ViewSonic VCP08 seen clearly, largely in the wild

Last we saw of ViewSonic’s VCP08 Windows XP phone was just a handful of renders. New images have surfaced of the real deal, physical model, and two things become immediately clear. First off, the company managed to stay true to the initial pictures. Secondly, this thing is huge. So huge it towers over the N97 Mini, which itself isn’t really much smaller than the N97. Make no mistake, though, that in no way stops us from wanting to play with it. In the meantime, hit up the source link for a cavalcade of images.

Filed under: Cellphones

ViewSonic VCP08 seen clearly, largely in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Pocketables  |  Shanzaiben  | Email this | Comments

ASUS UL30Vt now available at Amazon

ASUS UL30Vt now available at Amazon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Amazon  | Email this | Comments

Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split

You know that Condé Nast tablet / digital magazine demo we saw recently (non-ironically paging through a copy of Wired)? Well now Time Inc. has gotten in on the same game, showing off its version of a digimag running a touch-friendly issue of Sports Illustrated. The company not only buzzed everyone with the charming walkthough video — a floating hand paging through SI on a sleek, black tablet (embedded after the break) — but also had a live, functioning variation of the product up and running on a touchscreen HP laptop. The gist of the project seems to be that the publisher will be able to offer this digitized version of its magazines in some sort of agnostic format, one that would be accessible to PCs and phantom Apple tablets alike. Peter Kafka over at All Things D says that he had a chance to play with the demo and it was, “quite a bit of fun.” While it’s clear that both Time and Condé Nast are taking parallel routes to online publishing (the former is purely in concept mode, the latter is working with Adobe on digital versions of its titles as we speak), one thing is painfully clear: both companies have shockingly similar ideas about what the future of magazine publishing looks like. We hope Apple has been informed.

Continue reading Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split

Time Inc. shows off magazine tablet demo, plans future anger about 70/30 profit split originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  AllThingsD, The Wonder Factory (YouTube)  | Email this | Comments

EA CEO says digital gaming sales will overtake console numbers next year

Need more evidence that physical media is inching towards the door? Enter this Reuters conversation with Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello. While the company — the largest publisher of “interactive entertainment” (AKA video games) — is hurting on sales during the awesome global recession currently underway, he thinks the future is digital. All digital. Riccitiello had this to say on the matter:

“When people think of games, they traditionally think, in the U.S., of what sells on the Xbox, the PlayStation, and the Wii, and they forget about all these online services that are out there… if you add all that stuff up, it’s almost half the industry now. It’s about 40 to 45 percent. Next year it’s likely to be the larger share of the total industry and it’ll be bigger than the console games all put together.”

He went on to say that if EA’s digital arm was a standalone company, “it would be like the darling of Wall Street.” Of course, he’s not just talking about XBLA and the App Store — this is an all-encompassing view of the digital market, including casual gaming, Facebook apps, and WoW transactions as well. It may not be the kind of all-encompassing push needed, but we are hoping this sort of noise rattles the industry enough to mobilize smarter, more centralized methods of online distribution.

EA CEO says digital gaming sales will overtake console numbers next year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink 1UP  |  Reuters  | Email this | Comments

Comcast delivers data usage meter in Portland, Oregon

The lucky residents of Portland, Oregon are the first to test out Comcast’s just deployed and long-expected data usage meter for its customers. The interface is self-explanatory, but customers who have long been trying to guesstimate how close they are to their 250GB limit should be jumping for joy right about now. Comcast says the data is refreshed about every three hours, and that the median usage of its customers is somewhere around 2 – 4GB per month. No word on further rollout of the usage meter — but we’ll keep our eyes peeled for you.

[Thanks, Jerry]

Comcast delivers data usage meter in Portland, Oregon originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Official Comcast Blog  | Email this | Comments

Wii parts production said to be shrinking, still plenty of Wiis being sold

Wii parts production said to be shrinking, still plenty of Wiis being sold originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Joystiq  |  MarketWatch  | Email this | Comments

Sprint handed customer GPS data to law enforcement over 8 million times last year

Continue reading Sprint handed customer GPS data to law enforcement over 8 million times last year

Sprint handed customer GPS data to law enforcement over 8 million times last year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PPC Geeks  |  Slight Paranoia  | Email this | Comments

Confused school district fires sysadmin for running SETI@home: ‘As an educational institution we do not support the search for E.T.’

We’ve dealt with a number of confused and outright foolish school administrators in our time, but it seems like Arizona’s Higley Unified School District might be run by the most bonkers of the bunch: they’ve fired IT director Brad Niesluchowski for running SETI@Home on some 5,000 of the district’s machines. Why? According to confidently-underinformed superintendent Denise Birdwell, Higley Unified “certainly would have supported cancer research,” but does “not support the search for E.T.” Well, that’s just peachy — except that her flippant dismissal of SETI belies a complete ignorance of one of the oldest and most respected distributed-computing projects in the world, and what it’s actually looking for. Oh, but it gets worse: Birdwell thinks SETI@home — which primarily runs as a screensaver — was somehow slowing down “educational programs in every classroom,” and magically estimates that it’s cost her district “$1 million in added utility fees and replacement parts,” with a further huge cost required to remove the software. Completing her transformation into the worst-possible stereotype of a school district superintendent, Birdwell’s even got the local cops on the case. Yeah, it’s idiotic, but it could be worse — we can only imagine the hell that would have broken loose had Higley’s machines been a part of the renegade Engadget Folding@home team.

Update: So there’s apparently more going on here as well, including allegations of stolen equipment and — inevitably — downloaded porn, but none of that explains why Superintendent Birdwell is giving press conferences where she slams SETI. Check the more coverage links for the full story, and make sure to hit the source link for the video.

Confused school district fires sysadmin for running SETI@home: ‘As an educational institution we do not support the search for E.T.’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Fox 5 Vegas  | Email this | Comments

Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Smartphones

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today’s bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the holiday season.

Continue reading Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Smartphones

Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Large Hadron Collider grinds to a halt… again

In an increasingly unsurprising turn of events, the Large Hadron Collider suffered a major power failure this morning, knocking the machine and its website out of service. The failure occurred in an 18,000-volt power line in Meyrin, Geneva where the LHC is housed beneath the ground, causing pretty much everything to shut down. The LHC’s magnets maintained a temperature of 1.9 degrees above absolute zero (having to re-cool them would have been a pretty sizeable setback), however, and no long-term damage seems to have occurred. The trouble-prone Large Hadron Collider is expected to resume full operations sometime later today, and is currently operating on limited power from a backup supply. Regardless, the unfortunate event is sure to resurrect that zany Higgs boson time-travelling theory.

Large Hadron Collider grinds to a halt… again originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  The Register  | Email this | Comments

The Engadget Show: Kindle etching and DIY adventures with Adafruit Industries

If you’ll recall, some months ago we held a little competition for readers to submit artwork destined for laser-etching on the backsides of Amazon’s Kindle. After everyone voted on the top five out of the mountain of selections, we took the gaggle of readers down to our friends at Adafruit Industries (headed up by the lovely and delightful Limor Fried and Phil Torrone) for some time under the laser. While we were there getting our etch on with their massive laser, we convinced Limor and Phil to show off some of the other crazy kit they’ve got in the labs — and we’ve captured it all on film… er, video. Take a look at our excursion into the world of dynamic DIY’ing — we think you’ll like what you see. Check it out after the break!

Host: Joshua Topolsky
Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm
Edited by: Michael Slavens
Titles by: Julien Nantiec

Subscribe to the Show:

[iTunes] Subscribe to the Show directly in iTunes (M4V).
[Zune] Subscribe to the Show directly in the Zune Marketplace (M4V).
[RSS M4V] Add the Engadget Show feed (M4V) to your RSS aggregator and have it delivered automatically.

Download the Show:

Download The Engadget Show in HD (720p M4V)
Download The Engadget Show formatted for iPod / iPhone

Continue reading The Engadget Show: Kindle etching and DIY adventures with Adafruit Industries

The Engadget Show: Kindle etching and DIY adventures with Adafruit Industries originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Motorola Sholes Tablet detailed, sounds as tasty as we’d hoped

Knowing what we now know of the Droid — codename Sholes — the mere mental image of that “Sholes Tablet” that we’ve been hearing about for a while brings us to our geeky knees. Taiwanese forum Mobile01 seems to have details on just what the Sholes Tablet is all about, and while we’d normally be skeptical to the point of dismissal, the presence of a few believable-looking images has us on the bandwagon. The biggies on the rumored spec sheet include HDMI out, 720p video recording paired to an 8 megapixel cam (which is hopefully of much, much higher quality than the Droid’s miserable 5) with xenon flash, and Motorola’s own CrystalTalk tech for background noise reduction on calls. It’ll apparently be running Android 2.0 — the presence of BLUR is unknown — and the screen is a predictably awesome 3.7 inches at WVGA resolution with multitouch support; missing, as the name suggests, is the original’s sliding QWERTY keyboard. All signs point to use seeing this in the next few months, so enjoy those Droids and Milestones while you can, yeah?

