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You’ve seen conveyor belts before, most probably at your local airport ferrying beaten-up luggage in circles, but for some reason the same tech doesn’t seem to have been applied to people yet. Leave it to City University London prof Jack Levy to correct that oversight with his eponymous Levytator — an escalator that follows freeform curves (but not convention!) and offers a better “cost per usable step” than your typical moving stairs. Patented in Europe, the USA, and even China, all this thing needs is the gentle push of a kindly investor — see the video after the break to determine if it’s worth your cash.

[Thanks, Conrad]

Continue reading Levytator claims to be the world’s first bendy escalator, has the patents to prove it (video)

Levytator claims to be the world’s first bendy escalator, has the patents to prove it (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Sep 2010 07:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, we’ve got a long way to go before we can do a fair, apples-to-berries comparison between these two titans of industry, but consider this your first sneak preview of the deathmatch to come. As we mentioned in the previous post, the PlayBook is hopelessly locked away in insanely thick Plexiglas — and the iPad is unactivated, though that doesn’t much matter for getting a sense of the size comparison between ‘em. Needless to say, the PlayBook looks way easier to lug around… but we just won’t know by how much until we’ve got one resting in our sweaty, eager palms. Hit up the gallery!

iPad vs. PlayBook… fight! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amazon’s German branch has been a tiny bit fast on the trigger. Windows Phone 7 isn’t due to launch at least until October 11, but here we are, dazing dreamily at the first listing of a device bearing the hot new OS: LG’s Optimus 7. Or is it the E900? You can tell Amazon’s offering is way early since the e-tailer has opted to list both names — it now seems like the E900 was the codename and the Optimus branding will be what you see in stores — just to make sure snoopers like us don’t miss out on it. So what’s there to see? Not much actually, official product images are predictably missing and all we’re told is that the handset will cost €499, include a GPS chip, and be capable of filling five million pixels with photonic data and then displaying the results on a 3.5-inch touchscreen. Such teases, these online retailers are.

LG Optimus 7 pops up on Amazon.de with 5 megapixel camera, 3.5-inch touchscreen, €499 price originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

This week saw several amazing feats of aeronautics as we showcased the world’s first continuous flight of a human-powered ornithopter and the sun-powered Solar Impulse plane embarked upon an incredible voyage across Switzerland. We also watched transportation take off as BMW unveiled a zippy new electric scooter, Sanitov launched a GPS enabled cargo tricycle in London, and this week’s Green Overdrive show took us off-roading on a souped-up e-bike!

Renewable energy tech also energized the globe as several countries in Central America launched plans to tap volcanoes for power and China developed the world’s first directly solar-powered air conditioning unit. Energy storage also got a big boost as Stanford researchers unveiled a new type of bendable battery made out of paper – just the thing to power the flexible e-readers of the future.

In other news, this week we brought you exclusive coverage of the greatest green designs from this year’s London Design Festival and we showcased the latest in wearable tech – instant spray-on clothing in a can! Finally, we tackled an issue that has plagued tech junkies forever – those impossible-to-open clamshell plastic packages.

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: fly like a bird, bend batteries in half, and spray clothing from a can originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Avaya’s not a name you generally hear when circling the consumer electronics water cooler, and even though it just introduced a new tablet, you still won’t ever see this guy in Target, Best Buy or Walmart. Expected to cost between $1,500 and $2,000, this 11.5-inch enterprise tablet is designed primarily to be used at a cubicle, doubling as a SIP phone and tripling as an office collaboration tool. Dubbed a “Polycom killer” more than an iPad killer, this unit relies on Aura 6.0 and the newly designed Flare user interface (detailed in the video past the break), which enables touchscreen operation and supports multi-user video calling, email, web browsing and support for Android applications. Specs wise, it’s “slightly thicker than an iPad,” has a trio of USB 2.0 ports, inbuilt WiFi, 3G / 4G WWAN support and an integrated battery for those days when you simply have to clock in from the comfort of Venice Beach. Hit that More Coverage link for a live report at the device’s unveiling, and feel free to start hassling your manager to order up a few dozen of these. Or use that money for office-wide raises — whatever floats your boat.

