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pico projectors
TI Builds Pico Projector Into BlackBerry Curve
Texas Instruments has expressed its intention to build its LED Pico tech into mobile devices before, but this is the first well-implemented example to be properly demonstrated. Crunchgear got a brief go on the Frankenberry, and it looks like it works just fine. While the small clip doesn't totally assuage our fears that such a system will produce poor images, the respectable projection size and apparent brightness are both promising for such an early prototype. [Crunchgear] More »
9:39 PM on Wed Jul 2 2008
By John Herrman
4,681 views,
36 comments
Latest by n/a: John Herrman,I think it would have been a good idea to point out that this is not a working phone, that it's just a plastic shell. more »
rock band
Mad Catz has an entire set of Rock Band instruments coming next week, all with some weird features that aren't on the official Harmonix ones. Rock Band Mods found that there's the wired bass guitar, a wired regular guitar, wired microphone, portable drum kit and premium wired drums. Hit the jump to see details on these, which looks like they solve some of the small issues we've been having with our own set.
More »
Mad Catz' Exciting Rock Band Instruments Hit Next Week
Mad Catz has an entire set of Rock Band instruments coming next week, all with some weird features that aren't on the official Harmonix ones. Rock Band Mods found that there's the wired bass guitar, a wired regular guitar, wired microphone, portable drum kit and premium wired drums. Hit the jump to see details on these, which looks like they solve some of the small issues we've been having with our own set.
More »
dlp
TI Intros Industry First Lamp-Free DLP Projector
Hot on the heels of the Optoma pico-projector that uses a TI chipset, TI itself has announced the "industry's first home-theater lamp-free projector." It uses a PhlatLight LED illumination source instead, and a Brilliantcolor chipset to give a 1080p display. This makes it capable of a 50% bigger color gamut than traditional projector tech (that's over 200 trillion colors!) and a contrast ratio that can go up to 500,000:1. The lamp-free bit is the part that will interest consumers: as well as not requiring expensive new bulbs, the LEDs consume far less power so you'll pay for less electricity if you're a heavy projector user. Apparently "multiple DLP customers" are expecting to launch projector products with the tech late this year. [Digitimes]
music tech
Korg's nanoSeries line of noise makers are unlike other Korg synths because they rely on computer production software to work. The slim, USB (data+power) devices are made to be portable, so you can take your studio on the go. nanoKEY is a 25-note keyboard, nanoPad has 12 Akai-style sampler/drum pads and Kaoss pad, and nanoKONTROL is a portable mixing board with 18 switches and 9 knobs. Release date and pricing are still TBD. [Music Radar]
Korg nanoSeries Music Modules are Laptop Musician Gold
Korg's nanoSeries line of noise makers are unlike other Korg synths because they rely on computer production software to work. The slim, USB (data+power) devices are made to be portable, so you can take your studio on the go. nanoKEY is a 25-note keyboard, nanoPad has 12 Akai-style sampler/drum pads and Kaoss pad, and nanoKONTROL is a portable mixing board with 18 switches and 9 knobs. Release date and pricing are still TBD. [Music Radar]
pico projectors
Foxconn Rolls Out the Latest Pico Projector Prototype
Foxconn rolled out another handheld Pico Projector device at Computex this week, packing a .3-inch Texas Instruments DLP chip and 854x480 resolution into a small package roughly the size of a matchbox (just 65 grams). Though Pico Projectors have been supported by many heavyweights such as 3M, Texas Instruments and Motorola, the technology has yet to make an appearance in the consumer market. But more prototypes from different companies can't be a bad thing, right? [Aving via About Projectors]
8:16 PM on Wed Jun 4 2008
By Adrian Covert
6,054 views,
15 comments
Latest by x23: @Alucard: right up there with pimply teens and laser pointer in a theater... or even so-called professional adult men with a TV-B-Gone. all the same category of asshole. more »
geek pr
Fruit-Powered Chip Promo Vid Shows Why Geeks Don't do PR
Being of a scientific persuasion myself, I couldn't help but chortle at this promotional video for the TI MSP430 Ultra Low Power microcontroller unit. Sure, the neat little device sucks really low current and is used in a wide range of gizmos like smoke detectors and the recent amazing Audeo voiceless translator. We talk a lot about alternative power sources here on Giz, and since these guys demo the chip's low energy needs by doing the old "fruit-powered" trick, I applaud them. But, dear Adrian and Kevin, you need to hire a better script-writer and actually drink the martinis you mention as power sources if you're going to get people revved-up about a specialized silicon chip! [YouTube— Thanks Lindsey]
mike edison
Bong Guitar Hits All the High Notes
The guy in the leopard-skin fez is Mike Edison, a former editor of High Times. The guitar that he's strumming on not-so-convincingly is the ChroniCaster, a bulletproof plexiglass little number, complete with bong add-on for those whose motto is Fumo, Ergo Sum. I think this is all a ploy to publicize Edison's new book, entitled I Like Words So Much I'm Going to Give My Autobiography a Mahoosive Title So That Everyone Will Get Tired of Reading It and Just Go Out And Buy It. Hello? Is Anyone There? Please Come Back, I'm Stoned and Paranoid. No, it's called I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World. Now, someone get him a glass of water. [YouTube via Boing Boing]
silly
BodyBeat Metronome Keeps Beat Silently, Forgets Musicians Need Their Fingers
The Peterson BB-1 BodyBeat attaches to your finger/random appendage, sending tiny rhythmic pulses that you can feel on your skin. The non-aural stimulation will give you a silent way to count measures while playing the piano... and since you have to use your fingers to do that, you will have to clamp this to somewhere else. The question is where? More »
music
Hands On Yamaha's Tenori-On Synthesizer: We Love It
Tenori-On, the crazy light-up handheld synthesizer from Yamaha we've been geeked about for months, officially launched in the US tonight. It won't be on sale until May 1, but we got our hands on one and simply put, we were amazed. Resident Giz musician Jonny Lam (Brian's little brother) hit the event with us, and was playing music in minutes. What's interesting is how you can play this thing according to sound, but also, visual cues: More »
retromodo
Stylophone, Scourge of Seventies Britain, is Back, Back, BACK!
Rather like the kazoo, the Stylophone is what you might term a "musical" "instrument." The farty-bontempi sound was a feature of school playgrounds up and down the land—and even David Bowie used one on Space Oddity. And then, suddenly, rather like white dog poo, and "I choked Linda Lovelace" T-shirts, the Stylophone disappeared from view. Until now. More »
gadgets
Recording Compressed to 1,000 Times MP3 Rate Could Be the Future of Music Playback
The University of Rochester has just devised a way of reproducing music in a file that's compressed 1,000 times smaller than an MP3 file. The way they do it—physically modeling an instrument in a computer and then feeding it input variables (breath, tongue, fingers) in order to generate the output tone—seems super obvious. People were making music with MOD files by recording one tone and generating different notes with it back in the '90s. But actually reproducing the instrument wholesale? That's amazing. More »
displays
Mitsubishi 80-Inch MegaView Best Bet for Battlestar Bridge
How well equipped is your command center? Mitsubishi is currently trying to woo customers to its 80-inch 1400x1050-pixel VS-80PH40U "MegaView Wall" display. My guess is that Mitsu may see it as the last market for DLP rear-projection sets, now that everyone is pulling out. Though Mitsu isn't talking prices yet, the extra bright, front-accessible screen could well be a fairly affordable way to line the whole CIC with dynamic data monitors (DRADIS showing incoming Raiders, comms waveforms, FTL drive status, etc.), not like Mayor Mike Bloomberg's single, solitary, donated 103-inch 1080p Panasonic plasma. [Mitsubishi via SlipperyBrick]
gadgets
Home-Made Synths from Tupperware Trip the Light Fan-Plastic
This is what you do if you think that your Tupperware boxes are too good for food, turn them into home-made synthesizers. Adachi Tomomi has made a bunch of them, including a video synthesizer and a couple of Theremins. Consisting of a simple battery-powered electronic circuit, the synths don't have perfect pitch. The Tomomin (bottom left in the gallery) even has a four-note keyboard, and was made from a bunch of Texas Instrument integrated circuits. [Adachi Tomomi via Make ]
home entertainment
Meridian's Latest 1080p Projector Is One Bad MF10
How much contrast does one man need? Meridian's MF10 1080p projector is said to deliver 30,000:1, and for the low-end-automobile sticker price of $15,000. (Too bad it's not scalable: I'll settle for 10,000:1 for $5,000—or hell, a 30:1 for $15.) This projector doesn't use the more common lower-end engine based on TI's DLP chip, but a three-chip system based, like Sony's SXRD, on an LCD derivative called "liquid crystal on silicon." In this case, it's JVC's D-ILA technology. Each chip has the 1920x1080 resolution, and manages red, green or blue. There's a motorized lens with 2X zoom capability for smaller rooms, but who are we kidding? If you can afford this, you're gonna have a room big enough to do it justice. [Meridian]
imax
IMAX Theaters to Ditch Film, Use Digital DLP Projectors
IMAX and Texas Instruments announced they will be working together to transition IMAX from a film-based projection format to a DLP-based technology instead. Starting in the middle of 2008, all new IMAX projectors will include the digital DLP technology and eliminate the need for elaborate film-based projector setups currently found in IMAX Theaters. This raises the question: which billionaire will be the first to have a digital IMAX theater installed in his mega mansion? More »
cellphones
Texas Instruments Chip Turns Cellphones Into Projectors, Pocket Goatse WMDs
It's like a can of Pringles falling from the sky in Barcelona today. Texas Instruments has a pair of new mobile chips—one gives cellphones enough GFX juice to record HD video, while the other will power integrated pico projectors. Big pics popping out of tiny phones. The suit-and-tie function would be Powerpoints sans bulky computers, while more deviant minds might raid Chen's private tubgirl collection to terrorize large groups of people. [Reuters]
4:40 PM on Mon Feb 11 2008
By matt buchanan
5,088 views,
16 comments
giz explains
Silverthorne is a teeny processor built on the 45nm process (like the much-ballyhooed Penryn), designed for UMPCs, subnotebooks, mystery Apple products and any other smallish gadget that needs real crunching on an ultra-lean power diet.
More »
Giz Explains: Why We're Psyched for Silverthorne
Silverthorne is a teeny processor built on the 45nm process (like the much-ballyhooed Penryn), designed for UMPCs, subnotebooks, mystery Apple products and any other smallish gadget that needs real crunching on an ultra-lean power diet.
More »
11:40 AM on Thu Feb 7 2008
By matt buchanan
11,169 views,
30 comments
