|  |  |  | | | | | Engadget | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Warner Bros. is reaching deep into its vaults and releasing two Alfred Hitchcock classics on Blu-ray this fall in Dial M for Murder and Strangers on a Train. While both are notable for their content, Dial M for Murder reaches back to a much earlier infatuation with 3D during the 50s, however few moviegoers at the time actually got to see it in the intended format. According to the press release, the studio has gone back to the original camera negative for a 4K scan, with restoration done for both eyes and tweaks to improve convergence where necessary (a 2D version is also included). Fans of classic 3D should keep an eye out more on the way, as EVP Jeff Baker says House of Wax is up next from the catalog of 15 movies Warner is able to draw from. The Dial M for Murder Blu-ray 3D is scheduled to hit shelves October 9th for $35.99, while Strangers On A Train will be released the same day for $19.98. Check after the break for the press release with full details, as well as trailers for both movies. Continue reading Hitchcock classics Dial M for Murder (3D) and Strangers on a Train come to Blu-ray October 9th Hitchcock classics Dial M for Murder (3D) and Strangers on a Train come to Blu-ray October 9th originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 24 Jun 2012 01:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Cesar, who wants to become the next eBoy. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I design and make customized t-shirts in my town, and over the last two years they've become pretty popular. I've had to expand to keep up with all the demand, so now I'm looking at taking my business online, but I don't know anything about building my own e-store. What's the best way for a newbie to start their own e-store? I've been looking at services like Wix, but can you think of anything better? Thanks in advance!" We're always looking to ask questions that are a little bit different than "help me pick an Android tablet" and this one's a real doozy. In a former life we once had to help build a site that used POWA, which we were quite taken with, but that's as far as our knowledge goes. Perhaps one of you knows of a truly excellent e-commerce platform for small businesses and can point Cesar in the right direction. Go on, let's be good to one another. Ask Engadget: best online storefront for a small business? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 23:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  If, like ours, your ears are finely tuned to the sound of the delivery van's engine, prepare for lots more collection slips. FedEx is working with gas-to-EV converters, Amp, to switch some of its wagons over to the electric side of the fence. At the moment, just two vehicles will be ditching the diesel, but should the Washington, D.C.-based testing go well, it could lead to a further 9000 vans getting the petro-snip. Amp Electric Vehicles identified fleets such as FedEx's as ideal candidates for the conversion, based on the shorter daily range requirements and typically poor gas mileage. Good news and all, and we admire the firm's forward thinking, but how are we going to hear our latest impulse-purchase coming round the corner now? FedEx gets amped about electrifying its step vans originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  Autoblog |  Amped Electric Vehicles | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Google must be feeling the pinch from developers like Foursquare who've jumped ship from Google Maps in opposition to costs, as it just cut the price of heavy Maps API use in a big, big way. Where it used to cost $4 for every 1,000 map hits beyond a 25,000 daily limit, the company is now charging as little as $1 in addition to eliminating the lower usage cap for app writers who tweak the map look. The olive branch won't make Apple change its mind, of course, but Google clearly isn't keen on anyone else using the price tag as an incentive to join the exodus. Mountain View is no doubt eager to keep as many mobile and web app developers on its side as it can -- with Google I/O just around the corner, it wouldn't do to have customers leaving at the very moment Google is trying to rally support for a big Maps update. Google drops cost of Maps API to keep developers, gives Foursquare puppy eyes originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink TechCrunch | Google Geo Developers Blog | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  When we first saw the Ringbow finger peripheral, it was a gangly prototype, tethered to an external battery -- not exactly ideal for a portable tablet accessory. The idea is to strap a D-pad to a user's finger, netting them extra control for touch-based games. Now the duo behind the device is showcasing a self-contained unit on Kickstarter, hoping to garner enough interest to send it off to production. The Bluetooth-compatible band boasts an adjustable one-size-fits-all grip, a nine-way directional nub and a five hour battery life. A $45 contribution buys a standard black Ringbow and a game package, though more generous backers can score additional colors, exclusive hardware and dev kits. Without $100,000 in support, however, the ring won't be minted. Follow the links below if you're compelled to fund the digital circlet. Ringbow hits Kickstarter, promises directional pad-assisted touch gaming originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 14:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | Kickstarter | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Often considered the eventual successor to flash, phase change memory has had a tough time getting to the point where it would truly take over; when it takes longer to write data than conventional RAM, there's clearly a roadblock. The University of Cambridge has the potential cure through a constant-power trick