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NLT announces naked-eye display with better 3-D view(Phys.org) -- NLT Technologies has announced its development of an autostereoscopic multiview display based on the success of its HxDP technology. HxDP stands for Horizontally x times Density Pixels. The company reports impressive end results as improvements in 3-D and 2-D viewing. NLT Technologies together with its sales and marketing channels in the Americas and Europe, Renesas Electronics America and Renesas Electronics Europe GmbH, announced the autostereoscopic multi-view high resolution display earlier this week.
PhysicsOrg | 18-May-2012 11:40
Review: Android 4.0 phones from HTC aren't identical twins
It seems there is a new crop of Android phones every few months, which is great if you're in the market for a new phone.
PhysicsOrg | 17-May-2012 17:50
Kyocera releases smartphones for easy listening
(Phys.org) -- "Can you hear me? Youre dying? Oh, you're drying. Are you talking into your phone?" While smartphones continue with noisy attempts to deliver stunning visuals and entertaining apps, the fundamental problem of hearing a phone caller properly remains a less strident but universal pain. Kyocera, for one, is a company that wants to be a hero in commercializing smartphones with improved sound quality. This week, Kyocera is introducing smartphones in Japan that carry its special bone conduction system technology.
PhysicsOrg | 17-May-2012 12:18
Optimus LTE 2: LG unveils new smartphone to revive business
South Korea's LG Electronics on Thursday unveiled a new version of its Optimus smartphone with greater memory and a more powerful battery, in an attempt to catch up with its rivals.
PhysicsOrg | 17-May-2012 12:10
New MacBook Pro Retina display will cost Apple, consumer too?
Apple Retina displays are reportedly already in the supply channel for the rumored redesigned MacBook Pros, but they are not going to come cheap.
PhysicsOrg | 17-May-2012 03:30
IPhone to get larger screen: A report to take with a grain of salt?
Apple has begun preparing to launch an iPhone with a larger screen than its previous models, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
PhysicsOrg | 16-May-2012 22:13
Japan's DoCoMo to launch smart phones for elderly
Leading Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo on Wednesday unveiled its first smart phone specially designed for elderly users, as the company bids to tap into an ageing consumer population.
PhysicsOrg | 16-May-2012 20:35
NEC unveils gesture controlling device
Japanese technology titan NEC has unveiled a gadget that allows users to control their TV, mobile phone or tablet computer using a virtual input device.
PhysicsOrg | 16-May-2012 12:15
AMD's Trinity is out to rattle Intel's Ivy Bridge
(Phys.org) -- AMD has announced Trinity, its second-generation A-Series accelerated processing units (APUs), which are out to rival Intels Ivy Bridge processors. AMDs Trinity is an update to its Llano, which attempted to challenge Intels Sandy Bridge. Trinity includes up to four CPU cores ad single GPU, with features especially suited for supporting laptops and ultra thin notebooks. The Trinity chips will appear on HPs Sleekbook machines when the Sleekbook debuts next month. With Trinity, AMD is promoting its two appealing strong suits that sit well with manufacturers and consumers, in the name of graphics performance and power consumption.
PhysicsOrg | 15-May-2012 20:59
Panasonic to release 65-inch Interactive Plasma Display
Panasonic Corporation announced today it will start shipment of its 65-inch "Interactive Plasma Display" (TH-65PB1), incorporated with electronic pen functions, in Japan, the U.S., and Europe at the end of June, followed by other parts of the globe for the use of professionals. Panasonic also plans to commercialize an 85-inch model, the size of a standard whiteboard, and the world's largest 103-inch model by the end of this year. The TH-65PB1 and an 85-inch prototype will be exhibited at the Educational IT Solutions EXPO to be held from May 16 in Tokyo.
PhysicsOrg | 15-May-2012 15:30
Buffalo shows SSDs with MRAM at Japan show
(Phys.org) -- Japan-based storage experts, Buffalo, has introduced a new line of solid state drives (SSDs) that use MRAM cache (instead of standard SDRAM). The companys new line of solid state drives went on show this month in the form of a 4-Gbyte SSD equipped with an 8-Mbyte MRAM cache memory at the Embedded Systems Expo in Japan, which ran from May 9 to May 11. The show is an important gathering of the latest technologies, systems integration platforms and development platforms serving embedded systems. Buffalos initial targeted end users for its MRAM line are to be corporate customers in industrial settings requiring high reliability.
PhysicsOrg | 15-May-2012 12:23
Samsung defends Android Galaxy S3 PenTile display
(Phys.org) -- So what's a hot new Galaxy S3 smartphone doing with a PenTile AMOLED display like this? That is a question that surprised developers and smartphone blog sites earlier this month when Samsung announced in London its new Galaxy S3 with a 4.8-inch 720p resolution display that uses a PenTile subpixel layout. Expectations were that the Galaxy S3 would carry another type of upgraded display The PenTile design had drawn disappointed reviews when it had earlier appeared on the Galaxy Nexus phone. This week, however, a Samsung spokesperson stepped forward to explain why PenTile was still chosen: Samsung wants the S3 phone displays to last longer.
PhysicsOrg | 14-May-2012 23:00
Whirr, click, hum: Robots go at it in 2.007 finale
MITs Johnson Athletic Center took on the aura of an old-fashioned county fair on Thursday night, complete with popcorn, balloons, jugglers, cotton candy and pitchmen wearing brightly colored jackets and bowties. But rather than ring tosses and sheep-shearing, the central event was a series of one-on-one matchups between an amazing variety of robots that students have spent the whole semester designing, building and testing.
PhysicsOrg | 14-May-2012 12:17
Transformer Pad TF300 a weak replacement for laptop
Asus' new Transformer Pad TF300 is among the first of a new class of convertible devices that are heading toward store shelves.
PhysicsOrg | 11-May-2012 18:28
Samsung unveils ultra high-end TV
South Korea's Samsung Electronics on Thursday unveiled its new-generation premium television as global manufacturers seek to drive slowing sales with lucrative models.
PhysicsOrg | 10-May-2012 19:33
Robots learn to pick up oddly shaped objects
(Phys.org) -- When Cornell engineers developed a new type of robot hand that could pick up oddly shaped objects it presented a challenge: It was easy for a human operator to choose the best place to take hold of an object, but an autonomous robot, like the ones we may someday have helping around the home or office, would need a new kind of programming. So they have developed a procedure -- an algorithm -- that allows a robot to learn grasping skills from experience and apply them in new situations.
PhysicsOrg | 09-May-2012 10:43
Microsoft offers $99 Xbox consoles with a catch
Microsoft began testing whether a pricing strategy that has been a hit with smartphones will invigorate sales of its Xbox 360 videogame consoles.
PhysicsOrg | 08-May-2012 11:40
Vacuum robot is trilingual, knows witty dialect
(AP) -- It looks just like iRobot's Roomba vacuuming machine, except the new circular roaming vacuum cleaner from Sharp Corp. is trilingual, and even knows a hip humorous dialect.
PhysicsOrg | 08-May-2012 11:09
Samsung smartphone debuts in London
South Korea's Samsung Electronics unveiled its latest flagship smartphone at a London launch as it seeks to cement its position as the world's best-selling mobile phone maker.
PhysicsOrg | 04-May-2012 02:00
Apple iPad outmuscles Android in global tablet sales
Apple's iPad outmuscled its Android-powered tablet computer rivals in early 2012, in a global market suffering from post-holiday hangover, a survey showed Thursday.
PhysicsOrg | 04-May-2012 00:20
Flying 3-D eye-bots
Like a well-rehearsed formation team, a flock of flying robots rises slowly into the air with a loud buzzing noise. A good two dozen in number, they perform an intricate dance in the sky above the seething hordes of soccer fans. Rowdy hooligans have stormed the field and set off flares. Fights are breaking out all over, smoke is hindering visibility, and chaos is the order of the day.
PhysicsOrg | 03-May-2012 21:10
RIM says will still make keypads for BlackBerrys
(AP) -- Research in Motion Ltd. says future BlackBerry models will still offer physical keyboards.
PhysicsOrg | 03-May-2012 18:40
New robot butler "HERB" can microwave your dinner (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) -- One of the big disappointments of the computer age is the distinct lack of robots in our everyday lives. For years we’ve all been teased by the possibilities of robots in SciFi movies and television shows, and still, the only robots in our lives are those little Roomba vacuum cleaners.
PhysicsOrg | 03-May-2012 15:13
British police get 360 degree accident scene camera
(Phys.org) -- When car accidents happen, typically road closures soon follow. This is because police need to study the scene to try to determine what happened, who was at fault, etc. Part of that investigation involves measuring things such as length of skid marks, distance between vehicles, or even how much a car compressed during impact; all of which takes a considerable amount of time while still leaving room for errors. Now, a new way of recording accident scenes is being used by police in Essex England. It’s the RIEGL VZ-400 - part camera, part scanner that is able to faithfully record an accident scene in a 360° panorama.
PhysicsOrg | 03-May-2012 13:36
Bird-like robot perches on a human hand (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) -- Among the many challenges of designing flying robots is getting them to land gracefully. By taking a cue from birds, a team of engineers has developed a flapping-wing flying robot that can land by perching on a human hand.
PhysicsOrg | 03-May-2012 12:24
Target phasing out Amazon's Kindle
(AP) -- Target Corp. says it's phasing out Amazon.com Inc.'s e-reader Kindle at its more than 1,700 stores and its website.
PhysicsOrg | 02-May-2012 21:07
Wearable devices track people via wireless network
Mobile technology is opening new channels for remotely monitoring family members and others who need to be tracked.
PhysicsOrg | 02-May-2012 16:30
An environmentally friendly robot
Robots that decompose once they have reached the end of their mission could soon be deployed in the environment, thanks to a Research Project Grant of over £200,000 from the Leverhulme Trust.
PhysicsOrg | 02-May-2012 10:46
BlackBerry bets big on apps, touchscreens
Research In Motion (RIM) on Tuesday unveiled a revamped BlackBerry platform that discards the smartphone's trademark keyboard to embrace apps, touchscreens and other trendy features.
PhysicsOrg | 01-May-2012 21:45
Roboticist creates Hugvie - Huggable vibrating pillow smartphone accessory
(Phys.org) -- Japanese robot designer Hiroshi Ishiguro is fast becoming a sort of roboticist for the people, in Japan anyway. Instead of terminator style robots meant to do a lot of serious work or to serve on the battlefield, his robots are soft and cushy, cute and perhaps a little smooshy. He’s also created a robot in his own image. Now he’s introducing something he calls the Hugvie, a robot that looks sort of like a generic mono-legged human baby, or perhaps a doll with no eyes, fingers or toes. It serves as the medium through which people converse in a new way using a smartphone. While holding, or pressing the Hugvie against the face, it vibrates slightly at the same frequency as the voice on the other end, adding another degree of intimacy to the conversation. At least that’s the idea.
PhysicsOrg | 01-May-2012 16:10
Jawbone releases 'Big' speakers for smartphones
Jawbone on Monday began rolling out an even louder version of its portable wireless speakers, which have caught fire among smartphone and tablet users.
PhysicsOrg | 01-May-2012 09:10
B&N, Microsoft team up on Nook, college businesses
(AP) -- Barnes & Noble Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are teaming up to create a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary that will house the digital and college businesses of the bookseller and include a Nook application for Windows 8.
PhysicsOrg | 30-Apr-2012 14:47
Robot arm at MIT will weave its own web (w/ Video)
(Phys.org) -- The Mediated Matter Group from the MIT Media Lab is working on a robot that might one day spin its own webs. Project team members are training a robot to weave a web-like architecture, similar to the way a silkworm creates cocoons. The team seeks to train its robot to mimic nature—namely to weave a cocoon like structure. The robot is getting some programming help but eventually the researchers want to see it weaving autonomously, spinning its own web. Latest reports reveal a robot arm deploying yarn-like thread on prearranged hooks.
PhysicsOrg | 29-Apr-2012 14:10
A TV 4 times sharper than HD
Now that you've got a high-definition TV, you may want to start saving up for a super-high-definition one.
PhysicsOrg | 26-Apr-2012 22:02
The ultimate babysitter? iPads for infants stir debate
Twenty-two-month-old George sits on a tiny blue chair, at a baby-sized desk, playing with a grown-up toy -- an iPad, sign of a powerful trend that has set alarm bells ringing among child development experts.
PhysicsOrg | 26-Apr-2012 12:23
The robot revolution is just beginning
When industrial robots were first introduced in the early 1960s initially on automobile assembly lines computers were still in their infancy, so the robots were designed to perform only the most rigidly predetermined set of repetitive movements. Despite a half-century of exponential growth in computational power, thats pretty much still the state of industrial robotics. But according to Rodney Brooks, who last year left a tenured position as MITs Panasonic Professor of Robotics to focus on his latest company, that may not be true for much longer.
PhysicsOrg | 25-Apr-2012 12:21
Skype debuts on PlayStation Vita game handsets
Skype made its debut Tuesday on PlayStation Vita, making its leading Internet video or voice calling service available on Sony's sophisticated videogame handset.
PhysicsOrg | 24-Apr-2012 21:50
Pixel Qi says it has a tablet screen as good as iPad' Retina but uses far less power
(Phys.org) -- In a post on the company blog, Mary Lou Jepsen, founder and head of Pixel Qi, boasts that her company has developed a tablet screen with a resolution that is equal to the Retina display on the new iPad but achieves it using far less battery power. She claims that the screen also has more color saturation, better viewing angles and better contrast.
PhysicsOrg | 24-Apr-2012 17:14
Micro helicopters leave the nest
Within the framework of the EU project sFly, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new type of flying robot that can be navigated using only on-board cameras and a miniature computer. The micro helicopters require neither GPS nor remote control, thus reaching a new level of autonomy.
PhysicsOrg | 24-Apr-2012 14:44
Intel introduces first batch of Ivy Bridge processors
(Phys.org) -- Intel officially launched its 22-nanometer Ivy Bridge family of processors on Monday -- well, sort of. A sea of news headlines using the words rollout and release can be measured with the fact that Intel has not yet issued the entire range of Ivy Bridge processors, but just the first wave.
PhysicsOrg | 24-Apr-2012 12:10
Robots fighting wars could be blamed for mistakes on the battlefield
As militaries develop autonomous robotic warriors to replace humans on the battlefield, new ethical questions emerge. If a robot in combat has a hardware malfunction or programming glitch that causes it to kill civilians, do we blame the robot, or the humans who created and deployed it?
PhysicsOrg | 23-Apr-2012 20:18
Robots in the classroom
Tore Fløan smiles at me: In the past we competed with European organizations, but now we have the Chinese breathing down our necks, he says.
PhysicsOrg | 20-Apr-2012 17:03
More bounce to the ounce: Mini-robot attracts attention
A steerable, jumping mini-robot developed by Michigan State University researchers is generating interest among robotics engineers, who dont let its small size obscure its potential.
PhysicsOrg | 20-Apr-2012 14:30
In a small-device world, bigger may still be better
In the early days, standard computers could be as large as a single story house. Over the last several decades, many development efforts have focused on shrinking them for use in the home and eventually anywhere in the world — on the train, in a cave, you name it.
PhysicsOrg | 20-Apr-2012 11:25
Rumors swirl of smaller iPad, which Jobs detested
(AP) -- Apple generates more gossip than the Kardashians.
PhysicsOrg | 20-Apr-2012 00:22
Robot guards being tested in South Korea
(Phys.org) -- South Korea, a nation with a self-proclaimed goal of being a leader in robotics technology has, through the Asian Forum of Corrections (AFC), begun testing the feasibility of using robots as prison guards in an actual prison in Pohang. The robots duties, at least initially, are to patrol the halls between cells looking for signs of trouble, and if it finds it, alert the human guards who will take appropriate action.
PhysicsOrg | 18-Apr-2012 19:20