Plenty of people out there have a serious phobia of public speaking and there are tons of other disorders, such as Asperger's, that severely limit a person's ability to handle even simple social interactions. M. Ehsan Hoque, a student at the MIT Media Lab, has made these subjects the focus of her latest project: MACH (My Automated Conversation coacH). At the heart of MACH is a complex system of facial and speech recognition algorithms that can … [Read more...]

The Ouya journey, according to founder Julie Uhrman, will never have a firm conclusion. But, we'd say having retail units enter production and shipping to mega stores like Game Stop and Best Buy represents at least the culmination of this particular story arc. With only a few weeks to go before the retail launch, the company brought the final console, controller and packaging to E3 for a press tour. The console itself is unchanged from the … [Read more...]

Nyko's PlayPad Pro controllers make gaming on Android much less painful, as anyone who has attempted to control a high-speed Sonic with a touchscreen can attest. So, how does the company follow up a largely successful peripheral that already performs its appointed tasks with aplomb? By changing very little, it appears. The PlayPad Pro 2 has a slightly sleeker and more aggressive design than its predecessor, but at a glance it may be hard to tell … [Read more...]

Under Armour has always prided itself on the science and technology that goes into its sports apparel. But, let's be honest, the company could spend four times as much on R&D for a shirt as HTC did on the One, and it would still never generate the same fanfare. Sure, a heart rate monitor and app still aren't going to set the tech blog world on fire, but it could be the move that earns the company the respect it deserves. The Armour39 system … [Read more...]