Consumers willing to sacrifice hardware controls for a touchscreen-driven UI won't be missing out on much else -- functionally, the EOS M is a near-clone of Rebel T4i with the same 18-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, DIGIC 5 processor and 3-inch touchscreen.
ENGADGET: Canon EOS M mirrorless camera hands-on (video) Hands-on
On a more technical front, we're told the PDK supports the Linux standard SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) to ease in porting and development (Unreal for Linux runs using SDL, for instance), and that developers could even build apps like an audio processor that rely on PDK components but don't show up in the UI at all, or OpenGL-empowered things that aren't necessarily games or in 3D.
Some of the new offerings aren't so robust, sadly -- the UI's Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield 3 apps are little more than pre-configured profiles -- and not all of their toggles actually correspond to action in the game.
Windows Street Sign Interface Windows 8-style UI just wouldn't have the same ring to it.
ENGADGET: Microsoft downplays Metro design name, might face a lawsuit over all that street lingo
Comcast isn't opening up its set-top boxes (UI and all) in the way we'd like, but it has established a reference spec (RDK) for potential hardware partners to build their own versions of its next generation setup.
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What's more, Redmond wouldn't be letting third parties use this new UI -- Pink would be manufactured only by Sharp or Motorola, who've made Sidekicks in the past.
ENGADGET: Microsoft's "Pink" smartphone to be Microsoft-branded?
Like virtually every other product announced at IFA, these notebooks will run Windows 8, and though the 1, 366 x 768 displays aren't touch-enabled, Lenovo says its touchpad is optimized for the Metro UI.
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Images were bright and fluid on its massive screen and Huawei's lightweight Emotion UI didn't appear to compromise the device's performance on the 1.5GHz quad-core processor.
ENGADGET: Hands-on with the Huawei Ascend D2 (update: now with video)
He doesn't spare his former coworkers from criticism, though: he warns that the split between the Windows 8-style UI and the traditional desktop is potentially confusing, notes the absence of useful Android and iOS features like touch-friendly app folders, and doesn't find the conventional Windows interface very practical with fingers alone.
ENGADGET: Paul Allen takes a look at Windows 8, finds his ex-workmates mostly doing well
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