Archive for September 5th, 2009

The first thing you notice about FujiFilm’s €499 Real 3D W1 camera is its size. It’s big — big in the way that bloggers see main stream media journalists as big. And the industrial design is straight-up Cold War. Still, it delivers 3D without special glasses and does so with surprisingly realistic detail — it really does work. Yeah, you have to position yourself oh so carefully just in front of FujiFilm’s €349 FinePix 3D Viewer or printed photos courtesy of a FujiFilm web service, but the novelty might be worthwhile for those with money to burn. It begins shipping to Europe and likely beyond in late September. Check the video demonstration from IFA and let Germania wash over you.

Continue reading FujiFilm Real 3D camera given a video hands-on by fake 3D journalists

Filed under: Digital Cameras

FujiFilm Real 3D camera given a video hands-on by fake 3D journalists originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not a straight up rebuttal, but apparently Sony corporate is singing a different tune than what we heard from a Sony rep on the floor of IFA (multiple times) the other day: that all existing PS3 games would be playable in 3D after the software update next year. According to Sony, it’s “conducting a technological investigation” as to the possibility of this, but claims there’s “no plan for the market launch of this at this time.” It makes sense that many titles — especially ones designed with widely divergent game engines — would be incompatible with a simple software update, but details are slim on how Sony is adding this function to its own games in the first place, so we’ll have to wait to find out more. We do know the PS3 is going 3D in 2010, but as for available titles it looks like we’re going to be in the dark for the time being — though Ubisoft’s upcoming Avatar game, along with a couple of Sony racing titles, are already shoe-ins for 3D presentation of some form.

Filed under: Displays, Gaming

Sony hedges on plans for PS3 update to enable 3D gaming on old titles originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 14:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d have much rather gotten a VAIO X video promising us an upgrade to CULV internals over the Atom in the demo units, but instead we’re getting tinkling pianos and sword-based visual metaphors. At least there’s a hint of an “autumn” release date, we suppose. Full video after the break.

[Thanks, Bob]

Continue reading Sony VAIO X stars in esoteric promo video

Filed under: Laptops

Sony VAIO X stars in esoteric promo video originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already seen plenty of the Olympus E-P1, but when we dropped by Olympus’ booth today at IFA we just couldn’t resist slapping on the biggest lens they had, courtesy of the micro four thirds to standard four thirds adapter, and shooting a bit of dramatic show floor footage. The verdict? It’s totally impractical, especially because there’s no autofocus during video with certain lenses, meaning we’re stuck working the manual focus ring, D90-style. Still, we didn’t expect anything different, and our short film entitled “People Wandering Around, Totally Out of Focus” really made the effort worth while. Oh, and for our money? The white model is about twice as sexy as the gray. Videos are after the break.

Continue reading Olympus E-P1 meets 50-200mm SWD lens monstrosity, hilarity ensues

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Olympus E-P1 meets 50-200mm SWD lens monstrosity, hilarity ensues originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Nokia wouldn’t invite us to Nokia World this year, we were fortunate enough to discover a pair of its new X6 handsets on the IFA floor here in Berlin. On hand were two engineering prototypes, one of which was peeling away from its plastic shell while the other seemed less responsive to our finger-taps. Still, it’s clear that the capacitive touchscreen is far more responsive to human touch than the resistive screens found on its N97, or the 5800 XpressMusic especially. This was made abundantly clear when using the on-screen keyboard although some of our swiping gestures were inexplicably ignored in other elements of the interface. But given the choice of the screen being awesome or super-awesome (remember, we’re comparing it to Nokia’s resistive touchscreen legacy), we’ll have to settle on the former for now. Of course, underneath you’ve still got S60 5th, for better or worse, pumping away inside a chubby little candybar — no screen tech can change that. See the action in the video after the break then jump into the gallery to see it sized up with a few of its S60 cousins five times removed.

