Yes, that 50 Cent. Curtis Jackson III will be joining Brian on stage to discuss his move from rapper to headphone mogul, as the CEO of SMS Audio. 50′s partner in audio, SMS President Brian Nohe will be also be joining in on the fun.
January 10, 2013 1:00 PM ESTCheck out our full CES 2013 stage schedule here!
Continue reading Live from the Engadget CES Stage: an interview with 50 Cent
Related Posts: 
January 30th, 2013 marks the beginning of a new era for RIM. It will put to rest those doubters who questioned whether the company could survive long enough to complete its painful transition away from BlackBerrys past and onto BlackBerry 10. The question then becomes what the market will do with this wholly new OS — whether RIM can be more successful at regaining its former smartphone stature than Microsoft has thus far proven to be with its own mobile OS reboot. If there’s one person who has put more thought into that situation than any other its RIM President and CEO Thorsten Heins, a man who will be celebrating something else in January: his first anniversary at the top. How has culture changed at RIM over that year and what can we expect from the company in the weeks and months to come? Answers to those questions and more in our full interview below.
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, RIM
The Engadget Interview: RIM CEO Thorsten Heins on BlackBerry 10, QWERTY keyboards and changing cultures (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Nov 2012 14:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:
The MAKESHOP Show’s intrepid reporter, kid-maker Kristin, finds out about basketball playing robots built by the Girls of Steel for the FIRST Robotics Competition. Filmed at the 2012 Pittsburgh Mini Maker Faire on Sept. 22nd at the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh. Visit the Faire online at www.pghmakerfaire.com. Learn more about The MAKESHOP Show at www.makeshopshow.com. Music: BILL EDWARDS – SOMETHING DOING (1930)
Related Posts:
There’s been quite a bit of disruption in bikes recently and the Bicymple is no exception. Designed by Josh Bechtel, the bike aims to be easy to ride, trouble free, and less expensive than traditional gear and chain models. You can check out a video here but we got a chance to talk with Josh a bit about his new design.
TC: What’s the impetus for this? Josh: Ultimately, my passion for bicycles is the driving force behind the Bicymple. I’ve been riding bikes regularly since I was a child. I have more bikes than I care to admit to strangers on the web and people I’ve only just met. It’s a problem. I love cross country bikes, downhill bikes, road bikes, single speeds, fixies, cruisers, city bikes, clean bikes, rusty bikes, light bikes, heavy bikes…shall I go on? I think unicycles are great, too!
I built my first home-built bike back in the late 90′s. It was a traditional full suspension bike and I even successfully raced it. At the time, you could get away with that sort of thing, but as bike technology and building methods and materials advanced, it became tougher and tougher to compete in that way–especially for an average guy with a full time job and bills to pay. When the movement toward minimalist bikes came back around, it revitalized the bike builder in me and got me thinking about ways I could leave a mark, no matter how small it might be, in the world I am so passionate about. I started riding a single speed with a coaster brake that I had built up mostly out of used parts and it just made me so happy it got me thinking about how far one might be able to go in that direction. I started with a sketch of a standard bike and began crossing off parts one by one and addressing the problems created with each deletion until I ended up with a direct drive, freewheeling bike. From there, I felt like it might actually have become too simple. I felt it needed something else–a surprise in its back pocket–and the rear-steer was just the solution. I fully realize the contradiction this presents with the concept of simplicity and like the tension that creates.
TC: Is this the first bike of this particular type? I seem to remember seeing something like this before, but why this style and why now?
Josh: Yes and no. There have been swing bikes before, for certain, but they were all chain driven. There have been direct drive bikes before, too, but none (as far as I’m aware) had any lockout mechanism for the rear steering and they were all non-freewheeling and had smaller wheels, which severely limited their real-world practicality and left them in a purely “trick-bike” niche. I imagine most are familiar with the old penny farthing, too, and there are obvious connections there, too.
