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UK begins testing unsupervised autonomous transport pods
Shoppers at a UK mall have the opportunity to try out autonomous transport pods this week which -- in a UK first -- operate entirely without supervision. The driverless pods are being tested at the Cribbs Causeway mall in Gloucestershire, and run between 10AM and 4PM every day for a week, transporting passengers around the premises and along shared pedestrian spaces.
Life after Kinect: PrimeSense's plans for a post-Microsoft future
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.
The Daily Roundup for 05.16.2013
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.
PrimeSense demonstrates Capri 3D sensor on Nexus 10 (hands-on)
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. %Gallery-188372%
PrimeSense shows off tiny Capri sensor, yearns for 3D-sensing future (hands-on)
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.
PrimeSense reveals Capri, 'world's smallest' 3D sensor
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. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Motorola Capri, a.k.a. the RAZR slider, previewed
The guys over at PhoneScoop have sure made the site live up to its name today: not only did they get some serious hands-on time with Motorola's upcoming RAZR slider -- codenamed Capri -- they also got to preview the next version of Moto's much-maligned Synergy UI that will show up in such models as the Canary and the SCPL. At least on paper, the Capri seems to offer a very compelling feature set that will probably attract anyone into the RAZR lifestyle- you're getting a model only slightly thicker and heavier than its clamshell counterpart, but which sports a 2.0 megapixel camera, A2DP-capable Bluetooth, and what sounds like a greatly improved user interface. Especially noteworthy in the overhauled Synergy is an address book that seems to work much more intuitively than past iterations (remember the one on the StarTAC?), allowing you to organize entries by name and search for contacts using multiple letters. Although Phone Scoop was only testing a pre-production model, they have identified some potential problems to watch out for on the final version, such as the unusually crappy quality of what should be a decent camera, and most importantly, a spring-assisted slider that's difficult to activate due to the raised antenna bulge so familiar to RAZR owners. Click on if you want to peep a few more snaps, but you're really doing yourself a disservice if you don't head over to PhoneScoop for the full gallery and a very thorough write-up...
The Boy Genius report: Capris for the Oscars
Field report tidbits from Engadget's resident mobile insider, the Boy Genius.Word has it Motorola will be annoucing the Canary on July 17th, and will be giving out 500 Limited Edition Capris in for next year's Oscar gift bags. Who knew!
Motorola "Capri": the real RAZR slider?
The Motorola rumor mill is in full grind mode lately, with word of an impending slider version of the RAZR, called the "Capri," coming hot on the heels of the "Canary" photos that have been fluttering around lately. According to Cnet's Alpha blog, the quad-band GSM Capri will be no thicker than the SLVR, sport a "high-resolution" CCD (what that means for cameraphones is unclear -- 1.3 megapixels? 2.0? 3.2?), and also a TransFlash slot, probably for storing tunes. Although no pics of this rumored model are available yet, Cnet speculates that it will be quite similar to the Korea-only MS600 (pictured, also referred to as the "RAZR slider), which is a bit thicker than the SLVR but takes many of its design cues from the trusty RAZR.[Thanks, Hitechy and Corey]
