Friday, April 10, 2009

Leaked pics of the CrunchPad make it look dangerously close to availability

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/09/leaked-pics-of-the-crunchpad-make-it-look-dangerously-close-to-a/

Thanks to a slip of the fingers on Posterous (and Robert Scoble's serious Twitter addiction), new images of Michael Arrington's pet Internet-tablet project -- the CrunchPad -- have shown up looking very, very close to a finished product. As you can see in the gallery below, the (supposedly) $200, WiFi enabled pad has gotten dressed up in multiple colors and been shoved into some fairly handsome looking packaging. There's no telling if this means the device is any closer to a buy-able reality, but one thing is for sure: a microblog is no place for secrets.


[Via Scoble's Twitterfeed, Arab Crunch]

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Leaked pics of the CrunchPad make it look dangerously close to availability originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Vandals take down Internet, emergency, and voice services in California

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/10/vandals-take-down-internet-emergency-and-voice-services-in-cal/

Feeling vulnerable? Maybe you should. Apparently, taking down the Internet, ATMs, and landline and wireless phone services is as easy as crawling down a few strategically located manholes and hacking through some fiber optic cables. Police in California suspect exactly that after "vandals" cut a total of 10 fiber optic cables (each containing between 48 and 360 fibers) at 4 locations on Thursday morning. The AT&T and Sprint cables knocked "tens of thousands" of San Francisco, Bay Area residents off the grid including an additional 52,000 Verizon landline and wireless customers. San Jose spokesman, Sgt. Ronnie Lopez, says that Vandals somehow managed to thwart the safeguards securing this important element of the US infrastructure. "The manhole covers are heavy," he said, "and would take quite an effort to lift, perhaps even requiring a tool." Amazing. There's been plenty of speculation that disgruntled members of the Communication Workers of America union are to blame after its contract with AT&T expired amid "strike-threatened contract negotiations" over the weekend -- something CWA officials adamantly deny. And they should... everyone knows that kidnapping corporate bosses is the hot new trend for curing the gruntles. AT&T is offering a $100,000 reward for information leading to the vandals.

[Via SFGate]

Vandals take down Internet, emergency, and voice services in California originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC Touch Diamond2 hitting Taiwan this month

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/10/htc-touch-diamond2-hitting-taiwan-this-month/

According to MobileTechReview the HTC Touch Diamond2 is due out this month in Taiwan. Local price is NT$21,900 (US$648.93) and it'll come with a 8GB memory card inside the box. Still no US release date, but with the UK version reportedly launching next week, we wouldn't be surprise if April was the lucky month for a stateside debut, as well.

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HTC Touch Diamond2 hitting Taiwan this month originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Apr 2009 04:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Radiopaq launches custom tuned earphones to single our your audio

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/10/radiopaq-launches-custom-tuned-earphones-to-single-our-your-audi/


There's a big difference between giving people choices and giving people a choice, and while Sleek Audio did the smart thing by doing the former, Radiopaq is carelessly banking on the latter to still go over well. Rather than producing a set of earbuds with customizable acoustics to fit whatever genre you find yourself into, Radiopaq's custom tuned earphones take that personalization away from the end-user. Oh sure, you could plop down for four different sets to handle your classical, jazz, pop and rock records, but that would easily go down as one of the most absurd decisions you've ever made. The company proclaims that each set actually can be used to enjoy other genres, noting that each pair is simply optimized for one specific style. Each package will go for £59 ($86), so make sure you choose carefully -- does your allegiance lie with The Cranberries or Taylor Swift?

[Via Pocket-lint]

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Radiopaq launches custom tuned earphones to single our your audio originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Apr 2009 06:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Resin replaces ITO in latest flexible OLED prototype

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/10/resin-replaces-ito-in-latest-flexible-oled-prototype/


Make no mistake, wrapping your mind around the build of an OLED panel is mighty tough to do. Without getting you mired in technobabble, let's just say that indium tin oxide (ITO) has generally been a mainstay in every single OLED that was produced commercially. Now, a team of researchers from AGFA-Gevaert, IMEC, Holst Centre and Philips have prototyped a 12- x 12-centimeter flexible OLED lighting panel that swaps out the ITO for highly-conductive transparent resin electrodes. You see, it's been difficult for OLED builders to secure enough electrical conductivity of ITO in a low-temperature process, and this new methodology is perfectly suited for the coating method (which makes it ripe for printing). The resin itself is being dubbed Orgacon, and tests have shown it to have a 6x improvement over ITO in terms of electrical conductivity. Beyond that, the crews are keeping the secrets safe from the poachers of the world, but here's hoping this amounts to more than just jovial celebration in a far off laboratory.

[Via OLED-Display]

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Resin replaces ITO in latest flexible OLED prototype originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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