Ask Engadget: can you rent a tablet?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, then here's the outlet to do so. This week's
Ask Engadget inquiry is from Sarah, who would like a tablet, but only for one week a year. If you're looking to ask one of your own, drop us a line at
ask [at] engadget [dawt] com.
"One week every summer, I go out of town for a convention that I work with. I don't get a lot of downtime, but when I do, I want to stay connected. A laptop's too bulky and a smartphone just won't have the battery life, so is there a way I could rent a tablet with a 3/4G connection for a week at a time? Thanks"
Sarah, you've posed your humble narrator a real head-scratcher here. We've hunted around online, and found some web-based services that at least promise to do what you need. One that we are familiar with is
Xcom Global, who will loan you a tablet if you select one of its MiFi plans, but it's a service designed more for international travel than a short hop like yours. We found a few places, including
RentOurTablets,
RentAComputer and
RentFusion -- but we're not qualified to say if any of them are any good. As a consequence, it's time to turn this question over to the Engadget community. If you've got any experience of services that you trust and have used before, chime in and spread a little knowledge this weekend.
Filed under:
Tablets,
Mobile
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Mobile Miscellany: week of February 11th, 2013
If you didn't get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we've opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week brought new smartphones from Alcatel, Samsung and Xolo, along with a sneak preview of the BlackBerry Travel app. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "
best of the rest" for this week of February 11th, 2013.
Filed under:
Cellphones,
Wireless,
Software,
Mobile
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Verizon FiOS, ViaSat Exede lead FCC broadband performance report
How do you pick your broadband internet provider? For many of us, the market dictates our selection, but a few lucky subscribers get to make their own call, rather than opting for the one and only service available in a particular locale.
FiOS, Verizon's fiber-optic solution, and
Exede,
ViaSat's high-bandwidth satellite service -- two common secondary offerings -- happen to be the two frontrunners in the FCC's latest
broadband performance report, which rates companies based on actual download and upload speeds compared to advertised bandwidth, among other metrics. More often than not, providers fall short of promised performance, with companies like AT&T and Qwest leading the naughty list. But Verizon and ViaSat are both motivated to maintain subscribers, and exceeding expectations is certainly not a bad way to accomplish that.
This is ViaSat's first appearance in such a report, due in no small part to the company's recent Exede broadband introduction, which followed the
ViaSat-1 satellite launch in late 2011. We experienced speedy performance
during our own test last year, though latency remained an issue. The FCC covers this major downside as well, reporting a measured latency of 638 ms, compared to an average 29.6 ms figure for terrestrial services -- but overall impressions seem quite positive. The FCC has published some 10,000 words on the topic, so if you do in fact have an opportunity to elect your own broadband provider, it might be worth your while to comb through the agency's full report. It's ready for your perusal over at the source link below.
Filed under:
Household,
Internet,
Verizon
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Source: FCC
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Alt-week 02.16.13: robo-rats, a young black hole and a computer that cannot crash
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
Seven days, 26,000 lightyears, 637 languages, two groups of terrorised rats and one computer that never, ever crashes. We're light on intro, heavy of the numbers. You know the drill by now, this is Alt-week.
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Science,
Alt
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Researchers testing frugal autonomous car system, aim for $150 price tag (video)
Google certainly has
pockets deep enough to trick out
self-driving cars with any kind of pricey gear, but researchers at the
University of Oxford have begun testing a solution that aims to keep things affordable. Currently, the system leverages an array of low-profile stereo cameras and lasers that rings up at about £5,000 (approximately $7,750), but the next goal is to knock the price down to £500, and eventually to a cool £100 (roughly $150). "Really, we do need to solve the engineering challenges of not relying on expensive sensors, but relying on cheap sensors," Professor Paul Newman told
the Telegraph. "But doing some really smart things with those cheap sensor feeds."
