The Samsung Galaxy Tab: more relief on the go
The
Samsung Galaxy Tab certainly looks like it's going to be a
pretty sweet little tablet, but man -- Samsung really needs to hire some better Korean-to-English translators. Hot on the heels of the charmingly obtuse
T-Mobile Vibrant ("A Twitter approaches to synchronising data to allow access to your status"), Sammy's new Galaxy Tab promo site is a virtual treasure trove of almost-but-not-quite English, starting with a launch animation that offers you "More relief on the go" straight through to a video call demo that suggests you and a co-worker share a "cosy time." Uh, no thanks. Greatest hits in the gallery below.
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Skype updates Android app for Verizon users, lets you keep the WiFi on
Well, it looks like you still won't be able to actually make calls over WiFi, but Verizon Android users can now at least keep their WiFi connection active while using
Skype Mobile -- something that was curiously not possible before. That's just one of the improvements in the latest version of the app (also updated for BlackBerry), which also includes features like incoming caller ID, support for copy and paste and emoticons in IM conversations, and the ability to automatically set your location as your mood message.
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Mophie Juice Pack Air: coming to double your iPhone 4 battery next week
So, you've been waiting for a Mophie Juice Pack for your iPhone 4? You're not alone. Well, we have word that it'll be available as soon as next week for $79. We even managed to get hands on with a prototype that looked and felt pretty tight considering the fact that it doubles the iPhone's non-removable battery. The Juice Pack Air features pass-through USB charging and sync with iTunes, an integrated 4 LED charge status, and a standby switch the shuts off the juice turning the appendage into a rather attractive (albeit, heavy with a 1500mAh capacity battery), soft-grip case. So now you know.
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Toshiba Folio 100 preview
We just got to handle the
Folio 100, after witnessing it
bolted to a wall earlier, and we have to admit that it's lighter and thinner than it looks at first glance. Unfortunately, it still feels pretty cheap, and we're not sure how much we trust ourselves one-handing something this large and fragile seeming. Our brief glimpse of Toshiba's custom skin on here was most depressing -- it's not final, but we're not sure why Toshiba is even bothering showing anything in this abysmal state. The bits we've seen of Toshiba's market (for music, apps, e-books and so forth) look a bit better, but as far as we know there's no official Android Market on this thing -- a kiss of death for almost any Android device. Toshiba's biggest failure here, however, is probably the LCD it sourced for this tablet -- the screen looks as cheap and low res as could be, and while a €399 list price is decent for a tablet this size, it hardly seems a good excuse to stoop to KIRF-level components. Hit up the gallery for all the angles, along with some comparison shots with the mind share monopolizing iPad.
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Why did Apple take Facebook Connect out of Ping?
Apple certainly took its sweet time
releasing iTunes 10 yesterday, and we're beginning to think it's because the company was making a last-second change to its new
Ping social-network-for-music: the removal of Facebook Connect for finding friends. Seriously -- although an option to find friends via Facebook was conspicuously present during Steve's keynote demos, it's not there anymore. Oddly, the option
was there at the very beginning -- several Engadget staffers definitely saw a Facebook button when they signed up for Ping last night, and there's a whole thread on Apple's support site of people who also saw it and are now wondering where it's gone.
Just to make things even more confusing, Kara Swisher at
All Things D got two very different statements from Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller at the event yesterday: Schiller was enthusiastic about finding friends via Facebook, while Jobs said Zuckerberg and co. were demanding "onerous terms" that Apple refused. We're assuming Jobs was talking about something deeper than just finding friends via Connect, but it's still all very strange -- and as it stands, finding friends on Ping right now requires a fair bit of guesswork and searching, so we're hoping this all gets sorted soon. Check the video of Phil Schiller talking about Facebook and Ping after the break, as well as a snap of it (sort of) working from last night.
Update: We can't confirm this, but we've just gotten a tip saying the problem is primarily on Facebook's end -- the service is currently denying requests from Ping, and the resulting errors apparently caused enough other problems for Apple to pull the plug on the connection entirely until it's fixed. That certainly would explain why Ping has seemed buggy and slow from the outset, but we're still waiting for some official explanation of what's going on.
Continue reading Why did Apple take Facebook Connect out of Ping?
