The folks at Notion Ink have some updates on their ever-evolving user interface, and as a bonus, they offer a video example of their 1080P in action and Full Volume *loud when you watch it, so turn the sound down before pressing play. Also, if you’ve been following the Notion Ink blog, you aught to know they’ve picked their top 10 list for logos and that all the folks who are on that list will be given something special! Then there’s updates on the Aqua (Aero, Glass, and Gloss,) the Browser, and the Panels.
Beware of BWOOOOOMP. The video they show here is a trailer for the movie Inception. If this lovely device has blasting audio like this in its final form, heck, what a great alternative to television for people who travel a lot. Rockin and rollin.
The Aqua (Aero, Glass, and Gloss) : Notion Ink says they feel that these are all one. They’ve got no love for the gloss in the aesthetics of everything on the Notion Ink interface, showing these icons as examples where current devices with Android are already moving toward a low-gloss look.
The Browser: Notion Ink will have a new way of handling tabs, noting how current Android Tablets have less-than-outstanding handling of tabs in their browsers. Tabs are essential, they note, and they’d love to attack the issue of how to not block the screen and “not force the user to “go hit menu and then “tabs opened” then select the one you want.” To work with speed, switching, closing, opening of closed tabs, closing in multiple, and working with thick fingers, they’ve come up with a left-side fan sort of situation which you can see here:
The Panels: the images you see below will be previewed first by those who get EAP and SDK access. In an attempt at making user interface development easy and seamless, the team at Notion Ink have converted ideation into guidelines:
Sprint and Clearwire have characterized LTE as complimentary to WiMAX time and again, but if that doesn’t allay your suspicions of turncoat tactics in the wireless data space, take it from Sprint CEO Dan Hesse’s lips. “Our 4G strategy is WiMAX, full stop!” he told GigaOM, adding that LTE isn’t necessarily on Sprint’s roadmap. Quizzed about WiMAX partner Clearwire’s LTE trials, however, he dropped a very intriguing hint about the possible shape of phones to come: “We have so much spectrum that we decided to do tests so in case we have multi-modal phones with other air interfaces, we can add LTE on top of WiMAX and run both networks,” he told the publication. Dual-mode WiMAX / LTE smartphone, anyone?
Facebook’s made no official push into the smartphone universe — to date, we’ve been left using various mobile apps to connect with J. Timberlake, Marky Z. and the rest of the crew, but it looks as if the preeminent social networking site of our generation (ahem) is just about ready to clear the air on at least one issue. The invite above recently landed in our inbox, requesting our presence at “a mobile event at Facebook HQ” in Palo Alto, California. Naturally, we’ll be on hand from NorCal bringing you the blow-by-blow, and we’re interested to know what you think will be on deck. Will we finally see the Facebook phone that it quickly shot down? The Nexus Two with a borderline-criminal amount of Facebook integration? The resurgence of using pastel colored tin cans to connect Jane and Joe? Whatever the case, we’re sure It’s Complicated.
If you’ve been following my column on SlashGear, you know that I’m a pretty serious gamer. In fact, I’d say that I’m about as hardcore as they come. Aside from the fact that I’ve been playing games for longer than I choose to remember, I have real and abiding love for everything from role-playing games to sports games. There hasn’t been a single genre that I haven’t at one time or another loved.
That love of games has helped me become completely console agnostic. No matter the hardware a game is playing on, I will play it. Unlike so many other gamers, I don’t care that Nintendo makes too many kid-friendly games, or that Microsoft is Microsoft. When it comes to consoles, I love them all with reckless abandon.
But when Microsoft releases its Kinect motion-gaming peripheral, which allows players to control all on-screen action with their bodies, rather than with the help of a controller, I won’t be in line to pick one up. Yes, I’ve heard that the technology works well. And for $150, its price is just fine. But I’ve been burned too many times by motion gaming. And I’m unwilling to fall into that trap again.
I recently bought the PlayStation Move. The technology, like the Wii, allows gamers to control titles by holding the Move controller and waving their hands around. It’s an experience that works better than the Wii, but like Nintendo’s motion gaming, it falls flat for me.
I found the experience of playing games with Move quite boring. And like the Wii, it requires far too much effort to do far too little. It makes it even more obvious that I’m not really doing what my character on the screen is, even though the goal is to make it seem that way.
I’m starting to believe that I will have a similar experience with the Kinect. Sure, it’s a unique implementation of motion control, but it’s the same basic premise, isn’t it? I simply move around and next thing you know, the character on the screen mimics those movements. No more, no less.
