-time-at-Disney elated.

1:00PM "We think Chrome is a great environment for Angry Birds -- we didn't want to stop there. We wanted to offer a special treat for Chrome users. We built a few exclusive levels that are only available in Chrome: the Chrome Dimension!"

1:00PM If this liveblog suddenly stops, forgive us. We're playing Angry Birds.


12:59PM "Another really cool thing -- it's browser-based, so what if you're out flying? Since we're in the Web Store, we take advantage of caching. You can play the complete game offline."

12:59PM "We built this using Web GL -- it really rocks, as you can see. If your browser doesn't support Web GL, we support Canvas. If your browser supports hardware acceleration, you'll get an HD version."


12:58PM He's playing the first level. Performance is just about as good as on our Nexus One, but we saw just a slight, slight hint of lag. "On most modern PCs, we're seeing 60fps easily."



12:57PM It's shown as Angry Birds Beta, with a nifty Chrome logo in the top right. Let's get a demo!

12:57PM Huge announcement: Angry Birds is coming to the world's biggest platform -- the world wide web.

12:57PM "We wanted to bring Angry Birds to the web for a long, long time, but we didn't want to compromise performance. We aren't making fish in a bowl -- it's all about Angry Birds. Really, really Angry Birds. We've been so angry, because we've never been able to bring Angry Birds to the web."



12:56PM Whoa, Rovio's crew is on stage. People are going NUTS.

12:56PM Now, we're shifting over to games. Thanks to the new GPU abilities we just saw, Rovio's able to do something new and different.

12:55PM Sundar's back! He's pumped about the feature, and frankly, so are we. He just tossed out the "game changer" term. Oh, snap!


12:54PM So, Google's solution? A flat fee of five percent. Massive applause, whistling, a few cheers -- someone just did a rain dance. A make it rain dance.

12:54PM Okay, so how much? Google found that most options had complicated fee structures, but it wants to "keep it simple." They also noticed that the average fee structure was creeping up on 30 percent. Boo.


12:53PM Someone just made it rain on stage left.




12:53PM We just saw a two-click demo of making a purchase -- dead simple. Google's making this "stunningly simple" for devs to implement. How simple? Try "a single line of code."


12:52PM Graphicly Comics just got major publicity. Something tells us it's in-app purchase rate is about to skyrocket.


12:51PM The challenge is delivering this "at Google scale." Here's a demo of how it works.

12:51PM Vikas is talking in-app payments, and his team has been looking to make in-app payments "extremely frictionless, allowing users to stay engaged while making payments."


12:51PM "Today, it's hard to charge users within the app without breaking the flow. To talk about that, let's invite Vikas Gupta to the stage."

12:50PM The Web Store, as of today, will be available in 41 languages to all 160 million users of Chrome. US developers can write an app, and reach the entire user base around the world. Nice! Now, let's do something similar with Music Beta...


12:49PM Sundar Pichai returns to the stage, and he's talking Web Store. If you couldn't tell, we're at a developer conference. Developers!



12:48PM "Hundreds of new features" coming to a build near you, and with that, Ian exits stage left. He seems relieved. And he's dodging Mozilla fish. It's a bit weird, to be frank.


12:47PM Another example of a 3D application -- heading to tinkercad.com. Ian's designing some sort of fort. Maybe it's Mark Zuckerberg's new $7m house in Palo Alto.


12:46PM "But wait, there's more!" He's talking cooperation with Mozilla, which enabled a few more schools to float in without bringing things to a crawl. We've *love* to see this with 20 other tabs open and a few YouTube HD videos running, though.

12:45PM Ah, a demo of GPU acceleration within Chrome, with gobs of fish cluttering the display. Once we hit 1,000 fish, the frame rate finally drops below 60fps, representing a 10x increase in performance over prior builds.


12:45PM At this point, we're actually hoping that Translate starts popping out some politically incorrect terminology. Toss us a bone, Goog!

12:44PM By the way, this chart that Ian hates is 100 percent meaningless to everyone in the crowd. Baffled looks all around. Scoble's seeking out an interview as we speak, demanding that someone explain this.

12:43PM One of the key areas where focus is being placed, however, is graphics.


12:43PM Now we're talking Javascript speed -- things have become dramatically faster since the Beta, and Ian's saying that it's simply "not the bottleneck that it used to be."

12:42PM He just uttered "Welcome to San Francisco," and it just translated in near-real time. Hitting "Listen" allowed the browser to speak, and the handful of Chinese speakers in the crowd confirmed that the browser didn't actually curse the name of anyone's mother. Phew.


12:41PM Up pops translate.google.com within Chrome. Ian confesses that he's "terrible" at foreign language. Hear, hear!



12:41PM He just did a voice search for Emma Caulfield, and shockingly, it worked. Ian's taken aback. Is that a good thing, or an awful thing?

12:40PM "Rules of keynotes: never, ever do live speech demos. But we're going to anyway." Hah!

12:40PM He's banging out some code, a few typos, a few cheers, and boom -- up pops a microphone into the search bar! Easy enough...


12:39PM Tapping into the developer tools built into Chrome. These tools have progressed "a long way," and we're being encouraged to dig in deeper if we haven't already. Duly noted, Ian.

12:39PM Here comes a demo! We're in Chrome, looking at tv.clicker.com, looking to add Speech support.

12:38PM Talking Speech! We mean, he's literally about to talk speech. Talking. About. Speech.

12:38PM "There's been an amazing amount of new features added, and it's amazing the kinds of things you can build today. But, we're not resting on our laurels." Good to hear -- it seems Mozilla just might be...


12:37PM "Let's take a look at some of the upcoming APIs that we're excited about in Chrome." Here comes Ian Ellison-Taylor to talk more.


12:37PM "Speed is something near and dear to our heart, and we've pushed security really hard. The progress has been great. But other browser manufacturers are pushing the platform, too."


12:36PM Following that, Chrome's team moved to six week release cycles, with Chrome 12 Beta being launched just this week.

12:35PM So, what's happened between 70m and 160m? Last year, Chrome 4 (only available for Windows) was launched, and Linux / Mac support was a top priority. That obviously took a tons of resources, and Chrome 6 finally brought 'em to parity.



12:34PM The company's user base for Chrome has "more than doubled" in the past 12 months.

12:34PM A year ago, 70 million active users were relying on Chrome as "their main browser." At this year's I/O, far, far more are doing so. 160,000,000 in fact.

12:34PM "We've got a lot to cover." Talking about the open web, the pace at which it's moving. Let's get started!


12:33PM Google's Chrome team has been innovating along the way, and now, Sundar Pichai, Senior VP of Chrome, is out to take us next-level.


12:33PM Attention turns to the keynote. Talking about the "most important platform of our era," the open web, which "belongs to all of us."

12:32PM Vic's a big fan of Samsung -- he's congratulating us all again for receiving one yesterday. Today, Verizon Wireless will be handing out 4G mobile hotspots, which should be good for some fairly awesome speeds. Uh, "except in this room." Good call!



12:31PM It's on! Vic Gundotra, Senior VP for the company, is kicking things off once again. A blank Chrome browser window sits behind him. We're calling it right now -- today's focus will be on Buzz.

12:29PM T-minus 60 seconds. Music's loud, people are squirming, and somewhere, the web is being surfed.


12:28PM If you'll recall, we heard about a rumored $20-per-month student package for a Chrome laptop, and if we don't get just that today, we might just keel over. Fair warning.


12:24PM And we're in! Bit of a different backdrop today -- Chrome logos everywhere. Not that Goog's trying to foreshadow or anything...
No, you aren't losing your mind. You're really tuned in to the second Google keynote in as many days, and if we had to guess, we'd say Chrome and / or Chrome OS will take top billing. Things haven't started just yet, but your patience (or impatience) is greatly appreciated. Have a look below to see when things get going!

06:30AM - Hawaii
09:30AM - Pacific
10:30AM - Mountain
11:30AM - Central
12:30PM - Eastern
05:30PM - London
06:30PM - Paris
08:30PM - Moscow / Dubai
12:30AM - Perth (May 12th)
12:30AM - Shenzhen (May 12th)
01:30AM - Tokyo (May 12th)
02:30AM - Sydney (May 12th)

Motion Computing's CL900 tablet now available for order, starting at $899

Posted: 11 May 2011 09:12 AM PDT

It's been a while since we first laid eyes upon this rugged little guy, but Motion Computing's CL900 tablet is finally available for orders, starting at $899. Designed with enterprise markets in mind, the 2.1-pound Windows 7 slate runs on a 1.5GHz Intel Oak Trail Atom Z670 processor and rocks a 10.1-inch, 1366x768 multi-touch display that's shielded in Corning Gorilla Glass. Seated atop that display is a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, with a 3.0-megapixel sensor keeping watch over the backside. Boasting a thickness of 15.5mm, the device also offers up to 2GB of RAM (along with a 30GB or 62GB SSD), promises a battery life of up to eight hours and houses a USB port, SD card slot and Bluetooth 3.0 module. For now, the CL900 is only available at select retailers, though Motion is selling peripherals and accessories directly from its site. Check out the source links for more details.

LifeFitness exercise bike interfaces with Nexus S, makes fitness marginally enjoyable (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 08:53 AM PDT

LifeFitness may have taken one too many creative liberties with its Cyberbike Wii accessory, but it did a laudable job of redeeming itself at Google I/O this week. The outfit brought a USB-equipped exercise bike to the show floor, where an Open Accessory-enabled Nexus S promptly stole the show. We were shown a demo of the CardioQuest app interfacing with the cycle over the aforementioned protocol; the bike itself had a heretofore unreleased firmware update installed that allowed it to interact with the phone, and we're told that said update will be available free of charge to existing customers in the coming weeks.

As was announced yesterday during the opening keynote, the Android Open Accessory API is currently only capable of handling communications over USB, but that didn't stop a clever game from keeping a booth representative mighty busy. The gist is pretty simple -- pedal harder to move the Android up, and relax your stride to see him float down. The goal is to avoid the surrounding walls, while also keeping your mind from focusing on the fact that you're actually burning calories. Mum's the word on whether or not this particular app will ever make it into the Android Market, but there's a video of the chaos waiting just after the break, regardless.
LifeFitness exercise bike plays games with Nexus S at Google I/O

LG Optimus Black review

Posted: 11 May 2011 08:09 AM PDT

If you asked us to design our ideal Android phone, it might well end up looking like LG's Optimus Black. The handset that was once known under the codename "B" features a clean, elegant and exceedingly thin exterior, which is garnished with a 4-inch IPS display capable of generating 700 nits of brightness. There's the usual litany of added features, too, like a 5 megapixel shooter with the ability to record 720p video, a special G-Key for motion controls, and Wi-Fi Direct for peer-to-peer file transfers. Of course, looks and headline features are just the tip of the iceberg that is user experience, so if you want to know about the mountainous whole, join us after the break for a deep dive with LG's latest Android phone.
LG Optimus Black review

Hardware



The Optimus Black's external design is all about minimalism. The most basic manifestation of this pursuit is in the phone's extremely frugal weight (109 grams / 3.8 ounces) and thickness (9.2mm / 0.36 inches). Aside from striving to occupy the smallest physical footprint, however, the Black aims to convey a sense of understated sophistication. That means no perfunctory detailing on the front -- a single glass sheet covers almost the entire visage, breaking up for only a millimeter at the very top to allow for the earpiece. Beneath it, proximity and light sensors have intentionally been made nearly invisible to the human eye as has LG's own logo, which is painted on in the darkest of greys, leaving only the front-facing camera as a recognizable feature in the bezel above the 4-inch screen.

The Android buttons at the other end also flirt with evanescence when not in action, but are highlighted by a versatile backlight when called upon. There's a full illumination mode that bathes the keys in white light immediately after you unlock the phone or press one of them, with a blue glow identifying the pressed button for a second or so. A secondary, more subtle, lighting setting kicks in while using other functions of the handset, which achieves its dual purpose of being simultaneously unintrusive and informative. We've seen our fair share of Android button backlights either leaking or failing to turn on when they should, so the perfect execution by LG on the Optimus Black is worthy of commendation.

Once you get past the tidy front end, you'll find a whole heap of nothing on the left and bottom sides of the Black, with a couple of trapezoid shapes serving as volume rocker and G-Key (more on that below) on the right, and your usual headphone jack, power / lock combo button, and MicroUSB port at the top. Placing the data transfer and charging input atop the phone is atypical but not detrimental to usability. It comes with a sliding port cover the likes of which you might have previously seen on phones like the Omnia 7. Not that LG is copying Samsung, we're sure those guys never look over each other's shoulder.


The back is graced only by a 5 megapixel camera -- whose lens and LED flash have been wisely recessed a little to protect against scuffs and scratches -- some LG and Google branding, and a mesh output for the single loudspeaker. Gentle downward slopes on the left, right and bottom of the Optimus Black give it a hand-friendly curvature. LG has decided to dub this the C-Curve, though it reminds us most strongly of Microsoft's Zune HD. Our only issue with this design is that the slopes don't actually extend all the way to the front of the phone, resulting in your hand gripping an angular construct that just happens to have curvy parts as well. Admittedly plumper handsets like HTC's Incredible S and Motorola's Atrix offer more comfortable grips at the same 4-inch screen size, and if you're happy with a larger smartphone, we'd point you in the direction of Samsung's Galaxy S II, which marries a 4.3-inch display with some very agreeable ergonomics and thinness on a par with the Optimus Black.

LG has opted to make the plastic cover on the back of the Optimus Black envelop its sides as well, making it a rather crucial element of the overall design. On the one hand, we're happy to see that even with such an aggressively thin design, the manufacturer has managed to still allow you access to the battery compartment, but on the other, we're left somewhat unconvinced by the durability of the casing used. It feels brittle and isn't anywhere near as flexible as the functionally similar one on the Incredible S. We're left with the gnawing suspicion that the Optimus Black will be more susceptible to cracks and bruises over the long run than its competition.
LG Optimus Black vs. Galaxy S II and Xperia Arc... fight!

Display

Other than being thin and light enough to make other Android phones renew their electric gym membership, the Optimus Black's inarguable highlight feature is its so-called Nova Display. That's a fancy way of saying it has an IPS screen of the quality (and resolution, 800 x 480) found on the Optimus 2X / G2x with brightness capabilities extended all the way up to 700 nits. As far as the quality of output goes, we again find ourselves eyeing an IPS panel that seems halfway between LCD mediocrity and true IPS excellence as exhibited by Apple's iPhone and iPad. Clearly, this has been a cost-cutting measure on the part of LG, the result of which is a display that offers better color reproduction and viewing angles than the vast majority of LCDs but sits a a clear step below the finest available today.

Of course, LG's big counterargument would be to say that as exceedingly awesome as an iPhone 4 or a Samsung Galaxy S II may be to look at indoors, it doesn't do you much good if you can't see it when out in the sun. That is, indeed, where the Optimus Black shines. Cranking up its screen brightness to the maximum, we found the composition and playback of photos and video almost entirely unaffected by the direct sunlight we were bathed in, which was quite the feat. As far as outdoor readability goes, the Optimus Black is among the very best we've tested so far, which combines with its above average general performance to make this handset's display its most valuable asset. A warning is merited about the Black's auto-brightness, however, which hunts around a lot and is a little too sensitive -- merely passing a finger above the phone's ambient light sensor was enough to trigger a lowering of brightness, which happens in discrete, abrupt intervals. We'd advise controlling this setting yourself and giving the eccentric light show a miss.

Battery life

LG has gone the extra mile with the 1500mAh battery inside the Optimus Black: it's been slimmed down and elongated specifically so it can fit within the phone's more stringent dimensions. That's a fine engineering accomplishment, however even with that much juice the Optimus Black's longevity disappointed us. And rather gravely at that. Having used the phone over the length of a full week (a rare luxury for us), we consistently managed to run the battery down to 20-something percent within 12 hours of unplugging the Black from its charger. Considering that a lot of that time was spent merely collecting updates from Twitter and Gmail and doing some sporadic web browsing and music listening, that's an unimpressive number.

Once we heightened the workload with the performance of our camera tests and a few phone calls, we were able to deplete the battery to just four percent within seven hours. Again, we weren't shooting 720p video for the full seven hours, we just did more processor-intensive tasks during that test, though nothing that can be considered extraordinary or unrepresentative of real world use. From our experience, we feel confident in saying the Optimus Black will last you a full day at the office, but you'll have to charge it right up until you leave in the morning and plug it straight back in as soon as you get home in the evening. Given the Incredible S' ability to keep on ticking well into a second day after being fully charged, we consider the Optimus Black a clear step behind when it comes to battery life.

Loudspeaker and earpiece

Pumping tunes out of this LG handset's one speaker isn't going to rank highly on its list of regular duties, but the good news is that the sound produced is crisp and clear. Maximum volume's a little on the low side, forcing us to go all the way to 11 the top setting when playing back media, however that still provided a very comfortable listening experience -- contrary to other phones whose highest volume is reserved for tinny and distorted output. We reckon LG has exhibited a good bit of restraint by working within the phone's limitations here.

On the other hand, the earpiece gave us more serious cause for concern. Phone calls oftentimes degenerated to the point of making the other party sound robotic, which was in equal measure the fault of the audio and antenna hardware inside the Optimus Black. Using our regular SIM at our regular testing spot, we found the phone completely lost audio (no dropped calls, mind you) on multiple occasions, whereas even things as simple as a ringing tone were also affected by the above robotic-sounding quality. We understand tradeoffs are inevitable when building a phone as slick and slim as the Black, but this isn't a good one. It's particularly disappointing to see LG neglect call quality in light of the company's previous excellence in this field, as exhibited by such devices as the BL40.

Camera

On a sunnier note, the Optimus Black's photography skills are way above average. It doesn't feature the same mighty 8 megapixel sensor as contained within the 2X / G2x, but its 5 megapixel imager did some stellar work for us all the same. Detail is picked up and lovingly retained all over photos, while noise and blurryness are at a serious deficit. The above snapshot is a 100 percent crop of this picture, and if you're not impressed yet, we might as well tell you that both the taxi and the lorry were in motion at the time of shooting. Performance is great whether you're taking distant shots or going in for a closeup, and when shrunken down to about a megapixel's size, the Optimus Black's images stand a good chance of convincing you they were taken with a dedicated camera.
LG Optimus Black camera samples

There are a couple of slight issues with color reproduction -- it's not always wholly faithful to the subject matter -- and contrast not being strong enough on a few pictures, but those are easy to either correct or ignore. The important thing about the images captured by the Optimus Black is that they're detailed, and a quick rinse through your favorite image-enhancing program will make them look their best. A highly detailed options and modes menu will also help any budding photogs who desire the thinnest and lightest tool for their trade.

Video capture was highly satisfactory, however the .3gp files outputted from the phone were weirdly stretched when we offloaded them onto our computer. You can see them reproduced below, entirely unreformatted. Playing them back on the phone itself was a gorgeous, perfectly smooth experience -- notable given we recorded at 720p -- and you should still be able to get a good idea of the quality of the results below, in spite of the funky aspect ratio.




Software


If there's one thing professional sports have taught us, it's that speed kills. The Samsung Galaxy S II and LG's own G2x have recently raised the bar when it comes to responsiveness among Android smartphones, which is an unfortunate development for the Optimus Black as it's a handset that can't be considered fast even by yesteryear's standards. The single-core 1GHz chip at its heart may be sucking down a lot of power, but its output was meager by modern standards and benchmarks. In Quadrant, we typically got between 1,100 and 1,300, Linpack gave us 12.5 MFLOPS on average, Nenamark exhibited some noticeable stuttering on its way to a 26fps result, and Neocore couldn't crack past the 50fps mark, hovering in the mid-40s. Admittedly, Neocore is a benchmark that's explicitly designed for Adreno graphics chips, but the age of all these tests is such that a current-gen smartphone should be chewing through them with ease. The Optimus Black failed to do so, but more importantly, the subdued synthetic test results were matched by unimpressive speed in real world use.

Animations when transitioning between homescreens in the LG Optimus UI are choppy. With the Optimus Black, lag won't be as much of an annoyance as the simple dropping of frames when performing onscreen actions. Even the initial act of unlocking the phone isn't as fluid as we've seen on other devices and the pervasive feeling you get is that the phone's struggling (or straggling) while performing your commands.

This behavior carries over to the web browser, which loads pages quickly and doesn't exhibit any formatting flaws, but also labors under the strain of scrolling and pinch-to-zoom instructions. It's important to say that nothing is broken about them, everything works, but the Optimus Black doesn't have the same air of effortlessness in these tasks as other phones of this generation. Moreover, the phone's capable of playing back Flash content within the browser, but cannot offer smooth playback of 480p videos. Ultimately, the consistently sluggish performance put us off using the Optimus Black and we imagine others too would be disappointed not to see its looks matched by its deeds.

We were also underwhelmed to find the Black shipping with Android 2.2 on board instead of the latest version 2.3, but at least LG looks to have learned from its mistakes with the Optimus 2X and is sending a very stable software build out with its latest phone. None of the repetitious crashes or aberrances we encountered with the 2X were present here, leaving the only major complaint about the software as the fact that LG failed to meet its hardware requirements with what's inside the Optimus Black. A Gingebread (2.3) update is naturally promised to be in the works, but we always advise to buy a phone on the basis of what it brings in the retail box rather than the potential of what it could be down the line.

The G-Key

If you've been following AT&T and T-Mobile's recent exercises in specious branding, you'll know that adding extra Gs to your phone is the latest in smartphone fashion. LG hasn't escaped this trend, though its G addition is the new Gesture Key, which resides just under the volume rocker. When depressed, this button harnesses the Optimus Black's accelerometer to gauge the meaning of your mad waving of the handset and react appropriately. You can hold down the G-Key to navigate between homescreens by simply turning the phone (yes, very much like Samsung's implementation in the Galaxy S II) or alternatively shake the Black twice to enter the camera app. The biggest attraction from our perspective was the promise that pressing the G-Key and picking up the phone the way we naturally would for a call would automatically answer an incoming call, but alas, we struggled to make it work. In fact, we've yet to figure out what's wrong with our double-shaking (should we be saying "abracadabra?") and don't know whether the promised camera app activation even works. Basically, it's an unwieldy set of motion controls that forces us into the most obvious of puns: the G in G-Key stands for "gimmick."

Another chink in the Optimus Black's already dented software armor relates to its touchscreen. There's a chronic failure to recognize taps. Perhaps one out of every dozen inputs we impart to the phone is never registered, which is far too high an error rate for a pleasurable user experience. As a result, we couldn't type with any great speed on the Black, having to perpetually check that it recorded what we'd written. This wasn't particularly helped by the slight lag between punching in words and having them show up on the screen.

Wi-Fi Direct et al


Wi-Fi Direct was a big deal for LG at CES 2011, where we saw this very handset showing off how easily and quickly wireless transfers can be carried out between compatible devices. The novelty of the approach is that no wireless access point is required to act as an intermediary between Wi-Fi Direct phones, laptops, or watermelon coolers, meaning that you can use your WiFi radio to throw stuff around as simply as you would with a Bluetooth connection. Importantly, with Wi-Fi Direct you can actually communicate with up to eight devices at a time, so caring and sharing in groups can be done pretty effortlessly. The only shortcoming we found to its implementation in the Optimus Black was that we couldn't track down the Wi-Fi Cast app you see in the demo above, which rendered our Wi-Fi Direct connection useless -- there's a ton of file sharing apps on the Android Market for working over a standard wireless network, but nothing that we could find for negotiating Wi-Fi Direct transfers.

That said, we were lucky enough to still have a Galaxy S II, another Wi-Fi Direct-capable handset, hanging around our test chambers, so we hooked that up to the Optimus Black to see how well it all worked. Happily, we can report connections were almost instantaneous, with both phones capable of acting as the host. So the technology is there and it's very well executed, but the software was oddly missing.

We shouldn't neglect to mention some of LG's helpful tweaks to the Android UI. The lockscreen updates itself with your missed messages or calls and allows you (again, much like Samsung's GSII) to unlock the phone straight into the relevant section. The standard unlocking gesture is an upward swipe, whereas unlocking to a missed call is done with a downward flick, making the two simple to distinguish and precluding the chance of erroneously ending up in a place you didn't want to be. Additionally, when receiving a call, you can slide up a list of message responses, which will reject the call and send out a text message to your caller to soften the blow. On the music front, playback controls have been integrated into the Android slide-down menu -- along with five toggles for sound, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and data -- and are also available as a little slider menu on the lockscreen. Both are neatly done and handy to have.

The app menu organization isn't the greatest in the world and the contacts list picks up all your Google contacts by default, rather than just the people you've listed in your Contacts section. Neither is much of a hurdle to the enjoyable use of the phone, but a mention's merited all the same. We did appreciate LG allowing the addition of multiple shortcuts and widgets at a time when editing homescreens, which makes customizations much easier and quicker to execute.

Wrap-up


The Optimus Black feels like a phone that has missed its window of opportunity. Had it been immediately available upon its announcement at CES in January, its omission of Gingerbread may have been considered forgivable, its unimpressive performance would have been less harshly judged in the light of what else was on the market at the time, and its thinness would have actually been a unique feature to promulgate. Now? Now we have phones with qHD resolution, multiple processing cores, and slim profiles to match and even better the Optimus Black. So why would you want to buy the Optimus Black with all the other options crowding the Android smartphone marketplace?

Well, we could point to its dashing good looks, quality camera, and above-average screen technology, but if those are your top priorities, you might be better off with a Nokia N8. The one thing keeping the Optimus Black in the conversation is Android and its inherent software and ecosystem strengths, but even that has the stale taste of Froyo in a Gingerbread-eating world. We're sorry, Mr. Black, we really wanted to like you, but you turned out to be as shallow on the inside as you were thin on the outside.

Motorola Xoom WiFi to get Android 3.1 update within the 'next several weeks'

Posted: 11 May 2011 07:58 AM PDT

Google said yesterday that the new limited edition Galaxy Tab 10.1 would be getting updated to Android 3.1 in the next couple of weeks, and it looks like it will be a similar situation with the WiFi-only Xoom. Motorola has just announced that it will receive the update "within the next several weeks." It also reaffirmed that the Verizon 3G Xoom is rolling out over the air this week, so you should be receiving it soon if you haven't already. Full press release is after the break.
Show full PR text
Android 3.1 (Honeycomb) Software Update, Coming First to Motorola XOOM™, Delivers Support for Android Market Movie Rentals and Numerous Other Enhancements

Over-the-air software update rolling out this week to Motorola XOOM tablets on Verizon Wireless

Motorola XOOM users on the Verizon Wireless network will soon be able to rent movies, use a Bluetooth® headset during video chats, resize their widgets and more with an over-the-air software update for Android™ 3.1 (Honeycomb) that makes the Motorola XOOM experience even more powerful than before. The software update, coming first to Motorola XOOM and rolling out this week, delivers a wide range of new features and expanded functionality, including:

* Support for the new Android Market movie rentals service with thousands of titles available for immediate viewing on the Motorola XOOM's high-resolution display or on a larger screen via HDMI
* Full support for the final release of Adobe® Flash® Player 10.2, delivering significant performance enhancements when viewing rich Flash content on the web
* Resizable widgets to enable further customization of home screens
* Support for USB-connected peripherals and accessories, such as keyboards, mice, game controllers and digital cameras
* Expanded Bluetooth features to support Bluetooth headsets in Google Talk™ video chats and Bluetooth mouse support in addition to additional shortcut keys with the Bluetooth keyboard
* Picture Transfer Protocol Feature support to enable easier transfer of photo files to your PC without the need for drivers

Motorola XOOM with Wi-Fi tablets and other variants of Motorola XOOM will receive the update within the next several weeks. If users have questions or need support, they can visit www.motorola.com/myxoom or www.motorola.com/support, or get help from other owners on our online community at https://supportforums.motorola.com.


Certain features, services and applications are network dependent and may not be available in all areas; additional terms, conditions and/or charges may apply. Specific functionality and features with each software version of Android may vary. Contact your service provider for details.

MOTOROLA and the Stylized M Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Motorola Trademark Holdings, LLC. Android, Google, Google Talk, and Android Market are trademarks of Google, Inc. Adobe and Adobe Flash are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. © 2011 Motorola Mobility, Inc. All rights reserved.

Shell opens America's first pipelined hydrogen-fueling station in Southern California

Posted: 11 May 2011 07:44 AM PDT

Residents of SoCal's Torrance should consider themselves lucky, as they're now living in America's first-ever city to have a pipelined hydrogen-fueling station. You can thank Shell and Toyota for picking up this government-funded green project. Sure, while the few other hydrogen stations still rely on delivery by supply truck (presumably running on diesel, ironically), this nevertheless marks a new milestone for our squeaky clean fuel, and it's only a matter of time before more stations get piped up to Air Products' hydrogen plants. If there's any indication of a time frame, Wired reminds us that 2015 should see the arrival of many new mass-market hydrogen cars from Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes-Benz. Not long to go now, fellow tree huggers.

Google's Arduino-based ADK powers robots, home gardens and giant Labyrinth (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 07:27 AM PDT

Sure, it looks just about like every other Arduino board found at Maker Faire, but this one's special. How so? It's Google-branded, and not only that, but Google-endorsed. Shortly after the search giant introduced its Android Open Accessory standard and ADK reference hardware, a smattering of companies were already demonstrating wares created around it. Remote-control robots? Check. Nexus S-controlled gardens? Check. A laughably large Labyrinth? Double check. It's already clear that the sky's the limit with this thing, and we're as eager as anyone to see 'em start floating out to more developers. Have a look in the gallery for close-ups of the guts, and peek past the break for a video of the aforementioned Xoom-dictated Labyrinth.
Google's Arduino-based ADK hands-on at Google I/O 2011

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 coming May 17th, with Gorilla Glass screen and spill-proof keyboard (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 07:08 AM PDT

Man, Lenovo isn't even trying to keep the ThinkPad X1 under wraps anymore. The slinky new MacBook Air competitor has just slipped out in a video commercial on the company's own YouTube channel, where it shows off a keyboard that's both backlit and spill-resistant, and a Gorilla Glass screen that is apparently girlfriend-proof. See the video after the break and circle May 17th as your acquisition date if you're after one -- that's when Lenovo promises the X1 will be arriving.

[Thanks, Jon]



Google Music Beta walkthrough: what it is and how it works (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 07:00 AM PDT

We made a few predictions about Google's (then-presumed) music service in our streaming roundup last week, and thanks to the inability of an undisclosed amount of labels to take a whiff of whatever El Goog was cooking, it looks as if we've been left with something less robust, but nevertheless intriguing. It's worth taking a glance at our team editorial on Music Beta by Android to get a feel of what could've been, but the reality is this: what was launched today is what we've been dealt, and now it's time to break things down and see how it actually functions in practice.

Care to have a look at a full installation walkthrough, problem reports and two more pennies on how the service stacks up? That, along with tips on fulfilling your hopes and dreams, are tucked away just after the break.
Google Music Beta walkthrough on phone, tablet and PC

The premise
For those following along during this morning's keynote, it's possible that you may have your noodle wrapped around what exactly Google's first foray into music streaming purports to offer. For everyone else, your noodle's probably just plain baked. Music Beta by Google isn't terrifically complicated -- at its core, it's a vast online music locker that relies heavily on the cloud to deliver happiness. It's eerily similar to what Amazon rolled out earlier this year with Cloud Player, and can be considered a Dropbox or mSpot that's specifically enhanced for music delivery. Very much unlike Amazon's offering, however, Google wasn't able to nail down agreements with major record labels that would allow it to also sell music. In truth, the simplicity here (not to mention the seamless integration with existing Google accounts) is apt to bring a smile to the faces of casual music listeners. It's the power users who may end up demanding more.


Due to the record labels failing to bite, you'll never actually buy a track or album through this new service; should you choose to select "Shop for Artist" within it, you'll simply be taken to a Media portal over at Google's website. Hardly an elegant solution, but it's stark proof that Google's going to do what Google does even if labels aren't willing to play ball. We were told here at I/O that the search giant was in discussions with unnamed labels, presumably in an effort to bundle in a music store, but that none of them were willing to sign up for the terms put forth. Rather than scraping the whole idea, Google's giving users an online hub to stock up to 20,000 tracks at any bitrate, and at least for now, it's free.
Music Beta by Google on Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition

What's it cost?

"At least while it's in beta, the service is free." That's the exact line spilled during the opening keynote at this year's I/O, and it's just about as telling as a quote could be. Google's happy to hand you gigabytes upon gigabytes of cloud storage for now, but chances are you'll have to pony up in order to keep things there once the beta label is yanked. The company's keeping a tight lid on prospective pricing plans, but it'll be remarkably interesting to see how things play out given Google's baseline: song quantity. In contrast, Amazon, Dropbox and mSpot rely on capacity limits, and in reality, Google's the first big-shot company in this space to measure things differently. The beta allows for 20,000 tracks at any bitrate to be uploaded; beyond that, we're expecting Google to launch a tiered pricing model for even more songs, but it's unclear if the company's mulling a free option for those with just a handful of songs -- you know, 5,000 or so.

What's supported?
Glad you asked! As for file formats, you can upload MP3, AAC, WMA and FLAC files. Outside of that, you're totally out of luck. That's a pretty big pitfall -- this means that APE lovers won't be making use of this without converting their library to a compressed format, and ex-Apple users will likely be frustrated by the service's inability to understand M4P (Apple DRM) and M4A (Apple Lossless) files. Oh, and did we mention that any FLAC files you upload are transcoded to 320kbps MP3s? Yeah. Granted, that's not totally unexpected given that it's a wee bit difficult to stream a 20MB version of "Joints and Jams," but we can still feel our eardrums tearing up a bit.


It's also worth noting that your cloud library can be accessed from any PC that you're willing to login to, but only eight total devices can be authorized to stream from it. Thankfully, you can easily de-authorize stale devices from the web, and for the vast majority of humans, we're guessing that limit will never be breached.


As you'd probably expect, this is Android-only for now, and we're surmising that's how it'll always be. Your device must be running Android 2.2 or above with Open GL ES 2.0, and in our testing, it ran just fine on both Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) and Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). The app itself is available right now in the Android Market for zilch, but of course, cloud functions are useless until you're allowed into the beta. That's an invite-only affair for now, but you can press your luck by applying right here.

Installation

So, you've made it into the beta. Time to celebrate with a case of Four Loko. Here's what happens next: you'll need to download yet another application onto your computer, this one dubbed Music Manager. Given our distaste for iTunes, having to install a Google-mandated piece of music software left us feeling downright nauseous. We get it -- there's no feasible way for folks to upload gigabytes of music through a browser, but tossing yet another piece of software onto our machine wasn't what we were hoping for. Thankfully, it's pretty unintrusive -- we'll dive in deeper here in a bit.


After powering through a few pages of agreements, you're given the option to clutter your impending library with a hodgepodge of "free tracks." Thanks, but no thanks. From there, you're given the "option" to download Music Manager. It's not optional. The web interface is good for only a few things: managing what devices are authorized, viewing / searching through the music you've uploaded, and actually playing back what's in the cloud.


Onto Music Manager: you'll be given the option to upload tracks from iTunes, another music folder of your choosing, or "Other folders." Once you select that, you'll have the following question posed: "Do you want to update your Music library automatically with new songs you add to iTunes?" We selected "no," and forged ahead -- we prefer being able to manually manage as many things as possible, but "yes" is there for those who have better things to do than sweat the small stuff. Just over 2,100 songs were scanned and located in under a minute, and from there, we were dumped into the Music Player portion of the software with no further options. Uncool.


Let us explain -- you are given no control whatsoever over what's uploaded after you've selected iTunes or a folder. In other words, if you've got a couple of duplicate albums, or a few B-side records you'd rather not waste bandwidth on, you best relocate those before mashing "Go." That's terribly annoying for power users. Even more annoying is the inability to pause uploading once Music Manager starts its journey; you can quit it entirely or select a throttled upload option. That'll be plenty for most, but again, we're craving control here. It's also worth pointing out that music cannot actually be played within Music Manager; there's a button that launches the web portal if you're looking to actually hear anything, and you'll need Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer 7+ to play things back properly.
Music Beta by Google screengrab walkthrough

The Music app for Android

If you're rocking Froyo or Gingerbread, you've probably got a Music app from Google. Get ready to have it replaced. The new version, which can be downloaded from the Android Market today at no charge, changes up the UI quite significantly, and in more troubling news, makes no clear indication about what music is local and what music is hosted in the cloud. We've no real qualms with the design overhaul, but not being able to easily see what's cloud-based and what's local is a huge oversight. Let's ponder an example: you're cruising down the freeway using your Android smartphone as your in-car jukebox. You hand the phone to your backseat driver to make the next selection, and they just so happen to select a cloud track as you're driving out of service. Obviously, you're in for some confusion -- confusion that could be avoided if cloud tracks were simply colored differently.


Over on the Honeycomb side, things look a wee bit different. We tested the Music app (v3.0.338) on our Galaxy Tab 10.1 Limited Edition -- which required an immediate update -- and found a few more options. You can choose to hide unavailable music, but not hide cloud-stored music. In theory, these are the same things, but music that's technically "available" over Edge does a real-world user little good; we'd prefer an option to simply hide, or more easily discern, cloud-based content. You can also choose to stream and download music via WiFi only, saving those with 3G tablets from exceeding their data allotments on something as silly as uploading a cadre of FLAC-encoded Dr. Dre records. We can definitely get down with those options, but we found ourselves longing for even more.


Beyond that, it's a pretty vanilla music app. It's easy to sort by artist, genre, album, song, playlist and "New and Recent," and the search function worked shockingly well -- even while parsing cloud tracks. It's decently easy to select albums or songs for offline storage; just hit the arrow dropdown beside either and select the Pin beside "Available offline." Choosing the "Shop for artist" option, as we mentioned before, simply redirects you to Google.com, tossing you out of the Music app entirely and leaving a pretty puzzled look on your face while your browser loads.


Now's as good a time as any to point out the obvious: there's a glaring lack of multitouch support in this app. You can't swipe left / right to go track-to-track, and we'd love a two- or three-finger swipe to take you back to the album or artist. These seem like fairly simple things to include, and we're desperately hoping to see 'em added in future builds. As it stands, you'll spend an inordinate amount of time moving your finger to the "Back" button, all while longing to use familiar gestures to move to and fro.


For what it's worth, Google has managed to nail the notifications. It's easy to shift out of the Music app while keeping a song playing in the background, and even Pinned items are given a dedicated taskbar icon where you can check the download status.

User experience
We've given you hints as to what we'd tweak if given the design keys to the newfangled Music Beta service, but here's the low-down: Google's first effort in this universe is a valiant one, but there's still a ton to improve on. In truth, this feels like something that was thrown together in the past few months, with the final touches tossed in just weeks ago after heated discussions with labels fell through. We're speculating, of course, but you can trust that the prominent Beta marker here is well deserved. We never experienced a full-on app crash, and to be honest, performance was snappy on both the Tab 10.1 and our (aged) Nexus One. But that's not to say we didn't have our fair share of issues.


Even for a barebones app with far too few options, we stumbled upon quite a few head-scratching moments while interacting with it. Upon loading it up on our media-less Tab 10.1, we were greeted with a dialog screen stating the following:

"Your music library is empty. Connect your device to your computer with a USB cable to copy music files to your device. If you have a Macintosh, download the free Android File Transfer application to your computer first."

We're guessing this is there due to the fact that not everyone will be taking advantage of Music Beta (read: some folks will only want to load up tunes locally), but an adjustment here to let first-time users know that they need to initiate a music upload on their computer before having access to cloud-stored tracks wouldn't hurt. As it stands, it's easy to assume that tunes must first be loaded onto a device, where they'd be launched into the cloud from there.

After around five minutes of uploading, our tablet finally recognized that we had a Music Beta account that could be connected. Two clicks later, and we were in. From there, early tracks began to appear in near real-time, allowing us to start streaming right away. We definitely noticed a slight delay when beginning to stream music, even over WiFi, but after the initial hiccup our tunes began caching quite quickly, and once tracks were finished loading we could hop from one point to another or replay previous songs just as if they were stored locally. What's more, we found Google Music would begin caching the next track in an album or playlist as soon as it finished loading the last, and by the time we were done listening to the first song we had three completely downloaded.


We also had a strange issue when trying to sync up our tablet and smartphone at the same time. So far as we can tell, only one device can be synced at a time. While our tablet was on and streaming, our smartphone refused to recognize our online library. Of course, this could've been a glitch that only occurs when trying to setup two devices for the first time -- after rebooting both units, cloud-based songs began to quietly populate both libraries without issue.

Sound quality
Here's a big one -- is there any noticeable sound degradation when listening to streamed music? During the initial I/O keynote, it was briefly mentioned that the app could slash the bitrate based on network congestion and available bandwidth -- basically, it'll automatically degrade sound quality for the sake of keeping the stream alive if necessary. We're happy to report that our test tracks sounded as good as ever, even while streaming over a Verizon Wireless 3G hotspot in an already saturated corner of San Francisco.


Frankly, we were shocked at just how great everything sounded; to the untrained ear, you'll never be able to tell streamed tracks apart from MP3s -- unless, of course, you fall to Edge or hit a WiFi network that's already being hammered. You could obviously download an album or track locally in order to prevent stuttering or quality loss, but if you're already dealing with a slow connection, attempting to suck entire records down will only heighten your frustration.

The bandwidth problem
And this, folks, is the elephant in the room, and it's the same one seen in Amazon's closet. A near-limitless cloud of music sounds stellar -- particularly while it's still priced at $0.00 -- but the toll it'll take on your broadband limits cannot be ignored. 20,000 songs is a ton of information, even if every last one is encoded at a measly 128kbps. Let's say each of your tunes is 3MB -- that's most likely a conservative figure, but we'll use it for the sake of this example. 20,000 of those lands you at around 60GB. For the average broadband user, it'll take days -- if not a full week or so -- to upload that much material, and if you're using a vanilla Time Warner Cable connection, it'll paralyze your web surfing all the while. Granted, you can manually throttle your Music uploads within Music Manager, but doing so will greatly increase the time it takes to get your library in the cloud.


For the growing number of consumers faced with monthly bandwidth caps from the likes of Comcast, 60GB represents a sizable chunk of the usual 250GB allotment. Plan your uploads carefully if we're speaking to you. If you're even thinking about starting this over 3G, we'd urge you to strongly reconsider. Even those so-called "unlimited plans" aren't designed to handle this kind of load, and we'd be shocked if you didn't get a stern call from your carrier should you attempt to upload even a portion of your library through WWAN.


But that's not even the primary issue; the issue comes after those tracks are safely up in the air. Google's giving you a way to listen to your entire library on the go, but at the same time, seems to be glossing over the fact that it'll require a significant amount of data to do so. If you're on a tiered data plan with a minute amount of data, and you start using this service heavily, you can go ahead and toss your historical usage data in the garbage. We'd evaluate your usage closely, and make any necessary plan changes before you blow past your allotment.


We're also wondering just how viable this solution is long-term. For those camped out in major metropolitan areas, you know all too well how difficult it is just to send a tweet when the towers are overloaded; how well is a music streaming service going to operate under those same dreadful conditions? One of the biggest problems we see with a cloud-based music locker is the ginormous YMMV label that simply has to be applied here -- you cannot promise customers any level of uptime, nor can you assure them that their experiences won't vary from hour to hour. We'll just put it out there -- you're putting an awful lot of faith on 3G networks should you decide to ditch local song storage and rely on cloud-based Music Beta for your everyday listening.


