Author: Michael Seo

Acer just announced the Aspire R7, a strange hybrid of a desktop all-in-one, laptop, and a tablet that was previously teased in some promotional Star Trek commercials. It’s honestly really, really weird.

We always expected that Windows 8 would lead to some really strange convertible touchscreen devices, but the Aspire R7 is a whole new kind of crazy. The first thing you’ll notice about the Aspire R7 is that Acer seems to have forgotten how laptops are made. The trackpad sits behind the keyboard, which is a bit perplexing until you realize that Acer doesn’t really want you to use the trackpad at all.

That’s because the Aspire R7 has something called an Ezel hinge that gives the 15.6 touchscreen display an amazing agree of flexibility. You can lie the 15-inch, 1080p touchscreen display completely flat with the device, turning the Aspire R7 into an oversized tablet. You can also angle the display so that it sits flush with the keyboard and covers the trackpad completely. I’m honestly not sure why the trackpad is there in the first place.

As a whole, the Aspire R7 seems to be incredibly well built. It’s made of some type of aluminum-like material, and there’s virtually no flex to the device. On the other hand, it’s very large and very heavy, which means that it won’t be very portable. It’s probably one of the nicest pieces of hardware Acer has ever built. But I don’t know who would use something as crazy as this.

Other key specs for the R7 include:

• Intel Core i5 1.8GHz processor, with Turbo Boost to 2.7GHz
• 6GB Of DDR3 RAM
• 500GB SATA HD, paired with a 24GB SSD
• Intel HD Graphics 4000
• HD webcam with dual mics
• 2 USB 3, 1 USB 2 ports
• 5.3 lbs and 1.1-inches thin

Acer also announced the Aspire P3, an ultra book convertible with a detachable display, and the Iconia A1, a 9.7 inch Windows 8 tablet. But it’s the Aspire R7 that stole the show here. It’ll be available for sale exclusively at Best Buy retail locations starting May 17th, and can be pre-ordered now at the Best Buy online store for $999.

(and a friendly shout out to Stefan over at LaptopMemo, who was kind enough to let me borrow his camera for these shots)

Dropcam is updating their iOS apps today with two new features their users have been clamoring for: location awareness and in-app time scheduling.

Dropcam is a high definition plug-and-play security camera that has gotten some well deserved praise for its simplistic design and easy installation. Once your Dropcam is plugged into a power source, it automatically connects to your wifi connection. You can control the video feeds through your browser or your smartphone. It’s a painless setup, and pretty neat.

Dropcams can be controlled in the browser and through your smartphone app, so the updates are welcome news. With location aware toggling, Dropcam can now automatically turn itself on when you leave the house, and off when you’re back inside, by virtue of the GPS on your smartphone.

Another added feature is in-app scheduling, which allows you to select which times of the week you’d like your Dropcam to be monitoring your home. For example, if you were planning on going on a week long vacation, you could program your Dropcam to be on during that time in advance.

Dropcam is available at their website for $149. Their apps can be downloaded in the iOS App Store here.

The Infinity Cell is a kinetic charger for the iPhone that uses your body’s movement to generate electricity. The current prototype for the Infinity Cell is a crude 3D printed rectangle, roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes, linked up to the iPhone with a cable. The plan is to create a more streamlined version during the product’s Kickstarter campaign.

When you shake the Infinity Cell for 30 minutes, that provides enough power to give the iPhone a 20 percent charge. When you shake the Infinity Cell for three hours, that provides enough power to fully charge the iPhone. Of course, no sane person is going to sit around shaking his iPhone for three hours to grab a charge. The Infinity Cell eventually aims to generate power from the slightest bit of movement.

The finished model will resemble a Mophie or MaxBoost battery case. You simply slip your iPhone into the case, put in your pocket, and the movement you create when you’re walking, jogging, or biking will power your iPhone. They’re also planning on releasing an Infinity Cell iOS app that will track your energy saving, carbon offset, and gamify the experience by granting users badges as they reach different energy saving rankings.

The creators of Infinity Cell are seeking to raise $155,000 on Kickstarter by June 6th. A $125 contribution will nab you an Infinity Cell of your own, although it’s only compatible with iPhone 4 and 4S for now.

