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Razer's smart glasses are like Echo Frames with blue light filtering
It's officially announcing the Anzu smart glasses today that will filter out blue light and also project audio into your ears without drowning out environmental sound completely.
Bose launches three new sunglasses with speakers for its Frames line
Tempo was made for sports, while Tenor and Soprano are for everyday use.
Bose shuts down AR development
Bose is quitting augmented reality as the technology didn't live up to promises.
Bose's $199 audio AR sunglasses ship in January
Bose's unique, audio-only AR sunglasses are about to become a practical reality. The company has announced that Frames will be available in January for $199, with pre-orders starting now. The eyewear is available in squarish (Alto) and rounded (Rondo) styles to suit your fashion sensibilities. Don't expect the glasses to live up to their full potential right away, though.
Framed gesture-controlled digital canvas debuts on Kickstarter, starting at $399
It's shaping up to be a big month for digital art displays. Electric Objects popped up on Kickstarter with its successfully funded 23-inch LCD for $299, and now a familiar face has turned to the funding site with its own rebooted version. Framed 2.0, an update to 2011's overpowered 40-inch model, includes integrated WiFi, a 720p front-facing camera and motion sensors, so you can interact with the frame using gestures. There's also a companion smartphone app, for purchasing and swapping art, creating schedules and adjusting settings. The first 250 backers can take home a 24-inch 1080p screen for $399. A 40-inch version will be available for $1,500, while a "super limited" 55-inch model will go for a whopping $10,000, including dinner with the design team in Tokyo. All three frames are available for pre-order on Kickstarter now, with select models shipping in November.
Google Glass gets prescription glasses: four styles, $225 each (video)
Remember when Google said its wearable would work perfectly fine with prescription glasses? Well it's finally delivered, offering a $225 upgrade option for current Google Glass Explorers. Crafted from titanium (whatever else?), the designs are pretty unassuming and classy: they look like glasses frames you'd see at an optometrist. There's four styles to choose from -- Curve, Thin, Split, Bold -- making the selection sound more like font categories than frame categories. Google Glass then attaches to the frame through several screws. More styles (in other materials and shapes, possibly) are incoming, but the team behind this launch range (the designs were all done in-house at Google) said their aim was simplicity -- it helps that the extra frame-age also helps to obscure the still rather conspicuous Google eye-piece. Early adopters will be able to shop around for frames starting this afternoon and VSP, the largest optical health insurance provider in the US, is working with Google to offer subsidized frames and lenses for those who qualify.
Glif creators release stop-motion movie app, Frames
Studio Neat, best known for the Glif, which enables you to mount an iPhone to a tripod, has released its first iOS app. Frames is a time-lapse/stop-motion movie app that enables you to create these sorts of films on the iPhone. You can capture and export video at 720p, adjust shutter settings, lock exposure and focus, adjust frames per second and more. At US$2.99, it's a great way to experiment with creating a stop-motion movie on the iPhone, and we'll be doing a full review later this week.
Geeks lose minds, recreate first level of Super Mario Land with 18 million Minecraft blocks
There's homage and there's homage. And then there's three guys spending over 500 hours to recreate the first two minutes and twenty seconds of Super Mario Land using more than 18 million Minecraft blocks. The movie, made by carpenter James Wright, Joe Ciappa and a gamer known as Tempusmori, had the guys running the classic monochrome platformer in an emulator and replicating it pixel-for-wool-block-pixel inside a giant Minecraft Game Boy. The team spent approximately four weeks, working six to seven hours a day with no days off, to create the shots, which were then dropped into a video editor and slowed so each frame displayed for one sixth of a second. Take a gander at the final product and the making-of video after the break for your daily dose of mind blowing.
Addon Spotlight: Adding on to the Blizzard Raid Frames
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. One of the great joys of writing Addon Spotlight is watching the evolution of addons and their relationship to World of Warcraft over time and how the effectiveness and usefulness of certain addons wanes and waxes like the phases of the moon. Blizzard's new raid frames have not replaced my own custom job, but they have been getting progressively closer to a complete package, as I discussed only a few weeks ago. But there are ways, friends, of adding on to even the Blizzard default raid frame setup to give them just a bit more substance. Today, I've got three little additions to the default Blizzard raid frames that can help you with targets, marks, and debuffs. If you like options, these addons will add a ton of them to the Blizzard standard setup, making the entire package look a little more like Grid. So sit back, relax, and check out these new additions to the Blizzard default raid frames.
Addon Spotlight: Blizzard's built-in raid profiles
Each week, WoW Insider's Mathew McCurley brings you a fresh look at reader-submitted UIs as well as Addon Spotlight, which focuses on the backbone of the WoW gameplay experience: the user interface. Everything from bags to bars, buttons to DPS meters and beyond -- your addons folder will never be the same. Welcome to Magical Mat's Addonitorium and Fun Palace, where all of your user interface and addon dreams come true! Gaze at the mystical River of Lua. Treat your eyes to the unbridled spectacle of the Profile Forest. Enter, if you dare, the dreaded Cave of Errors ... Actually, I lied. There isn't an Addonitorium; it's just my living room. The Fun Palace is a closet with a vacuum and a Swiffer. The wet kind of Swiffer. This week's addon really isn't an addon, but I think that the functionality that this feature provides -- and provides for everyone regardless of what you download -- has changed a great deal for the better over time. With patch 4.2, Blizzard introduced a new Raid Profiles interface option for players to tinker with. Customization on a Blizzard feature? Say it ain't so! Credit where credit is due, kind readers, for Blizzard is on the path to perfection with these additions to its new raid frames.
3frames brings animated GIF creation to the iPhone
Animated GIFs, the bane of many flashy websites circa the mid-to-late '90s, have made a comeback thanks to resurging popularity on places such as Tumblr. Jumping on the revival bandwagon is 3frames, a US$2.99 app that lets you use your iPhone or iPod touch to create animated gifs. The app features a "burst mode," similar to what sports photographers use to capture rapid action, which will let you catch several frames of footage quickly. In fact, you can grab up to 10 shots in a row very easily, which can make for some pretty interesting animated gif compositions. Edit the footage using the in-app editor and unleash it on the world via Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr. [via The New York Times]
Tool-assisted speedrun shows Super Mario 64 beaten in five minutes
A group of five speedrunners has beaten Super Mario 64 with no stars in just five minutes. To do so, they used a whole bag of tricks, including glitches, weird jumping macros, and shortcuts. It's not pretty, but if you have 18274 frames of time to spare, you can see the whole video below.
Gucci's 3D glasses up the ante with $225 fashion tag
Perhaps we were being unfair with Oakley's $150 3D shades -- that company, in fact, just didn't go far enough. Cut to Gucci with "optically correct" Real D frames of its own. No wraparounds, it's all glass forward, and like we said last time, you'll be the absolute most fashionable person in a crowded room full of people decidedly not looking in your direction for the entire duration of the glasses' applicable use. Look for these to hit your local US Gucci boutique -- if you have to ask where, it probably wasn't on your purchase list anyway -- for $225. Your move, Louis Vuitton.
Oakley's 3D specs are a perfect blend of gaudiness and Tron: Legacy
Think run-of-the-mill 3D specs just aren't cutting it? Need the sort of eyewear that ENCOM International would approve or? Here's perhaps a better question: got a infinitesimally-deep hole burning in your pocket? Oakley's recently-announced "optically-correct" 3D glasses are getting a special Tron: Legacy edition in honor of the upcoming internet documentary. Expect graphic art on the frames that, in some of the most amusing and illustrative words we've read in a press release for some time, "salute the cinematic story." Asking price is a steep $150, but fashion doesn't run cheap -- besides, how else are you going to stand out in a dark room filled with bespectacled people all facing the same direction?
A look at the framework of Apple's iPad ad
The iPad, like the iPhone, used the Oscars to make its ad debut. As is typical with an Apple ad, the iPad's ad featured a montage of different uses for the device, all while set to the backdrop of a catchy tune. In making his case for the iPad, Apple CEO Steve Jobs noted that it would offer a better experience than a smartphone and a notebook computer in the following areas: Browsing Email Photos Videos Music Games eBooks The iPad's first ad reflects this ideal. The ad, when analyzed based on the on-air time dedicated to a particular function, reveals a device that will be marketed for jack-of-all-trades functionality, with a particular focus on its media consumption appeal and differentiation. About 80 percent of all 720 frames (30 seconds of total ad's total time multiplied by 24 frames per second) of the iPad's ad showed an app being used. And within this time, the photo app was shown the most, accounting for 26 percent of total frames where an app is being used. The mail app came in second, with 22 percent. With 20 percent of airtime, the iBook app highlights Apple positioning the iPad to compete against eBook readers. While a New York Times app wasn't shown, the ad, which shows the paper being displayed in a Safari browser window instead, also points to Apple positioning the iPad to appeal those who consume traditional print media publications -- such as newspapers and magazines. Although a Safari browser was briefly shown toward the end of the ad browsing Facebook, almost all Safari activity displayed the New York Times. In a September 2009 interview with the New York Times' David Pogue, Steve Jobs provided somewhat of a glimpse into how Apple would market and differentiate the iPad. Jobs argued that while dedicated devices such as Amazon's Kindle will always exist and that they may have offer some advantages in doing just one thing, "general-purpose devices will win the day" because "people just probably aren't willing to pay for a dedicated device." The iPad's first ad clearly follows this ideal.
