All 4 Toys

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have come up with a way to produce electricity from just about the most renewable source known to man — his own breath. It’s all thanks to a plastic microbelt developed by engineers Xudong Wang, Chengliang Sun and Jian Shi. Made of a material known as polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF), this belt produces an electric charge whenever low-speed airflow passes over it and causes it to vibrate — a result of that vaunted piezoelectric effect. Eventually, Wang and his team were able to tinker with their system to the point where it could produce enough current to charge small electronic devices. “The airflow of normal human respiration is typically below about two meters per second,” Wang explained. “We calculated that if we could make this material thin enough, small vibrations could produce a microwatt of electrical energy that could be useful for sensors or other devices implanted in the face.” The researchers say their technology could be used to power smaller biomedical devices like blood monitors and pacemaker batteries, which typically don’t demand vast amounts of energy. No word yet on when this system could make its way to the mainstream, but we’ll be waiting with bated breath.

Piezoelectric system turns your balmy breath into pungent power originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 04:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That snazzy AirPlay Mirroring feature Apple showed off at WWDC earlier this year is back for an encore, and now it’s strutting its stuff on the iPhone 4S.

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Like Zune’s own Business Development Manager once said, all consumer electronics products have a lifespan, and today the (not so long) linage of dedicated Zune hardware expires not with a roar, but with a promise to honor its warranties. Tucked away in the inner chambers of the Zune support site lies a page spelling out Microsoft’s final words on the device, “Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy,” it says, “we will no longer be producing Zune players.” The Zune HD is survived by the Zune music service, which will continue to function with straggling standalone media players, as well as the Windows desktop, Windows Phone and Xbox platforms. Read more »

Are you a Windows user in need of yet another cloud storage option? Lucky for you, after a long-running beta, Canonical’s Ubuntu One client has officially debuted on Microsoft’s platform. First introduced with Ubuntu 10.10, the service offers 5GB of free storage, with file syncing across multiple machines, ala Dropbox. Android and iOS clients are already available. If you need more space, how about 20GB for $29.99 a year or $2.99 a month? And if portable tunes is your game, you can have that same 20GB along with music streaming apps (similar to Google Music Beta) for $39.99 a year or $3.99 a month. Click the source link to engage in some cross-platform storage. Read more »

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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget inquiry is coming to us from Henri, who seems understandably tired of his earbuds falling out whilst exercising. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
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Here comes the second episode of a thrilling three-part saga. Not content with simply selling ten million units of the GT-I9100 — its flagship device — in the course of the last five months, Samsung’s ready to flood the good ol’ US of A with a healthy dose of the Galaxy S II, and it has three carriers — Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile — already signed up on the dotted line. The Epic 4G Touch has already made its way into stores (not to mention the hearts of customers), and Ma Bell’s next in line to appease the masses.

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In case you weren’t watching, Intel’s Elements 2011 Keynote slipped in a sly acquisition announcement: the firm recently signed a deal to absorb Telmap, an Israel-based outfit whose location platform is the backbone of countless navigation apps. Intel’s Peter Biddle says the navigation firm is to become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, and will help AppUp developers pack their apps with unique location capabilities via Telmap’s standardized APIs. Biddle wraps it up simply enough: “New advanced capabilities with just a few lines of code.” Details on the deal are scarce, but hit the source link below to see Biddle’s full statement in Intel’s AppUp wrap-up.

Intel to aquire Telmap, dole out easy to implement location APIs to AppUp developers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Sep 2011 23:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This little soldier carries the big responsibility of extending HTC’s dominance to the budget end of the Android spectrum, and it must achieve this mission with only a bare minimum of weaponry: a 3.2-inch HVGA (480 x 320) capacitive display, 600MHz processor, 3MP camera and 512MB of expandable memory. You’ll just have to believe us when we say we had a play with a pre-release device at an HTC event recently, even though the manufacturer’s reps refused to let us take any photos or video to prove it. You’ll find publicity shots in the gallery below plus a full press release, some educated guesswork about price and availability and our initial impressions of the handset right after the break.
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