Adobe ups passive aggressive stance on iPad, while Apple promo forgets its limits

Man, Adobe is not letting up here. In addition to releasing a terse, carefully worded response to the Apple iPad’s apparent lack of Flash, the official Flash Blog took a much more truculent approach. Exhibit A: a post entitled “The iPad provides the ultimate browsing experience?” followed by several mockups of sites laden with the infamous Blue Lego Block of Ambiguity[TM]. Adding to the conversation in the comments, platform evangelist Lee Brimelow accuses Apple of not wanting the Flash player to succeed, and that the company’s tried to work with Cupertino since the iPhone. ”
They don’t want you to go to Hulu or play Flash games because they worry that you won’t buy their apps,” he says. Frankly, we wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case, and while we understand Adobe’s frustration, this probably isn’t gonna help relations between the two tech firms. Hey Adobe, trust us, we feel your pain — we really want Hulu on the iPad, too.

In other, more amusing news, it seems Apple’s official iPad promo has slipped up a bit in showing off what the tablet can really do. Namely, one clip of the New York Times and an article on 31 places to go in 2010. Here it clearly shows a Flash-based module up top, inaccessible without the plugin. We’re not thinking this is a sign of things to come — if anything, it’s probably just a mistake by the producers. Don’t get your hopes up, folks.

Adobe ups passive aggressive stance on iPad, while Apple promo forgets its limits originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony Trik hands-on

Guess what, we don’t even care if the official name is Trix, this product isn’t about its name, its specs, or any other such sensible consideration. This is a loud and proud homage to every urge you’ve ever experienced to “express yourself.” Whether yourself is a Yankees fan, a surfer, or a crazed Twilight aficionado, there are interchangeable covers to appease most (bad) tastes. We took a quick peek around this iPod / iPhone dock, and for those who care, we’d say the Trik actually looks like a well-formed tune deliverator that might very well be worth the $130 asking price. Audio testing in the booming halls of CES was a futile affair, but there’s plenty of time before April’s release date for you to hear them for yourself and to pick a tasteful cover to demonstrate your individuality with.

Sony Trik hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 00:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T kicks it into overdrive, rolls out 7.2Mbps everywhere — but there’s a catch

AT&T was quick to steal a smidge of T-Mobile’s thunder today with the announcement at an investor’s conference that has sped up its 7.2Mbps HSPA software upgrade to all 3G cell sites, moving up the original deadline of 2011. Here’s the thing, though: they didn’t really move up the 2011 date because 7.2Mbps-capable cells don’t do much good without a wide-enough pipe to feed them on the back end. That’s the other part of AT&T’s one-two punch for boosting network speeds, and that part won’t be wrapped up for a while yet. The company says that it expects “the majority” of the mobile data it handles to operate over its upgraded back end by the tail end of this year — and it’s already started the upgrades in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, and Miami — but the reality here is that we probably won’t be blazing anywhere near the theoretical max throughput for a little while yet.

AT&T kicks it into overdrive, rolls out 7.2Mbps everywhere — but there’s a catch originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Jan 2010 17:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MIT researchers develop liquid metal battery for the grid and the home

We’ve see plenty of green power research over the years, from solar plants to underwater turbines , but relying on the sun or the sea for electricity is not without its challenges: the sun doesn’t always shine, for instance, and sometimes the water is calm. A group at MIT led by professor Donald Sadoway is developing grid-scale storage solutions for times when electricity isn’t being generated. Since these batteries are intended for the power grid instead of cellphones and Roombas, the researchers can use materials not feasible in consumer electronics — in this case, high temperature liquid metals. Besides being recently awarded a grant from ARPA-E (Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy) to put these things in green power facilities, MIT has just embarked on a joint venture with the French oil company Total to develop a smaller-scale version of the technology for homes and office buildings.