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Samsung exec says next tablet will use Android 'Honeycomb,' Galaxy Tab getting Gingerbread
Samsung's
Galaxy Tab has only just finally, officially been revealed, but it looks like the company is already doing at least a bit of talking about its next tablet (and the future of the Galaxy Tab). According to
Tech Radar, Samsung's head of product planning, WP Hong, has said that "moving forward, with Honeycomb, that will be used in the next generation tablet, as it is specifically optimized for different type of tablet, and will be used on another product only." Not only is that the most official word we've had so far of a Galaxy Tab followup (curiously described as a "different type of tablet"), but it's also seemingly the first time that an ODM has publicly referred to a future Android version as "Honeycomb" -- a name that
Tech Radar had previously heard from "multiple sources." It seems that Honeycomb won't be making it to the current Galaxy Tab, however, but Hong did say that "depending on our international partners, we'll be working to upgrade from Froyo to Gingerbread."
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Harman AKG teams up with Quincy Jones on Signature Line of headphones
Gone is the day when headphones could be respectable without some kind of
corporate tie-in or
Lady Gaga endorsement. Alas, even Harman's revered AKG division has roped in the venerable Quincy Jones for its new (wait for it) Quincy Jones Signature Line. We're talking three models here, ready for launch in October and ranging from the Q 701 "reference class" over-the-ear cans (pictured), the Q 460 lightweight headphones, and Q 350 buds. The Q 701 features ergonomically-shaped cushions of velvet, an "unbeatable" linear frequency response covering 10Hz to 39.8kHz, a 45-mm high excursion driver, and detachable 99-percent oxygen-free cables. The portable $229.99 Q 460 on-ear headphones feature a 3D-axis folding system and an iPhone compatible in-line remote with microphone and play, pause, and skip functions. The in-ear Q 350 also bring iPhone compatible and target the "audiophile on the go" with $149.99 to burn. Seems fitting for a man with 79 Grammy nominations (and 27 awards) to benefit from his name. And you can feel better about him selling out knowing that an undisclosed sum from every pair of headphones sold goes towards the Quincy Jones Musiq Consortium -- a foundation dediqated to eduqating Ameriqan kids about musiq. Ironic, because the Grammys might actually be relevant if American music corporations knew anything about good music.
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Toshiba Folio 100 goes official, lands in Q4
If Samsung's Galaxy Tab reads like a how-to for making a decent Android tablet, Toshiba's Folio 100 seems to serve an opposite purpose (starting with that
unfortunate name), which is disappointing for a company like Toshiba. The tablet just got official here at IFA, after being spotted on the show floor
earlier today, but there's nothing in the press release to change our initial impressions of the device. There's a 1024 x 600 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen, Tegra 2 under the hood, 16GB of built-in storage, SD card expansion, HDMI out, 802.11n WiFi, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, and Android 2.2 with Flash 10.1 running on top of it all. Toshiba claims 7 hours of battery of "regular" use (65% web browsing, 10% video playback, 25% standby), and everything is packed into a 0.55-inch thick form factor that weighs 1.7 pounds. Software-wise Toshiba has baked in Opera, Toshiba Media Player, FBReader, Fring (for video calls), Documents To Go, and Evernote, with Toshiba offering its own app marketplace and developer platform for tablet-specific apps. Unfortunately, the tablet ends up in person as less than the sum of its parts, and while Toshiba might be able to redeem itself slightly with perhaps a surprisingly low pricepoint, we don't imagine ourselves yearning for this device to escape the bonds of its initial Europe, Middle East, and Africa launch markets. PR is after the break.
Update: Toshiba just said that the suggested retail price will be €399.
Continue reading Toshiba Folio 100 goes official, lands in Q4
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OpenFeint PlayTime brings cross-platform multiplayer gaming to iOS, Android
Looks like options for iOS gamers are only expanding. Not only has Apple just announced the new
Game Center, but Aurora Feint has just announced that its OpenFeint social network will soon enable interconnectivity between iOS and Android. The service, called OpenFeint PlayTime, will allow multiplayer gameplay between both platforms -- in addition to matchmaking, game servers, and real-time voice chat during gameplay. If you're a developer, and you're interested in adding cross-platform multiplayer to your next game, hit up the source link to apply for the private Beta. And now you'll have to excuse us -- we were in the middle of a rousing game of
Bomberman Touch 2.
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AMD makes Eyefinity easier with line of budget-minded active DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters
AMD's
Eyefinity technology is one of the best ways to fill every inch of your peripheral vision with pixels. However, it's certainly not the cheapest, relying on
DisplayPort-capable monitors -- inputs that even some current models lack. This has left many gamers buying $100 DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters, significantly raising the cost of adoption, but AMD has announced an unusual plan to tackle that: cheap adapters. The company is helping to develop converters that are expected to retail for just $30, still not as disposable as the VGA-to-DVI blocks you have cluttering up your junk drawer, but considering these are
active plugs it's probably about as good as we're going to get. So, who's up for some six-monitor
Starcraft II?
