Tuesday, February 17, 2009

ASUS announces WiMAX-equipped Eee PC 1000HG

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/17/asus-announces-wimax-equipped-eee-pc-1000hg/


Despite the fact that LTE looks to be the de facto standard for next-gen mobile data, ASUS has an unwavering love affair with WiMAX. In fact, we've already seen the company introduce a WiMAX-equipped laptop, and a WiMAX-enabled Eee PC was demoed way back at CES 2008. That said, the company is just now getting around to producing a new one for the adoring public, but for whatever reason, it's not even boasting about it. Tucked deep, deep within a release gloating about the Eee PC 1003HA and T91's ability to handle Windows 7 Beta is the promise of an Eee PC 1000HG. Said netbook will include both WiMAX and WiFi capabilities -- or, more specifically, IEEE 802.16e, WAVE2 and WiFi 802.11a/b/g/n support in the 2.4GHz~2.7GHz and 5.1GHz~5.8GHz bands. Of course, "future" could mean "we'll release this in late 2019," but we're banking on hearing more details sooner rather than later.

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ASUS announces WiMAX-equipped Eee PC 1000HG originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 3:15 PM

This Electric Car (Concept) Is Controlled by an iPhone [Cars]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/MVXuTHsnPio/this-electric-car-concept-is-controlled-by-an-iphone

The Rinspeed iChange is an electric car concept promising 0-60 in four seconds along with a transforming rear end that can create two extra seats. And an iPhone controls everything but the driving parts.

The dash features an iPhone dock, and as you can see, there really aren't many other buttons—heck, there's not even a slot for the key. So the iPhone is used to turn on the car, control the Harman/Kardon infotainment system with GPS navigation, and, we believe, even handle the air conditioning complete with vents.

And as ridiculous as the idea seems, I can't help but appreciate the idea of owning one wondrous device that manages every aspect of my life/identity...I'd just rather not hit up the App Store every time I need an oil change. [Jalopnik]



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Posted by Augustine at 10:59 AM

Android G2 Hands On: Close to Perfection [Htc Magic]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/CXZfT6JtiGY/android-g2-hands-on-close-to-perfection

HTC and Google are getting closer to perfection with the new Android G2, the HTC Magic. Nice finish, great form factor. Check out our video, including the obligatory comparison with Apple's iPhone, and hands-on impressions:

The bad news first: Apart from my gripes about the user interface—which are still there—there is one but. A big BUT, bigger than Ramona's, the planetary lady with accidental moustache who serves the bocadillos down at one of the fair's restaurants: The software keyboard. On this first touch, the keyboard felt cramped, probably a result of the screen size, which is smaller than the iPhone's—which is the obvious soft keyboard reference, since it was the first one to implement a finger-touch software keyboard.

In addition to that, there's an additional user interface problem, this time having to do with perception: Instead of popping up above your finger—like in the iPhone so you can clearly see what you pressed—the keys appear on the sides. They flash quickly as you press them, and I found it extremely distracting. They said that they put them on the sides not to obstruct the view, but knowing the over-the-key implementation in the iPhone's software keyboard, it doesn't make much sense. Furthermore, when you are typing with one finger only—like I often do—you will be obstructing the view of the flashing key with your finger. The reason: When you type on the right side of the keyboard, the flashing keys appear on the left. When you click on the right, they pop out on the left.

Other than this, the rest is great. There's a new Google Mail feature to delete or classify mail in bulk, as well as a faster camera, which now can take video—which obviously means you can play back video as well. The rest of the interface and features is what you already have in the Android G1. However, what really steals the show here is the hardware i! tself.

HTC has got a very smooth phone, which feels great on your hands and in your pants' pockets. While it's sightly thicker than the iPhone, the narrower, rounded body, and weight makes it feel the same size. For sure, a lot less bulky than the G1, which looks like a brick next to this. And as you have seen in the shots, the final HTC Magic is quite pretty. Have no doubt: This thing alone will make many consumers put up with the less-than-ideal software keyboard.

Overall, the first feeling is that we got a potential winner here. If they can manage to make the software keyboard better, Apple will definitely have a formidable enemy in the Android G2.