Rather than a vehicle that acts as a chauffeur at all times, Newman's vision for the modified
Nissan Leaf, dubbed RobotCar, is for it to take control on select occasions. While drivers go about their commute, the system composes a 3D map of the car's environs and commits it to memory. When the auto identifies a familiar setting and feels confident about its ability to take the reigns, it could let the driver know it's ready to assume control. Right now, the automobile's been tested on private roads, but the team behind it is working with the UK's Department of Transportation to roll it onto public streets. Head past the jump for a glimpse of RobotCar in action.
Filed under:
Transportation,
Alt
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Source: Telegraph,
RobotCar UK
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Apple's latest 21.5-inch iMac hits the refurb store for $1,099
It's a rite of passage
of sorts -- Apple's
"skinny" iMac has now
spent enough time on Earth to be deemed an appropriate addition to the company's refurb ranks. The base late-2012 configuration, which sports a 21.5-inch 1080p IPS screen, a 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 8 gigs of RAM, a 1TB hard drive and that new super-svelte housing can now be had at a $200 discount, priced at $1,099. As with many Apple refurbished products, you likely won't be the device's very first owner, but it will arrive in tip-top condition, with a one-year warranty to boot. As always, "supplies are limited," so if you don't mind having a second-hand system on your desk, in exchange for a slightly thicker wallet, you best make your way over to the source link to snag your very own discounted machine today.
Filed under:
Desktops,
Apple
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Via: MacRumors
Source: Apple Store
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Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch review: a solid, if slightly overpriced, mid-range Ultrabook
If you read our latest
laptop buyer's guide, you may have noticed we included a lot of high-end PCs. Which makes sense: we've been quite busy reviewing flagship devices since Windows 8 went on sale last fall. We're talking the best Microsoft's partners have to offer: twisting screens, dual screens, 8-second boot-up times. That's been fun, and we're pretty sure those are the more interesting products to read about, but even so, we decided it's high time we started reviewing some more mid-range systems -- you know, those models that
don't cost $1,200.
So, in the coming months, you're going to see us review more of these everyman systems, in addition to those lustworthy flagships. First up:
the Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch. We'll admit, we're a little tardy here, as this went on sale late last year, but if you've never heard of it, it's basically last year's
Series 5 Ultrabook with a touch panel appended. For the money ($800 and up), you get some modest specs (Core i3 / i5 processors with hybrid storage and a 1,366 x 768 screen), though if our research is correct, those are the same basic specs you'll find on most competing models. Given that, any display snobs can show themselves the door now, before we even get started. But what if you've been looking for a more affordable Windows 8 system? How does Samsung's entry stack up?
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Laptops,
Samsung
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Large Hadron Collider stops for two years of tune-ups, goes out on a high note (video)
We've long known that the
Large Hadron Collider would need to take a break, but that doesn't take the edge off of the moment itself: as of Valentine's Day, the particle accelerator has conducted its last test for the next two years. The giant research ring will undergo sweeping repairs and upgrades that should should give it the superconducting connectors needed to hit the originally planned 14TeV of combined collision energy, versus the 8TeV it's been limited to almost since
the beginning. CERN's machine arguably earned the downtime. After a
rough start, it went on to produce rafts of collision data and healthy evidence of the elusive
Higgs boson. If you're still down, think of the hiatus as doing us a favor -- it postpones any
world-ending disasters until around 2015.
Filed under:
Science,
Alt
Comments
Via: Ars Technica
Source: CERN
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Best Buy to make online price-matching policy permanent
Best Buy started matching prices of online retailers in time for the holidays last year, and now it's set to make the practice permanent in an effort to cure its showroom syndrome and turn window-shopping visitors into paying customers. Come March 3rd, the policy will go into effect for the outfit's website, typical brick and mortar locations, Best Buy mobile shops and even phone orders. Officially dubbed the Low Price Guarantee, the plan will meet prices for all local competitors and a total of 19 online storefronts, including the likes of Amazon, Apple, