Posted on 31 October 2009 by admin
For a time, it looked
Aptera might be missing out on the US Department of Energy’s funding bonanza for energy-efficient vehicles due to its car’s three-wheeled nature, but it looks like President Obama has now had the final say on the matter, and signed legislation that makes both two-wheeled and three-wheeled cars eligible for the same funding as their four-wheeled counterparts. Of course, that doesn’t yet mean that Aptera will actually receive any funding, and the legislation doesn’t have anything to do with safety regulations, where the
2e is still classified as a motorcycle by the Department of Transportation. For its part, however, Aptera states that it’ll be filing another application to meet the updated stipulations, and it still insists that it’ll hit “volume production” of the vehicle sometime in 2010, and get it on the road for between $25,000 and $40,000.
Filed under: Transportation
Aptera 2e three-wheeler deemed a vehicle by the DoE, eligible for funding originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Posted on 31 October 2009 by admin
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times, stop trying to make robots into “friendly companions!” MIT must have some hubris stuck in its ears, as its labs are back at it with what looks like Clippy gone 3D, with an extra dash of Knight Rider-inspired personality. What we’re speaking about here is a dashboard-mounted AI system that collects environmental data, such as local events, traffic and gas stations, and combines it with a careful analysis of your driving habits and style to make helpful suggestions and note points of interest. By careful analysis we mean it snoops on your every move, and by helpful suggestions we mean it probably nags you to death (its own death). Then again, the thing’s been designed to communicate with those massive Audi eyes, making even our hardened hearts warm just a tiny. Video after the break.
Continue reading MIT’s Affective Intelligent Driving Agent is KITT and Clippy’s lovechild (video)
Filed under: Robots
MIT’s Affective Intelligent Driving Agent is KITT and Clippy’s lovechild (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 04:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 31 October 2009 by admin
Filed under: Podcasts
It was Windows 7 launch week, so as you’d anticipate we talked plenty of Windows 7 Media Center. Like the new Netflix Watch Instantly interface, Internet Television, Digital Cable Tuner firmware and Utility delays and finally how to skip commercials. But before we got to that we covered our favorite new topic, 3D. After all that we got back on our older love, Blu-ray, where we talked about why the 360 will never get a Blu-ray drive and how what we really want is Managed Duplicates of our movies on our 360. Finally we made fun of Comcast and Verizon for their VOD spat, and told everyone how not to evaluate HDTV in stores.
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh, Richard Lawler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Program
00:00:25 - from Engadget HD Podcast 160
00:12:38 - Ready or not, the latest 3D technology is coming home
00:21:40 - Netflix coming next month to PlayStation 3
00:26:21 - Windows 7 Media Center’s upgraded Netflix Watch Instantly interface now available
00:33:55 - Microsoft officially delays Digital Cable Tuner firmware and Advisor Utility
00:37:42 - How to automatically skip commercials in Windows 7 Media Center
00:45:32 - Microsoft: ‘We have no plans for Blu-ray on Xbox 360′
00:52:25 - Poll: What’s the best Blu-ray player?
00:57:38 - Comcast has issues with Verizon’s FiOS VOD claims
01:04:22 - Hulu might be looking to subscriptions to turn digital pennies into digital dollars
01:10:07 - Ask EngadgetHD: How do you evaluate HDTVs in-store?
LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)
Engadget HD Podcast 161 - 10.27.2009 originally appeared on Engadget HD on Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 31 October 2009 by admin
Filed under: Handsets, Motorola, Verizon Wireless, Android
In the best sort of tradition, Best Purchase Mobile has gone for a repeat of its Palm Pre offering and is offering a $299 phone, the Motorola DROID, in this case, at $199 thanks to the automation of a mail-in rebate you’d have to actually “mail in” if you were to buy the handset straight from the carrier. Best Buy also seems to be the first place to offer pre-orders of the phone, so if you’re worried about a sell out or just generally averse to affixing stamps to things, Best Buy appears to have you covered.
Ideal Purchase offering DROID pre-orders as of this day, automates the mail-in rebate originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted on 31 October 2009 by admin
 Here’s another cool app for the Apple iPhone: LiveCLIQ, an app that lets you record videos and then either upload or stream them to the LiveCLIQ website.
