Monday, June 22, 2009

T-Mobile myTouch 3G Gets Official, Preorders Start July 8 [MyTouch 3G]

T-Mobile myTouch 3G Gets Official, Preorders Start July 8 [MyTouch 3G]

T-Mobile's second Android phone, the myTouch 3G (previously known as the HTC Magic which we reviewed here), has finally been announced in an official capacity for $200. Its official official name is the "T-Mobile myTouch 3G with Google".

It's basically the same specs as we've seen in other incarnations, and it'll work with T-Mobile's 3G frequencies. We'll take a look at what customizations T-Mobile has put on the phone, but for a general idea of what to expect of this one over the original T-Mobile G1, take a look at our review of the Google Ion.




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T-Mobile myTouch 3G announced, starts shipping late July

T-Mobile myTouch 3G announced, starts shipping late July


The good news is that T-Mobile USA has finally gotten around to announce its second Android handset, the myTouch 3G; the bad news, though, is that you can't have it just yet. The carrier-customized version of the HTC Magic that has already shipped in parts of Europe, Asia, and Canada features a 3.2-inch 480 x 320 touchscreen, AWS 3G for use on T-Mobile's high-speed network paired with quadband EDGE for global roaming, WiFi, a 3.2 megapixel camera, Exchange support, and -- of course -- Android 1.5 with all the virtual keyboardin' you can handle. Better than the G1? Other than the larger internal memory common to all Magics, that's strictly a matter of personal taste -- but don't worry, you'll have a while to sort it out, because T-Mobile won't even start taking preorders from current customers until July 8 for $199.99 on a two-year contract. Those orders will start shipping in late July, with full national availability following on in early August in your choice of black, white, or "merlot."

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T-Mobile myTouch 3G announced, starts shipping late July originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 00:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CATSeye Mk2 tracking device takes the smaller, more waterproof route

CATSeye Mk2 tracking device takes the smaller, more waterproof route

Okay, so if you thought the CATSeye matchbox-sized tracking device was a bit too big or cumbersome, the gang is back with something decidedly smaller and more discrete. Introducing the CATS.i, also known as CATSeye Mk2. It's got all the same functionality as its predecessor -- GPS, GSM/GPRS, RF, internet / SMS controls, etc. -- but is now only eight millimeters thick (or twelve if you chose the thinner "folded over" arrangement) and completely waterproof. Power options include a Li-ion battery, solar power, or any number of other ways you can think to run juice. Have an urge to keep track of all your family members and loved ones even more secretly than before? The new devices ship next month.

[Via NaviGadget]

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CATSeye Mk2 tracking device takes the smaller, more waterproof route originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 02:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung's P410M pocket projector is just a little bit better

Samsung's P410M pocket projector is just a little bit better

Samsung's looking to update its original P400 pocket imager with the P410m. Other than pumping out 170 lumens off a 30,000 hour LED to the P400's 151 lumens, the P410M looks like the same 800 x 600 pixel DLP beamer with 1,000:1 contrast first spotted at CES back in January 2008. But hey, brighter is better especially in this milquetoast-class of ultra-portable projectors.

[Via Slashgear]

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Samsung's P410M pocket projector is just a little bit better originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Jun 2009 06:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sunday, June 21, 2009

iPhone 3G S and Pre head-to-head benchmarks: iPhone wins

iPhone 3G S and Pre head-to-head benchmarks: iPhone wins


Now that we know the iPhone 3G S and the Palm Pre share extremely similar 65nm ARM Cortex A8-based internals, it's time to break out the stopwatches and see how these blood brothers stack up. Anandtech has the first head-to-head tests we've seen, and it seems like the 3G S has the slight edge, loading a series of web pages 11 percent faster and a whopping 54 percent faster than the iPhone 3G. Not too shabby, but not exactly a thorough drubbing either -- especially when you consider webOS is still 1.0 and there's likely some optimizations to come. Full results at the read link.