Continue reading AMD makes Eyefinity easier with line of budget-minded active DisplayPort-to-DVI adapters
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Samsung QX and RF Series laptops roll out with Intel and NVIDIA organs
We told you it's a busy time for laptops! Following up on its recently announced
SF and NF series, Samsung's unleashing two more families of lappies and we're here to tell you all about 'em. First up is the QX series, which finally brings
NVIDIA's Optimus to the the manufacturer's rigs. We're assuming overseas the QX will come in a variety of sizes, but here in the US the 14-inch QX410 (pictured above) will be a Best Buy exclusive and will pack a Core i5-460M CPU and a NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU. Externally, we have to say it's one of the nicest systems we've seen lately -- the brushed metal lid adds some polish and the chiclet keys remind us a lot of those on the
VAIO Z. The QX410 should be priced around $849 when it hits the double B this fall.
Packing a bit more muscle are the 15.6-inch RF510 and 17.3-inch RF710, which have both Core i5 and i7 options. The RF510 boasts a NVIDIA GeForce 330M GPU and Core i5-460M processor and is slated to hit for around $899, while the RF710 with an i7-720M CPU, the same graphics, 640GB of storage and a Blu-ray drive will be priced at $1,029. Those sound mighty tempting to us. Hit the break for the full release and the galleries below for some shots.
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Buffalo serves up USB-powered portable 3D Blu-ray player in Japan
Stuck with an ODD-less
netbook or laptop, but can't quite shake the urge to watch a Blu-ray Disc on your next flight? If you call Japan home (or you know a good importer),
Buffalo has just the solution. The BP3D-PI6U2-BK measures 137- × 147- × 20mm, and the operation is pretty simple. Just wrangle an XP / Vista / Windows 7-equipped PC, locate an open USB socket, blow out the dust (optional, but highly recommended) and plug this guy in. Best of all, the unit also supports the boatload of
3D Blu-ray titles that are bound to show up over the coming months, but the privileged of being prepared doesn't come cheap -- it'll land later this month for ¥28,500 ($338).
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Philips Fidelio DS8550 iPad speaker dock hands-on
As absurd as it might seem to dock a 9.7-inch tablet atop what amounts to a glorified boom box, let's be real: the
iPad's meek speakers are easily outclassed by its ability to swallow gigabytes worth of music and high-quality video content. Sure enough, iPad-compatible docks are quickly
becoming a thing now, and Philips is jumping head-first into the market with its Fidelio DS8550. Oh, but there's more than meets the eye here -- it's not just a speaker with a giant slot in front for a 30-pin connection, you see. You can either connect the iPad to let it charge and get a direct audio connection or roam with it and let it talk back to the dock over stereo Bluetooth, which was demoed to us as an awesome option for gaming -- as long as the Fidelio is within a few yards of you, games really become a more immersive experience when you've got thick, booming bass and virtually limitless volume nearby, and we found that you really don't notice that the sound is coming from "somewhere else."
The DS8550 also packs a handle on back and an internal battery, allegedly good for up to five hours of use off the grid so you'll be able to kick it old-school with the Fidelio slung over your shoulder in the subway station. The unit makes use of a unique spring-loaded pivot on its 30-pin connector, which Philips says allows you to connect any iPod, iPhone, or iPad without needing the typical adapters -- the device just sort of rests on the connector and the surrounding concave section of the speaker mesh. Check out a few more shots in the gallery!
Filed under:
Handhelds,
Home Entertainment
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Samsung Fascinate arriving in Verizon stores, early September launch seems a given
Lest all the
paper-based leaks weren't sufficient evidence for you, we've now got ourselves an insider at one of Verizon's brick-and-mortar outlets informing us that
Fascinate launch kits are being distributed. VZW is said to be training up its staff (presumably that involves more than just pointing out where the above puzzle piece should go) and the whole thing's looking "right on track" for the mooted
early September launch. So that basically gives us about a week's time to kill with
21:9 HDTVs,
3D prototypes,
slinky tablets, and whatever else we can find at
IFA. We might just be able to manage it.
