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A Small Car is a frustrating 3D Flash Time-Waster

It's not often that I see 3D attempted in Flash, and to be honest, after playing A Small Car I can see why.

It's not that it's not a fun game - otherwise I wouldn't mention it as a potential Time Waster. It's just very frustrating. Your job is to steer a car over a complex course, hanging in mid-air, to the checkered "landing zone" at the end of each level. You sometimes need to jump, too - so that means you can't always drive super-slow. The tracks are quite short, and it's all keyboard driven -- you don't need to use the mouse for anything.

As an experiment in 3D Flash content, it is quite impressive. The graphics are very blocky, but the motion is smooth. You can even change cameras by pressing C if you want to see what the track looks like from the driver's seat.

It's a fun game, but only if you've got plenty of patience.

A Small Car is a frustrating 3D Flash Time-Waster originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 28 Jan 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/01/28/a-small-car-is-a-frustrating-3d-flash-time-waster/

ROCKWELL AUTOMATION RF MICRO DEVICES RED HAT RADISYS

WaterField iPhone Smart Case Review

WaterField is a company that makes bags, sleeves and cases that protect expensive tech toys. I own two of their iPhone/iPod Travel Cases and still use the large-sized one (I outgrew the other one). This bag still looks almost brand new after two years of constant daily stuffing and re-stuffing. That’s amazing. So when WaterField [...]

Source: http://the-gadgeteer.com/2011/02/27/waterfield-iphone-smart-case-review/

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

Facebook Acquires Group Messaging Service Beluga In A Talent AND Technology Deal

Facebook has just acquired group messaging service Beluga, we've learned. Here's what we know: Facebook has acquired both the product and the team, and the plan is apparently to keep the service open for now. With past�acquisitions, Facebook has only acquired companies for their talent. But this time it's apparently a bit different, as they're interested in both the talent and the technology behind Beluga. It was barely two months ago that we first wrote about Beluga ? when I called it my "group messaging white whale". Since then I've been a non-stop user of the service and figured it would be one of the stand-out stars at SXSW this year. Today changes things a bit, obviously.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OJVMv5vyoq8/

ON SEMICONDUCTOR NVIDIA NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS NOVELLUS SYSTEMS

Tobii and Lenovo show off prototype eye-controlled laptop, we go eyes-on (video)

A lot of companies -- including heavyweights like Microsoft -- believe that motion control is the future of the human-machine interface. But it's an awful lot of work to wave your hands around every time you want to change windows, isn't it? Swedish firm Tobii, which specializes in eye control, teamed up with Lenovo to craft a run of 20 prototype Windows 7 laptops with eye control sensors built-in, and we had a chance to check out the setup here at CeBIT today.

The verdict? It works extraordinarily well -- Tobii clearly knows what it's doing, because even with our sloppy calibration at the start of the session, the system still detected where we were looking with pinpoint precision. One demo the company had set up was an Expose-style layout of all open windows, and we were able to target the smallest of the bunch (Calculator in this case) consistently and naturally -- we never felt like we were "staring" to make something happen. Clearly this is a capability that'll require some UX thought and research, because you don't want the computer to just start doing things as you look around; most of the eye-controlled capabilities they'd baked into the laptop here were triggered with a key command, though one feature we really liked -- a quick bar to access frequently-used media -- was pulled up just by looking beyond the left side of the screen. It also worked very well and never came up when we didn't want it to. The level of precision was further verified with a simple game they've created where you blow up asteroids before they impact Earth just by looking at them; the smallest rocks were only a few pixels wide, and we could consistently blast 'em.

As for commercialization, they're still a ways off -- they're thinking two years if they can team up with the right partner. Tobii says that there's a trade-off between sensor size and accuracy; the prototype has a sizable hump on the back and a roughly inch-wide strip running directly below the display, both of which are pretty impractical for a truly portable machine. The sensor must be below the display, we're told, though it could be made quite a bit thinner -- no wider than the bezel you've got below your notebook's current display. Follow the break for a full video demo!

Gallery: Tobii and Lenovo's eye-controlled laptop at CeBIT 2011

Continue reading Tobii and Lenovo show off prototype eye-controlled laptop, we go eyes-on (video)

Tobii and Lenovo show off prototype eye-controlled laptop, we go eyes-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 05:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/1hAHv5PTkow/

LAND SOFTWARE LAM RESEARCH L1 IDENTITY SOLUTIONS KINGSTON TECHNOLOGY COMPANY

Chomp for Android [App Of The Day]

Searching for apps through the Android Market can be an exercise in hair pulling frustration. Chomp for Android makes finding Android apps a lot easier. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/y5bTFcLtkEA/chomp-for-android

GRUPO IUSACELL HARRIS HCL TECHNOLOGIES HEWLETTPACKARD

TI-Nspire graphing calcs get full color displays, 3D, WiFi, and new OS

It's been a good year or so since the TI-Nspire line of graphing calculators got a refresh, but that was nothing compared to what the company's planning for this year. Possibly responding to changing times (or the Casio Prizm), the new Nspire devices are getting a WiFi dongle for communication with TI-Navigator workstations, a 16-bit (320 x 240) full color display, and a number of new functions, including the ability to load images and analyze images for such things as curve fitting functions and regressions. Perhaps even more exciting, the new Nspire OS 3.0 features 3D functions -- and, yes, the original grayscale TI-Nspire models will be able to upgrade to the new OS when it becomes available this spring. Tech Powered Math is reporting a mid-April release date, for an MSRP of $165. Totally psyched? We bet you are! See the PR after the break for more info.

Continue reading TI-Nspire graphing calcs get full color displays, 3D, WiFi, and new OS

TI-Nspire graphing calcs get full color displays, 3D, WiFi, and new OS originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 11:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/02/28/ti-nspire-graphing-calcs-get-full-color-displays-3d-wifi-and/

ASUSTEK COMPUTER ATandT AUTODESK AUTOMATIC DATA PROCESSING

MSI Dual Pad concept eyes-on (video)

Complementing the integrated projector concept introduced at CES last month, MSI brought a new not-for-sale hottie to its CeBIT booth this week in the form of the Dual Pad, which is... well, literally two WindPads placed on top of one another. The idea is that the pads can be taken apart and used as two completely independent Windows 7 tablets when necessary -- "you and your girlfriend on a trip" was the example given to us during the press conference -- but when you piece them together, they become one mega-tablet capable of operating essentially as a single dual-screen netbook (a hingeless, permanently-open one). Again, it's a pure concept; there are no plans for commercialization that we could eke out, but we can't imagine it'd be cheap since you'd effectively be buying two complete tablets. Follow the break for video!

Gallery: MSI Dual Pad concept eyes-on