In our mind, this here service is best viewed as a complement to having your most listened-to tracks onboard your device, not an outright replacement. If you don't put yourself in a position where you rely on a wireless network for musical enjoyment, you're less likely to find yourself foiled.

The ideal situation that wasn't to be
After the novelty of the announcement wore off, we soon realized just how close Google was to creating our ideal streaming solution. Imagine if Music Beta could scan your iTunes library for tracks that you already own, and then ping a record label's servers to stream a song rather than forcing you to upload things first. What a lovely setup that'd be. Trouble is, labels won't ever allow it, as there's no feasible way to see if every track in your iTunes library was indeed procured via legal means. Was this type of dream scenario what Google had in mind just weeks ago? That's a question we may never truly know the answer to, but we have to hold out hope that the company will keep pushing for such an arrangement.

Wrap-up


So, where does this leave us? In a better spot than we were yesterday, that's for sure, but still a country mile from having an end-all answer to our music streaming desires. Music Beta by Google is a slick, if not understated solution to hosting your own music in the cloud and then accessing it from wherever you have a decent internet connection. It's downright delightful for casual listeners who need a no-fuss option for hoisting their music into the cloud for access on-the-go, and they're able to use a device they're abundantly familiar with. But it's still a complementary app. There's just no real replacement to having your favorite tracks stored locally on your device, and we're eons from being in a universe where we'd trust cellular networks to deliver satisfactory streaming performance day in and day out.

The software itself has a ways to go, at least for demanding software users. A handful of advanced options are sorely needed, and users need more control over what's uploaded from the start. The whole thing reminds of us Android's early insistence on dumping your Google Contacts in with your manually added contacts -- it makes life simple for casual users, but really cramps the style of power users who'd prefer to have absolute control over integration.


Then, there's the looming issue of cost. Based on just how inexpensive it is to buy an extra 20GB of storage for use with Google Docs, Gmail and Picasa ($5 per year as of this writing), we're cautiously optimistic that Music won't cost two arms and three-quarters of a leg whenever the beta label is dropped. That said, Google has to know that stored

In our mind, this here service is best viewed as a complement to having your most listened-to tracks onboard your device, not an outright replacement.

music will create a more serious uptick in bandwidth than, say, a stored Excel file. We're still unconvinced that Music -- in its current form -- will be worth more than a few bucks a month, and we're guessing that the company will more or less follow Amazon's Cloud Player pricing model. We'd also be remiss of our duties if we failed to point out that this is a US-only service for now. During a press Q&A, Andy Rubin confirmed that there aren't any far-flung licensing issues to blame; according to him, it's simply "hard" to nail a global launch, and it's better to throw something out into familiar territory before evaluating the needs of international markets.

If Google delivers a shockingly low price, it'll probably be worth ponying up just to keep a backup of your music that's easily accessible for streaming; otherwise, just pump up your Mozy volume and invest in a 32GB microSD card.

Boxee Box v1.1 update includes improved browser, playback controls and more

Posted: 11 May 2011 06:59 AM PDT

Early previews of a new update for the Boxee Box mentioned a couple of different version numbers, but now the company has settled on v1.1 for the software update (sorry, still nothing for PCs) it's rolling out over the next few days with a slew of new features. VP of Marketing Andrew Kippen confirms the "huge browser update" he'd mentioned earlier is included with the following features: favorites, history, a better UI to show more of the picture and include more options, plus expanded HTML5 capabilities that should fix login problems for HBO Go. There's no mention of iPad support, but the whole on screen display has been trimmed with a new seek bar for more precise FF/Rewind action, along with support for customized local metadata and NFO files, a new MLB.tv app and two new content partners including the worst TV channel ever and SnagFilms. One thing that's been removed? Volume controls, which Boxee says "improves consistency" and makes it the same as any standard Blu-ray player. As usual, the update will be issued automatically, but if you just can't wait you can force it manually, check the source links for details, more screenshots and a full changelog.

Touch pad prototype works without movement, makes fingertips feel like they're sliding (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 06:44 AM PDT

This comes from the same touchy-feely Kajimoto lab in Japan that brought us the tactile kiss transmission device and we totally see where they're going with it: maximum sensation, minimum effort. You only have to exert the gentlest of pressures on this prototype touch pad and it zaps your fingertip with little electrical signals, mimicking the feeling of sliding your finger over a surface. We imagine it's a bit like the little red pointing stick in the middle of a Lenovo ThinkPad keyboard, for example, but with the addition of "position-dependent data input" to create the illusion that your finger is actually touching different areas of the screen. For now though, if you don't mind stretching a finger to your old-stylee mouse or trackpad, then check out the video after the break.

Schizophrenic computer may help us understand similarly afflicted humans

Posted: 11 May 2011 06:31 AM PDT

Although we usually prefer our computers to be perfect, logical, and psychologically fit, sometimes there's more to be learned from a schizophrenic one. A University of Texas experiment has doomed a computer with dementia praecox, saddling the silicon soul with symptoms that normally only afflict humans. By telling the machine's neural network to treat everything it learned as extremely important, the team hopes to aid clinical research in understanding the schizophrenic brain -- following a popular theory that suggests afflicted patients lose the ability to forget or ignore frivolous information, causing them to make illogical connections and paranoid jumps in reason. Sure enough, the machine lost it, and started spinning wild, delusional stories, eventually claiming responsibility for a terrorist attack. Yikes. We aren't hastening the robot apocalypse if we're programming machines to go mad intentionally, right?

Editorial: Android@Home is the best worst thing that could happen to home automation

Posted: 11 May 2011 05:51 AM PDT

As the resident Engadget home automation nerd, Google's Android@Home announcement rocked my little low-powered RF world yesterday. Seeing a brand like Google get behind home automation is the stuff I've been dreaming about ever since Nokia dipped a toe into the tepid Z-Wave waters back in 2008. Unfortunately, Nokia abandoned its Home Control Center ambitions shortly thereafter, leaving the industry in the hands of such consumer powerhouses as Zensys, Sigma Designs, ExpressControls, AMX Corp, Control 4, Echelon, and Jung. Heard of them? No, no you haven't, and that's my point.

Home automation has long suffered from the lack of a consumer-centric approach. Consumer electronics companies have almost universally come around to the new mantra of user experience. Most companies have finally awoken from their deep eighties slumber to realize that a single product can no longer dominate an industry on its own -- the age of the Walkman is over. For success, a product must encompass great software, great services, hardware that just works, and stellar support when it doesn't. In short, the user experience is what sets the product apart. Home automators have yet to realize this but Google's announcement could force the issue.

It's with open arms that I welcome Google into my home, that I willingly prostrate myself at the feet of Matias Duarte. Android@Home is the first concrete step towards realizing the hopes I had ever since Google announced its PowerMeter smart meter partners back in 2009. Surely you remember PowerMeter? Google's free web service that lets home owners monitor their total energy consumption? Probably not, because the device-level component was missing. That all changes with Android@Home since it focuses on automating the products you use on a daily basis: light switches, light bulbs, power sockets, washing machines, window coverings, thermostats, loudspeakers, etc. Every electrical device in the home is fair game.

So far the company has promised partnerships with "several industry players" but has only demonstrated a prototype wireless lightbulb from Lighting Science and an Android@Home media hub. The hub reference design, aka Project Tungsten, combines a Music Beta endpoint with a bridge to your home network to create a pretty compelling distributed audio solution akin to a Sonos ZonePlayer. Now, two devices is nothing. But the potential, the potential is staggering, giving users the ability to drill all the way down from the whole-home energy view to the device and switch level without ever leaving their browser or smartphone app. That's the future I've been dreaming of. That's what could trigger an explosion in sales of home automation gear. Or not. Google I/O launches have a varied history of uptake (uh hem, Wave, Chrome OS, Gears, Friend Connect).

There's an old joke told in the water-cooled confines of the corporate data center that goes something like this: the best part about standards is that we have so many to choose from. A quip that certainly applies to home automation networks. Any DIYer hoping to begin automating their home will first have to select a protocol amongst the Z-Wave, Insteon, ZigBee, or X10 standards, to name just a few. Now we have another: Google. Based upon our conversations with Google at I/O, Android@Home will use a mesh networking protocol that functions in the 900MHz frequency bands just like Z-Wave -- but it's not Z-Wave. Google has developed its own wireless protocol and Android@Home framework that lets Android apps discover, connect, and communicate with electrical appliances and devices in the home. So yes, it's proprietary, but hey, it's "open."

The way I see it, the incumbent industry players could rally behind Google's new networking standard (and enormous brand recognition) or distance themselves from Google entirely resulting in the further fragmentation of the home automation scene. I truly hope it's the former. Just as the burgeoning PC industry required a common OS and application set in order to take root and thrive within corporations, it's my belief that home automation requires a strong centralized developer framework and a common wireless protocol for interconnecting components in order to expand beyond its novelty status into a full-blown consumer offering. Imagine it: the Samsung Galaxy Table Saw, the Apple iSocket, the HTC Temperature Sensor. Come on industry, let's do this. You'll make some money and we'll finally automate the light bulb and switch nearly 100 years since its commercialization.

Blu e-cigarettes help you make friends, light up when you're near another Blu smoker

Posted: 11 May 2011 05:29 AM PDT

Oh, that old adage: smoke, be cool, make friends. Die. Well, e-cigarette manufacturer Blu is now trying to resurrect that image, albeit perhaps without so much of the death bit, by making its packaging more sociable. It's new "smart packs" are equipped with radio sensors that detect when a fellow Blu smoker comes within 50 feet, causing your box to light up and vibrate. This is meant to encourage you to go over and make conversation, like "Hi, so, er... you also spent $80 on a pack of battery-powered smokes. Is that fur real?"

Charlotte Motor Speedway, Panasonic flip the switch on the world's largest HD screen

Posted: 11 May 2011 05:02 AM PDT

Charlotte Motor Speedway and Panasonic held an event yesterday to celebrate the completion of the new world's largest HD screen, which measures at 16,000 square feet (200 feet wide and 80 feet tall). Of course, the only natural thing to do when face with a screen this size is to play videogames on it, and CMS got very meta by bringing out NASCAR driver and simulation racing fan Dale Earnhardt Jr. to turn a few laps on the track in iRacing on the brand new display. The 720p display, located on the backstretch, is big enough for fans seated along the front stretch of the track between turn four and turn one to have a clear view of replays, standings and stats all the way across the track. Its official debut will take place May 21st during the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and will also take a turn as a massive HDTV airing clips of Top Gear USA during a History Channel sponsored race the week after. You can see the videogame rig, screen and ceremonial oversized remote above while video of them actually playing is available at the source link.

[Thanks, Jeffery]

Sand-swimming robot gets vertical manipulation via doorstop-shaped head (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 04:35 AM PDT

So it looks like a half-stuffed sock -- and it is, sort of -- but this sandfish-inspired search and rescue robot has the potential to change the way machines maneuver through disaster zones. Playing off its previous endeavors, a team of Georgia Tech researchers has designed a wedge-shaped head to manipulate the vertical movement of its sand-swimming invention through "complex dirt and rubble environments." By mimicking the pointy snout of the sandfish lizard, and attaching it to the body of its robot -- which sports seven servo-powered segments stuffed in a latex sock and sheathed by a spandex "swimsuit" -- the team found that subtle changes in the positioning of the robot's head made for drastic differences in vertical movement. When it was placed flat on the horizontal plane, the robot descended; when it was inclined above seven degrees, it ascended. For now, the robotic sandfish has been relegated to swimming in a sea of tiny yellow balls, but it's slated to dive into a pool of debris in the name of research soon. You can check out a rather dry description of the project in the video after the break.

