As myriad legal tussles roll on between smartphone manufacturers, Apple’s suffered a knock-back by the International Trade Commission. Apple first lodged its complaint against Moto in October 2010, accusing its Droid family of violating the patents found in its own phones. This was countered by a volley of patent violation complaints from Motorola. Granted, this is still a preliminary ruling, but looks like Motorola may have won this round of legal drudgery.
ITC preliminary ruling says Motorola’s Droid series doesn’t violate Apple patents originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Starting in July of 2012, the United States Army will deploy three Boeing A160 Hummingbird drones to Afghanistan as part of a one-year trial program. Unlike the Predator drones already in combat, the A160 is a rotor-based aircraft capable of vertical take-offs and landings. What’s more, the craft will be affixed with the DARPA-developed ARGUS-IS imaging system — which boasts a 1.8 gigapixel camera the Army says can “track people and vehicles from altitudes above 20,000 feet.” The A160 Hummingbird platform will provide the Army with the ability and flexibility to: take off and land without a runway; fly for twelve hours or more without refueling; and monitor up to 65 enemies of the State simultaneously. Test flights of the unmanned chopper are scheduled for early 2012 in Arizona, but residents hoping to get a glimpse of the A160 in action best have great eyesight — the ARGUS-IS system can see targets from almost 25-miles down range. Oh, and don’t forget to smile when you look up. You want to look your best for the eye in the sky, right?
US Army’s A160 Hummingbird drone-copter to don 1.8 gigapixel camera originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We’ve seen Senseg’s tactile display technology demoed on a few different devices in the past, but CNET has now gotten a quick look of the company’s latest tech on a tablet, along with some additional word on its future. As with previous prototypes, the screen doesn’t rely on any moving parts as some other tactile displays do, but instead employs an electrostatic field-based system that allows different parts of the screen to produce varying degrees of friction. As Senseg notes, that opens up a number of interesting possibilities for gaming, as well as other applications where you may not always want to look at the screen. Of course, that tablet is still very much a prototype, but Senseg’s Dave Rice says that he’s “optimistic” we’ll see actual products using it “within the next year,” although he notes that could extend to 24 months. See the video after the break or at the source link below.
Continue reading Senseg’s tactile display gets demoed on a tablet, products anticipated within 24 months
Senseg’s tactile display gets demoed on a tablet, products anticipated within 24 months originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Dec 2011 21:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s a bird, it’s a plane, nope, it’s Liquid Robotic’s four Wave Gliders on a mission to snag the Guinness World Record for longest distance traveled on Earth by an automaton. Setting out today from the San Francisco Bay, the autonomous sea-faring crafts will travel far and wide to gather data about the world’s oceans. Powered by the water’s movement, the vessels are fuel-free, using “flapping” wings to move forward without human command. Tricked out with various solar-powered sensors, the robots can capture location, weather, temperature, wave height, barometric pressure and more throughout their travels. The 198.4 pound machines cost between 0,000 and 0,000 each depending on how many sensors are built-in — a small price for scientists or commandeering pirates hoping to learn more about the 95 percent of ocean that has yet to be explored. Let’s just hope they don’t run into one of these guys.
Wave Glider robots set out to explore the seven seas, break the Guinness record originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It looks like FRIDA and friends are about ready to get comfy over at Foxconn. Following the company’s August announcement that it would infiltrate its ranks with one million robots in the next three years, Focus Taiwan is reporting that the manufacturer’s parent company, Hon Hai, is moving forward on its plans to build an “intelligent robotics kingdom” in the Central Taiwan Science Park. Chairman Terry Gou reportedly signed a letter of intent with Taichung mayor Jason Hu last Saturday, confirming its plans to erect a plant dedicated to the production of robots and automation equipment. That robo-mecca is expected to draw some serious scratch, with an estimated production-value boost of NT0 billion (about billion) and the creation of 2,000 jobs. How many of those positions will be filled by headless automatons remains to be seen.
Foxconn chairman signs letter of intent for ‘intelligent robot kingdom,’ we cower in fear originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Nov 2011 04:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Well, that was quick. Mere hours after holding a press conference stating that it didn’t know when BlackBerry users would have their BBM, internet, and email working again, services have begun to come back online. Apparently email is up across the globe, as is BBM. Web browsing, however, continues to be “temporarily” unavailable to those on EMEIA networks in Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa and Latin America. There is of course a considerable backlog of messages to get through, but the good news is that all the BlackBerry bits and bytes are flowing freely once again. Hit the source link to get the info straight from the horse’s mouth.
RIM recovers, BlackBerry services coming back online originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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