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Sammy's current Cortex A9-based chips are hardly slackers -- the Galaxy Note already proved that to any lingering doubters. Nevertheless, the next-gen Exynos 5250 SoC promises to double that sort of performance, by harnessing two Cortex-A15 chips clocked at 2GHz each, along with a GPU that can output resolutions of up to 2560 x 1600 (WQXGA). It's like big.LITTLE computing, except without the LITTLE. Samsung reckons it'll start mass producing the 5250 for use in high-end tablets by the second quarter of next year, which should be just in time to stop NVIDIA from getting too cocky. New Samsung chip has two of everything: two cores, 2GHz, 2560 x 1600 graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

We've still got quite a while to go before NASA gets back into the space travel game with SLS , but the first pieces of the potential inter-planetary transportation puzzle are starting to fall into place. The $500 million mobile launch tower of the future has already been rolled out and is undergoing structural testing at the Kennedy Space Center. You owe it to yourself to hit up the source link for some more images, including a few from atop the tower. Visualized: Where NASA's SLS will get high originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

In the never-ending quest to give our future robot overlords better tools with which to enslave us, the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) has built what it claims to be the fastest UAV on the planet. Checking in at five meters (16.4 feet) long with a seven meter (23 foot) wingspan, the as-yet unnamed aircraft can cruise at 400km/h (249mph). Speed's not its only standout feature either, as the Korean UAV can perform vertical takeoffs and landings ( VTOL ) as well. Its VTOL capability comes courtesy of dual tilt-rotors that provide helicopter-style takeoffs with fixed wing speeds once airborne. It joins the US Marines famed V-22 Osprey as the second such aircraft on earth and is the first unmanned aircraft packing the technology. The craft is still in the developmental stages, though Korean officials claim it'll be ready for primetime in March 2012, with mass production less than three years away. How much will this fast and flexible flying machine cost? Well, that depen

It likely won't win over anyone who isn't too fond of 3D to begin with, but those looking for some additional quasi-3D content beyond the standard fare now have a new option to consider in the form of Acer's 27-inch HR274H monitor. It not only includes a set of passive, polarized 3D glasses, but what Acer describes as its own "chip-based solution" that promises to convert all 2D content to 3D in real time (it can be switched on and off on the monitor itself). Unfortunately, there's no word yet as to how well the effect works, and the monitor's specs are otherwise decidedly ordinary for the rather high $599 price tag -- you'll just get a TN panel with a standard 1920 x 1080 resolution. Additional details can be found in the press release after the break. Continue reading Acer's 27-inch HR274H monitor promises to do 2D-to-3D conversion on the fly Acer's 27-inch HR274H monitor promises to do 2D-to-3D conversion on the fly originally appeared on

Is there any tablet that's hotter than the Transformer Prime right now? (Please, don't say the Kindle Fire .) For weeks we geeks, early adopters and people who love their tech toys have been awaiting this, and none too patiently. Make no mistake: this will be one of the slickest products we test this year and it isn't just because the original Transformer had such an inventive design. The Prime is the first device packing NVIDIA's hot-off-the-presses Tegra 3 SoC, making it the world's first quad-core tablet. This comes with promises of longer-than-ever runtime and blazing performance (five times faster than Tegra 2, to be exact), all wrapped in a package measuring just 8.3mm (0.33 inches) thick -- even skinnier than the iPad 2 or Galaxy Tab 10.1. Throw in specs like a Super IPS+ Gorilla Glass display, eight megapixel rear camera and a confirmed ICS update in the pipe and even we seen-it-all Engadget editors were drooling. All of which means we dropped just everyt

You win this round, hippies! Only a few months after announcing that it sold 10,000 all-electric Leaf cars in international markets, Nissan stated at the Tokyo Motor Show today that the company has sold over 20,000 Leafs since the car went on sale in December of 2010. Of the 9,000 Leafs that have been sold to U.S. owners, over 60 percent went to homes in California, where owners no doubt admire their electric cars while enjoying their tasty organic kale and starfruit smoothies. The company also added that it expects to sell more than 10,000 Leafs in the U.S. by the end of 2011, which dovetails perfectly into their predictions. Given that the Japanese EV's prime competition has been plagued by concerns about its flammability , Nissan might just exceed those expectations. Nissan sells more than 20,000 Leafs in first year, high-fives commence on Tokyo Motor Show floor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Nov 2011 02:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Sure, it's leaps and bounds away from all the parlor tricks that Siri is able to perform, but now, jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch devices -- that have been upgraded to iOS 5 -- may access the dictation portion of Siri's prowess. Thanks to Siri0us, the free app available through Cydia , users will gain the option to speak messages and search queries rather than type them, which could be a huge time saver -- unless there's a series of mistakes, anyway. Rather than accessing Apple's own system, the app works by tapping into Nuance's Dragon Go servers for speech recognition. Rather subversive, don't you think? If you'd like to get in on the fun (before Nuance breaks up the party), just check the video following the break. Update: Well, who didn't see this one coming? Nuance has pulled the rug out from under Siri0us, and the app has been yanked from Cydia while the developer searches for another speech recognition server. Happy hunting, dud

