Filed under: Transportation

We already saw a demo of the next-gen version of Ford Sync, but it looks like what we saw was just a taste — our friends over at Autoblog scored some shots of the 2010 Ford Fusion’s interior, and it features a monster 8.5-inch touchscreen, which will also apparently make it into the 2009 F-150 pickup truck. It’s not clear how much the system will control or how much it’ll cost, but you can bet it’s not nearly as sweet as the 1979 Atari Riviera. Hit the read link for a couple full size shots.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Desktops

HP decided to show off its new wares in Berlin — which is a rather strenuous yacht trip from the Engadget HQ, or so we hear — but was kind enough to throw up a few pictures of the new gear in action. The TouchSmart 2 is a particularly interesting product in light of Microsoft’s newfound emphasis on touchscreens in Windows 7. This could be a sign of things to come, or just a fun little approach to the all-in-one desktop for the here and now, but either way we’re rather curious as to what makes a second human necessary in the operation of this unit. What is your purpose, Mr. Blue Shirt man?

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Someone clearly didn’t want Microsoft fans being left out at this time of extreme Apple coverage. In an interview with SFGate, Robbie Bach manages to deftly deny the rumored Xbox / Blu-ray match-up, deny a Zune Phone is coming anytime soon (although he intimates Zune software may come to phones), but still cleverly suggests that a Zune Touch could be in the offing. Of course, by “cleverly suggest” we mean he mentions the possibility of a device with touch capabilities, which is like saying Dell might release a laptop with a keyboard. Is that the device pictured above? No silly, that’s just someone’s Photoshop work. Steve Jobs — anything to say about this?

[Via wmpoweruser; Image courtesy anythingbutipod]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

Here’s a little something that might put the brakes on some buyer’s 3G iPhone dreams this week — a real, live shot of the forthcoming BlackBerry touchscreen phone, the Thunder. There’s not much info to glean from this image, save for the fact that it will be practically loaded with buttons (including send, end, back, menu, dual convenience keys, volume, lock, and play / pause) and will be headed to Verizon. If the UI is a spin-off of the one we’ve seen on the Bold, RIM could be striking gold here.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

While it’s been spotted at Computex for a couple days now, we got our hands on an official picture of the new Shuttle XP19 widescreen touchscreen LCD display. We also dug up some spec bits for you: you’re looking at a 19-inch Wa-Si TFT active matrix screen, 1680 x 1050 resolution, 5ms response time, 1000:1 contrast ratio, and 170-degree viewing angles. Oh - and it all comes in a shiny metal case.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays, Laptops

Got an Eee PC 701 you want to take touchscreen? jkkmobile found an no-soldering-necessary aftermarket solution that makes it look oh so easy to give your Eee some touch input. Of course, you take your time (and especially money — approximately $340 US) into your own hands ordering off of Chinese part supplier sites, so be appropriately warned.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

If you just can’t get enough news about Sony Ericsson’s forthcoming Symbian UIQ touchscreen phone — currently known as Paris — perhaps this promo video of the thing in action can help. Sure, these appears to be pre-renders, but it does whet the appetite for things to come with the device, and who can complain about that pop-up weather app and confirmation that this will have a flash for its camera? Also, the dude in the clip sports a totally stylish cardigan. Watch the whole thing after the break and see for yourself.

[Via PHONE Magazine]

Continue reading Sony Ericsson’s Paris phone gets demoed in video

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Handhelds

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Portable Audio

Just after seeing how the Nintendo DS’s touch panel could be used to scratch things up, along comes a full-blown turntable setup that relies heavily on interactions with touchscreens. Dreamed up and designed by Scott Hobbs, the ATTIGO TT enables DJs to manipulate sounds via sensors, and the added visual effects are fantastically beautiful, if not useful. Check out a video of the creation being used after the jump — just make sure one earcup is firmly planted around the ear first, alright?

[Via Coolest-Gadgets]

Continue reading ATTIGO TT elegantly integrates touch panels into DJ setup

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

We’ll go ahead and get this out of the way: the fantastic product you’re about to hear more on has “no plans” to go commercial. Now that we’ve thoroughly killed your buzz, let us introduce to you the LaserTouch. Said device is a prototype that recently emerged from Microsoft Research’s labs, which essentially allows people to retrofit any display (monitor, projector, etc.) so that they can use their own hands to control the on-screen action. According to Andy Wilson, who played a vital role in the unit’s creation, an infrared camera is used to track how a person touches the screen, while software that he developed handles the majority of the magic. Too bad this could totally undercut Surface sales, right?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Honestly, we’re exhausted by the sheer magnitude of 3G iPhone chatter swamping the rumor channels (and our inbox). Nevertheless, it would be a disservice to you, dear reader, if we let this one slide without comment. The perennial Apple touchscreen tablet rumor was given a fresh polish yesterday by Intel’s chief German Burgermeister. Hannes Schwaderer stated unequivocally that Apple would be using the new Intel Atom processor in a “future iPhone” which is slightly larger than the existing model due to a larger display. Of course, this isn’t the first time that Intel has openly discussed Apple’s plans to develop products based on Intel’s Centrino Atom, Mobile Internet Device (MID) platform. And as MacRumors and AppleInsider point out, an older rumor calls for a new multi-touch Apple tablet to launch mid-year with a 720 x 480 display on a device said to be about 1.5x the size of the current iPhone. With Intel officially launching Atom in June and Jobs’ next keynote scheduled for June 9th… well, it wouldn’t surprise us to see Otellini riding a chocolate pony on stage with a multi-touch Newton in hand. Actually, that would be surprising.

