Wednesday, October 05, 2011

drag2share: Samsung teases next week's 'Unpacked,' offers a momentary glance at a mysterious device

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/05/samsung-teases-next-weeks-unpacked-offers-a-momentary-glance/

See that image above? It's Samsung's way of being sly. The company put out a teaser video for its "Google Episode" of Unpacked occurring on October 11th (we'll be there live, by the way), stating that "something BIG is coming." And if you're not looking close enough, you may completely miss the brief glimpse Sammy gave us of a device with a curved screen. The vid doesn't go so far as to loudly exclaim that this mystery device is the Nexus Prime, of course, but c'mon -- we're picking up what's getting put down. Check out the video below to do some sleuthing of your own.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Samsung teases next week's 'Unpacked,' offers a momentary glance at a mysterious device

Samsung teases next week's 'Unpacked,' offers a momentary glance at a mysterious device originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Oct 2011 01:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tuesday, October 04, 2011

drag2share: The New Fitness-Centric iPod Nano Doubles As a Watch [IPod]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846497/the-new-fitness+centric-ipod-nano-doubles-as-a-watch

The New Fitness-Centric iPod Nano Doubles As a WatchApple's boosted its petite iPod offering, with a new scrolling touch UI (no more grid!), built-in sensors for cardio stats tracking, and—wait for it—an assortment of virtual watch faces. Oh, and it plays music. Available today.

The new Nano will come with 16 swappable watch faces, and will sell in seven colors (silver, graphite, blue, green, orange, pink and (PRODUCT) RED)—$130 for 8 GB, $150 for 16 GB. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there's any GPS built into this thing yet—that would've made it killer for athletes.

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drag2share: Siri Personal Assistant Only Works on the iPhone 4S [IPhone]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846550/apples-siri-personal-assistant-only-runs-on-the-iphone-4s

Siri Personal Assistant Only Works on the iPhone 4SSiri is crazy. Being able to talk to your phone like a real person is the stuff of Sci-Fi. Here's the catch: You won't be able to use it unless you've got an iPhone 4S.

Siri's built into a bunch of apps already, and the software runs on both the 4S and in Apple's data centers. Because the process is so CPU-intensive, it'll only run on the iPhone 4S with its newer A5 chip. That makes sense with how many features are packed into it, like learning your voice's natural cadence and understanding English, French, and German, but it's gotta be a little disappointing for iPhone users who aren't up for an upgrade just yet.

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drag2share: The iPhone 4S' Siri Voice Command Is Just as Amazing as We Hoped [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846542/the-iphone-4s-siri-voice-command-is-just-as-amazing-as-we-hoped

We were pretty sure the next iPhone was going to pack some awesome new voice command tech, but it's being demoed live, and living up to expectations: talk to it like a human, get results from a smart person.

The things the Siri can tell you are diverse and will be incredibly helpful. And because it uses natural language instead of awkward preset commands, you can speak to it like a person, not a program. It'll do the interpreting for you. Just hold the home button down and speak away. Ask what the weather's like, and it'll bring up a report. Ask it for a word definition, and it'll bring it up via Wolfram Alfra. Siri can bring up local restaurants, ranked by rating, search the web, read you your notifications (great while driving!), and set wakeup alarms at your command. Oh! And it'll write your texts and emails for you, like a diligent little secretary.

Siri's even GPS-powered, giving you location-based reminders of your own creation. For instance, ask Siri for a reminder not to leave your keys at work, and it'll ping you when you leave your office radius. All this voice-crunching comes at a cost, however—it'll require the extra horsepower of the 4S' A5 chip. It will, however, learn your voice as you jabber on—so Siri can only get more accurate as you use it, with support for English, French, and German.

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drag2share: How the iPhone 4S Stacks Up to the Competition [IPhone]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846559/how-the-iphone-4s-stacks-up-to-the-competition

How the iPhone 4S Stacks Up to the CompetitionThe iPhone 4S is here with a dual-core A5 processor, more storage space and a better camera. It's a minor update, sure, but how does it compare to other top phones (not to mention its predecessor, the iPhone 4)? Quite well, actually.

Apple didn't discuss the amount of RAM the 4S has, so we know it has at least the 512 MB that the iPhone 4 had. But we wouldn't be shocked if Apple beefed in this area to help Siri out. When the iPad 2 came out, they quietly doubled the RAM in that as well.

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drag2share: What's So Great About the iPhone's New Camera? [Video]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5846548/whats-so-great-about-the-iphones-new-camera

The camera in the iPhone 4S is going to be better. We suspected as much, but now we know exactly how it's going to be better.

It's faster. Much faster. We're talking half a second in between photos, so if you missed the moment you won't have to wait for an eternity for another try. Most of the other leading camera-phones take two to three times that long.

It's bigger and brighter. The images it takes will be 8 megapixels at 3264x2448 pixels. That's some nice resolution right there. But, as we've said before, ISO is as important as megapixels. Sometimes adding more pixels into the same, small area actually decreases the image quality if the sensor can't handle it. Thankfully, the image sensor is going to be backside illuminated (like the iPhone 4, the myTouch 4G Slide, and Sony's newer Xperia phones), which will get it 73 percent more light (more than the iPhone 4, too). In other words, photos you take when the lighting isn't great will suck less. It's got a larger, f/2.4 aperture, too, which isn't much bigger than the iPhone 4's, but it will give it another little boost.

