Gadgets & Tech - news, reviews and chatter

[AltinD]

I picked this up at LG headquarters in Seoul, back in 2002:





Google came up with this in 2007

[erbse]

Copybots!

[VelesHomais]

Originally Posted by AltinD

Projection capability? LOL

3D Camera? LOL

What is it that you find humorous here?

[VelesHomais]

Anyway, after waiting for a long time for something better than Galaxy Beam to go on market, I finally gave up waiting and will be getting it tomorrow. Apparently this is the best mobile device on the market at this moment. It doesn't have the 3D camera, which I think is a bit ridiculous, considering that LG had devices with excellent 3D cameras almost two years ago, but it's still sporting the best projector, which ranks my higher in my list of priorities for a mobile device than a 3D camera.

As far as weight and screen sizes go, all smart phones look pretty much the same to me, I don't understand why people put so much emphasis on how many milometers a screen is smaller or bigger. With a projector your screen is the size of your wall. I will not be getting any more iphones ever again, every single iphone since the second one have been exactly the same, except for the improved specs. Looking forward to not dealing with any of the itunes/synchronization/library crap and just dragging and dropping files into specific folders.

The next time I'll be upgrading is when the projection from a mobile device will become interactive, so I could stand next to it and click right on the wall, as opposed to utilizing the surface of the device.

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Touchalize makes video ads interactive, and can even make you the star



One of the startups to grab our attention at LeWeb last month was Phonitive and its product Touchalize, which makes videos interactive in some interesting ways.

Designed with marketing in mind, Touchalize is touchscreen-focused and allows end users to manipulate video. Watching an ad for a new car but want to see what it would look like in the color you’d actually want to buy it in? With a couple of taps of the screen, the car’s color will have changed, with everything else around it in the video unaltered.

Want to star in the video? Your face can be added directly in, pasted on top of that of a character in the ad. Another tap of the screen could bring up detailed specs for the vehicle, and even let you book a test drive at a local dealership – all from within the video.



For a flavor of what’s possible, here’s a video of the demo Touchalize was offering at LeWeb, shot by TV station France 3 Paris.

France-based Phonitive is pitching Touchalize as a marketing tool for a wide variety of industries.Viral sharing of videos is being positioned as a strength here, as once people have added themselves into a video, they’re more likely to want to share it with their friends, or so the theory goes. Analytics are available, tracking customer behavior, geography, the objects people touch, how people interact with videos and the choices they make.

This isn’t the only interactive video tool out there. WireWax, which we’ve previously covered, offers a tagging-based service that lets users find out about products, people and other objects in videos by clicking on them.

Phonitive was founded in Toulouse in 2010, and Touchalize was a finalist at the LeWeb startup competition.

http://thenextweb.com/apps/2013/01/0...ar/?fromcat=eu

[VelesHomais]

That's cool

Anyhoo, I got the Galaxy Beam and it has surpassed my expectations. Obviously it's infinitely easier to use than any iphones, I only now realized that I shouldn't had struggled with the iphones for as long as I have.

The actual projector is more powerful than I thought it would be and I find myself using it not just for business related purposes, but also for entertainment. For instance, when you're falling asleep, it's great to watch something on the ceiling, in fact, I don't even want to sit up to watch anything anymore, it's so much better to lie down. I may get a home projector just for this use, but I feel like in this day and age everything should be on a single mobile device, I don't want too many separate things in the apartment.

[AltinD]

Patent trolls in offensive: http://news.yahoo.com/patent-trolls-...201509995.html

[AltinD]

Originally Posted by VelesHomais

What is it that you find humorous here?

Only a very tiny fractions of users would be interested in those. They add allot of mass to the device, and allot of battery consumption too

[VelesHomais]

Well, if there is no projector in your new mobile device, then it's no different than the phones that were made five years ago.

[Ulpia-Serdica]

Ubuntu Launches Smartphone OS



A new entrant into the smartphone operating system market hopes to steal market share from the two dominant players and provide network operators with a viable alternative.



The open source Ubuntu operating system launched its latest product, a version of its popular Linux-based OS that will run on smartphones in London Wednesday.

However, Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu’s parent company, Canonical, speaking to The Wall Street Journal admitted that no network operator, nor equipment manufacturer, had yet signed up to use the system although he claimed that many had expressed “great interest”.

Network operators are keen for an alternative to the near duopoly that Google and Apple have on the smartphone market with RIM and Microsoft fighting it out for third place.

RIM’s troubles are well documented and while the latest version of its OS, Blackberry 10, which is due to launch later this month has been well received by reviewers, the company has struggled. Its share price plummeted last year from a high of $17.96, falling as low as $6.22, and although it has made gains since October, it ended the year nearly 25% down with market share declining.

Microsoft’s Windows Phone has likewise struggled to win meaningful market share and has yet to win over network operators. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Matthew Key, who heads Telefónica’s digital arm, said: “The devices are coming. Whether it is going to be market moving, the jury is out.” In part, as a response, the Spanish telco is working with Mozilla to create a new HTML5 based operating system.

According to Mr. Shuttleworth the new Ubuntu device is aimed at two distinct markets: firstly consumers who want an easy-to-use basic smartphone. “Some 30% of consumers just use their smartphone for calls and SMS,” Mr. Shuttleworth said last night. “We are very confident we can deliver a phone at the right price point for them. The complexity of Android is an overkill if you want to move customers from a basic phone to a smartphone.”

But Mr. Shuttleworth predicted take up in a new category of phone, an enterprise-standard “superphone” — a phone that becomes a full PC when docked with a keyboard and monitor. This was a trick last played without much success by the Motorola Atrix.

“It allows them to have a fully functioning desktop in a single device, a full OS with all the system capacity that Ubuntu brings. We are very confident that that is what the future looks like.”

When asked why he thought his device would succeed when Motorola didn’t he said: “We think there were two issues. One was the execution, it had many limitations. A lot of people who have seen this [Ubuntu] say ‘that is what I thought we were getting with the Atrix’. The other thing that has changed is the performance of the processors.”

Mr. Shuttleworth demonstrated the system running on a 3rd generation Nexus and it is certainly an attractive OS. It makes good use of the screen with different functions and toolbars off each of the four edges of the screen.

While the OS is undeniably attractive and slick, and with access to Ubuntu’s network of developers it should be able to build an ecosystem — who, in theory at least, can develop a single app for desktop and mobile device — without support from operators and handset makers, it is going to face a very hard struggle to make any meaningful impact.

Mr. Shuttleworth is pinning a lot of his hopes on the idea of a single converged device, his “superphone”, a path that other makers, such as Apple, have explicitly ruled out.

http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/201...smartphone-os/

[Sanat]

Seems UBUNTU will challenge Android,iOS and Windows Phone.Samsung also is working on TIZEN OS

This is great.

[AltinD]

It's just a experimeent, nothing more. I have the first ever Linux powered devise, a Nokia N900 running on Maemo, then came Maego running on Nokia N9 and I think another device. Both were nothing more then a one-off.

[VelesHomais]

Does anyone here have experience with serious hidden audio recording devices? Something with a much better quality than what's on mobile devices.

[dumbfword]

CES 2013 starts today

[CanadianDemon]

As if no one has talked about LG Electronics commercial release of a 4mm thick, 55" OLED TV.

[Sanat]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW

Nvidia is coming with own mobile gaming console at CES 2013 in Las Vegas.GAMES on PC can be transfered to TELEVISION over NVIDIA SHIELD Stream ( if you have a Nividia Graphic Card on your PC ).Or you can play direct from cloud service or download games over Google Play or Nvidia Zone.

NVIDIA SHIELD

[Sanat]

GAMES on PC can be transfered to TELEVISION over NVIDIA SHIELD Stream ( if you have a Nividia Graphic Card on your PC )

[pi_malejana]

damn, 4K and OLED overload on this year's CES...

[kix111]

CES so exciting,!

[Joka]

I'm planning on getting an 13" ultrabook in the near future, any new development on that front at CES?