[Via MacRumors and AppleInsider]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

The industrious Boy Genius has apparently unearthed more juicy tidbits about that rumored BlackBerry touchscreen device. Word from BG is that the new iPhone-ish handset is now internally dubbed the “Thunder,” and will come to Verizon and Vodafone as an exclusive device. The phone will reportedly have four physical keys (send, end, menu, and back), sport a hybrid CDMA EV-DO Rev. C / GSM HSPA radio, and could come equipped with a 4G LTE component. Outside Waterloo’s labs, the device could be known as the BlackBerry 9500 — though it’s possible that designation could change. BGR has included a self-made mockup (above) of what the device may look like, but as of now, no one has laid eyes on this mythical creature.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

Check it — Gigabyte has just revealed details about a swank new user interface for its GSmart mobiles, and it has been coined Smart Touch. Sadly, multi-touch gestures aren’t supported, but it does handle dragging / dropping and gives users oodles of customization options. Comically enough, the note on the new UI actually admits that it “works like [the interface on the] iPhone,” but it claims to be superior due to its tight-knit integration and more “useful and interesting features.” Sure, alrighty. We’ll let you be the judge on this one — jump on past the break for an excruciatingly long demonstration vid.

[Via the::unwired]

Continue reading Gigabyte’s GSmart Smart Touch UI shown on video

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

Hold on to your touch panels, folks, as Wacom has just made known its plans to reveal “a major innovation in capacitive touchscreen technology” at next month’s International Society for Information Display Exhibition. The tech, dubbed Reversing Ramped Field Capacitive (RRFC) touch, relies on “reversing ramped electro-static fields” to bring unprecedented precision and “drift-free performance” to touchscreen users. Reportedly, it can be integrated into dual-input applications with the firm’s EMR pen-input solution or can operate on its lonesome on devices that require just a finger touch interface. Of course, there’s way more pizazz to the whole thing than we can cover in this space, but feel free to don your nerd suit and hit the read link if you’re thirsty for more.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Laptops

Not content with just ordering a touchscreen-packin’ Cloudbook from Japan, Azazel decided to take matters into his own wonder-working hands and hack up his vanilla unit to include the oh-so-coveted touch support. Based on his reports, disassembling the rig and stuffing the new panel in was a lesson in simplicity (save for one quick round with a soldering iron), but actual usability proved to be somewhat of a letdown. It was noted that using the small screen with just a fingertip was challenging, and while relying on a pen did make things marginally easier, we’d think long and hard about your needs / wishes before taking the plunge.

[Thanks, David]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

We’re not sure how LG managed to hold a touchscreen UI design contest with a $14K prize without telling anyone, but it certainly did — and keeping things on the DL probably explains why “Driving,” pictured above, was the winning entry. The “Art in Mobile” contest started last December in Korea, and the 10 winning entries will see their creations actually turned into functional phone interfaces. There’s not much info on the other nine winners, but apparently one is called “Sixty Seconds” and is designed to stall for a minute before connecting a call so you can browse photos and check messages. Uh, yeah — if our phones were taking a minute to connect calls, we’d have a bigger problem than the UI. Seriously, LG, next time you want some consumer input on phone interfaces, we think we might know some people with ideas.

[Via Unwired View]

Read - Telecoms Korea story on the contest
Read - Translated LG press release

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Displays

A digital photo frame should do one thing well: display photos. If it can’t do that for a reasonable pixel-per-penny then we’ve lost all interest. Along swaggers Pandigital touting touch sensitive displays as the prime selling point of its new PanTouch WiFi and Bluetooth frames. Why touch? Because pushing buttons has suddenly become too cumbersome. Smudging? No problem, Pandigital claims that its displays are resistant to prints. The concern they don’t address is the fact that touch-sensitive displays at low price points are typically not as bright and crisp as standard LCDs of the same dimensions — especially with a smudge-free coating. But we’ll reserve final judgment for the next review smackdown. Available next month in 7- (482 x 234), 8- (800 x 600), and 10-inch (1024 x 768) models priced at $120, $170, and $250, respectively.

[Via Engadget Spanish]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Cellphones

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments