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by Nilay Patel, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 8:19PMAlthough other countries have deployed gun-toting robots and there’s no shortage of companies trying to develop weaponized bots for Uncle Sam, it looks like the first test of actual killer robots in battle has ended in a whimper: the Army’s TALON SWORD gunbots, are headed home, after being plagued with control issues. Yeah, that’s right — control issues. Apparently it was too hard to prevent the Army’s gun-equipped robot from moving its gun “when it was not intended to move.” Reassuring, no? The Army doesn’t sound too enthused about another go-round, saying, “once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.” Ouch. On the plus side, at least that’s 20 more years before we’re all put to work in the mines, no?

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Filed under: Robots

I never really thought I’d ever see the day when a passable cellphone watch was rolled out to market. But apparently, I was wrong, and with Van Der Led’s new WM2 cellphone watch, I’m eating my words, and reconsidering my attitude towards such gadgets.

It’s not exactly packing high-technology, with a 1.3-inch touchscreen display that shows 260k colors. Stereo Bluetooth isn’t a new thing, and neither is 1GB of internal memory and support for MP3 or MP4 files. But what’s special about this cellphone watch isn’t what’s inside, but how it looks like. For the first time in modern technology history, cellphone watch fans just might spring into existence. This thing looks like it came straight out of Batman Begins! And it’s only €300 (about $471 USD).

So if you’re itching for convenience in a gadget that’s a cellphone and a watch at the same time, add one more item to your shopping list, buddy.

Product [Van Der Led] Via [Engadget Mobile]

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Toshiba has announced that it is now shipping its new A300 series laptops with three models to boot – the A300-S6845, the A305-S6839 and the A305D-S6831. These models boast of Toshiba’s new Fusion design with horizon pattern which is blended with the laptops’ chassis.

The three laptops are equipped with Toshiba’s Sleep-and-Charge USB ports, LED-luminated “Feature Touch” multimedia command keys, and built-in webcam with Toshiba’s facial recognition software.  Plus the laptops come equipped with a 15.4-inch widescreen TFT LCD with a native resolution of 1280 x 800.
Aside from these similar features, the three laptops feature their respective technical details which also determine their unit prices.

The Satellite A300-S6845 retails for $1,299.99 and is equipped with 2.10GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 400GB hard drive. The Satellite A300-S6839 retails for $1,149.99 and has a 2.10GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 3GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive. And finally the Satellite A305D-S6831 retails for $949.99 and has a 2.2GHz AMD Turion X2 Dual Core Technology processor, 3GB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive.

Product [Satellite A300] Read [Business Wire]

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People often say they look to the stars for inspiration and what a better message than this, we should be using Firefox. On the left is an image taken by the Hubble telescope and on the right is that same image with our favorite browsers icon over-layed. While not an exact match, they are strikingly similar.

While it does appear that there was some editing done to the original image, that seems to have been kept to a minimum. Keep reading to check out the original untouched image that was taken from the Hubble space telescope way back in February 2004.

Via [Wired] Image [Wikipedia]

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by Ryan Block, posted Apr 10th 2008 at 5:31PM
It wouldn’t be quite right to put everyone through the re-acclimation process if there wasn’t some giveaway gear attached, now would it? So in honor of today’s makeover and the launch of Switched we’re giving away a spankin’ new HTC Shift UMPC. You know the details of the machine already, read the rules below for your chance to take home that $1,500 HTC-made portable.

• Leave a comment below. Feel free to shout out what you’d use this UMPC for. “Browsing Engadget” is a totally acceptable answer.
• You may only enter this specific giveaway once. If you enter this giveaway more than once you’ll be automatically disqualified, etc. (Yes, we have robots that thoroughly check to ensure fairness.)
• If you enter more than once, only activate one comment. This is pretty self explanatory. Just be careful and you’ll be fine.
  
• Contest is open to anyone in the 50 States, 18 or older! Sorry, we don’t make this rule (we hate excluding anyone), so be mad at our lawyers and contest laws if you have to be mad.
• Winner will be chosen randomly. That winner will get a brand new HTC Shift. Package includes all retail hardware, but may not have manuals or software. Approximate value is $1,500.
• Entries can be submitted until Friday, April 18th, 11:59PM ET. Good luck!
• Full rules can be found here.

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Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops

BD Touch is a technology from NetBlender that lets your iPhone talk to your Blu-ray player over a WiFi connection. Essentially, it is just a set of tools which allow some fancy remote control of the player using the iPhone interface (including accelerometers), but the list of possibilities looks intriguing.

First, applications could be built to leverage the data from a Blu-ray player, building an iTunes like catalog of movies into the iphone, for example, and offering title recommendations. Far more exciting though, is the possibility of sending movies direct from disk to the iPhone, ready to play. The demo video on the site is laughably fast, showing a transfer which takes just seconds (if you’ve ever compressed a regular DVD for use on an iPhone, you’ll know how ridiculous this is) but the idea is very attractive.

In fact, it seems that the infinitely changeable iPhone interface, together with WiFi, makes it a perfect universal remote. There are a few browser based ways to control your Mac already, but I’m talking full home automation controlled by iPhone. Why not? It’s just software, right?

Introducing BD Touch [NetBlender]

When it comes to digital cameras, it’s fair to say that everybody likes the idea of a powerful zoom! That’s why Nikon added a whopping 18x optical zoom (27-486mm equivalent) that could prove very useful in many situations (wildlife, crowds…). Of course, with such a zoom comes some form of image stabilization to compensate for your body’s motion. Also, we like the fact that you can shoot 30 consecutive images at 13 frames per second. The Nikon P80 is a 10.1 Megapixel camera.

Remember this scene from Robocop? It’s the public unveiling of ED-209, and a programming glitch causes the giant killer robot to gun down an innocent suit. A chilling scene, and one which was almost re-enacted for real in Iraq.

Last year, three remote controlled, gun-toting robots, named SWORDS, were deployed in the war zone and then suddenly pulled from duty. Nobody knew why until Popular Mechanics quizzed the US Army’s Kevin Fahey at the RoboBusiness conference this week. Apparently, one of the robots went rogue: “the gun started moving when it was not intended to move” said Fahey. Unlike ED-209, the ‘bots were shutdown before any shots were fired, but it seems that the incident left people spooked enough to pull the plug on the operation.

Non-Answer on Armed Robot Pullout From Iraq Reveals Fragile Bot Industry [Popular Mechanics via the Reg]

Killer Ground ‘Bots Out of Iraq: How Come? [Danger Room]

Ben Heckendorn, the man whose life’s work is to make good gadgets better, has built a playstation 3 into a laptop. Inside is the original 60GB model, bought before Sony crippled backward compatibility with PS2 games.

The mod has all the trimmings necessary to make this a true Ben Hack: USB ports, stereo speakers and amp, HDMI connection, full keyboard and a huge 17″ 720p lcd monitor. There’s even a slot loading Blu-ray drive, something not even seen in many “real” notebooks, and the whole box is thinner than a stock PS3, although at 16lbs, this is less a portable and more a luggable.

Ben built this to order for his second home on the web, Engadget, which intends to sell it in a charity auction. Do want.

The PS3 Laptop: from Ben Heck to Engadget with love [Engadget]

Project Page [Ben Heck]

Micro Vectron

The Micro Vectron is a free-flying dream. Unlike many other hovery flying things, this wonderful gizmo truly is a piece of cake to fly. Simply charge it up (for a mere 14 minutes), point the infra red Remote Thrust Transmitter at it, and you’re off. It’s almost disconcerting how easy this thing is to fly

You can have this for £14.95 - Approx USD $26.91 / €22.13