MIT researchers develop liquid metal battery for the grid and the home originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Saygus VPhone to bring video calls and a bit of chub to Android and Verizon

If you know that your personal happiness lies somewhere in the Verizon / Android abyss but neither the Droid nor the Droid Eris are hitting the spot, you might consider trying something completely out of left field. How “left field” are we talking here? Well, for starters, odds are good that you’ve never heard of a company called Saygus, and its shiny new QWERTY slider, the VPhone, won’t be offered directly from Verizon — it’s a product of the carrier’s Open Development initiative. Sure enough, that handset we spied a few days back is real, and the specs are all panning out: 624MHz PXA310 XScale core, 512MB of Flash on board coupled with 256MB of RAM, 3.5-inch capacitive WVGA touchscreen, WiFi, a 5 megapixel autofocus camera, front-facing VGA camera and — of course — EV-DO Rev. A support. The current incarnation is running Android 1.6, but it should be running 2.0 by the time of its launch next year, along with getting some Google-certification to let it run the Google apps. Saygus’ real thrust here is apparently two-way video calling (good thing they picked Verizon, huh?), though they aren’t showing it off just yet. Otherwise it’s pretty much stock Android, and when asked if they swiped something from HTC Sense UI, Saygus said those buttons and the extra home screens are actually a standard part of Android’s open source repository. The hardware itself is rather chubby, but it leaves room for an oversized QWERTY keyboard that could very well solve your Droid woes. No word on price or a firm release date.

Saygus VPhone to bring video calls and a bit of chub to Android and Verizon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Entelligence: Heads I win, tails so do you

Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

That’s a pretty sappy title. It almost sounds like I’m talking about summer camp. You know, where everyone who goes to camp gets to have a part and everyone gets an award for something.

I think competition is good. I think healthy competition forces people and companies to push themselves further, innovate greater and drive products to the next level. Competition gave us Windows 7, the iPhone, and a host of other technologies and products as vendors looked to up their game and compete. While I don’t consider myself a fanboy of anything except perhaps Aaron Sorkin or NYC bagels, I also think fanboys (and fangirls) are good. I like people who are really passionate about the technology they buy and stand behind their passion. It’s good for people to be excited about tech. So if you’re a Windows 7, Snow Leopard or Ubuntu lover, I say. “Excellent!” Heck, if you’re a Newton, Amiga or Vectrex aficionado and hate anything created past 1995, that’s cool too. I’m talking about something else. I’m talking about a philosophy that says, If I win, then you must lose.

Continue reading Entelligence: Heads I win, tails so do you

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Entelligence: Heads I win, tails so do you originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Nov 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Safa Xing LED features MP3 playback, 27 pixel resolution

Continue reading Safa Xing LED features MP3 playback, 27 pixel resolution

Filed under: Portable Audio

Safa Xing LED features MP3 playback, 27 pixel resolution originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy offering DROID pre-orders as of today, automates the mail-in rebate

In the best sort of tradition, Best Buy Mobile has gone for a repeat of its Palm Pre offering and is offering a $299 phone, the Motorola DROID, in this case, at $199 thanks to the automation of a mail-in rebate you’d have to actually “mail in” if you were to purchase the handset straight from the carrier. Best Buy also seems to be the first place to offer pre-orders of the phone, so if you’re worried about a sell out or just generally averse to affixing stamps to things, Best Buy appears to have you covered.

Filed under: Cellphones

Best Buy offering DROID pre-orders as of today, automates the mail-in rebate originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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World Wide Web creator sorry for the ‘//’ and other things that don’t matter

Tim Berners-Lee, the man credited with creating the World Wide Web, recently said that his only real regret about the whole shebang is forcing people to type out the (essentially unnecessary) double slash after the ‘http:’ in URLs. Speaking at a symposium on the future of technology, he noted (in reference to the dreaded marks) the paper, trees and human labor that could have been spared without them. Hey Tim: don’t sweat it! You’ve done us enough good turns that we’re willing to overlook it.

Filed under: Software

World Wide Web creator sorry for the ‘//’ and other things that don’t matter originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP Mini 311 set for spec bump, Windows 7 Professional

With the overdue passing of Windows XP into the next world comes the cheery note that Microsoft’s ceiling on netbook specs will also be no more — and the Mini 311 is among the first to get upgraded in time for the new king of Windowstan. The already competent performer will be getting the full (non-LE) ION treatment, max memory of 3GB, an 80GB SSD option or up to 320GB of the old school storage stuff, and a choice of Windows 7 flavors up to the Professional level. This info comes from the machine’s maintenance guide, so we can’t be certain of when the upgrades will be ready for consumption, but HP’s track record would suggest the answer to that is soon.

[Via Liliputing]

Filed under: Laptops

HP Mini 311 set for spec bump, Windows 7 Professional originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Achtung, T-Mobile: if Project Dark is $50 unlimited, you’re in trouble

Put yourself in T-Mobile USA’s shoes for a moment: rumor has it that the guys who pay the bills aren’t happy. History, happenstance, and the realities of electromagnetics have left you with an oddball 3G frequency that literally no other carrier in the world uses (at least, not for HSPA). Larger competitors don’t take you as seriously as you’d like, and you don’t have smaller ones — they’re all regionals who don’t play in the same space you do. So what’s your next move?

