Polaroid’s Socialmatic camera to fuse retro style, instant prints and Android this fall
Last we heard of Polaroid’s Socialmatic camera, which promises to bring back instant prints with a modern flair, it was bound for store shelves in the first quarter of 2014. Here at CES, the firm’s announced that the hardware is cruising for a fall release now that it’s finalized the necessary legal agreements to make it a reality. For those in need of a refresher, the device runs Android to make sharing images a snap and packs a 14-megapixel cam on its front, a 2-megapixel rear-facing sensor, 4GB of storage with expansion via microSD, a 4.5-inch touchscreen and built-in WiFi. Zink’s ink-free paper will do the heavy lifting when it comes to printing photos, so any vintage film can stay stowed in your closet. Polaroid’s Socialmatic shooter is out in the wilds of the CES floor, so stay tuned for a hands-on.
Filed under: Cameras
Source: Polaroid
Whyd’s music-streaming aggregation now open to the public
It was, according to our calendars, nearly 14 months ago that we first checked out Whyd. The music service pulls songs scraped from sites like YouTube and Soundcloud, letting you build streaming playlists out of music often not available through the likes of Spotify and iTunes. And while we haven’t heard so much as a peep out of the service in the intervening year-plus, it’s clear that the team has been working on something over there. Today, the site is finally shedding its long-standing invite-only status, opening up to one and all. The news also brings with it an, ahem, wider variety of features, including Deezer-compatibility, comments, revamped profiles and more to help nudge you in the direction of yet another streaming-music offering.
Filed under: Storage, Internet
Source: Whyd
Avegant Glyph home theater headset isn’t competing with Oculus Rift (hands-on)
We’ve spent gobs of time with variations of Oculus VR’s Rift headset — the original duct-tape prototype, the first dev kit and even an updated HD version. We’ve spoken to creator Palmer Luckey several times, and company reps have graced Engadget stages at both CES 2013 and last March’s first-ever Expand event in San Francisco.
Avegant’s Glyph, however? We’ve only just begun. The home theater headset just got a name, and the first prototype looked an awful lot like what you’d see underneath a Terminator cyborg’s smooth visage. As Oculus did before, the scrappy eight-person team at Avegant is taking its impressive proof-of-concept to Kickstarter in hopes of funding a beta unit: $500 is the base level for a Glyph, and the project is set to go live on January 22nd. And this sentence — right here! — is where we’re gonna stop speaking about the Glyph as if it’s competing with the Oculus Rift. As Avegant’s CEO Ed Tang told us late last week: “We’re not trying to compete with Oculus.”
There’s good reason for that. For starters, the Glyph is really, really different from the Rift. Like, dramatically different. Yes, they’re both video headsets. Yes, they both offer some form of interactivity. What each is trying to achieve, however, is starkly different. The Rift aims for deep immersion — it cuts off your field of view, encompassing your entire spectrum of vision — whereas the Glyph operates more like a set of sunglasses. You can play games on it, but it’s really more suited for movie watching (say, on a plane). Both the alpha model we tried late last week (“hot off the production line!”) and the beta model that’ll ship to Kickstarter backers have a relatively small 45-degree field of view, allowing for a partially obstructed perspective of the world while using the Glyph. It’s this conceit that makes all the difference between the two.
As such, if you’re looking for the immersive virtual reality experience that the Rift offers, stop looking at the Glyph. If you’re looking for a $500 way to buy your own, very personal home/mobile theater (that’s still in beta), the Glyph is spot-on. As previously reported, the Glyph’s image is extremely crisp. Similarly impressive, it can do 3D without any glasses: it projects the image directly onto your retinas rather than using a screen. The effect, however, is more than a little underwhelming. Sure, the image is nice, but it’s surrounded by a massive dead space that feels wasted. Moreover, we spent three to four minutes adjusting the interpupillary distance (IPD) — the space between your eyes — just to make it work. That’s three to four minutes longer than it should take to make a $500 visual entertainment device function.
Another major differentiator from the Rift? Glyph has a fancy pair of headphones built in. If you want to be all the way crazy, you can wear the device like a standard set of (very large) headphones. Normally, though, it just serves as a means to make video viewing more comfortable. It’s a smart addition, but adds yet another layer of adjustment: Not only are you adjusting the IPD, but also how tight the whole apparatus is on your head. The alpha model we tried had a headstrap, though it isn’t planned for the beta. We’re also told that the beta model will be considerably lighter — as it stands, the Glyph rests somewhat uncomfortably on noses.
So, who is the Glyph for? Not just gamers, that’s for sure. A single MHL/HDMI wire will attach the Glyph to virtually anything — we even tried some mobile gaming with a Lightning adapter on an iPhone 5. An expected three-hour battery life, however, applies some serious limitations to viewing on the go. As best we can tell, like Google Glass’ Explorer Edition and Oculus’ Rift dev kit, the Glyph beta unit is meant for early adopters who are willing to put up with a very promising wearable that isn’t ready for retail just yet. Oh, and developers. But not for your parents (or even you, probably) just yet.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Wearables
Polaroid’s new bridge cameras pack WiFi sharing, as much as 50x optical zoom
In addition to the quirkier parts of its CES camera lineup, Polaroid’s trotting out a line of bridge shooters with a healthy helping of optical zoom capabilities. Each device in the fleet features a 3-inch display and image sharing over WiFi. At the top of the range sits a model with 50x zoom (iE5036W), 18 megapixels, 1080p video-capture chops and a $299 price tag, with a nearly identical 40x zoom variant (iE4038W) perched just behind it. Interestingly, the version toting just 35x optics (Ixx353W) scores an upgrade to a 20-megapixel sensor. A cam with a 30x lens (iE3035W) helps bring up the rear, along with a 15x zoom flavor that drops its video resolution to 720p and its price to $149. If you intend to recruit one of these gadgets for your photographic endeavors, look for them to arrive in stores sometime this spring.
Filed under: Cameras
Source: Polaroid
3D printing destination Cubify hits 2.0 with curated and branded collections
Even if it completely failed in the consumer market, 3D Systems would still be on pretty solid ground thanks to its strong industrial 3D printing presence. But that hardly means the company is going to half-ass its efforts to capture mindshare from MakerBot and Thingiverse. Before CES can even officially kick off, the company has already announced a pair of new printers (the Cube 3 and CubePro) and the launch of Cubify 2.0 — the next generation of its consumer site for hosting and posting ready-to-print models. While there is a community-driven side to the portal, including user uploaded collections and profiles, there’s also a heavily curated portion that includes partnerships with brands like Nooka and Digital Dollhouse (a virtual playground for kids, who can now 3D print their creations). The collections are divided up into categories like fashion, decor and “mancave,” and include both products that you can print at home on your Cube or, for the more complex products like guitars, you can have 3D Systems print out for you on one of their giant industrial machines.
The company isn’t done yet at CES, either. There’s still a big press event to come, that will feature will.i.am and, more importantly, CEO Avi Reichental will be on our stage for an interview. Even with a trio of exciting announcements already out the door, we’re pretty sure 3D Systems still has something up its sleeve for later in the week.
Alcatel OneTouch Idol Alpha gets a champagne gold option, headed to Europe this quarter
You may recall that back at IFA, Alcatel surprised us with a prototype of its shiny OneTouch Idol Alpha. This time at CES, the company brought along a champagne gold version to tease its European launch this quarter. Like before, both the top and bottom transparent parts are lined up with LEDs, with the top ones acting as notification, and the bottom ones shining a light on the three Android soft keys. It’s rather pretty when you see it up close. Spec-wise, the 3D aluminum frame envelopes a 4.7-inch 720p IPS display with Dragontrail Glass, a 1.2GHz quad-core SoC with 1GB RAM, 16GB of built-in storage and a 2,000mAh battery. There’s no info on pricing just yet, but given Alcatel’s target market, we have a good feeling about this one, and we’ll let you know once we hear more.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Corning’s new Gorilla Glass will actively kill germs on your smartphone
Every properly-raised gorilla knows it’s not enough to be tough; you also have to be hygienic. Which is surely why Corning has developed an antimicrobial form of its Gorilla Glass that inhibits the growth of algae, mold, mildew, fungi, bacteria and other nasties that might want to take root on a heavily-used touchscreen. The glass contains an ionic silver coating that’s similar to what’s found on other germ-killing surfaces, except that here it’s meant to be “intrinsic” to the material and is therefore claimed to function for the lifetime of a device, whether it’s a phone, tablet, PC or even a piece of medical equipment — although Corning stops short of making any health-related promises. The company also avoids saying whether any antimicrobial gadgets will appear in the near future, because a good gorilla always under-promises and over-delivers.
