Omni
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This is what playing TF2 with an Oculus Rift and an omni-directional treadmill looks like
In order to demonstrate the functionality of its "Omni" prototype treadmill, which the company calls a "natural motion interface for virtual reality applications," technology start-up Virtuix has released the above video of the contraption being used in conjunction with an Oculus Rift and Team Fortress 2.The setup essentially works like this: The Oculus Rift handles head tracking and display duties, while a Kinect tracks how the player walks/runs on the the Omni, and then converts that input into in-game commands. The Kinect is an in-development solution, however, and Virtuix says the Omni will include its own sensor when/if it ships to consumers.The company plans to launch a Kickstarter campaign in May, with final production units costing somewhere between $400 and $600, sans shipping. A second example video, this time showing a better look at a prototype of the device while in use, has been tucked away beyond the veil.
Behringer announces OMNI series AirPlay speakers and connecting receiver amps
Behringer made a bit of a splash as CES last year with its oversized iPhone dock, this year it's keeping things a little more front-room friendly. Launching its new OMNI system, the audio maker hopes to bring a little AirPlay magic to your house, without excluding some of your legacy hardware. The system consists of modular elements that let you add your passive speakers into the mix, as well as work together as a whole. More specifically, the OMNI SP3 and SP5i units are all-in-one 2.1 systems, and there's a dedicated subwoofer too. But, if you don't have or want their own breed, you can bring in your own. The OMNI Amp is a 2 x 40W stereo amplifier and AirPlay receiver that lets you play your music with your existing passive bookshelf or floor-mounted gear, and active speakers can be looped into the AirPlay party with the OMNI link box. The speakers are provisionally set to cost $249 (for the SP3i) and $349 (for the SP5i and sub), while the amp and link boxes will likely set you back $199 and $129 respectively. No word on the official launch date, but head on over to the press release for more info. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
HP intros Omni 27 all-in-one, Pavilion HPE Phoenix h9 tower
If you thought HP would take a break after announcing seven all-in-ones last fall, you'd be sadly mistaken: the company just trotted out the Omni 27, its first model with a 27-inch display. In addition to that 1080p (non-touch) screen, it rocks the same Easel design as all those models HP introduced a few months back, which is to say it tilts a relatively modest 25 degrees. Other specs include dual- and quad-core Intel processors, up to 2TB of storage and Beats Audio (duh), and an optional TV tuner, Blu-ray player and HDMI port (yes, HDMI is an add-on). Moving on to a different category entirely, HP also unveiled the Pavilion HPE Phoenix h9 for the US market -- not its inaugural enthusiast tower, to be sure, but definitely the first to bear the consumer-y Pavilion name. Though the red accents and "armor-plated" design would suggest otherwise, HP's quick to market this not as a gaming rig, but a prosumer machine. Whatever you want to call it, you'll find specs worthy of power uses: a choice of Intel's latest X79 processors or AMD's eight-core chips, NVIDIA GTX 580 / AMD Radeon 7670 graphics and four DIMM slots capable of accommodating 16GB of RAM and up to three hard drives. Whichever tickles your fancy, both come loaded with HP's Magic Canvas software -- aka, the UI that used to be called TouchSmart but has since been re-tooled to work even on non-touch machines. They'll each be available January 8th, with the Omni 27 starting at $1,200 and the Phoenix h9 fetching $1,150 and up. Until then, we've got a mix of hands-on and press shots below, with a pair of promo videos waiting for just past the break.
HP announces an avalanche of all-in-ones, slims down its TouchSmarts (video)
At some point earlier this year, all-in-one desktops became a thing. Companies like Toshiba that had never before taken an interest in the space suddenly started selling 'em, beefing up a market that HP, Dell and Apple had owned for years. You could tell what HP executives were thinking. Months earlier, the outfit had announced its TouchSmart 610 -- you know, the one with the sprawling, tilting display. It's as if the company had to prove it's the real deal when it comes to all-in-ones -- or, at least, that it could come up with something that'll eat up less desk space than the 610. Okay, we just put a lot of words into HP executives' mouths, but really, what else could this deluge of all-in-ones mean? The company just spat out seven new models for the US market, the highest-end of which have a markedly more minimalist look. The 20-inch TouchSmart 320, 21.5-inch 420 and the 23-inch 520 all boast the kind of free-standing display display you see in that photo up there -- a screen that tilts 30 degrees, and leaves enough space underneath for you to stow the wireless keyboard. The lot have starting prices ranging from $600 to $800, with the highest-end 520 matching the 610, which will still be around for the foreseeable future. Moving along, HP also trotted out the similar-looking 7230, its first TouchSmart for the small business market, along with the Pro 3420, a non-touch model. That will start at $600, with the touchscreen pushing the 3420's price northwards of $850. And, just to make sure it had its bases covered, the company introduced two plain-Jane models, the 20-inch Omni 120 and the 21.5-inch Omni 220, which steps up to Beats Audio, Sandy Bridge processors and a more striking design. These will each be available before the end of the month, starting at $400 and $800, respectively. Oodles of glossy press shots below and a short video after the break. %Gallery-132815% %Gallery-132817% %Gallery-132819% %Gallery-132821% %Gallery-132822% %Gallery-132824% %Gallery-132814% %Gallery-132816%
How to: Capturing iPad video with audio narration
Recently, Mike Rose asked me to check out an ongoing discussion over at the Telestream forums to see if I could assist one of the posters. Mike knew that Steve Sande and I were working on testing out a variety of iPad-to-computer screen capture solutions. He thought I might be able to help out Dr. J, host of the "Lighting the Lamp" podcast.
