Aachen, Germany – Sensosolutions www.sensoglove.com, a leading provider of innovative IT systems for sports analysis, motion and performance measurement, announced today a new version of SensoGlove, the world’s first digital golf glove.  The new advanced SensoGlove now offers a longer battery life and increased sensitivity for a more accurate pressure read to ensure a consistently smooth and powerful golf swing for greater distance and lower scores.  Just in time for the holidays, the new version of SensoGlove was created based on feedback from international PGA professionals.

Audio & Visual Feedback at 80 Times per Second

SensoGlove features a small, sweat-proof 1.2-inch LED digital monitor that analyzes the pressure of the swing through highly responsive sensors placed throughout the glove.  Just swing the golf club to receive real-time audio and visual feedback at 80 times per second by the small sensors that warn you if you exceed your target level of grip pressure.  The patented SensoGlove even shows you which fingers are gripping too tightly, so you can adjust your grip accordingly.

Made of the highest quality cabretta leather, SensoGlove is the perfect gift for golf lovers or those that want to learn golf or improve their game.  Everyone that has tried to learn golf knows how hard it is to achieve the perfect light grip necessary to swing the club correctly every time.  SensoGlove works as your own personal golf trainer, showing you the correct way to grip the club, thereby avoiding bad habits and injury.  With SensoGlove, all golfers (from beginner to advanced), can quickly learn how to hold the club, improving every part of their game, from backswing, downswing, impact, follow-through, to driving, putting, and chipping.  

Right & Left Hand Gloves Available for Men and Women

The new version of SensoGlove is available immediately online at www.sensoglove.com and through distributors, sales partners, and golf schools around the world for men and women in right or left hand configurations, sizes small to x-large, priced at $89 (replacement gloves are available for $22.48).   Made of cabretta leather, the built-in digital monitor can be removed to use SensoGlove as a regular golf glove.  For more information, please visit www.sensoglove.com.

ABOUT SENSOSOLUTIONS

Sensosolutions GmbH is a leading German-based company specializing in the development of highly innovative IT systems for sports analysis, motion, and performance measurement.  Sensosolutions is the creator of SensoGlove, the first and only golf glove with built-in sensors that constantly read the pressure of your grip.  SensoGlove teaches you the correct grip pressure for a smooth, consistent swing that delivers greater distance, enhanced precision and lower scores.  For more information, see www.sensoglove.com.

Last November when the Kinect first launched, gamers were curious, yet a bit skeptical about it. Here was a device with incredible technological potential, and arguably the most impressive game that came out with it was a dance simulator.

Since then the Kinect has become a bona fide hit, selling more than eight million units in the first 60 days and being named the “fastest-selling consumer electronics device” of all time by Guinness World Records. More importantly, the software problem has been solved, and not by Microsoft, whose Kinect releases have been few and far between, but by the ever-growing legion of hackers creating innovative tech demos and applications for Kinect on the PC.

If you have a Kinect, you owe it to yourself to see what’s happening in the hacking scene—putting this knowledge to use isn’t even that hard. Follow along and we’ll show you how.

1. Set Up Your Kinect

Physically setting up the Kinect is a piece of cake, as long as you have the stand-alone power supply that comes with the boxed version of the Kinect. If you do, just plug in the power supply, connect it to the Kinect, and then run the USB cable over to the PC (don’t plug it in just yet, though).

Unfortunately, if you bought the bundle that includes an Xbox 360 S and the Kinect together, that doesn’t come with a power supply. If you want to use your Kinect with a PC you’ll have to order a stand-alone power supply (above) from Microsoft at bit.ly/heLdOQ.

2. Install PrimeSense OpenNI and Sensor Kinect

With the Kinect physically ready to go the plan gets a bit more complicated. You’re going to need to install a total of three things on your system before you can start running software for the Kinect on your PC—one driver, and two pieces of middleware.

Normally, in a situation like this we would want to start with the lowest-level piece of software, the driver. However, in this case, the driver (Sensor Kinect) won’t install without the first piece of middleware (OpenNI), so we’ll start there.

But first, why do we need middleware? Early Kinect hacks relied entirely on rough-around-the-edges drivers that could extract the raw images and depth maps captured by the Kinect sensor. People were able to make some cool hacks using those data streams, but you had to be familiar with image-processing programming in order to do much of anything. OpenNI, from PrimeSense (the Israeli Company that Microsoft licensed the Kinect Technology from in the first place), is middleware that allows developers easier, more abstracted access to sensor data, without having to do the low-level stuff themselves. It’s hardware-agnostic, so OpenNI software will work with any sensor device that has an OpenNI driver written for it. As it stands, Kinect is the only such sensor.