While Sony confirmed that the PS Vita will be able to dive into the PSP's back-catalog from launch, it looks like it'll miss out on anything pre-millennium. An updated page from the PS Vita's Japanese site has backed up rumors that PSOne Classics and other "archive games" won't be available when the quad-core console arrives in Asian stores next month. However, it's not all bad news for anyone hoping to relive those jaggy-edged gaming triumphs of the late 90's -- the official response adds that plans for older titles will be announced in due course. PlayStation Vita won't play grandpa's games -- for now originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

A robot equipped with stereoscopic vision and some object and facial recognition programs opens up a whole number of different possibilities, but few quite as interesting as what happens when you place said robot in front of a mirror. It took a bit of guidance (and no doubt a bit of prep), but the open source Qbo robot was quickly able to both recognize and learn to identify himself when he was recently placed in just such a situation. See what happened after the break. Continue reading Qbo robot looks in a mirror, learns who he is (video) Qbo robot looks in a mirror, learns who he is (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

A Chinese company throwing French around in its product names. Right. Oddities aside, it looks as if the LePhone will soon have LeCompany -- Lenovo will be pushing out its first smart TV in the first quarter of 2012. The simply-titled LeTV will be an internet-connected display, but outside of that, hardly anything else is being made public. There are no launch regions specified, nor a screen size. We're presuming it'll attempt to tie into the greater "Lenovo Cloud," which will purportedly be similar to services already offered by the likes of Apple and Google , though users will be granted access to 200GB at first. Can't imagine too many folks opting for a Lenovo desktop, laptop, smartphone and television, but hey -- ecosystems are indeed all the rage these days. Lenovo trudging into the smart TV arena, plans LeTV launch in Q1 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Does a pair of screens placed over your eyes seem like overkill? Well, AR enthusiasts, Vuzix has heard your calls and has introduced the Tac-Eye LT -- a transparent monocular AMOLED display that only puts info in front of one of your peepers. Unlike some of the company's other head-mounted displays , the Tac-Eye isn't aimed at personal entertainment. Instead, Vuzix envisions it being used as a HUD in rugged environments, offering alerts, data and video feeds. The unit comes mounted on a pair of Oakley specs (of course) but it can easily be clipped to a pair of standard safety glasses. The 800 x 600 see-through display comes in three different configurations: VGA-in, video-in or both. The Tac-Eye LT is available throughout Europe now... at least according to the PR. We couldn't find them for sale anywhere, nor could we track down pricing info. Head on after the break for the full release and a few more technical details. Continue reading Vuzix Tac-Eye LT offers a clip o

While we have an innate fear of the eye in the sky (and the role it'll play in the coming robot apocalypse), there's no doubt that observation satellites do a lot of good -- from recording weather and climate changes to helping coordinate relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters. Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd. (SSTL) has plans to beef up planetary monitoring capabilities with its new NovaSAR satellite, and the company just received ₤21 million from the UK government to make it happen. NovaSAR works using synthetic aperture radar, so it can see through clouds (unlike optical satellites) and offers its services for ₤45 million -- or 20 percent of the cost of existing space radar platforms. With governmental funding in hand, SSTL can begin to develop and build its first such satellite, and the plan is to put it in orbit in two or three years. If NovaSAR does what it's been designed to do, SSTL hopes it can sell and launch enough of them so that any place on earth can

You know what $549.95 gets you in the camera world? About 90 percent of a T3i . Or, you know, a flash . Nikon has just outed the proper successor to the Speedlight SB-900, and at over half a grand, it best be packin' more than just bright lights. The Speedlight SB-910 touts an enhanced operating system and graphic user interface, and comes equipped with a wide zoom range as well as FX / DX-format identification that optimizes zoom settings based on the camera body. The company's also promising better battery life and a bolstered thermal cut-out function -- which offers protection against damage to the flash panel and body from overheating during continuous flash use -- not to mention an improved LCD and the ability to be used as an on-camera flash, wireless commander or remote. You'll get a trio of illumination patterns (standard, center-weighted and even), and it'll be shipping here in the US in just over a fortnight. Here's hoping it's not too late to add a l

