Behold! The Shopping Trolley of the Future!

Although we still don't have hoverboards or flying cars, something else is about to get a futuristic upgrade - the humble shopping trolley.

Carindale IGA in Brisbane is about to get the new-and-improved shopping trolley, following in the steps of IGAs in NSW and Victoria. It will feature an LCD screen and control panel, and the trolleys can be used to locate items in the store, scan products as they are purchased for a running tally, or use a list pre-loaded on a website. It can also inform you of any specials, as well has track which aisle you're in instore and make appropriate reccomendations.

I just hope they've fixed the steering and handling. Trying to maneuver the standard trolley around a packed supermarket is akin to trying to do a precision driving course with a bus with flat tyres. On ice.

via Gizmodo

A Dedicated Gaming Tablet? Meet 'Project Fiona'

So the CES (Consumer Electronic Show) is happening at the moment in Las Vegas, which means there's no shortage of interesting, expensive, and sometimes pretty damn weird gizmos and gadgets flooding tech news sites at the moment. Here's one of them.

It's called 'Project Fiona,' and it's a tablet made solely for gaming, with two analogue joysticks built into the design, and specs to rival an (admittedly cheap) desktop pc. Built by Razer (a company that until recently, made only peripherals), it's a proof-of-concept prototype; however Razer is taking it seriously - what we see here is version 0.2, but Razer have already finished a version 0.8 at their labs, and expect to have a 1.0 by the end of the year.

As a result, what we see here isn't what the final product will look like, says Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. "It will be thinner (it currently has the thickness of 3 iPads), lighter, and cheaper than $1000."

While made for gaming, it'll run on Windows 8, giving it full PC powers, with internet browsing and the like, with Razers specialised gaming software added in.

It's also pretty specced out, considering it's a tablet. It ran Warhammer 40k: Space Marine with ease, which has the minimum requirements of a 2GHz dual-core CPU, 2GB RAM, and 256MB video card. Not bad.

No word on other details, like battery life and release date, but I think it's fair to expect it in the first quarter of next year. Could be worth watching!

via Gizmodo

Star Wars Live-Action TV Series?

While rumours of a new Star Wars project have been hanging around for a while now, we now have new details - to start with, it has a working title of Star Wars: Underworld.

According to producer Rick McCallum, it's set between Revenge of the Sith, and A New Hope, and focuses on the 'seamy underbelly of crime on Coruscant during the rise of the Galactic Empire.'

LucasFilm's budget is $5 million - for each episode. But apparently it's not enough, says McCallum.
"The show incorporates several digitally animated characters, and so the plan is to wait a couple of years and watch the changes in animation technology and delivery methods — Lucas hasn’t decided on a cable network or digital distribution — and then make the show 'if we’re still alive.'"

While that may not inspire much confidence, it could be worth the wait - the series is to be 'bigger than any of the prequels were,' and 'complex,' 'dark,' and 'adult.'

Now we just need that live-action Harry Potter inspired TV show The Aurors to be made, and we'll be set.

via TDW Geeks

New trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey!

Well it's been a while since I last posted. But coincidentally, it's also been a while since Peter Jackson re-introduced us to Middle Earth in cinemas! But fear no longer, my hairy-footed friends. The first trailer for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey has just been released!

Featuring stunning scenery, concerned looking wizards and a riddling bi-polar schizophrenic, you can check it out just below.

The film will be out in just under a year, on the 14th of December. Much too far away, precious....

Shoot first, re-focus later - New Lytro Camera!

Now this is actually pretty cool. Lytro have unveiled a new camera that's completely different to anything else out there on the market at the moment. The key? You can focus and re-focus your images after you've taken the shot.

The Lytro camera, named after the company, is about 11cm long, and 4cm square, and has a lens on one end, and an LCD touch screen display at the other. Along the sides are the shutter button, USB port, and a strip that controls the zoom function - 8x. It's a pretty different design to your standard camera, which is generally loaded with more buttons than you actually know how to use. (true story).

On the inside, is where it's really different. Conventional digital cameras use lenses to focus a subject so it's sharp on the image sensor, then it takes the picture. That means that for an in-focus part of the image, light from only one direction reaches the sensor. In the Lytro though, light from multiple directions hits each patch of the sensor; the camera records this directional information, and after-the-shot computing converts it into something a human eye can understand. This means that the focal point of the image can be re-adjusted multiple times on the computer, even after the image has been taken.

This means that you can whip it out, take a photo of a scene before it changes (a bird flying away, someone's smile, a fast-paced scene) and then fix it up later. In addition, this kind of photographic technology (known as light-field photography) allows the images taken to be shown in 3D - because you have an image with potential multiple depths-of-field.

There are three models - the $399 cameras with 'electric blue' and 'graphite' exteriors whose 8GB of built-in memory is enough for about 350 shots and the 'red hot,' 16GB camera that can record 750 shots. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like you can expand the storage space once it's purchased.
US residents can apparently order one online now, according to Chief Executive Ren Ng, and they'll be shipped in the first quarter of 2012. No word yet on a international release, but you could probably just import one if you wanted to.

via Cnet

Inkling!

I figure you've all probably seen this by now - it was announced 2 days ago after all - but it's just so damn cool that I have to blog about it here too.

Wacom, designers of tablets long before Steve Jobs made them cool, have announced a new device - the Inkling.

The Inkling is a device you clip onto the top of any sheet of paper, and, with a special pen, records everything you draw on the paper. It apparently records 1024 levels of pressure, so even the line thickness recorded will change depending on how hard you press on the paper. You can then export the image as any number of different file types, even a vector, and edit it in Illustrator or Photoshop.
Here's a video to make it a bit clearer:

According to Wacom, it's designed primarily for concept art and sketches, instead of 'finished product' kind of thing. It will be released here mid October, and will retail for $219.

I still don't really know how it works - there are a couple of questions that aren't addressed in the video - but it's awesome.

via Gizmodo

iPad 3 to Appear in Early 2012?

According to sources of The Wall Street Journal, the next oversized iPhon- I mean, iPad, is set to make an appearance in early 2012.

The next iPad is set to have a 2048 x 1536 high resolution screen - compared with the measly 1024 x 768 in the iPad 2 - and will be packed into a sweet, and damn expensive 9.7 inch slab of smooth brushed metal coolness. Although that said, if you recall, the iPad 2 was rumoured to have a 2048 x 1536 resolution as well, so you may not want to get your hopes up.

Apple has, as usual, declined to comment.

via WSJ

Sony Releasing Another PSP

Because Sony evidently thought that 4 different models of PSP wasn't enough, they're releasing yet another model minus wi-fi for 99 Euro.
Named the 'PSP E-1000,' it will only retail in Europe, and doesn't have any wi-fi feature. Games can however be downloaded via pc with Media Go, or bought on the regular UMDs.
From Sony:

Value for money is the goal with this new model that will retail at just €99.99 (RRP), accompanied by an exciting range of PSP Essentials titles that will retail at only €9.99 (RRP) and will include Invizimals: The Lost Tribe, EyePet Adventures, FIFA 12 and many more.
While PSP E-1000 does not include Wi-Fi, it will still provides access to the full catalogue of PSP games either on UMD or from PlayStation Store via Media Go. The design is also slightly different, with a Charcoal Black finish – the same as on the slimmer PS3 model – to give more of a matte feel.

 No word yet on a release date, or whether releasing a new PSP model is a good idea with the official successor - the PS Vita - being released at the end of this year. But hey. Maybe they just wanted to beat Nintendo in the 'most-reiterations-of-the-same-console' competition.

via kotaku