To install OpenNI, just go to the download page at bit.ly/fyjLFy and scroll down until you see the link to download the latest unstable build for Windows. Download and run the installer—there shouldn’t be any surprises here.

With OpenNI installed, you can now use the Sensor Kinect driver. Go to the Sensor Kinect GitHub page at bit.ly/gqWMY9 and click the Downloads button, then click the Download .zip button under Download Source. You won’t have to actually compile any source code, though—just extract the contents of the .zip file and navigate to the Bin/ directory, which contains a binary Windows installer. Run through the quick installer and you’ll be good to go.

At this point, you can plug your Kinect into the computer and perform some quick tests to make sure everything’s on track. First, when you plug in the Kinect, your computer should recognize it for what it is. If you go to the Device Manager, you’ll see a PrimeSensor category that includes a Kinect Motor and Kinect Camera device (below).

OpenNI needs to be configured to run properly, which is handled with a set of XML files in the OpenNI/Data directory. Fortunately, the Sensor Kinect .zip file contains some preconfigured files for you to use. Go back to the directory you extracted the Sensor Kinect source code to, and find the OpenNI folder. Copy the contents of this folder to the Program Files\OpenNI\Data folder.

Finally, open the .xml file you just copied over, because we have to make one more change. In the beginning, there’s a section that reads:

<Licenses>
<!– Add licenses here
<License vendor=”vendor” key=”key”/>
–>
</Licenses>
Change this section so that it reads like this:
<Licenses>
<License vendor=”PrimeSense” key=”0KOIk2JeIBYClPWVnMoRKn5cdY4=”/>
</Licenses>

Don’t worry, it isn’t piracy—this license key is provided by PrimeSense to the community.

Finally, we can run a software test to make sure everything’s working. Go to the folder you installed OpenNI to, then navigate to Samples\Bin\Release and find the file niviewer.exe. When you run this program, you should see a video stream side-by-side with a single-color depth map (above). If you do, you’re more than halfway done.

3. Install NITE

NITE is another component of the overall PrimeSense package. It’s the higher-level middleware, which interprets the raw sensor data and translates it into more useful constructs—isolating gestures and identifying where your body is. These tools are used by many of the developers creating software for Kinect today.

You can download the latest version of NITE at bit.ly/fsfFEg. The installation is pretty much the same as with OpenNI, except that partway through, you’ll be asked for a license key. Again, use “0KOIk2JeIBYClPWVnMoRKn5cdY4=”.

Once you’ve installed NITE, you’ll have to run through basically the same configuration process as with OpenNI. Go to the Sensor Kinect source directory, find the directory labeled NITE, and copy its contents into the Program Files\Prime Sense\NITE\Data directory. Open each XML file in Notepad, and insert the license key where needed (above).

You can find NITE sample programs in the NITE\Samples\Bin\Release directory. A good one to start with is Sample-Players.exe, which simply shows you a video feed of what the camera sees, with each human it sees shaded in a different color (below).

4. Install Software

Congratulations! You’ve hacked your Kinect! Enjoy those Kinect sample applications that came with NITE.

What, you want more? Well, alright. Here are a few programs you can try to get yourself started:

FAAST

Short for Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit, FAAST lets you control the mouse and keyboard with Kinect. Prepare to live out all your Minority Report fantasies. bit.ly/exTk6O

Brekel Kinect

This package turns the Kinect into a makeshift motion-capture device/3D scanner. It can capture and export skeletal animation or 3D meshes for use in your 3D modeling program of choice (below). bit.ly/eXfiJJ

Zombie Holdout

And just because no list would be complete without a game, here’s Zombie Holdout. Resident Evil it ain’t, but it’s still fun to play a non-Xbox game on Kinect. bit.ly/fRagRi

[Maximum PC]

[Kotaku]

Intel really kicked the SSD world in high gear when they released their X-25 series of drives last year. Their performance was the benchmark that all other drives were measured against for quite some time. Many have wondered what Intel would bring to the table in 2011. The time is finally here and Intel sent us over a pair of their new 510 Series 250GB drives to have a look at their performance. Take a look to see how they matched up with the new SandForce drives.

