controller

LAS VEGAS--At CES 2012, Johnson Controls showed off its HUD technology, currently used in the Citroen DS5, and a conceptual 3D instrument cluster.

In a private meeting room, Johnson Controls had two bucks set up, stands with automotive instrument clusters showing off its latest technology. The company, which does big automotive business with things such as the HomeLink system for opening garage doors, is pushing its human/machine interface capabilities in new dashboard instrumentation products.

The head-up display (HUD) system relies on a small, clear panel sticking up out of the dashboard, above the instrument cluster. A projection shows speed, … Read more

LAS VEGAS--The highest-end plasma and LED TVs Samsung announced at CES yesterday offer a feature called Smart Interaction, which among other functions allows volume and channel changes at a word or gesture. Most TV watchers, however, use a cable box and not their TVs to change channels.

The solution is an IR blaster, a device designed to send infrared signals (just like a remote control) to operate the box. The little device pictured above handles that duty for Samsung's 2012 Smart Interaction models, namely the UNES7500, UNES8000, and PNE8000 series.

The TVs communicate with the blaster via Bluetooth, as … Read more

A popular TV show and movie discovery app just got a major update during CES that adds social components to its already full-featured cable listing arsenal.

Peel Personal TV Show Guide (free) is an app that changes the way you watch TV by gathering your personal preferences and giving you recommendations on your iPhone based on the data.

The polished interface of Peel asks you a few questions upon launch so it can deliver the type of shows you'll want to watch and tell you when they will show in your area. On first setup, the app has you choose your cable service, and then lists out several categories like Drama, Comedy, and Kids, and asks you to reorder the list by your personal preference with your favorites at the top. You'll then reorder a list of sports in the same fashion. When you're finished, you'll see the main interface of the app, with recommended shows that are currently playing in your area based on your preferences.

What we really like about Peel is how it lays out movies and shows by category so you can browse based on your mood at the moment.… Read more

LAS VEGAS--At CES this year, Tobii, which has been making technology that watches what you're looking at on a screen, is showing off its gaze-controlled demo laptop and introducing its eye control interface for Windows 8.

I first met Barbara Barclay, general manager of Tobii North America, at the D9 conference last June, and we had a talk about my reservations over eye control. On paper, this technology is incredibly cool and sci-fi-ish, but my issue is this: We use our eyes to see, not to control. There's a big cognitive difference between looking at something on a screen and touching it (or mousing to it). Eyes are input devices, not output. That's why gaze tracking for analytics makes sense. But for controlling a computer interface? … Read more

The cool smartphone-controlled Parrot AR.Drone quadcopter, first shown at CES in 2010, is getting some good updates that are being announced at this year's conference.

The biggest changes for the AR.Drone 2.0 are hardware and software improvements to make the device easier to fly. Better location and orientation sensors should make the drone more stable in the air, and a new pressure sensor will help it hold its altitude more accurately when it's more than a few feet off the ground (when the ultrasonic ground proximity sensor is ineffective).

On the software side, a new &… Read more

Couch potato iPad users need some social love, too. Dijit is giving it to them. Dijit is an iPad TV guide app that's been taking social steroids.

Dijit hooks up with your Facebook account and spies on what shows your friends like. You can blame the Facebook peer pressure for making you watch "The Real Housewives of Orange County" rather than "NOVA" on PBS.… Read more

With almost 550,000 active apps in the iTunes App Store, you get plenty of variation, and one developer continues to release games that are downright silly.

Many iPhone gamers will probably remember Justin Smith's Enviro-Bear 2010 (99 cents) from Captain Games. When the game came out in 2009, our Mac and iOS freelance reviewer, Paul Hughes, started the review by saying, "Enviro-Bear 2010 is part game, part joke, part art piece, and part game-design experiment." In Enviro-Bear 2010, the premise is that you are a bear getting ready to hibernate and you must drive a car … Read more

Sometimes you just want to enter the U.S. on a whim.

You might want to celebrate the Oakland Raiders finding another new way of slipping into oblivion. You might want to catch a new sci-fi brothel just outside Vegas.

Should you not have your passport with you, you might want to make sure you have a scan of it on your iPad. For this is what Canadian Martin Reisch says he did when he tried to cross the border from Quebec into foreign territory.

The Associated Press has it that Reisch wanted to deliver some Christmas gifts to his … Read more

Here at CNET, we love Logitech Harmony remotes and have recommended them for years. But--like any product--there's always room for improvement. To that end, here are five changes we'd like to see made to the Harmony line--some via software upgrades, others in forthcoming models:

1. Allow multi-remote accounts for each user. Harmony remotes are programmed via online software wizards--answer a few questions on the screen, customize your buttons, and the codes are uploaded to the remote via a USB tether. In order to use the online software, of course, you need to create an account--nothing onerous, just an … Read more