The bicymple might, however, bring these previous concepts together in a way that hasn’t been seen before. There seems to be a misconception out there on the web that I think that the established bicycle design is somehow lacking or insufficient, but that’s simply not the case. To me, that would be like thinking that anyone who ever picked up a paintbrush thought that Michelangelo just couldn’t hack it. I think that idea is a bit silly, really. The bicymple provides yet another outlet, another opportunity to accomplish the same goals as many other bikes, it just does it in a different way! Part of what makes life so great, in my mind, is diversity–and the bicycle world is a great example of this!
TC: What did you have to change to get it work properly? Is it really like a unicycle with another wheel? Something else? Josh: At first glance, especially when you see someone riding it, it’s easy to see the similarities with a unicycle. Right away “the two-wheeled unicycle” became a nickname for it and the obvious oxymoron created by that name is pretty entertaining to me. It’s actually how I tend to explain it to those who haven’t seen it. The things that set it apart and make it special are obviously the rear steering, but also the fact that the rear steering can be locked out, allowing it to be ridden just like a regular bike. Many comments out there on the web overlook this key fact. It’s one of the subtle surprises that the bicymple has up its sleeve. The overdrive hub is another surprise. It is currently in development and has caught the attention of many in both the bicycle and unicycle communities. The classic thinking is that the only way to go faster with a direct coaxial drive is to increase the size of the wheel, which was the famous fatal flaw of the penny farthing. A few clever designs out there for unicycles have gotten around this but at quite a price. We’ll be able to accomplish the same goal at a price that should be quite affordable. It’s a compact, sealed, zero-service unit so you’ll never have to think about it–and it certainly won’t get your pants leg greasy!
TC: How much does it cost to build? How much was your prototype?
Josh: We’re not addressing dollar amounts until we’re able to offer an accurate retail price.
TC: Bummer. When will you be ready to build some? Will you sell it via Kickstarter?
Josh: Our plan from the start has been to get an initial run built and provide them as test bikes to select bike shops. The incredible support and enthusiasm and sheer number of purchase requests from around the globe has made us consider a different approach. There is a very good chance we will be on Kickstarter in the coming weeks. Stay tuned for that. Crowdfunding is such a fantastic way for people to get their hands on products they never would have been able to before, so we’d be silly to not pursue that.
TC: What would you say to people who say it looks pretty goofy? Does it look as weird as those recumbent bikes? Josh: I think it’s great if people think it looks goofy! I think it looks goofy too! It’s just not something many of us are accustomed to seeing. Ultimately, though, many, many people have expressed a great deal of interest and think it is a beautiful sort of goofy. From the first sketches, that’s how I felt about it. Wait, recumbent bikes look goofy?
TC: Have you ridden around on this in Bellingham? What do people think?
Josh: Oh yes, the bicymple has been out and about plenty. The reception has all been incredibly positive. I get yells from people across the street, from over fences and through windows, all curious and wanting to understand what it is they’re looking at. It is certainly eye-catching and incredibly unique. Those who are adventurous love the fact that the rear can be set loose to swing freely and really like the challenge it presents. Those less adventurous appreciate the ability to lock the steering out and pedal normally. I look forward to the bicymple getting in the hands of some really skilled trials riders to see the sorts of things they’re capable of doing with it–unicyclists, too! Thanks again, and let me know if you have any other questions!