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Philips Cinema 21:9 Platinum 3D megadisplay eyes-on
There are some things that you just long for irrationally in a sort of trade-your-next-10-years-of-Christmas-presents sort of way, and this new 3D
Cinema 21:9 Platinum HDTV from Philips is one of those things. We just got a few too-brief minutes alone with the 58-inch set, where it proved itself quite an excellent 3D display -- it's hard to differentiate exact 3D quality without another display nearby for reference, but we didn't see any issues or worry points with the image quality offhand. With shutter glasses on the image remained bright and saturated with little ghosting, and while opinions may vary on Ambilight, we absolutely love it in action, particularly with this letterbox-destroying aspect ratio.
So, how many Christmases do we have to fork over to get Philips to ship this dang thing to the US?
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Samsung Galaxy Tab preview
52diggsdigg After a week of
painful teasing, Samsung has come clean about its
Galaxy Tab 7-inch Android tablet. We got the nitty gritty specs, along with some quality time with the device, and we like what we're seeing on both fronts. Follow along after the break as we break it all down, including some hot hot video of the thing in action!
Update: Added Samsung's official press release, product images and first video ad for the Galaxy Tab.
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Skyfire submits iPhone browser for App Store approval, we wait for the Flash to hit the fan
There was a time when
Skyfire on
Windows Mobile meant full Flash all the time. The 2.0 version on
Android reigned that in a bit, really only supporting Flash video and little else, something Android 2.2 users no longer need to worry about. iOS users, however,
do still spend their days ruing websites with such content, and so that's the market Skyfire is targeting next. The company has submitted a version of the browser for App Store approval, transcoding Flash video such that the phone only sees HTML5, with content coming in over H.264 adaptive streaming. As such, video is said to be compressed an average of 75 percent, in theory allaying any concerns about this thing being a bandwidth hog. In other words: there's no reason for this to not be approved, right? Right! However, something tells us things may not be so easy...
Continue reading Skyfire submits iPhone browser for App Store approval, we wait for the Flash to hit the fan
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Samsung's 55-inch C9000 LCD and its amazing Touch Remote control land at IFA
That's not a PMP wirelessly mirroring the TV's dipslay. It's a Samsung remote control that
first blew us away at CES in January when Samsung's ultra-thin LCD 9000 series TV was first announced. So why revisit it? Well, for starters... look at it! It's a 3-inch touchsreen remote control in its production form that's now shipping with the LED backlit 200Hz (not 240Hz, it's Europe remember) Samsung C9000 -- a TV measuring just 7.98-mm thick with a 55-inch diagonal. The remote control itself is built on a 600MHz ARM 11 processor with a custom remote control layer sitting atop Linux and a 2.4GHz 802.11n radio. As such, this little powerhouse gives you lots of options to control and view your media including the ability to continue watching the game even as your bladder drags you into less, shall we say, comfortable rooms. You can even preview other channels without interrupting that vast expanse of LCD viewed by others in the room. It also supports
DLNA for streaming your media from any number of compatible devices. Naturally, it also functions as a programable remote for all your new gadget additions. Really, the entire package is quite amazing. Check it for yourself after the break.
Continue reading Samsung's 55-inch C9000 LCD and its amazing Touch Remote control land at IFA
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Sharp shows off mobile prototype with 3D screen, 3D camera, and 3D output
We've seen enough home theater 3D already to be well and sick of it, but mobile 3D is still an upcoming sector, one which Sharp seems to be making a bid for. It's showing off a mobile device prototype (it looks like it could be your friendly neighborhood carrier's next Android handset) with a glasses-free 3D parallax screen (akin to the tech used in the
Nintendo 3DS), a 3D camera around back, and 3D output over HDMI. The result isn't stellar -- just because a mobile device is shooting grainy, color-bleeding footage in 3D doesn't make the footage stop being grainy and color-bleeding -- but it most certainly works, as we witnessed both on the device's own screen and on a regular glasses-required 3D TV the prototype was outputting to over HDMI. The 3.7-inch LCD rocks a 800 x 480 resolution in 2D mode, which gets halved to 400 x 480 in 3D, and Sharp is also showing of a 10-inch glasses free LCD that didn't come off as so impressive somehow.
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Mercedes-Benz updates mbrace app with fancy pants 'Concierge' service
Mercedes-Benz just announced a new app that connects its in-car navigation systems with its customers' iPhones. Mbrace version 2.0 still lets drivers unlock their vehicles and, more importantly
, find it in a crowded parking lot while adding location-based personal assistance ranging from entertainment, restaurant, directions, and traffic updates via Mercedes-Benz's Concierge service -- assuming you're are an mbrace PLUS customer. Destination information is then fired off directly to your in-vehicle navigation system to get you there. The updated app also includes enhanced Roadside Assistance that transmits the driver's location whenever a call is initiated. Think
OnStar with a posh European accent.
