A peek Into the Future: Honda Cyborg legs

Legs On: Honda's Walking Assist Devices from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

GM PUMA

Against all odds, GM and Segway let us inside their precious P.U.M.A. prototype, and we went for a quick jaunt down 18th St. We couldn't drive it, unfortunately, but there was plenty of action to be had from the passenger side. Starting from a rest on four wheels -- the main powered wheels and the front two "safety" wheels; we never touched the back two to the ground -- the contraption shoves itself up onto two wheels quite gracefully, with the passenger compartment moving slightly independently from the wheelbase and floor. It was a bit odd, but not at all unpleasant, and we were soon zipping down the road. Since the P.U.M.A. is self-balancing, we felt way less force when accelerating and decelerating than we would in a car, since our body was being "leaned" into it instead of pulled along. Turning on a dime is quite fun as well, and we could see this thing making itself quite at home on city streets. While it remains to be seen if GM and Segway can commercialize this in time, and for the right price, we're fairly enamored -- at least it's something different, and it's already twice as interesting as Segway ever managed to be.
[Engadget]

sony psp2

Not that we needed much more evidence that 2009 would be the year 'o PSP rumors, but Pocket Gamer is now reporting that it has heard from an "insider source" who says that the PSP2 will indeed be released before Christmas of this year. That source, who's supposedly a "developer working on the new hardware," also backs up some of the earlier rumors about the design of the device itself, saying that it will be more like the iPhone than the current PSP, and that it will boast a sliding touchscreen that conceals the buttons and dual analog controls when it's closed. Not much more than that, unfortunately, but who know's what next week's rumor will bring? We're personally hoping for a surprise Atari Lynx rebirth to really shake things up.

NVIDIA AND ACER DISRUPT THE MARKET WITH AMAZINGLY SMALL, GREEN, FULL-FEATURED PC

Yet again, the rumors were (almost) true. A day earlier than anticipated, Acer is launching what amounts to NVIDIA's first Ion-based nettop beyond those on display at CES and the like. The AspireRevo is debuting today alongside a plethora of other Acer wares, boasting a 1.6GHz Intel Atom 230 processor, up to 4GB of RAM, up to 250GB of HDD space, a 4-in-1 card reader, HDMI / VGA outputs, gigabit Ethernet, six USB 2.0 sockets, audio in / out, Windows Vista Home Premium / Basic and a svelte black and white enclosure that measures just 7.1- x 7.1- x 1.2-inches. The built-in Ion GPU means that this bugger is completely capable of handling 1080p (and thus, Blu-ray) content, DirectX 10 and even mildly demanding games such as Call of Duty 4 and Spore. Acer's staying mum on a price and release date, but we're still hearing that the late Q2 time frame is a safe bet.

BMW Door Tech

Getting out of a car parked on a busy street can be dangerous. Good thing BMW has created a prototype of a smart car door that won't open if it detects hazards coming at you.

BMW has teamed up with Technical University of Munich in creating these smart car doors, which have produced positive results so far. They expect these doors to be available on the market within the next 12 months, although the doors might be licensed to other manufacturers instead of BMW's own cars.

Aspire Timeline notebooks

The Aspire Timeline notebooks looks sorta familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Hmm. Anyway, they squeeze out 8-10 hours of battery life and start at just $699.

It pulls out the battery life by relying on standard tricks of the trade: Intel ultra-low voltage processors, LED-backlit screens and dual graphics cards (integrated for low-power, discrete for when you're plugged in). Supposedly you get 8 with a regular hard drive, 10 with an SSD (only up to 64GB, bleh). The charger itself detects when the battery is full to cut the power consumption down. Still kinda thick, a little over an inch for all sizes—13.3, 14 and 15.6 inches—but not bad on weight (3.5-5.3 pounds). Unfortunately, the screen will be subpar with a maximum resolution of 1366x768. However, the laptops will feature inbuilt WiMax. They're hitting hard on the pricepoint, $699 to $899.

