BlackBerry Partners with Samsung and IBM for Security-Focused Tablet


BlackBerry is on the move. Following the announcement of its new smartphones, the company unveiled a new tablet at CeBIT 2015 in Germany. It’s the second time around for the Canadian smartphone maker...

RoboChop Cuts Foam Blocks at the Whim of Website Visitors

Something cool is coming to CeBit in Germany this March, and it is called RoboChop. It’s not a half human, half robot cutting machine, it’s a robotic cutting arm. It’s designed to cut 20″ polystyrene blocks into shapes that people from the internet command it to cut.

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Internet users can tell one of four RoboChop robotic arms what to cut out using a web app. Once the arm cuts out whatever they tell it to, their foam creation is boxed up and shipped out. I can only assume without some safeguards, the CeBit 2015 floor will be flooded with yellow foam penises.

The four arms will have 2,000 foam blocks to cut through during the course of the show, which runs from March 16-20, 2015. I’d wager the blocks will go quickly so if you want to make your own yellow foam wang, you’d better get in early.

[via The Verge]

CeBIT 2013 wrap-up

CeBIT 2013 wrapup

As it'd be poor taste to start singing So Long, Farewell from The Sound of Music, we'll have to settle for a cheery auf wiedersehen and some fond memories of our week in Hannover. Admittedly, this year's show was hardly a vintage for consumer tech news (something of a trend this year, non?), but we certainly saw a few things that made the trip worthwhile. Dan's favorite had to be the eye-tracking AR goggles, while Dana had a soft-spot for those Coby tablets. We're off to load up on chocolate and rindersteak for the flight home -- but you can re-live every nail-biting moment of the CeBIT 2013 if you take a trip past the break.

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Visualized: MyMultitouch’s 84-inch, 4K touchscreen (video)

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Museum owners, public officials and design studio heads are just the sort who would have an excuse to splash out on one of MyMultitouch's displays. The 84-inch PixelSense-esque table is designed to be used by up to 32 fingers at once, letting groups paw around interactive exhibits on a large scale. This one, in particular, comes with a 3,840 x 2,160 UHD display, infrared-based multitouch and a steel stand that lets you mount it at a wide variety of angles. Since it's driven by any PC with a 4K-outputting graphics card, you could even use it as your own desktop display, although you'd need to drop €33,000 ($43,100), plus whatever an 84-inch desk would set you back.

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GlassUp wearable display hands-on (video)

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GlassUp is a wearable computing project that turns a pair of glasses into a head-mounted secondary display for your smartphone. A projector beams images onto a glass panel baked into the right-side lens, theoretically letting you read texts, tweets and emails on the go. We got to try a very early prototype here at CeBIT, which pushed microfilm slides onto the yellow-and-black, 320 x 240 display. Unfortunately, we weren't able to see anything too clearly, or get its touch controls to work properly, so while we like the concept, we're not sure if we're sold on the implementation just yet.

The company is planning to release two versions, one with Bluetooth 4.0 and one with Bluetooth 3.1 to ensure a wide range of compatibility with Android and iOS devices, and GlassUp is aiming to have finished versions ready for the Augmented World Expo in June. At the same time, it'll take to Kickstarter to generate the funds necessary for a pre-sale, priced at $399 / €299, so if you'd like to see if you should start saving, check out the video after the break.

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MSI’s mid-range S30 laptop is coming to Europe for 699 euros, we go hands-on (video)

MSI's mid-range S30 laptop is coming to Europe for 699 euros, we go hands-on (video)

When we first heard MSI was showing off a device at CeBIT called the S30, we assumed it was the successor to the S20, the company's first Windows 8 Ultrabook. Alas, though, it's not quite an Ultrabook, and it's certainly not as well-specced a system as the S20. What we have instead is a 13-inch thin-and-light, one that's headed to Europe for €699 and up. To start with a quick rundown of the specs, it comes either a Core i3 or i5 processor, along with 4GB of RAM and a variety of storage options, with the best one being a 500GB / 64GB SSD combo.

Oddly, that 1,366 x 768 display doesn't support touch -- a surprise given the price, and given that other machines in its class do include that feature. At least the touchpad seems to do a capable job of handling all the various Windows 8 gestures. Finishing up our tour, that 23mm-thick chassis (a bit too thick by Ultrabook standards) is wide enough to accommodate an Ethernet jack, along with HDMI-out and a VGA socket. Only one USB 3.0 port (plus one 2.0 connection) seems a bit stingy, though. In any case, enjoy our hands-on video, and maybe even stay tuned for a closer look at that S20 Slider.