It's sharper and more vibrant. The five element lens should give you a cleaner image, theoretically. It should make it 30 percent sharper than the iPhone 4 (which had a four element lens). They also included a hybrid infrared filter. This is the kind of thing you usually just see on DSLR cameras. It should give you more accurate and more vibrant colors, and reduce red ghosting and chromatic aberrations which sometimes happen around light sources.

It's cinema-ier. Video hasn't been left out. It will shoot 1080p video at up to 30 frames per second, which means it should look good on your HDTV and not be stretched unnaturally. However, when a small camera shoots at 1080p sometimes the edges get warped, and there can be a pesky flicker due to the rolling shutter effect. We'll have to see if this is continues to be a problem on this camera. Either way, it will definitely take advantage of the backside illuminated sensor, but it remains to see what the bitrate will be, which has a large effect on the resulting quality. Anyway, welcome to 2011, Apple!

UPDATE: Now with video (see above).


You can keep up with Brent Rose, the author of this post, on Google+ or Twitter.

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drag2share: Adobe reveals Creative Cloud, links Touch Apps to Creative Suite with 20GB storage

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/adobe-reveals-creative-cloud-links-touch-apps-to-creative-suite/

Dropbox just not doing the trick for your design work load? Perhaps Adobe can help. The company has announced Creative Cloud, a "hub for viewing, sharing and syncing of files created by Adobe Touch Apps and Adobe Creative Suite." Included with the service is 20GB of cloud storage, which will probably get you through that web design project you've been putting off. After the first of the year, Adobe expects its cloud to include access to applications software (apps too), digital publishing / business services and a global creative community for inspiration and feedback. Also unveiled were Touch Apps, a set of six applications designed to make your tablet a design machine -- if you're down to work on that small of a screen, of course. You'll have to wait until November to find out just how much the Creative Cloud will set you back, but in the meantime check out the source link for more details.

Adobe reveals Creative Cloud, links Touch Apps to Creative Suite with 20GB storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Toshiba Camileo x416, x400 and x200 get pricing, availability, lots of zoom

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/toshiba-camileo-x416-x400-and-x200-get-pricing-availability-l/

Looks like some of those Toshiba camcorders that we first caught wind of back in Berlin at IFA are hitting our neck of the woods. The Camileo x400 and x200 are now available in the States, for $299 and $279, respectively. The company will also be offering up a higher-end x416 on October 10th for $319. All three camcorders shoot 1080p video and feature a similar barrel-shaped design with a three-inch swiveling touchscreen LCD. The x416 and x400 feature similar specs, with 23x optical zoom, 120x digital zoom, on-screen video trimming and expandable memory. The x416, however, will also have 16GB of storage built-in. The x200, naturally, will have more modest specs, like a relatively paltry 12x optical zoom. Press info after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba Camileo x416, x400 and x200 get pricing, availability, lots of zoom

Toshiba Camileo x416, x400 and x200 get pricing, availability, lots of zoom originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 18:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Only in Japan: Toshiba's Regza DBR-M190 serves 5TB of home media

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/03/only-in-japan-toshibas-regza-dbr-m190-serves-5tb-of-home-media/

Sometimes gigabytes aren't enough. You have to start talking terabytes. That's the case with Toshiba's new Regza Server, more numerically known as the DBR-M190. The just-announced home media server boasts 5TB of storage, enough for 15 days of MPEG4AVC-compressed digital TV -- from six different channels. Of course, that "server" in the name means you'll be able to stream captured content as well. The sad news? "You" means only Japanese consumers. But if you're one of the chosen many, this media-slinging behemoth will cost you 200,000 yen, or around $2,600.

Only in Japan: Toshiba's Regza DBR-M190 serves 5TB of home media originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 19:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Toshiba's 4K, glasses-free 3DTV announced in Japan with more specs this time

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/03/toshibas-4k-glasses-free-3dtv-announced-in-japan-with-more-spe/

We first saw the retail edition of Toshiba's 3840x2160 resolution autostereoscopic (no glasses) 3DTV when it was announced in Europe at IFA last month, and now it has debuted in Japan during CEATEC. This time the company dropped a few more details, revealing that in lenticular 3D mode it's limited to an effective resolution of 1280x720, and showed off the face tracking that automatically optimizes the experience for up to nine simultaneous viewers depending on where they're sitting. Also mentioned were an optional THD-MBA1 input adapter due in 2012 and that 4K-res streaming IPTV is currently being tested. The Regza 55X3 will be priced comparably to its $10K~ Euro-spec counterpart when it arrives in December, but there's still no word on when it will ship in the US. Check out a few pictures of the presentation in the gallery below.

Toshiba's 4K, glasses-free 3DTV announced in Japan with more specs this time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 21:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Double portion of prepaid LG Android handsets coming to Net10

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/03/double-portion-of-prepaid-lg-android-handsets-coming-to-net10/

The upcoming battle of the budget Androids just won two new recruits courtesy of Net10. The MVNO is offering up the LG Optimus Net prepaid with a 3.2-inch HVGA display, 800MHz processor, 3MP camera (though Net10's site wrongly mentions 5MP), Bluetooth, WiFi, 3G and an included 4GB microSD card expandable to 32GB. There's also a slider version called the Optimus Q, which we're trying very hard not to confuse with last year's Optimus Q and which actually looks like a variant of Virgin Mobile's Optimus Slider. There's no price tag in sight, but contrary to the saying you probably can afford it.

[Thanks, Dwayne]

Double portion of prepaid LG Android handsets coming to Net10 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 22:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Zune is dead, long live Zune

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/03/zune-is-dead-long-live-zune/

Like Zune's own Business Development Manager once said, all consumer electronics products have a lifespan, and today the (not so long) lineage of dedicated Zune hardware expires not with a roar, but with a promise to honor its warranties. Tucked away in the inner chambers of the Zune support site lies a page spelling out Microsoft's final words on the device, "Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy," it says, "we will no longer be producing Zune players." The Zune HD is survived by the Zune music service, which will continue to function with straggling standalone media players, as well as the Windows desktop, Windows Phone and Xbox platforms.

Zune is dead, long live Zune originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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drag2share: Toshiba Regza DBR-M190 stores 15 days of HDTV from six channels, we go hands-on (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/04/toshiba-regza-dbr-m190-stores-15-days-of-hdtv-from-six-channels/

There's no question that Japan gets all the cool gadgets -- many of which never make it stateside. Well, we have yet another tease for you, in the form of an eight-tuner Toshiba DVR with five terabytes of storage. The DBR-M190 reserves six of those tuners (and four TBs of storage) for its Time Shift recording, which as its name implies, transports you to an alternate dimension -- in realtime, mind you -- allowing you to watch past HD episodes of those favorite Japanese programs that you otherwise neglected to record. OK, fine, it can't actually shift physical time, but the home DVR does allow you to record 15 full days of HD content from six channels. Or 30 days from three channels, or 90 days from one -- you get the idea. It also offers 3D Blu-ray playback. Huzzah!

There's some pretty heavy compression in place in order to squeeze all that HD content with the allotted storage, but Toshiba reps insisted that the content looks acceptable. Clever as they are, reps also neglected to have that heavily compressed HD video available for demo at CEATEC, but were happy to let us peek at a show recorded using a much more liberal amount of compression, which nets you just one-fifth of the advertised amount (think three days, not 15). Still, three days of 24 hour content from six channels ain't too shabby, but that 200,000 yen price tag (about $2,600) is a bit of a deal breaker, no? As is the fact that you can't plug this puppy into cable networks overseas (Time Shift is only compatible with basic cable channels in Japan). Jump past the break to see it in action, and expect to see it hit Japanese shores sometime in mid-December.

Continue reading Toshiba Regza DBR-M190 stores 15 days of HDTV from six channels, we go hands-on (video)

Toshiba Regza DBR-M190 stores 15 days of HDTV from six channels, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Monday, October 03, 2011

drag2share: CHART OF THE DAY: Android Could Hit 1 Million Activations Per Day This Month

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-android-activations-2011-10

Google's Android is on track to hit a major milestone this month — it could be at 1 million activations per day by October 20, says Michael DeGusta after a little analysis

If you extrapolate from Andy Rubin's June tweet that, "there are now over 500,000 Android devices activated every day, and it’s growing at 4.4% w/w," you arrive at the 1 million per day projection for October.

If Rubin was getting ahead of himself, there's still a good chance that Google hits the milestone by December based on its previous growth.

chart of the day, android activations, october 2011

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drag2share: SendTab Easily Moves Your Browser Tabs to Nearly Any Device [Browser Extensions]

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5846106/sendtab-easily-moves-your-browser-tabs-to-nearly-any-device

SendTab Easily Moves Your Browser Tabs to Nearly Any DeviceAll web browsers and iOS: SendTab is a very simple utility that lets you send a browser tab to another device with one or two clicks. It works in an instant, cross-browser, and even with iPhones and iPads.

SendTab is like a combination of Instapaper and remote tabs, allowing you to send content to other devices to read later or simply access as needed. If you're at work and want to check out an article on your home laptop, it'll let you click a button and the page will open up pretty much instantly. All you have to do is sign up for SendTab on their web site and specify a location. If you're using Chrome or Safari, you can install a browser extension that'll let you send tabs to other computers and iOS devices. If you're using Firefox, Opera, or another browser, there's a bookmarklet available instead. On your iDevice, you can purchase the SendTab app for $1. Currently there's no Android version, but hopefully that is in the works. Regardless, it's still a pretty handy way to move your pages from computer to computer to mobile device. It functions seamlessly, is free to use (outside of the iOS app), and is definitely worth checking out.

SendTab | via A Whole Lotta Nothing


You can follow Adam Dachis, the author of this post, on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook.  Twitter's the best way to contact him, too.

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