beam
Latest
Samsung Beam (Halo) Android projector phone hands-on
Well here it is, Samsung's pico projector phone live and in the flesh here at Mobile World Congress. And surprise surprise, it's running Android 2.1 with a TouchWiz 3.0 skin just as we heard. The only difference is the name: Halo is the codename, the official product name announced today is Beam. As a smartphone with integrated pico projector it's very impressive. However, as you can see from the pictures and video (it's coming), the 6 lumen brightness struggles even under the semi-controlled lighting demonstration set up here on the show floor in Barcelona. Samsung tells us that the TouchWiz implementation is nearly identical to what you'll find on Bada with "very small" differences. Unfortunately, the people we spoke with on the show floor weren't able to articulate exactly what those were. To us, having only used the two devices for a short period of time, they do look identical. Beam features a nice pass through trick that allows it to project the image seen by the 5 megapixel camera through the TI pico. Not sure how we'd use that in real life but it's a neat trick nonetheless. Now click into the gallery and prepare to be amazed at just how thin a smartphone with integrated projector can be while we wait for the summer launch. Update: Video is now after the break. %Gallery-85517%
NVIDIA Tegra 2-powered Mobinnova Beam hands-on
Right on the heels of NVIDIA unleashing its Tegra 2 (T20) platform, Mobinnova is jumping into the picture with one of the first smartbooks powered by the new platform. The device may be small, and quite thin, but it has got a lot going on. First off, the design is nothing short of cool: the back of the rounded device actually snaps down to reveal its ports and to prop up the entire chassis. Under the lid it has a flush 8.9-inch display, but its smaller size causes the keyboard to be quite cramped. The touchpad has integrated mouse buttons, but we noticed that it was tough make selections by left clicking. You'll probably want to stick with double tapping on this one. Under the hood the Mobinnova Beam is powered by Tegra 2, which is based on a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 CPU and a GeForce GPU. It'll also have 256 MB of memory and pack 512MB of flash storage (though you can expand that with the SD card). The unit we saw was running Windows CE with a software interface developed by Mobinova, though the plan is to release an Android version. We still found it to be easy to navigate with all the applications centered on a carousel of sorts. As promised by NVIDIA, a 1080p video played on the 8.9-inch display and on a 42-inch 1080p Philips TV (take that Atom!) quite smoothly. In our brief hands-on the overall performance seemed snappier than the past Mobinovia with the first Tegra chip: Firefox opened in about 7 seconds and navigating to web pages was faster than we'd anticipated. We don't have any word on pricing, but Mobinova will only sell this bundled with AT&T connectivity. Hit the break for the full PR and some video. %Gallery-81921%
Mobinnova Beam Tegra smartbook hits the FCC en route to AT&T
Looks like AT&T will be launching at least two smartbooks at CES -- the Tegra-powered Mobinnova Beam just hit the FCC database with a device ID of BEAMATT. Yeah, that's not so subtle. Sadly the listing doesn't have much else to say about the machine formerly known as élan, but we're guessing we'll find out way more about what AT&T's got planned for these not-quite-netbooks in Vegas.
Mobinnova élan renamed Beam, headed for mysterious carrier in January 2010
Mobinnova's élan, or the Beam as it's reportedly known as now, is a curious beast. It runs Windows CE, yet it's packing NVIDIA's Tegra graphics technology. Thus, it's not really a netbook, but calling it a smartbook might be short-changing it. Whatever the case, a recent interview with Mobinnova's CTO Mark Anderson has unearthed plans to launch the machine at CES 2010 with an undisclosed mobile carrier (or more, maybe) in America. We're also told that it should last between five and ten hours when playing back HD video, or up to 24 hours if it's just sitting around looping an iTunes playlist. Needless to say, our interest is definitely piqued -- hit the read link for a gallery of shots, and keep an eye right here for the rest of the story direct from Vegas.[Via Slashgear]
Portable pain gun could replace Colt 45s, logic in robot-controlled future
The Pentagon has been dreaming of portable pain guns for as long as we can remember, and if it has its druthers, said fantasy could soon become a reality. The Thermal Laser System (or the IR-Lesslethal device, if you prefer) has been brewing since at least 2005, but just recently the weapon prove to testers that it could create a beam strong enough to cause alarm and pain without actually damaging the skin or retina. Think of it as a portable crowd controller (or your worst nightmare, either one). Of course, there's still quite a bit of testing to get through before it's actually rolled out for military or police use, and there's the fact that leaving no marks leaves open the possibility for undocumentable abuse. Not like that would ever happen, though. [Image courtesy of Deeper Thought]
New 3D software tracks peoples' location in buildings
It's not exactly the level of technology that'll cause Lucius Fox to storm out of a room, but this new so-called BEAM 3D mapping software developed by a pair of students from the Engineering College of Aarhus is still pretty impressive, and could be of real use to firefighters and others in an emergency. While complete details are a bit light, the software is apparently intended to be paired with a 3D sensor of some sort that's carried through a building by a firefighter or other individual, which relays information back to a handheld device that pinpoints the person's location. The downside, and a fairly big one at that, is that it only works if there's 3D plans of the building pre-loaded on the handheld. No word on a commercial version just yet, but the students did receive a bit of help from software firm Systematic, which is apparently "extremely pleased" with their efforts.
Microwave beam car stopper tested, fries cars in nanoseconds flat
Yeah, this idea has definitely been around the block a time or two, but Eureka Aerospace is doing a whole lot more than just envisioning yet another concept. Its 200-pound, 5-foot long prototype has recently undergone testing, and reportedly, it's been able to completely and utterly incapacitate any vehicle that dared roll in its path. The device has been used to shut down four whips thus far, each from a distance of 10 to 50-feet, and all it took was a microwave pulse lasting some 50-nanoseconds to do it. According to James Tatoian, the outfit's CEO, a version that weighs just 50-pounds and can disable rebel rides from 600-feet away is only a couple of years from reality, but it's highly doubtful that these will be available to the general public. Depressing, we know.[Via Slashgear]
Are Line of Sight spells an unfair advantage?
Player Amithral of the Magtheridon server has a complaint about LoS (Line of Sight) spells. These are channeled spells like Mindflay, Drain Mana, Drain Life, etc. Pretty much anything where you see a particle animation of a continuous beam from the caster to the target.His complaint is that if the target breaks LoS, the ray spell continues. Hunters are plagued by LoS issues, but Priests and Warlocks seem to get a free pass as long as they have LoS when they first cast their spells. Community Manager Tharfor responds that the ray-like spells are considered to be a "working feature and there are currently no plans to change it." However, he also went on state this game mechanic may need to be reevaluated and he will bring it up to the dev team to see if they want to address it.What do you think? Is the lack of a LoS check after casting an unfair advantage (especially in PvP) or should it be considered an advantage of the classes that have it?
IT BEAMS MONEY!!!
Either Amazon.com is selling a Super Special Edition of the Wiimote that "Beams money through Bluetooth up to 30 feet away", or they've made a weird error on the page for that item. We'd like to know what item that attribute originally described. Or ... hold on. We're going to go try something.Okay, we're back. We tried it, and it didn't work. We set some cash out on the table, in different denominations (just in case a $1 bill was easier to beam than a $5), and pointed the Wiimote at it, and it totally didn't do anything. Eventually the cat showed up and sat on the money, but we can't definitively ascribe that behavior to Wii beams.We hope nobody writes a news post whenever we screw up ... You know what? We hope they do. We'd like to spread the joy of blogging.