Continue reading Achtung, T-Mobile: if Project Dark is $50 unlimited, you’re in trouble

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Wireless

Achtung, T-Mobile: if Project Dark is $50 unlimited, you’re in trouble originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sanyo Eneloop batteries good for 1,500 recharges, maintain 70% charge even after 3 years in storage

We’ve got a thing for Sanyo’s Eneloops. Had it ever since Sanyo released us from the clutches of underperforming NiCad and NiMH batteries about five years ago. Its latest AA and AAA batteries can be recharged about 1,500 times, that’s about 3 years of continuous service and 500 more cycles than competing rechargeables, according to Sanyo. The batteries also feature a low self-discharge rate so they remain usable even after they’ve been charged and stored in a drawer. In fact, an Eneloop will maintain about 75% of its charged power even after three years. Impressive, we know, and the reason they come pre-charged from the factory for immediate use of out the box. And compared to disposables, they’re as good for the environment as they are for your wallet over the long run.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Sanyo Eneloop batteries good for 1,500 recharges, maintain 70% charge even after 3 years in storage originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia N900 undergoes extensive preview, N97 found sobbing in a corner

Our amateur sleuthing skills tell us there might be a tiny bit of excitement about this N900 device. With the Maemo 5 environment already measured up, it’s the turn of the hardware to get exhaustively previewed. The My Symbian team took a look at a prototype unit and were immediately impressed by the 800 x 480 display and relatively compact dimensions for such a loaded phone. The resistive touchscreen was on par with the N97, though it picked up scratches too easily for their liking ( a screen protector is recommended), while the keyboard was deemed small but still a major improvement over the N97’s. Internals rated well, with the 600MHz Cortex-A8 CPU and “superb” video recording grabbing plaudits. Perplexingly, there was only 256MB allocated to application installs (see image after the break), which can be altered by those with Linux knowhow, but this may draw plenty of ire from mainstream, app-hungry consumers, considering the device is capable of holding 48GB of total memory. On the outside, the camera cover was found to scratch the case around the lens (but not the lens itself like on some N97 units) while sliding, and removing the stylus from its slot revealed some bare electronics, both of which rather undermined the overall feel of a well-built device. They did find connectivity on the device a pretty dreamy and trouble-free affair, but we’re still only scratching the surface here — hit up the read link for the whole enchilada.

[Via MobileTechWorld]

Update: Nokia has expressly stated that the retail phones will come with repartitioned memory, which will provide “plenty” of space for app installations and obviate the storage issue noted above. [Thanks, sockatume]

Continue reading Nokia N900 undergoes extensive preview, N97 found sobbing in a corner

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia N900 undergoes extensive preview, N97 found sobbing in a corner originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GPU-accelerated 720p Flash video gets demoed on a netbook (smoothly)

It’s been a long wait since NVIDIA and Adobe announced their plans for GPU-accelerated Flash video back in January of this year, but it looks like the pair now finally have something to show for themselves. While it’s not quite clear how official it is just yet, the folks at NotebookJournal have nonetheless published a video that shows 720p Flash video running smoothly on a netbook (an ION-powered HP Mini 311, to be specific). Unfortunately, it looks like we’ll still have to wait until sometime in the first half of 2010 to see the technology become publicly available (at least if the slides in the video are any indication), but you can now check out the demo for yourself after the break. Just be sure to stick with it for a while or skip ahead to the 1:20 mark — they show a non-accelerated video at the beginning for an all too painful comparison.

[Via Liliputing]

Continue reading GPU-accelerated 720p Flash video gets demoed on a netbook (smoothly)

Filed under: Laptops

GPU-accelerated 720p Flash video gets demoed on a netbook (smoothly) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Haier steps out of character, builds ultra-desirable Jian i7 ultra-thin laptop

The last time Haier really wowed us was back in 2007 when the company was peddling its “screen-on-a-stick” laptop tech. Two years later we’ve got this little beauty to drool on: the Jian i7. The 13.4-inch Core 2 Duo ULV laptop is pretty dang thin, weighs 3 pounds, and retails for a mere 6,000 Yuan (about $879 US). Where do we sign up?

Filed under: Laptops

Haier steps out of character, builds ultra-desirable Jian i7 ultra-thin laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 19 Sep 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stateside PS3 sales up 300% following Slim introduction

Continue reading Stateside PS3 sales up 300% following Slim introduction

Filed under: Gaming

Stateside PS3 sales up 300% following Slim introduction originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC claims Tattoo’s screen is too small for capacitive to work well

For full-touch mobile use, capacitive touchscreens are the best solution we’ve got — and it has absolutely nothing to do with the iPhone, it has to do with the incremental improvement in usability brought about by near-100 percent touch registration. That’s a big deal, because even a 5 percent loss of registration on an on-screen QWERTY keyboard would represent roughly one letter missed every five words (assuming an average word length in the English language of just over 5 letters). Resistive screens have many, many totally valid applications, but put simply, phones aren’t one of them; they’ve been outmoded by a different technology that’s more appropriate for the size and use that the average handset sees. Registration issues aside, fingers are larger than styli, and when a resistive display is registering an unweighted pinpoint coordinate, you end up ironically losing accuracy — a benefit touted by resistive that’s really only realized if you’re using a stylus full-time. No one’s claiming that capacitive screens are the magic elixir to make human digits achieve superhuman accuracy on a tiny screen, but… you know, step one is making sure the phone knows you pressed something.

Anyhow, HTC’s now claiming that the just-announced Tattoo has gone resistive because its 2.8-inch screen is simply too small “to be accurate with” as a capacitive. The company’s tweet goes on to say that resistive “ends up registering fewer miss-clicks,” which could be argued — maybe — were users expected to use styli. Android is not and was never designed as a stylus-driven platform, and unless HTC’s driving in that dubious direction, the claim is bunk. More realistically, the resistive display is probably a cost sacrifice the company made to keep sticker shock to a minimum, which is fair enough — HTC’s trying to cover many market segments with Android, as it should — but we wish they’d been upfront about it.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

HTC claims Tattoo’s screen is too small for capacitive to work well originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bluetooth headset use plummets in the US, humanity celebrates a small victory

Join us as we rejoice together: “Finally!” Look, we can’t straight up say that Bluetooth headsets don’t have their place in this world, but seriously, we’ve yet to not be freaked out when walking up to someone who’s apparently speaking to the ghost we can’t see. In a recent survey conducted by the quizzical minds over at Strategy Analytics, they found that only 26 percent of US-based Bluetooth headset owners use their device each and every day. That figure is down from 43 percent in 2008, proving that style may have just notched a minor victory over utility. Of course, the study also found that daily BT headset use was up slightly in Europe, but hey, it takes awhile for these so-called “trends” to float across the pond.

[Image courtesy of eHow, via HotHardware]

Filed under: Cellphones, Peripherals

Bluetooth headset use plummets in the US, humanity celebrates a small victory originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung boasts of first commercial LTE modem for cellphones

We can’t say that we’re absolutely certain that Samsung’s not fibbing a little with its latest claim, particularly since NXP rolled out a multi-mode LTE / HSPA / etc. cellular modem way back in June of last year. Whatever the case, we’re just stoked to see yet another big player drinking the LTE Kool-Aid, with Sammy developing what it calls the “first LTE modem that complies with the latest standards of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP).” The modem, which is being labeled the Kalmia for now, supports download rates of up to 100Mbps and upload speeds around 50Mbps within the 20MHz frequency band. In other words, if your future handset is equipped with this chipset, you could theoretically stream four HD movies with no buffering. Now, if only Samsung would announce a new mobile to go along with this, we’d really have reason to carouse.

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

Samsung boasts of first commercial LTE modem for cellphones originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 02:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xbox 360 ‘Super Elite’ with 250GB HDD glimpsed in South African retail ad

So much for secrecy. South African Xbox 360 distributor Comztek has told local gaming news site XboxGaming.co.za that the a 250GB “Super Elite” model is due there in October. Additionally, the Forza 3 bundle we saw heading to Germany is also en route to SA, retailing for R4,999 (US $646), or around the same price as the Elite before its recent global price cut. South African retailer BT Games has apparently also posted a flier in honor of the launch, offering a R500 discount on the Super Elite with the trade-in of a slimline PlayStation 2. Let’s hope the folks in Redmond have as much of a sense of humor about leaks as Sony does.

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming

Xbox 360 ‘Super Elite’ with 250GB HDD glimpsed in South African retail ad originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Aug 2009 19:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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