Nick: Motorola and Verizon unveil an Android smart phone, Toshiba let’s you bring power on the go, and robots make quick work of household tasks, all that news and more on this week’s World Tech Update. Thanks for joining us here on World Tech Update, this week I’m back in Boston, I hope you enjoyed our Windows 7 coverage from New York last time. We’ll start our news this week with the new Android base smart phone from Motorola. Motorola and Verizon say it’s the first phone using Android 2.0 and the first and only Android phone on Verizon’s network. The phone has a 3.7 inch screen with a resolution of 480 by 854 pixels. The Droid has both a slide out physical corded keyboard and a virtual one on the phone’s screen. It also has three customizable home screen panel.
Cesar: So I fully customized the three panels to my own liking, so on your left hand side here, you’ll see that I have my Facebook which is at top, and I’ve got four applications beneath it along with sports tap on the bottom. Sports tap gives you live scores coming straight to your desktop via the widget. If I just pan to the right hand screen, I’ve got a weather widget, a music widget and a bunch of other shortcuts to applications that I most like, Youtube, music, and more.
Nick: The Droid is what the company’s call a unified contact list in phone book that pulls information from Gmail, Exchange and Facebook. There’s also voice activated search through Google. It has a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash for photos and can also shoots standard definition video at 24 frames per second. It won't go on sale though until November 6th and it will be available exclusively through Verizon for a hundred and 99 US dollars with a two year contract and after a 100 dollar mailing rebate. Toshiba has launch a fuel cell capable of charging your gadgets when there isn’t a power outlet in sight. This is Toshiba’s Dynario fuel cell charger, it went on sale on Japan via Toshiba’s website last week in a limited batch of 3000 and can charge gadgets without plugging in to the wall. The device is about the same size as a PSP which is one of the devices it can charge. It will also handle iPods, cellphone, music players, and many but not all devices that accept charging over USB.
Fumio: The chemistry inside is methanol as a fuel will convert it to, directly convert it to electrical power which charge a battery inside to directly supply the power for the game machine or something.
Nick: The methanol comes in cartridges, each good for about 3 and a half refills, each refill should charge your cellphone twice. The charger cost 29,800 yen, that’s about 325 US dollars and a pack of 5 cartridges cost 3150 yen or about 34 US dollars. The Dynario will be available in Japan only, although Toshiba could take the technology overseas. Apple has released a new wireless mouse with gesture control similar to what’s available on Apple’s multi touch track pad. Called the Magic Mouse, it ships with new iMac models that were announced last week. You can use a single finger to scroll around. It also supports swipe gestures, swiping left with two fingers in Safari will move you back a page, or in iPhoto, you can move forward and backward in a stack of images. The Magic Mouse retails separately for 69 US dollars. In gaming news this week, Nintendo’s profits were cut in half as sales of its Wii consoles slowed. Nintendo sold 5.75 million Wii consoles during the April to September period, down 43 percent on the same period a year earlier it said Thursday. The sharp drop is contributed to a lack of big name games which often produce a bump in sales as they draw new users to the platform. Playstation 3 console owners will soon be able to stream Netflix movies and TV shows directly to their game consoles. Starting on November, Netflix subscribers in the US will be able to use the service at no extra cost. Those who don’t have an account will need to sign up before accessing any content. The Playstation isn’t the only or first console to have the capability though, Netflix content has been available on Microsoft’s XBOX360 since last year. It may help them earn university credits but a robot developed by Japanese students won't help combat the image of a lazy college kid. This robot has been designed to fold cloths, called Foldy, the robot is monitored by the PC through a camera and 2D barcode. The computer instructs the robot where to go and when to fold so the garment is folded as specified.
Charith: You just put a cloth there, then the camera over there captures the outline and creates a virtual cloth in the system, then the virtual cloth, you can drag and drop and give instructions of way you want to fold.
Nick: Foldy wasn’t the only thing on display at the digital contents expo in Tokyo, so as this ring that provides a bridge between the real and virtual worlds. With the ring on a finger, it's possible to touch a virtual creature on screen, a camera facing the user and two Wii remote controls rig to work as infrared sensors, monitor the finger position and control the onscreen character accordingly. The project has two goals, one is the ring and the second is the onscreen character.
Shoichi: A charades in a regular game moves according to per-programmed motions but there we are calculating and moving the character in real time.
Nick: A small motor on the ring gives the user haptic feedback by vibrating to simulate touch. Panasonic is working on several new robots in a push to make robotics a new business stream. With one of this in your kitchen, you may never have to do the dishes again, its four robotic fingers can grip objects tightly enough to hold them, but not enough to break them and manipulate kitchen utensils as well. A camera overhead watches to make sure it doesn’t get confuse as it empties glasses into the sink and then effortlessly puts them in to the dishwasher for cleaning. Panasonic is eyeing home use robots as one of a number of fields in which it wants to do business. Its aim, sales of a hundred billion yen, that’s about 1.1 billion US dollars in 2015. It’s also looking to industrial and hospital use robots like this portarobot that can be used to assist workers in pulling heavy objects like medical carts. Some of the prototype robots could start showing up as soon as next year, but others like this robotic bed will take longer to get to market. Well that’s our show for this week, thanks for joining us here in World Tech Update, to find out what’s coming up on every weeks show, follow us on Twitter and check out Facebook fan page. Got something you like to tell us, then shoot us an email. As we head out we leave you with more footage from the digital content expo in Tokyo, I’m Nick Barber and from all of us here in the IDG News Service, thanks for watching, and we hope to see you next week.
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