GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Dell’s new tablet called the Streak is set to make its debut in the U.S. this summer. But while temperatures have been soaring, there’s still no sign of the device. The Streak, which was launched in the U.K. last month for 450, is expected to be available on AT&T for $500.

Dell now says it has been testing the device and hopes to have it in the hands of U.S. consumers soon. The company still won’t disclose the exact availability. Meanwhile, Gadget Lab got some hands-on time with the U.S. version of the Streak.

Nearly 30 percent thinner than the iPhone 3G S, the Streak bills itself as a tablet but also offers the option of a SIM card in it so you can make phone calls. The device includes 3G connectivity and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.

Think of it as a turbocharged phone.

“The 3.5-inch to 4-inch screen devices are optimized primarily around the phone experience,” says Kevin Andrew, product manager for Dell.”The Streak is for those who want something bigger than a phone but not something so big they have to carry it separately.”

The Streak fits the bill. It is ultra-thin, lightweight (7.8 ounces) and extremely easy to use. Read on for our hands-on impression of the tablet.

The Streak’s five inch touchscreen display is just a little bigger than the latest crop of Android smartphones (HTC Evo and Droid X sport a 4.3-inch touchscreen) but significantly smaller than the iPad’s 9.7-inch display. That puts the Streak in an awkward netherworld: too big to be a phone, too small to be directly take on the iPad.

But the Streak’s 5-inch display looks much better in real life than it sounds on paper. The screen is smooth, responsive and big enough to comfortably type and access different widgets.

The device itself is ultra-thin, just 9.9 mm thick compared to the iPhone 3G’s 12.3 mm thickness and almost on par with the iPhone 4. It slips easily into your jeans or the jacket pocket and doesn’t feel awkard if you hold it up to your ear to make a phone call.

The Streak has just one 30-pin connector and no USB port.

The Streak runs Android 1.6, which seems ancient considering that Google has released Android 2.2 or Froyo.

But Dell says it has created an enhanced version of Android 1.6 that puts it almost on par with Android 2.2 or ‘Eclair.’

“If you compare Android 1.6 on the Streak to Eclair, the only feature that is missing versus Eclair is the live wallpapers,” says Andrew.

The Android experience on the Streak is very similar to what we have seen on the latest Android cellphones. The Streak supports up to six home screens. The main screen (shown above) has icons for phone, calendar, messaging, browser, maps and market among other things.

A small round dot at the top left corner of the screen acts as a shortcut to applications. Streak users can download apps from the Android market.

The Streak has a 5-megapixel camera on the back and 0.3 megapixel VGA camera in the front. It can also shoot videos upto 720p (1280 x 720 pixels resolution). Sharing photos is easy and should be familiar to most Android phone users–click on the photo, choose the share button from the virtual menu and pick Facebook, Twitter or Flickr to upload it to.

Dells also offers an accessory dock, with an HDMI output that can be connected to a TV.

The Streak will have a user-replaceable battery, internal storage of 2 GB and additional storage using a microSD card for up to 32 GB.

Overall, the Streak is an exciting, well-engineered device that should appeal to consumers who want to super-size their phone. But that’s also means its unlikely to have Apple or iPad fans quaking. The Streak seems like a tablet for a very different audience than the iPad.

Photos: Dell Streak/Priya Ganapati

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

A research project from Intel can turn any surface into a touchscreen. Instead of propping up a tablet or putting a touchscreen computer in your kitchen, picture yourself tapping on the countertop to pull menus, look up recipes and add items to a shopping list.

“There’s nothing absolutely special about the surface and it doesn’t matter if your hands are dirty,” says Beverly Harrison, a senior research scientist at Intel. “Our algorithm and a camera set-up can create virtual islands everywhere”

Intel demoed the project during the company’s annual research day fest on Wednesday to show touchscreens can go beyond computing and become a part of everyday life.

The project uses real-time 3-D object recognition to build a model of almost anything that’s placed on the counter and responds by offering a a virtual touchscreen-based menu. For instance, when you put a slab of meat on the counter or a green pepper, they are identified and a virtual menu that includes recipes for both are shown.

“The computer in a real-time builds a model of the color, shape, texture of the objects and runs it against a database to identify it,” says Harrison, “and it requires nothing special to be attached on the steak or the pepper.”

Smartphones have turned touch into a popular user interface. Many consumers are happy to give the BlackBerry thumb a pass and instead swipe and flick their finger to scroll. New tablets are also likely to make users kind beyond a physical keyboard and mouse.

But so far, touchscreens have been limited to carefully calibrated pieces of glass encased in the shell of a phone or a computer.

Intel researchers say that won’t be the case in the future. Ordinary coffee tables in the living room could morph into a touchscreen when you put a finger on it and show a menu of music, video to choose from. Or a vanity table in the bathroom could recognize a bottle of pills placed on it and let you manage your medications from there.

Some companies are trying to expand the use of touchscreens. For instance, Displax, a Portugal-based company, can turn any surface flat or curved into a touch-sensitive display by sticking a thinner-than-paper polymer film on that surface to make it interactive.

Intel research labs tries to do away with the extra layer. Instead, researchers there have created a rig with two cameras, one to capture the image of the objects and the other to capture depth. The depth cameras help recognize the objects and the difference between the hand touching the table or hovering over it. A pico projector helps beam the virtual menus. The cameras and the pico projector combination can be packaged into devices just a little bigger than your cellphone, says Harrison. Sprinkle a few of these in different rooms and point them on tables and the system is ready to go.

At that point, the software program that Harrison and her team have written kicks in. The program, which can run on any computer anywhere in the house, helps identify objects accurately and create the virtual menus. Just make a wide sweeping gesture to push the menu off the counter and it disappears. There’s even a virtual drawer that users can pull up to store images and notes.

Harrison says all this will work on almost any surface including glass, granite and wood.

“The key here is the idea requires no special instrumentation,” she says.

Still it may be too early to make plans to remodel the kitchen to include this new system. The idea is still in the research phase, says Harrison, and it may be years before it makes it to the real world.

Photo: A countertop acts as a touchscreen display/Priya Ganapati

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews