Know those emergency alerts that always seem to crop up when your sports team of choice is about to score a crucial goal? Yeah, well they’re headed to a Sprint phone near you, signature auditory tone and all. After successfully testing the service in San Diego last fall, the carrier’s gearing up for round two of the FCC and Mayor Bloomberg-approved system in New York City later this year, issuing FEMA alerts from the President, National Weather Service and local emergency operators to over a dozen compliant Android phones. If you’re sporting a compatible handset, you can opt-in for the service by either dialing ##CMAS## or selecting the appropriate settings prompt, after which you’ll receive geographically-specific texts of up to 90 characters. And don’t worry about dismissing these warning messages as any ‘ol SMS or racking up additional fees, they’ll arrive free-of-charge bearing a unique “vibration cadence” and inbox icon. Curious to see if your phone’s made the cut? The skip on past the break for the official PR.

Continue reading Sprint plans Emergency Alert messaging system in New York City, claims this is only a test

Sprint plans Emergency Alert messaging system in New York City, claims this is only a test originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Nov 2011 01:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• High-sensitivity, watch-like GPS receiver that provides exceptional signal reception
• One-piece training assistant that provides athletes with precise speed, distance, and pace data
• Includes training center software, which allows users to download workout data for a detailed analysis
• Used for multiple sports, such as cycling, cross- country skiing, and windsurfing

Just when you thought Garmin had cornered the market on powerful, affordable, and effective wrist-mounted GPS devices, here comes the Forerunner 205. The release of this device is a major achievement from a design and technology perspective. This isn’t just marketing-speak; the Forerunner 205 is the most accurate, most reliable wrist-mounted performance and GPS tracking tool we’ve ever tested. Yes, it’s that good. While no device this compact can do everything (yet), the 205 pushes the boundaries of what is possible from something strapped around your wrist. While the 205 doesn’t offer heart rate monitoring, or connectivity with Garmin’s wireless speed and cadence sensor — for that, you’ll need to step up to the Forerunner 305 — but it’s a great way to get basic GPS location and performance data. View Garmin’s Forerunner demonstration video.

Choose from 12 data fields to display on the 305′s screen. View larger.

The design cleverly integrates the GPS ant

Rating: (out of 499 reviews)

List Price: $ 267.99

Price: Too low to display

More Products

• Cycling speed sensor for select Garmin wrist-mounted personal trainers and cycling computers
• Self-calibrating, wireless design measures both cycle speed and cadence in pedaling strokes per minute
• Provides up-to-the-minute feedback or captures results for later workout analysis
• Compatible with Garmin Edge 305, Edge 305CAD, and Forerunner 305
• Attaches easily to any bicycle; 1-year warranty

The Garmin 010-10644-00 Speed/Cadence sensor (GSC 10) can monitor your pedaling cadence as you ride with this self-calibrating, wireless speed/cadence sensor. It measures and reports your pedaling strokes per minute, providing feedback for optimal performance. Use with the Edge 305 or Edge 305CAD, Included With The Edge 305CAD GPS PlusA good companion for Garmin’s Edge 305 and 305CAD cycle computers and the Garmin Forerunner 305 personal trainer, the GSC 10 monitors your cycling rhythm for up-to-the-minute results and later analysis. The self-calibrating, wireless unit measures both speed (in pedaling strokes per minute) and cadence , then provides feedback to the user for optimal performance. You can later feed the results to Garmin’s Training Center software, which helps you tailor your workouts to meet specific goals and objectives. Like the Garmin heart rate monitor, the GSC 10 attaches easily to your bike, where its sensors detect signals from your wheels and send the informatio

Rating: (out of 121 reviews)

List Price: $ 59.99

Price: $ 31.95

It’s a sports watch, but it’s a little larger then your average G-Shock or Ironman. The most interesting feature is the LCD display. Because it’s quite a large piece the display is curved, which makes the dot-matrix display look slightly fluid on your wrist. Retail on the Wrist Rocket is quite affordable $55, and it’s currently available through the Cadence website. I have one sitting on my desk right now, and to be honest the pictures don’t do it justice. Expect a review in the near future.

