Like me, i’m certain that you have  - on more than one occasion – bowed your head in fierce concentration, and focused on your handset’s display while you’re on-the-go. Whether you’re taking a stroll down the main street of your small, country hometown, or wading through the masses in your nearest capital city’s Central Business District; it’s all the same. Of course, it goes without saying that we all know the dangers of firing off a text message without paying any mind to our surroundings: the occasional (yet cliche) manhole, for instance, is an ever-present hazard. Fortunately, as is the nature of technology, someone has found a solution to this issue: and by ” someone”, I am referring to Android developer Sascha Affolter, and by “solution”, I am referring to Transparent Screen, a potential life-saving app offered by the little, green robot that could bring joy to the anti-social and the inattentive…

The concept behind this package is simple: utilising your handset’s camera, Transparent Screen – as its name implies – displays what is in front of your device in order to give the appearance that you can see directly through your tablet or mobile phone. This allows you to perform routine tasks, such as text messaging, while being completely aware of what is in front of you (well, perhaps not completely aware, but somewhat more aware than usual).
Transparent Screen is quite simple to activate, however I couldn’t help but notice that it certainly does take some time in order to find a “transparency sweet spot” –  especially if you are considering using this app while switching between multiple apps. In addition, using your device’s camera and display simultaneously typically empties your battery’s pockets rather quickly, so keep this in mind if you think you may use Transparent Screen for long periods of time.

As shown in the above gallery, Transparent Screen has a simple and clean interface: a large “Start & Stop” button begins or ends a session, while there are a small handful of other settings – most notably, the option to specify the “transparency level” you wish to use – that one may tinker with, and even more features are enabled upon purchasing the Pro version (at a cost of $0.99AU).

In closing, I can’t see myself using this app on a daily basis, but there is no doubt that it gives me a little more confidence when it comes to creating a Facebook Status Update while on-the-move.

Have you tried Transparent Screen, yet? If not, head to the Android Market and grab yourself a copy of the Lite edition –  it’s free, so all you have to lose is time. If you are an avid Transparent Screen user, or have recently tried and like this app (or have found an innovative use for it) swing me a comment. Enlighten me!

Microsoft has just released version 1.0 of the Kinect SDK for Windows. One of the biggest complaints about the beta releases of the SDK was the lack of support for close object recognition. Near mode now allows the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimetres rather than the standard 6 feet.

The 1.0 release of the SDK addresses a number of other issues:

• Support for up to four Kinect sensors plugged into the same computer
• Significantly improved skeletal tracking, including the ability for developers to control which user is being tracked by the sensor
• Near Mode for the new Kinect for Windows hardware, which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 40 centimeters in front of the device
• Many API updates and enhancements in the managed and unmanaged runtimes
• The latest Microsoft Speech components (V11) are now included as part of the SDK and runtime installer
• Improved “far-talk” acoustic model that increases speech recognition accuracy
• New and updated samples, such as Kinect Explorer, which enables developers to explore the full capabilities of the sensor and SDK, including audio beam and sound source angles, color modes, depth modes, skeletal tracking, and motor controls
• A commercial-ready installer which can be included in an application’s set-up program, making it easy to install the Kinect for Windows runtime and driver components for end-user deployments.
• Robustness improvements including driver stability, runtime fixes, and audio fixes

It’s important to keep in mind that the new Near Mode is only available from the new Kinect for Windows, which isn’t available in Australia. You can see from the screenshot below, connecting an existing Kinect to a computer shows under the range selection ‘NearMode not supported on this device’.

Let’s hope Australian availability for Kinect for Windows arrives soon so Aussie developers can start building Windows 7/8 Kinect-enabled applications.

More information @ MSDN or just download the Kinect SDK 1.0 now.

Via The Verge.

There’s an awful lot of rumours about Apple entering the TV market, but this is not it. Apple lawyers get ready for this, Hannspree is selling a 28” 1080p LCD. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of what an Apple branded TV would look like. There’s no clean lines, impressively simple UI and latest generation processor, it’s just an Apple shaped frame around a 28” HDTV.

