Microsoft readying official Kinect SDK for Windows

Microsoft, according to (you guessed it!) sources familiar with its plans, is preparing to release the official Kinect SDK for Windows. This follows the release of the official Windows drivers last month from Microsoft Kinect's manufacturer, PrimeSense.

The release of an official SDK doesn't have immediate repercussions, but it does strongly hint at a gesture-controlled future for Windows 8. With over 8 million Kinects sold in just 60 days, and with Windows' almost complete penetration of the consumer market, there's a big potential market for Windows software that can utilize Kinect -- and, who knows, by the time Windows 8 rolls around in 2012 or 2013, maybe every household will already have a Kinect just waiting to be plugged in.

If you haven't seen it yet, take a look at the Kinect-powered Minority Reportesque user interface. With this SDK, it could be just a matter of weeks before similar software appears for Windows, in the form of an easy-to-install MSI.

Microsoft readying official Kinect SDK for Windows originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 17 Jan 2011 07:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/17/microsoft-readying-official-kinect-sdk-for-windows/

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Silhouetter Turns Your Photos into iPod Ads

Oddly, the Silhouetter app for the iPad and iPhone doesn’t mention its “inspiration” anywhere in its description. But then, it doesn’t really need to, so obvious is the “homage” to the iconic iPod ads.
That said, the app is actually pretty cool in a single-serve kind of way. You choose a photo from your camera-roll, pinch [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/silhouetter-turns-your-photos-into-ipod-ads/

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Study shocker! Mobile users piddle around on the internet while watching TV

Shocker of shockers, folks: people do more than just watch TV when they're watching TV. A study of over 8,000 willing individuals from Nielsen and Yahoo recently discovered that some 86 percent of mobile internet users tinker around on their devices while situated in front of the tube. It seems that Googling random facts, checking their Facebook news feed and seeing who has tweeted in the past 30 seconds were atop the list of activities to do while watching, but strangely, a full 20 percent confessed to search for more information about a commercial they recently saw. Hit the source link below (PDF) to be instantly bombarded with facts and figures, but first, refresh that TweetCaster feed. Ah, so much better.

Study shocker! Mobile users piddle around on the internet while watching TV originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 07:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/29/study-shocker-mobile-users-piddle-around-on-the-internet-while/

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Verizon: Existing customers can order iPhone 4 starting Feb. 3 at 3am EST

Verizon has updated their website and started sending out mailings confirming that existing customers can start ordering the Verizon iPhone on February 3, 2011 at 3am EST. They’ve even got a handy timer right on the front of verizon.com to help you countdown every last minute before you can order. Now all we need is official postings [...]

Verizon: Existing customers can order iPhone 4 starting Feb. 3 at 3am EST is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/J8mp7FxFjpQ/

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PSA: Change your old Amazon.com password for better security

Amazon's allegedly got an security flaw where hackers can find your password much easier than they would otherwise, and there's already a fix in place. But get this -- you'll probably need to change your password for the fix to take effect, if you haven't already done so in the last couple of years. According to Reddit users, the Amazon.com login system will actually accept any phrase so long as it begins with your password, such as "password123" when the magic word is simply "password" by itself. That apparently makes it that much easier for a computer to guess your password via brute force methods, no matter how counter-intuitive that seems, so if you simply change it immediately -- and to something other than "password," please -- you'll have much sounder dreams.

PSA: Change your old Amazon.com password for better security originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/zEw43OjLTQo/

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Daily Crunch: Squid?s Clinic Edition

So Why Should You Care About NFC? Razer?s Portable Ferox Speakers Shoot Sound In Every Direction Video: Captain Planet Would Be Proud Of The T-Shirt That Detects Pollution Need to check out that mole on your arm? Just buy this $1,500 iPhone case Minimalist Swiss Block-Clock Is Beautiful, Incredibly Expensive

Source: http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/01/26/daily-crunch-squids-clinic/

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Canna Cola: A Soda Spiked with Marijuana [Marijuana]

Here I thought man could never top Four Loko and in rolls marijuana soda. A California artist has put the psychoactive marijuana ingredient THC (aka how you get high) into drinks and is now selling them at your local pot shop. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/BrM1QxustyM/canna-cola-a-soda-spiked-with-marijuana

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Google Will Properly Show Off Android 3.0—Also Known As Honeycomb—On February 2 [Google]

We just received an invite to a Google event on February 2. The reason? To take an in-depth look at Android 3.0. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/MhqKwqtQwew/google-will-properly-show-off-android-30++also-known-as-honeycomb++on-february-2

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German researchers prototype 6mm thick pico projector

Pico projectors just keep shrinking, and a new prototype developed at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Optics and Engineering is helping said shrinking along pretty strikingly. The team has developed a prototype pico which is just 6mm thick, making it the world's slimmest ever. Better yet, the projected image is 10 times brighter than a pico projector of its size would have previously been -- had it existed. The new lens on the projector is so small that it could potentially be integrated into smart phones without boosting size or weight. The new prototype is made of 45 red, green or blue microlenses, each with a 200 x 200 pixel LCD, inspired by a microlens array called a fly's eye condenser. The resulting resolution is nearly, but not quite, WVGA with 11 lumens of brightness. The prototype will be shown off at Nano Tech 2011 in Tokyo.