From the press release:

Philadelphia. April 16, 2010. The Cadence Watch Company today launched the Wrist Rocket watch, the first watch in its line of oversized digital watches. The Wrist Rocket watch measures 45 mm across with a display 31mm wide. These extra large measurements are commonplace in analog watches, however digital watches have largely ignored this trend of oversized cases. The Wrist Rocket reverses this trend by creating a brand of oversized digital watches.

Cadence designed the Wrist Rocket watch to be a performance sport watch while adding a bold punch with its oversized design. “We found that athletes like big watches because they are easier to read and the buttons are easier to press,” says Vanya Buvac, Cadence’s CEO. Until now the only oversized digital watches available were performance watches with an altimeter, barometer, and compass. These ABC watches typically sell for around $200. The Wrist Rocket however retails for only $55 through Cadence’s website – CadenceWatch.com/wrist-rocket

The Wrist Rocket’s oversized case is complemented by a point of sale display in the shape of a rocket. The rocket is cut out of red acrylic. To develop this POS display Cadence commissioned NextFab Studio, Philadelphia’s new high-tech workshop and prototyping center. “The mission of NextFab Studio is to enable entrepreneurs, inventors, and artists to realize their vision in the fastest and most cost effective manner – by providing state of the art design and prototyping services close at hand, and through membership to our facility, the option of minimizing development cost by doing the work for themselves,” says Evan Malone, founder of NextFab Studio. “The Cadence Watch Company was our first contract customer, and it is thrilling to be able to support such an innovative local business.”

Cadence also abandoned traditional 7-segment digit design for the display. Instead the Wrist Rocket watch uses a dot matrix-style display. Cadence argues that the display is easier to read than traditional 7-segment displays. More readable or not, the dot matrix-style display is certainly more stylish, especially with technology enthusiasts.

The Cadence Watch Company designs, produces and distributes branded performance and lifestyle watches. The company started in 2001 by making a patented stroke rate monitor for rowing. Cadence’s Oarsman precision chronographs represent a performance lifestyle inspired by the rowing heritage. In 2009 Cadence started it’s Cadence Collective program that empowers designers to create unique watches. Cadence watches have been featured in prominent design and gadget media outlets including CrunchGear, Thrillist, Mocoloco, YankoDesign, TreeHugger, CoolMaterial, Fashionably Geek, and many others. For more information and to order the Wrist Rocket, visit CadenceWatch.com/wrist-rocket

It’s not just a novelty watch either, the 4-BIT is made from stainless steel with a japanese quartz moment. It’s also only $99, so it’s affordable too. I think I might be picking up one of these up for myself when they are released in June. You can sign up now to be notified when they are available for order by going to the Cadence website.

Price

$250 with mixamp needed to combine chatting and surround sound.

Verdict

I still vastly prefer the convenience of Turtle Beach’s wireless X41 headset, but I have to admit, the Astro A40 sounds better.
Playing Borderlands, everything from the growls of skaggs to the cadence of machine gun fire sounded richer and rounder on the A40s than my X41s. Maybe the sounds weren’t always as distinct, but especially when cranking the volume on each headset, I realized the general listenability—the whole package of sound—was more pleasant with Atro’s product, making me long for hearing loss. It’s a difference in mid range that, while not absolutely Earth-shattering, will probably be noticeable to most in a side-by-side test.

Both headsets have extremely similar sound localization. And chatting, on both, is an equal joy.

But there’s one, huge, horrible, despicable Achilles’ heel to the Astro A40s. To connect the headset to an Xbox 360 (or PS3/PC), wires will invade your entire living room because the console needs to plug twice into a mixamp (the big, retro box you see in the lead photo), then the mixamp connects your headphones and controller. That’s confusing, I know. Here’s the full workflow:

Xbox 360 optical out and USB cord => A40 Mixamp => Headphones/Mic and Xbox 360 controller.
Ultimately, not only are you negotiating four wires for this one headset, but you’ll still be tethered close to your console because of one, generally short/inflexible wire: the optical cord from your Xbox to the Mixamp (you can always opt for stereo plugs, but that sort of spoils the fun).