www.freescale.com – Alex Dopplinger, industrial segment manager for robotics and automation, explains Freescale’s role in developing platforms that support industrial Ethernet protocols—from smart grid to traffic management to water treatment to transportation. She also shares how robots are increasingly interacting in our lives — do you have a robot in your home yet? Video Rating: 0 / 5
Related Posts:
Language Automation, Inc.’s interview with a Mexico City-based game developer regarding the recent launch of the mobile game Mictlan – Phyne Games’ culturally and regionally-rooted game. Part 1 includes an introduction describing the state of the video game industry in Mexico. Part 2 marks the beginning of the interview and Part 3 the second half and conclusion. If you have suggestions for improvements or interest for future participation in a LAI interview, please tweet us @LanguageAutoInc. Language Automation, Inc. (LAI) is a Bay-area based boutique game localization and technical translation company serving the video game industry for nearly 20 years. We translated and localized games for publishers like Konami, Ubisoft, SCEA, Sony, and ngmoco. Our areas of expertise include MMOs, console and mobile games, and span languages in all major markets. Find out more about our organization at www.lai.com and learn more about the specialized field of video game translation and localization at our blog http Our monthly newsletter includes industry information and keeps our readers up-to-date with relevant worldwide conferences. You can sign up at bit.ly Phyne Games is an independent game development company based in Mexico City. Their first game – Mictlan – was released for Windows Phone 7 and is based upon Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead. You can follow their updates @PhyneGames and at www.phynegames.com. Video Rating: 0 / 5
Related Posts:
Today at the Windows Phone Developer Summit, we had the opportunity to sit down with Kevin Shields, SVP of Program and Product Management at Nokia, and chat about the day’s announcements including Windows Phone 8. Our discussion started with the apps Nokia unveiled today — PlayTo for DLNA support, Nokia Counter to monitor data usage, My Commute for personalized routing, an update of Nokia Music to 3.0 and the Camera Extras imaging suite — which are rolling out next week for all Lumia handsets running Windows Phone 7.5. Kevin gave us a little more insight on Camera Extras, a set of four apps (Self Timer, Panorama Maker, Action Shot and Smart Group Shot) designed to enhance the camera experience which leverage technology from Nokia’s recent Scalado acquisition.
We then moved on to discussing Windows Phone 8 and specifically NFC support, with a small tangent spent on Kevin showing us the recently launched Lumia 610 NFC. The next topic was about what we can expect from Nokia in terms of hardware for upcoming phones running the latest iteration of Microsoft’s mobile OS. We know that the first batch of Windows Phone 8 devices will be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Plus dual-core SoC, but on the topic of quad-core processors Kevin said “where additional hardware makes a difference, then sure, let’s talk about it,” adding “we’re going to stay committed to the experience.” Finally we discussed the future of Nokia’s PureView technology and how it fits in with the next generation mobile OS. PureView “is a core technology that we are dedicated to and invested in” said Kevin. Sounds quite promising, right?
We can’t wait to see what the next wave of Lumia handsets brings to the table. Until then, go ahead and watch our video interview.
The Engadget interview: Nokia’s Kevin Shields talks Windows Phone 8 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Jun 2012 19:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts:If you enjoy smoking fine botanical products, including, but not limited to, tobacco, you owe it to yourself to check out the Pax by Ploom, a compact vaporizer with a spacious oven and a few features that make the experience of lighting up quite a treat.
The guys at Ploom have been working on vaporizers for a while, introducing the Ploom ModelOne in 2010. This small e-cigarette used small pods to release fragrant smoke. The Pax, however, uses electricity versus butane and can burn almost anything.
I talked to James Monsees, CEO and Creative Director, about the new product and his vision for taking vaporizers – and their owners – to the next level.
TC: Tell me about yourself. Who are you?
James: Adam and I met in the graduate product design program at Stanford, the Joint Program in Design. The JPD has an amazing space in the middle of campus called the Design Loft where everyone effectively lives for a period of 2-3 years. So naturally, we spent a lot of time together and realized that we both had similar interests. Both of us have Physics undergraduate degrees and we both have a high level of interest in art as well. I had a bit of a background in industrial design and mechanical design, and Adam had been interested for a long time in electronics and high tech and had been doing IT infrastructure work in the Valley for a few years before we met. Interestingly enough, it was a completely unrelated conversation about smoking that steered us in a radically different direction than we would have assumed our careers were headed.
TC: How long did this take? What was the process?
James: Adam and I started Ploom as a Masters thesis, which was presented in the spring of 2005. Ploom was really just a concept at that point, but we had done some initial patent research, made initial early prototypes, and had received an incredible amount of interest from people that we interviewed and worked with, enough so that we felt like Ploom was really worth pursuing. So the next year, when I was a Fellow at the d.school on campus, Adam was living in a house with some friends on an old apple orchard at the edge of Palo Alto. We took over a room and continued prototyping, researching and further developing a cohesive business plan.
Tobacco isn’t the easiest, most straightforward category for which to seek investment in Silicon Valley, so we met with probably at least 100 VCs and Angels in and around the technology space before we really understood how things worked. In the summer of 2006 some friends offered for us to occupy a desk in the corner of their office in San Francisco in exchange for two hours of brainstorming a week. The next year we raised our initial seed capital from two Angel groups and incorporated, and though we’re on our fifth office space, we’re still in that same building in SF.
