Developages - Development and Technology Blog

Filed under: Gaming

No need to phone in the shock police — you had to know this was coming. After all, what kind of stockholder-pleasing company would Nintendo be if it wasn’t already thinking about how to top the Wii? According to information in a recent Forbes piece surveying the field of gaming consoles, Nintendo is “already working on the Wii’s successor.” President Satoru Iwata shared that the Big N was “always preparing for the next hardware,” though it would be unwise to expect said hardware anytime soon. With Wii consoles still hard (or at least not “easy“) to come by in some locales, we’d say Nintendo is in no hurry to move beyond its current cash cow. Still, even Iwata admits that it “will be difficult” to exceed expectations now that the Wii has proven so successful. Not really, though — throw in high-def support and you’ve got an entirely more lovable machine.

[Via Nintendo Wii Fanboy]

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Original post by Darren Murph

These funky watches, featuring waving White House hopefuls, are the latest gimmick in a strange and exciting new world of politics-gone-tech.

Conceived by a serial inventor and entrepreneur Steven Edelson and first introduced during the 2004 presidential election, the watches are back with brand new candidate dials for another go-around. In addition to keeping its owner current, each of the watches actually helps track the candidates’ popularity. That’s because the purchase of every timepiece translates to a vote on the ElectionWatch poll. What’s the score so far? According to the latest count, Obama watches are outselling McCains’ more than 10 to 1, while the beckoning “third hand” on the Hillary Clinton dial is waving good bye.

“Most election paraphernalia are conversation stoppers,” says Edelson. “These watches have a whimsy that’s an icebreaker.” Want to grab your own? Go here.

Original post by Steven Volynets

While the rest of the media is focused on more important hot button political issues, such as the manner of stupid comments one of the three current presidential front runners let slip during their latest marathon press junket, Ars Technica has taken a closer look at what Chuck Fish and Daniel Weitzner, representatives for Barack Obama and John McCain, respectively, said about certain key technology issues while addressing the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy conference in New Haven, Connecticut last week.

Among the issues tackled during their panel were net neutrality and retroactive immunity for telecoms. Prior to representing McCain, Fish worked as a Time Warner exec. Weitzner, Obama’s technology adviser, is an MIT computer scientist.

As fun as it is to tall candidates’ Myspace friend pool, these are the manner of tech issues that will really come into play with whomever inhabits the white house for the next four to eight years. Odds are that these won’t be make or break issues for most voters, but they’re certainly worth noting as the race for the white house continues to tighten. And of course Ars would be remiss were they to omit at least one mention of Ron Paul…

Original post by Brian Heater

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Honestly, we’re exhausted by the sheer magnitude of 3G iPhone chatter swamping the rumor channels (and our inbox). Nevertheless, it would be a disservice to you, dear reader, if we let this one slide without comment. The perennial Apple touchscreen tablet rumor was given a fresh polish yesterday by Intel’s chief German Burgermeister. Hannes Schwaderer stated unequivocally that Apple would be using the new Intel Atom processor in a “future iPhone” which is slightly larger than the existing model due to a larger display. Of course, this isn’t the first time that Intel has openly discussed Apple’s plans to develop products based on Intel’s Centrino Atom, Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform. And as MacRumors and AppleInsider point out, an older rumor calls for a new multi-touch Apple tablet to launch mid-year with a 720 x 480 display on a device said to be about 1.5x the size of the current iPhone. With Intel officially launching Atom in June and Jobs’ next keynote scheduled for June 9th… well, it wouldn’t surprise us to see Otellini riding a chocolate pony on stage with a multi-touch Newton in hand. Actually, that would be surprising.

[Via MacRumors and AppleInsider]

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Honestly, we’re exhausted by the sheer magnitude of 3G iPhone chatter swamping the rumor channels (and our inbox). Nevertheless, it would be a disservice to you, dear reader, if we let this one slide without comment. The perennial Apple touchscreen tablet rumor was given a fresh polish yesterday by Intel’s chief German Burgermeister. Hannes Schwaderer stated unequivocally that Apple would be using the new Intel Atom processor in a “future iPhone” which is slightly larger than the existing model due to a larger display. Of course, this isn’t the first time that Intel has openly discussed Apple’s plans to develop products based on Intel’s Centrino Atom, Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform. And as MacRumors and AppleInsider point out, an older rumor calls for a new multi-touch Apple tablet to launch mid-year with a 720 x 480 display on a device said to be about 1.5x the size of the current iPhone. With Intel officially launching Atom in June and Jobs’ next keynote scheduled for June 9th… well, it wouldn’t surprise us to see Otellini riding a chocolate pony on stage with a multi-touch Newton in hand. Actually, that would be surprising.

P.S. That’s a pic of Intel’s concept MID from Mr. Blurry Cam.

Update: Er, ZDNET.de has printed a disclaimer from Intel saying that ZDNET got the whole thing wrong. Intel claims that Schwaderer’s comments were generic and not based on specific knowledge about future iPhone models. Where’s the damning video evidence when you need it?

[Via MacRumors and AppleInsider]

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We can’t really see the logic in releasing a Blu-ray player without BD-Live in 2008 — and neither can Samsung, which just announced its fourth generation BD-P1500 will be BD-Live Ready. The bad news is the May release date announced earlier has slipped to June, and the formerly comfortable $399 MSRP is now a less promising TBA. We’re not sure if that “ready” tag means it will be BD-Live enabled out of the gate, however DTS-HD “High resolution” is confirmed on the way in a future firmware update. A slight delay for a significant upgrade in features? We’ll allow it.

