We just witnessed quite the interview between ASUS chairman Jonney Shih and Walt Mossberg at AsiaD, and outside of revealing the Transformer Prime (and affirming that the impending Padfone would ship with Android 4.0), he also dropped a few other nuggets worth mention to the audience here in Hong Kong. For starters, he finally caved to Walt’s pestering about who his main competition was, specifically related to the new Zenbook. “The Mac[Book] Air,” he stated, chuckling slyly afterwards, but quickly continuing on to plug his own machine based on its own merits. Not surprisingly, he also expressed his confidence that Android tablets still had a lot of life left in the market, and he stated that ASUS is still on track to move its target — around two million — Android tablets this year. Moving onto the topic of netbooks, Shih noted that rather than being buried, netbooks are simply “evolving.” More importantly, however, was his subtle confirmation that a new ASUS netbook is en route: “You’ll see on our new netbook, it’ll be very thin.” In fact, he even suggested that the design may follow that of the Zenbook, but just… smaller.

When asked about his thoughts on people replacing laptops less frequently, and perhaps shifting disposable income to smartphones and tablets, Jonney maintained that all of those markets were key to ASUS’ success, and that none were taking a backseat. “We believe that this a very critical time, transitioning from the personal computing era to the ubiquitous cloud computing era.” Sounds a bit like another mantra we heard, truth be told, but ASUS has been riding the cloud bandwagon long before most other consumer companies even knew what it was. The original spate of Eee PCs had next to no internal storage; rather, they relied on accessing the web in order to deliver the bulk of their functionality. Jonney also noted that ASUS is attempting to tackle an interesting problem with its products, which is that few people can truly separate work and entertainment — in other words, you need products that adequately handle both worlds. We’re guessing a Padfone + Transformer Prime + Zenbook is his preferred trifecta to do just that.

ASUS’ Jonney Shih: Android 4.0 hitting tablets by year’s end, ultrathin netbook is coming originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 22:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remembering Steve Jobs: We all pay tribute originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The man who previously led the development of IE Mobile for Windows Phone is no longer with Microsoft, whose termination followed a series of tweets regarding one of Nokia’s unreleased Mango handsets. A representative of Ballmer & Co. has confirmed to us “that Joe Marini no longer works at Microsoft,” and while the company refuses to discuss the details of his termination, you be the judge. In his first tweet, Mr. Marini expressed glowing enthusiasm for the device, having called it one of Nokia’s slickest ever. Then, however, he went on to give the phone an “8″ (to summarize his 144 character review), criticize the camera as being good, but not great, and bemoan its screen size. Oops. If anything, unbridled enthusiasm is encouraged at Microsoft (just think back to Steve Ballmer’s monkey dance if you had any doubt), but when sheer excitement erupts into stunning frankness regarding unreleased products from partner companies, perhaps this ex-Microsoftee should have kept his thoughts offline. We wish you luck, Joe, but next time, just remember that review scores are a relic of the past. Instead, just let the words speak for themselves.

Microsoft boots Windows Phone manager following mini-review of Nokia’s Mango handset originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Splurged on a T-Mobile G-Slate, did you? Here’s your opportunity to voice your opinion to LG (and anyone else who’ll listen). Sporting an unorthodox aspect ratio and an affinity for a carrier that may not exist on its own by this time next year, it’s certainly one of the odder slate options on the market. Combine that with the inability to buy a WiFi-only model, and you’ve got yourself firmly into niche territory. That said, we’re confident that LG moved quite a few of these, and chances are that some of those buyers are reading these words right now. If that’s you, we’re interested to hear how you’d do things differently the next go ’round. Are you a fan of the form factor? Pining for a matte panel? Would you have preferred a WWAN-less variant? Is the UI everything you’d hoped for… and more? Go on and drop your thoughts in comments below — mama always encouraged the art of getting things off your chest.

How would you change T-Mobile’s G-Slate? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Aug 2011 23:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Been waiting for a new Nikon DSLR to slide in under that magical $1,000 mark? Then we’ve got some good news for you, as Digital Home Thoughts has now let slip some official details and pictures of Nikon’s new prosumer D5100 model. This one steps things up to a D7000-matching 16.2 megapixels from the 12 megapixel D5000, and boasts a 3-inch articulated display (side-mounted this time), 1080p video recording at both 30 and 24 fps (with autofocus!), ISO settings from 100 to 6,400, and an 18-105mm lens included in the kit (no body-only option available just yet, it seems). What’s more, Nikon’s also releasing a new ME-1 microphone alongside the camera to let you take full advantage of those video recording capabilities — check it out after the break. Look for this one to set you back $899.95 for the kit, with the mic running $159.95. Those are Canadian prices according to Digital Home Thoughts, though we’d expect US pricing to be the same.