Maybe I’m becoming rather “old school” in my thinking or I just haven’t played the right game, but in every motion-gaming case, I’ve been disappointed. And I’m just not willing to drop an additional $150 on a technology that, when it’s all said and done, will probably disappoint me, as well.
Call me crazy, but I’m perfectly content playing a game with the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 controller. I’m also quite happy playing a Wii game holding the Remote sideways like a traditional controller.
I’m just one of those folks that likes to relax and enjoy games the old-fashioned way.
We’ve been toying with a Palm Pre 2 for a few weeks now, but given that it’s not “final hardware,” we can’t exactly make any firm judgments on the unit itself. Tim Pettitt, product manager for HP Palm, can. In speaking with MarkGuim.tv (and slyly handling a Verizon Pre 2), he not only confirmed that the company was relying on a layer of the famed Gorilla Glass to keep the front as scratch-resistant as possible, but also that the five megapixel camera is capable of capturing a shot every second. More importantly, however, he made clear that it wouldn’t be just the developers nabbing an unlocked GSM Pre 2. According to Tim, that very handset will be “available direct from HP.com,” though he stopped short of saying whether it would support T-Mobile’s AWS 3G band. For AT&T loyalists, however, we’re guessing this may be the best way to nab webOS on the network that’s still rethinking possible.
You’ve already told us (and the world, we might add) how you’d change just about every other Droid phone out there, so why not? Motorola’s Droid 2 has been in the hands of loyal can-doers for a few months now, giving the user base plenty of time to nitpick and stew about things that aren’t… quite… right. We had a few bones to pick with the handset during our August review, but as the regulars know, this space isn’t about rekindling old flames. It’s about you telling us how you’d change things if given the lead design position on this here phone. Would you have upgraded the camera? Changed the slide? Tweaked the Android build? Offered it on another carrier? Hit us with your best shot in comments below.
We here at Engadget Mobile tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol’ Federal Communications Commission’s site. Since we couldn’t possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we’ve gathered up all the raw info you may want (but probably don’t need). Enjoy!
We here at Engadget Mobile tend to spend a lot of way too much time poring over the latest FCC filings, be it on the net or directly on the ol’ Federal Communications Commission’s site. Since we couldn’t possibly (want to) cover all the stuff that goes down there, we’ve gathered up all the raw info you may want (but probably don’t need). Enjoy!
We felt that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 was a product that would be perpetually evaluated, tweaked and overhauled as time went on, and sure enough, we’re already seeing those winds of change blow yonder. Reportedly, Microsoft has now removed the restriction that prevented developers from writing applications that would continue to operate behind a locked screen (without a user’s explicit permission, anyway), enabling a whole host of apps to breathe in a manner in which they simply should. Audio apps, for example, will now be able to run in the background without yet another layer of pointless Vista-esque permissions, and Microsoft’s Charlie Kindel said in an interview at its Professional Developer Conference that this move “is an example of us continuing to listen to customers.” Frankly, it’s just more fair — Microsoft’s own ingrained applications could already do this sans user permission (email, Zune playback, downloads, etc.), so it makes sense to give loyal developers that same opportunity. Of course, devs will have to prove that background apps won’t burn up an absurd amount of battery life, but that’s definitely not an unexpected qualification.
Today we’ve got the unboxing and hands-on of a T-Mobile G2 and an HTC Desire Z. We’ve got reviews of a whole slew of items, such as the HTC HD7, some Parrot Zikmu speakers, and a pair of JH Audio JH16 Pro earbuds. There’s a big fat reminder of the costume contest for the LG Optimus T (YOU COULD WIN IT). We have a conversation with Barnes & Noble, learn of a lovely couple of pumpkin carvings, and get listed in the featured section of the ever-so-nicely-designed Pulse App for all your favorite devices. Get into it! Today, on The Daily Slash.
Your Moment of Near-Halloween Geek-Zen The greatest parts of the fact that the folks around my generation are having kids are the ways they have fun raising those children. Take, for example, the costumes they take the time to make for them. Today it’s your choice, two of the most amazing kid costumes DIY created by their parents (or grandparents in the case of kid #2.) Choose either Sweet Juniper’s Kid Robotcop, or Kid Jawa as presented by “fatrobot” of Reddit. I could never make such a choice, never in all my life.
Dress your little kid or animal or animal/kid up for Halloween or I will just cry forever. All kids should be in costume at all times, and all costumes should employ LED lights. To see more Daily Slash posts, click here: [The Daily Slash]
