Showing posts with label CES. Show all posts
CES 2015: Polaroid portable Zip printer
Bringing the essence of classic Polaroids into the modern era with minimal hassle
As with Kodak, the move towards digital photography wasn’t kind to Polaroid, but under new stewards, the company has made some interesting moves. And the Zip is its latest.
Polaroid’s Zip mobile printer is a compact, ink-free way
to print a photo from your iPhone or Android phone, and it appears to be
an updated version of the PoGo printer from several years back, although it's currently unclear if the changes are more than skin deep.
You’ll use Polaroid’s app - which has an array of editing
tools and filters - to get the photo wirelessly to the printer via
Bluetooth or NFC, and the image prints out within 60 seconds. It’s a
throwback to the iconic and utterly classic cameras Polaroid produced in
its heyday, and in more ways that one. Here, it’s all about the paper,
which has cyan, magenta, and yellow dyes built in that are activated
when the printer heats up. The result is a quality, smudge-free print -
and better yet, no need to replace cartridges.
What you will need to do, of course, is buy the
specialized paper. Bloomberg Businessweek says you’ll get a pack of 100
of the 2x3in photo paper sheets for about US$30 (£20), which isn’t
cheap, but also doesn’t seem terribly unreasonable if you’re choosy
about what you print. And each has a sticky back, so you can affix it a
wall, notebook, or an unsuspecting bystander’s trousers if desired.
The printer itself was created in collaboration with
ZINK Imaging (that’s “Zero Ink”), and is less than an inch thick with
dimensions otherwise not far off from a smartphone. According to
Polaroid, the built-in lithium-ion battery can print up to 25 photos on a
single charge.
Polaroid’s Zip mobile printer is due out this spring for US$129.99. about 8000 INR.
CES 2015: The Saygus V2 smartphone Preview
320GB storage, a 21MP camera, fingerprint scanning and a
4600mAh-equivalent battery. Too good to be true?
You haven't heard of Saygus yet, but if its claims are true, it's a name worth remembering.
On a simple stand tucked away at the back of the South
Hall, the Salt Lake City-based company is demoing its first smartphone,
the V2 (V squared). Founder Chad Sayers says that his team is composed
entirely of smartphone enthusiasts, and that the company makes nothing
but this smartphone - and that's why it couldn't help but design a
device that packs in every last bit of cutting edge tech they could lay
their mitts on.
The spec reads like a phone nerd's wish list, and includes
a few bits of neat-sounding technology we haven't seen before. A 5in,
1080p 'ArcticLink III' sunlight-readable screen. 64GB of built-in
storage, and two microSDXC slots, supporting up to 128GB a piece (that's
320GB of potential storage, folks). A side-mounted fingerprint scanner.
A 21MP rear camera and a 13MP front camera, both with optical image
stabilisation.
And there's more. NFC. An IR transmitter for TV control.
Harman/Kardon speakers. Built-in wireless Qi charging. Wireless HDMI
capability from Silicon Image. Some battery-boosting jiggery-pokery
claimed to make the 3100mAh battery perform like a 4600mAh unit. 4G LTE
too, of course, but augmented by technology from Fractal Antenna that
Chad Sayers claims will add a bar to your mobile reception wherever you
are.
Out of the box the V2 runs Android 4.4.4 and will be
updated to Lollipop in the near future, but interestingly the device can
boot other OSs from microSD too - Sailfish and Linux, for example.
The only unexceptional feature is the Qualcomm 801 chipset
inside, running at 2.5GHz - and even that's the equivalent of the
silicon inside pretty much every phone in our Top 10. Oh, and the screen
isn't 2K, but at 5in the extra pixels would be wasted anyway.
All of the above is housed in a IPX7 waterproof and
impressively compact aluminium and magnesium case with a carbon Kevlar
bumper around the screen and more carbon round the back. The tiny screen
bezel makes it feel like a smaller device than a 5in screen would
usually demand.
We're told the design is likely to be tweaked, which is no
bad thing - a sophisticated, HTC One (M8)-esque beauty this ain't. The
units we saw were rough around the edges and not representative of the
finished product, so it wasn't possible to get an idea of performance.
Really, all we have to go on are the claims of the press release - but
if they're true, this is going to be a device to watch very closely
indeed.
Saygus is aiming to have devices to market in February and
is already taking registrations for pre-orders. Stuff will be the first
region outside of the US to test the device - and you'll be first to
know if it lives up to that preposterous specification. We do hope so.
CES 2015: Ultrahaptics- A New Dimension in Technology
Ultrasound tech creates tactile feedback in thin air – we go hands-on (sort of)
One of the most intriguing things we've seen at CES 2015, the Ultrahaptics interface has the potential to change the way we interact with our devices.
Developed by a team at the University of Bristol, Ultrahaptics consists of a grid of ultrasound generators that – coupled with a Leap Motion sensor – enables you to feel objects that aren't there.
The Leap Motion sensor tracks your hand's position in the air, while the generators – actually the same kind of parking sensors that you find in cars – fire 40kHz pulses of ultrasound at your hand. The result is that you feel a gentle pressure on your hand where the generators are targeted – a little like a puff of air.
Developed by a team at the University of Bristol, Ultrahaptics consists of a grid of ultrasound generators that – coupled with a Leap Motion sensor – enables you to feel objects that aren't there.
The Leap Motion sensor tracks your hand's position in the air, while the generators – actually the same kind of parking sensors that you find in cars – fire 40kHz pulses of ultrasound at your hand. The result is that you feel a gentle pressure on your hand where the generators are targeted – a little like a puff of air.
A second demo has you playing a brick-and-bat game, with a pulse firing at your hand each time the ball makes contact with the bat. There's also a vertical "force field" which you can push your hand through air – it feels something like the stream of air that issues forth from a Dyson Airblade.
You can instantly see the potential for gaming and entertainment applications – imagine feeling the wind on your face, or raindrops, while watching a movie or playing a game.
It's the final demo, though, that's most interesting – pointing to the possibilities of the device as a control interface. The computer screen shows a spinning circular dial which, when you put your hand above the ultrasound generator, is matched by a pulse that traces a circle on your hand. Move your hand about, and it tracks your hand's position, following you about. Trace circles in the air with your hand, and the circular motion speeds up.
One of the problems faced by control interfaces like the Leap Motion and Kinect is a lack of tactile feedback – as anyone who's flailed about in front of their Xbox One will testify.
The Ultrahaptics generator could solve that problem, giving you a physical response to a gesture-controlled system; it could be particularly useful for controlling the infotainment system in a car, for example.
We'll be watching Ultrahaptics with interest – and hopefully it won't be long before we're getting our hands on (or above) it in a commercially-available product.