With PC laptop shipments projected to decline by 7.3% this year, Windows 8 machines desperately need a shot multiple shots of adrenaline. The Toshiba Kirabook may be just that.

The Kirabook is Toshiba’s first entrant in their newly fashioned “Kira” line of luxury ultrabooks. At first glance, you can see that the Kirabook is meticulously designed, and it radiates a Cupertino-esque level of fit and finish. We haven’t seen this kind of quality from Toshiba for a very long time (if ever).

That doesn’t mean the Kirabook offers anything new in terms of design. There are still shades of the Macbook Air to be found here and there, as is the case with all top of the line Windows ultrabooks.

The Kirabook has a smaller profile than the Macbook Air, but somehow manages to include a retina-quality 2560×1440 WQHD touchscreen display. Although I didn’t get an opportunity to compare it side by side with the retina Macbook Pro, or for that matter the Chromebook Pixel, but it’ll definitely be one of the best laptop displays out in the market once it’s released.

The display is most certainly the Kirabook’s marquee feature and Toshiba’s primary justification for its slightly onerous pricing, which I’ll get to in just a moment.

Inside the Kirabook, you’ll find an Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB SSD. The Kirabook is also bundled with full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Premiere Elements, as well as a complimentary two year service and support package that Toshiba claims to be on par with Applecare.

At least on a spec level, the Kirabook lives up to its “luxury”  label. But that also means it’s saddled with a luxuriously high price.

The non-touch Kirabook with Core i5 starts at $1,599. It gets a little crazy from there. The touchscreen Kirabook with Core i5 goes for $1,789, while the top of the line touchscreen Kirabook, with Core i7 and Windows Pro, goes for a whopping $1,999. That kind of pricing blows its PC and Apple counterparts out of the water.

For comparison’s sake, the 13-inch Retina Macbook Pro starts at $1,499, albeit with a smaller 128GB SSD. The Lenovo Thinkpad x1 Carbon starts at $1,187, while the touchscreen equipped model starts at $1,319. The Asus Zenbook Prime, with a touchscreen and a nearly retina quality display, is currently retailing for $1,253 on Amazon.

Toshiba representatives told me that they don’t expect the Kirabook to become the bestselling laptop PC on the market. They understand it’s a bit of a niche product. If anything, the Kirabook is a statement that Toshiba is capable of producing top of the line hardware in a very appealing package.

No word on whether the Kirabook is worth its price tag, but we’ll be sure to keep you in the loop with a full review soon. It’ll be available in stores May 5th.

Video conferencing, especially in a work setting, can be a real pain in the ass. But PanaCast, unlike other video conferencing platforms, actually seems like something that would be both fun and exceedingly useful.

PanaCast is a crowdfunded panoramic video conferencing platform that Ross Rubin covered back in December in one of his Backed Or Whacked posts. Ross wholeheartedly backed the project, and since then PanaCast’s Kickstarter blew past its original fundraising goal of $15,000, raising nearly three times that amount.

Today PanaCast will be made available for the public to purchase for what they call a “market disrupting price” of $599 with a monthly subscription fee of $19.99.

What PanaCast offers is a unique panoramic video conferencing experience. It utilizes a special webcam that resembles, as Ross noted, an odd-looking UFO on a tripod. When the webcam is attached to the stand, it seems to be about two feet tall, so it’s fairly portable.

Setting up the webcam is easy. Once you have the PanaCast app open on your iOS device and a cellular or wi-fi connection, you scan in the barcode on top of the webcam to connect to it.

The webcam is composed of six different cameras that have had their feeds synchronized for one 200 degree video image that’s 2700 pixels wide and 540 pixels tall. The image itself is crisp and sharp, without any distortion whatsoever, and you can scroll and zoom to any part of the live video feed inside PanaCast’s iOS app.

From the live demos I was shown by Altia Systems, the company behind PanaCast, it’s also extremely responsive. There wasn’t the slightest bit of lag with scrolling and zooming at all. Within the app, you can also switch between multiple feeds pretty easily.

For now, PanaCast is only compatible with iOS devices. They’re planning on releasing desktop and mobile versions of the PanaCast app on Windows, Mac, and Android sometime in the near future.

The PanaCast app is a free download in the iOS App Store, and you can place orders for the PanaCast Camera at Altia’s website here.

