Tag Archives: sxsw2013

Google Glass developer presentation from SXSW finally available to stream in full

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Google Glass developer presentation from SXSW finally available to stream in full

If you're still thirsting over details about life with Google Glass, you can now sit back and experience the presentation (though not filmed in first person with one of the units -- opportunity missed) from SXSW last month. We covered it in our liveblog and dug up news on various apps already working with Google's Mirror API to present their information in ways that are designed for the wearable units, don't get in the way, and don't pop up at bad times. These are relatively new and unique issues to deal with since the information is being presented on a device that's in your face, so it will be interesting to see if developers are up to the challenge. Check after the break for 50 minutes of Googler Timothy Jordan showing the people what the Glass team has learned and implemented so far.

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Source: Timothy Jordan (Google+), Google Developers (YouTube)

SXSW 2013 wrap-up: Google Glass, Elon Musk, robots, instruments and more!

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SXSW 2013 wrapup Google Glass, Elon Musk, robots, cameras, musical instruments and more!

When we attend a trade show, we typically spend an entire week jumping from one exhibition hall to the next, surrounded by thousands of suit-clad corporate execs. That's the case at MWC in Barcelona, IFA in Berlin and CEATEC in Japan -- at SXSW in Austin, however, bars, tents, parking lots and even single-family homes host manufacturers large and small, and instead of starched button-downs and cufflinks, attendees sport t-shirts and tattoos. People are friendly, the weather is fantastic and there's live music and hot food at every turn -- we have to admit, we're in love, and we're devastated that it's time to leave.

At traditional mega-shows, we arrive with clear expectations and even a list of products to check out. We didn't quite know what would come of SXSW. What we found were insanely awesome products like the Roli Seaboard digital piano and Leap Motion, paired with presentations from industry legends like Elon Musk and Al Gore. We also had a chance to take a closer look at Google Glass, and, after an awesome night at our very first Engadget+gdgt event, we even caught a free ride home in a Tesla Model S. It was a week we'll never forget, and, thanks to the power of the internet, you've had a chance to join in on the fun, even if you're thousands of miles from Central Texas.

Our content-packed event page is the place to be for anything and everything gadget at SXSW, but we're happy to share a recap of sorts here as well. Join us past the break to relive the magic that was South by Southwest Interactive 2013.

Gallery: SXSW 2013 wrap-up

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Memoto lapel camera turns your life into one big photoblog

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Memoto lifeblogging camera turns your life into one big photoblog

There likely aren't too many people in the world crying for ways to exponentially increase the number of digital pictures in their collections, but Memoto's hoping to help wearers rethink picture taking as they know it. The device, which is roughly the size of an SD card case, clips on a shirt collar, taking five-megapixel pictures every 30 seconds without prompting, running on a battery that'll last around two days. The idea is to create a lifeblog -- an encapsulation of what you did during a given day, told through still photos.

Those images are served up to the company's proprietary software application, which uses an algorithm to group them into clusters. Visiting a user's page presents a sampling of photos from throughout the day. From there, you can drill down into the clusters to see the group of shots taken 30 seconds apart. And, of course, there's sharing on the thing, letting you post those images and groups to places like Twitter and Facebook.

Gallery: Memoto Automatic Lifeblogging Camera hands-on

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Roli’s Seaboard is a rubber-keyed piano that may redefine the way you play

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Roli's Seaboard is a rubberkeyed piano that may redefine the way you play handson

Synths are nothing new, of course -- so what makes Roli's digital piano so novel? The instrument has a patent-pending rubberized surface that lets you bend and twist the keys as you play, freeing you from fiddling around with knobs, so you can directly, physically affect the way it sounds. Think of it as the difference between bending a string on a guitar, rather than stepping on the wah-wah pedal. It's the sort of thing you really have to see in action to appreciate -- thankfully, we've got the instrument's creator Roland Lamb giving us a demo after the break.

Gallery: Roli Seaboard Grand hands-on

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The Engadget Interview: Wes Craven and Joe Swanberg

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We're here in Austin for SXSW Interactive, but it's impossible to avoid a little bleed over from the film and music portions of the event -- particularly when you get invited to cover the latest webstreaming news from AMC Networks. The company set up camp in the IFC Theater on 6th Avenue to unveil its new online offering, Yeah, a rental service that provides the viewer contextual information on movies mined from interviews with the filmmakers and cast, along with two months of research for each of the titles. According to the company, each curated movie features some 400 to 500 new pieces of content.

