| Faraday Porteur concept e-bike becomes a reality, launches pre-sale on Kickstarter (video) Jul 17th 2012, 19:06  Last time we saw the Faraday electric bike, it had just emerged victorious from the Oregon Manifest design competition. Designed by Ideo and built by Portland's Rock Lobster Cycles, the retro-styled ride was destined to rot in concept hell for all eternity -- that is until lead designer Adam Vollmer quit Ideo to press the bike into production under the Faraday Bicycles name. Now he's perfected the design, the company's launching a pre-sale on Kickstarter to, er, kickstart the first production run. Don't be fooled by its low-fi looks, parallel top tubes hold a series of lithium-ion batteries which power a front motor, good for between 10 and 15 miles of travel. The two front prongs are the basis of a modular racking system and contain a pair of LED headlamps that activate automatically in bad light. It charges in 45 minutes and weighs around 40 pounds. The bike will set you back $3,500, $300 less than when a second run is produced next year -- significantly cheaper than the current price for the $5,400 Grace One we rode around New York. If you've got some baller-style cash to throw around, you can spend $10,000 on a collectors edition hand-finished by Rock Lobster's Paul Sadoff. After the break we've got video and more details, but be warned -- you might find yourself opening your wallet a little too rapidly. Continue reading Faraday Porteur concept e-bike becomes a reality, launches pre-sale on Kickstarter (video) Filed under: Transportation Faraday Porteur concept e-bike becomes a reality, launches pre-sale on Kickstarter (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink |  Kickstarter | Email this | Comments | | Sonos finally adds retina support to iOS app, tablet UI on Android Jul 17th 2012, 18:49  It's taken over two years, but Sonos has finally added high-res graphics to its iOS apps to support the Retina Display. The music streaming remote has been saddled with an interface designed for much lower resolutions until today's update which finally ushered it into the modern age. Thankfully, the company brought Retina support to both the iPhone and iPad app in one fell swoop, avoiding letting one version lag behind the other. The Android remote also got a nice update today, finally delivering a tablet UI. The app has technically supported Google-powered slates for sometime, but it lacked a truly optimized interface with multiple columns like the iPad version. Hit up the source links to download them now. Filed under: Cellphones, Tablet PCs, Software Sonos finally adds retina support to iOS app, tablet UI on Android originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Sonos Controller for Android,, iPad,, iPhone | Email this | Comments | | Re-Reading Rainbow: an interview with LeVar Burton Jul 17th 2012, 18:00  LeVar Burton has to take a moment. He pauses, dabs his eyes with a tissue, taking it all in: the washed-out white room, over-exposed by the sun, filled with journalists, industry reps and friends in rows of folding chairs, red, orange, yellow, green and blue. Large balloons hang from the corners of the room, dressed up like hot air balloons, carrying small, empty baskets. A guitar sits next to an amp off the corner of the stage while the Reading Rainbow logo beams on a flatscreen monitor, largely unchanged since its heyday a quarter-century ago. Burton, too, appears mostly unchanged since those days, aside from closer-cropped hair, more neatly manicured facial hair and a smart, mustard suit jacket.  There's plenty to be emotional about, of course, hitting the stage on the tail of an introduction by producer Mark Wolfe, who calls Burton, "my best friend." The return of Reading Rainbow - now in the form of an iPad app - has been a long time coming, the beloved children's series having been largely MIA since being pulled from the airwaves in 2009, after a 26-year run. "This is two years in the making," Burton begins in his familiarly gentle cadence as we sit down for an interview roughly an hour later, "and I'm really just overwhelmed with the response. It's like making a movie. You're just so close to it and you sometimes lose perspective, you can't see the forest for the trees, that sort of thing. There's so much that's gone into it, so much work, so much sweat, so much blood." A lot, certainly, has gone into the launch, Burton singling out theme song composer Steve Horelick and singer Tina Fabrique in the audience. "It's my first time meeting her in-person," he explains, extending a hand to bring her up on stage. "Butterfly in the sky," she begins, as though not a single day had passed in the last two and a half decades that she didn't wake up singing that line. "I can go twice as high," Burton joins in. By "take a look, it's in a book," nearly everyone in attendance adds to the chorus. It's a surreal sight placed up against the standard fare of tech press conferences, where bloggers elbow one another to shoot tablets on stands behind bulletproof plexiglass, and before the crowd finishes singing "a Reading Rainbow," Burton's eyes aren't the only misty ones in the house. Continue reading Re-Reading Rainbow: an interview with LeVar Burton Filed under: Tablet PCs, Software Re-Reading Rainbow: an interview with LeVar Burton originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | Leap Motion taps former Apple iAd VP Andy Miller to be President and COO Jul 17th 2012, 17:58  Apple's former iAd VP (and Quattro co-founder) Andy Miller only just took a job as a general partner at Highland Capital last year after leaving the gang in Cupertino, but he's now already moving on to another fairly high profile gig. Leap Motion has announced today that Miller will become its new President and CEO COO, placing him in a central role at a company that's facing the rather difficult task of actually delivering the goods after wowing most everyone with its new gesture control technology. As Fortune notes, however, the move doesn't come as a complete surprise. Highland Capital is backing Leap, and Miller himself has reportedly been spending about 80 percent of his time on the company over the past few months. In a statement, Miller said that he's "been fortunate to work with some of the most influential figures and companies in the technology industry, and I'm as excited about the Leap as I've ever been about a technology," adding that the "potential for the Leap is limitless, as it is going to fundamentally change the way we interact with so many devices in our lives." Update: Leap Motion has reached out and informed us that Miller will be President and COO, reporting to current CEO and co-founder Michael Buckwald. The official press release can be found after the break. Continue reading Leap Motion taps former Apple iAd VP Andy Miller to be President and COO Filed under: Peripherals Leap Motion taps former Apple iAd VP Andy Miller to be President and COO originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  9 to 5 Mac | Fortune / CNN Money | Email this | Comments | | Firefox 14 rolls out: Google searches default to HTTPS, OS X Lion users get fullscreen support Jul 17th 2012, 17:31  The changes in Firefox 14 may not be quite as immediately noticeable as those in the recently released Firefox 13, but they're still fairly notable nonetheless. One of the biggest is Mozilla delivering on its promise to move to HTTPS for all Google search results and search suggestions, giving users a bit of added security. Mac OS X Lion users will also be glad to know that the full screen mode is now fully supported, and all users can also now expect better mouse performance in web-based games and other applications thanks to Mozilla's implementation of the Pointer Lock API. As is the norm now, though, you'll just have to wait another six weeks for the next release if a feature you've been waiting for didn't make it into this one. Filed under: Internet, Software Firefox 14 rolls out: Google searches default to HTTPS, OS X Lion users get fullscreen support originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink The Inquirer | Firefox | Email this | Comments | |