LinkMe is an LED smart bracelet that connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth and displays SMS and social media updates in text that scrolls across your wrist.

Smartwatches and smart bracelets promise convenience – it’s easier to glance at a device on your wrist than it is to dig out your buzzing smartphone from your tightly fitting jeans. But so far, many of them have had boring, uninspired designs. For example, the Pebble smartwatch has an amazing complement of features. But it looks plastic and boring. I’d never be caught wearing that on my wrist.

LinkMe is unabashedly beautiful. It’s a single chrome ring that clips around your wrist. The smart bracelet has a curved LED display that seamlessly blends in with the rest of the device. The display streams long lines of text in red or blue letters, like one of those big news tickers in Times Square.

LinkMe can display anything that be relayed in a stream of text – SMS, social media updates, flight information, personal reminders and alerts. When it isn’t displaying messages, LinkMe defaults to displaying the time, so you can easily use it as a watch.

But when it comes to functionality, the Pebble outstrips LinkMe in a number of ways. With its e-ink display, the Pebble can offer multiple watch faces and display limited graphics. It also can flash multiple lines of text at once. With LinkMe, you have to wait until the message or alert finishes scrolling across the bracelet.

Still, there’s just something about LinkMe that makes me want to have it around my wrist. Maybe it’s just another case of aesthetics trumping functionality. Maybe this feeling will go away if/when Apple releases a smartwatch that fuses beauty with a healthy complement of features.

But for now? I’m sold.

A LinkMe can be had for a $99 contribution at their KickStarter here. They’re pushing to raise $100,000 by May 5th.

Seagate will be shipping a 4TB hard drive that has the distinction of being the world’s first to include a 1TB per platter design. This basically means that each spinning disk in the hard drive has a capacity of 1TB, and that there are four of them.

It’s not everyday that you can claim to that have something that’s the “world’s first”, so don’t be too hard on Seagate.

This certainly isn’t the first hard drive to have a 4TB capacity, but apparently the new 1TB per platter design significantly increases the hard drive’s performance over the competition. It consumes 35 percent less power than comparable drives on the market with 4TB capacities, and at 145MB/s, it has the highest average data rate as well.

But most importantly, the new design will also bring down costs. A hard drive in an external casing can be had for $212, while just the bare drive will cost around $190.

Bring on the terabytes, Seagate. My body and my illegally downloaded movies are ready.

The Duo is a 3D motion sensing controller, much like the Leap Motion Controller and the Kinect – but with a DIY twist. Whereas the Leap Motion Controller comes in a small and elegant package, the Duo is meant to be tinkered with.

A $20 contribution on their Kickstarter page is enough to nab detailed instructions, a comprehensive list of the off-the-shelf components, and CAD files – enough for hardcore DIYers to jump right in and assemble their very own motion controller. For the less courageous, a $140 contribution will get you a fully assembled Duo, ready for plug and play out of the box.

The Duo uses two PlayStation Eye cameras (a webcam for Sony’s PS3 gaming console that is readily available in stores) to detect motion. The demo videos on Duo’s website show that the webcams, coupled with Duo’s motion tracking software, work just a well as the Leap Motion Controller. The minimum operating range seems to be further away than the Leap, although that’s purely based on observation and I couldn’t find any concrete specs on their website. The video also shows the Duo breezing through Windows 8’s gesture based interface, just as you would with a Kinect. And of course, the Duo passed the prerequisite Fruit Ninja test with flying colors.

Given that the Leap Motion Controller will soon be hitting retail stores for $79.99, it’s true that you’re paying a premium for a device that has pretty much the same functionality. Motion sensing technology is red-hot and there are plenty of other projects we’ve chronicled that are also worthy of your attention. If anything, the one thing that Duo has going for it is that you can take it apart and mod it to your heart’s content. If you’re willing to pay a premium for that ability alone, you can check out Duo’s Kickstarter page here.

A Brooklynite named Matt Richardson has built a working prototype of a bicycle headlight that uses a Raspberry Pi to project his current traveling speed as he rides around the city. Richardson calls it the Raspberry Pi Dynamic Headlight, and it’s one of those jaw-dropping DIY projects that makes you wonder why this isn’t something you can buy in a store yet.