New Gateway laptop

Gateway's ID series are the first computers designed by Pininfarina (of Ferrari fame). The signature aesthetic seems to be the swoop at the bottom of the monitor—not mind-blowing, but better than BMW's HP effort.

Acer Netbook

Acer is the number one maker of netbooks, so it's not surprising they've got a brand new brigade. They're all 10.1 and 11.6 inchers—the days of the 9-inch netbook are over.

They're all a clear step above the last generation of netbooks in terms of design as well—as you can see, none of them are ugly, and they have massive, mostly comfortable keyboards.

The new Aspire One grows to 11.6 inches while slimming down to under an inch thick, has an LED-backlit WXGA screen to go with it, dragging the battery life out to a supposed eight hours. It's got 3G built-in, along with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Dolby speakers. Of course it runs Atom, and has a 160GB hard drive.

Gateway's netbooks also balloon up to 10.1 and 11.6 inches with the LT20 and LT30. I think they're better looking than the Aspire One—the cherry red one. They've got pretty much the same guts, and a multi-touch trackpad for gestures.

New Tesla type S

What these first shots reveal is a rear 3/4 shot of the new concept, a side look and an interior filled to the brim with wires, looking like it's still being put together. Makes sense, as it appears the shots were taken three days ago, probably as they were still putting together this hand-built concept. Other than those details, we guess we'll just have to wait a few more hours to find out more information — like, for instance, what car platform they're planning to build it off of.
Because here's the problem. If Tesla claim they've built their own chassis, then this car is vaporware. Because in order to get a new chassis on the road, they'll need much more capital than what they've already asked for to do the necessary safety testing and durability testing. So it has to be another automaker's chassis. But which one?

Even without details there's a lot we can learn from these pictures. For starters, Tesla already has a deal worked out with Mercedes for providing electric drives for a small batch of Smart cars. Assuming they continue that relationship with Mercedes, and given the wheels, for instance, appear to be a version of this Lorinser wheel and seems to carry the 5-112 bolt pattern, means if it's a Mercedes, it's likely based on a Mercedes C, E, or CLS chassis. If those are 20-inch wheels it's unlikely it's a C-class platform and more likely to be E-series or CLS-based. Of course this is just our stretch-of-a-guess, no matter how educated they may be. We really will have to wait until later today to find out for sure how Tesla built this concept.

Also, that's one seriously sweet full-screen dashboard.
[Gizmodo]

Net flix 6 cent movies

Some interesting analysis points out yet another reason Netflix is making the push to digital streaming. It's cheap.

Assuming that Netflix pays 3 cents per gigabyte transferred, the movie provider pays 6 cents to deliver an SD movie (1.8GB) and 9 cents to deliver an HD movie (3GB)—less if the film is under two hours, and less when streaming to PCs rather than Roku or Xbox 360 (since the PC stream uses lower bitrates).

Of course, these prices are for bandwidth only. Netflix still pays licensing fees for these films, the specific pricing arrangements of which no one really knows beyond the movie studios. But compared to Netflix's DVD shipping costs estimated at almost 80-cents per roundtrip, Netflix must be making out through electronic distribution

New Apple Iphone 3.0

We all know as soon as a feature comes to the iPhone, Apple invented it right? Perfect examples are the full touchscreen form factor, mobile apps, visual voicemail and the accelerometer — all brought to market by Cupertino. But none of those things are Apple inventions, you say? Pfff, clearly you’ve never met an Apple fanboy. So let’s take a look at a few of Apple’s latest mobile inventions fresh from today’s town hall:

Push notifications for apps. Finally. As you well know, this will allow the iPhone/iPod Touch to be notified (via a badge, text pop up and/or audio alert) in near real-time of a new server-side event associated with a specific app. Think of it as a poor man’s answer to background processes. Background processes, by the way, are not an addition to version 3.0. Apple’s excuses: Battery performance and memory strain.
Updated media player adjusts streaming video quality according to current bandwidth.
Cut, copy and paste. That’s right folks, Apple’s polio vaccine. Double-tap to select text, drag start/end points and do your thang. You can even shake to undo/redo edits.
Send multiple images at once. Joy.
Wider landscape keyboard availability. Apple finally tossed the landscape keyboard into all native apps, including Mail. Thank you.
MMS! Hooray for decade-old tech! SMS and MMS are now lumped into a Messages app. It won’t be available on 2G (1st gen) iPhones.
New calendar features. CalDAV allows for sharing across a bunch of services such as Google and Yahoo and .ics subscription support.
Flushed out Stocks app.
Extended search. Users can now search in all key apps including Calendar, iPod, Notes and Mail.
Spotlight for iPhone. A “search homescreen”. It’s like Spotlight for Mac and it only searches native Apple apps.
Bluetooth A2DP support (stereo Bluetooth) — but it won’t be available on 2G (1st gen) iPhones.
Tethering.

Beyond that, Apple recapped the iPhone’s current position of course, with a presence in over 80 countries, 13.7 million iPhones sold, over 16 million iPod Touches sold and the App Store now has over 25,000 apps and over 800 million downloads. The iPhone SDK has been downloaded over 800,000 times by over 50,000 different entities, though over 60% of them have submitted no apps to the App Store. Damn, the Dev Team is growing by leaps and bounds — wink, wink. Apple tried briefly to woo potential developers by showing off how easy it is to develop an iPhone app, also touting that Gameloft has over two million paid downloads to its credit. Bank.

With iPhone 3.0, Apple is introducing 1000 new APIs for developers. It is also allowing developers to submit apps that carry subscription models — one download that is periodically refreshed with new content. In other words, Apple is now facilitating a more continuous revenue model compared to the one-time purchase model. Sell new magazine editions in a magazine app, sell new levels in a game, etc. This model will apparently not apply to free apps, so devs can’t give an app away and then charge for content. Apple has also added APIs to support peer to peer connectivity for things like online gaming via Bluetooth without the need to pair devices. Woo! Beyond that, additions such as the ability to build apps that communicate directly with hardware accessories via Bluetooth or the dock connector, streaming audio and video APIs and the introduction of a Maps API to facilitate app integration (including the use of Maps for turn by turn directions) were covered. Some pretty cool stuff, though nothing earth-shattering.

A beta version of 3.0 is available today to developers and end users will get it some time this Summer; free for iPhones, $10 for iPod Touches. So there you have it folks — discuss

New Application for Ipod Touch and Iphone!!

Pin Up Weather from visuamobile on Vimeo.

Whats the first thing that you do after getting ready for Classes? the first thing I would do upon getting ready is check the weather on my phone. Pin Up Weather would have made that process considerably more enjoyable.

From the app's descritption: "A beautiful girl will tease you until you get today's forecast with your sky condition and the temperature you'll feel." Well, alright. She could be a little less conservatively dressed in some of these, but beggars can't be choosers I suppose.

Pin Up Weather costs $2

New Iphone app " Have 2PEE"

I wonder why no one ever though of this b4. this seems like an awesome app..
Have2P tracks every public restroom around you, giving you directions through the iPhone's Maps application. It will also tell you what toilets are for customers—please-coffee-brb!—and what are truly public restrooms.

But most importantly, it will give you bathroom reviews. Yes, my lovelies, bathroom reviews. This thing will tell you if a restroom is so dirty that it will require you to step inside, holding to the door as if you were Spiderman, then taking off your jeans and knickers like the Great Houdini, all while trying holding your bag and coat with your neck. Or, if you are lucky, find a place so clean that will at last be able to abandon your apartment and move there.

The best part: Have2P is free, free, free, free as in pee

How are camera Lens Made

Check out this awesome video showing how lenses are made, which shines more light on why they're so damn pricey.