The Beijing Institute of Technology who receives funding from the CMST (Chinese Ministry of Science & Technology), has developed at least three different models of the BHR (Beijing Humanoid Robot). The BHR-2, being the successor of the BHR-1, is plus known as Huitong and stands a proud 158cm tall, tipping the scales at 76kg while featuring 32 degrees of freedom. What makes Huitong different from the other robots would be its ability to perform the ancient arts of shadow boxing (Taijiquan), and Tai Chi, while swinging a broad sword inone demonstration. Capable of sensing changes in ground elevation, it is able to automatically balance itself. Sounds pretty nifty, eh? Too poor it doesn’t seem likely to be mass produced as an army of cyber warriors anytime soon.

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The brainy boffins at MIT have come up with Surround Vision which is a pretty interesting method when it comes to breaking the perception barrier. How does it do so, you ask? Well, Surround Vision will enable a viewer to pan around a specific scene which is located ouside the perspective that is limited by a display. that will require a working tablet device with a compass, where a demonstration showed the center perspective on the main TV, with some panning around to show off what is not seen on the TV to seem on the tablet. It certainly adds a new dimension when it comes to viewing one’s surroundings, don’t you think so? We’re trying to think of practical applications of such technology here, so help us by leaving your two cents in the comments section.

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Palm Pre overclockers will be thrilled to find out that new custom 720MHz and 800MHz Linux kernels have finally been released by unixpsycho and caj2008, and you can check out the demonstration as well as installation directions from the video above. Some users who have the intestinal fortitude to go ahead with these kernel installations are extremely happy and amazed with the performance boost, although there is always a risk of your Pre burning up due to overheating, not to mention the obvious battery life drain of your device.

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Interesting – remember the story on the Samsung Omnia HD with WP7S which we covered earlier that morning? Well, in a surprising turn of events, that is a handset that was created by Microsoft themselves for the demonstration, and not by the folks at Samsung. Now how about that? We do wonder what other kinds of Frankenstein-like projects would Microsoft indulge in in the near future to cater for the growing legion of Windows Phone 7 Series fans.

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Check out that modified quad-copter that is controlled using voice commands – yes, the same voice you use to ensure your pooch stays off the sofa or leaves your shoes alone can be used to puppet that robot any way you like. Responding to natural language, you can just casually mention, “take off and fly forward six feet” instead of using a cryptic command set. In the demonstration, it uses an iPhone and a headset as the input microphone, where the language will be parsed by the software before sending by the resulting commands sent to the four-rotor copter.

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The Tegra platform from NVIDIA is the conclusion of a marriage among an ARM processor and an NVIDIA GPU which is meant to enable tablets, netbooks and smart books handle playback of HD video with aplomb, not to mention its ability to run 3D graphics without lost a beat. Several demonstration tablets made their way to the Game Developers Conference by the week, and they did not disappoint. While that doesn’t mean you will be able to play shout of Duty: contemporary Warfare 2 on your netbook anytime soon, but it ought to pack ample muscle to handle MMORPGs and casual games.

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Acer’s TouchPortal user interface was on display for all and sundry to check out at MWC 2010 in Barcelona, Spain, where it had the Aspire 1820P as the hardware platform of choice to run that next-generation user interface. The Aspire 1820P convertible tablet is no lightweight in terms of hardware specifications, and it does seem to run the TouchPortal user interface without a snag. Just like the iPhone OS, one is able to flick through photos, check out the music collection or play videos with but a touch, and even printing photos simply by dragging selected images by a print icon. We can’t wait to see the next generation of multitouch gestures change the way we interact with devices.

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The folks at the Nokia Research Center (NRC), Helsinki, recently unveiled a make new research concept at Demo House 2010. that mobile radar demonstration lets all and sundry see how a mobile device is transformed into an active radar sensor, making it capable to measure speed and the direction of movement of approaching objects, similar to how a standard radar would. that is made possible through the use of electromagnetic waves that offer a different type of mobile wireless sensing. Some practical applications in the real world would be opening up new avenues of interaction with the device, including gesture controls, alongside paving the way for new radar-based applications.

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[CES 2010] The Que reader looks really great, there’s no question about that. Next to it, the Kindle looks so cheap, but it is still the best selling ebook out there, I think. That said the Que’s user interface and demonstration substance (USA Today looked fantastic). It is possible to sync files by USB or Wi-Fi (subscription composition too), but there no 3G connection (I’m totally fine with that). Que has a deal with Barnes & Noble, so they should be more than OK content-wise, but the killer is the price: $650 – it’s way too high and I seriously doubt that buyers will line up for that one. whether you wonder, there’s no web browsing, which is a pity considering some news sites do work really well on eBooks with web capability.

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[CES 2010] At CES Unveiled, Marvell let us play with a smartbook reference design apparently called SMART.You can’t tell from the photos, but it is extremely light (it’s nearly weird), but don’t nag we got used to it pretty rapidly. The first thing that I checked was the relative speed (responsiveness of the UI). The good news is: it’s decent. I suspect that the graphics acceleration isn’t fully implemented (I hope), but we’ll have to check it again on a real product. The video playback of Ice Age was really good and stutter-free. It wasn’t clear what the specifications where, but I suspect that it was a 2Ghz Armada 510. Don’t quote me on that, however. The screen was about 11″ big and, whether the software is as good as the hardware (that’s a big if), we could see some interesting designs. Let’s wait and see, but on the hardware side, the demonstration is convincing.

Permalink: Marvell Smart, smartbook reference design from Ubergizmo | Hot: Blackberry Bold 9700 Review

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