The prototype has a small projector mounted to the handlebars of the bicycle, which is connected to the Raspberry Pi via HDMI cable. The projector and the Raspberry Pi are both powered by a USB battery pack. The Raspberry Pi and the battery pack seem to be crudely glued to a triangular piece of wood that is strapped onto the center of the bike, but Richardson says in his video that he’s hoping that future prototypes will combine all the components into one single piece that will be mounted onto the handlebars.

The Dynamic Headlight for now only projects the speed of the bike, but Richardson is looking to add all sorts of interesting functions to future iterations like GPS and other “animations and visualizations”. He’s also planning on writing about it for MAKE and including instructions for those that are brave enough to build one for themselves.

Someone needs to get him some of that Veronica Mars Kickstarter money, stat.

Samsung is releasing a bombardment of accessories along with their Galaxy S 4, one of which is a fully functional, boda-fide wireless gaming controller.

The oval shaped controller is a great deal smaller and lighter than the Xbox and Playstation controllers you’re used to gripping. It has a plastic build, and it’s so light it feels almost hollow. It feels cheap, to be quite frank — I’m used to the heft of regular controllers, and it was a little oft putting to use at first. You’ll find the regular assortment of joysticks and buttons here: two analog sticks, inset d-pad controls, two triggers on the right and left – everything you’d expect.

The controller connects to the Galaxy S 4 via a Bluetooth connection, and sadly, it isn’t backwards compatible with the S 3 or any other Samsung phones. It’s powered by two AAA batteries and there are strangely two separate battery compartments for each battery. The coolest part of the controller, if anything, is that there’s a receptacle on the top of the phone that can be pulled out as a dock for the S 4.

Now for the bad news: the controller is only compatible with games that are purchased from Samsung’s curated app portal. For many of us Android users that have already purchased and downloaded a plethora of games from the Google Play Store, that’s a severe disappointment. It also appears as though the S 4 can only link up with one controller at a time, so multiplayer gaming is a no-go for now.

Samsung wouldn’t tell us any details about the pricing, but we expect the controller to be released sometime in May.

Sometimes the best Kickstarter projects are the simplest ones. Lumio is a lamp masquerading as a beautiful hardcover book with a wooden finish. To turn the lamp on, you open it up. To turn it off, you close. It’s equal parts simplicity and ingenuity.

Lumio came into being when architect and designer Max Gunawan was trying to design a modular home that could fit inside a compact car. When Max realized he didn’t have enough funds to build a working prototype, he decided to use the his built up expertise somewhere else.

“When I decided to pivot and translate the concept into a folding lamp, it was a natural progression to use the form of the sketchbook as a way to package the lamp,” says Max on his Kickstarter page. “That’s how Lumio was born.”

An LED powers the Lumio, which can last up to 8 hours when fully charged. The cover comes in dark walnut, warm cherry, and blonde maple options and is also embedded with magnets that allows you to easily attach the Lumio to metal surfaces.

Gunawan has raised over $400,000 on his Kickstarter page, shooting well past his original $60K goal. You only have a few more days days to pledge and nab a Lumio for yourself, so if you want one I’d suggest you get going now.

LifeBeam is kicking off an Indiegogo campaign for a new smart cycling helmet that uses smart sensors to track your heart rate.

LifeBeam is an Israel-based startup that thus far has specialized in aerospace technology that is used to track the vital signs of fighter jet pilots and astronauts. Instead of bulky chest strap monitors, Lifebeam uses their own specialized sensors that are built into the helmet to track their heart rate and vitals.

The people behind LifeBeam then asked themselves, “What if we put that technology into a smart cycling helmet?” Thus this helmet was born.

The aptly named SMART is just that. The helmet uses Bluetooth to relay all the information the LifeBeam sensors collect instantly onto monitoring devices, fitness watches, and smartphones.

LifeBeam has little experience designing and producing bicycle helmets, of course, so it’s turned to the popular cycling gear outfit Laser Sport to handle things on that end of the business. The finished product, if LifeBeam can raise enough money, should be a pretty handsome looking cycling helmet with some very high-end sensing technology.

“We are proud to present the world’s first smart cycling helmet,” LifeBeam says in their IndieGogo video. “Our unique sensing technology, partnered with Lazer Sport helmets, create high end cycling helmets that allow continuous measurement of heart rate and motion.”

