Unannounced BlackBerry Curve 8910 took CES refuge at Case-Mate’s booth?

RIM has an interesting reputation in the trade show world: it rarely makes any announcements of interest or consequence during events, but if you look hard enough, you still might just find something juicy. Last year’s CES, for example, briefly saw a Curve 8900 mysteriously running AT&T-branded firmware, which we now know foretold a release several months later. This year’s shindig in Vegas proved to be a little less bombastic — or so we thought, anyway, until a dude cleaning out his camera’s memory card noticed that Case-Mate (of all companies) allegedly had an unannounced Curve 8910 chilling in its booth. It’s pretty common for manufacturers to give valued accessory partners some prototypes ahead of time to make sure there are plenty of add-ons available by the time a device is released, they just don’t usually… you know, put those prototypes out at a booth for everyone to enjoy. We actually stopped by Case-Mate this year and didn’t catch the 8910, but we don’t know how long it was actually out — and besides, telling the difference between this and a Bold 9700 takes a Mike Lazaridis-like understanding for the subtle differences in RIM’s industrial design. Next year, though, be on notice, guys: we’ll be scanning your kiosks with a fine-tooth comb.

Unannounced BlackBerry Curve 8910 took CES refuge at Case-Mate’s booth? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Curve 8910 in the wild?

If you thought RIM had completely run out of ways to mildly remix its existing portrait QWERTY formula, think again — the transition from trackball to optical pad has opened up a whole new world of exciting opportunities, and it looks like the venerable Curve 8900 might be the next model to get the refresh. BerryReview appears to have scored a shot of the alleged 8910 in its most natural environment — a desk calendar — preserving the Curve series’ typical broken-up keyboard style (as opposed to the connected keys you see in the Bold line). Otherwise we don’t really know much, but naturally, the new model is said to be running BlackBerry OS 5.0 under the hood (in other words, it’ll look pretty much like every other BlackBerry you’ve used in recent memory). More on this puppy as we get it.

Update: Unwired View points out that there’s a Bluetooth SIG certification for an 8910, so this is all lining up pretty nicely, isn’t it?

BlackBerry Curve 8910 in the wild? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry wrist-on

We managed to track down the guys from Canada’s Allerta and got to spend some time with a couple dummy models of the soon-to-be-released inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry. Design-wise, it’s very attractive, with a brushed metal body and a leather band. As a bonus to early orderers, the first 1,000 sold will be custom-milled on a CNC router — ironically, it’ll actually be more cost-effective for them to do it that way while they build up production volume. In terms of functionality, it will launch with support for displaying text messages, caller ID, new e-mails, and BlackBerry Messenger messages (yes, it supports BBM!). It’ll give you information on who the message is from and a preview of the message’s contents. We couldn’t get a hard shipping date, but rest assured we’ll let you know as soon as we do — for now, our hands-on gallery will have to suffice.

inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry wrist-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Live from Panasonic’s CES press event

Continue reading Live from Panasonic’s CES press event

Live from Panasonic’s CES press event originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jan 2010 17:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Philips SA075 officially launched in Beijing, spotted in the wild

Hard to say exactly how many Earthlings (and Martians, for that matter) are jazzed about Philips’ forthcoming SA075 PMP, but it looks as if the wait for a ship date is drawing to a close. Over in Beijing, the player was recently showcased at a product launch party, and while a stateside release still hasn’t been talked about, it was confirmed that the HD playback will be capped at 720p (and not 1080p, as the unicorns and elves were hoping for). We’re also told that the display will boast an 800 x 480 resolution, an HDMI output will be onboard and at least a few gigabytes of storage will be included. Riveting, no?

[Thanks, Gavin]

Philips SA075 officially launched in Beijing, spotted in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 08:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry services down in North America yet again?

Look, BlackBerrys are always supposed to do a few things well: 1) grab your email in real time off an Exchange server; 2) make you look important; and 3) work. It seems, though, that we’re working on our third major North American outage here in less than a month, with reports flowing in that users connected to BIS are having trouble with Messenger, web browsing, and apps that consume data (though email is inexplicably unaffected). Anyone out there seeing problems?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

BlackBerry services down in North America yet again? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Curve 8530 impressions

We don’t know, but it seems like RIM has enlisted a couple more CDMA engineers because the gap between new devices launching on GSM and then making their way to CDMA has been getting noticeably smaller over time. The BlackBerry Curve 8520 was launched on T-Mobile only a few short months ago, and it’s already made its way to both Verizon and Sprint. It’s not the same powerhouse as its older sibling the Tour, but this device packs a heck of a lot of punch into a very pocketable package. Read past the break for our extended impressions.