that primes the needed hybrid of germanium, antimony and tellurium so that it crystalizes much faster, committing data to memory at an equally speedy rate. Sending a steady, weak electric field through the substance lets a write operation go through in just 500 picoseconds; that's 10 times faster than an earlier development without the antimony or continuous power. Researchers think it could lead to permanent storage that runs at refresh rates of a gigahertz or more. In other words, the kinds of responsiveness that would make solid-state drives break out in a sweat. Any practical use is still some distance off, although avid phase change memory producers like Micron are no doubt champing at the bit for any upgrade they can get. Phase change memory breakthrough could lead to gigahertz-plus data transfers, make SSDs seem pokey originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Ars Technica | Science | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  This week sees many corners of the globe celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Alan Turing. A man whose contribution to the worlds of tech and gadgets is immeasurable -- a sentiment not lost on Google. Today, geeks and norms worldwide will be waking up to possibly the most complex doodle to date. Can you set the machine and spell out "Google"? If you can, you'll be sent off to lots more information about the man himself. This isn't the only thing Mountain View's done to keep his legacy alive, having previously helped Bletchley Park raise funds to purchase (and display) Turing's papers, and more recently helping curators at London's Science Museum with its Codebreaker - Alan Turing's Life and Legacy exhibition. If you haven't already, head to Google.com and pop your logic hat on, and if you get stuck, head past the break for a helpful video. Continue reading Google's Turing doodle celebrates his genius, reminds us how dumb we are (video) Google's Turing doodle celebrates his genius, reminds us how dumb we are (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 10:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink CNET | The Official Google Blog, Google | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  If the recent chapter in Olympus' history was a photo, it'd be a blurry thumb covering the subject's head. But, if reports from Nikkei are correct, it looks like the next one might be a happy family portrait. As suggested earlier this year, Sony is reportedly close to agreeing on a 50 billion yen (about $620 million) investment in the scandalized firm. This would likely give the Japanese electronics giant a 10 percent stake in Olympus, making it the largest single shareholder. This isn't the first time we've seen the troubled camera and optics brand associated with other electronics firms, and with Olympus telling Reuters that "This is not something that we have announced" we'll just have to wait and see exactly how this next frame develops. Olympus reportedly in final talks for Sony investment originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 08:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink The Verge | Nikkei | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Sir Richard Branson might want to look over his shoulder, since Virgin Galactic now has an even more ambitious rival. Britain-based Excalibur Almaz is planning no less than a trip to the Moon using reworked, Soviet-era Salyut space stations and Soyuz capsules as the vehicles for the multi-stage, 500,000-mile total voyage. Accordingly, no one will be living in the lap of luxury on the way there: there's just two habitation modules that will take three people each, and the six-month trip isn't going to leave much room for perks other than an isolated room in the event of a solar radiation blast. Not that there's as much of a rush given the efforts involved in making this look-but-don't-touch Moon orbit a reality. Anyone who travels needs to be in tip-top shape -- and the £100 million ($156 million) ticket will make Virgin's Spaceship Two rides seem downright frugal. Be sure to pack your gym shorts and a briefcase full of cash. Excalibur Almaz wants to offer the first private trip to the Moon -- provided you've got £100 million originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 06:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Huffington Post, Daily Mail | Excalibur Almaz | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Developing a real, working tractor beam has regularly been an exercise in frustration: it often relies on brute force attempts to induce a magnetic link or an air pressure gap, either of which falls a bit short of science fiction-level elegance. The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology's Mordechai Segev has a theory that would use the subtler (though not entirely movie-like) concept of negative radiation pressure in light to move objects. By using materials that have a negative refraction index, where the light photons and their overall wave shape move in opposite directions, Segev wants to create a sweet spot where negative radiation pressure exists and an object caught in the middle can be pushed around. His early approach would use extremely thin crystals stacked in layers to manipulate the refraction. As it's theorized, the technology won't be pulling in the Millennium Falcon anytime soon -- the millimeters-wide layer intervals dictate the size of what can be pulled. Nonetheless, even the surgery-level tractor beams that Segev hopes will ultimately stem from upcoming tests would bring us much closer to the future that we've always wanted. Negative radiation pressure in light could make some tractor beams real, we're already sucked in originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 23 Jun 2012 04:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink Wired | Optics Express | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