To do that, you just need to record a video using LiveCLIQ and then sync it. You can even record a few videos and then sync them all at the same time. Once they’re synced, you can select to upload or stream them to the LiveCLIQ website at livecliq.net.
The app works with both the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G (as well as a host of other mobile phones). You can download it for free through Cydia, but you’ll have to sign up for an account on the LiveCLIQ website in order to begin using it.
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Via [apple.qj.net]
Popularity: 1% [?]
Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted on 30 October 2009 by admin
If
myHPmini forum member runawayprisoner is to be believed (and why not?), rather than featuring some sort of dumbed-down hardware, the sole difference between the NVIDIA ION and the
XP-friendly ION LE is that the latter has DirectX 10 support disabled in the device drivers. Indeed, when the full-blown ION drivers are hacked to recognize the ION LE device ID, not only do you get to run DX10, but performance increases markedly as well. Of course, DX10 is Windows 7 only, but you should conceivably be able to take your ION LE machine, install Windows 7 and the driver hack, and get on with your life (and save a few bucks in the process). Why bother with the charade, you ask? Theories abound, but we think it’s a pretty good guess that NVIDIA is merely adhering to Microsoft licensing requirements here, and that in the long run crippling an existing chipset is cheaper than developing an entirely new one for an OS that’s likely to be phased out sooner than later.
[Via SlashGear]
Filed under: Laptops
NVIDIA ION LE hack adds DirectX 10 support, raises interesting questions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 30 October 2009 by admin
Fuji Heavy Industries in Japan has announced what it’s calling ‘the first’ autonomous
farming robot. This bot, which is about six and a half feet long and runs on gas, sends and receives
laser signals to orient itself by way of reflective plates put every 30 feet, using them to judge distances. This bad boy can grow fruits and veggies all by its lonesome, and can even operate in a greenhouse. The farming
robot — which is expected early next year — will run about $100,000, but we’d advocate you purchase two so he has the ability to have a buddy.
Filed under: Robots
Fuji Heavy Industries outs friendless, autonomous farming robot originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted on 30 October 2009 by admin
Filed under: Displays
Unless you’ve been under a rock for a hot minute, then you know that LED backlit LCD HDTVs have been all the rage, though so far no one has brought those benefits to the smaller TVs. Well today VIZIO added a 19-inch and a 23-inch model to its LED lineup. Only the 23-inch is 1080p, but both have very thin profiles and the improved contrast and color you’d anticipate. The interesting twist is that both models will work as a picture frame, which someone (as in, literally one person in some random corner of the globe) might appreciate. The 19-inch model retails for $349, and the 23-inch will set you back another $50, but there’s no word on when you can anticipate these to show up on a store shelf near you. More pictures and the full release after the jump.
Continue reading VIZIO brings the LED celebration to 19- and 23-inch models
VIZIO brings the LED party to 19- and 23-inch models originally appeared on Engadget HD on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted on 30 October 2009 by admin
Filed under: LTE, WiMAX
We’ll come right out and state it, we like Julius Genachowski. Whether you concur with the dude’s policies or not, you can’t deny he’s pursuing them with gusto. Having already noted the insufficient carrying capacity of current mobile broadband airways to deal with incoming 4G connections, the FCC chairman is now reported to be moving ahead with plans to provide greater spectrum allocation for those purposes. Currently in the draft stage, the latest Commission proposals include a plan to reclaim airwaves from digital broadcasters (and pay them appropriately for it), which are to then be sold off to the highest bidder from among the wireless service providers. Executing the most extreme version of this plan could generate around $62 billion in auction revenues, though it would require transitioning digital TV viewers over to cable or subscription services and is therefore unlikely. Jules and his crew are still “looking at everything” and ruling out nothing, but we can probably anticipate to see a moderate shift of TV spectrum rights over to wireless carriers in the final plans when they’re revealed in February.
[Via Phone Scoop]
FCC keen on commandeering TV spectrum for wireless broadband originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Posted on 30 October 2009 by admin
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