If you really want to gasp at the nerve of Hannspree, check out the horrible infomercial video at HSN.

More info @ HSN via @Alex_Manchester

What an amazing fall from grace. Kodak, the company that dominated the photography industry for decades has just filed for bankruptcy. A chapter 11 filing doesn’t mean that Kodak will disappear, but it’s an admission things have gone horribly wrong for the company. The idea is to take some time off form the debt collectors while they dramatically restructure the business in a last ditch attempt to save the brand.

Maybe they survive and maybe they don’t but what is clear is that this will go down in history of what not to do when innovation strikes your industry. The revolution of digital photography meant that Kodak’s existing cash cow was about to go away. A technology that took the cost of processing from tens of dollars to zero overnight. It also took the production time for developing from a few days to instant.

Digital photography was better in pretty much every way, so what did the market leader do? They chose to bury their head in the sand and ignore it and have now paid the consequences. Trying to hold onto the massive premiums of the old business model, they ignored technology, a decision that would ultimately spell their downfall.

Interestingly the first digital camera I purchased was a Kodak DX4900, a 4 Megapixel, $900 camera in 2002. Since then I never looked back and have now taken 56,000 photos with more than 10 different cameras. The DSLR market today is dominated by Canon, Nikon and Sony, with Kodak nowhere to be seen. The lesson here is not to ignore innovation.

There’s a saying that if your industry hasn’t been hit by the technology revolution, it’s next.

More information @ ABC

The Nixeus Fusion XS is an Android-powered set-top-box. Running Google Android 2.2 (Froyo), it’s certainly a few steps behind the latest 4.0 version. But does running a custom build of a mobile operating system on your HDTV make any sense? We spent some time with the device, so get ready for the breakdown.

Hardware

The device itself is a small, compact unit, weighing about the same as an average smart phone. The device contains no fans, meaning operation is silent and wrapped in a glossy black finish to match the rest of your home cinema. From the back we get access to HDMI 1.3, 10/100 Ethernet, 802.11b/g, Optical Audio Out, and couple of USB 2.0 ports for accessing media.

There isn’t any SD or media card slots like some STB competitors, which means photos need to go via a PC before they reach your TV. Using one of the rear USB ports or over your network, the Fusion XS will display JPEG, PNG, GIF, Bitmap or TIFF, basically any common image format, minus RAW support.

Inside the components include dual Sheeva Processors running at 900Mhz and 512MB DDR2 RAM.

The remote is fairly typical, which is actually a negative. This device runs custom software, which means many of the remotes buttons go unused. I’m guessing it was easy to brand a control off the shelf that get one custom made.

Format support is pretty decent, supporting AVI, WMV, MPG, VOB, IFO, MP4, ASF, TP, TS, M2TS, MOV(H.264), MKV, M-JPEG, Rmvb, FLV, MPEG 1/2/4, AVI, H.264, WMV9 and VC1 on the video side. As for audio, the Fusion XS can playback MP3, WMA, AAC, Dolby Digital, DTS, FLAC, OGG, MPEG 1 Layer 2, PCM, WMA PRO.

A full list of specs is available here.

Software

With Google Android 2.2 on-board, the device streams a custom UI suited to HDTV’s. It’s an interesting idea, but sadly has many significant drawbacks.

First of all the interface is slow, at times taking 5-10 seconds to enter an app. Other times the device would freeze all together and require a reboot, not when performing an intensive HD video decode, but simply launching an in-built app. There’s a market available to download additional applications like IMDB, Google Reader and many more.

One of the issues is that many of the apps require a mouse to use. If you are comfortable having a mouse (and likely keyboard) in your living room, then you’ll need to source your own, none ship with the device.

Streaming video from online sources like YouTube worked well, but lacks the ability to control playback like skipping forwards or backwards. While the Fusion XS features solid language support, the videos displayed in YouTube, appeared to be Asia rather than Australian.

Jumping into the Settings, the system really breaks down, revealing raw Android UI where the custom skin ends.

