Friday, May 4, 2012

Your 2 hourly digest for Engadget

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Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video)
May 4th 2012, 15:13

Jetman soars over Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, flies circles around historical landmarks

Why would you want to leap out of a perfectly good aircraft? To fly a winged jetpack over the city of Rio de Janeiro, of course. It sounds nuts, but it's just a day in the life for Yves Rossy, the self proclaimed "Jetman" who flew over the Grand Canyon last year. Since soaring over the Rio Grande, Rossy has pitted his carbon-fiber wings against a rally car on Top Gear, taken to the skies over Abu Dhabi and, most recently, buzzed Brazil's famous Christ the Redeemer statue. Jetman rocketed past the monument on an 11 minute flight earlier this week, beginning his journey by dropping out of a helicopter over Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. Rossy pulled his Rocketeer trick and eventually parachuted to safety on Copacabana beach. Sound fun? Head past the break to see the man in action. Us? We'll keep our feet planted on terra firma, thanks.

Continue reading Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video)

Jetman soars over Rio, flies circles around historical landmarks (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 11:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Tecca  |  sourceJetman, BBC  | Email this | Comments

Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all
May 4th 2012, 14:47

Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all

If you read our interview with ARM co-founder John Biggs, you know the company behind the processor in mosts smartphones had quite modest beginnings, what with an office in a barn and all. But Biggs is only part of the story, and Reghardware fleshes the rest out with a two-part series on the "unsung heroes of tech": Sophie Wilson, Steve Furber and Herman Hauser, the team behind Acorn Computers, the British PC company that spawned ARM in the mid-80s. We'll let you click through to the source links to take the journey yourself, but here are a few highlights: earning a computer contract with the BBC, happening upon ARM chips' low power consumption by accident and striking gold thanks to a partnership with Apple.

Series revisits ARM's humble beginnings, BBC Micro and all originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 10:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceReghardware (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

iPad drag-to-edit keyboard prototype shows Apple how easy it could be (video)
May 4th 2012, 14:12

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Text editing on the iPad is a bit of a slog unless you have a dedicated keyboard. One Daniel Hooper, however, has a simple but clever idea to fix this: use the keyboard as a pseudo-trackpad. As he shows in the prototype video below, his idea has touchscreen typists just drag one or two fingers along the keyboard to whip through text. Need to select something? Hold the Shift key while you swipe. While the concept is the sort of addition you'd normally only expect to appear in a jailbreak mod, Hooper sees the convenience as worth petitioning Apple directly -- and while there's no guarantee Apple will ever implement it, that he's been told Apple now sees it as a "known issue" suggests that someone in Cupertino is contemplating the possibilities.

Continue reading iPad drag-to-edit keyboard prototype shows Apple how easy it could be (video)

iPad drag-to-edit keyboard prototype shows Apple how easy it could be (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 10:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink iDownloadBlog  |  sourceTwitter (1), (2)  | Email this | Comments

Google News updated with enhanced Google+ integration, real-time coverage
May 4th 2012, 13:42

Google News updated with enhanced Google+ integration, real-time coverage

The good news is we're still here -- luckily. On a lighter note, though, Google's sprinkling some new features on top of its headline-loving News page. Via one of its numerous blogs, Big G announced it is boosting the default size of news images on the front page, while also improving the Google+ integration within its discovery site. Now with the Plus enhancements you'll be able to check out what folks in your Circles -- and other "notable" people -- have to say about current topics, which includes comments inside the novel real-time coverage functionality on both the News homepage and social network. Unfortunately, these will only be available to those in the US when they start rolling out over the next week, and it's worth mentioning you'll be able to opt out should you choose to do so. In the meantime, you can head over to the Google News Blog to pore over all the final details.

Google News updated with enhanced Google+ integration, real-time coverage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 04 May 2012 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink TechCrunch  |  sourceGoogle News Blog  | Email this | Comments

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