Sony unveils waterproof Xperia ZR phone
Sony’s Xperia ZR phone can withstand a dunking.
(Credit: Sony)
Sony is launching a new Xperia smartphone designed to be dunkable.
Announced on Monday, the Xperia ZR phone can stay under as much as five feet of water for up to 30 minutes. Using the phone’s 13-megapixel camera, you can shoot underwater photos and videos in full HD. The dedicated camera key also allows you to quickly take a shot even if the phone is locked.
The camera takes advantage of Sony’s Exmor RS for mobile image sensor with HDR (High Dynamic Range) for both photographs and videos. The company promises that photos and videos are automatically captured with the best settings. You can also turn on a burst mode to snap an unlimited series of photos at 15 frames per second.
Related stories
- Rumored Sony i1 could rule the Android roost this fall
- Apple strikes iRadio deal with Universal Music
- Sony records its first net profit in five years
“Th… [Read more]
Related Links:
Sony Xperia Tablet Z available for preorder
Sony selling Xperia Z in U.S.
T-Mobile-bound Sony Xperia Z clears the FCC
Rumored Sony i1 could rule the Android roost this fall
Huawei debuts 5-inch A199 for China
     |
More here:
Sony unveils waterproof Xperia ZR phone
Chris Hadfield sings Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ in ISS farewell
Floating in a tin can: Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sings Bowie.
(Credit: Screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)
How do you top months of amazing photos, demos, and tunes done aboard the International Space Station? If you’re Chris Hadfield, you cover David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” in a showstopping finale.
On the eve of his return to Earth, the Canadian astronaut released a beautifully done video of himself singing the 1969 classic.
Mixed with the help of staff at the Canadian Space Agency, musician Emm Gryner, and others, the cover features a somber piano intro and modified lyrics that reference the Soyuz capsule that will return Hadfield to Kazakhstan.
When the mustachioed commander sings “I’m floating in a most peculiar way” while actually floating up in space, Hadfield wins the Internet, as one commenter suggests.
Related stories
Your very own drone, to follow you home
The R10, the initial product from UAir. The company hopes to eventually create a drone capable of autonomously tracking people, making the aircraft ideal for adventure sports enthusiasts.
Imagine carving your way down a particularly challenging slope, your skis kicking up clouds of snow, trees flying by, your death-defying stunts captured perfectly on camera. And you’re all by yourself.
How would you pull off such a feat?
Short of those with a film crew on hand, or at least a buddy with a GoPro camera tracking your every move, it’s hard to imagine it being possible at all, let alone while you’re alone.
But you may not have to imagine it for long.
Next week, a startup called Universal Air will finish shipping out its entry level R10 quadrotors, a drone whose advertised combination of low price, reliability, and durability inspired more than 400 people to fund the company’s Kickstarter campaign to the tune of almost 15 times its financial goal. UAir, as it’s known, had hoped to raise $15,000 and ship 30 R10′s, according to co-founder Max Bruner, but ended up bringing in $220,000 and facing one of the problems many super-successful Kickstarter projects experience: the inability to quickly satisfy demand.
Bruner said that the R10 was initially meant t… [Read more]
Related Links:
Human Rights Watch launches campaign against ‘killer robots’
Beer drone? Festival goers may see booze fall from the sky
Eric Schmidt: Regulate civilian drones but not Google Glass
Autonomous military robots should be banned, group says (video)
Google’s Schmidt says civilian drones pose privacy threat
| |
Originally posted here:
Your very own drone, to follow you home
GamePop looks to play in Ouya’s sandbox
The GamePop console looks more than a bit like a Boxee cube.
(Credit: BlueStacks)
If you’re BlueStacks, the startup that figured out how to bring Android apps to Windows and Macs with its eponymous app player, the next logical step is to upend the mobile gaming market with a console and subscription service called GamePop, the company announced Thursday.
As CNET reported at CES 2013, GamePop is BlueStacks’ Android-powered console that lets you not only play Android games on your TV, but also lets you use your phone or tablet as the controller.
GamePop preorders are available immediately at GamePop.tv, with consoles shipping this winter.