You were so happy with that 1080p projection spread across your garage wall. But then you got up to fetch a beer and noticed horrible fingernail-sized pixels all over Johnny Depp's mustache. The illusion promptly shattered and you realized it was time for an upgrade. An £18,000 ($28,000) upgrade, no less, which will render your Blu-rays bearable again by upscaling them to four times the resolution of Full HD and blasting them out at 2,000 lumens. We've seen the VPL-PW1000ES in action with 2D content from a PS3 and its 'Reality Creation' upscaling algorithm really does make a big difference, but if you absolutely insist on having native 4K video then you'll currently need to budget an extra $65,000 for a player. (Well, you insisted.) Sony 4K home cinema projector coming in January for £18,000 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 11:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Samsung's new Bada flagship has just docked into our illustrative French port. Announced back in the summer , the Wave 3 arrives on the refreshed Bada 2.0 OS, powered by a 1.4GHz processor and packing a four-inch 800 x 480 Super AMOLED display. Storage matches the watery iteration, with 3GB of memory baked-in, with expansion possible through microSD. Meanwhile, an auto-focus five megapixel shooter will do its best to fill all that space. Not content with France (where Bada-powered handsets have established a niche fanbase), the HSPA-connected smartphone is also penned to hit Germany, Russia and Italy before the end of the year. Continue reading Samsung Wave 3 crashes onto French shores Samsung Wave 3 crashes onto French shores originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 15:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

Pinches of salt at the ready, folks. According to the latest speculation, Microsoft's sequel to the Xbox 360 will actually be two models, a pared down set-top box for casual gamers and a heftier model for the hardcore. Either way, Xbox 720 / Xbox Loop's getting paired up with a revised version of the magnificent Kinect hardware. The digital grapevine's saying that Kinect 2 will be able to read your lips, track your fingers and sense the tone of your voice to determine if you've come over all angry. It can't do that currently thanks to its USB cable, which can only transmit 16MB/s of data -- limiting the camera's resolution to 320 x 240 at 30fps. We don't know what protocol the new sensor bar will use, but we do know that either USB 3.0 (which can transmit 400 MB/s) or Intel's Thunderbolt (700MB/s) would remove such limitations. In related news, 2012's Kinect for Windows is getting a shorter USB cable for better data integrity and a refocused im

Wondering how we got from there to here ? It's not the most exhaustive or objective history, but Google has released a new video today that it describes as the "evolution of search in six minutes." It includes contributions from the likes of Google's Ben Gomes, Amit Singhal and Marissa Mayer, and it traces the company's search history from its beginnings as a research project in 1996 to its current technologies like instant results and search by image or voice. While specifics are expectedly light, it does also offer a few hints of what Google sees as the future of search, including Amit Singhal's dream to build a "Star Trek computer." See the whole thing for yourself after the break. Continue reading Google offers its own brief history of search (video) Google offers its own brief history of search (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

When in doubt, strip out the moving parts and see what you wind up with. This is the idea inventor Jason Giddings is following as he turns to Kickstarter to help fund the prototype creation for a glass keyboard and mouse, both sporting multitouch functionality. The design uses the same biometric systems that currently capture fingerprints on assorted trackpads and keyboards, and uses a technique known as Frustrated Total Internal Reflection -- which incorporates a series of LEDs on the bottom of a device -- to bounce infrared light beams around the inside of the glass. This process is interrupted when a finger touches the glass, wherein a simple embedded camera captures the event, processes where the keystroke, mouse click or gesture took place and relays the signal to the computer. Continue reading Insert Coin: Prototype peripherals incorporate no moving parts, multitouch functionality and freaking lasers Insert Coin: Prototype peripherals incorporate no moving parts, multitouch fu

It's shaping up to be a wild day for HP: in addition to revamping its Envy laptops and announcing its first Ultrabook , the outfit went and refreshed the mid-range Pavilion dm4. While it has the same metal-heavy design that bowled us over in our review , it trades Altec Lansing audio for Beats and gains a subwoofer. Otherwise, its entry-level specs -- a Core i3 CPU, 6GB of RAM and a 640GB 5,400RPM hard drive -- closely match the starting config available today. And, while the company was at it, HP also announced a red-and-black-spangled Beats Edition. An inevitable move, if you ask us: HP has been pushing its partnership with Dr. Dre so heavily that it went so far as to redesign its Envy laptops with a prominent Beats dial. Then again, this is the first time HP's given the Beats special edition treatment to anything other than a top-shelf machine . In any case, you better be pretty sweet on that red backlit keyboard -- the gussied-up, Dre-approved version starts at $900 (hea