YouTube brings human-enabled closed captioning to live video for Google I/O

Posted: 11 May 2011 03:58 AM PDT

If you were glued to your computer during the live broadcast of the Google I/O keynote yesterday morning, you might have noticed a new feature accompanying an otherwise recognizable YouTube video. The online video provider used this morning's conference kickoff as the springboard for its live captioning feature, which brings human input to the transcription process. According to Google's Naomi Black, a team of stenographers banged out translations during this morning's keynote. The resulting captions were then displayed on the conference floor and delivered by an "open source gadget" to the I/O YouTube channel. This new feature apparently prevents the inaccuracies experienced using Google's automatic captioning function, which, if you'll recall, provided us with at least a couple hearty chuckles when we took it for a spin. The code behind the new live captions will be available to YouTube's partners and competitors on Google Code. You can check out tomorrow's keynote to see how the humans fare.

Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs, promises dead-simple home automation (hands-on)

Posted: 11 May 2011 03:20 AM PDT

'Tis amazing what a partnership with Google can do. Unless you're a frequent patron of Home Depot, there's a slim chance you'd ever heard of Lighting Science prior to this week's opening I/O keynote. Now, said company is leading the Android @ Home charge, and based on what we learned yesterday at its booth, we're feeling better than ever about home automation's chances in the mainstream market. Company representatives noted that this Google-led mesh networking solution -- which beams out commands on the 900MHz frequency band -- is the first HA solution that's truly designed to be ultra-low-cost and easy to implement. Compared to Z-Wave and Zigbee, there's far less technical expertise needed to start automating things in your home, and there's no need to take out a second mortgage to open your garage door with your handset. Oh, and there's zero chance anything fails due to congestion on the 2.4GHz band.

We pressed the company on pricing details, and it stated that the wirelessly enabled light shown above would be priced "at parity" with the non-wireless counterpart available today. At last check, that puts a single bulb at around $30. In order to make these kinds of devices compatible with existing Android phones and tablets, a couple of WiFi-to-900MHz adapters will be available. From Lighting Science alone, you'll soon see a light switch, security lamp and a regular wall wart on sale to handle the transfers. In other words, you can pick up a dirt-cheap plug, toss it in your guest room, and immediately give your Nexus One the ability to dictate Android @ Home products. Not too shabby, but what does this mean for the broader industry?
Lighting Science demos Android @ Home bulbs: hands-on at Google I/O

The company's expecting to have this bulb on sale by the year's end, and it'll be announcing five additional Android-friendly products next week -- those include a step light, security light and a few other bulb form factors. Naturally, representatives seemed optimistic that the rest of its product line could be outfitted with 900MHz transceivers (which are barely larger than a quarter) in no time flat.

Beyond this one outfit, though, we're seeing a genuine chance for home automation to take off in a way that has never been possible before. Why? 400,000 Android activations a day -- that's why. There's only a handful of Control4 remotes that are doled out each day, and with Android's install base growing by the second, we're fairly certain that the tinkering sect will at least give Android @ Home a passing glance. As Goog maintains, it's totally up to the development community to make something like this worthwhile, but with capable hardware set to ship with next to no price premium in tact, we can't help but feel warm and fuzzy about the odds.

Hasbro's experimental Nexus-powered robot toy hands-on at Google I/O (video)

Posted: 11 May 2011 02:45 AM PDT

Are you ready to welcome our experimental toy robot overlords? They're adorable, and they're taking no prisoners here at Google I/O. Hasbro and Google are collaborating to bring these little critters to life by docking a Nexus S brain to an exoskeleton-like body containing a battery, a Bluetooth radio and a bunch servomotors (the kind you find in RC models). The battery powers the dock and provides additional juice to the phone which in turn controls the servos via Bluetooth. Where things get interesting is that these toy robots don't just act based on a set of rules programmed into the Nexus S, but actually react to their environment (using the handset's sensors, front-facing camera, and touchscreen) and communicate with Google's cloud services over WiFi (for facial and object recognition) in order to enhance their behavior. Shake them and they get dizzy, rub their display and they get happy / angry, show them a Decepticon card and they cower away. They will also take a picture of you, decide if you are friend or foe, and respond accordingly. Predictably, Hasbro is sticking with gender stereotypes by providing basic male and female "personalities," complete with accessorized docks. Check out these experimental creatures in our gallery and hit the break for our hands-on video. Just don't go in expecting a price and release -- it's prototype cuteness only for now.
Hasbro's experimental Nexus-powered robot toy hands-on at Google I/O

Sharp Aquos Phone SH-12C has 3D cameras, qHD resolution, Gingerbread filling

Posted: 11 May 2011 02:08 AM PDT

The HTC EVO 3D and LG Optimus 3D just got themselves a new buddy in the three-dee picture-taking arena in the shape of Sharp's Aquos Phone SH-12C. We know, that name just rolls off the tongue. What's remarkable about the 12C is that the dual cameras on its back go all the way up to 8 megapixels (to the EVO 3D's 5), which will be creating quite the tasty workload for the 1.4GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 chip contained within. A qHD (540 x 960) screen resolution also keeps up with HTC's latest, though the 4.2-inch, 3D-capable display on the Aquos offers more pixel density and less in absolute real estate. Android 2.3, replete with some evident customizations, will serve as the OS, and 720p video recording in 3D will also be available when Sharp launches the 12C in Japan on May 20th. Rest of the world? Well, we can dream about it right now.

ZiiLabs outs dual-core ZMS-20 and quad-core ZMS-40 for Honeycomb tablets, clocks 'em at 1.5GHz

Posted: 11 May 2011 01:19 AM PDT

For now, the HTC Flyer can console itself for not having a second core (like all the other guys) by noting that its 1.5GHz clock speed is faster than any other tablet. Pretty soon, however, the choice between speed and core count might not have to be made at all, as ZiiLabs has just announced new dual-core and quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 systems-on-chip that run at the same 1500MHz speed as the Flyer. Dubbed ZMS-20 and ZMS-40, respectively, they're taking the ZMS-08 legacy of focusing on HD video decoding even further, while also throwing in specific optimizations for Android Honeycomb tablets. The earlier-gen SOC was only picked up by parent company Creative, who inserted it in its ZiiO tablets, so let's hope the new silicon proves compelling enough for us to see it in more manufacturers' slates. Full PR and an intro video follow after the break.


Show full PR text
ZiiLABS Announces ZMS-20 & ZMS-40

Energy-Efficient Processors Optimized for High-Performance Android 3.0 Tablets

-- ZMS-20 Combines 48 Stemcell Media Processing Cores and Dual-Core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 Processors to Reshape the Landscape for Tablet Computing

-- Quad-Core ZMS-40 Delivers Aggregated Cortex-A9 Clock Speed of up to 6GHz and Scales Up Total Performance to 100 Processing Cores

Singapore – 10th May 2011 – ZiiLABS, a pioneering media processor and platforms company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd, today introduced its most powerful Zii family of energy-efficient media processors, the ZMS-20 and the ZMS-40.

Targeting the up and coming explosive tablet computing markets, the ZMS-20 (with Dual-Core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 Processors) and ZMS-40 (with Quad-Core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 Processors), besides having more than generous ARM processing power, are turbo-charged by an array of up to 96 Stemcell media processing cores to give an incredible performance of up to 100 processor cores, previously unheard of in the handheld mobile device markets!

Engineered for the high-resolution tablet computing markets, the ZMS-20 combines ZIiLABS' 48 Stemcell media processing cores with dual 1.5GHz ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore processors with Neon to deliver stunning 1080p high profile video playback, immersive OpenGL ES 2.0 3D graphics, HD video calling and a rich desktop browsing experience including Adobe Flash Player.

With multi-core application acceleration and dynamic power management for longer battery life, the ZMS-20 delivers the efficient and high-performance platform required for the next generation of Android 3.0 based devices and beyond.

"Designed to increase application performance by 4X over the ZMS-08 processor, the ZMS-20 was specifically engineered to meet the performance and power efficiency requirements of high-resolution Android tablets more effectively than any other processor on the market," said Hock Leow, President of ZiiLABS. "The ZMS-08 established our leadership position for High Profile H.264 playback and the ZMS-20 takes that to the next level by adding dual ARM Cortex-A9 cores plus a host of new features such as DDR3 and LPDDR2 support, HDMI 1.4 and OpenCL."

"We are targeting this amazing family of ZMS-20 and the ZMS-40 Zii Stemcell media processors dead-on the explosive tablet computing market. The competitively priced ZMS-20, and the ZMS-40 with its quad Cortex-A9 cores will herald a new generation of low-cost, low-power yet high-performance tablets, mobile thin clients for cloud computing and other embedded appliances for the post-PC era," said Sim Wong Hoo, Chairman and CEO of Creative Technology Ltd.

"The design and development of ZMS-40 is done, we will unleash it to ride on the up and coming new wave of tablet computing revolution. The scalable ZMS-40 will lead the way to show the world that tablet computing can be truly effective and without any compromise. With the ZMS-40, we will be able to bring the performances of tablets or other handheld devices to rival notebooks and even desktop PCs." Sim added.

"As consumer demand for smarter connected devices increases, so does the industry's requirement for low-power, high performance semiconductor solutions," commented Eric Schorn, Vice President Marketing, Processor Division, ARM. "The combination of Cortex-A9 processors incorporating ARM NEON and TrustZone technologies provides the multicore technology to drive the latest Android tablets and ensure a high-quality user experience."

Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) tablets and associated design-kits based on the ZMS-20 will be showcased at the ZiiLABS suite (Grand Hyatt Hotel Taipei, Grand Room, #1137) in Taipei, Taiwan between 31 May and 4 June at the Computex 2011 tradeshow.

ZMS-20 Key Features
Dual 1.5GHz ARM Cortex A9 cores with Neon
ZiiLABS flexible Stemcell media processing capabilities
Low-energy SIMD architecture for high performance media acceleration
48 x 32-bit floating point media processing cores for 26GFlops of compute
High Profile H.264 video playback at 1080p@30fps
Wide range of accelerated video codecs including H.264, VC1 and VP8
High Definition, low latency video conferencing
Optimised OpenGL ES 2.0 for robust 3D graphics acceleration and application compatibility
Accelerated OpenCL 1.1 (desktop profile) integrated into Android NDK
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Image Processing
High-quality Text-to-Speech and Voice Recognition
150 MPixel/sec image processing
Adobe Flash 10 acceleration
Integrated HDM1 1.4 with 3D stereo support
1GB addressable memory
DDR2/3 at 533 MHz for low-cost
LPDDR2 for maximum memory bandwidth and low-power
64-bit wide memory bus
Quad independent video controllers supporting 24-bit displays and cameras
3V3 and 1V8 I/O's reduce peripheral power consumption
Dual USB 2.0 HS OTG (Host/Peripheral) controllers with PHY for low system cost
Three independent SDIO/MMC controllers
Extended battery life with robust Dynamic Power Management and Instantaneous On
Xtreme Fidelity X-Fi audio effects
Enhanced Security: 256-bit AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) and TrustZone
Availability
The ZMS-20 is sampling now to select customers and is scheduled for volume shipment to customers in the 3rd quarter of 2011. Detailed specifications of the ZMS-40 will be announced later. Visit ZiiLABS suite (Grand Hyatt Hotel Taipei, Grand Room, #1137) at the Computex 2011 tradeshow to find out more.

Complete Tablet Solutions
ZiiLABS' high-quality OEM-ready reference platforms combine all the hardware, software and integration required to enable ODMs to rapidly deliver customized solutions to meet the growing demand for next-generation Android based tablets.

First piece of SBIRS missile defense system launched, not shot down

Posted: 11 May 2011 12:53 AM PDT

No need to worry about that loud, fiery exploding noise in Florida last week -- that was the sound of us all becoming a little bit safer. An Atlas 5 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral on Saturday, carrying Lockheed Martin's Space-Based Infrared Systems (SBIRS) Geo-1. The spacecraft will be followed by three more satellites launched in the next five years, all totaling $17.6 billion. Ominously referred to as "persistent overhead surveillance," the $1.3 billion first piece of the SBIRS constellation missile defense system is set to replace the antiquated Defense Support Program launched in 1970. It's a small price to pay to keep those darn space invaders out of our hair.
Show full PR text
National Space Asset to Bolster Missile Warning Capabilities

CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION, Fla., May 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The first Space Based Infrared System (SBIRS) geosynchronous (GEO-1) spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) for the U.S. Air Force, was successfully launched today at 2:10 p.m. EDT from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket. SBIRS GEO-1 is the most technologically advanced military infrared satellite ever developed and will deliver vastly improved missile warning capabilities for the nation while simultaneously improving the Nation's missile defense, technical intelligence and battlespace awareness mission areas.

"Today's successful launch is a tribute to the hard work, dedication and unmatched expertise of the entire government and industry SBIRS team. I am proud of the women and men who have worked on this spacecraft, and am confident the nation will be proud of its performance on orbit," said Brig Gen (select) Roger W. Teague, the U.S. Air Force's Infrared Space Systems Directorate director. "SBIRS GEO-1 represents the dawn of a new era in overhead persistent infrared surveillance that will greatly improve our national security for years to come."

SBIRS GEO-1 includes highly sophisticated scanning and staring sensors that will deliver improved infrared sensitivity and a reduction in area revisit times over the current constellation. The scanning sensor will provide a wide area surveillance of missile launches and natural phenomena across the earth, while the staring sensor will be used to observe smaller areas of interest with superior sensitivity. These dual independent sensors will enhance early warning of missile launches around the globe, support the nation's ballistic missile defense system, greatly expand our technical intelligence gathering capability, and bolster situational awareness for warfighters on the battlefield.

"We understand the importance of the SBIRS mission and are proud to partner with the U.S. Air Force on this critical program," said Jeff Smith, Lockheed Martin's vice president and SBIRS program director. "Throughout the development of this first-of-its-kind satellite, our SBIRS team has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to operational excellence. As a result, we are confident SBIRS GEO-1 will deliver unprecedented, global, persistent, taskable infrared surveillance capabilities to the warfighter, nation and our allies for years to come."

The SBIRS team is led by the Infrared Space Systems Directorate at the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Lockheed Martin is the SBIRS prime contractor, with Northrop Grumman as the payload integrator. Air Force Space Command operates the SBIRS system.

"The launch of SBIRS GEO-1 heralds a new era for missile warning and other missions enabled by overhead persistent infrared sensors," said Steve Toner, Northrop Grumman's vice president of OPIR and Azusa Programs. "We can't wait to turn it on. These sensors are highly capable, and we know that they will be of great value to our warfighters, our nation, and our allies."

Lockheed Martin's original SBIRS contract includes HEO payloads, two geosynchronous orbit (GEO) satellites, as well as ground-based assets to receive and process the infrared data. The team is also under a follow-on production contract to deliver additional HEO payloads and the third and fourth GEO satellites, and associated ground modifications.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 126,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation's 2010 sales from continuing operations were $45.8 billion.

RoboDynamics Luna: the 5-foot tall personal robotic platform (update: video)

Posted: 10 May 2011 11:46 PM PDT

It's a new era for personal robotics. Meet Luna, the fully-programmable robot companion platform that will ship this year. As a platform, RoboDynamics -- a Santa Monica-based company previously grounded in telepresence -- is trying to position Luna as the 5-foot tall "beige box" of modern robotics. She comes with her own one-click Luna App Store, eight "Luna Expansion Ports" (think 12/5 volt USB for robots), and Luna CloudNet where third-parties can sell additional functionality like face recognition to app developers. The robot ships with a number of personality packs and features an 8-inch touchscreen, two cameras, wireless connectivity, a three-mic array, and a variety of sensors. Oh, and she's portable. Remember, Luna's not a prototype, but a real working robot that you can actually take home for the price of an entry-level fully-loaded laptop.

Update: While $1,000 is the ultimate target price, the initial batch of limited edition Luna robots will ship in Q4 for $3,000. General availability will begin in the second half of 2012 with final pricing coming later this year.

RoboDynamics Luna: the 5-foot tall personal robotic platform that retails for $1,000

Show full PR text
RoboDynamics Introduces Luna, The World's First Personal Robot

Luna is world's first personal robot by RoboDynamics that incorporates design, open standards and infinite expandability into an affordable personal robot ready for mainstream adoption.

SANTA MONICA, California - May 11, 2011 - RoboDynamics today announced the introduction of Luna, world's first personal robot designed for mainstream consumer adoption. Dubbed "the iPad of robots" by technology journalists, Luna is the first robot to feature a native App Store, standard PC architecture, an open Linux based operating system, touchscreen display, WiFi, and multiple tactically located standard USB based expansion ports for infinite expandability.

"Luna is a radical rethinking of personal robots and we believe a beautifully designed, human sized, open, and affordable personal robot will spark a flurry of innovations similar to what we've already seen in parallel industries such as PCs and Mobiles" said Fred Nikgohar, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of RoboDynamics. "For the price of a laptop we've made available for the first time a human-sized robot with incredibly elegant design, infinite expandability, and a native App Store. Our objective is to aggressively remove cost and complexity thereby facilitating widespread consumer adoption while simultaneously providing a unique ground floor opportunity for the developer community to bring innovative ideas to a financially viable robotics ecosystem."

Pricing and Availability
One thousand limited edition Luna personal robots will begin shipping in 4th Quarter 2011 on a first come first serve basis with corresponding serial numbers for $3,000. General availability of Luna will begin in the second half of 2012 and pricing will be announced later this year.
The first 25 of the limited edition Luna personal robots will be auctioned off in the coming weeks and proceeds will benefit the RoboDynamics Educational Outreach Program where we will give away Luna robots to qualified students and university researchers.

To participate in the auction for the first 25 Luna personal robots or to get notified when the remaining units are available for pre-order, please visit the RoboDynamics website at http://robodynamics.com

Android 0-click NFC sharing demonstrated in Ice Cream Sandwich (video)

Posted: 10 May 2011 10:45 PM PDT

Ready to get your bump on? You'd better be because Google's planning to bring peer-to-peer NFC sharing to the Ice Cream Sandwich release of Android. Imagine it: 0-click contact, web page, and YouTube video sharing between your NFC-equipped Android smartphones and tablets. Just bring the devices together and voila, data shared without launching an application or navigating through the UI. Google plans to build this functionality into as many systems apps as it can while providing the API to developers to 0-click enable their third-party applications. Watch it go down phone-to-phone and phone-to-tablet (prototype) after the break. It's the future, get used to it.

Microsoft's Rock and Rails touchscreen lets you massage your photos with both hands

Posted: 10 May 2011 09:58 PM PDT

If you ever get tired of poking away at your smartphone's screen like a doorbell, you're not alone. The forward-looking folks over at Microsoft Research have been working away at a new touchscreen system designed pick up on more natural, whole-hand movements, effectively allowing users to break free from the finger-based paradigm that governs most tactile devices. Developed in coordination with engineers at Microsoft Surface, the company's Rock and Rails interface can detect three basic hand gestures: a balled fist, which holds items on the screen, an extended hand that can align objects (see the cell marked "d," on the right) and a curved paw, around which users can pivot images (see cell b). This taxonomy opens up new ways for users to crop, re-size or generally play around with their UI elements, though it remains unclear whether the display will trickle down to the consumer level anytime soon. For now, it appears to operate exclusively on the Surface, but more details should surface when the system's developers release a paper on their project, later this year. Hit the source links to see a video of the thing in action.

Another Pre 3 at the FCC, coming to Verizon for you and me?

Posted: 10 May 2011 08:46 PM PDT

Last month, a device (model number HSTNH-F30CN) that we surmised to be a Pre 3 hit the FCC rocking AT&T band GSM radios. Now, its brother HSTNH-F30CV is seeking federal approval to ride CDMA (850 / 1900 MHz), UMTS (900 / 2100 MHz), and GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 2100 MHz) wireless waves. With that "V" tagged on the end of the model moniker and its Verizon-friendly innards, it sure looks like the Pre 3 will be the next handset to wear a checkmark on its front. Additionally, those world wide bands tell us that a webOS device will soon be joining the Androids and Blackberrys in Big Red's rather limited lineup of global handsets. Skeptical about our smartphone Spidey Sense? Hit the source link and see for yourself, Sherlock.

Google to offer $20-a-month 'student package' for a Chrome laptop?

Posted: 10 May 2011 07:35 PM PDT

Just as we're wrapping up day one of Google I/O 2011, Forbes received an interesting piece of information regarding Chrome OS. According to an unnamed senior Google executive, tomorrow's keynote will see the launch of a Chrome laptop sold as an attractive $20-per-month "student package." If true, this will make a compelling option for laptop-seeking students bounded by a limited budget (booze before books, right?), and Forbes speculates that a similar enterprise offering will follow soon -- makes sense considering Google's already cozying up to businesses with its $50-a-year Google Apps suite. Anyhow, all will be unveiled soon enough -- keep an eye out for our Google I/O day 2 liveblog tomorrow for the full monty.

Google I/O 2011 continues tomorrow, get your (second) liveblog right here!

Posted: 10 May 2011 06:46 PM PDT

Had enough Google for the week? We thought not. We're still cranking on content from the (admittedly momentous) first day, but we'll be taking a break just after lunch tomorrow (May 11th in the great state of California) to bring you blow-by-blow coverage of the outfit's final keynote for I/O 2011. It'll be hard to top the bevy of introductions from today, but we're guessing Google's down for trying to top itself. We'll see you tomorrow, and if you're looking to follow along as it happens, you can bookmark our liveblog page right here.