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Posted by Augustine at 10:59 AM

OCZ Summit Series SSDs get boost from new Samsung MLC

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/17/ocz-summit-series-ssds-get-boost-from-new-samsung-mlc/


Intel's X-25M SSD may be the current go-to drive for those primarily concerned with speed, but it looks like it could soon have some competition from OCZ's latest Summit Series drives, which get a significant boost from some new Samsung MLC memory, not to mention 64MB of on-board cache. According to PC Perspective, those additions show themselves the most in write speeds, which manage to top even the X-25M, although the Summit drive fell slightly behind when it came to read speed tests, prompting the site to still give the overall edge to the X-25M. PC Perspective does speculate, however, that, given OCZ's past track record, the drives (available in sizes up to 250GB) could come in significantly cheaper than Intel's offerings, which would make the X-25M a much harder sell even with its slight performance edge. Hit up the link below for the complete benchmarks and a peek inside the drive.

[Thanks, Ryan]

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OCZ Summit Series SSDs get boost from new Samsung MLC originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 10:58 AM

Texas Instruments out-picos itself with newer, tinier projector chip

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/17/texas-instruments-out-picos-itself-with-newer-tinier-projector/


We love pico projectors, we love phones -- so the combo pack known as the Samsung Show stopped us in our tracks when we first spied it at CES. Well, Texas Instruments, makers of the DLP projector chip that runs the Show, if you will, have just announced the second generation DLP chip which is -- you guessed it -- smaller! The second-gen chip is about 20 percent smaller and thinner in fact, and it boasts the ability to display WVGA resolution (the previous model has HVGA resolution), all while delivering a brighter display! TI's press specifically mentions mobile phones, so don't be surprised if the Show doesn't have a host of comptitors to deal with any day now. Texas Instruments is on hand at MWC, and their press conference is tonight, so we'll be watching, magnifying glass in hand, to see what else they have in store for us.

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Texas Instruments out-picos itself with newer, tinier projector chip originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 00:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 10:58 AM

Nokia's N86 makes its 8 megapixel debut

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/17/nokias-n86-makes-its-8-megapixel-debut/


Sure, things looked pretty legit yesterday, but we were awaiting official confirmation from Nokia. That's here, and now we can take a gander at the N86 purely on the up-and-up. The dual-slider (keypad on one end, camera and playback controls on the other) naturally centers on its 8 megapixel camera, which includes a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, AutoFocus, a mechanical shutter and a dual-LED flash, but there's plenty of other N-series goodies like 8GB of storage, a 2.6-inch OLED screen, TV-out and a microSD slot. Nokia Maps, Ovi integration and all those other goodies are onboard -- though the new email capabilities of its E-series brethren seem absent. The phone is due in Europe in Q2 2009 for around 375 Euro before taxes and subsidies.

Gallery: Nokia's N86 makes its 8 megapixel debut

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Nokia's N86 makes its 8 megapixel debut originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 03:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 10:58 AM

HTC Magic is official, bringing Android to Vodafone sans keyboard

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/17/htc-magic-is-official-bringing-android-to-vodafone-sans-keyboar/


Vodafone just scooped planet Earth with the first touchscreen-only Android phone: HTC's Magic. All the specs look to line up with what was rumored, with a 3.2-inch QVGA screen front and center (that resolution might be a typo, HVGA seems more likely), HDSPA, GPS, 3.2 megapixel camera (no flash), and a G1-style trackball. Details on pricing and availability will be unveiled for local Vodafone markets as they see fit, but pricing in Spain will be from 99 to 199 Euro, depending on contract. Initial markets to nab the phone will be UK (due in April), Spain, Germany, France and Italy, with more countries to follow, and the phone will be a timed exclusive with Vodafone. Crazily enough, the phone has a proprietary headphone jack, proving once and for all that HTC doesn't like you, but at least this one will ship with a touchscreen keyboard out of the gate -- it's running Cupcake.

Update: We have confirmation that the device is indeed HVGA like the G1 before it, that's a typo on the original press release. More detailed specifications after the break.

