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Sony’s Ultra Compact DSLR Camera Concept May Have Powerful Touchscreen Menus [Sony]

Rosa Golijan — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:20:00 +0000

Sony's been pretty tightlipped about its ultra compact DSLR camera concept, but someone did share screenshots of what appears to be a rather nice menu system designed for a touchscreen. It looks like it'll gives almost complete control to fingers. More »

AMD to finally take on netbook space with new Fusion chip… next year

Nilay Patel — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:06:00 +0000

We've always said AMD should go after the gaping hole between netbooks and thin-and-lights by releasing a low-power platform with solid graphics abilities, and it looks like the company's finally coming around -- AMD's John Taylor just told us that the chipmaker will be releasing a netbook-class Fusion CPU / GPU hybrid codenamed "Ontario" with integrated DX11 graphics sometime next year. If Ontario sounds familiar, it's because we've seen it leaked in the past -- it's a part of the "Brazos" platform built around the low-power Bobcat core. Of course, AMD has been promising Fusion chips of all stripes for years now without a single shipping part, so saying that a Fusion chip will get it into the netbook game in 2011 is mildly amusing -- while AMD's definitely turned things around, it's still incredibly late to the low-end party, and Intel's solidly beaten it to the hybrid CPU / GPU punch with the Core 2010 and Pine Trail Atom chips. Add in the fact that NVIDIA's Optimus-based Ion 2 chipset seemingly offers the extended battery life of Atom with the performance of a discrete GPU, and we'd say the market niche Ontario is designed to fill may not actually be so niche when it finally arrives. We'll see what happens -- a year is a long, long time.

[Image via OCWorkbench]

AMD to finally take on netbook space with new Fusion chip... next year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 21:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wii Balance Board Push Up Bar Will Make You the Biggest Loser [Wii]

Kyle VanHemert — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 02:00:00 +0000

If you partake in Wii fitness regularly, you probably know that there is only one thing keeping you from having a full-fledged, muscle-building, vein-popping work-out experience: limited range of push-up motion. Thankfully, this push-up bar attachment lets you dig deep. More »

The iDongle Makes iPhone Jailbreaking Child’s Play [Hacking]

Brian Barrett — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:40:00 +0000

It used to be that jailbreaking your iPhone was a long, involved process, but worth it for the freedom. We've reached a new age, though, where emancipating your phone is as simple as plugging in an iDongle. Liberty! More »

iPad orders start at 8:30AM tomorrow morning

Nilay Patel — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:31:00 +0000

We knew iPad pre-orders were starting tomorrow, but know we know exactly when all you lovable crazies have to stumble out of bed and transmit your credit card numbers to Steve's brain: 8:30AM ET, or 5:30AM on the West Coast. We generally recommend a bed shaker alarm clock, but hey, let's not pretend we haven't all turned a few long nights into tomorrow with our old friends Jackie D and Mistakes. See you on the other side, chochachos.

iPad orders start at 8:30AM tomorrow morning originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 20:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When iPhone Games Approach Art, and When They Don’t [IPhone Apps]

John Herrman — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:20:04 +0000

There are a lot of iPhone games. Most of them are crap. A significant fraction are good. Few are great. Even fewer are great and original. Like this one might be! More »

Battlestar Galactica Meets the Beastie Boys For Sabotage Perfected [Mashups]

Adam Frucci — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:00:00 +0000

Battlestar Galactica is one of the best TV shows of the last decade. And the Beastie Boys' Sabotage video is one of the best music videos, well, ever. What happens when you combine the two? Sweet, sweet perfection. More »

Talkin’ Windows Phone 7 Series gaming with Microsoft at GDC

Joseph L. Flatley — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:52:00 +0000

We already got a look at Microsoft's little XNA show-and-tell as relates to Windows Phone 7 Series, but our colleague Andrew Yoon over at Joystiq had a chance for longer sit-down with Xbox Live general manager Ron Pessner and XNA Game Studio manager Michael Klucher at GDC today, and he's been kind enough to share the interview with us. The main topic of conversation was the company's plans regarding Xbox LIve and, specifically, how it would be integrating it into Windows Phone 7 Series. And believe us, there was plenty to discuss -- including the sweet science of porting games from Zune HD to 7 Series phones ("it's 90, 95 percent code reuse... in an hour or couple of hours, we're taking games that were written for Zune HD and putting them on the phone"), the importance of maintaining a consistent gameplay experience amongst different hardware, and the reasoning behind limiting devices to asynchronous multiplayer. What are you waiting for? Hit the source link to embark on this miraculous journey of discovery.

Talkin' Windows Phone 7 Series gaming with Microsoft at GDC originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Caption Contest: 3D is a mind blow, everyone can agree on that

Richard Lawler — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:21:00 +0000

What do b-boys, random celebrities like Mark Sanchez, Andy Samberg and Hillary Duff, and the Black Eyed Peas have to do with 3DTV? We're not sure either, but that didn't stop Samsung from mixing them up during its "worldwide launch event" yesterday in NYC. Check the video (embedded after the break) for the above revelation about 3D from the JIMP troubador himself, but what was going through the heads of our friend Jimmy C and the BEP when this picture was taken?

Chris: "And see, just by turning this knob to the right, we can give Avatar a plot."
Richard Lawler: "If everyone starts wearing these, we're going to need new outfits."
Nilay: "Fascinating. You say this is called a 'lady lump?'"
Joe: "What? Bono beat us to it?"
Joanna: "That Neytiri, she's a handful..."
Paul: "I've gotta feeling that nothing of intellectual importance is happening here."

Continue reading Caption Contest: 3D is a mind blow, everyone can agree on that

Caption Contest: 3D is a mind blow, everyone can agree on that originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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United Airlines Claims In-Flight Videochat to Be Illegal [Travel]

Adam Frucci — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:20:00 +0000

John Battelle was on a Wi-Fi-enabled fight with United Airlines last night, and he decided to use videochat to say goodnight to his kids. Unfortunately, a flight attendant told him it was illegal. More »