Continue reading BlackBerry Curve 8530 impressions

Filed under: Cellphones

BlackBerry Curve 8530 impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM’s optical trackpads: they weren’t joking about the ‘optical’ part

Thinking about how your phone’s touchscreen operates, you might assume that the so-called optical pads that have been making appearances on recent BlackBerrys (among other devices) operate in a similar fashion — but you’d be wrong. RIM’s official BlackBerry blog is chiming in today to drop some knowledge on us dullards, and it turns out that “optical” isn’t just a cute nickname — the pads do actually operate in much the same way as modern desktop mice, using a low-res infrared camera to capture movement across the surface and translate it into movement. In practical terms, what this means is that you don’t need a conductive surface to operate the pad — you can use pretty much anything that the sensor can see, so a gloved hand (for instance) is theoretically good to go. That being said, don’t expect to be snapping photos with your “camera” any time soon — we’re literally talking about a handful of grayscale pixels here, which should make it only marginally better than the Droid’s cam.

RIM’s optical trackpads: they weren’t joking about the ‘optical’ part originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Curve 8530 now available on Sprint

BlackBerry Curve 8530 now available on Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry shipments break record in Q3, RIM profits jump 59 percent

RIM being a thriving and profitable company is hardly a new story — as confirmed by third quarter earnings of $628 million off the back of a record-breaking 10 million units sold — but the way it’s making its money seems to be changing. More than 80 percent of new BlackBerry subscribers in the quarter were private customers, marking a distinct shift — maybe not away from the corporate arena, but definitely toward embracing the consumer market. In an effort to further consolidate its global empire, RIM has also announced a partnership with China Telecom to go along with its earlier China Mobile deal. Oh, and there’s the small matter of the 75 millionth BlackBerry being sold, but we’re sure the cool cats up in BB HQ aren’t counting handsets, they’re probably too busy rolling around in piles of money.

BlackBerry shipments break record in Q3, RIM profits jump 59 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry email down / delayed in North America

Gonna be a long day for BlackBerry users: RIM’s confirmed to multiple outlets that its BIS servers are acting up and that email services are being delayed — and we’re actually hearing that they’re just down, period. BlackBerry Messenger still works, though, so you can still BBM your BFF or whatever the kids do nowadays. No word on service restoration, but we’ll update you when we find out.

P.S.- That’s two months in a row with significant BIS problems — what’s up with that, RIM?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

BlackBerry email down / delayed in North America originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Dec 2009 12:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tetra the micromouse needs no cheese, completes maze in new record time (video)

Continue reading Tetra the micromouse needs no cheese, completes maze in new record time (video)

Tetra the micromouse needs no cheese, completes maze in new record time (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 12 Dec 2009 08:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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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.

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Cambridge Consultants Suma sensor is designed to add ‘3D’ input to traditional control schemes

They’re short on details, but the folks at Cambridge Consultants might just be onto something with this new “Suma sensor system” of theirs. Basically it translates the deformation of its soft material into 3D data that can be used in a video game to “unleash the full capabilities of both the human hand and the user’s imagination.” Sounds a tad far fetched, but the exciting part is that this “Suma skin” control material can replace the traditional casing of a regular gaming controller for less than a buck in parts, meaning that with (relatively) little effort we could see tactile squeezing, gripping and other sorts of finger-friendly input worked into console gaming without having to bid farewell to the form factors we know and love. Cambridge Consultants doesn’t mention robotics, but we could also see this sort of material being quite the cost-effective, sensor-laden skin replacement. Just as long as nobody tries to get us to control Ezio with that little stress-ball pictured above.

Continue reading Cambridge Consultants Suma sensor is designed to add ‘3D’ input to traditional control schemes

Cambridge Consultants Suma sensor is designed to add ‘3D’ input to traditional control schemes originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Dec 2009 01:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE

So last week the New York Times Magazine published a piece called “Against Camel Case” which argues that intercapped product names like iPhone and TiVo are “medieval,” because they harken back to a time in which people mostly read aloud, slowly sounding out each word as they tried to understand them. Proper word spacing, says the Times, “eventually made possible phenomena like irony, pornography and freedom of conscience.”