Of course, what we were really looking forward to at the event was the chance to speak with a couple of filmmakers tied to the service, beginning with the great Wes Craven, who provided new interviews for his early films A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Last House on the Left. Craven, it turns out, is one of the new service's biggest cheerleaders, with a genuine enthusiasm about the opportunity to offer some new insight into works that have, admittedly, been fairly well-tread by both film historians and fans.

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AMC launches Yeah! movie service, promises exclusive content and enthusiastic punctuation (video)

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AMC launches Yeah! movie service, promises exclusive content and enthusiastic punctuation

In this post-DVD world, it can be tough to really enjoy a film without having a director talk on top of it. AMC's looking to fill in the void of contextual information left as many of us have moved from physical to streaming media, with the launch of Yeah! today at SXSW, an online streaming movie service featuring curated supplementary features for classic movies like Superman, Reservoir Dogs, Clerks and A Nightmare on Elm Street. The offering includes interviews with folks like Wes Craven and Richard Donner, facts about the films and quizzes -- there's 400 to 500 new pieces of content per film, according to AMC, which you can access "without obscuring the movie." Yeah! is available now in the source link below -- movies will run you $5 for a 48-hour rental. An iPad version of the service is hitting this summer.

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Source: Yeah!

We’re Live at Google’s SXSW Glass panel

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We're Live at Google's SXSW Glass panel

We've already seen a number of folks roaming the halls of the Austin Convention Center this week, rocking Google's much anticipated wearable -- and now it's finally Glass' time to shine. We've got a front row seat for SXSW's Building New Experiences with Glass session. Just us after the break, won't you?

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Visualized: Sonos’ speaker-building, light-showing, neon-couching SXSW house

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House parties are really the rule, not the exception here at SXSW -- it's an outgrowth of the show's Austin roots. But Sonos has gone a ways toward providing a unique experience for visitors to its Studios space. For one thing, there's a room with a custom-built light show that utilizes a Sonos soundbar, several projectors and a Kinect camera, generating a dynamic light show based on the music and user movement.

Even cooler is the speaker-building workshop created in partnership with Moog, which features boxes and Sonos Play:3 components. Also on-site is a neon living room designed for an add with rodent-headed DJ, DeadMau5 and a museum of cool analog instruments (as Mike Love will happily tell you, playing a theremin is a lot harder than it looks). And since this is SXSW, after all, there's a beer fountain and a stage featuring the likes of Surfer Blood and Thurston Moore.

Gallery: Visualized: Sonos Studio at SXSW 2013

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The Engadget Interview: Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald

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The Engadget Interview Leap Motion CEO Michael Buckwald

At a show where developers are rock stars, Leap Motion just might be this year's Beatles. SXSW isn't the first time the company has given demos of its motion-controlled input devices, but it really seems to be the moment the world is taking notice -- and realizing the potential -- of its offering. Over the weekend, co-founders Michael Buckwald and David Holz addressed a packed Austin Convention Center hall, ahead of keynote conversations with Al Gore and Elon Musk.

The company set aside some time this morning to speak with us and offer up some demos of the technology, expanding upon what we saw on stage the other day. At present Leap Motion's primary offering is a small box that sits by a PC, just in front of your keyboard. The little sensor detects the motion of your hands with a precision that allows it to distinguish the movement of individual fingers.

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Ube WiFi Smart Dimmer to receive customized multitouch gesture control

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Here's a cool little addition to the increasingly competitive world of home automation. Ube's got a WiFi Smart Dimmer that utilizes multitouch functionality to control the lights in your house -- use one finger to turn off a single light, or use two to turn off a set. The company picked SXSW as the venue to announce the forthcoming launch of customized gestures for other smart devices -- in the example given to us by CEO Utz Baldwin, a user can input a "W" to turn on the sprinklers -- or an "A" plus up swipe to turn on an alarm and an "A" plus a down swipe to disable it.

Sadly, the functionality won't be available for the launch of the first generation, though it's likely to come in time for the second generation, along with a software update for early adopters. Interested parties can support the company via Kickstarter right now -- Ube's a bit over halfway to its goal of $280,000, with 24 days to go. You can also watch Baldwin discuss the product and today's news in a video after the break.

Gallery: Ube WiFi Smart Dimmer hands-on

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Source: Kickstarter