You laughed at the Segway back in 2001, and you're probably still laughing now. But unless we're very much mistaken, Dean Kamen's ludicrously overpriced and over-engineered stand-up scooter is about to spawn a wave of new-school electric personal-transport devices. Read on for more technology that triumphed in the end.
(Credit: Crave UK)For every overnight digital success such as Twitter, there's a technology that came up the hard way, clawing every point of market share from bitter rivals and struggling to win over a disinterested public. But quality triumphs in the end. Here are 10 sleeper technologies whose day came at last.
Read more of Sleeper successes: Tech that's taken its time at Crave UK.
So you're a programmer deciding where to invest your energy. What's a better idea: the latest Apple device, where hot new games can mean big bucks and millions of users, or a calculator introduced 10 years ago?
ticalc.org news editor Michael Vincent
(Credit: Michael Vincent)Most go for iPhones and iPods. But another community thrives in its own way. These are the folks who spend hours trying to elevate their Texas Instruments calculators to a level far surpassing their modest roots.
Among their achievements: adding new features, creating new operating systems, connecting the calculator to keyboards and other hardware, playing a video excerpt from "The Matrix," and even running Nintendo Game Boy video games. Not bad for calculators such as the $100 TI-83 Plus, introduced in 1999 with a Z80 processor running at 6MHz, 24KB of memory, 160KB of flash memory, and a 96x64 pixel display.
Why all this work for projects that realistically are not going to reshape the future of computing? Much of the motivation parallels mountaineer George Mallory's rationale for climbing Mount Everest: "Because it's there."
TI's graphing calculators are programmable, affordable, and widely used in schools--a lot more approachable than a Himalayan peak. That doesn't mean they're easy. The calculators must be programmed in assembly language--a slightly more human-readable version of the very basic machine code the calculators execute, but hardly something more easily read and debugged such as C or Java.
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The first time I bought into this this whole digital 3D thing was a 2006 showing of "Superman Returns" on an IMAX screen. In the scene, various objects floated around the screen and seemingly, right in front of my face. For me, this was the first time 3D had lived up to its promise.
If Dolby Laboratories has anything to say about it, it won't be the last. On Tuesday, the company announced that theater exhibitors will now be able to play Dolby 3D Digital Cinema content on screen sizes of up to 70 feet (42 feet was the previous cap).
(Credit:
Barco)
If you went to the "Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience!" on a 42-foot screen thinking, "You know that was cool, but I still have most of my face attached," just wait until a full 70 feet of pure Jonas Brothers rock completely melts your f#*@ing face off!
Dolby went on to talk about its "environmentally friendly and reusable" Dolby 3D Glasses, which, according to the company, can be used repeatedly, significantly reducing the cost per viewing for exhibitors. My guess is that this probably won't translate into lower ticket prices, though.
Seemingly timed to coincide with the Dolby announcement, Texas Instruments announced its next generation DLP Cinema technology on Tuesday. The new platform is compliant with a newly adopted set of Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) standards and integrates the DLP Cinema tech onto one single board, down from three.
According to Texas Instruments, the new DLP Cinema chipset integrates high-security requirements and specification architecture defined by the DCI while providing a cost reduction to OEM partners.
Again, just my opinion, but moviegoers will probably only see higher ticket prices. Right now in San Francisco it costs $34 for a couple to see a movie in IMAX at night. Here's hoping all of this cheaper technology one day translates to cheaper seats. I won't hold my breath.
Archos, more known for its PVPs like the Archos 5 pictured here, is now working on an Android device.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CBS Interactive)Thanks to a lovely little press release from Texas Instruments, we now know that Archos is working on a new product line of ultrathin Internet Media Tablets (IMTs) with voice functionality provided by the Google Android operating system.
The release highlights the fact that the new series will use TI's OMAP3 processor and goes on to detail the features of the product, stating that Android will contribute the smartphone and applications environment while Archos will bring the multimedia and Web capabilities.
Given that the company is known for its portable video players, it's no surprise multimedia plays a prominent role. Just take a look at these specs:
- High-resolution 5-inch screen with full-width page viewing
- Adobe Flash and Flash video support
- TV recording and HD playback, all formats
- Up to 500GB storage
- Battery life: seven hours video playback
Texas Instrument said the Android-based IMT would be available during the third quarter of 2009, but there's no word on pricing.
[Source: Gizmodo]
The next-generation USB specification is slated to be introduced later this month.