Motorola Sholes Tablet detailed, sounds as tasty as we’d hoped originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 12:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink BGR  |  Mobile01  | Email this | Comments

Samsung Omnia II unboxing and hands-on

It’s here at last, and we’re frankly thrilled to be holding Samsung’s very first TouchWiz 2.0 device, the Verizon Wireless-bound Samsung Omnia II. The 2.0 software brings with it a Widget Store, and as a general UI manages to skin over a majority of Windows Mobile 6.5, which is puttering along underneath. The handset is a tad on the bulky side, but makes up for it with a wonderful 3.7-inch AMOLED WVGA screen and a very nice 5 megapixel camera. We’ll have a review for you before long, but for now you can check out a quick video rundown (including some playtime with the Samsung-exclusive “Swype” keyboard) after the break. And if that video is enough to convince you, the phone is available now on Verizon Wireless for $200 after rebate.

Continue reading Samsung Omnia II unboxing and hands-on

Samsung Omnia II unboxing and hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Nokia promises to take "Symbian user interface to a new level" in 2010, Maemo 6 in 2H

It’s Nokia Capital Market Day again which means that the boys from Espoo are fawning over investors and giving them a reason to stick around in 2010. And you know what? It sure sounds promising for gadget nerds. Why the optimism? Easy: Nokia is hell-bent on redefining the user experience of its Symbian devices. To quote CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, “In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level.” To bolster this proclamation, the very first bullet point listed under Nokia’s Devices and Services operational priorities is “improve our user experience” — something that would thrill us to no end if it happens.

The revamped Symbian UI is set to deliver on two “major product milestones” in the first and second halves of the year. Nokia will also deliver its first Maemo 6 “mobile computer” in the second half of 2010 flanked by a significantly increased proportion of “touch and/or QWERTY devices” in its smartphone portfolio. It’s worth noting that all the discussion is around Symbian, just a single mention of Maemo and its “iconic user experience” in the forward looking press release. Developers will be happy to hear that Nokia will also continue to scale services geographically while continuing to enhance its developer tools like QT4.6 announced yesterday. Financially speaking, Nokia expects to see the erosion of its average selling price slowed compared to recent years. That’s good as Nokia attempts to grow its margins. However, while Nokia expects mobile device volumes to be up approximately 10% in 2010 across the industry, it sees its own mobile device volume market share as flat in 2010, compared to 2009.

Be clear on this though: our incredibly frustrating S60 5th user experience was by far the biggest complaint we had when reviewing Nokia’s flagship N97 — having the most bullet points on a list of features is not what it takes to lure consumers anymore (if ever). If Nokia can better the best in class experiences carved out by Apple, Palm, and HTC with its Sense UI then consumer mindshare, and our hearts, will follow.

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia promises to take “Symbian user interface to a new level” in 2010, Maemo 6 in 2H originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Nokia  | Email this | Comments

Verizon’s Chocolate Touch is a dead ringer for the LG SB210

If you want to know what Verizon’s upcoming Chocolate Touch will look like, look no further than this little number, the SB210, that’s just been unveiled for LG’s domestic South Korean market. Naturally we can expect that the firmware will be a good deal different, but the hardware looks exactly like the spy shots we’ve seen so far of the next Big Red handset to wear the storied Chocolate brand — which, it bears repeating, won’t be the much hotter BL40. In the SB210’s case, the big feature here is an integrated database of 280 golf courses that hooks up with the GPS to offer distance information and lower your handicap (theoretically, anyway). The phone’s available now on SKT for 638,000 won — about $538 — so we’re expecting a much lower subsidized price when this thing comes to Verizon later this week.