HP's Omni Pro 110 all-in-one aims to please the business set
HP's been cranking out all-in-one's for quite a while now, but the company's latest offering -- the Omni Pro 110 -- attempts to be a real hit with the business crowd. Behind that 1600 x 900 20-inch anti-glare monitor comes your choice of Intel Pentium or Core 2 Duo processor, up to 4 gigs of RAM, an HDD ranging from 250GB to 1TB in capacity, and a built-in DVD burner with LightScribe functionality. It's also got a whopping six USB ports, six-in-one card reader, and built-in speakers present in that chin region at the bottom. HP's highlighting the Pro's ease of upgradability , and with a starting price of just $639, the sky's the limit.
Beauty Lift High Nose puts the plastic in (and leaves the surgery out of) plastic surgery
Sizable schnoz? Problem proboscis? Looking for a dubious, crapgadgety alternative to costly rhinoplasty? A Japanese company called Omni has a device called the Beauty Lift High Nose that claims it will do the trick. You can get yours for $140 if you dare -- but don't hold out for an Engadget review before placing your order.
HP announces TouchSmart 310 and Omni100 all-in-one PCs
It's not just oddly random Android tablet-based printers for HP today -- the company also announced two new all-in-one PCs, the TouchSmart 310 (pictured above) and the Omni100. The TouchSmart 310 is obviously the latest in the TouchSmart line, with a 2.8GHz Athlon II 240e dual-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, Radeon HD 4270 integrated graphics, a 1TB drive and a 20-inch 1600x1900 touchscreen running the latest version of HP's Windows 7 touch overlay with custom interfaces for Facebook, Hulu, Netflix, Twitter, and HP's built-in HDTV tuner. Not bad -- but we'll see how much all those options cost above the $699 base price. On the non-touch front, the Omni100 also has a 20-inch 1600x1900 display, but it's running HP's MediaSmart Windows 7 overlay on a 1.8GHz Athlon II 260u with 3GB of RAM, a 500GB drive and the same Radeon HD 4270 integrated graphics. It's also cheaper, starting at $499 -- we're definitely a little concerned that HP's cheaped out on display quality at those prices, but we'll have to see things in person first. We'll find out soon enough -- both of these hit on the 22nd. %Gallery-102785%
The Game Archaeologist and the Girdle of Anarchy: Your stories
I have to admit that I have a particular soft spot for Anarchy Online. It was, for better and worse, my first MMO -- on launch day, no less. That experience terrified me so much that I became convinced my machine could never run an online game, and so it wasn't until Shadowlands released that I returned to Rubi-Ka for another go. Fortunately, that time things went more smoothly, and I cut my teeth on that content. Sure, it was mostly over my head, and I'm pretty sure I gimped my character by level 3, but the otherworldly atmosphere and giddy newness of MMOs in general more than made up for it. After last week's brief overview of the many years of Anarchy Online's operation, vets poured out of the grid to share their own screenshots and stories. It may not be the hip new thing these days -- more like, it needs a hip replacement -- but to hear these players tell it, AO isn't as washed up as you may think. Read on for sordid tales that would make any of the Game Archaeologist's own adventures look like a dip in the kiddie pool!
Hands on with OmniGraphSketcher
Retailing for a relatively hefty US$14.99, OmniGraphSketcher may initially leave you scratching your head and wondering exactly who the app's target audience is. OmniGraphSketcher offers a free-form drawing application for creating graphs and charts. With it, you can illustrate many kinds of numeric information, just as you would by using the chart features in a normal spreadsheet. However, OmniGraphSketcher isn't powered by spreadsheets. It's powered by human drawing, and that's a rather odd combination; it's also the application's main feature. There's not a lot you can customize creatively when working with a standard spreadsheet graph. OmniGraphSketcher helps build persuasive illustrations that break the cookie-cutter sameness of pie-charts and bar graphs and hopefully brings design excellence to the table. This app isn't about mathematical precision, it's about beauty. You choose the axes, the labels, the drawing style, and so forth. Like OmniGraffle, most of the functionality is placed into a pair of modes (line drawing and filled drawing, which I used to create the graph at the top of this post). An inspector popover lets you customize how each feature is colored. The software is, clearly, first generation. I ran into a fair number of bugs both before and after Omni issued a bug-fix 1.1 release. Even now, you cannot easily move labels within a shape. I worked around this by creating separate labels and dragging them to where I wanted them to be rather than where the app wanted to put them. I could not order my objects back to front, but I realized that deleting a shape and undoing that action moved each shape to the front. (I initially drew the shapes purple, then red, then green, but wanted them ordered in the sequence you see above.) I admit readily that I'm an engineer, not an artist. (The picture shows this quite clearly.) While the idea of creating artistically enhanced illustrations appeals to me, I have no talent whatsoever to really make the most of this application. I'll stick with spreadsheets, I'm afraid. For anyone who does have that artistic spark, you may find that this application will help you build those persuasive graphics, even when you're on the go. %Gallery-91459%
Low-tech testing on a high-tech iPad
Here's a little levity on the eve of the iPad launch chaos tomorrow. We're going through release after release today of all of these iPad apps, and after browsing page after page after page in the App Store, it's sometimes easy to forget just how much work went into each one of these things. The Omni Group has a nice writeup on their blog about how they designed the OmniGraphSketcher app, and while the iPad will be the center of attention tomorrow for its blend of technology and innovation, the Omni app was actually designed in a very low-tech way: with paper. They designed a same-size iPad mockup and cut out a bunch of paper menus and interfaces, and then did their testing with them that way, going with instinct on what goes where and how it all worked out. The iPad is an innovative device, to be sure, but the reason it's so innovative is because you can model it easily with much older technology like paper. Developers don't cut out a paper mouse and keyboard to design their desktop apps, but with the iPad, the interface has to be re-designed completely, and so cutting out colored paper is just as effective as testing out code. Very interesting, and something to keep in mind as we all touch and poke and prod our new devices tomorrow. [via 37Signals]
OmniWeb 5.8 released
The Omni Group has released version 5.8 of OmniWeb, its venerable browser software. OmniWeb 5.8 is now based on the same version of Webkit as Safari 3.1.x. It also fixes bugs with Spaces, and adds support for non-POSIX file URLs. Users can also choose Google Chrome in the list of user-agent strings. Full release notes are also available. OmniWeb 5.8 is available from Omni's website, and works with Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later. The software is $14.95, with upgrades starting at $4.95 for users of Omniweb 4.
OmniFocus goes 1.0
OmniFocus 1.0 represents a long-awaited addition to the GTD offerings on the Mac. It's a GTD-compatible task manager that has been in beta (or vaportrail, as they call it) for a while now and has gained an active community of users. Today's release puts Omni ahead of several other developers, which may help make up the minds of the more impatient GTDers who have been watching the options grow more varied and the spread of features get more convoluted. Omni nailed a few things in this application, including a very powerful means of managing how tasks are viewed (focuses), recurring tasks and OS X integration that includes Spotlight indexing of tasks. The interface is unfamiliar to new users, but relatively intuitive. And, unlike some of the other up-and-comers, Omni made GTD standards a high priority. Whether that is a selling point depends entirely on the individual user's taste. OmniFocus has updated almost every day since I got my invitation to the beta some months back. If you like applications that have a quick and responsive development team, you'll enjoy the development pace. It's retailing at $79.95 now that the pre-order discount is finished. Visit the website for more information.
OmniGraffle 5.0 beta 1
The guys over at Omni are on a roll, they just released a beta of the highly anticipated GTD application OmniFocus and today they announced the availability of the OmniGraffle 5 beta. The new test release is Leopard-only and has a bunch new features, headlined by a completely new layout engine, with new tools (including a Quick Look plugin), and native support for the Microsoft Visio file format (VSD) as well as stencils (VSS) and tools (VST).OmniGraffle 5.0b1 is available for download from Omni. Pricing and final availability have not yet been announced.
Envision kicks out trio of Omni-series LCD HDTVs
Envision understands that the people need choices, and just in case neither of the two LCD HDTVs that the firm unleashed last month tickled your fancy, here comes a trio of new ones to pore over. All three units sport a 1,366 x 768 resolution, eight-millisecond response time, ATSC / Clear QAM tuners, integrated speakers, a headphone jack, S/PDIF port and a glossy black finish. On the high(er)-end, we've got the 42-inch L42W761, which features a 1,200:1 contrast ratio, twin HDMI inputs and a respectable $999 pricetag. The 32-inch L32W761 differs from its big bro by offering up a 1,500:1 contrast ratio, while the 26-inch L26W761 musters an 800:1 CR. These two will ring up at $649 and $479, respectively, and are available as we speak from a number of fine retailers, but if you've got your eye on the 42-incher, you'll be waiting till the 23rd -- yeah, Black Friday -- to take one home.