So while I knew the A40s sounded a bit better than my X41s, I couldn’t kick back and enjoy the game in the same way. For one long cord or tight quarters PC gaming, I might opt for the A40s. For four cords sprawled across my living room, I’m sticking with the X41s—especially since they’re $50+ less.

Maybe you’ll feel differently.

Excellent sound


Headphones work with any 3.5mm source, too


Wiring gets obnoxious

Even better, the knock detector is completely programmable. Changing the secret knock cadence is a simple matter of holding the red button while executing a new lock pattern, with a max of 20 knocks. The system simply detects the pattern, and not the tempo, providing allowance for users who knock slower or faster than usual.

But perhaps the best thing about Steve Hoefer’s Secret Knock Detecting Door Lock is that its a result of a DIY project. Conceivably, with the instructions available here, you can secure your own doors, limiting access only to people who know the correct knock pattern.

Secret Knock Detecting Door Lock

Post from: The Gadget Blog

So they had three categories: most useful, best implementation, and most creative. Remember, these are just demos made by students, so forgive their lack of polish. The demos, I mean, not the students.

Most Useful

This biometric password thing took top honors. It detects not only the letters and numbers in your password, but how hard you press them, whether you press them together, and so on. Quite a good idea, if it works. I’d hate to be locked out of my computer because I can’t seem to get the cadence of my password right.

Best Implementation

I don’t know what to make of this fellow’s dress, but the app is pretty handy. Or footy. By checking the different pressures exerted on keys pressed at the same time, it lets you type with your feet or elbows — useful for those of us who… I don’t know. I guess it’s not that useful, or it would have won Most Useful, right? I remember playing NES like this. TMNT2: The Arcade Game, and it really wasn’t that hard until you got to the bosses (you have to jump kick).

Most Creative

This is a good idea, but it looks like it would take a lot of tweaking. By using a bunch of little magnets and one big one, you can depress the keys’ sensors depending on the position of the larger magnet, essentially making a multi-touch midair trackpad. Very cool, but it’d take a lot of work to get useful.

Well, great work guys. I wouldn’t have thought of any of these, or if I did, I sure wouldn’t know how to make any of them work. With any luck we’ll see some of these in desktop form once the pressure-sensitive keyboard comes to the public.

If you’re interested, you can see a bunch more applications, with video, here at the contest site.

[via Gadget Venue]

Let’s bend history a bit and pretend it is 1948 and a 22-year-old Miles Davis is playing in a small club in suburban New York. He is well known, but not exactly famous yet. You are a jazz fan and have been to the great clubs in New York, Paris, Chicago and some crazy joint in Helsinki. You sit down, the music starts, and you are certain that you hear the future of jazz right there: Different colors, different cadence, the same yet somehow different—modern but still accessible.

That is not the history of Miles Davis—not even close. But that is how I felt when I first tasted the cooking of chef Grant Achatz. I went to Trio restaurant in suburban Chicago for lunch on a Friday, went back the following week for dinner on a Wednesday… then ate there about 15 more times over the next year. Grant was creating at a new level—not only was the food delicious, it was modern, innovative and intellectually stimulating.

In January of 2004 Grant and I spoke about possibly partnering to build a restaurant. When you meet Miles Davis at a young age, you gotta help to build him a world-stage right? If you didn’t you would be kicking yourself in the ass for the next 50 years. On May 4th 2004, we held a dinner at my house to introduce the idea to potential investors, an architect and an interior designer. On May 5th 2005 we opened—exactly one year to the date later. My dad used to tell me that when you have a great idea, the world conspires to help you achieve it. It worked a bit like that. In October 2006, Gourmet Magazine named Alinea the Best Restaurant in the US. This year Restaurant Magazine in the UK placed us at # 10 in the world.

If you’re wondering about the name, Alinea literally means “off the line.” The restaurant’s symbol, more commonly known as the pilcrow, indicates the beginning of a new train of thought, or literally a new paragraph. There’s a double meaning: On one hand Alinea represents a new train of thought about food, but we are a restaurant, and everything still has to come “off the line.”

Grant’s background is in the basics and the classics. He grew up cooking in his parents’ diner in St. Clair, Michigan, went to the Culinary Institute of America, then learned his haute cuisine chops from the best chef in the land—Thomas Keller. A trip to El Bulli restaurant in Roses, Spain under the direction of chef Ferran Adria let Grant know that you could take classical technique, apply equal measures of whimsy, intelligence, creativity and technology, and transform the dining experience. He spent a few days there, came home, and began to innovate in ways he could not have imagined at the time.

I am not a culinary professional, nor do I have a restaurant background. I have a BA in philosophy, spent my youth programming on a Apple II (including an accounting program for my dad’s business that was in use until 1991), and the majority of my professional career trading derivatives and investing in small, mostly web-based tech companies.

We built Alinea to touch all the senses—not only taste. The menu is composed like a symphony or a play, provoking diners, challenging them, and making sure they feel… happy, sad, nostalgia, humor… the full range of human emotion.

Food and technology… not exactly the best of friends lately. With the books Fast Food Nation and Omnivore’s Dilemma (both must-reads in my opinion)—and the documentary Food Inc.—there is the sense that anytime technology is applied to food bad things happen. Genetically modified vegetables, cows fed corn and a whole bunch of drugs to allow them to digest it, and whatever keeps a Twinkie around for 50 years—none of that can be good for us, right?

I am here to tell you that innovation when applied to food can be a good thing…. newer can mean better, more plentiful, more delicious. You can apply technology while still being respectful of the ingredients, the environment, and the consumer. It can also help take an ordinary dinner and make it artful. Grant’s cuisine questions convention while honoring it. And when necessary, he uses technology and science to achieve new tastes and textures that align with the goal of making the dining experience the best it can possibly be.

Some food critics and foodies apply the “molecular gastronomy” label to the cuisine of Chef Achatz. [His name is pronounced like "rackets", as Wired's Mark McClusky once pointed out.] There is a lot written on that, but we don’t like the tag… it seems limiting, short sighted, and in many cases just plain wrong. Much of the time, low tech is good enough—why use a laser to cut something when a knife will do the job just fine? Unfortunately, the molecular gastronomy of today often has more to do with the showmanship than it does with the original goals of the movement. When Herve This coined the term way back in the ’80s, he intended for it to be, essentially, the MythBusters of the kitchen, a criticial look at how and why things work.

What the Alinea kitchen does have in common with MG is the desire to question everything, try new techniques, and make the dining experience better all the time. Alinea has a staff of 60+ people committed to that ideal. And those basic goals are much the same as the best products and technologies that are featured on Gizmodo everyday… The difference being, you can eat these.

I hope to show a few examples of what Chef Achatz and the Alinea team of 25 chefs does everyday, how they question and create, and the technological innovators we work with regularly to achieve these goals. We may touch on a few broader topics of concern to everyone who eats. But mostly, we want our Taste Test posts to be exactly like the experience at Alinea—fun and delicious.

Nick and Grant (center two) in the Alinea kitchen:

Nick Kokonas co-founded Alinea with Grant Achatz in 2005, and works with the chef on Alinea-related projects, recruiting innovators to challenge and improve every aspect of the cooking and eating experience. A finance guy and web-oriented angel investor by trade, Kokonas got his start back in his teen years writing business software on an Apple II. You can grab the gorgeous Alinea cookbook here, or just visit Alinea’s home page.

Taste Test is our weeklong tribute to the leaps that occur when technology meets cuisine, spanning everything from the historic breakthroughs that made food tastier and safer to the Earl-Grey-friendly replicators we impatiently await in the future.

If you’re new around here, you might not know that we have a bit of a mancrush on Yahtzee, the brains and vocal talent behind the Zero Punctuation review series. British accent? Check. Nigh impossible speaking cadence? Check! If we were ultra geeky 17 year old girls, we’d have Yahtzee posters plastered all over our walls. Because we don’t* already. I promise.

This week, Yahtzee tears apart THQ’s Red Faction: Guerilla, a game which has seen mostly positive ratings thus far. It’s all the usual humor, plus a Doctor Who reference thrown in for good measure. Even if you’ve got no idea what the hell this game is all about, he’ll probably wring a hearty chuckle or two out of you.

* Okay, Biggs does. And Nicholas. And me.