To be fair the Fusion XS does support a Google Chrome browser with support for Flash 10.1 to playback movies on the web. It even supports HTML5, so most modern sites render decently, even at 1080p, you will need a mouse and keyboard to use it though, there’s basic operation possible via the remote, but it’ll make you want to poke out an eye and cut of an arm.

The idea of using Android to get apps to your television is a nice idea in theory, after all its a problem pretty much every TV manufacturer is trying to solve right now. The problem is that Android apps are made for phones, not TVs. Also at Android 2.2, there’s very little in the way of developer support, all the attention (rightly so) has turned to 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).

Gallery

Price

The device sells for A$199.99 inc GST. With the limitations mentioned above, it’s incredibly hard to justify that cost.

Overall

There’s much better set top box offerings on the market in the sub-$200 price range. Overall, I can’t recommend this device, go for a Boxee Box instead, which has is faster, has a custom remote, better app support, responsiveness and UI. Even at half the price the Nixeus XS wouldn’t be a good solution to your home local/online media streaming needs.

Consumers are wise to bad experiences, especially with a daily use device. For around the same price. the experience of an Xbox 360 with its new Metro apps is far better than this device. Although it lacks a browser, it’d be a better choice overall.

Available from Mwave.com.au

While those of us who bought the Boxee Box are used to the updated 1.5 UI for Boxee, the desktop version was forgotten about. Now months later, Boxee 1.5 for Windows, OSX and Ubuntu has been released and is available to download now.

It’s easy to see the reason behind the delay in a desktop update, with the Boxee Box providing a real revenue stream, but the desktop software is given away free. With a limited development pool, it makes business sense to focus on Boxee Box first. That said, Boxee rose to fame on the back of the desktop releases, leaving passionate fans out in the cold.

With the long delay, many users would have found local and online media playback alternatives, so it’ll be interesting to see how successful this release is. By far the biggest change is the UI update, but you can take a look at a full list of what the update includes.

More information @ Boxee

LG have done it, the world’s first 55” OLED HDTV. The technology that one day could replace LCD, has been a long time coming and is usually limited to around 20” at best. The technology provides superior power consumption, ,thinner, better black levels, and better response times, but with a screen that’s better in almost every way, price is the barrier.

Most of us are familiar with the the early adopters tax, but this one doesn’t even come with a price tag. The equation is probably best summed up by an Engadget commenter – “I would buy a 100-inch LCD TV over a 55-inch OLED TV for the same price.”

That statement probably isn’t far from the truth, you’d be talking tens of thousands of dollars for this set, but hey that 42-55” HDTV in your living room once cost that. The price will come down as manufacturing techniques evolve and are refined along with increased demand.

LG’s 55” OLED HDTV will be shown off at CES early next month, if you get a chance to see it in person, your eyes are likely to tease that credit card from your pocket. You have been warned. LG have been touting their ability to make OLED at 55” for some time now, but this announcement marks the readiness to take it mainstream.

It’ll also be interesting to see if there’s been any scientific breakthroughs with Transparent LCD displays, one of which was on display at CeBIT earlier this year.

More info @ Engadget

Photo Frames
Now available in large sizes, more connectivity, better interfaces and at affordable prices. Digital Photo Frames are a great way of displaying thousands of photos in the space of a single frame. Unfortunately there’s still a cable to power the device unless you want to replace batteries every second day. If you’re building a house right now, you should wire your walls to hide the cables to digital photo frames, just like HDTVs.

Digital Radios
While availability of Digital Radio, may not be available outside Metro areas, many of us have friends or loved ones in the city. This means Digital Radios, bot bench top and in-car may be a great gift idea. Digital Audio Broadcast, or DAB means those with a compatible device get crystal clear, high quality audio from the stations you know and love as well as a bunch of digital-only stations. As an added bones, the text information transmitted with the stream displays the currently playing song.

