Pctwix.com – Turtle Beach gets Microsoft stamp of approval to build Xbox One headsets

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

Microsoft’s new Xbox comes with a console, controller and Kinect, but even if you pre-order One for yourself, you’ll need to go elsewhere to pick up a headset to match. And, Turtle Beach will be one of the first next-gen headset providers, as it’s just signed a license with Microsoft to build them for the One. Turtle Beach isn’t sharing any more info on the forthcoming headsets, but we’ll be telling you all about them when they’re revealed at E3 in a few weeks. Oh, and before you go thinking that you can save yourself some cash by using your trusty Xbox 360 cans, remember that the One’s controllers have a new proprietary port on them that’s incompatible with your old gear. You were looking for an excuse to upgrade your over-ear gaming audio anyway, right?

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Pctwix.com – Hands-on with Maxwest’s $65 7-inch dual-core ICS tablet at CTIA 2013

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

Handson with Maxwest's $ 65 7inch dualcore ICS tablet at CTIA 2013

It’s true that cheap affordable Android tablets are a dime a dozen at most trade shows these days, but here at CTIA 2013 we stumbled upon something that caught our eye — a 7-inch dual-core tablet running Ice Cream Sandwich that costs just $ 65. The Maxwest TAB-7155DC aka. Ippo Y88 measures 182 x 122 x 10mm (7.16 x 4.8 x 0.39inch), weighs 187g (6.6oz) and comes in several hues (black, white, silver, red, blue and pink).

It features a 7-inch 1024 x 600-pixel capacitive multitouch LCD, an Infotmic IMAPx820 SoC (dual-core Cortex A5 CPU with Mali 400 GPU), 512MB of RAM, 4GB of built-in storage, dual VGA cameras (front and back), WiFi b/g/n and 2800mAh battery. The screen isn’t covered in glass and there’s no sign of any Bluetooth or GPS radios, but then again, what do you expect for $ 65? You”ll find a power / lock key, DC socket, micro-USB port (with on-the-go support) and mini-HDMI output on the top edge, plus a 3.5mm headphone jack, volume rocker and microSD card slot on the right side. A microphone and speaker round things up in back.

The tablet runs a mostly stock version of ICS (Android 4.1.1, to be specific) and includes the usual assortment of Google apps along with access to the Play Store. Performance is adequate — not buttery smooth but perfectly usable. Build quality and materials are surprisingly decent for the price (the plastic is color-though), but the display leaves a lot to be desired (viewing angle are poor and the acrylic covering the screen is scratch-prone). Then again, it’s only $ 65, right? Check out the gallery below for our rose-colored hands-on with the expensive tablet.

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Pctwix.com – Rumors persist of HTC One with stock Android, despite the official denial

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

Rumors persist of an HTC One with stock Android, despite the official denial

Is Russell Holly a seer of the future, or did he just manage to get lucky? That’s the question we’re currently kicking around at Engadget. You see, when he first revealed that a Galaxy S 4 would be introduced at Google I/O with stock Android, we quickly dismissed it as something that’d never happen in a million years. Then it came true the very next day. Now, Holly is back with another mighty tall claim: “HTC is considering a stock Android variant of the One for release in the US.” In fairness, rumors of such a phone began to circulate last week, but were quenched just as quickly by HTC. Contrary to the denial, however, Holly claims that multiple sources have informed him of an HTC One that’s in the works with stock Android 4.2.2. It’s tough to make heads or tails of Holly’s report, especially since he follows the assertion that HTC is “considering” such a phone with a claim that it’ll be announced within the next two weeks. Naturally, we’re taking this with more than the usual dose of skepticism, but like Fox Mulder, we want to believe.

[Image credit: Pencilshade / deviantART]

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Via: Phandroid

Source: Geek

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Pctwix.com – The Daily Roundup for 05.23.2013

Posted on May 24, 2013 by admin

DNP The Daily RoundUp

You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours — all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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Pctwix.com – 3D-printed tracheal splint supports baby’s airways, saves life

Posted on May 23, 2013 by admin

3Dprinted tracheal splint supports baby's airways, saves life

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and nowhere was it more necessary than in the case of Kaiba Gionfriddo’s life. The infant was born with a condition called tracheobronchomalacia that results in weakened support for the trachea, and his fate seemed all but decided until researchers at the University of Michigan proffered an unlikely solution: a 3D-printed tracheal splint. The splint was custom-made just for the child and designed to hold the trachea in place as the bronchus builds around it, giving it strength. In two to three years, the trachea will be able to stand on its own, and the polycaprolactone biomaterial used to create the splint will be absorbed into the body. After a successful operation, Kaiba was taken off ventilator support — and he hasn’t needed it since. From 3D-printed skull prosthetics to this recent innovation, it’s clear 3D printing has a far more noble future than just making pizza.

