3M's 32-inch display with 10-finger multitouch steps out at CeBIT (video)

Though there are bigger multitouch screens out there -- and ones that can support more simultaneous touch points -- 3M's brand new C3266PW is the company's largest, said to be suited for industrial-strength installations with multiple simultaneous users (the company is quick to note that the ultra-wide 178-degree viewing angle along both axes is great for that, since folks can crowd around and start touching). They demoed the new unit here at CeBIT in two ways: three of them in a row on a "cascade table" with one high, one slanted, and one low, and another separate unit mounted on a solo kiosk at roughly eye level. The table's set up as a multi-display Windows box running a tech demo with maps, images, and videos that can be flicked between screens, pinched, and zoomed; the kiosk, meanwhile, is running a rudimentary flight simulator designed to demonstrate all ten points of multitouch capability at once with a finger-based aircraft control scheme (not the way you'd really design a game, but a good demo nonetheless).

3M points out that touch response -- the amount of time that it takes the screen to actually recognize that it's been touched -- is an issue in the industry, and it's not something that we really think about as users; if a gesture is laggy, we just assume the processor isn't up to the task or the software sucks. The C3266PW is rated at a relatively brisk 12ms recognition time, and while the company has other products with even quicker ratings, we definitely noticed the lack of lag as we played around (of course, the computers powering the displays have plenty to do with that). We've come to associate good capacitive displays with glossy glass and resistive with matte, but that's really not a fair assessment -- this one has a non-glare "anti-stiction coating" that, as its name implies, makes your fingers glide like butter. It might not be great for a phone, but it works well for a display of this size that's probably going to be used in public installations and potentially handled by hundreds of people a day. Follow the break for 3M's press release and video of both setups!

Gallery: 3M's 32-inch display with 10-finger multitouch steps out at CeBIT

Continue reading 3M's 32-inch display with 10-finger multitouch steps out at CeBIT (video)

3M's 32-inch display with 10-finger multitouch steps out at CeBIT (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/02/3ms-32-inch-display-with-10-finger-multitouch-steps-out-at-cebi/

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We?re Live at Apple?s iPad 2 Press Event!

Are you ready for the next iPad? Because Apple is. At least, that's what we're all assuming, given that the invite for the press event has a big ol' iPad on it (with an even bigger number 2 right on top of that.) What's new in the iPad 2? What else does Apple have up their sleeves? Find out over at our up-to-the-second Live Blog.

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webOS 2.1 arrives on original Palm Pre, unofficially

HP caused a veritable maelstrom recently when it announced that owners of the Palm Pre, Pre Plus, and Pixi wouldn't be getting an upgrade to webOS 2. The company then dangled an olive branch, saying that it would "do something" for those users, but never specified what that something might be.

PreCentral, however, has been tracking interesting results from HP's update checker recently and noticed that Palm devices on certain carriers were receiving responses other than "Sorry, Charlie." That provided a glimmer of hope, and now the webOS development community has made it official -- or unofficial, rather: webOS 2.1 is indeed coming to your Palm Pre or Pre Plus.

Initial results look very promising for the port, with forum members reporting success on the Sprint Pre and the AT&T and Verizon Pre Plus. Of course, there are plenty of reports of people experiencing trouble, too, so proceed with caution!

webOS 2.1 arrives on original Palm Pre, unofficially originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Feb 2011 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/02/22/webos-2-1-arrives-on-original-palm-pre-unofficially/

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A Month Later, "Homeless Man with a Golden Voice" Is Abandoned by His Corporate Friends

In early January, a journalist in Ohio came across a homeless man possessed of a "golden radio voice." That man, as you probably know, was Ted Williams, and the journalist's video footage of him quickly became a hit on the internet and television. Williams got a makeover seemingly overnight, and soon he was doing voiceovers for Kraft products, appearing in TV ads, and fielding an announcing job offer from the Cleveland Cavaliers. But then reality struck.

After getting into an altercation with his daughter, an altercation for which he was not arrested, Williams was pressured into going into rehab for alcohol addiction by TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw. He then left almost immediately, saying he felt rushed and that the process (i.e. being broadcast on Dr. Phil live from rehab) felt "scripted." Williams then checked himself into a sober living house for voiceover actors in Los Angeles, where he could come and go as he pleased, but where he still needed to submit to drug tests and promise to remain clean.

Eventually came word that Williams had long ago abandoned his nine children. And then The Smoking Gun released his rap sheet. Ultimately, it turned out that the man with the golden voice did not have such a golden history.

Alas, in the aftermath of his troubled second chance, Williams is still making minor appearances—the Los Angeles Times reports he was recently at a milkshake shop—but Kraft hasn't brought him back, his TV ads have been pulled, and the Cavaliers' job offer has been reneged. He's been abandoned almost as quickly as he was embraced, and for nothing more egregious than any other common celebrity infraction.

In the future, it would probably be wise for Americans and the media to remember that people emerging from the depths to which Williams sank need time to recover before they're thrown in front of cameras and lights and millions of people. Nobody's saying that it can't be done, of course, but it shouldn't be done over night. And when people crash and burn because they weren't ready for the spotlight, it seems wholly wrong to immediately forget about them.

If there's such a thing as a second chance, there should be a third chance, too.

Update: In a recent development, Williams has been signed to star in the first season of Second Chances at Life, a reality show that will follow people who have fallen onto hard times as they "battle to rebuild their careers and personal lives."

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Andreessen Horowitz Finally Adds A Fourth General Partner, Scott Weiss

The firm is keeping the name, but Andreessen Horowitz is officially no longer just the Ben and Marc show. It has added a fourth general partner (the third was John O'Farrell), and astoundingly, he didn't come from Opsware. The new dealmaker is Scott Weiss, an experienced entrepreneur who may not be a household name, but like Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen has serious entrepreneurial chops, having built consumer and enterprise companies to large scale. The most recent was IronPort, the often forgotten PayPal mafia hit that Weiss co-founded with Scott Banister, selling the company to Cisco for $850 million. Before IronPort, Weiss was employee number 13 at Hotmail. Some people may view the choice as a strange one, given Weiss's absence from the current Web 2.0 frenzy. Then again, not too many years ago some of the press considered Andreessen and Horowitz has-beens of the bubble era.

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Awesome Photo: Libyan Mission to the UN Now Flies the Opposition Flag

With the Libyan mission to the United Nations officially defected from dictator Muammar Gaddafi, saying it belongs to "the Libyan people," officials held a flag changing ceremony today at their offices in Manhattan.

By removing the old plain-green banner, which was adopted in 1977, and installing the nation's former flag, the mission now publicly supports the opposition movement.

photo via abudai.tumblr.com

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/good/lbvp/~3/ewjAlSTSfNg/

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HeyTell Hopes SXSW Will Become One Big Walkie-Talkie Party

About a month ago, we covered HeyTell, an iPhone/Android app that made me feel like a kid again. Why did it make me feel like a kid? Because it turns your iPhone into a walkie talkie. Yeah. Awesome. But the app is also a serious business. Created by�the husband-and-wife team, Steven Hugg and Jen Harvey, they've managed to bring in revenues from day one thanks to a combination in in-app advertising and purchases (add-ons, like voice modifiers). And while a month ago, they were going strong with 3 million registered users, things have picked up quite a bit since then: they're now past 4 million users.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/9YHPL1ZDDqo/

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