HTC Omni = Google Dream?
C'mon, you knew this was coming. Not a moment after Google does its big reveal on the Android OS and forthcoming multi-manufacturer GPhone, the rumor mill has already starting churning with wild imaginings and fantastic leaps of logic. A not-so gigantic jump comes as speculation that HTC's Omni -- which we first heard about nearly a year ago -- is actually the phone that has been referred to as the "Dream," Google's OS demo unit. We have to admit, there are some similarities between the two, not the least of which are the 3-inch by 5-inch size, rectangular touchscreen, full QWERTY that swivels out (which according to this earlier rendering, goes in more than one direction), and a beveled edge that "nestles in the palm." We remind you, of course, that this is just the first in a long line of rumors trying to pinpoint the "real" GPhone -- HTC or otherwise -- so don't get too excited just yet.Update: As a commenter points out, the "earlier rendering" is actually the precursor to the Omni, the HTC Universal, though its screen mechanism bears a resemblance to the one described in the original Forbes article.
HTC Omni to get HSUPA, 3.1 megapixel cam?
If GPS, a wide VGA display, and mere HSDPA weren't enough to get tongues a-waggin' for HTC's long-overdue Universal successor, it looks like the Omni will be throwing in a few additional goodies to sweeten the pot for its supposed October launch. Notably, pdadb.net sez that the Omni will be rocking a full HSPA implementation -- that's HSDPA plus HSUPA for the lay folk -- plus a 3.1 megapixel cam and LED (what, no xenon?) flash. If we had our druthers, we'd like to see a 5 megapixel autofocus behemoth in there, but you know, let's not get ahead of ourselves.[Via Unwired View]
HTC Omni revealed with GPS and VGA/TV-out?
Well don't that look nice? Meet the supposed HTC Omni communicator... rendering. Unwired View is the source of these pictures and some more detailed specs. Notably, it'll be sporting VGA and TV-outputs along with that biggie 4-inch, 800 x 480 pixel WVGA display when launched in October. You know, if true. It'll also be packing a GPS/A-GPS nugget in a 130 x 81 x 16-mm slab making it a bit smaller than an Advantage but bigger than the phone-that-shall-not-be-named. Hey, that's what they're saying. Rounding things out are UMTS/HSDPA and WinMo 6 like we heard before. Though honestly, we never tire of hearing it.
HTC Omni specifications unearthed
Hope you haven't forgotten about the elusive HTC Omni, as that self-coined Universal successor now has an (almost complete) lineup of specs to go along with it. The handset will reportedly sport a whopping 4-inch 800 x 480 resolution display, boast a slightly slimmer / lighter enclosure than found on the Universal, and will pack a 400MHz Samsung SC244X processor, Qualcomm MSM 7200 chip, GSM / GPRS / EDGE / UMTS / HSDPA compatibility, 128MB of RAM, full QWERTY keyboard, 802.11b/g, and Bluetooth 2.0. Unfortunately, one of the most anticipated details -- whether or not it'll boast VGA out -- remains unconfirmed, but at least we've got enough hard deets to assure us that this mobile should elicit quite a few grins when finally hits the streets.[Thanks, Led]
DS Fanboy review: Sumo beanbag chair
What's awesome about the DS? Well, a lot of things -- but one of the best is that it's portable and can go wherever you can go (within reason, of course). But what about those times when you really want to play at home? Where do you sit? Sumo wants the answer to be in -- or on, or around -- one of their luxury beanbag chairs, and to that end, they sent us a chair to check out while we were getting some DS on.And before going into the details, let me just say -- this chair is great for DS gaming at home. Those long runs of Final Fantasy III, the ones that make your arms hurt and your eyes weary? Get up, kick the chair into a different position, and settle in ... it's like a whole new world. For shorter, more intense sessions, like getting your butt kicked on a Tuesday night in Mario Kart, I favor the upright position in the photo -- feet planted, lots of room to move, serious posture. That's my gaming pose. Grrr! So of course, I'm not as relaxed as Sumo's model. Oh well. So what's the deal with these chairs and why should you care? After all, it's just a beanbag chair, right? Wrong. Sumo is like the Lexus of the beanbag chair, with a price to match. Currently, during their holiday sale, the Sumo Omni goes for a cool $129 -- which is a lot for what we consider casual, slacker furniture. So the essential question here could be: is it worth it?
