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Tesla will hike prices on self-driving mode, again
"Full self-driving" will soon cost $12,000. And it doesn't even buy you an actual, self-driving car.
Amazon is letting companies trap Alexa in office equipment
Alexa for Business launched last fall, giving companies the opportunity to use Alexa as a superefficient office assistant. At launch, an Amazon Echo could be paired with existing office equipment, but according to Amazon, many organizations say they'd prefer Alexa to be built directly into existing devices, to reduce the amount of technology that needs to be managed. So that's what Amazon has done.
Action cameras: an extreme point of view
Not everyone wants to be in the driver's seat when it comes to experiencing extreme action -- in fact, most people prefer to do it remotely. But with today's ultra-small wearable cameras and high-def resolutions, the less outdoorsy among us can experience a bit of the rush without any of the broken limbs. The action camera tech we now use is the product of decades of experimentation by fearless filmmakers and adrenaline junkies alike. Join us in the gallery below as we explore the emergence of the action camera from its clunky early days to today's go-anywhere POV devices.
Early Nintendo brochure shows us the childhood we could have had, the knitting we never did
We all know what the Nintendo Entertainment System looks like, right? Well, if a butterfly had flapped its wings in a slightly different manner, things could have apparently been quite different. Former Director of Game Creative at Nintendo America, Howard Phillips, has recently uploaded some images taken from a 1985 brochure for a precursor to the NES called the AVS (Advanced Video System). While a glance at some vintage-looking hardware that never came to be -- such as the wireless controller -- is a retrospective tease, it was the marketing material from a couple of years later that really snags the attention: an advert for a knitting machine peripheral. The image shows the NES we know and love, with a controller in a dock, attached to a knitting device turning-out what we can only assume are some leg-warmers. Not wanting to alienate its largely male audience, however, the tagline reads "Now you're knitting with power." Given that it never came to market, though, we guess that not quite everything was acceptable in the eighties.
PS3 pulls a 180: v1.81 firmware to fix RGB color space settings
Sony just patched the patch for its PlayStation 3, releasing an update to fix a problem introduced in the most recent firmware update. A less-publicized feature of the 1.80 upgrade was the ability to select RGB full or limited output via HDMI, to improve picture quality when connected to certain HDTVs. However some noticed that even when set to full, it would sometimes revert to limited by itself, which is the sole issue fixed in version 1.81. Of course, whether or not this improves picture quality is still up for debate, and there are several forum threads discussing which setting will pass BTB (blacker than black) and WTW (whiter than white) information while playing DVDs and Blu-ray movies, and with which HDTVs. Of course we've been here before, with updates to the first gen Toshiba HD DVD players and Microsoft's adjustments to its Xbox 360 VGA cable settings. Got a PS3 and a 1080p set? Get the update, a test disc or two and let us know what works best. Read - PlayStation.Blog Read - AVS Forum
LG BH100 HD DVD / Blu-ray hybrid player in the wild and on sale
Whoa, that was quick. The story of LG's BH100 has moved from myth to reality quicker than some companies can even craft a marketing campaign, and astoundingly enough, the hybrid HD DVD / Blu-ray player has not only been captured on camera, but it's available for sale. You read right, LG's $1,199 harmony machine is apparently already leaking into a few CompUSA locations, and although we didn't know how its inability to play back HDi would effect the release status, we're now seeing that it beat the February 4th presumptions by a solid two weeks, and although it clearly lacks an "official" HD DVD logo, it seemed to handle The Hulk just fine. So if you just can't hold back your desire for a two-faced player any longer, and can track down a stocked CompUSA location, you can pick up your very own BH100 starting today. Click on through for a few more sneak peeks, and be sure to hit the read link for the full skinny.[Via CNET]