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Philips' Cinema 21:9 Platinum HDTV finally takes the leap into 3D
It's kind of hard to
outdo yourself with only two dimensions when they read 21 and 9, respectively, so Philips has decided to do the only thing left for a trendy display maker: go
3D. Though we saw (
and loved) a 3D prototype of the 56-inch variant at last year's IFA, this new, 58-inch Cinema 21:9 Platinum HDTV looks set to bring the third dimension to actual retail. It's got the
Ambilight wall illumination that some people will like, LED backlighting with
local dimming that most should love, and a slimmer, brushed matte bezel that will be appreciated by all. The 400Hz panel is capable of pumping out Full HD 3D and is expected to cost around €4,000 ($5,112) in Europe or £3,500 in the UK with a launch set for later this month. And if you want one in the US, well...
things aren't looking very Ambibright for you.
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Toshiba's Folio 100 with Android and Tegra 2 spied in the IFA wilds
That
Folio 100 (alias
Smart Pad) from Toshiba we'd been hearing about? Yep, totally real, and totally
Tegra 2-powered -- a theme that we think is going to be pretty popular among tablet makers this season. We caught a handful of Folio 100s firmly affixed to a wall at
IFA today, showing 10.1-inch multitouch LCD displays paired with a remixed version of Android 2.1, a handful of capacitive buttons, a front-facing 1.3 megapixel camera, 16GB of on-board storage, and not much else -- there's really nothing visually stunning about the setup as far as we can tell, and it's not particularly thin. After bouncing out that crazy
Libretto W100, Toshiba's going to have to turn up the style dial to 11 if it wants to rise above the forthcoming onslaught of Google tablets, we suspect.
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ViewSonic 10-inch dual boot ViewPad preview
ViewSonic hasn't settled on a name for this thing yet, vacillating between the ViewPad 100 and the ViewPad 10i. What it has settled on is a pretty delicious for factor for an Atom N455-based Windows 7 tablet, and the dual boot option to Android is really just gravy. Unfortunately it's rather outdated gravy: Android 1.6 is the most recent version to support x86 processors, so we won't be seeing any of the new Android goodness on here unless Google pulls together another Intel-friendly version of the OS in the near future -- which seems relatively unlikely with Chrome OS around the corner, but you never know. Other specs include 1GB of RAM, 16GB SSD, and a 10-inch 1024 x 600 LCD (the same resolution as the new
Galaxy Tab, incidentally). We weren't impressed with the quality of the display, or with the pixel density, but at least the capacitive touch seemed to be working fine -- we actually managed to do a bit of typing with Windows 7's touchscreen keyboard, if you can imagine that. The actual hardware is delightfully thin and light, though a bit on the plasticy side, and we particular appreciated the thumb friendly buttons to the right side of the display. The tablet has a quoted price of "sub 500 euros" and a sketched in release date for later this year. Check out a video hands-on, including the super exciting boot-up process, after the break.
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Samsung Gem for Verizon shows up in Best Buy buyer's guide
We've heard
talk of the Gem before, and a new listing for the phone in Best Buy's September buyer's guide confirms the existence of Verizon's new low-end Android piece that'll likely slot in below the
Fascinate in Sammy's lineup for the carrier. Looks like it's slated to launch with Android 2.1, not 2.2, and will include both
TouchWiz 3.0 and
Swype -- both Samsung staples at this point -- along with a 3.2 megapixel cam and 16GB of microSD expansion (though it's not clear whether they're going to do you the favor of throwing a card in the box). Despite the high-end name, we'd argue pricing is definitely going to determine the success of the Gem, especially in a world where
Vibrants go for next to nothing on contract. $79.99 at launch, perhaps?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
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Xbox 360 slimster made over in white, just for the hell of it
Missing your oldie Xbox 360's bright and airy white finish? Well, Microsoft's still not willing to sell you a
slimmified 360 in any color other than black (excepting the
limited edition Halo gear), but at least you can gaze upon the singular example of what a white one may look like above. This seemingly repainted Xbox 360 250GB (to give it its official, and ridiculous, name) has been lovingly put together over in China and really makes us wonder why Microsoft is depriving us of such snowy good looks. Perhaps it wanted to draw a clear between the old and the new? Either way, hit the source for the cheapest way to peek an all-white slim 360 without giving the
Colorware crew a call.
[Thanks, Anthony]
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Ultimate Ears announces $999 In-Ear Reference Monitors and $19.99 Blue Robots, because it can
Ultimate Ears is pushing out a tag team of in-ear earphones that clearly demonstrates the heights (and depths) the Logitech-owned company is willing to scale. Starting at the extreme high end are the Ultimate Ears In-Ear Reference Monitors. The $999 price tag should help clarify the target audience here (hint: professional producers and recording / mixing engineers on the go). Each handcrafted monitor, developed in partnership with EMI Music's Capitol Studios, contains three individually tuned, balanced armature speakers with an extended wide band response from 5Hz to 18kHz. They provide up to 32dB of noise isolation with a low-distortion braided cable replacing the typical Y-joint connector. Dialing things down just a bit (uh hem) for consumers are the $19.99 Ultimate Ears 100 (pictured after the break). These "trendy" noise-isolating earphones offer 24dBs of noise isolation and ship in five styles, including our personal fave "Blue Robots." Look for each to ship to Europe and the US sometime in September.
Continue reading Ultimate Ears announces $999 In-Ear Reference Monitors and $19.99 Blue Robots, because it can
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Samsung's HMX-T10 HD camcorder features a new perspective
Samsung's
oddly angled camcorders have gotten plenty of love around these parts for their design and specs, and the new HMX-T10 series is no different. Separating itself from last year's
HMX-R10 with a revised design and lens angled 20-degrees (instead of 25), these camcorders can still capture video at up to 1920x1080/60i and stills at up to 4.7 megapixels, while you frame the action on the 2.7-inch touchscreen LCD. Add in optical image stabilization, 10x zoom and the aforementioned full HD capture with a $299 pricetag and you have a healthy competitor to the alternative of the shakycam footage your cellphone probably spits out when these reach the shelves in September. Check the specs in the press release after the break, and shots from every angle of models in black and white paintjobs in the gallery.
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Live from Samsung IFA 2010 press event
The room is utterly packed at Samsung's IFA presser, and it's not hard to figure out why: Samsung typically goes wild at this show, and with the Galaxy Tab leading this year's lineup, it looks like we've got another winner on our hands. Follow along after the break!
Continue reading Live from Samsung IFA 2010 press event
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ASUS teams with Amimon on WiCast EW2000 1080p streamer
Keepin' it varied, are we
ASUS? Just a few months after we
peeked a pair of
WirelessHD-equipped laptops at ASUS' Computex booth, in flies this -- news that the company has aligned with
Amimon and joined the WHDI Consortium to boot. It's hard to say if the introduction of the WiCast EW2000 is in direct response to HP's
Wireless TV Connect, but it sure looks mighty similar in practice. The two-piece set connects to a PC via USB (it's USB powered, too) and to an HDTV via HDMI. Once you're setup, you can stream 1080p video (including Blu-ray and DRM'd material) straight to your tele with under a millisecond of lag, and better still, you could connect it to an HDMI-equipped set-top box or game console for cordless machine-to-device magic. Mum's the word on price, but there's a delightful promo video ready to get you amped up about it just past the break.
Continue reading ASUS teams with Amimon on WiCast EW2000 1080p streamer
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Kinect won't support voice recognition in some countries until 2011, putting on airs won't help
"If you see it, just say it,"
says Microsoft's Kinect, but only in the US, UK, Mexico and Japan to start -- those are the only four countries that will support Kinect voice control by the
motion-sensing peripheral's November launch. So said Microsoft PR manager Lidia Pitzalis in an interview with
Eurogamer Spain, adding that Germany, Italy, France and even
Canada and Spain would have to wait for a Spring 2011 update for additional language support. Microsoft claims it's a matter of accents throwing off the voice recognition, as the company's already had to build separate software versions for US and UK English, but if you're an Italian who can fake a good Cockney, you're still out of luck, as Microsoft's reportedly disabling voice control entirely in said regions until it can formally support it. And game companies wonder why we try so hard to
hack those DVD drives...
Update: Canada
will in fact have voice support, according to Microsoft. So long as you speak English and not French.
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Globalfoundries takes ARM Cortex-A9 into 28nm land, looks forward to 20nm chips in 2013
Forget the numbers, here's what matters: Globalfoundries' new production capabilities will lead to "smooth production ramp-ups and faster time-to-market" for its customers. Now consider that this promise relates to scrumptious 28nm
Cortex-A9 SOCs and feel free to rejoice. The chip fabricator has just declared itself ready to take orders for ARM's systems-on-chip built using its high-k metal gate 28nm fab process. This fulfills its
pledge for mass production in the latter half of 2010, but lest you think Globalfoundries is resting on any nanoscale laurels, it also has a 20nm roadmap to tell you about. It's very simple, really: expect even smaller, even more power-efficient silicon in 2013. We don't know if the future will be bright, but it sure looks like it's gonna be
small.
Continue reading Globalfoundries takes ARM Cortex-A9 into 28nm land, looks forward to 20nm chips in 2013
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Philips and O'Neill launch durable headphones -- shaka bra!
In what amounts to yet another co-branding marketing kerfuffle, Philips and O'Neill have teamed up on a foursome of so-called durable headphones. The Stretch headphones (pictured) are the toughest of the bunch, constructed from an ultra-durable, temperature-resistant, and awesome-sounding material called TR 55LX that boasts a surface hardness six times greater than the polycarbonate stuff found in most headphones. The Snug series boasts "bold graphics" and can fold flat, while the in-ear Covert buds brings an iPhone controller. Last, and apparently least, is the "stylish" Specked with tangle free cord. Amazing. All are said to have been tested by the "toughest O'Neill team riders." As proof, O'Neill is trotting out Jeremy Jones, Mark Mathews, and Ane Enderud to promote its new gear, presumably because they want to and not because they are contractually obligated under the terms of their respective high-paying sponsorships. Needless to say, these headphones aren't for you if you don't know who these people are or you lack the fragile hipster ego required to wear them. No prices were announced, but you can expect them to match the "premium" description when these arrive for retail in Europe and the US sometime this month.
We did give Stretch a go for a quickie ears-on, and honestly, while the cloth cord was a nice touch and they do
seem to be super rugged, we'd prefer that the team paid a bit more attention to the sound quality than the finish.
Continue reading Philips and O'Neill launch durable headphones -- shaka bra!
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Panasonic announces speedy new 8GB, 16GB UHS-I SDHC cards
We've already heard some of the
claims made about SHDC cards using the new UHS-I specification, and it looks like we'll now soon have our first actual cards based on the spec courtesy of Panasonic. The company has just announced some 8GB and 16GB UHS-I SDHC cards at
IFA, which boast a Class 10 speed specification and promise to deliver a maximum data transfer speed of 60MB/s, or about twice that of Panasonic's current top-end cards. No word on pricing just yet, but Panasonic says they'll be out this November. Full press release is after the break.
Continue reading Panasonic announces speedy new 8GB, 16GB UHS-I SDHC cards
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Twitter for iPad review
It's no secret that
Twitter for iPhone (née
Tweetie) is often regarded as the gold standard for mobile apps -- it blends functionality, performance, and usability together with a dash of playful quirkiness that works so well Twitter just
bought the app and hired developer Loren Brichter back in April. That delayed the release of an iPad version, but Twitter's finally come through -- and as you'd expect, Twitter for iPad does things just as uniquely as its sister apps on the iPhone and Mac. In fact, we'd go so far as to say a few of its interface conventions will become as commonplace as slide-to-refresh, which was first introduced in Tweetie for iPhone -- but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Read on for more!
Continue reading Twitter for iPad review
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Confirmed: T-Mobile G2 will have Android 2.2, Flash and 800MHz CPU
T-Mobile is calling it "the fastest smartphone experience in America," but as it turns out, its Qualcomm Scorpion CPU is actually relatively slow -- the cellular carrier's insider newsletter
T-Mobile Scoop says the phone's MSM7x30 chip will be clocked at 800MHz,
rather than the 1GHz we'd hoped for. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that T-Mobile lying about speed, as anyone who's upgraded from
Droid to
Droid 2 very well knows -- bloatware can easily clog the pipes even on phones running
Froyo, and we've heard that this particular HTC device is
running a pure vanilla Android build. Speaking of delectable operating system revisions, T-Mobile confirms you'll indeed find Android 2.2 under the hood accompanied by Flash Player 10.1, as well as "one-touch quick keys" the carrier claims provide Speedy Gonzales-like access to apps and shortcuts. Still waiting to be confirmed: a
$200 subsidized price, and the day we'll see it in stores.
[Thanks, james_of_the_jungle]
Editor's Note: It's important to keep in mind that the G2 seems to feature Qualcomm's next-gen
MSM7x30 chipset, which can theoretically blaze. Of course, that all depends on firmware optimization, so let's keep our fingers crossed -- something tells us neither T-Mobile nor HTC have any interest in messing this one up.
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Jobs suggests that competitors' device activation tallies may be inflated, Google quickly responds
Not satisfied to simply trump
Google's daily device activation numbers, Steve Jobs added insult to injury at the
Apple press conference this afternoon, claiming that unspecified "friends" have been counting handset upgrades in their statistical totals and not just newly activated phones. As you might imagine, Google was not terribly pleased at this turn of events, and issued the following retort: "The Android activation numbers do not include upgrades and are, in fact, only a portion of the Android devices in the market since we only include devices that have Google services." Now, we don't honestly know who's telling the truth here and we'd like to be able to take both companies at their word, but this isn't the first time even during this particular Apple shindig that
questionable claims were thrown out as fact.
[Thanks, Kamal]
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Samsung launches new NF and SF Series laptops with 'shark'-like designs
It's that time of the year again! Yep, the time when most
laptop makers start thinking about the holiday season and unleash a massive amount of systems. Samsung's kicking off its announcements
at IFA with the SF and NF Series, both of which have a brand new wave or fin-like designs -- they were apparently codenamed "shark" within the company. Beginning with the netbooks, the NF series will hit in the coming weeks and will be available in two skus -- the ivory, single-core Atom NF210 will be $379 and the silver NF310 will have a dual-core Atom processor for $399. We got a chance to check them out a few days ago and found the overall build quality to be really solid -- we really loved the new chiclet keyboard as well as the swirly pattern on the metal touchpad. Sammy's also claiming over 10 hours of battery life on them, but we'll obviously want to test that for ourselves.
On the bigger and badder end is the SF Series. Similar to the netbooks, the mainstream laptops have glossy lids with the new wave like edges. According to Samsung's global press release, they'll be available with Core i3 / i5 processors and in three different sizes -- there's the 13.3-inch SF310, 14-inch SF410 and 15.6-inch SF510. The US team tells us the $749 Core i3-powered, 500GB hard drive-packing SF510 will hit the market soon and will be a Best Buy exclusive. We got a peek at that one as well, and similarly love the new chiclet keyboard, though we're hesitant on this one's single-button touchpad. Until we bring you some full reviews, there's additional details in the press release below and some hands-on shots in the gallery.
Continue reading Samsung launches new NF and SF Series laptops with 'shark'-like designs
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Philips GoGear Connect hands-on
We had a chance to check out Philips' new
GoGear Connect a few hours ago ahead of its
IFA debut later this week, a brushed metal media player that pretty closely apes the
Muse but adds a wee bit of girth, swaps in Android 2.1 for the proprietary OS, and adds a trackball down below. Interestingly, it's got both a 3.2-megapixel camera and edge-mounted microphone on board, meaning that it's basically just a GSM radio shy of being a full-on smartphone -- but we digress: the point is that the Connect will be going head-to-head with the likes of the Galaxy S-inspired
Samsung Yepp YP-MB2 and the new
iPod touch for the hearts and minds of the dedicated PMP crowd this autumn. Read on for our impressions!
Continue reading Philips GoGear Connect hands-on
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iTunes 10 (with Ping) mercifully becomes available for download (update: iOS 4 has Ping, too)
Sure, they said it would be available immediately, but they lied. Now, the lie has become the truth, and the truth is just a fleeting dream, caught in between worlds we can't hope to understand, let alone grasp. Meaning: go download iTunes 10 with
Ping.
Update: We've added direct download links below. Thanks commenters!
Update 2: A word of warning -- if you activate Ping, it will potentially make all of the nasty reviews you've written available for the world to see. So now they'll
know who panned their recording debut and ruined their career.
Update 3: Got an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 on board? Ping may have magically appeared in your iTunes app, ready to help you wax introspective on the go. [Thanks, Kruze]
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LG's E900 and E720 handsets hit the FCC, one with AT&T-compatible frequencies
We knew LG's C900 QWERTY-packing Windows Phone 7 handset was
sliding towards an AT&T finish line, but it's looking like the company's
E900 slate phone might play for Team Blue as well -- here's an FCC report (the third
Federal scoop in an hour!) that shows the handset boasting GSM 850 and 1900 radio frequencies as well as compatible 3G data. You can also expect Bluetooth and 802.11 b/g/n 2.4GHz WiFi alongside that 1GHz Snapdragon SoC when or if the handset hits US shores. We don't know nearly as much about the
Android-based LG E720 (which apparently just popped in for a quick Bluetooth test) but a filing suggests it might not be destined for the US -- unlike with the E900, there's no mention of WCDMA 850, 1900, or AWS for 3G data, only the comparatively slow EDGE.
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