Source: Legit Reviews Hardware Articles

Overclocked card turns heads but drinks power

Palit’s high-end cards tend to be exercises in extravagance. That’s certainly true with its GTX 570 Sonic Platinum. At first, we thought Palit shipped the wrong card, given the 8-pin power connector nestled adjacent to the 6-pin connector, just like a GTX 580. However, it’s really a GTX 570—albeit with a core clock of 800MHz (versus the stock 742MHz) and the GDDR5 frame buffer clocking an even 1GHz (versus the reference 950MHz.)

Of course, pushing a GTX 570 that hard likely requires an extra current load, hence the 8-pin connector. In fact, our testing revealed that the Palit GTX 570 sucked a stunning 388W at full load, just shy of the EVGA GTX 580 SuperClock’s 395W. The Palit’s idle number is worse by comparison, though, at 161W—the worst of all the cards compared in our chart.

Palit pushes the GTX 570 to its limit, but it sucks almost as much power as a GTX 580.

But don’t assume that the Palit card is equivalent to a GTX 580 when it comes to performance. The Sonic Platinum fell short in the benchmarks compared to the GTX 580 SC. At $370, though, it’s also considerably less costly than a GTX 580. On the other hand, the Palit GTX 570 generally hammered the Radeon HD 6970 and generated frame rates about 5 percent higher than an Asus GTX 570 based on Nvidia’s reference design—about equivalent to the price margin.

Palit uses a two-fan design to keep the card running cool under load. There’s a perceptible fan spin-up under heavy load, and overall fan noise is pretty noticeable. It’s an attractive card, and looks killer if you like running a case with transparent side windows.

Palit also adds a DisplayPort connector to the card, enabling easy connection to monitors using DisplayPort. Note that a single card still only drives two displays; you’ll need to run SLI if you want three-panel surround gaming. Still, it’s good to see Palit move forward with a more modern display connector.

Should you get one? If you’ve got the power supply to handle it, you’ll certainly be pleased with the performance. After all, you’re getting 90 percent of a GTX 580 for about 70 percent of the price. On the other hand, that power draw does give us pause—pushing a GPU this hard beyond its rated limits makes us worry a bit about the card’s working life. Still, Palit has delivered one of the fastest GTX 570s around.

Source: Maximum PC - All Articles

Today we are looking at the Killer Whale Premium CPU cooler from Deepcool. The Killer Whale Premium is an all copper downdraft cooler with six heatpipes that weighs in at a massive 1.23 kilograms. Join us as we see how the Killer Whale Premium stacks up against coolers like the Noctua NH-C14 and Corsair A50/H70 on our Intel Core i7-930 test system.

Source: Legit Reviews Hardware Articles

We just got our hands on Microsoft’s new mobile peripheral, the Ar Touch Mouse, and it’s so weird we couldn’t help but make a first look video. We don’t want to give away the surprise, so check out the video for more information on what makes the Arc Touch truly creative.

CPUreview.com editors: We feel this mouse has a High Coolness Factor (HCF), definitely worth checking out! Thanks Alex!

Source: Maximum PC - All Articles

If it felt like Apple as lightening up on their App Store approval guidelines, think again. According to The New York Times, a recent scuffle with Sony has spurred Apple to clarify that their App Store rules on in0app purchases are going to be more strictly followed. The whole issue came up when Sony’s Reader app was rejected from the App Store a few days ago. Apple objected to the Reader having its own eBook store, and no option for Apple’s own in-app purchases. This, says Apple, is a violation of their terms of service. 

This brings up an uncomfortable dilemma for other apps, like Amazon’s Kindle for instance. Both the Kindle app and the Sony app bring up an imbedded web browser to make content purchases, but Apple is now saying that developers must provide that same content for in-app purchases using Apple’s system. Not coincidentally, that means Apple would get their 30% cut. “It’s the opposite of what we wanted to bring to the market,” Sony’s Steve Haber said. “We always wanted to bring the content to as many devices as possible, not one device to one store.”

This does not mean that any content purchased the old way won’t be available. Indeed, you can keep doing that. Apple is just asserting their authority to require that users are presented with in-app purchases too. A cunning way to get people more invested in the Apple ecosystem. How does this sit with you?

Source: Maximum PC - All Articles

A sturdy, high-end mobile workstation with a professional-grade display

It’s difficult to pick just one standout feature of the HP EliteBook 8740w mobile workstation. Certainly a bright, 17-inch, 10-bit LCD panel that’s capable of displaying more than 1 billion colors and remains visible at up to about a 170-degree offset without any color degradation is worth noting. But so is the notebook’s durable design, with its spill-resistant keyboard, magnesium-alloy chassis, and magnesium-aluminum display enclosure. Then there’s also the 8740w’s impressive performance that runs circles around our zero-point configuration.