Update:
Anandtech had some uncharacteristically bad math going on -- the 3G S is actually 21 percent faster than the Pre, which is quite notable considering the similar hardware and WebKit-based browsers.

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iPhone 3G S and Pre head-to-head benchmarks: iPhone wins originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 23:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saturday, June 20, 2009

Xbox 360 Played on Dallas Cowboys' 11,200 Square Foot Screen [Excess]

Xbox 360 Played on Dallas Cowboys' 11,200 Square Foot Screen [Excess]

The current largest video screen in the world, in the Dallas Cowboys stadium, measures an insane 159x71 feet. Feet! And what better way to show that immensity off than by playing a little Gears of War?

Apparently the gamer who masterminded this hedonistic joyride was Steve Fatone, brother of *NSYNC's Joey and music video director for luminaries like, um, the Jonas Brothers. So maybe his taste in music is suspect, but we think we just might get along with him anyway, after this indulgence. [Engadget]




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Intel's Platform Power Management: Like Milliscond Power Naps for Your Entire Computer [Computers]

Intel's Platform Power Management: Like Milliscond Power Naps for Your Entire Computer [Computers]

Intel Research showed me a demo of their Platform Power Management system. Essentially, they're applying the smart, quick, hardware level idling you find on a CPU to many system parts. The result: systems that idle at 10x less juice.

The tech is applied to things like USB ports, which in 3.0, will go from polling (clock based, always checking) devices to being managed via events, so they can sleep whenever not being used. And graphics, when the page isn't changing, can be run out of a frame buffer so the GPU and video RAM can sleep. When I say more sleep, I mean for additional milliseconds or longer. This adds up, over the course of a day when people stop to read or step away from their computers. In the past, the OS controlled the power savings, and that required power to process in turn, so you were using the system's power to manage power, keeping those other components from ever really turning off. By doing power management with more granularity, in hardware and software together, you can switching things on/off fast enough to fit in lots of "naps" and you can also do it with less processing overhead.

I'm excited for this tech to go everywhere where there's a chip.




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D-Link gets official with mydlink-enabled network cameras

D-Link gets official with mydlink-enabled network cameras


D-Link wasn't exactly dishing out a ton of details when it showed off its DCS-1100- and DCS-1130 network cameras back at CES, but it's now finally gotten fully official with 'em, and the new mydlink website that they're tied to. As you can see above, one of the cameras, the DCS-1130, packs some built-in WiFi (802.11n, no less), while the other keeps things wired to save a few bucks and please those still wary of wireless security. Otherwise, each are seemingly identical, and pack a 16x digital zoom, motion detection, a built-in microphone, support for 3GPP mobile surveillance (provided you have appropriate router) and, of course, support for remote monitoring from D-Link's new mydlink.com website, which apparently thinks is 1999 and only supports Internet Explorer. If that's not too big a drawback, you can pick up the wired version now for $180, or grab the WiFi model for $230 at the end of the month.

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D-Link gets official with mydlink-enabled network cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Close to 700,000 Palm Pre apps downloaded to date

Close to 700,000 Palm Pre apps downloaded to date


There may not be a ton of Pre apps available just yet, but it looks like there's enough to accumulate an impressive 666,511 downloads as of June 17th, which likely means that we're close to or past the 700,000 mark by now. As you can see above in graph form courtesy of Medialets, things have been rising steadily as more and more apps became available, and there's no noticeable sign of a drop-off even as apps remained around the 30 mark after the end of the first week. Of course, it's obviously still a little early to draw any firm conclusions, and there's no telling how things could shake out once the long-awaited PreFart and PreBeer apps make their debut.