[Image credit: Fraunhofer Institute]

German researchers prototype 6mm thick pico projector originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 12:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/29/german-researchers-prototype-6mm-thick-pico-projector/

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iPhone Car Charger with Gesture Control

Monster cable has taken enough time off from suing people to come up with yet another new cable. The Monster iMotion CarPlay 3000 might sound like a made-up product from Mad magazine, but it is in fact a car charger for your iPhone or iPad – with a twist: it lets you control the music [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/01/iphone-car-charger-with-gesture-control/

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HP CEO: New webOS products shipping weeks after February 9 reveal, another big announcement March 14

It's been a few months since Leo Apotheker took the top spot at HP following the Mark Hurd debacle, and it sounds like he's got some big plans for the company -- speaking to the BBC, he says he hopes "one day people will say 'this is as cool as HP,' not 'this is as cool as Apple.'" How does he plan on doing that? By speeding up ship times, for starters -- unlike the year-long wait for the HP Slate, Apotheker says that "when HP makes announcements, it will be getting ready to ship," and that the new webOS products announced on February 9 will ship just a "few weeks" later. Speaking of the February 9 event, Apotheker said the new product line of tablets and mobile phones will have a new name that falls under the HP brand, which sounds like the Palm name is done for. (If we had to guess, it'll be HP webOS, but that's just a guess.)

On top of all that, the BBC calls February 9 just the "starting gun," because Apotheker's "secret answer" and "vision of what HP is capable of in the future" will come on March 14, where he'll try to pull together HP's vast product portfolio into a cohesive narrative. According to Apotheker, HP's size is its "basis of strength," and no other company sells everything from servers to phones the way HP does. Sounds extremely exciting -- and if Apotheker can pull it off, there's a chance we'll remember Mark Hurd's dalliance as the best thing that ever happened to HP.

[Thanks, soydeedo]

HP CEO: New webOS products shipping weeks after February 9 reveal, another big announcement March 14 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 11:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/28/hp-ceo-new-webos-products-shipping-weeks-after-february-9-revea/

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HTC Inspire 4G Pops Up on Amazon For $99 [Cellphones]

Hot on the heels of Amazon slipping a $149 price out for Motorola's Atrix 4G, and they've gone and blabbed that HTC's Inspire 4G for AT&T will cost a shade under 100 notes. [Amazon via Phandroid] More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/93uDYBj5eN8/htc-inspire-4g-pops-up-on-amazon-for-99

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Android 3.0 Honeycomb emulator has traces of smartphone support

Thought Honeycomb was just for tablets? Well, it's not! Sure, tablets might be Google's main thrust with the release, but we've been able to dig up enough evidence in the preview SDK's emulator released yesterday to suggest that these guys are still keeping their eyes on the smartphone prize.

Here's how it works: the emulator can be set to load at an arbitrary screen resolution. By default, that's WXGA, 1280 x 768 -- perfect for tablets, but obviously a wee bit large for even the biggest smartphones. Well, it turns out that setting the emulator to WVGA (like you might find on a modern mid- to high-end smartphone) triggers a moderately different shell UI that lacks most of the whiz-bang home screen stuff Google's shown on the Honeycomb tablets. In fact, the default launcher crashes out entirely, which means you need to install a replacement (Launcher Pro works nicely) just to play around.

Once you get in, it's pretty raw, but you immediately notice that the emulator's got some traces of smartphone support. Notably, the status bar reverts to a more smartphone-friendly form, albeit one with pre-Gingerbread background coloration and incorrectly-inverted font colors. The lock screen (pictured above) is back to its old form, not the webOS-esque circular lock in the Honeycomb tablet UI. The browser -- which has been completely revamped in Honeycomb -- works, though without visible tabs; Google might be thinking that they'd take up too much real estate on a screen this small.

Again, you can't glean much here, but it's interesting primarily because the emulator knows to revert to a smartphone UI layout at the lower resolution -- a possible sign that Honeycomb will be a true dual-mode, dual-purpose platform from day one. And even if it isn't, it looks like they're setting themselves up for a two-UI strategy down the road.

Gallery: Android 3.0 Honeycomb emulator has traces of smartphone support

[Thanks, Andrew]

Android 3.0 Honeycomb emulator has traces of smartphone support originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 16:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/a2el_cPNyDI/

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