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Showing posts with the label screen grabs

Screen Grabs: futuristic Nokia smartphone answers the product placement call in Real Steel

In the futuristic world of the would-be summer blockbuster  Real Steel , Rock 'em Sock 'em-esque robots have become participants in a very real sport and, it seems, Nokia is still going strong -- although you probably knew that if you've seen the latest  Star Trek  movie. In fact, this device bears more than a small resemblance to the one used by a young James T. Kirk, with it boasting the same translucent shell that encases what's still unmistakably a Nokia design. Head on past the break for the full trailer, and look for the phone to make an appearance around the 16 second mark -- although we wouldn't recommend taking this as a hint of what's to come for Windows Phone. Fone Arena

ZeroTouch 'optical multi-touch force field' makes a touchscreen out of just about anything

The rise of tablets and smartphones has made the touchscreen a rather ubiquitous interface, but they aren't  everywhere  quite yet. A group of students from Texas A&M intend to change that, however, with the invention of ZeroTouch: a seemingly empty picture frame that lets you turn any surface into an interactive touchscreen. It might not look like much, but ZeroTouch is packing a series of pulsing LEDs and infrared sensors that turn that blank space into a highly sensitive surface. Basically, the strategically placed LEDs cover the open area in a sheet of invisible light. When a hand or stylus enters the picture (or lack there of), those beams are interrupted, providing cues to a piece of software that tracks the object's movement -- and boom! You've got a touchscreen. Of course, this isn't the sort of thing that's going to make it to market anytime soon, but you can check out ZeroTouch rocking the rippling water effect in the video below. NewScientist ...

Microsoft's Rock and Rails touchscreen lets you massage your photos with both hands

If you ever get tired of poking away at your smartphone's screen like a doorbell, you're not alone. The forward-looking folks over at Microsoft Researchhave been working away at a new touchscreen system designed pick up on more natural, whole-hand movements, effectively allowing users to break free from the finger-based paradigm that governs most tactile devices. Developed in coordination with engineers at Microsoft Surface, the company's Rock and Rails interface can detect three basic hand gestures: a balled fist, which holds items on the screen, an extended hand that can align objects (see the cell marked "d," on the right) and a curved paw, around which users can pivot images (see cell b). This taxonomy opens up new ways for users to crop, re-size or generally play around with their UI elements, though it remains unclear whether the display will trickle down to the consumer level anytime soon. For now, it appears to operate exclusively on the Surface, but more...

Screen Grabs: Kyocera Echo goes back to the alternate-reality future in Fringe

We liked the Kyocera Echo quite a bit, but perhaps the dual-screen tabletphone concept is a mite ahead of its time -- here it is fifteen years from now, helping the  Fringe  team pull up security blueprints for an opera house. Or perhaps Astrid has become a vintage technology connoisseur? We have to admit it's a step up from the Streak seismograph, but we can't help but frown -- we wouldn't be caught dead runningFroyo in the year 2026, after all.

Screen Grabs: Cisco Cius plays bad cop on NCIS: Los Angeles (video)

Screen Grabs  chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to  screengrabs at engadget dot com. Cisco may be aiming for the business crowd, but if we hold to  NCIS: Los Angeles ' golden standard of real-world gadget application, the Cius tabletphone is going to revolutionize interrogation. "I ain't telling you nothin ' copper, not  noth -- oh, is that a Cisco Cius you have there?! Yeah okay, I did it." Gee, isn't technology just fabulous? Hit the break to see Nell and Eric execute the future of tablet-based criminal interrogation.

Screen Grabs: Newly minted Bengals wide receiver AJ Green rocks Dell Streak during NFL draft (video)

Screen Grabs  chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to  screengrabs at engadget dot com . A tipster sent us video from ESPN's NFL draft coverage, asking us to identify the giant phone in University of Georgia wide receiver AJ Green's hand. Turns out it's a white Dell Streak, perhaps the only phone on the market capable of dwarfing the Cincinnati Bengals' fourth overall pick by comparison. Keep in mind, Green is a big guy -- he's 6 feet, 4 inches. He also catches footballs for a living, so we figure that, at the very least, he's got to have average hands for a man of his size. We're happy to report he didn't spike the phone after hearing the news. Videographic evidence after the break. YouTube

Screen Grabs: iPhone messaging app spotted on a RAZR in Traffic Light

Screen Grabs  chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to  screengrabs at engadget dot com . The iPhone was indeed the handset to supplant the well-loved RAZR as America's favorite, but we're not so sure its messaging interface ever made it onto Motorola's slim clamshell. That hasn't stopped Fox's Traffic Light  from rewriting history, however, as last night's episode featured a RAZR receiving a "smiley-faced emoticon" text message encased in an all-too-familiar grey speech bubble. Catch this crazy new invention on video after the break.