Gallery: HTC Magic

Continue reading HTC Magic is official, bringing Android to Vodafone sans keyboard

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HTC Magic is official, bringing Android to Vodafone sans keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 10:57 AM

NVIDIA's Tegra in the flesh, booting to Android and pumping out 1080p video

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/17/nvidias-tegra-in-the-flesh-booting-to-android-and-pumping-out/


NVIDIA really has a technical wonder in the Tegra APX 2600 chipset, and is more than happy to show it off, with a myriad of tech demos on display here at MWC. Some of this they showed off back in June of last year, but it's no less impressive -- there aren't really any mobile devices out there capable of this stuff right now. Still, we're here for the new, and NIVIDA showed up with Android running on one of its proof-of-concept units, and with another unit pumping out 1080p video, with a claimed 10 hours of battery life at that task. NVIDIA says it took them just a few weeks to port Android to the system, and we found it already quite snappy and even usable on the capacitive touchscreen-ed device. We also saw the forthcoming Android-running Yulong N8 and IAC S2 Tegra APX phones, along with an untitled CompalCom set -- they were all in non-working prototype form, but it's clear this chipset isn't just for MIDs. Check it all out in the videos after the break and the gallery below!

Continue reading NVIDIA's Tegra in the flesh, booting to Android and pumping out 1080p video

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NVIDIA's Tegra in the flesh, booting to Android and pumping out 1080p video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Feb 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 10:56 AM

Monday, February 16, 2009

SnapMyLifeâs Genius Use of ⦠Humans

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Mashable/~3/T7sCTD7H-p4/

This post is part of Mashable's Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: SnapMyLife

Quick Pitch: SnapMyLife is a mobile-web community for instantly saving, sharing, and discovering photos around the world with location tagging and maps.

Genius Idea: SnapMyLife offers a familiar method for getting your camera phone pictures onto the Web. After signing up, you get a unique email address. When you send photos to it, that photo becomes part of your gallery and is broadcast to your SnapMyLife friends in a Twitter-like timeline.

What makes SnapMyLife unique is what happens in between. When you send your photos to your unique email address, they are routed through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. From there, Mechanical Turk workers assign tags to your photos.

While you could do this on your own on the site, given SnapMyLife is based mostly on camera phone uploads, having human intelligence do the tagging makes a lot of sense from a usability standpoint, and in terms of getting more tagged content on the site. The result is some great, incredibly accurate tagged photos with beautiful pictures from around the world.

Mechanical Turk isn't free – but in this case, it seems the value that SnapMyLife is getting in terms of content and community makes the expense well worth it.

Sponsored by BizSpark: Featured BizSpark Startup

Lokad ( Company Profile )
Lokad is an online time-series forecasts provider, with clients in the retail and the utilities areas.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:35 PM

Samsung OmniaHD gets exhaustively inspected

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/samsung-omniahd-gets-inspected-pictured-and-critiqued/


Samsung's OmniaHD may have just been announced (and touched), but already it's seeing its first taste of critique. Russian site Mobile-Review had a chance to get said handset underneath its camera, and it also took the opportunity to blast out a few hard-to-interpret first impressions. Judging by images alone, we'd say this beauty has a lot going for it, but we tend to agree with the reviewer here in that Sammy may not move a lot of these to non-cellphone enthusiasts. You can check out a couple of shots after the break, but for a more extensive look at the phone itself, the UI and some machine-translated impressions, you know where to head.

[Via SamsungCentral]

Continue reading Samsung OmniaHD gets exhaustively inspected

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Samsung OmniaHD gets exhaustively inspected originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:10 PM

Sony bringing Gobi WWAN module to VAIO Z, TT and P

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/sony-bringing-gobi-wwan-module-to-vaio-z-tt-and-p/


Hey, you! VAIO P modder! Hold up on that HSDPA hack just a minute -- er, on second thought, you should probably proceed, 'cause Sony isn't about to take back your current machine when this Gobi-equipped model ships. Quite curiously, Sony has announced here in Barcelona that its VAIO Z, VAIO TT and VAIO P laptops will soon be embedded with Qualcomm's Gobi, which provides both EV-DO Rev. A and HSDPA support on a single module. As it stands, Sony's US model VAIO P only supports Verizon Wireless' mobile broadband network, which should leave a pretty bitter taste in the mouths of early adopters. There's no mention at all of when Sony plans to start shipping these oh-so-connected machines (nor if they'll be coming to US shores), but we're hoping it's sooner rather than later.

