Tim Barribeau | The Verge

Sony, Panasonic, XpanD 3D, and Samsung band together to standardize 3D glasses

2011-11-11T20:39:01-05:00

Panasonic 3D glasses

Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and X6D Limited (XpanD 3D) first joined forces back in August towards a single, unified active shutter 3D glasses specification called Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative, which has now begun licensing. The initiative would standardize the glasses, allowing you to use one pair regardless of if you’re using a computer monitor, a friend’s TV, or are at a movie theater.

The specification allows for active shutter glasses that work over either Bluetooth or infrared, and XpanD previously offered universal glasses they claimed would work with any IR set, so their involvement will hopefully help things along. Twelve other companies including Sharp and Toshiba have “expressed their support” for the initiative, so we’re hoping this is a critical mass of support for standardization.

SLR Magic releases HyperPrime 12mm F1.6 lens for $499

2011-11-11T13:49:27-05:00

SLR Magic f1.6

SLR Magic’s newest release is a wide-angle lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras, which is billed as the fastest ever at that focal length. The $499 lens has a 12mm focal length (24mm equivalent) with a maximum aperture of f/1.6, and it’s manual focus only. While that’s certainly fast, and you might not see any 12mm lenses faster, there are other 24mm equivalents which have a wider maximum aperture, and both Nikon and Canon produce 24mm f/1.4 lenses. The early reviews sourced by 43 Rumors are generally positive, though the lens has a significant tendency to lens flare.

The one big issue is where you go to buy one of these. SLR Magic doesn’t have a real web presence, only an eBay storefront, and the press release only offers that it’ll be available “from authorized SLR Magic dealers end [sic] November 2011.” So keep your eyes peeled at major online dealers, and maybe even go and talk to your local camera store and see if they can get one in for you.

Unlocked iPhone 4S now available in the US

2011-11-11T11:19:09-05:00

The Apple Store has now added the online option to purchase an iPhone 4S unlocked and off-contract, fulfilling Apple’s launch promise of November. The non-carrier version of the phone costs $649 to $849 depending on storage capacity, and will only work on GSM networks, leaving Sprint and Verizon users out of luck. Much of the rest of the world obtained the unlocked version of this phone in late October, but this marks its first official availability in the USA.

PressReader newspaper app to come preinstalled on BlackBerry PlayBook

2011-11-11T10:16:16-05:00

PlayBook newsreader

The BlackBerry PlayBook will now ship preloaded with PressReader, a newspaper app that replicates the look and content of the printed page for more than 2,000 newspapers from 95 countries. The app allows you to purchase issues of respected titles such as the Guardian, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post at either an à la carte price of $0.99 per issue, or else with an unlimited $29.95 monthly subscription through the companion website PressDisplay.

The app has been available for BlackBerry as a free download since July, and is also on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. There have been underwhelming reviews, and while some focus on the price and the availability of certain publications, problems with stability also appear to plague the app.

Nvidia Tesla GPUs used to accurately model swine flu in Chinese supercomputer

2011-11-11T08:41:10-05:00

swine flu

A Chinese research group has hooked together an obscene number of Nvidia Tesla GPUs in a supercomputer powerful enough to accurately model the deadly H1N1 swine flu virus. The Mole-8.5 supercomputer uses more than 2,200 Tesla graphics cards over 288 server nodes to faithfully simulate the disease, allowing the researchers to perform experiments that are unachievable in the real world. Viruses are extremely dynamic, and experimentation difficult because they can change and react too quickly for us to properly record and analyze, so by creating a perfect computer model, these reactions can be simulated and understood. This supercomputer functions as a “computational microscope,” and is able to recreate a 300 million atom structure of the virus, and to observe its actions one femtosecond at a time. The hope is that this research will allow a new and better understanding of how the disease functions, and how best to fight it.

The OLogic AMP will play your music, follow you around, and even hold your drink

2011-11-10T19:32:03-05:00

AMP robot

At this year’s RoboBusiness Conference, OLogic showed off two robots designed to interface with your cellphone. One was Oddwerx, which used your smartphone as a face for a digital pet, but miles cooler was the AMP — Automated Music Personality. Hoped to be released next year for $300-$400, the AMP will follow you around the party, stream your music through its speakers, and will even come equipped with a cupholder. That’s right, he’ll be like R2D2 on Jabba’s barge, dispensing drinks and smooth beats while tailing you. He can be controlled by remote, smartphone app for Android and iOS, or buttons on the body, and will doubtless be the coolest thing ever until someone drunkenly kicks him halfway through the night.

Dragon Express brings voice transcription to the Mac App Store for $49.99

2011-11-10T17:21:14-05:00

Dragon Express

Nuance Communications, renowned maker of voice transcription software, has put out its first title on the Mac App Store, but it’s hardly the company’s first for the Mac. Dragon Express is a less powerful version of Dragon Dictate, and is debuting for the discounted price of $49.99. The app takes a few minutes to adapt to your voice, but after that will transcribe all your utterances, and then send them to any native OS X app. Unlike Siri, it doesn’t need an internet connection to function as the software’s loaded locally. If you want to upgrade to Dragon Dictate with its greater granular controls, third-party software input, and audio macros, you can for just $99.99. Unfortunately, the first crop of reviews on the Mac App Store are pretty negative, claiming it crashes frequently and that Nuance support is of no use, but hopefully these kinks will be ironed out soon.

BlackBerry Bold 9900 now available in white with Vodafone UK

2011-11-10T14:30:10-05:00

Blackberry Bold 9900 white

The BlackBerry Bold line has a history of white variants, and the new BlackBerry Bold 9900 has now lived up to its pedigree, scoring one with Vodafone UK. We’ve previously seen information that both Telus and Rogers are going to have the white version in Canada, that it’ll be up for sale in Netherlands, and earlier this year there was a leaked shot of it from Dubai — but now the white 9900 finally gone official, in the UK anyway. The variant is available immediately through Vodafone, and is free on a two-year, £39 per month contract.

Samsung Illusion specs leaked through Verizon Infocenter

2011-11-10T11:25:46-05:00

Samsung Illusion specs

We first heard about the Samsung Illusion when the company posted a render to its Flickr page, and now AndroidCentral has scored all of the major specs from a leaked Verizon Infocenter screenshot. There’s no mention of release date or price, but current rumors peg the phone to launch November 17th. The Illusion will use Android 2.3 with a “unique curved form factor,” but specs won’t blow anyone away. It has a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 screen, 3-megapixel camera, and a 1GHz Hummingbird processor. So far, the Illusion’s been called a mid-range phone, but with such run-of-the-mill internals, it probably won’t take long to hit the discount rack.

Swivl motion-tracking dock available for pre-order

2011-11-10T10:02:19-05:00

swivl

The Swivl is a unique take on a smartphone dock / camera mount — it’s one that can track your movement, and pan and tilt to follow you around the room for recording video. Primarily designed for iOS, the tracking is entirely done via the base and a marker that you hold, so it’ll work with anything less than 6oz that you can strap into the base: smartphone, compact video camera, decapitated dolls head, or any device that uses a tripod mount. It looks like the iOS integration is controlled by buttons on both the base and the tracking marker, so if you want to use an Android phone, you’re going to have to hit record before you start, and just edit that bit out later. If you watch the video below, you can get a fell for some of the potential applications, and being able to walk around the room while you video chat seems to be pretty handy.

Formerly known as the Satarii Star, the Swivl was crowdfunded through the IndieGoGo, and for $159 you can now get a reservation, with plans to ship early next year. This isn’t the first time an auto-tracking camera mount has popped up, Sony tried it with the Party-shot dock, which had the advantage of facial detection, but that only worked with two Sony compact cameras while the Swivl can use just about anything.