[Engadget] 11 New Entries: Hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity, giant ASIMO to lead Rose Parade

Hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity, giant ASIMO to lead Rose Parade

For the first time ever (yes, ever!), this year's Rose Parade in Pasadena, California will be headed up by a hydrogen-powered vehicle. Honda's fuel cell-equipped FCX Clarity will lead the 120th parade, and the pace car will be followed by the Super Cub motorcycle -- the first model sold in the United States. As fancy as these two are, it's the ASIMO that'll undoubtedly steal the show, and yes, we're talking about the 49-foot iteration we spotted a few days back. Catch Honda's trio riding high on January 1 at 8:00AM PST; after that, it's time to place your bets between USC and Penn State.

Filed under: Robots, Transportation

Hydrogen-powered Honda FCX Clarity, giant ASIMO to lead Rose Parade originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Genius bringing WiFi boombox, night vision IP camera concepts to CES 2009

You may be inclined to just associate Genius with corporate-level mice, ho hum speakers and the occasional pen tablet, but the outfit is looking to expand its horizons at CES next month. It'll be bringing along a pair of concepts that are evidently leaning towards release in the mysterious future, the first of which is a 2.4 GHz Wireless Stereo Speaker System. The three-piece package presumably contains two satellites and a subwoofer, with the knobs and ports maintaining a low profile. The wireless range reaches up to 100-feet and the inbuilt 3.5-millimeter auxiliary jack ensures that practically any source will work. Moving on, we've got the IP Cam 350TR, which is constructed with "the most advanced night vision technology to secure any home or office efficiently." The integrated light sensor automatically fires up six infrared LEDs when in a dark / dim environment, and there's also a microphone tucked away to capture live audio. Pricing for both is listed as TBA, which isn't shocking given the "concept" status; full release is after the jump.

Continue reading Genius bringing WiFi boombox, night vision IP camera concepts to CES 2009

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Home Entertainment

Genius bringing WiFi boombox, night vision IP camera concepts to CES 2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Snapture Flash adds crappy flash to crappy iPhone camera

The iPhone's camera may be thoroughly eclipsed by several of its competitors, but the insane popularity of Apple's baby means that we've seen tons of accessories aimed at making that 2.1 megapixel sensor somewhat more useful -- like the Snapture Flash here, which tucks a xenon flash with red-eye reduction into a sleeve-type case. Although it's powered by the phone, it's apparently quite low-power -- SnaptureLabs estimates that you'll take 1000 shots before going dry -- and there's some sort of "speaker amplification" built in as well, just in case you're super into enhancing mediocre parts of the iPhone experience. Bad news? You'll have to jailbreak your phone to get the Snapture app working -- hopefully that'll be remedied by the time this thing ships. Check out some sample shots at the read link.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Snapture Flash adds crappy flash to crappy iPhone camera originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 22:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nine-year old girl is youngest person to become Microsoft Certified Professional

A nine year-old girl in India named M. Lavinashree has passed the Microsoft Certified Professional Exam, becoming the youngest person to ever pull it off (smashing the record previously held by a 10 year-old Pakistani girl). The youngster has a long history of making records in her short life -- including reciting all 1,300 couplets of a 2,000 year-old Tamil epic at the age of three -- and now she's now cramming for the Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer Exam. We'll be honest, this really takes the zing out of our biggest accomplishment at the age of nine: figuring out where in the world Carmen Sandiego was. Hit the read link for a video.

[Thanks, Penny]

Continue reading Nine-year old girl is youngest person to become Microsoft Certified Professional

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Nine-year old girl is youngest person to become Microsoft Certified Professional originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 20:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pogo Sketch stylus turns your touchpad into a tablet

We never really knew anyone intrigued by Pogo's iPhone stylus, but the company's newest writin' stick puts that capacitive touch-compatible tech to a way more interesting use -- turning touchpads into large digitizer tablets. That'd be particularly useful for new MacBook owners who're rocking those gigantor buttonless trackpads, but we'll have to see this $15 accessory in action before we say Wacom's got anything to worry about.

Filed under: Peripherals

Pogo Sketch stylus turns your touchpad into a tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 19:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell confirms shocking truth: Adamo to rival MacBook Air

In a confusing timeline of events that only Charlton Heston could love, Dell confirmed today that it already has touted its soon-to-be-unveiled "Adamo" as a rival to the MacBook Air in a blogvertisement that posed itself as a rumor that Adamo would do just that:

"Rumor has it that Dell is coming out with a computer called Adamo that will rival the MacBook Air. At press time, the company was keeping the product tightly under wraps, but PC users rejoice - word on the street is that something cool is coming your way."