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Sony bringing Gobi WWAN module to VAIO Z, TT and P originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:09 PM

Huawei's Android touchphone is a mystery wrapped in an enigma

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/huaweis-android-touchphone-is-a-mystery-wrapped-in-an-enigma/


We were really hoping MWC would be Android's coming out party, but while there's a hefty amount of name-dropping at the show, nobody much seems ready to put hardware on the line. And then there's Huawei. We were expecting a handset from them at the show, and they're halfway there, announcing an Android phone, but only bringing a non-working prototype to show for it. The touchphone hardware is decidedly iPhone-esque, and almost seems too button scarce to work with the traditional Android interface, but that's where the rest of the story comes in: Huawei is working with an "established design consultancy" to develop its own custom interface for the device. The as-yet unnamed phone will be coming to market in Q3 of this year, and Huawei is currently in talks with a carrier who will rebrand the device -- the lack of finality there left much of the rest of the info on this phone shrouded. We're looking forward to learning more about this device in the coming months, but for now you can check out the tease of a gallery below, and the even less informative press release at the read link below.

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Huawei's Android touchphone is a mystery wrapped in an enigma originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:09 PM

ARM debuts Sparrow multicore netbook processor

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/arm-debuts-sparrow-multicore-netbook-processor/

We've had our eyes peeled for ARM Cortex-based netbook news, and now among the action this week at MWC '09 we're getting our first look at Sparrow, a Cortex A9 processor aimed squarely at netbook manufacturers. This is a multi-core update to the Cortex A8 (processor of choice for the Palm Pre and Pandora), and it's been speculated that this could be the processor for the next generation iPhone, with "at least triple the computing power of the ARM11 processors found in the [current] iPhone and T-Mobile G1." Toshiba, Pegatron and Wistron are all said to be showing demos of their ARM-powered netbooks at the conference this year, with a company spokesman saying that Ubuntu for ARM will go public in April, with Sparrow phones coming to market sometime in 2010. Additionally, companies like Adobe, On2, and Symbian are said to be "tuning their apps to run on the latest cores from ARM" as we speak.

[Via Gadget Mix, Mac Rumors]

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ARM debuts Sparrow multicore netbook processor originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:09 PM

Sony Ericsson Idou hands-on and video walkthrough

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/sony-ericsson-idou-hands-on-and-video-walkthrough/


Sony Ericsson launched its 12.1 megapixel Idou at Mobile World Congress yesterday evening, and while not a finished device, we checked it out anyway. The Idou will eventually roll with the Symbian Foundation's OS, but the version we're seeing here is somewhere in between. The resistive touchscreen (essentially the same as found on the XpressMusic 5800) is immense, glossy, and already brilliant. The transitions and sweeping gestures (check them in the vid) are really responsive and quick, with no real lag. We checked it against its nearest neighbor in the C905 and it is slim in comparison. Top notch stuff, we are anxiously waiting for more. Video and gallery follow.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson Idou hands-on and video walkthrough

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Sony Ericsson Idou hands-on and video walkthrough originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:09 PM

Archos announces new Moorestown-based netbook, 9-inch tablet

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/16/archos-announces-new-moorestown-based-netbook-9-inch-tablet/


We saw the rough'n'ready Archos 10 get reviewed mere days ago, and now the company's back with the Atom-powered Archos 10s, a new 20mm thin netbook with 3.5G functionality, 1GB memory, Windows XP Home and up to 160GB storage. Additionaly, the company has designs on a 17mm-thin, 9-inch tablet based on Intel's Moorestown MID platform, to see the light of day sometime this year. This guy will include the Intel System Controller Hub chipset, up to 160GB storage, VOD and hi-def video playback, and digital TV reception. The Archos 10s should be available sometime in April, at a price to be announced.

[Via UMPC Portal]

Read - "ARCHOS announces new generation innovative MiniPCs based on Intel Atom Processor" (Warning: PDF)

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Archos announces new Moorestown-based netbook, 9-inch tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 7:09 PM

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