You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
When PrimeSense founder Aviad Maizels put a prototype of a 3D sensor on a chip in front of Microsoft in 2006, he had no idea it would lead to the biggest turning point in the Israeli startup's history. Four years later, its partnership with the Redmond giant resulted in Kinect, the motion-sensing camera that made headlines around the world. In 2013, however, Microsoft unveiled an all-new Kinect, the result of years of entirely in-house development -- without PrimeSense's assistance. As fate would have it, the company returned to its chip-making origins a year ago, creating a new product called Capri, a cheaper, lower-power and tinier version of its 3D system-on-a-chip; so tiny, in fact, that it's designed to be embedded inside tablets, laptops, thin displays and smartphones. With 3D use cases that go far beyond Dance Central, the Capri is the latest sign that PrimeSense is ready to break free from its video game roots.
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablets, Wireless, Microsoft, ASUS, Nintendo
Source: Wikipedia, Wikipedia, Openni, Wired UK, PrimeSense, Calcalist (Google Translate)
PrimeSense brought the Kinect to life with its 3D sensor tech and a four-year cooperative effort back in 2010. When it comes to the new tracking peripheral, though, Microsoft kept matters in-house and the Israeli startup set out to prove that its ready to break from those gaming roots. In a brand new issue of our weekly, we examine the outfit's post-Microsoft aspirations that include the Capri chip. Eyes-On cleans up with Dyson's latest, Weekly Stat dials in streaming radio numbers and Visualized examines BioRob's feline-esque robot. All of that and much more awaits via those trusty download repositories just down below.
Distro Issue 96 PDF
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Filed under: Announcements, HD, Mobile
Source: iTunes, Google Play, Windows Store
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
Take the 3D sensor inside the Microsoft Kinect, shrink it down to a tenth of its original size and add a bunch of mobile capabilities, and you have yourself PrimeSense's latest conquest, better known as Capri. The company, which is the brains behind the Kinect, has been openly working on bringing a tiny-yet-advanced 3D experience to tablets, televisions and smartphones for quite some time now. And it's proud enough of its progress so far that it's willing to give some real-life demonstrations to developers attending Google I/O. You may not see Capri embedded on the PCB of your portable gadget anytime soon -- at least, not until PrimeSense winds up wooing the pants off a lucky OEM or two -- so in the meantime, the company has connected the sensor board to the Nexus 10 via micro-USB.
Unlike the Kinect, however, PrimeSense doesn't think gestures will play a significant role in how we use Capri to interact with our gadgets. Rather, it seems to be more focused on 3D-based use case scenarios, many of which haven't even been thought up yet. As you'll see in the video below, we were shown an AR game that takes the environment around you -- walls, furniture and other elements -- and uses them as restrictions, just as much as they would be in real life. In another app, Capri snapped a three-dimension shot of an object on the table in front of us, captured its measurements and let us export that image to another device or even a 3D printer. In many respects, PrimeSense appears to be taking the same strategy Google does with Glass: get developers excited about the tech in the hopes they'll come up with clever uses for it. And while the company isn't ready to put Capri in their hands yet, the SDK is up for grabs, and I/O is no doubt an ideal place to build excitement for it. If you're looking for more info, we have a gallery, video and press release below, and you'll find the SDK at the More Coverage link.
Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals, Tablets, Mobile
Quad-core smart TVs? Move over, Samsung and Haier, because another company's now joining the party. At a press event in Beijing yesterday, Chinese video content provider LeTV announced its first TV series dubbed "Super TV." Despite the cheesy name, there are a handful of big names behind it: Kai-Fu Lee's Innovation Works, Qualcomm, Foxconn and Sharp. The last two aren't surprising considering Foxconn's parent company, Hon Hai, is an investor of Sharp as well as LeTV. It's also worth noting, though, that Hon Hai already has a deal with RadioShack to make and sell a 60-inch TV, the RS60-V1, in China since January.
The flagship X60 (pictured above at GMIC Beijing) features an aluminum alloy body that encases Sharp's 10th-generation 60-inch 1080p panel -- as featured on the RadioShack TV -- with 120Hz 3D, on top of a 1.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon S4 Prime MPQ8064 (with 2GB of RAM and Adreno 320 graphics), dual-band WiFi and S/PDIF optical output. You can also add an optional 2.4GHz gyroscopic remote control and a PrimeSense motion sensor just for giggles. But most importantly, LeTV now streams over 2,000 TV apps as well as some 90,000 TV episodes and 5,000 movies for free (LeTV claims to own the rights to 95 percent of the video content). So, the ¥6,999 or $1,140 price tag seems a steal for the X60. There will also be a 39-inch 1080p (likely 2D only), dual-core S40 model priced at ¥1,999 or about $330, and both TVs will be available by the end of June.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Via: Engadget Chinese
Source: LeTV
Though we wrote about it last month, PrimeSense is showing off its Capri sensor for the first time at CES 2013. As a refresher, the Capri is about ten times smaller than the company's existing 3D-sensing chip, which incidentally make up the guts of Microsoft's Kinect. With the help of potential OEMs, the Tel Aviv-based firm hopes the cheaper and tinier sensor will make it in tablets, laptops, cell phones and many other consumer-level products beyond the niche realm of video games. We saw an example of how it could be built into a Nexus 7 tablet as seen above, though the company didn't have any Capri-compatible applications it could show us. Combined with implementations in retail, robotics, healthcare and more, the Capri is just the latest attempt by PrimeSense to create a ubiquitous 3D-sensing environment. President and founder Aviad Maizels told us he would like it to be so universal that it's a "new way of living." We have a PrimeSense-produced concept video of just such a world after the break, along with close-up shots of the teeny weeny system-on-a-chip.
Continue reading PrimeSense shows off tiny Capri sensor, yearns for 3D-sensing future (hands-on)
Filed under: Misc
PrimeSense, the folks behind the guts of the Kinect and other motion-sensing tech, has unveiled a cheaper and tinier 3D sensor that could bring motion sensors to a whole different class of products. Dubbed the Capri, the new system-on-a-chip is about ten times smaller than existing sensing devices -- not only can it be embedded in tablets and laptops, it'll likely fit in a mobile phone as well. The company will be showing it off come CES and samples will be available for OEMs starting mid-2013. If this means we can go all Jedi mind trick and wave our hands over our phones to shut it off, then we're definitely looking forward to seeing this in action. Seriously, because there's no picture to be had at the moment.
Continue reading PrimeSense reveals Capri, 'world's smallest' 3D sensor
Filed under: Misc
Source: PrimeSense
PrimeSense, the Israeli company whose 3D sensors helped make the Kinect such a massive hit for gamers and hackers alike, has been dipping its feet in the robotic waters a bit as of late. The company offered up its sensors for use in iRobot's telecommunication 'bot, Ava, and now they've made their way into SAMI, a robot platform created by France's CRIIF. PrimeSense sensors are found in the robot's torso (for detecting people) and base (to help it avoid bumping into objects). SAMI's got a pretty broad spectrum of potential applications, including manufacturing and healthcare -- of course, before it goes mainstream in the latter field, we'd recommend a few aesthetic changes to the creepy robot, which took around $100,000 and six people to make. Still we've got to give SAMI some credit for keeping so darn fit. Check out video of the 'bot after the break.
Filed under: Digital Cameras, Robots
SAMI robot has motion detection from the company behind Kinect's 3D sensors, washboard abs (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 02:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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