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: New England Journal of Medicine

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Pctwix.com – Blumoo turns mobile devices into RF remotes, streams music via Bluetooth (video)

Posted on May 23, 2013 by admin

DNP Blumoo

If you hoard gadgets like us, then your living room is probably covered with a plethora of remote controls. Flyover Innovations’ Indiegogo campaign aims to streamline your home audio experience and minimize your mess with Blumoo, a small hardware platform that turns your mobile device into an RF remote. The IR-equipped Blumoo pod connects to your stereo via standard 3.5 mm jack or RCA connections, and allows you to control your home theater system with your mobile device through the magic of Bluetooth. The Blumoo app — coming soon for both iOS and Android — pulls from a database that Flyover claims is comprehensive enough to ensure your home theater equipment is covered. Flyover plans on retailing the device for $ 79 but is offering an early bird special for supporters starting at $ 45. To check out their rewards and watch their cartoon mascot, Blumoo Bob, shake it a like a polaroid picture, head over to their Indiegogo page. For a more informative — if slightly less entertaining — video, watch the preview after the break.

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Source: Indiegogo

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Pctwix.com – Samsung thinks the strangers who take pictures of you could do a better job

Posted on May 23, 2013 by admin

Samsung thinks the strangers who take pictures of you could do a better job

Everyone’s found themselves in this situation at one time or another: you’re in a picture-perfect setting, but a selfie at arm’s length won’t cut it. You want to be in the picture, so you wait for a friendly looking passerby and ask them to take it. But, now it’s out of your control, and chances are the resulting snap won’t turn out exactly as you’d imagined. Samsung knows you’re too polite to hold the stranger up while you convey your vision, so it has come up with a camera feature that does the explaining for you. It’s described in a recent patent filing, and the gist is that you select the backdrop and take an initial snap that acts as a guide for the next, similar to how some panorama modes work. With a silhouette of the desired scene now showing atop the live view, the designated stranger just needs to let you get in the shot, line the overlay up with the live scene, and hit the shutter release.

The patent application also talks of editing the overlay, such as adding a circle to show the photographer where you’d like your face to be in relation to the backdrop. If you want the passerby to know how well they’re doing, the claims explain an on-screen “composition score” that would rate their lining-up skills. And, if you’d rather trust the final decision to the camera, a ball-in-the-hole scenario is described that’ll automatically engage the shutter release when the live view matches your ideal layout. This is just words and a few diagrams at this stage, mind, but if the patent gets granted, we could eventually see such a feature added to Samsung’s smartphones or Galaxy cameras. Until then, you’ll just have to put your trust in strangers and hope they have at least a basic understanding of the rule of thirds.

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Source: USPTO (1), (2) (PDF)

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Pctwix.com – Google uses computer vision and machine learning to index your photos

Posted on May 23, 2013 by admin

Google uses computer vision and machine learning to index your photos

Tags are so 2008. Google doesn’t want you to waste time tagging your photos, except for the people in them. The web giant wants to be able to recognize more abstract concepts like “sunset” or “beach” automatically and attach that metadata without further input. In yet another post I/O update, Google+ photos now uses computer vision and machine learning to identify objects and settings in your uploaded snapshots. You can simply search for “my photos of trees” or “Tim’s photos of bikes” and get surprisingly accurate results, with nary a manually-added tag in sight. You can perform the searches in Google+, obviously, but you can also execute your query from the standard Google search page. It’s pretty neat, but sadly Mountain View seems to have forgotten what cats looking like.

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Source: Inside Search

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Pctwix.com – Google Trekker to put the Galapagos Islands on Street View, one tortoise at a time

Posted on May 23, 2013 by admin

Google Street View Trekker charts the Galapagos Islands, one tortoise at a time

Google’s Street View Trekker has already captured some dramatic scenery in its young life, but we haven’t seen it venture far beyond US borders. The company is making up for that in style through its recently completed image-gathering expedition to the Galapagos Islands. The visit will produce 360-degree shots of 10 representative areas chosen by the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos National Parks Directorate. There’s more involved than just stunning Google Maps imagery, however: the panoramas will help document any threats to the local climate and wildlife. While we’ll only see the results of the Galapagos trip later this year, it’s good to know that they should help both humans and slow-moving reptiles in equal measure.

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Source: Google Official Blog

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Pctwix.com – Latest Chrome beta for Windows and Chrome OS brings richer browser notifications, coming soon to Mac and Linux

Posted on May 23, 2013 by admin

Latest Chrome beta for Windows and Chrome OS brings richer browser notifications, coming soon to Mac and Linux

It’s not quite ready for the stable release of the browser, but Chrome beta users can now get a taste of a new notification system that should be rolling out to everyone sooner or later. Currently limited to the Windows and Chrome OS versions of the browser (Mac and Linux support is promised “soon”), the new notifications offer richer options than before, including formatted text and images, as well as the ability to incorporate actions directly inside the pop-up — Google offers the example of responding to an email right away. A new notification center will now also let you view a list of all notifications you might have missed, and you can thankfully disable notifications from as many sources as you like.

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Source: Google Chrome Blog, Chromium Blog

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