Office chair
While not something you’d immediately think of when you consider technology, the reality is that many of us spend far too long at the computer. A good chair can be the difference between all night coding sessions and a trip to the physio with debilitating back and neck pain.

Digital cameras for kids
One great thing about DSLR’s coming down in price is that it forces point and shoot cameras to a ridiculously low price point. So cheap these once boutique technology is now a commodity. At sub $100, a digital camera can be a great gift for kids. When you hand a camera to a child, something interesting happens. The photos are taken from their height, meaning you get a completely different perspective on the world.

If you have other suggestions for tech gifts, then leave a comment!

Samsung is in dire need of some advice regarding patents, it seems. Another play in the ongoing patent struggle between Samsung and Apple has resulted in Apple giving Samsung some ‘workarounds’ in order to finally appease Apple’s demands. While this may seem like a good idea, it almost seems like Apple is just deliberately trolling Samsung for a laugh – though it is entirely possible what they’re asking for could result in a change in Samsung’s design choices.

The first set of recommendations relate specifically to the Galaxy S2 smartphone, including having a front surface that isn’t black, non-rectangular in shape or without rounded corners, non-horizontal speaker slots and no front bezel at all. Most of these suggestions describe most modern smartphones, so it would be interesting to see if Apple goes after other major manufacturers if they were to win this battle, like HTC.

The Verge noted that Apple also listed alternative options for Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, namely:

• overall shape that isn’t rectangular, or doesn’t have rounded corners
• thick frames around the screen
• front surface that isn’t flat
• profiles that aren’t thin
• cluttered appearance

Apple believes the changes that Samsung made with its 10.1N version of the Galaxy Tab weren’t enough, and recently asked a German court to ban the new version. We’ll see if Samsung takes any further notice of Apple’s suggestions, and whether Samsung can ever finally get a break.

More @ The Verge

Upon waking up yesterday I was sent a link announcing that AMD had plans to no longer compete with long standing rival Intel, and were now backing down from the x86 race in order to focus on the more profitable and constantly expanding mobile market.

However this may not be the crystal clear truth, with sources inside ExtremeTech reporting that that the initial outburst of information many posts were based on was in fact misconstrued, and painted an inaccurate picture of AMD’s plans for both the mobile and PC hardware spectrum. “”We’re at an inflection point,” said AMD spokesman Mike Silverman, “We will all need to let go of the old ‘AMD versus Intel’ mindset, because it won’t be about that anymore.”

Many people took this as AMD bowing out of the x86 and desktop CPU race after the somewhat dismissible launch of the much anticipated “Bulldozer” platform back in mid-October. Speculation then developed that AMD was going to be replacing it’s traditional x86 chips with the ARM CPU series, thus allowing the long running company to focus exclusively on mobile platforms, where the ARM chips excel thanks to their low power consumption.

ExtremeTech contacted Silverman for another comment after a number of alarming and misleading articles were published, with the spokesman saying that AMD was a “leader in x86 microprocessor design, and we remain committed to the x86 market.” he then continued, “Our strategy is to accelerate our growth by taking advantage of our design capabilities to deliver a breadth of products that best align with broader industry shifts toward low power, emerging markets and the cloud.”

After the dismal launch of Bulldozer, it wouldn’t be considered unjust for me to say that AMD has taken a huge financial hit, and now they think they’re going to make waves in the ARM market despite having no previous experience or financial research in the field? Yeah right. And on top of already stacked odds, leading mobile developer Nvidia has invested close to $2 billion dollars into their Tegra-2 platform, and has still only made just over $480 million back from their initial investment.

How does AMD intend on financially supporting their already existing (And slowly failing) x86 line, whilst investing billions of dollars into a market that Nvidia firmly has a hold of? Although many people probably realise this already, the Tegra platform isn’t exactly brand new either, so AMD now has to go through years of annual revisions before they even reach the level that Tegra is at.

As a long time supporter and preacher of the low cost and high power AMD chips, I really want the company to succeed, but I feel like the launch – or lack thereof – of Bulldozer, and this poor business move could see one of the long running PC component powerhouses fall off the map.