[Thanks, Bob]

Continue reading Avaya intros business-oriented A175 tablet, shows off Flare user interface

Avaya intros business-oriented A175 tablet, shows off Flare user interface originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Sep 2010 03:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some of today’s young’uns starting out on QWERTY and full-touch devices might not even know what T9 is, but let us tell you something: back in the day, it was the way things got done on your phone. Copied by a number of manufacturers and software firms (notably Motorola with iTap), T9 was the premier product of start-up Tegic that would eventually find its way to a majority of phones with numeric keypads sold around the world — several billion, in fact — and continues to enjoy enormous success today. T9′s co-inventor, Martin King, passed away this week after a protracted bout with cancer; though he hadn’t been actively involved with Tegic (now a part of Nuance) in some time, he had been engaged with a newer startup, Exbiblio, whose technology actively parses words snapped by cameraphones and directs the user to more information in real time. We’ll pull out our old Sony Ericsson T68 in your honor, Martin.

Co-creator of T9, Martin King, passes away originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Sep 2010 19:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems like Apple’s legal team is constantly embroiled in a pitched battle of some sort, but this weekend they might get to relax — citing recent iPhone policy changes, the European Commission’s decided to stop breathing down their necks. Though the EU originally joined the US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission in investigating why Cupertino chose to block third-party dev tools and ads earlier this year, the fact that Apple recently relaxed both restrictions (and created a repair program for iPhones purchased abroad) satisfied European regulators. “The Commission intends to close the investigations into these matters,” it wrote earlier today. There’s no guarantee that the US powers-that-be will exercise similar leniency, of course, but we wouldn’t be surprised — even inside Apple, the DoJ’s got other fish to fry.

EU plans to end Apple antitrust investigation in light of relaxed iPhone rules originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Sep 2010 13:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, sure — our international contemporaries have been toying with the Dell Streak for the better part of 2010, but Americans have just recently had their equal opportunity to indulge. It’s a mini tablet, or a huge phone. Or both. And sometimes neither. But whatever the case may be on any given Sunday, the 5-inch Streak has caused more of a stir for the folks in Round Rock than any product since the Adamo. For those who eagerly pre-ordered and then not-so-eagerly paid the credit bill upon receipt, we’re interested in knowing exactly how things are going so far. Are you still stoked about having a 5-inch phone? Would you have made it any larger / smaller? Changed the casing? Made it available on another carrier? Thrown in a slide-out QWERTY keyboard? Let us know in comments below, capiche?

How would you change Dell’s Streak? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Sep 2010 01:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Comcast’s acquisition of NBC isn’t quite in the bank just yet, but that doesn’t mean the upcoming change isn’t already dealing an impact. Current CEO and President Jeff Zucker announced today he plans to leave the company sometime following the takeover — but also noting his final day might not be for another six months from now. “Comcast will be a great new steward, just as GE has been, and they deserve the chance to implement their own vision,” he said. We wonder what exactly that new vision might be and how it pertains to the shift in online offerings — for his part, Zucker’s made a few headlines over the years that seem to suggest hesitation / aversion to the current digital transition. No successor has been named, but again, that could very well be half a year away — as they say, stay tuned.

CEO Jeff Zucker leaving NBC, exit stage left originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It sure is hard to differentiate yourself in the highly competitive world of ever-shrinking USB storage. To avoid this trend of disregard, Verbatim has sent its latest offering off to paper management school and the results are now apparent for us to see. The new Clip-it comes with an added incision in the middle of its lilliputian body that allows it to act as a paperclip or maybe even a handsome accessory to your geek chique outfit. Verbatim makes sure to tell us (about eleventy times) that the Clip-it has scooped up a red dot Design Award for its ingenuity, and prices the thing at eminently affordable €8.99 (2GB) and €11.49 (4GB) levels. Those correspond to $12 and $15.34, respectively, meaning you could have the whole set of seven colors for less than what you’d have to spend on just one iWatch.

Continue reading Verbatim’s Clip-it is a USB drive with paperclip ambitions

Verbatim’s Clip-it is a USB drive with paperclip ambitions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Sep 2010 01:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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