Filed under: Cellphones, Laptops, Tablets
Source: Corning
LG CES press event liveblog
We hope you like TVs, because we have a feeling LG’s got a lot of ‘em to show, including huge, 4K, curved affairs that we’ve already seen teased by the company in the run-up to CES. That’s not all, however, because the company is likely to show off some new audio hardware, possibly (finally?) a webOS TV too. We haven’t heard much in the way of mobile surprises, but hey, you never know. Join us at 8AM PST — we’ll be there, and we’ll even bring the coffee.
Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, Software, HD, Mobile, LG
Toshiba Chromebook is the company’s first Chrome OS device; arrives next month for $279 (hands-on)
We already knew Toshiba was coming out with a Chrome OS device, but in the four months since Intel teased it at IDF, we haven’t seen anything in the way of specs, much less product shots. That changes today: The company just announced the Toshiba Chromebook here at CES, making this the first time we’ve seen the device up close. (It’s also the only product Toshiba is announcing for the entire show, but that’s a different story.) Of note, this has a 13-inch display, which, for whatever reason, has never been used on a Chromebook before. At any rate, Toshiba is betting that consumers coming over from Windows and Mac machines will want the same in-between-sized screen they’re already used to — especially if they plan on spending a lot of time in Gmail and GDocs.
Due to that larger screen, this is naturally going to be a bit heavier than, say, the HP Chromebook 11 (three pounds vs. 2.3), but what you lose in portability, you’ll make up for in power. While HP’s offering makes do with an ARM processor, the Toshiba Chromebook offers a Haswell-series Celeron 2955U CPU for the same price, promising stronger performance and longer battery life (up to nine hours, say company reps).
Also, that larger footprint means a less-cramped keyboard. Indeed, after just a few minutes of hands-on time, we noticed the buttons were well-spaced, with a good deal of travel. Elsewhere on the gray plastic chassis, you’ll find two USB 3.0 connections, a full-sized HDMI socket, a headphone port, an SDXC card reader and a lock slot — a particularly handy feature for students and teachers. As for that 13.3-inch 1,366 x 768 display, the viewing angles are pretty limited, but then again, what else did you expect from a $279 machine?
For now, Toshiba is only planning on selling a WiFi-only model with 2GB of RAM and the standard 16GB of built-in storage, but a spokesperson told us the company could “potentially” come out with a 4G version, too. For now, that WiFi-only edition is shipping February 16th for $279 — slightly less than you’d pay for other Haswell Chromebooks.
Filed under: Laptops
LG Lifeband touch and Heart Rate Monitor earphones aim to help you keep fit
Televisions aren’t the only thing LG brought to CES this year — it’s lugged along a couple of wearable fitness devices, too. In fact, we’ve already seen one of them. The company’s FuelBand competitor showcased at CES last year resurfaced as the Lifeband Touch, a fitness band with a swipe-friendly OLED touchscreen that displays physical activity info and calories burned. Naturally, it pairs up with Android and iOS devices to get incoming calls and text information, but if you want to make the most out of it, you’ll need to pair it with the company’s second CES wearable: a pair of Heart Rate Monitor earphones. Aside from functioning as normal earbuds, they can track heartbeats by measuring signals from the inner ear. The South Korean company has yet to set a release date for either device, but we’ll update you when we hear more.
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