Continue reading Nikon D5100 DSLR surfaces with 16.2 megapixel sensor, 1080p video recording

Nikon D5100 DSLR surfaces with 16.2 megapixel sensor, 1080p video recording originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aspiring Svengalis rejoice! For BrainGate has reached a significant landmark in computational thought-control — the 4 x 4-mm implantable chip has given a woman with tetraplegia the ability to point and click with her brain for 1,000 days. An article recently published in the Journal of Neural Engineering said the woman, known simply as S3, performed two easy tasks every 24 hours, using her mind to manipulate a cursor with 90 percent accuracy. Each day she was monitored, S3 would post up in front of a computer and continuously command the thing with her thoughts for 10 minutes. Functionality reportedly deteriorated over time, but the paper points to the chip’s durability, not sensor-brain incompatibility, as the culprit. Research is currently underway to incorporate BrainGate into advanced prosthetics that could get tetraplegics like S3 up and moving again. Now, how’s that for the power of positive thinking?

BrainGate hits 1,000 day mind-control milestone, nearly three years of pointing and clicking originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Mar 2011 10:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Enterprising readers have probably been rocking the four-point-oh release of Firefox since it slipped out a little early last night, but now you can get yourself that same, fully-legit version from a new, fully-legit address. The browser’s live and, as you can see from the rolling download counter Mozilla has set up, a couple-hundred-thousand of you have already got it going on. So, what are your thoughts? Let your voice be heard in the poll and comments below.

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Firefox 4 is officially released, how are you liking it? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The first phone to ship with Android 2.3 has been kicking around for a solid quarter now, which means it’s just about time to roast it here on How Would You Change. The Nexus S didn’t provide the same system shock as did the Nexus One, but bringing a curved display, Gingerbread and an embedded NFC chip to US airwaves definitely made an impact. ‘Course, we’re still waiting for a version to ship with support for AT&T’s 3G bands, but we’re confident that quite a few T-Mobilers have bit the bullet by this point. You’ve heard our thoughts on the matter, and now it’s your turn — if you were in control of dictating the second-ever Nexus phone, how would you have done things differently? Would you have stuck with HTC rather than heading over to Samsung? Shipped it on a different carrier from day-one? Thrown in a white version just to rub things in? Get creative down in comments below — there’s no telling how your nuggets of wisdom will shape the inevitable Nexus T 2.

How would you change Samsung’s Nexus S? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Mar 2011 22:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Would you pay $100 to control the outcome of a movie with the power of your mind? That’s what NeuroSky and Triete Labs are banking on with MyndPlay. Simply put, it uses NeuroSky’s $99 Mindwave headset with a custom video player that monitors your mental activity during critical points in specially designed films, and offers multiple outcomes depending on your focus and relaxation levels. For instance, in Paranormal Mynd (above), you play an exorcist who must drive a evil spirit away — if you don’t focus intently, this woman will choke to death. Another gangster film has you dodging bullets and sports multiple endings; depending on how relaxed and concentrated you are, you could come away clean, take a bullet to the head, or dodge poorly and have the projectile strike your friend dead instead. MyndPlay plans to produce a raft of such short-form content for $0.49 to $1.99 per episode, and also let you shoot and share your own, scripting sequences with a tool to be released next month called MyndPlay Pro.

We gave Paranormal Mynd a try at GDC 2011, and came away somewhat impressed — you definitely can control the outcome of a scene, but it doesn’t work quite like you’d expect. Since NeuroSky’s technology is still limited to detecting the mental states of concentration and relaxation, you can’t “will” the movie to go the way you’d like with your thoughts — in fact, thinking about anything rather than what you’re seeing on screen seemed to register as a form of distraction, and lowered our scores. Instead, the ticket to success seemed to be focusing intently on processing the images on screen and clearing our head of all thought or emotion, making us feel totally brain-dead even as we aced the scene. Our parents would be so proud. See a couple video teasers after the break!

Continue reading NeuroSky shows off MyndPlay, we control movies with our brainwaves (video)

NeuroSky shows off MyndPlay, we control movies with our brainwaves (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not every day that you see something handcrafted with time and care on the internet, but what you see above certainly qualifies. An art / craft project by German designer Maria Fischer, it’s called Thoughts on Dreams, it contains threaded ‘hyperlinks‘ which are there to help guide the reader to links between important passages. The book is sadly (for us) in German, so we can’t know what it says, but we can imagine that it’s all sorts of beautiful, mysterious things that can only be conveyed by paper and colored string.There is one more image after the break, just because.

Continue reading Hand-sewn, hyperlinked book is a thing of beauty, and a joy for several minutes

Hand-sewn, hyperlinked book is a thing of beauty, and a joy for several minutes originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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