Hitachi shows off custom HDTV frames at CEATEC
Hitachi sure was busting out the prototypes at CEATEC: a 15mm 37-inch LCD TV, wireless HD camcorder and a slew of custom framing options for its Wooo HDTVs. This isn't the first (far from it, actually) attempt we've seen at covering those traditional black / silver bezels with something a bit more flashy, but it's not often that a TV manufacturer gets involved. Unfortunately, there's still a good chance the pre-production frames will be held as Japan-only accessories depending on US demand, but we hear planes fly to Tokyo everyday if you're dead-set on eventually acquiring one.
Philips introduces Flavors LCD TVs with interchangeable frames
Look out, tweens -- Philips has a new line of LCD TVs aimed squarely at your wall / bedroom pedestal. Introduced over in Italy, the Flavors family will initially consist of a 22-, 32- and 42-inch set, the latter of which packs a 1080p panel, 30,000:1 contrast ratio, 5-millisecond response time, 500 cd/m2 brightness and a pair of HDMI ports. The concept here is pretty easy to grasp -- each set comes bundled with two interchangeable frames which are reportedly held up by good ole magnetism, and if two just aren't enough, more can certainly be ordered. Currently, Philips simply has a placeholder page up for the new crew, so we'll just let you simmer on the prices for now: they'll be €549 ($803), €799 ($1,168) and €1,199 ($1,754) in order of mention.
World of WarCrafts: Raid art
Every Thursday, Shelbi Roach of The Bronze Kettle guides you in creating WoW-inspired crafts using real world mats with World of WarCrafts.With Wrath looming over the horizon, the instances we currently spend all of our time inwill become obsolete. The dusty halls of Karazhan will be forgotten and we will never have another chance at obtaining an Amani War Bear. So, here's your chance to commemorate the good times with your fellow guildies and spruce up your WoWspace. Here is what you will need: White Cardstock Color Printer Scissors Paper Cutter Xacto Knife Double Sided Tape Photo Frames (8x10) Matboard (3 for 8x10 frames) Click on the images below to view a gallery of step-by-step instructions. %Gallery-31666%
Pandigital frames offer Bluetooth, WiFi, battery packs
If there always seems to be something upsetting about your digital photo frame experience (long cords, low-connectivity options, ugly friends), you might want to take a peek at what Pandigital has got going on. The company's new line of frames use a modular system which allows you to add features like Bluetooth, WiFi, or a battery pack at your leisure, and the company's PictBridge technology allows you to print images directly from the frame. Other new features enable you to set an on/off schedule, program a calendar for play at specific times, and use the device as an alarm clock. The frames come in varying sizes, from 15-inches down to 6, but all can utilize the modules to upgrade their functionality, with prices ranging from $120 to $300 for the frames, and between $40 and $50 for the add-ons. No word on how much it will cost to get better looking friends.
1UP: 360 football games to run faster than PS3
Football is a game of split second decisions, and simulating the sport on the Xbox 360 will soon let you split those seconds more finely. 1UP is reporting that this summer's major pigskin simulators -- EA's Madden NFL 08 and NCAA Football 2008 and 2K Sports' All-Pro Football 2K8 -- will run at 60 frames per second on the Xbox 360 and 30 frames per second on the PS3. The move represents a jump from previous Madden games, which ran at 30 frames per second on all platforms, including the Xbox 360 and PS3. While the additional frames mean smoother, more fluid animation in the 360 versions, it's still unclear how the jump will impact graphical fidelity or resolution. A comparison between both versions of last year's Madden 07 conducted by Gamespot showed the 360 version had "sharper textures on the character models in the close-up shots shown between plays." In comparing this year's games, 1UP simply stated that "All-Pro Football 2K8 definitely runs better on Xbox 360." The reasons behind this frame rate difference are hard to pin down. Todd Sitrin, EA Vice President of Marketing Sports Branding, told 1UP that there are trade offs in designing football simulations and that "every company making a football game this year made a decision that the best experience for the Xbox 360 included 60fps whereas the best experience for the PS3 was 30fps." Extra time and familiarity with the Xbox 360 hardware could have influenced the development, as could the purported difficulty in programming for the PS3's multi-processor architecture. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
