HP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on Twitter

Well, this is certainly interesting -- that's HP CTO Phil McKinney pictured above in a pair of redacted shots that were posted to Twitter by HP's Mark Budgell. Described only as "early protos" by McKinney himself, the pictures show what appears to be phone-sized device, a tablet-sized device and, perhaps most curiously, something on McKinney's wrist (all mysteriously blacked out). Before you get your hopes up too much about a new wave of webOS devices, however, you might want to take a look at the second part of Budgell's tweet, which encourages folks to vote for McKinney's SXSW 2011 panel -- a panel in which McKinney promises to make some "bold predictions for the future - backed up with a number of breakthrough prototypes," and specifically talk about what the future will look like in "5 to 10 years." Now, we can't be certain of course, but that doesn't exactly suggest these are right around the corner. Head on past the break for a slightly bigger image.Continue reading HP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on TwitterHP's Phil McKinney teases three mystery prototypes on Twitter originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 29 Aug 2010 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  @philmckinney, @MarkatHP (Twitter)  | Email this | Comments

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Amazon Kindle review (2010)

Amazon's third major iteration of its flagship reading device, the Kindle, comes out of the gate looking strong: the new graphite finish (just like its big brother, the Kindle DX) with a slimmer, lighter form factor, plus a bumped refresh rate for its E Ink screen. Best of all, the WiFi only and 3G readers have newly lowered prices (though they're still not exactly bargain basement level). We've spent the past few days putting the tinier Kindle through the paces to see just how much Amazon's improved it. Though the market is increasingly flooded with cheap readers, the Kindle is arguably still the leading name in the field, and Amazon is already touting the third model as its bestselling ever -- even though there are still no sales figures to be had. So, is this the best Kindle ever? Read on to find out.
Gallery: Amazon Kindle unboxing and hands-onContinue reading Amazon Kindle review (2010)Amazon Kindle review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 13:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

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MPEG LA chases its tail, says H.264 streaming will be free forever

MPEG LA, famous for nothing other than a portfolio of pretentiously pathetic patents, has finally taken a swing at the rapidly gaining popularity of its free-as-in-matted-beard competitor, WebM. Rather than running out in 2016, the license to stream H.264 will remain free forever.

This is a reactionary move to battle the rallying of Mozilla, Google and Opera behind the WebM video standard. As it stands, both Firefox 4 and Opera 10.6 only support WebM for HTML5 video -- with this licensing change, MPEG LA is obviously angling for H.264 support to find a place in both Firefox and Opera before their next stable release. Chrome, incidentally, supports both H.264 and WebM, and I expect it will continue to do so. IE9 supports H.264, but will include WebM support by the time it is released.

Despite the licensing changes, I can't imagine Mozilla leaping at the chance of including closed-source and patent-riddled code in its browser. At the end of the day, it will be services like YouTube and Hulu that actually decide the fate of the HTML5 video wars: if YouTube only provides WebM-encoded video, you can be damn sure that WebM will become the video standard!

Incidentally, if you want something disgusting to look at, check out the MPEG LA website. Not only does it look kind-of-90s-and-pseudo-NASA, but it also explains the dire, creativity-crippling concept of 'Patent Pools'. "Together, with the power of pooled patents, we can stamp out start-ups and create billions of dollars in the process! Mu ha ha!"

Someone pass me a bucket.

[via NewTeeVee]MPEG LA chases its tail, says H.264 streaming will be free forever originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Wii Balance Board-controlled robot a hit with toddlers in Ithaca (video)

How could we resist a story involving robot-powered babies? The Ithaca College Tots on Bots project aims to mobilize infants with physical disabilities by setting them atop a "mobile robot" equipped with a Wii Balance Board to let the young operator steer by leaning -- which, it turns out, works pretty well. Additionally, the vehicle uses sonar to avoid nasty crashes and a remote control that an adult can use to take control. Further study has to be made before any long term developmental benefits can be ascertained, but in the meantime it does look like a lot of fun. See it in action after the break.Continue reading Wii Balance Board-controlled robot a hit with toddlers in Ithaca (video)Wii Balance Board-controlled robot a hit with toddlers in Ithaca (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Switched  |  Cornell University  | Email this | Comments

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Mysterious Verizon-bound HTC handset appears mysteriously on the internet

Hey -- what's this? Well, from the looks of it, it's a new, as-yet-unnamed HTC device. There is perilously little info available about the mystery mobile, but it appears to boast an 8 megapixel camera with a flash plus a front-facing camera, a 4.3-inch screen, a headphone jack and a kickstand. It also appears that it's going to boast HTC's own Sense UI. This falls in line with what we've heard about Verizon's Android-heavy fall launch this year, so we would not be surprised to see this device make an appearance. Furthermore, we could go out on a limb and guess that it's possible this is the Merge mentioned in that lineup, which supposedly boasts a 1GHz processor. That's all there is to the story right now but we're going to stay up late tonight to be on the lookout for further information on this one. One more photo below and hit up the source for the rest.Continue reading Mysterious Verizon-bound HTC handset appears mysteriously on the internetMysterious Verizon-bound HTC handset appears mysteriously on the internet originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink   |  Boy Genius Report  | Email this | Comments

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MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video)

Think of it as an autonomous, swarming, photovoltaic legion of seagoing Roombas (or don't, if you're easily upset). The Seaswarm project at MIT takes a thin, hydrophobic material and drags it behind a robot outfitted with GPS and WiFi for determining its location and communicating within a swarm. When deployed, the group finds the outer edges of an oil spill, and works its way into the center, coordinating the cleanup with minimal human interference. The material itself can take on twenty times its weight in oil. And yes, the whole thing is re-usable. According to researchers, 5,000 of these relatively low cost devices could have cleaned up the BP oil disaster in a month -- which is more than we can say for Kevin Costner! See it in action after the break.Continue reading MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video)MIT Seaswarm autonomous robots coming soon to an oil spill near you (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Switched  |  MIT  | Email this | Comments

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Google adds more official themes for Chrome -- to the Extensions Gallery?

Filed under: Google, Browsers
I've asked about this before, and I'll pose the question one more time: if you're not going to put Chrome themes where the other Chrome themes go, shouldn't you at least create a category, Google?

Google has introduced half a dozen new official Chrome themes, but you won't find them if you click the get themes link on your Personal Stuff menu. No, like the scores of user-created themes out there these new themes from Google have been dropped into the Extensions Gallery.

I'm sure the plan is to list everything in the Gallery at some point (possibly once it's re-branded as the Web Store?), but it really shouldn't be hard to give themes their own section on the existing Gallery. Or, you know, post them on the page Chrome takes you to when you click get themes.

The new themes are called Modern, Adaptive, Vibrant, Inventive, Fresh, and Orkut_Hudson. They're artist-created, and generally not for those of you who like Chrome's interface to be as unobtrusive as possible -- some are downright loud.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder of course -- tell us what you think of the new themes in the comments.Google adds more official themes for Chrome -- to the Extensions Gallery? originally appeared on Download Squad on Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink | Email this | Comments

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