Verizon’s Chocolate Touch is a dead ringer for the LG SB210 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Wall of Sound is loud, prohibitively expensive, and somewhat defeats the purpose

Continue reading Wall of Sound is loud, prohibitively expensive, and somewhat defeats the purpose

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Wall of Sound is loud, prohibitively expensive, and somewhat defeats the purpose originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

PlayStation Home ‘not a priority right now’ for Sony, most people seem to feel the same way

Just earlier this month we’d been hearing word from Sony that it was seeing PlayStation Home as more of a “social game platform” than a “social network,” and now we’re hearing that Sony might not be seeing it as much of anything. Peter Edward, the director of Home for Sony, says that the service is “not a priority right now.” Kind of at odds with his other statement that it’s “proved there is a market out there and we’ve got a lot of people that spend a lot of time in [Home],” but we’ll let is slide. So, is this a roundabout way of saying Home hasn’t been as great as Sony thought it would be, or just a different way of saying the emphasis is changing? We’ve never minded Sony’s Home efforts on their own, but in the context of an also-ran multiplayer platform, it’s easy to see why the company should be focusing on other aspects of the gaming experience.

Filed under: Gaming

PlayStation Home ‘not a priority right now’ for Sony, most people seem to feel the same way originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Acer Liquid’s Snapdragon processor to be clocked at just 768MHz?

Ugh. Just weeks after we figured that Acer’s first Android-based handset would indeed ship with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a new slide over at an international Liquid presentation is suggesting otherwise. As you can clearly see above, it looks as if the Qualcomm-sourced CPU will be underclocked to just 768MHz, which makes little to no sense on the surface. Granted, most average consumers couldn’t care less about the CPU in their next smartphone, but it seems reasonable to think that the Liquid will lag behind its 1GHz contemporaries when used side-by-side. Who knows though — maybe this is just the thing necessary to squeeze a full week of battery life out of this thing. Or not.

[Via MobileTechWorld, thanks Gully and Jose]

Filed under: Cellphones

Acer Liquid’s Snapdragon processor to be clocked at just 768MHz? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

T-Mobile nabs HTC’s Touch HD2, schedules release for November

WinMo folks, we wouldn’t blame you for getting a bit of Android envy after last week’s DROID onslaught, but if there’s one thing that could make people pine for your OS it’s HTC’s HD2, and T-Mobile has just confirmed it’s coming on November 9 — a mere weekend after Moto’s new hotness hits Verizon. Mind you, there is some confusion going on here, as the picture on T-Mo’s site is of the old Touch HD, not the HD2 we met and loved, and the mention of “loads of applications to download from Android Market” is particularly perplexing. But, we’ve been told to go ahead and blame a bumbling marketeer rather than to expect some sort of cross-platform app marketplace love fest — groovy as that may sound.

Update: We’ve also just learned that HTC is going to officially launch the HD2 on November 4 ahead of a November 11 release elsewhere. We’re not entirely sure what there is left to learn about the thing, but we’re always game for another press event.

Update 2: Just to clarify things, this is T-Mobile UK. Also, as many have pointed out in comments, we’re now thinking the “09″ above means 2009, not November 9, which likely points to a November 11 release. Surely you can swallow that DROID envy for another two days, yeah?

[Via WMPoweruser.com]

Filed under: Cellphones

T-Mobile nabs HTC’s Touch HD2, schedules release for November originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Apple killing Atom support, dreams of netbook hackintoshers in next Snow Leopard release?

Nobody said running a netbook hackintosh would be easy — but nobody said they’d make it this hard. Apple is currently engaged in a war of compatibility with Palm and, if the developer build of Snow Leopard version 10.6.2 is any indication, the Atom processor is next on the smack down list. Word on coder street is that the upcoming revision of OS X will kill support for Intel’s little powerhouse. That could certainly change before it hits the world at large, but we wouldn’t bet on it. So, if you’re viewing this on an netbook install of your own devising, you may be stuck at version 10.6.1 (or earlier) for awhile — or you may need to do a little custom kernel building. Either way, we’re thinking that if Apple ever gets around to making a netbook it probably won’t be an Atom-powered one.

[Via OS X Daily]

Filed under: Laptops, Software

Apple killing Atom support, dreams of netbook hackintoshers in next Snow Leopard release? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Next Page »