Just last month, we off-handedly said that HP's Envy laptops were among the most shameless MacBook impersonations we've seen. Looks like we spoke too soon: the company just introduced a redesigned Envy 15, Envy 17 and Envy 17 3D, and we have to say: the resemblance in the interior is just uncanny. If you ask company reps, they'll tell you the old taupe design was too masculine (despite the divets arranged in a floral pattern!), and that the new aesthetic is more gender-neutral. Fair enough, we suppose, though we defy you to tell us that touchpad, silvery aluminum chassis and black, chiclet-style keyboard aren't familiar. To be fair, it's not a complete facsimile: HP also throw in a few design flourishes of its own, most of them Beats -inspired. Chief among them is a red-accented, analog volume dial on the right side of the keyboard deck, though the black lid and thin red strip around the keyboard also add some kick. All three laptops will be available December 7th

Yep, HP's on a tear today. In addition to unleashing a trio of redesigned Envy laptops , a refreshed dm4 and one aggressively priced Ultrabook , it has some news to share on the accessories front. The outfit unveiled its Wireless Audio system, which lets you stream audio files from your PC to as many as four compatible speakers. In terms of setup, that photo up there says almost everything: you plug a thumb-sized dongle into your USB port and a larger receiver into the speaker. In the box, you'll also find a software CD to fill in the missing UI piece. The only caveat here (aside from the relative messiness of connecting two intermediary pieces of equipment) is that the system only works with speakers that are compatible with KleerNet's wireless audio technology, and it's likely yours are anyway. In all, the system uses three frequencies (2.4, 5.2 and 5.8GHz) to cut latency and interference, and also supports 5.1 audio. You can pair it with up to four speakers, as we

Amazon and Barnes & Noble aren't the only companies touting some high-profile apps for their Android-based tablets. Kobo has now also announced a partnership with Rdio , which will see the latter company's app (and access to a catalog of more than 12 million tracks) come pre-loaded on the new Kobo Vox tablet. Of course, the Rdio app is already available for other Android devices, but this is certainly at least a small boon for Kobo, which doesn't offer Android Market access on the Vox tablet. Continue reading Kobo partners with Rdio to pre-load app on Vox tablet Kobo partners with Rdio to pre-load app on Vox tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds .

There's some intriguing Nokia news coming out of France this morning, thanks to Paul Amsellem, head of the company's Gallic outpost. In a recent interview with Parisian daily Les Echos , Amsellem described Nokia's aspirations to regain some of the market share it's lost within France, explaining that his firm is squarely targeting the 60 percent of French users who currently don't own a smartphone. More salient, however, is what the exec had to say about Nokia's plans for future releases. According to Amsellem, Espoo will unveil a new Windows 8 equipped tablet by June 2012. Unfortunately, that's about all he had to say on the subject, but it's certainly enough of a carrot to raise our heart rates -- as are Amsellem's comments on the Lumia 800 , which hit French stores yesterday. Comparing the handset to a BMW 5 series, the chief went on to say that Nokia "will soon have a full range with a 7 Series and 3 Series." He didn't elaborate

Last CES Vizio announced a slew of new LCD HDTVs with its passive glasses-compatible Theater 3D capabilities and Vizio Internet Apps built in, and now it's finally ready to announced the M-series midrange lineup is shipping nationwide. M3D models in various 40- and 50-inch sizes have been popping up over the last few weeks, featuring edge LED backlighting for between $1,039 (42-inch) and $1,649 (55-inch). Need something bigger on your wall? There's also a 65-inch version on the way in 2012, with a pricetag of $2,099. As usual, Vizio's displays bring a rather complete line of features without an ultra-high price tag, but there'd be more reasons to share the included four pairs of 3D glasses with friends if the NBA season would just ever start. As is, buyers will have to make do with whatever videogames and college sports they can find for now -- check after the break for more specs and prices. Continue reading Vizio's M-Series Theater 3D TVs are officially availa

It used to be that you only needed a bachelor's degree and elbow patches to be taken seriously as an academic, but now it's all about that 50-petaflop supercomputer with 500 petabytes of storage whirring away in the basement. The University of Illinois used to shop with IBM , but it's just about to have a brand new Cray XK6 installed instead, so it can continue providing computing power to the National Science Foundation's Blue Waters project. It's not all about inciting gadget envy, of course: the machine's unlikely truce of AMD Opteron 6200 16-core processors and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs will help more than 25 teams of scientists to model and understand real-world phenomena, from the damage caused by earthquakes to the way viruses to break into cells. Breakthroughs from these projects will -- hopefully, one day -- make the $188 million total cost of Cray's products and services seem like a bargain. Full details in the PR after the break. Continue reading Unive