The adblog appeared on a "luxury internet magazine," and was noticed by The New York Times Bits Blog, who bounced the copy off Dell, which confirmed it as an ad: "We did this to wake up the personal computing category and create some buzz." This further confirms (or perhaps pre-confirms) what we've heard about Adamo, but we're looking forward to the actual unveiling of this laptop and forming our own real, factual opinions on the thing.

Filed under: Laptops

Dell confirms shocking truth: Adamo to rival MacBook Air originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PS3 teardown: 30% fewer parts, $300 cheaper

When the gang at iSuppli first tore open a PlayStation 3 back in November 2006, they pegged the cost to build the $500 model was $805 in materials. Now they're back and looking inside the $400 version, which they estimate is $448.73 in parts -- still a loss leader for the company, but only by about one Ulysses S. Grant this time. The number of components has also dropped from 4,048 to just 2,820, and both the Cell processor and NVIDIA GPU have slimmed down from 90nm to 65nm. They suspect Sony might be able to lower costs and turn a profit sometime in 2009, but while you may be rooting for this generation's underdog, don't get your hopes up for a price drop any time soon.

Filed under: Gaming

PS3 teardown: 30% fewer parts, $300 cheaper originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 18:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Scientists research sex chip to stimulate pleasure in the brain

Would you implant a chip into your head to augment your sex drive? That's exactly what scientists are currently looking into: a device that sends tiny shocks to the part of your brain that is said to control the feelings of pleasure you get from both sex and eating. The neural stimulation is said to provoke physical stimulation, and according to Oxford Neurosurgery professor Tipu Aziz, such a device was successfully tried a few years ago, but removed when the subject complained about her constantly supercharged sex drive. He predicts future versions of the technology will let you turn the chip on and off when needed. Sure, sure -- but can you overclock it?

[Via Tech Digest]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Scientists research sex chip to stimulate pleasure in the brain originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iZ3D bringing 26-inch prototype 3D LCD to CES 2009

In case you haven't noticed, iZ3D is riding the suddenly swelled wave of 3D enthusiasm all the way to the bank (and Vegas). Even though its existing 22-inch 3D LCD has been around since mid-2007, the firm has recently hacked down the price and pushed it into retail outlets in order to drum up interest. At CES, it's bringing even more firepower in the form of a 26-inch prototype (pictured) that should do everything the current 22-incher does, just 4-inches better. Additionally, it'll have on display the Immersion Series, which places a trio of the iZ3D monitors together in order to better simulate flights and races. In case that's not enough, we're also told to expect a 22-inch widescreen 3D LCD that's console-friendly, meaning that the only thing standing between you and 3D Xbox 360 enjoyment is a wonky set of glasses and compatible software. We'll see how it all looks in around a fortnight.

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment

iZ3D bringing 26-inch prototype 3D LCD to CES 2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers achieve new efficiency record of blue OLEDs

Ever since Sony's XEL-1 hit the market, pundits have pointed to the (comparatively) short-lived blue OLED material as its biggest hamstring. Researchers have been toiling around the clock in order to bring the blue lifepsan in line with its green and red siblings, and now it seems like a team of Gators are that much closer to the promise land. Reportedly, a gaggle of whiz-kids from the University of Florida have "achieved a new record in efficiency of blue organic light-emitting diodes, and because blue is essential to white light, the advance helps overcome a hurdle to lighting that is much more efficient than compact fluorescents." Franky So (pictured) and his diligent crew were able to reach a peak blue OLED efficiency of 50 lumens per watt, which is halfway to his goal of at least 100 lumens per watt. Hurry it up, folks -- CES is just around the corner.

[Via Physorg]

Filed under: Displays, HDTV

Researchers achieve new efficiency record of blue OLEDs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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boxee alpha opens up on Mac, Ubuntu January 8; Windows invites to follow

Six months and 150,000 signups later, boxee is preparing to move from alpha to beta status, ready to drop any unsent invites on all interested parties by the 25th ahead of the open alpha period starting January 8, 2009. While OS X / Apple TV / Ubuntu have been the required attire so far, Windows users won't be out in the cold much longer, as CEO Avner Ronen revealed in comments on the boxee blog that the Windows alpha program will start "early 2009" with thousands of invites sent out every week. That enough to pique your interest in this media streaming set-top box software?

[Via A VC]

Filed under: Home Entertainment

boxee alpha opens up on Mac, Ubuntu January 8; Windows invites to follow originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Dec 2008 15:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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