TC: Why did you guys develop a vaporizer? Why not an iPod case? Why not a mouse?
James: I would argue that there are no other markets this size where so little consumer-visible technology has changed in multiple decades. Simply put, the tobacco space is a huge opportunity where we thought we could make a meaningful impact. There is obviously a large opportunity for the business to exist, but more importantly there is an incredible swell of consumer demand that really needs to be met. Though tobacco product offerings weren’t really changing, consumer tobacco product demands really have been, and our view was that traditional tobacco companies were not going to meet those needs on their own. Adam and I really enjoy tobacco but always felt conflicted about being smokers, or social smokers. We saw a personal need for a product of this kind to exist, and found that upon further research others voiced this need as well.
TC: What was the hardest thing you came up against in designing the device?
James: Our technological curiosity has no bounds. Taking technology and pushing it to new limits is exciting to us. The biggest obstacle is deciding where to best channel Ploom’s abilities in the complex tobacco market that best positions Ploom as a new, trustworthy brand in the tobacco space. We are really proud of PAX.
There’s a lot more yet to come.
TC: What was your design inspiration?
James: The consumer. Other products in the vaporizer space seem to be designed as gizmos where people feel a sense of achievement when they figure out how to use them. Functionality doesn’t just mean that something turns on or heats up or produces vapor. Functionality means that components fit their human interface, that buttons are obvious in their functionality or just plain not there, that knobs and indicators are taken to the absolute level of simplicity and necessity, and all this is done while pushing the bounds of what is possible from an engineering perspective.
That is what we have achieved with PAX. At the end of the day, we feel any product in this space should be a luxury good. We wanted PAX to exude elegance. There should be a pride in carrying PAX around and a visceral satisfaction in using it.
TC: How hard is it to make hardware these days? What’s needed?
James: Hardware is really tough in the Valley these days. Software seems to be truly in vogue, though my personal perspective is that while most software startups eschew dollars and cents for theoretical return, hardware will always have an intrinsic value to consumers and is hence satisfying to me in a way that software seldom is. Anyone who wants to work in hardware needs to be ready for a rough ride. There are capital requirements, substantial business planning, and heavy market analysis needs that require a wide breadth of knowledge and a willingness to work insanely long hours, especially at the earliest stages.
TC: Have things changed in the hardware space recently? Are there new tools you’ve discovered?
James: We make a lot of SLA (stereolithography) prototypes because we’re often dealing with high-temperature components. Years ago we discovered some cool new ceramic-based SLA resins that when properly cured and handled can help cut the development time for a serious prototype by a large margin. Getting things in people’s hands is always high priority for us so we maintain a small on-site machine shop where we regularly hack things out in the brainstorming stage, often as simple as foam core or cardboard.
TC: Do you guys enjoy using the vaporizer, now and again, for recreational purposes?
James: We love the ritual and elegance that smoking was once all about. I like to think we’ve moved beyond burning things and into an era where sophisticated enjoyment of tobacco has really arrived. Then again, we’re always looking forward to what’s next.
this is a interview with Nakajima san about dragonballz for kinect SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE DRAGONBALLZ NEWS!!! Video Rating: 0 / 5
Related Posts:
While visiting the Innovation Showcase at CTIA 2012, we ran into Nick Pudar — OnStar’s VP of Business Development — who was kind enough to give us a few minutes of his time. We sat in the LTE Skype-enabled Chevy Volt on display and discussed such topics as OnStar FMV, RelayRides and smart grids — wherein power utilities can (with the customer’s consent) send a signal to a vehicle to control when it charges. The idea is to allows utilities to maximize grid efficiency and minimize power spikes while giving customers options for when to charge the vehicle — like when the rates are the lowest or when the power generated is coming from renewable energy, for example. Pretty neat stuff, eh? Watch our video interview for all the (pardon the pun) juicy details.
The Engadget interview: OnStar’s Nick Pudar talks smart grids at CTIA 2012 (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 May 2012 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | Comments
Related Posts: