November 20th, 2009 4:56 PM | by Christen da Costa
7-inches isn’t enough to get me excited (that sounds so wrong), but the Camangi WebStation ain’t looking to shabby. The touchscreen, which has an 800×480 resolution, looks to be capacitive based on how sensitive it is, and according to the presenter in the video that’s a glass surface (hello fingerprints). Currently the tablet like computer is running Android OS 1.5, while the remaining specs include WiFi b/g, 2 megapixel camera, microSD card slot, a second VGA webcam and a USB port.
There’s no official word on the release date, but word on the street is that it’ll carry a price tag of about $400. For now, I’ll hold off on purchasing anything Android, but based on my limited experience with Motorola’s Droid it’s a super solid OS. And as previously mentioned, 7-inches is still a bit small for my taste, but for those of you looking for an oversized media player, here you go.
November 13th, 2009 3:37 PM | by Christen da Costa
See you later Apple and Michael Arrington, hellos ICD. IC who? Innovative Converged Devices. Don’t worry, if you haven’t heard of them before I think you’re with the majority, such as myself. Today they announced something called the Vega and it looks bad ass to say the least.
Inside the 7, 11 and 15-inch touchscreen device (no word on resistive or capacitive; hoping for the latter) is a Tegra powered graphics processor which should make for some explosively fantastic visuals. Other wonderful features include an Android OS, 3G connectivity, 512MB of RAM, 1.3MP webcam, microSD, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi b/g, USB 2.0, 3.5mm headphone jack, magnetic dock, accelerometer, ambient light sensor and dual digital microphones. …Continue reading: ICD’s Vega Tablet Is Looking Deliciously Tasty
If you’re still pining after a touchscreen Mac and can’t hold out any longer for the long rumored Apple Tablet computer, well, you’re in luck, kind of. More like in debt considering the prices I’m about to tell you about.
Troll Touch, whose apparently been outfitting Macs with touch resistive screens for sometime now, just announced the availability of their latest batch of touchscreen units for the newest iMacs and the Macbook White Unibody. For the iMac you can do it yourself for just $1,099, but that will only score you the smallest size. Or you can drop $3,699 for the largest iMac complete with touchscreen already installed. The Macbook version goes for $1,699 and that includes the machine.
At these prices I might concede and buy a Windows based machine. Also, it’s touch resistive, which we all know can be bit arduous to say the least, though the video above seems to prove otherwise.
The Microsoft Surface is super old news at this point, but that hasn’t stopped Sony from teaming up with a company called Atracsys to build their own version of a multitouch table. Unlike Microsoft’s version, though, Sony’s uses some sort of camera that can be used for not only measuring hand placement but can see faces as well.
Hit the video above. You’ll notice that their seems to be some lag time on the touchscreen.
And there’s yet another competitor throwing its hat into the steadily crowding e-reader arena (we get any more hats in there and we could open up a millenery shop!), but it’s not exactly from a source you’d expect.
Creative Labs is taking a run at the market, with a unit they’re calling the Zii MediaBook. Now, this actually has some pretty choice add-ons with it, like a touchscreen, text to speech functionality (it will READ you a book) and an SD slot, plus, it will be “Internet-enabled”, though no one’s sure if it means 3G or WiFi.
Also on the unsure list are the Zii’s release date, its price structure and any content delivery methods, (pictures of the device were also in short supply) though word is Creative’s in talks with several different providers, and not just for books, either. This could be one to watch…or Creative Labs could think better of it and stay out altogether.
So remember just yesterday, when I was getting all poingy happy about the half e-reader / half netbook hybrid? Well, I think I may have just beat that level of awesome but in a totally different direction. Today I’m talking about the Kohjinsha PA, a combination netbook and tablet PC.
No, seriously–this sucker has a 4.8″ WSVGA touchscreen, 1.33GHz Atom CPU, 512 meg of RAM and a 32 GB SDD. The battery is slated to run for 7.5 hours, and it even comes with an SD slot and a 1.3 MP webcam, all in a netsurfing portable tablet PC.
I am profoundly impressed by this, even though my chances of ever using such a device are so slim as to approach zero. I draw like a cat with a pen in its mouth after ingesting large quantities of peyote, so a tablet PC to me is almost less than useless. But still, I’m impressed–and the price is pretty impressive too.
If you want one of these bad boys, you’ll have to shell out a whopping $758 in Japan. Preorders are going on, and the prices range between $867 and $921.
With winter fast approaching and the cold weather coming to match, you may well start to wonder how you’re going to keep your hands warm and still manage to work your iPod and whatnot. Clearly you can’t hold a stylus in your mitten, and gloves are nice, but their fingers are way too big for a touchscreen.
Enter the Etre Touchy line of gloves, themselves a gadget, because they’re simultaneously fingered and fingerless. More specifically, they’re missing their thumb and index finger.
You may wonder why you’d want to pay $33 for a pair of gloves that are missing a finger and a thumb. I don’t much like to bandy around the phrase “doomed for failure”, because you never really know what’ll take off.
But I really can’t see this working, especially when you could crack out the scissors and make your own pair for much, MUCH, less money. Are they preparing for a slew of patent infringement lawsuits for anyone who makes their own at home?
In all honesty, I’m not sure why the makers of the Etre Touchy didn’t think of that either, but I guess it just doesn’t make for as entertaining a story.
Sometimes, you wish you could get access to shaky, variable quality information about just about any topic. it’s times like these that we usually turn to the internet–but what if we’re away from the wireless internet or what have you?
That’s where the WikiReader device comes in. It’s powered by two AAA batteries that are estimated to last a full year in this device, and comes with a monochrome touchscreen so you can scroll and track things.
I admit, it’s probably pretty cool to have access to three million articles worth of Wikipedia, especially wherever you happen to be at the time. Updates are delivered on a quarterly basis, and you can also get a microSD card option added to your WikiReader for just an extra $29 a year. It will probably do horrible things to barroom trivia contests–NTN is probably freaking out and wetting itself as we speak–but the idea is still plenty cool.
The base unit itself costs $99, and will be available on Amazon on the order of Real Soon Now.
The more I can touch something without having to press it is the way I want to deal with everything. Being touchscreen is obviously going to make something cooler. But what about when it comes to a Rubik’s Cube, whose traditional experience was some good old fashioned twisting and turning?
An expensive upgrade at $150, I can see this being cool for a couple minutes and fun to pass around at a party or amongst friends. The touchscreen Rubik’s Cube is expected to ship by the 15th of this month but you can pre-order one now.
This is the touchscreen version of the Rubik’s cube that first challenged puzzle-solvers nearly 30 years ago. Instead of turning each face of the cube to line up colors, modern-day players need only lightly swipe a section of lights with a finger in the same manner as the original.
Touch sensors on all sides detect your finger and a motion detecting accelerometer determines which face is active; the colors change according to the direction of your finger’s swipe. Its built-in memory saves your puzzle so you can pick up where you left off. It can offer hints, or if you are truly exasperated, it can solve itself. The cube recharges in eight hours using its display stand, allowing one hour of play.
There are days when we’d all love nothing more than to do some serious damage to those devices that we all know and love. That mysterious whatever it is that led Elvis Presley to shoot his television has happened to all of us, and it just reared its ugly head again.
For Donald Goodrich, he just couldn’t take his iPhone’s antics one second longer. He stormed into his local Apple Store and insisted that the gadget had made him “so mad, (he) could pop a 9mm at it”. That’s a quote, except he used “I” where I have he. This by itself may not have been any big deal–if Apple Store employees haven’t heard people threaten their devices before then they’re clearly in the wrong line of business–but where Donald Goodrich went too far was in showing the 9mm handgun he was carrying at the time TO said Apple Store employee.
Goodrich was charged with “aggravated menacing and causing fear of harm” to the Apple Store worker, though I don’t think he ever actually threatened the worker, just the iPhone. Plus there was a concealed weapons issue, but puzzling your way through a state’s concealed weapon law is almost as tough as multivariable calculus.