[Via Mobile-review]

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Close to 700,000 Palm Pre apps downloaded to date originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Friday, June 19, 2009

Microsoft's Browser Comparison Chart Offends Anyone Who's Ever Used Another Browser [Browser Wars]

Microsoft's Browser Comparison Chart Offends Anyone Who's Ever Used Another Browser [Browser Wars]

Internet Explorer 8 is by far the best browser Microsoft's ever released, but most of our readers are happily using a better alternative like Firefox or Chrome. Microsoft's not happy about this, so they've created an absurd piece of propaganda to win you back.

This browser comparison chart pits IE8 against Firefox and Chrome and puts IE8 on top time after time, but in very dubious categories. Each row comes with its own ridiculous set of comments justifying the seemingly meaningless checkmarks, like this note on customizability:

Sure, Firefox may win in sheer number of add-ons, but many of the customizations you'd want to download for Firefox are already a part of Internet Explorer 8 – right out of the box.

Interesting, since none of the Firefox extensions I install add any IE8 functionality. We've given Microsoft props for significantly improving Internet Explorer in the latest release, but this chart feels like dirty pool to us. Let's hear what you think of this insane (to us, at least) chart in the comments.



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Giz Explains: What AT&T's 7.2Mbps Network Really Means [Giz Explains]

Giz Explains: What AT&T's 7.2Mbps Network Really Means [Giz Explains]

AT&T's contribution to the improved overall speed of the iPhone 3GS—their upgraded 7.2Mbps network—is nearly as important as Apple's. But 7.2 is just a number, and AT&T's network is just one of many. Here's where it actually stands.

First, a direct translation: AT&T's upgraded (or more accurately, upgrading) 3G network claims data download rates of 7.2 megabits per second. Though that's the lingo used to describe bandwidth, it's important to remember that those are not megabytes. AT&T's impressive-sounding 7.2 megabits would yield somewhere closer to .9 megabytes (900 kilobytes) per second, and that's only if you're getting peak performance, which you never will because...

That 7.2Mbps is theoretical, and due to technical overhead, network business, device speed and overzealous marketing, real world speeds are significantly lower. As you can see on our chart above, our tested speeds for everything from EV-DO Rev. A to WiMax ran at anywhere from one half to one sixth their potential speed. Accordingly, Jason found AT&T's network to run at about 1.6Mbps with the iPhone 3G S—about a third faster than with the 3G, though he was probably still connecting at 3.6Mbps rates—the 7.2 rollout won't be complete until 2011, according to AT&T.

AT&T-style HSDPA is expected to reach out to an eventual theoretical speed of 14Mbps, which will undoubtedly make the current! 3G netw orks feel slow, but won't necessarily blow them out of the water. That's the thing: the iPhone, and indeed just about all high-end handsets on the market today, operate at speeds that are reasonably close to the limits of 3G technology. In a funny sort of way, the iPhone 3GS is already a bit out of date.

So what's next? And what the hell are those really long green bars up there? Those are the so-called 4G (fourth generation) wireless technologies. Americans can ignore HSPA+ and EV-DO Rev B. for the most part, and given that they're the slowest of the next-gen bunch, shouldn't feel too bad. And anyway, as Matt explained, WiMax and LTE are what's next for us.

Both Verizon and AT&T are within a couple of years of deploying LTE in their networks, and WiMax is already out there in some cities. Our own WiMax tests on Clearwire's network peaked at an astounding 12Mbps—nearly eight times faster than the iPhone 3GS on AT&T. And even if WiMax is shaping up to be more of a general broadband protocol than a cellular one, this is the kind of thing that'll be in your phones in a few years, and the promises are mind-boggling: earlier this year, Verizon's LTE were breaking 60Mbps.

So in short, your brand-new, "S"-for-speed iPhone is pretty speedy—as long as you only look to the past.




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SquareTrade's iPhone 3GS Warranty Covers Clumsiness, Stupidity, and Human Nature [Warranties]

SquareTrade's iPhone 3GS Warranty Covers Clumsiness, Stupidity, and Human Nature [Warranties]

If you're picking up a 3GS and like to buy a warranty, Apple will extend coverage to two years for $69. It's good for if/when the phone spontaneously combusts without human intervention. But what about just dropping the thing?

