I already shared my first impressions of a lot of Apple’s newly announced products today, but we’ve also got video from the time we spent with the iPad mini and the Retina MacBook Pro. Watching these things in action provides an entirely different perspective compared to reading about them or looking at static pictures, and seeing the iPad mini do its thing really does a better job of conveying the value of the device, so check out the video above.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
While I wouldn’t want to be the parent who buys their kids a Leapster GS instead of a Nintendo DS, I still think that this mini educational handheld is an interesting addition to Leapfrog’s line of kids toys. The GS looks a lot more like a handheld device than its predecessors and can take pictures and video with a built-in camera.
The GS runs on four AA batteries and features a color screen and comes in green or purple. It runs a number of game times and kids can use it to view animated ebooks. Kids can store content on 2GB of built-in memory.
Leapfrog hardware is rugged and none of the handhelds we’ve had at home have ever broken in the course of play. N.B., however, parents: kids abandon these things pretty fast when they figure out Dad’s iPhone plays Angry Birds, so enjoy it while it lasts.
The GS costs $69.99 and is available now.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
If you’re headed away this summer, leave the Knut behind to keep and eye on things. This small, Wi-Fi-capable widget can transmit various measurements to your iPhone anywhere in the world.
The Knut is a Kickstarter project by Richard Pasek and Jay Gondelman in Boston. They’re looking for $80 per Knut and it has various sensors built in as well as functional sensors for various other measurements.
They’ve surpassed their $25,000 goal so these things will definitely ship. The real questions is how people will use this to monitor their basements, humidors, and elephant paddocks.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
Guitar-maker Peavey has teamed up with audio electronics experts Anteres to create an auto-tuning guitar. While these things aren’t new – Gibson has had robotic tuners for a while – this system is unique in that it senses and corrects the pitch of the strings regardless of tuning, which means you can do all sorts of interesting tricks with vibrato even in what would amount to be an untuned guitar.
Peavy describes it thus:
The guitar is physically no different from any other electric except for an upgradable module to handle tuning. While you probably still have to tune this guitar a little, once it is set up you can change quite a bit about it programmatically, reducing the need to fiddle with machine heads during your red hot solo.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
Makerbot creator Bre Pettis and his musician friends from Scary Car made this cute little video featuring 3D printed action figures being created in (near) real-time and then discovering love.
The video is celebration of Makerbot’s big debut at CES last year and the launch of the Replicator, the company’s new complete 3D printer that we featured on our CES stage.
A lot of folks would equate a 3D printer with frippery but it’s clear that these things are plain fun and, more important, they work.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
Our favorite manhacks, the Quadcopters, are currently building a 1,500 piece styrofoam sculture in the FRAC Centre in Orleans. The robots follow a pre-set plan but can sense each other in space and assess which pieces have already been placed, resulting in a ballet of tiny, flying machines that are about as smart as a barn sparrow.
Called “Flight Assembled Architecture,” this demonstration shows how far we’ve come from the early days of quadcopters and how much smarter these things are getting. I’m honestly waiting for the day when these things can swarm, piraña-style, and pick our grapes, apples, and occasional enemies of the state.
No video yet but if someone in Orlean can head over there and check it out, we’d be eternally grateful. It looks insane.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
These balls, made by Cosmo Power, cost a few hundred thousand yen and can be used as a Tsunami shelter. It seats four (small) adults and can double as a teeny, tiny playhouse for kids until needed.
Sadly, they’ve been working on these things for years yet shipped only two so far. This is especially tragic in light of current events but it’s an ingenious way to survive a deluge. I wonder how long it will last on a playground until it starts to break, thereby reducing its utility.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
Although I’ve never been a huge fan of the Cybershot line, it’s interesting to see how much tech Sony has been dumping into these things of late. For example, this $350 camera shoots full 1080i video and 12-megapixel stills at exactly the same time with no interruption.
It has 5X optical zoom and some sort of 16-megapixel 10X digital zoom and can also shoot in 3D. Panoramas are easy and massive at 42 megapixels. It will be available in September.
I’d love to see the final quality that comes out of this slim shooter and, while I’m sure it’s technically impressive, I’d worry wee bit about overkill.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
Sweet merciful fates: this is a robot. Called a Geminoid, these things came into fame with an early version in 2005 by Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of ATR. This new version seems completely revamped and updated and, more interesting, this is the first Geminoid from outside of Japan.
This new Geminoid comes from Alborg University in Denmark and is considerably less complex – but much more realistic – than Ishiguro’s original model. This one, called Geminoid-F, appears to really breathe and perform involuntary muscular reactions.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch
One thing you’ll notice about this crop of Windows Phone 7 handsets is the power of the processor. Each one – almost ten in all – run 1GHz+ Snapdragon processors. With the average desktop or laptop processor running at about 4GHz, we’re talking about phones that have the power of a half-decade old PC. Yes, you could probably run Crysis on these.
What does that mean for you and me? Not much except some amazing UI features. What it means for the OS and for programmers is fairly interesting, however. It means spellcheck. It means in-context highlighting (think of the way the iPhone and now Outlook for WinPho 7 highlight addresses and dates). Think fairly powerful productivity tools that use desktop-style interfaces to control various features. While all of these things seem simple, in reality they are very hard.
Article courtesy of TechCrunch