Continue reading Nokia X6 video hands-on: proof that capacitive touchscreens are better

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia X6 video hands-on: proof that capacitive touchscreens are better originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 09:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We love looking to the future here at Engadget. And while real, paper books hold a special place in our heart, we’re fairly certain no one will accuse us of being Luddites for scoffing at a recent development at a Boston prep school. James Tracy, the headmaster of Cushing Academy, says that he sees books as an “outdated technology,” and to that end, he’s taken the drastic and expensive step of ridding the school’s library of every single one of its books. Replacing the books will be a high tech “learning center,” housing three flat screen televisions, laptops, 18 e-readers, and a coffee bar. The project — which is costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $500,000 — is one of the first of its kind. So, excuse us for our cynicism, but unless there are only 18 students at Cushing Academy, we’re pretty sure the e-reader supply is going to come up short.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Handhelds

Boston prep school nixes all the books in its library, replaces them with 18 e-readers originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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For all its good looks and lickable icons, the BL40 hardly feels like a “Chocolate” phone — abandoning the featurephone functionality and slider form factors that are usually associated with the moniker. Well, the newly surfaced BL20 (previously spotted as the BL42) is here to solve all that. The slider handset has capacitive touch controls below the screen, but the screen itself is not a touchscreen. The functionality has also been trimmed back from the BL40′s app extravaganza, but the interface looks and actual hardware seem very similar. We had a little trouble getting around in the German interface, but if you can handle our bumblings you can check out a video of the phone after the break.

Continue reading LG BL20 hands-on: putting the ‘slider’ back in ‘Chocolate’

Filed under: Cellphones

LG BL20 hands-on: putting the ‘slider’ back in ‘Chocolate’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We know we expend a lot of digital ink talking about oomph and va va voom, but sometimes you just need a computer you can give to your old grandpappy and let him go wild with the Reader’s Digest online edition. The Linutop 3, sporting a custom Linux OS atop a blistering 1GHz VIA C7 CPU, 1GB of RAM and a tremendously capacious 2GB SSD, is just that sort of machine. It asks for a mere €340 ($485) and 20 watts of power, and lets you expand storage by adding an internal hard drive or plugging a memory stick into one of six available USB ports. Sure, you’re unlikely to use it for more than the bundled Open Office and Firefox applications, but have you considered this thing’s potential after bumping that clock multiplier and dipping the whole thing in liquid nitrogen? Have you?

[Via The Register]

Filed under: Desktops

Linutop 3 out to seduce minimalists, cheapskates originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 06:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If the model names seem uninformative, here’s what you need to know — the G920WL is a 19-inch 1,440 x 900 display, and the G922HDL is the same, only shrunken down to 18.5-inches and 1,366 x 768. Both claim class-leading power efficiency (a staple for BenQ), with their Eco mode using only 10 and 11 watts, respectively. They come with the company’s newish SensEye 3 auto-calibration utility, 250 nits of brightness, 5 millisecond response time, and a real, non-dynamic 1,000:1 contrast ratio. Should you need more pixels and inches, BenQ will be all too happy to serve your appetite with its similarly “green” V series, which goes up to 24 inches. The new G models are set for immediate release in Europe and Asia at “compelling price points,” though BenQ remains mum on the possibility of North American availability.

[Via Far East Gizmos]

Filed under: Displays

BenQ remains on green bandwagon, offers up LED-backlit G920WL and G922HDL displays originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 04:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Other World Computing’s Mercury On-The-Go lineup has always struck us as somewhat overpriced and completely overstyled, but it’s tough to argue with 750GB of space in a bus-powered portable drive. The newest addition to the company‘s On-The-Go Pro range is a 750GB model that spins at 5200RPMs and packs 8MB of cache; we won’t even begin to tell you what all you could fit on three-quarters of a terabyte, but if your imagination already has you tempted, you can snag one now for as low as $229.99 if you’re kosher with a USB 2.0-only configuration.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Storage

OWC shoves 750GB hard drive into Mercury On-The-Go Pro originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 05 Sep 2009 01:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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