USB 3.0 SuperSpeed logo as shown at WinHEC 2008
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)On November 17 the SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) Developers Conference, hosted by the USB Implementers Forum in San Jose, Calif., will unveil the USB 3.0 specification to the industry, according to a statement Wednesday from the Implementers Forum.
The USB 3.0 specification, a next-generation high-speed connection standard due in 2009, is significant because all future PCs and devices will use connectors based on it. The spec is also expected to offer 10 times the speed of USB 2.0--used in virtually all PCs introduced in the last few years--or roughly 5 gigabits per second.
Hewlett-Packard, Intel, NEC, NXP Semiconductors, Microsoft, and Texas Instruments are all backers of SuperSpeed USB.
Speaking at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in Los Angeles, USB-IF President Jeff Ravencraft said he expects the final specifications to be made public on November 17.
Intel and Nvidia had been skirmishing over the standard but resolved their differences.
(Credit:
Optoma)
We'd almost forgotten about the "Pico Projector" as more than a year had passed since we'd heard of it making any significant progress. But when our colleagues at Crave Asia spotted a working demo using the technology earlier this month, we were reminded of its promises to project photos and video from mobile phones and other portable devices.
Now Taiwan-based projector company Optoma is partnering with Texas Instruments to bring its own version of the micro-projector to market. Its technology requires a separate companion product, rather than projecting directly from a phone or media player, but it's a start: The "micro-portable" device weighs only 4 ounces.
The Optoma Pico Projector, which uses TI's DLP chipset and LED technology, casts images that are up to 100 times larger than the originals displayed on a handheld device, whether it be a media player, smartphone, or digital camera. It's scheduled to launch in Europe and Asia this year, with plans to arrive on the U.S. market in 2009.
Texas Instruments has a new OMAP chip to set upon the world, and this time around it's eyeing more than mobile phones.
The new OMAP3440 made its debut in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2008. This is the latest in TI's line of OMAP applications processors, which are the equivalent of the CPUs inside PCs.
TI sells standalone applications processors like the 3440 to customers such as Nokia for use in high-end smartphones, but it is also talking up the potential for the 3440 as a chip for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). That's Intel's name for an evolving class of handheld computer that's a bit more powerful than a smartphone but smaller and longer running than a notebook.
TI isn't willing to give Intel any ground when it comes to portable handheld devices. Intel has already tried to gain ground against chipmakers like TI, Samsung Electronics, and Freescale Semiconductor with its XScale program. The XScale chip did fairly well as a standalone applications processor, but attempts by Intel to also get into the cellular modem business flopped, and the company offloaded the division in 2006 to Marvell Technology Group.
The new chip, like the Nvidia APX 2500 also unveiled Monday, can record and playback 720p high-definition video. It uses ARM's Cortex A8 core running at 800MHz and can be used with any modem. TI hopes to have samples out for customers to start testing in phone and MID designs by the end of the second quarter.
This whole thing started weeks ago when fellow Craver Tim Moynihan posted a story on a vintage NES game controller and cartridge that had been modded into an MP3 player and portable speaker. Not to be outdone, I realized that my homebrew MP3 player, the Little Professor, needed an equally nostalgic portable speaker system. A quick look through my closet produced the most worthy candidate imaginable--a malfunctioning vintage Texas Instruments Speak & Spell, manufactured the same year as the Little Professor--the year of my birth, 1978. Excellent.
Transforming the Speak & Spell into a portable speaker system wasn't nearly as elegant as I had hoped, but by performing a quick and dirty transplant of the broken Speak & Spell guts with an eviscerated iMainGo iPod speaker system, I was able to get a kick-ass system in just a few hours.
Here's a slide show of the Speak & Spell surgery.
(Credit:
Texas Instruments)
It's taken decades, but it all makes sense now.
When we were kids, TI calculators seemed as common as No. 2 pencils, but they were used basically as extensions of multiplication tables and other rote learning. Now, Texas Instruments claims to have finally made the leap into the interactive future with the "TI-Navigator."
This handheld device lets students send their work instantly and wirelessly to teachers' computers in the classroom. Not only can instructors review answers in real time, but they can also analyze student thought processes as they observe the keys being punched to "understand who's not getting it," TI chief executive Rich Templeton said at a Reuters technology conference this week.
The Big Brother aspect of these systems may not be appreciated by privacy-minded types. But given the way public education has performed (or hasn't, to be more accurate), we think most parents will find it a fair tradeoff.
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