SquareTrade warranties state that should you break your iPhone just because you're an idiot, they'll replace your iPhone with a brand new model. Their prices, below, are reported to be lower than Best Buy's by a good margin:

Current Promotional Rate/Regular Rate:
8gb 3G model: $76.80 / $96 (TOTAL for 2 years)
16gb 3G S: $96 / $120 (TOTAL for 2 years)
32gb 3G S: $120 / $144 (TOTAL for 2 years)

Knock on wood, but the iPhone 3G build has proven to be a pretty sturdy design. I've sat on the thing, dropped it more than once and basically treated it like crap, and the thing still works well. On the same token, I know someone (*cough* Andi Wang *cough*) who drops her cellphone down the stairs on a daily basis.

So she should probably consider this deal from SquareTrade, as well as moving into a ranch-style home. I'm going to take my chances. [SquareTrade]




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Huawei's E583X wireless modem turns 3G to WiFi, beautiful lights

Huawei's E583X wireless modem turns 3G to WiFi, beautiful lights

Huawei's E583X wireless modem turns 3G to WiFi, beautiful lights
The smallest USB 3G modems look like grossly over-sized thumb drives, while the biggest ones sport hinges or fold-out antennas that serve as tripwires for absent-minded businessmen with venti frappuccinos walking by your tiny little coffee shop table. Huawei's E583X detaches all that bother, acquiring a 3G wireless signal and then beaming it out again as WiFi, meaning you can leave it in your pocket and get a double-dose of microwaves. It sports a 1,500mAh battery, giving it five hours of independent living, and in emergencies it can act as a tethered modem as well. Sadly this first version will only accept a single WiFi connection, but future ones will allow four others to mooch your data plan. That it also blinks randomly like a prop out of Star Trek's utopian future is just an added bonus. It's set to light up Europe next month -- likely with some hideous contracts attached.

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Huawei's E583X wireless modem turns 3G to WiFi, beautiful lights originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Jun 2009 08:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seagate's FreeAgent Go Offers World's First Bus-Powered 640GB 2.5-Inch Portable HDD [Storage]

Seagate's FreeAgent Go Offers World's First Bus-Powered 640GB 2.5-Inch Portable HDD [Storage]

Seagate's FreeAgent Go line of hard drives is home of the first 640-gigabyte portable in the beloved USB bus-powered 2.5-inch form factor.

This means that you get a ton of portable storage space, and you still don't need an AC adapter. You just plug the drive into a USB 2.0 port and proceed with your business. Simple, easy, nice. Pricing and availability is still up in the air for now, but we'll keep our eyes peeled. [Seagate]




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Code-X Yacht Will Have Two Kinds of Power: Super Clean and Oh So Dirty [Yachts]

Code-X Yacht Will Have Two Kinds of Power: Super Clean and Oh So Dirty [Yachts]

There's a real company promoting a not-so-real poweryacht called the Code-X. The differentiator—or "thing that's supposed to land a billionaire customer"—is that the boat will have two Formula 1 engines and two solar-powered electric ones.

It's not abundantly clear when you'd use the as-yet-unannounced electric engines, or exactly how efficiently the onboard solar panels will collect sunlight and charge the as-yet-unannounced batteries.

Let's be honest: You probably won't use them all that often. The point is to have them, and to tell your rich-ass friends that you are, in Code-X's words, "a pioneer and frontrunner on the path to a cleaner and more environmentally friendly future." The point is to be saying this while gunning your twin F1 Limor 710HP smogmasters to drown out the riffraff circling you in those environmentally unfriendly Jet Skis.

The most sinister thing about the whole operation is the length that Code-X went to render a completely non-existent boat into so many real-life scenes, almost as if James Cameron was the company's marketing consultant. [Code-X via Josh Spear via DVice]





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