“We feel that everyone already has a controller in their pocket,” said John Gargiulo, BlueStacks’ marketing and business development vice president. To that end, GamePop will work with either Android or iOS phones and tablets as controllers, even though the GamePop console runs Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and will work with standard controllers.
To use your Android or iOS device as a controller, you’ll have to download an app, and then connect your phone or tablet to the console over Bluetooth.
Related stories:
- … [Read more]
Related Links:
Ouya game device gets the teardown treatment
Windows 8 six months in: Thoughts from a power(less) user
The new Xbox: Six things Microsoft needs to do
Seven questions about Amazon’s mystery streaming box
Fix permissions errors for sandboxed applications in OS X
Read More:
GamePop looks to play in Ouya’s sandbox
Glasses and Glass: How Google Glass changed my face
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)
I had two transformative yet very minor optical experiences last week, both kicking off in the space of 2 hours: I got contact lenses, and I began experimenting with Google Glass.
The two are interlinked, because I couldn’t use Google’s bleeding-edge wearable tech with my comfy Ray-Ban eyeglasses.
If I was going to use Glass, I’d need contacts.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)
Glassism I have very bad vision: -9.5 or thereabouts. I’ve had glasses since I was 6. I also have astigmatism. I last had contacts in 1991, when I was still in high school. That was more than 20 years ago, and the technology’s clearly changed. LensCrafters, who I have newfound appreciation for, took me from an eye doctor appointment all the way to walking out the door with a trial set of disposable contact lenses — to address astigmatism and proper cornea curvature — in a little over an hour. From there, it was a straight cab to Google’s offices in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, where I was meeting my fellow Glass inductee, Bridget Carey.
I had a bunch of very mixed feelings, hustling to get contacts just to try Glass. It felt like the beginning of some subtle body modification. I identify with myself through my glasses. Also, glasses just feel a lot different… [Read more]
Related Links:
| |
Follow this link:
Glasses and Glass: How Google Glass changed my face
Study: Most parents drive distracted with child in car
(Credit: CNET)
Many parents apparently still aren’t getting the message about the dangers of distracted driving.
Among 618 parents surveyed for a study out today from the American Academy of Pediatrics, almost 90 percent of them admitted to chatting on the phone, texting, fiddling with the GPS, or doing other things while driving with their children in the car.
The parents who participated in the poll were asked specifically how often they engaged in distracting activities while driving with their child over the last month. Those activities included talking or texting on a cell phone, surfing the Internet, finding directions on a GPS or map, and changing a CD or DVD, as well as eating or grooming, and taking care of their child.
Most of the parents said they engaged in four out of the ten activities. Chatting on the phone was the most common distraction, while texting was the least common. Parents who admitted to distracted driving were also more likely to have reported being in a car accident.
“Lots of attention has been given to distracted teen drivers,” Michelle Macy, lead author of the study, said in a statement. “However, our results indicate parents are frequently distracted while driving their 1- to 12-year-old children, an… [Read more]
Related Links:
NHTSA pulls back from driver distraction regulation
Steering wheel music pad lets you drum and drive
The great Twitter ‘text-your-parents-you’re-a-drug-dealer’ experiment
Google execs’ ‘New Digital Age’ resists cyber-siren song
Facebook creates a beautiful, though broken, Home on Android
| |
Read this article:
Study: Most parents drive distracted with child in car
Shine on: Solar Impulse plane begins journey across America
Solar plane that can fly at night begins cross-country trip
Following a bicycle down the runway at Moffett Field in Mountain View, Calif., a solar-powered airplane took off on a coast-to-coast voyage across the U.S. this morning to promote the message of clean technology.
Piloted by Swiss aviator Bertrand Piccard, the Solar Impulse HB-SIA set off for Phoenix, Ariz., on the first leg of its Across America journey that will also take the slender craft to Dallas, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and finally New York in early July.
The goal is to go from one end of the country to the other without using a drop of fuel.
Solar Impulse takes off from NASA’s Moffett Field in California en route to Phoenix on the first leg of its Across America tour.
(Credit: Screenshot by Tim Hornyak/CNET)
Related stories
Sporting 12,000 solar cells, Solar Impulse can fly both day and night…. [Read more]
Related Links:
Construction starts on solar-powered stadium
Crave Ep. 118: Memory foam chair expands when hot
Innovation and re-invention at the Stanford Cool Product Expo
Smartphones banned? Not in this primary-school class
Construction of world’s largest optical telescope approved
| |
Read More:
Shine on: Solar Impulse plane begins journey across America
Robot bees take first flight
Researchers at Harvard University have conducted the first controlled flight of a robotic insect.
(Credit: Kevin Ma and Pakpong Chirarattananon)
After more than a decade of work, Harvard University researchers have finally gotten the so-called “RoboBee” to take flight.
According to the scientists, the robot — which is half the size of a paperclip and weighs less than a tenth of gram — was able to hover for a few moments and then flew on a “preset route through the air.”
“This is what I have been trying to do for literally the last 12 years,” Robert J. Wood, principal investigator of the National Science Foundation-supported RoboBee project, said in a statement. “It’s really only because of this lab’s recent breakthroughs in manufacturing, materials, and design that we have even been able to try this. And it just worked, spectacularly well.”
The tiny machine, which was developed for the purpose of studying insect flight, was actually inspired by the biology of a fly, and included a submillimeter-scale body and two wafer-thin wings. The wings seem to flap invisibly and beat at a rate of 120 times per second.
Related stories
… [Read more]
Related Links:
| |
Read the original:
Robot bees take first flight
Lego book does world landmarks in plastic (Q&A)
120,000 bricks: London’s St. Pancras Station by Warren Elsmore is featured in his new book.
(Credit: Warren Elsmore )
Lego fans! If you can’t get over to Legoland Malaysia to gawk at its plastic architecture, here’s the next best thing. A new book titled “Brick City” looks at Lego re-creations of global landmarks and shows you how to build them.
The 256-page manual has more than 400 illustrations of architectural icons such as the Taj Mahal, Buckingham Palace, the Eiffel Tower, Chicago’s Tribune Tower, and Westminster Abbey, as well as 46 instructions and two posters. Author Warren Elsmore and 13 other builders constructed the 100 models in the book, which includes vehicles such as New York cabs — check out the eye-popping creations in “Brick City” in the gallery below.
Elsmore is a Lego modeler known for his 13-foot re-creation of London’s famous St. Pancras Station. I asked him how his passion and “Brick City” all came together.
(Credit: Barron’s Educational Series )
Q: You worked as an IT consultant, but now you’re a professional adult fan of Lego (AFOL). How did that happen? Elsmore:… [Read more]
Related Links:
New Legoland Hotel aims for brick bliss
Behold an amazing 200,000-piece Lego alien city
Lego Batman: DC Super Heroes debuts for iOS
Vertical modular kitchen goes up, up, and microwave
Blast your angry face into space to ward off alien invasions
| |
View original post here:
Lego book does world landmarks in plastic (Q&A)
iMac buyers can now opt for a solid-state drive
(Credit: Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)
Apple buyers eyeing an iMac now have a choice between a conventional hard drive and a solid-state drive.
Speedier than their mechanical counterparts, solid-state drives are available as options on both the 21.5-inch and the 27-inch iMacs. The 21.5-inch iMac offers a 256GB SSD for an extra $300 and a 512GB SSD for an extra $600. The 27-inch model presents the same options and throws in a 768GB SSD for an additional $900.
If those prices seem too pricey, buyers can stick with a regular serial ATA hard drive. Apple includes a 1GB hard drive in the overal price of both model iMacs and offers a 3TB drive option on the larger-screen model for an extra $150.
Customers who can’t decide between conventional hard drives and SSDs can taste both worlds through Apple’s Fusion drives. A Fusion drive combines 128GB of flash storage with a mechanical disk drive of either 1TB or 3TB in size. A 1TB Fusion drive costs an extra $250, while the 3TB option for the 27-inch iMac brings the price up another $400.
[Read more]
Related Links:
Get a 1-terabyte hybrid SSD for $119.99 shipped
WD ships first 5mm hard drive and SSHD
IBM to invest $1 billion in R&D for flash storage
Crucial M500 brings SSD pricing to a new low
13-inch Retina MacBook settles in at $1,499 for 256GB
| |
Visit link:
iMac buyers can now opt for a solid-state drive