It’s not indestructible, but it would take a lot of force to damage this notebook.

With features squarely aimed at businesses that require a color-accurate display, such as graphic-arts production and medical imaging—as well as less-than-forgiving work environments, such as a factory floor—there is little doubt why the 8740w is considered a mobile workstation. This also goes a long way toward explaining a price tag that starts at $3,000. Powered by a 2GHz Intel Core i7-920XM processor, with 8GB of 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB 7,200rpm hard drive, and an Nvidia Quadro 5000M GPU with 2GB of GDDR5 memory, our eval unit cost a hefty $5,290.

Speaking of hefty, our unit weighed a not-inconsequential 8 pounds, 6.4 ounces—add to that another 2 pounds, 2 ounces  for the chunky power brick. Much of the weight can be attributed to the notebook’s sturdy build, which reportedly meets mil-spec standards.

While you probably won’t be using the 8740w inside an M1 Abrams tank, you can be assured that the 8740w’s performance is equivalent to the M1 Abrams’s firepower. Take for instance the 8740w’s showing in our multithreaded content-creation tests: The 8740w was 69 percent speedier than the zero-point iBuypower M865TU in Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, and 80 percent faster in ProShow Producer. Before you declare mission accomplished, however, we should point out that the hexa-core 3.33GHz Core i7-980X–based Eurocom D900F we reviewed in June 2010 lands an uncontested coup against the 8740w—including a 225 percent trouncing of the 8740w in our Premiere Pro test.

When you’re not busy designing Bradley Fighting Vehicles and instead want to use one to blow things up—virtually, of course—the 8740w provides decent gaming chops. A frame rate of 49.6fps in Far Cry 2 is noticeably swifter than the 34.8fps we saw with the D900F, although the 8740w’s 71.5fps in Call of Duty 4 is just a hair ahead of the D900F’s 73.2fps.

Of course, the Nvidia Quadro 5000M—a high-end Fermi GPU with 320 CUDA cores and a memory bandwidth of 76.8GB/s—does much more than just play games. To test the 8740w’s capabilities as a graphics workstation, we ran the SpecViewperf11 OpenGL-based workstation benchmark on the notebook. While the 8740w made an impressive showing on SpecViewperf11’s individual tests, its overall performance didn’t quite measure up to what you could expect from even a relatively less-expensive desktop workstation.

The 8740w would be an awfully expensive notebook to bring to a LAN party—but you could and you’d be glad you did. Where it’ll be more at home, however, is in the hands of a professional designer, architect, or technician who needs the high level of color accuracy of its display. Just make sure the purchase doesn’t overdraw your checking account and be sure to eat your Wheaties before you pick it up and start carting it around.

Source: Maximum PC - All Articles

Microsoft is left with a little egg on its face after a developer spent just six hours cracking the DRM on its Windows Phone 7 platform, DailyTech reports.

The developer attempted the crack for technical blog site WPCentral, but it wasn’t malicious in nature. Instead, WPCentral hopes this will help Microsoft improve its busted DRM scheme and has no plans of publishing how the hack works.

“We are confident Microsoft will work hard to implement a stronger DRM system, in part due to this proof-of-concept demonstration,” WPCentral said.

As part of the proof-of-concept hack, the developer was able to create an app called FreeMarketPlace that’s capable of downloading any app from Microsoft’s WP7 Marketplace and stripping away the DRM. Those apps could then be loaded on an unlocked smartphone or saved to a PC.

Source: Maximum PC - All Articles

Credit MySpace for once dominating the social networking scene and, more recently, trying to reinvent itself as an all-around entertainment epicenter. But let’s be real, MySpace blew its opportunity to become what Facebook already is, and there doesn’t appear to be room for both to coexist.

According to AllThingsD.com, things are about to get worse. Layoffs loom for perhaps as much as 50 percent of MySpace’s workforce, AllThingsD.com says, which works out to around 550 pink slips.

Citing “multiple sources familiar with the situation,” AllThingsD.com says nothing is a done deal, but all employees have been put on notice to start saving their pennies. The suits in charge are also batting around the idea of selling MySpace, though there’s no word of any potential buyers.

Source: Maximum PC - All Articles