That’s sort of a crazy coincidence — while we’re not so sure word spacing and porn have anything to do with each other, we did just re-do our style guide when we launched our jazzy new redesign, and we actually thought long and hard about how to handle intercapped, all-capped, and otherwise non-standard product names. This is something we deal with a hundred times a day, and we simply weren’t going to let Motorola tell us to write MILESTONE over and over again, completely contradicting our own sense of style and taste — as the Times says, “Writers of the world, fight back!” Well, we can’t say no to that, so we thought we’d share our four newly-minted rules for writing out non-standard product names:

1. Product and company names that are regular English words shall be treated like proper English nouns, complete with proper capitalization. Example: DROID becomes Droid and nook becomes Nook.
2. Product and company names that are not regular English words shall be capitalized first as proper nouns, and then as the company treats them. Example: RAZR stays RAZR, but chumby would become Chumby.
3. Intercapped product and company names should generally be treated as the company treats them, unless it’s egregious and / or looks weird. Example: iPhone stays iPhone, BlackBerry stays BlackBerry and TiVo stays TiVo, but ASUSTeK becomes Asustek. This rule is subject to many exceptions based on usage and history, and also functions as the “this is stupid” loophole.
4. Acronyms should obviously be in all-caps.

We think these rules are flexible to handle most situations, although there are some edge cases and blatant Rule 3 violations out there. Still, it’s a start — unlike the Times, we’re pretty sure “iPhone” and “MasterCard” are here to stay, but we feel like our rules are a small step towards making our site clearer and more readable. Either that, or we’re just crazy in the head.

Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won’t power a toaster

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider just made the record books for something other than the cost to build the 27km-long circular tunnel. After achieving its first collision on Tuesday, the LHC roared beyond a trillion electron volts (1.18 TeV to be exact) literally smashing the 0.98 TeV energy record held by the Tevatron particle accelerator in Chicago since 2001. So far the LHC had been operating at a relatively modest 450 billion electron volts as it pushes up to full capacity of some 7 trillion electron volts. All that’s left now is the minor issue of unlocking the secrets of the universe when the real scientific testing gets underway early next year.

Large Hadron Collider breaks energy record, still won’t power a toaster originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony outs world’s first TransferJet chips for short-range wireless transfer

Induction chargers like Palm’s Touchstone are great and all but they lack one significant feature long mastered by USB tethers: data transfer. That could soon change as Sony begins pushing out its first TransferJet LSI in hopes of obtaining broad industry adoption of this newest form of short-range wireless transmission technology. TransferJet, remember, allows for a theoretical 560Mbps (closer to 375Mbps in the real-world) wireless transfer at a distance of about 3 centimeters — a standard backed by big-hitting camera companies like Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Casio, Kodak, and Olympus and Japanese cellphone interests like NTT DoCoMo, Softbank Mobile, Toshiba, and Sony Ericsson. Just imagine yourself waving a TransferJet-equipped Sony Ericsson phone in front of your new Bravia TV and having all your photos and videos appear on the big screen and you’ve just seen the future. Individual samples are available now for ¥1,500 (about $17) in either PCI or SDIO-connector versions. Now head on past on the break to see the tech in action from our CEATEC hands-on.

Continue reading Sony outs world’s first TransferJet chips for short-range wireless transfer

Sony outs world’s first TransferJet chips for short-range wireless transfer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Archos 5 gets Android Market, Gmail and Maps for that Google-blessed experience

Since it’s not a phone and transgresses in all sorts of other Google-pleasing areas, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet hasn’t had a full shot at Android thus far, being relegated to merely the open source aspects of the OS. However, with phones like the Droid out and about and making high-resolution compatibility a must for Android developers, not to mention some diligent work from the hacking community, there are now downloadable versions of Android Market, Gmail, Maps and some other Google-specific Android goodies for the Archos 5. Use them at your own risk, of course, but it’s not like the Archos 5 is a testament to stability in its current incarnation anyway.

Archos 5 gets Android Market, Gmail and Maps for that Google-blessed experience originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Zune HD getting magenta and purple flavors on December 1st

Not enough variety in your Zune HD color palette? How about a friendly dab of magenta and purple to mix up the proceedings? Microsoft’s Zune Store is now showing some grayed out selectors for purple and magenta color options for the player, which will apparently be available on December 1st – just in time for something or other. No word on whether these will be available for both 16GB and 32GB versions, but pink already representing on the 32 gigger, we’d really hope Microsoft would spread the love down to the cash strapped.

[Thanks, Jerel]

Zune HD getting magenta and purple flavors on December 1st originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXLIV: Zoho’s E72 is made in China, has Finland doing a double-take

Continue reading Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXLIV: Zoho’s E72 is made in China, has Finland doing a double-take

Keepin’ it real fake, part CCXLIV: Zoho’s E72 is made in China, has Finland doing a double-take originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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