Researchers using ground-based telescopes and space probes make amazing discoveries about the atmospheric cycle of Saturn’s largest moon, and find similarities to Earth Our knowledge of Titan has improved considerably over the last five years. Before that, Saturn’s largest satellite had only been hastily approached by a handful of space probes. In 1980, the Voyager-1 [...]

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It’s hard enough to navigate an unexplored realm in an online role-playing game, but when your only means of control is the constant back and forth from keyboard to joystick, it can be hard to get into character.

Now, an approach originally designed to help people with carpal tunnel syndrome is emerging as a solution. The system lets users talk, travel and fight–all from the comfort of a single device.

Called SwitchBlade PRO, it weds the interface of a modern gaming controller with the software backbone behind the orbiTouch keyless keyboard, and its use is rapidly expanding across the gaming universe.

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“Dear Pete,

First, I want to say I’m sorry. When you said I’d need a “laptop with wireless” I should have known a 1956 Smith Corona Clipper was a stretch, even though it was technically correct. I stand by my decision to use a Polaroid camera though. Tests prove it’s faster than digital.

Regards,
Curtis Walker”

@Hak5Darren’s video
@NBCUNI video & photo
(and for the record, I think I managed to beat the guy with the iPhone.)

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They say “necessity is the mother of invention.” If this is true, CES could be considered a technological orphanage. Historically, some of the most hyped tech from the show fails to launch. The industry doesn’t always reward perfection as much as flashiness. Walking the aisles, it’s so easy to forget the man hours behind each product. It’s easy to feel uninspired. This is a small collection of things that spark imagination, even if the products themselves may fail to be a hit. Sometimes, it’s important to look past the obvious.

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Jet — 12 year old Lab boy
Sky — 15 year old Border Collie X girl

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13/1/2010 Holly is now Reserved
Holly is a sweet little star who will make a loyal and obedient companion to her new owner. She’s a lively Westie who enjoys her walks and playing with her toys. She’s good with dogs and with children too! Can Holly cuddle up to you?

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NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY – Just be EXCELLENT at what you
do, and be able to teach others your skill(s)! We are seeking p/t
instructors for various classes to be held at our location. We are
looking for instructors who are knowledgeable, creative, patient, and
experienced (either professional or se…
By: terminalbrooklyn

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Norway isn’t the first country that pops into most people’s heads when it comes to high performance audio and video gear, but if you dig a bit deeper, you’ll find that there’s a pretty long history of state of the art audio from the frozen north. Perhaps it has something to do with those long dark winter nights when everyone pretty much stays indoors.

Electrocompaniet has been around since the mid ’70s, and their new Maestro system challenges the notion that home audio and video fanatics just want to stack up the maximum possible number of separate boxes. Combining a Blu-ray player, AM/FM/HD radio, Internet radio, and LAN audio video streamer plus a three channel amplifier in one stylish box, the Maestro should result in a lot of unneeded audio furniture. Why only three channels? The Maestro also includes a WiFi wireless transmitter that connects to a separate amp for the rear speakers, eliminating the biggest wiring headache in most rooms.

Expect the Maestro to ship this fall for around $7500.

Electrocompaniet

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While 3D HDTV is wowing those who can see, Intel is thrilling the vision-impaired with its Intel Reader. This text-to-speech handheld looks like a bulky digital camera but can simultaneously scan and read aloud any printed matter in real time. Intel describes it as point, shoot and listen.

On the bottom of the Reader is a sophisticated camera that “sees” the text, and Loquendo text-to-speech (TTS) software “reads” the text and displays it in large characters on the Reader’s LCD screen while reading it aloud in either a male or female voice. Words are highlighted as the Reader reads, and lets you know when you’ve come to the end of a page. As with all TTS gadgets, you can vary the speed and pitch of the read-back voice.

During our demo, the Reader read a book flawlessly, if a bit drone-like; Kindle’s cleverly-inflected synthesized speech sounds like Liev Schreiber by comparison. But inflection isn’t the point here. Unlike the Kindle, while only reads books you pay for, the Reader can read anything put in front of it. Intel will sell the Reader not only to the vision-impaired, but into the education market and for the learning-disabled.

You can also buy a tray that’s looks like an overhead projector. It holds a book or magazine down under a plastic strap and the Reader is hooked into a crane extension above it, the camera pointed down and the screen facing out.

At $1,500, the Reader is a bit pricey; the tray runs another $350.

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Fuji grabs the honor as the first-ever 3D digital camera. You can now buy the Fuji W1, a stereoscopic 3D 10 MP model with a 3x optical zoom and a 2.7-inch LCD 3D viewfinder, for $600 through Fuji’s online store. You can also shoot regular old 2D photos as well.

The W1 also captures 3D videos, stored in a new format called .mpo, based on the multi picture format (MPF) standard. As with any digital camera, images and video are stored on an SD card, but you’ll need around twice as much space as you would for 2D photos to store 3D stills and videos, which are limited to around 2 GB (around 20 minutes) for a single clip.

Since there aren’t any 3D HDTVs for sale yet, you can view your stills and video on any Nvidia-equipped 120 Hz PC monitor with a DVI connection, and/or you can buy Fuji’s 7-inch digital picture/video viewer frame ($500). You don’t need glasses to view stills or video on the frame. It uses a technology called “parallax barrier” to create the 3D effect, but it has a tiny sweet spot. Viewing in anything other the perfect position, you see double images. Fuji is chatting up 3D HDTV makers to try and get them to include SD card slots that can read the still and .mpo video files.

You also can get hard copies, which sort of look like larger versions of the holographic cards you used to get inside of Cracker Jack boxes, but uploading your 3D image files to www.seehere.com – or so we were told. There’s nothing on the site indicating 3D printing capability.

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Soundbars are a good way to get better sound from your HDTV sans an AV receiver, but connections are convoluted, the bar just sits awkwardly under your flat panel, you need a separate remote, and it rarely matches the length of your set and so always looks out of place.

A British company, Q Acoustics, has a more elegant 2.1-channel sound solution – side-mounted speakers that include a subwoofer connected into in a single assembly that snaps onto the back of any flat panel HDTV between 30 and 50 inches. No matter what set you have, the arrangement always looks as if it was part of the original TV.

The Q-TV2 needs only two connections – power and an optical audio cable. A bracket screws into the back of the flat panel (all HDTVs have standard spaced mounting screw holes), then you simply snap the Q-TV2 speaker/sub array into the bracket. For an extra $35 you can buy a mounting bracket to hang the whole business on a wall.

In the open show floor, it was hard to gauge the quality of the sound, but there seemed to be plenty of bass reflecting from the wall behind the set. The system pumps out 100 watts of volume, 25 for each side speaker and 50 watts for the sub. On top of the subwoofer section are switches for subwoofer compensation depending on placement (wall mounted, stand mounted or corner), and to adjust lip sync.

Q-TV2 comes in two versions, one for sets measuring 30- to 42-inches, and one for sets up to 50 inches.

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Someone was bound to offer a 3D camcorder, but who would have thunk it’d come from pocketcam maker DXG? We got a gander at this pistol-grip, dual lens stereoscopic 3D View model, due in June. It shoot only VGA standard def 3D video, but what do you want for just $400?

Believe it or not, that $400 isn’t just for the camera. You also get a 7-inch digital video viewer. The 3D in both the camcorder’s 3-inch 3D LCD viewfinder LCD and the frame look almost holographic. For what it is, footage actually looked pretty cool. The video is in Motion JPEG, a pretty standard file format, but you likely won’t be able to view the 3D footage on anything other than the DXG panel.

Equally cool, or cooler, are three other new 2D HD cams, the DXG-A85 HD (March, $300), the DXG-A80V HD ($250, on sale tomorrow), and the DXG-590V HD ($200, end of February), which solve a vexing problem: you want to shoot at low resolution for easy upload to YouTube or other social media sites, but you want HD for posterity. All three of these models shoot two versions, HD and QVGA, simultaneously and stores two separate files.

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It isn’t a girl’s bike, even though with its S-shaped frame it looks like one – it’s a unisex “synergetic hybrid” bicycle, the Eneloop Bike, from Sanyo. It’s a essentially a power-assisted ride; it’s two-wheel drive motor helps you up hills and takes over if you’re too pooped to pedal. But when you do spin the gears, it re-charges to battery to give you a longer ride – up to 46 miles, what Sanyo calls “loop charging”.

A built-in power mode gradually increases the power output, which gives you smoother start, provides a smoother start when starting an uphill ride, and assists when you’re carrying the week’s shopping on your back or if you’re a bike messenger and you’ve spent all day schlepping around town and just need a break.

It’s got front and rear lights for safer night-riding, handlebar-mounted control switches positioned to let you keep your hands on the grips, a soft saddle to cushion your tush, and a rear carrier. You’ll of course pay for your comfort – it costs $2,300.

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The number of headsets and earphones being showcased at CES 2010 was practically overwhelming. It seems like manufacturers have given up trying to produce MP3 players to compete with the iPod, so why not just focus on ways to listen to those iPods.

Etymotic has been making high-end earphones for years, and they just introduced an affordable line using moving coil drivers. The mc3 features a 3-button inline remote control that works with the iPhone. Like other Etymotic headphones, the mc3 use passive noise-isolation, and they’re available in a variety of colors: red, green, blue and black. The beauty of these is how well they fit – they come with a variety of tips to ensure a snug and comfy fit. The mc3 will retail for around $100 — a small price to pay to get that classic Etymotic sound.

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There have been a few gaming gloves making the rounds lately, but there’s one that really caught our eye. The Peregrine gaming glove has features that makes it, hands down (pun most definitely intended) a great product.

The glove itself is made from cool and comfortable spandex/lycra with stainless steel contact points. There are up to 30 programmable contact points. The connector attaches to the glove with a magnetic pad — same guys who designed the Apple break-away power cord did this one.

While this is an exciting gaming product, the company also recognizes that the glove is a great addition to programs like Photoshop that require lots of repetitive motion. Styling and practicality in one handy product. Pun intended again. Preorder it now for $130.

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