06:30AM - Hawaii
09:30AM - Pacific
10:30AM - Mountain
11:30AM - Central
12:30PM - Eastern
05:30PM - London
06:30PM - Paris
08:30PM - Moscow / Dubai
12:30AM - Perth (May 12th)
12:30AM - Shenzhen (May 12th)
01:30AM - Tokyo (May 12th)
02:30AM - Sydney (May 12th)

Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O (video)

Posted: 10 May 2011 05:47 PM PDT

Today at Google I/O we got a chance to play with Meta Watch, Fossil's wearable development platform, which allows developers to extend the interfaces of devices and applications to the wrist. Both watches -- one analog / digital with a traditional dial plus two small OLED displays, the other digital with a larger memory-in-pixel LCD (a highly reflective, always-on, ultra low-power screen) -- feature Bluetooth for communication, along with a vibration motor, three-axis accelerometer, and ambient light sensor. The devices are built around Texas Instrument's super efficient MSP430TM microcontroller and CC2560 Bluetooth radio and will run seven days on a charge. A set of contacts in the back allow the watches to interface with a debugging clip for charging and JTAG programming. The hardware is paired with an SDK which allows a tablet or smartphone running Android to register button presses and receive sensor data from the watches, and then respond by sending text or triggering the vibration motor. It's also possible to design custom embedded wearable applications running directly on your wrist, and it will be up to developers to truly unleash the magical possibilities here.

Speaking of which, the Meta Watch is currently available to pre-order for $199 (see our source link), with availability pegged for June 30th. Based on what we heard today at Google I/O, the watch is being hawked to developers only, but it's obvious that DIY-minded folks will be able to buy one as well. For now, just two of the models shown here will be sold, but there's no telling what will happen once the platform builds up enough of a backbone to support an influx of actual customers. The company isn't handing out a timeframe as to when it will be ready for the mass market, but we'd be shocked if it was still floundering around this time next year. Interested in having an early peek? Take a look at our gallery below and our hands-on video after the break.
Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O

T-Mobile snaps up 'SnapPad' trademark and domains, inadvertently teases tablet?

Posted: 10 May 2011 05:19 PM PDT

Companies register trademarks and domain names all the time to throw us off the scent, but somehow this one feels different -- DotWeekly reports that T-Mobile's made a bona fide landgrab for the word "SnapPad," buying up a host of domains and filing the trademark above, all within the span of just two days last week. Needless to say, we're envisioning a host of potential slates right now, all with magenta trim... and wouldn't it be fitting if they housed a speedy Snapdragon? We'll keep you posted.

All 2014 Prius hybrids to roll with plug-in and 2011 pricing, Hoitz and Gamble rejoice (update: not true)

Posted: 10 May 2011 04:47 PM PDT


Hybrid cars are sleek, efficient, and even occasionally sexy. Cheap they are not, however, though Toyota hopes to stir up the market in 2014, with affordable plug-in models that also boast much-improved mileage ratings. That year's Prii will ship standard with plug-in, and will quietly conquer at least 90 highway miles per gallon (compared to about 50 mpg for current models), according to Autoblog. The 2014 Prius will also be priced comparably to current non-plug-in models -- around $25,000 -- assuming Toyota can successfully reduce the cost of batteries and other key components. We can only hope that fuel prices aren't any higher three years from now, but even if they are, at least you'll still be able to afford to commute in something larger than a Vespa.

Update: Oops! Toyota responded to this report saying "there is no formal plan to make all Priuses [sic] plug-in by 2014." Not even a possibility, Autoblog was told. Ah well.

Google's Prediction API lets Fords learn all about you, tell you where to go

Posted: 10 May 2011 04:00 PM PDT

Earlier today, Google revealed plans to make our abodes more efficient and user friendly through Android automation, and it turns out they're helping Ford to do the same for our automobiles. You see, our driving habits affect the gas mileage we get, and if our cars could predict our preferred travel patterns they could optimize powertrain performance to max out our MPGs. That's why the Blue Oval Boys plan to use Google's Prediction API to learn our driving habits and combine that data with real time traffic info to make its cars increasingly efficient. The system isn't yet ready for showrooms, as there is work to be done securing the personal data and location awareness information it collects, but hopefully it won't be long before every new Ford can help us get from here to there with minimal fuel consumption. Here's hoping William Daniels is the one doling out the directions.
Google and Ford Prediction API

Show full PR text
Ford Developers Look to Use Google Prediction API to Optimize Energy Efficiency; Research Presented at Google I/O

• Ford is leveraging Google's new Prediction API to advance ongoing research in how predictive driver behavior could help optimize vehicle control systems and improve vehicle performance attributes such as fuel or hybrid-electric efficiency

• The Google Prediction API, which provides greater computation power, information storage and external data through cloud computing, can convert historical driving data – the where and when you drive – into useful real-time predictors

• Ford envisions the capability to empower vehicles to offer drivers smart guidance based on learned behaviors and a variety of captured data

DEARBORN, Mich., May 10, 2011 – Ford researchers are harnessing the power of cloud computing, analytics and Google innovation to identify technologies that could make tomorrow's vehicles smart enough to independently change how they perform to deliver optimal drivability and fuel efficiency.

Ford researchers are applying Google's new Prediction API to more than two years of their own predictive driver behavior research and analysis. The Google API can convert information such as historical driving data – where a driver has traveled and at what time of day for example – into useful real-time predictions, such as where a driver is headed at the time of departure.

"The Google Prediction API allows us to utilize information that an individual driver creates over time and make that information actionable," said Ryan McGee, technical expert, Vehicle Controls Architecture and Algorithm Design, Ford Research and Innovation. "Between Google Prediction and our own research, we are discovering ways to make information work for the driver and help deliver optimal vehicle performance."

How it works
Ford is hoping to use these types of cloud-stored data to enable a vehicle essentially to optimize itself and perform in the best manner determined by a predicted route.

This week, Ford researchers presented a conceptual case of how the Google Prediction API could alter the performance of a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle at the 2011 Google I/O developer conference. In this theoretical situation, here's how the technology could work:

• After a vehicle owner opts in to use the service, an encrypted driver data usage profile is built based on routes and time of travel. In essence, the system learns key information about how the driver is using the vehicle.

• Upon starting the vehicle, Google Prediction will use historical driving behavior to evaluate given the current time of day and location to develop a prediction of the most likely destination and how to optimize driving performance to and from that location.

• An on-board computer might say, "Good morning, are you going to work?" If the driver is in fact going to work, the response would be, "Yes," and then an optimized powertrain control strategy would be created for the trip. A predicted route of travel could include an area restricted to electric-only driving. Therefore, the plug-in hybrid could program itself to optimize energy usage over the total distance of the route in order to preserve enough battery power to switch to all-electric mode when traveling within the EV-only zone.

"Once the destination is confirmed, the vehicle would have instant access to a variety of real-time information so it can optimize its performance, even against factors that the driver may not be aware of, such as an EV-only zone," said McGee.

Because of the large amount of computing power necessary to make the predictions and optimizations, an off-board system that connects through the cloud is currently necessary.

What's next
Knowing that driver behavior and patterns correlate to overall fuel and energy efficiency during the vehicle ownership experience, Ford researchers are committed to increasing their understanding of driver behavior behind the wheel and to developing accurate protocols to predict it.

"Anticipating the driver's destination is just one way that Ford is investigating predicting driver behavior," said McGee. "This information can ultimately be used to optimize vehicle performance attributes such as fuel efficiency and driveability."

The Google Prediction API is one example of a technology that is helping Ford open doors to new predictive possibilities powered by the cloud.

"Ford already offers cloud-based services through Ford SYNC®, but those services thus far have been used for infotainment, navigation and real-time traffic purposes to empower the driver," said Johannes Kristinsson, system architect, Vehicle Controls Architecture and Algorithm Design, Ford Research and Innovation. "This technology has the potential to empower our vehicles to anticipate the driver's needs."

Work is now underway to study the feasibility of incorporating other variables such as driver style and habits into the optimization process so Ford can further optimize vehicle control systems, allowing car and driver to work together to maximize energy efficiency.

Integral to this next-step work is personal information security, an issue that is of the utmost importance to Ford. "We realize that the nature of this research includes the use of personal data and location awareness, something we are committed to protecting for our customers in everything we do," notes Kristinsson. "A key component of this project is looking at how to develop secure personal profiles that will ensure appropriate levels of protection and specific data use only by the driver and the vehicle to deliver the best driving experience.

"It's about pure customer benefit and creating individualized and optimized experiences – the right one for each person, vehicle and situation."

Eyes on with the VT30, Panasonic's flagship 3D plasma

Posted: 10 May 2011 03:34 PM PDT

The latest and greatest (and largest) 3D plasmas from Panasonic are finally shipping, including the flagship, THX-certified Viera VT30 sets with their single sheet of glass panels and Infinite Black Pro2 filters. We first caught a glimpse of these bad boys back at CES and we've been impatiently waiting for a chance to blast our retinas with their PDP goodness in all three dimensions. The company was nice enough to invite us over recently to have a little TV powwow that featured an uncomfortable amount of Avatar on Bluray. Keep reading after the break for all the not-so-gory details.
Panasonic 2011 3D TVs

Like other Panasonic sets the VT30 is an active 3D display and the company has switched to new fast-switching phosphors to minimize the trailing and ghosting effects sometimes associated with flat panels and 3D content. Under Panasonic's tightly controlled circumstances the difference between its plasmas and the top of the line LCD from a certain competitor were quite noticeable. In fact, the motion response on the VT30 was possibly the best we've ever seen -- there were no visual artifacts of any kind and the colors remained rich and vivid at almost any angle. There was some flickering detectable on the displays, but much of that is attributable to poor planning on Panasonic's part -- the demo room was filled with 3D TVs, all of which were competing for the attention of our active shutter glasses. The company also had a passive 3D set on hand for comparison, and the superiority of the image on the active set was undeniable (the passive set exhibited some noticeable stair-stepping).

As you'd expect, the VT30 features VIERA Connect and is compatible with the associated WiFi adapter. There's also support for DLNA, VIERA Link, a 2D to 3D converter, and an option to adjust the severity and depth of the 3D effect. The VT30 is available in 55- and 65-inch models for $2799.95 and $4299.95 respectively. The mid-range and entry-level GT30 and ST30 lines also scored new super-sized models at 60 and 65 inches, with the primary difference being a lack of single-sheet-of-glass construction and the less "pro" Infinite Black 2 filter, while the ST30 line also loses THX certification. The 60-inch GT30 costs $2799.95 while the 65-inch will run you $3699.95, the ST30s are a slightly more affordable $2399.95 and $3299.95.

Panasonic also told us that its third-generation 3D glasses would be arriving this summer which are expected to be both lighter and cheaper than the current specs, but the company refused to give us anything more than an estimated ship date of July. Hopefully price will be towards the lower end of the $50 to $100 range we've heard tossed about. The VT30 is shipping now, but you'll have to haul yourself to a store to get one -- for the time being it's not available online.
at 11:37 AM

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