LifeBeam is seeking to raise at least $50,000, and a starting contribution of $149 will get you your very own SMART helmet. If you’re an avid cycler and this seems like something you need, you can check out their IndieGogo page here.

I can’t tell you how many times I wished my virtual pottery collection in Let’s Create! Pottery, a fun game on iOS and Android that lets you sculpt and paint little pottery pieces, could be brought to real life.

Now through the magic of 3D printing, I can do just that.

Inside the game, you can sculpt and paint your pottery piece just as you would in previous versions of the game.

Once you put the finishing touches on your pot, you’ll see that there’s a new option to “print”. This takes you to a page where you choose the size of your pot and put in an order to Sculpteo, a 3D printing firm based in France.

A small pot, around 2 inches tall, can be ordered for around $14 (including $6 shipping). Larger sizes are a little more expensive. A medium pot (4 inches) will cost $30 while a large (6 inches) will cost around $100.

Let’s Create! Pottery shipped a review unit to our offices, where the 3D printed pottery piece in question arrived in a quaint wooden box. Inside, I found the pot nestled in a bundle of hay, which was a nice touch.

While the future of 3D printing looks towards producing entire houses and automobiles, this is a reminder that it’s still immensely useful for the little stuff.

We’re positively sure no one ever in the history of the world looked at a soccer ball and thought of it as anything more than just a soccer ball. That’s why we’re a little astounded at SOCCKET, just a normal soccer ball… that also doubles as a portable generator.

You take SOCCKET and play around with it just as you would with an ordinary soccer ball. Dribble, score some goals, take a few good-natured kicks at people’s heads.

SOCCKET then takes all of that kinetic energy from rolling around and hitting people’s heads and converts it into electrical energy. SOCCKET also includes a tiny LED lamp that can be plugged into the ball. 30 minutes of play with SOCCKET can power the lamp for 3 hours.

SOCCKET’s aim, of course, is to be a little more than a novelty item gathering dust on the shelves of The Sharper Image. What may seem like a cool “gimmicky” gadget to us is surely a lot more than that to developing regions of the world with limited access to electricity.

That’s probably why SOCCKET is currently being tested into “resource-poor” areas of North America, South America, and Africa. When you add that factor to soccer’s (aka football’s) overall popularity worldwide, this all sounds like it could be a real winner.

SOCCKET is currently fundraising over at Kickstarter, with a starting pledge of $89.

With 3D printing on the verge of going mainstream, you can manufacture almost anything.

As of November 2010, you can add a 3D-printed car to that list, too.

The Urbee 2 is a two-wheeled hybrid assembled entirely from parts spat out of 3D printers, reports Wired. Just as Makerbot and Form 1 have changed the way we perceive manufacturing, Urbee is seeking to change the way we build cars.

Urbee is the brainchild of Jim Kor and his team at Kor Ecologic, a company solely dedicated to the future of 3D vehicle manufacturing. Their website expands upon their grand vision for the future of the automobile, a few points of which we’ve listed below.

“Use the least amount of energy possible for every kilometer travelled.
Cause as little pollution as possible during manufacturing, operation, and recycling of the car.
Use materials available as close as possible to where the car is built.”

Kor’s aim is to make the cars of the future light, energy-efficient and easy to manufacture.

The manufacturing process of the Urbee takes place entirely inside RedEye, a 3D-printing facility that was also used to produce the world’s first 3D-printed motorcycle. Kor says one of the virtues of 3D printing is the added flexibility that’s impossible to produce with sheet metal. Instead of producing a multitude of parts that would be assembled later, the 3D printers can spit out a single, unibody part that makes manufacturing a heck of a lot easier. Kor simply uploads the models for each part into the printers, and 2,500 hours later (that’s something like 105 days), Kor has all the plastic parts he needs to assemble his car.

That’s right, the world’s first 3D-printed car is also a plastic car.

Kor has assurances that the Urbee will be perfectly safe to drive out on in the road. “We’re calling it race car safety,” Kor tells Wired. “We want the car to pass the tech inspection required at Le Mans.” And the car isn’t entirely made of plastic. The engine and the base chassis, of course, will be made of steel.

Good luck, Urbee. You may look like an oversized computer mouse, but you’ve come a long way from the days when you looked like this.