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Original post by Richard Lawler

Filed under: Gaming

It’s April 15th which means one thing: taxes PS3 firmware 2.30 is due. Right on cue, Sony made good on the new PlayStation Store and DTS-HD Master Audio sound reproduction sure to make audiophile-types lean in for a listen. The Store is acting a bit sluggish at the moment, something that’s likely to get sorted once the rolling update is completed. Nevertheless, users are claiming easier navigation and richer experience. So whatcha looking at — get out of here kid, there’s on-line updating to be done.

[Thanks, Paul R., Nathan, and everyone who sent this in]

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Cellphones

Want the Internet in your pocket? Good, because that’s what LG is offering to South Koreans with its new LG-LH2300 Touch Web phone. This ain’t your father’s baby Internet mind you, the LH2300 features a new “Hello UI” riding atop 800 x 480 pixels spread across a 3-inch touchscreen LCD. LG didn’t stop with the web though as the LH2300 also packs T-DMB mobile TV, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD memory, and a jog wheel for easy page scrolling. Its 3 megapixel camera sports face recognition and anti-shake tech. No specifics on the included “high speed” data service. Nevertheless, that front facing camera’s a pretty good clue that this pup won’t be riding EDGE when it launches in Korea next month for a mere $600 US equivalent.

[Via AVING]

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Cellphones

Want the Internet in your pocket? Good, because that’s what LG is offering to South Koreans with its new LG-LH2300 Touch Web phone. This ain’t your father’s baby Internet mind you, the LH2300 features a new “Hello UI” riding atop 800 x 480 pixels spread across a 3-inch touchscreen LCD. LG didn’t stop with the web though as the LH2300 also packs T-DMB mobile TV, Bluetooth 2.0, microSD memory, and a jog wheel for easy page scrolling. Its 3 megapixel camera sports face recognition and anti-shake tech. No specifics on the included “high speed” data service. Nevertheless, that front facing camera’s a pretty good clue that this pup won’t be riding EDGE when it launches in Korea next month for a mere $600 US equivalent.

[Via AVING]

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Original post by Thomas Ricker

Filed under: Announcements, Features

We’re creeping up on the Oscars, which means it must also be time for you to vote in the 2007 Engadget Awards! Based on your nominations (and a couple of our own) we’ve compiled a list of over 150 gadgets and technologies that made 2007 the blockbuster year it was for consumer electronics.

Votes will be tallied until Saturday, March 1st; after we’ve checked for abuse we’ll publish the results alongside our own Editors’ Choice picks the following week. May the best gadgets win!

Continue reading Vote for the 2007 Engadget Awards!

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Original post by Ryan Block

Recently I wrote about the challenges of Fax over IP and T.38 real-time faxing and the lack of good T.38 support in Asterisk. Though I did point out a few fax workarounds in Asterisk. I received a flurry of emails and comments. One stated:

There actually is full fledged t.38 support for asterisk: http://www.attractel.com/faxterisk.php

2 week trial licenses are available.

Also have a look at our zoiper softphone which can receive, and in the next version, somewhere next week also transmit faxes over t.38.

I checked out the Faxterisk commercial software solution and it seems like a good T.38 solution for Asterisk. Here’s how it works: a fax terminal passes analog data to a T.38 gateway. The gateway takes the signal, demodulates it and transmits it over the existing IP network to another T.38 capable device(e.g. Internet Aware Fax(IAF) or a compatible Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) or another T.38 gateway that modulates back the digital signal and sends it over the PSTN to another fax terminal.

Faxterisk bold claims, "The sensational part of our Faxterisk solution is that it is actually a far more reliable faxing method than traditional analogue faxing. This is not a phenomenon; it is due to the fact, we may want to believe that landlines are good carriers, but this is far from true as far as greater distances are concerned. IP networks are more reliable carriers over long distances and with our FoIP solution, you will inevitably enjoy faxing more than ever!"

The Faxterisk package includes:
T30faxRX for receiving normal faxes over PSTN
T30faxTX for transmitting normal faxes over PSTN
T38faxTX for T.38 fax origination (IAF fax)
T38faxRX for T.38 fax termination (IAF fax)
T38gate for FoIP gatewaying

You don’t even have to change anything in your dialplan. Basically, Faxterisk auto-detects the fax signal and automatically switches to fax mode. I should mention that Faxterisk works with Asterisk 1.4.X versions only. It supports the following ITU-T modems: V.27ter, V.29 and V.17 with speeds of up to 14400 bps.

Alternatively, Spandsp adds integrated faxing capability to Asterisk via some GPL patches. Spandsp is a library for Digital Signal Processing(DSP) which is used to turn images into fax tone audio signals and back. You can look at this instruction link and the download link for some help installing. Spandsp only supports V.29/9600bps due since higher speed modems for fax are encumbered by patents. spandsp implements only unencumbered standards, so it may be distributed freely.

Tags: Asterisk, fax, Fax over IP, Faxterisk, FoIP, T.38

Original post by Eric

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Need to blow off some serious steam? Got an extra USB port that you just can’t seem to fill? If you managed to answer “yes” to both of said questions, you’re in luck. Coming in March, the USB Punch Head enables users to beat and batter a USB-connected head and receive all sorts of instant gratification as the on-screen face gets disfigured and a variety of expected “oohs” and “arghs” are emitted from your speakers. Best of all, the actual head that you maul is interchangeable, and users can even upload photos of their favorite enemies for maximum satisfaction. Hit the read for a couple of demonstrative videos.

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Original post by Darren Murph