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Hands-on with Fujitsu’s waterproof, dustproof Stylistic M702 tablet (video)

Somehow we missed this at Mobile World Congress last week. We were so busy playing with Fujitsu's GPS cane and 5-inch F-02E phone that we didn't even notice the company introduce a waterproof, dustproof Android tablet. As you can see in that shot above, the Stylistic M702 is more than just water-resistant: it meets the standards for IPX5, 7 and 8, which is to say it can withstand immersion in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes. (That, and the occasional jet stream.) A close inspection of the tablet will show that all the ports are sealed with rubber-coated doors, which should keep out liquid as well as dust particles.

Other than that, this more or less has all the specs you'd expect on a high-end Android tablet, including a 1.7GHz quad-core Tegra 3 processor, a 10.1-inch, 1,920 x 1,200, IPS display, 2GB of RAM, NFC, Bluetooth 4.0, MHL, dual 8MP / 1.2MP cameras and LTE connectivity. The built-in storage tops out at 32 gigs, but fortunately there's a microSD slot to give you more leeway. Out of the box it will run Android 4.0, but an upgrade to Jelly Bean is coming. Interestingly, there's also a small door housing an antenna, but that'll only be offered on the Japanese model; the European config we handled here at CeBIT had just a blank slot. Most impressive of all, potentially, is the claimed battery life: the 10,000mAh cell is rated for 15 hours of runtime, which would be a coup indeed. And at 590g (1.3 pounds) the tablet isn't even that heavy, considering the gigantic battery squeezed inside. It's available now in Europe, Africa, India and the Middle East for €999, which is expensive, sure, but perhaps it's a price corporate customers can swallow anyway.

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Coby goes nuts with the Google-certified tablets, we go hands-on

Coby goes nuts with the Google-certified tablets, we go hands-on

You might take the Play Store and other Google apps for granted when shopping around for Android tablets, but for Coby it's a Big Deal (with a capital "B"). So much so that after releasing its first Google-certified slate back in January, it's coming out with three more, in 8-, 9- and 10-inch flavors. (A Coby rep told us the idea is to catch as many customers as possible.) Despite the different screen sizes, they all boast the same specs as the 7-inch model we showed you at CES, including a dual-core Amlogic 8226-MX CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of built-in storage, a microSD reader supporting 32GB cards and a 0.3-megapixel webcam up front. They also have modest 2MP cameras 'round back, which the 7-incher doesn't have.

Design-wise, the 8-inch MID 8065 and 9-inch 9760 have the same plastic construction as the 7-inch one, albeit with higher-res screens. The 10-inch MID 1065, though, has a more premium-feeling metal casing, along with an IPS panel (the pixel count tops out at 1,280 x 800, so don't get too excited). Indeed, the viewing angles are better than what we saw on the 7-incher, but you're still going to suffer delays even when you flip the tablet to change screen orientations. So far, we know the 8- and 10-inch models are coming to the US for $180 and $230. As for the 9-inch version, there's no room for it in the states, apparently, but a Coby rep from Germany told us it'll go on sale there later this month for around €219. As your lead reviews editor, I can tell you the Magic 8 Ball is turning up an "outlook not good" on a possible review, but we've added some hands-on photos below if you've just got to get a closer look.

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Thermaltake and BMW’s Level 10 M gaming headset hands-on

Thermaltake and BMWs Level 10 M gaming headset handson

If we had a direct line to BMW's Designworks studio, we'd probably harass it to the point of requiring a court order. Thermaltake, on the other hand, have shown a lot more restraint, only harnessing the teutonic skunkworks' expertise on two previous occasions. The pair announced its Level 10 gaming headset today at CeBIT, so we decided to get our mitts all over the first examples of the hardware to be seen in public and find out what they're all about.

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‘Talking Places’ is the Google Glass of tour guides, we go hands-on (video)

SensoMotoric Instruments is a company that builds eye-tracking goggles for research and teaching projects, and the DFKI is the German center for artificial intelligence. Together, the pair has cooked up 'Talking Places,' a Google Glass-esque concept that is designed to help people navigate unfamiliar locations. Thanks to a combination of cutting-edge hardware and software, we were taken on a tour of a model village and were surprised to see that the unit offered up plenty of information about our surroundings. Interested in how it's done? Head on past the break.

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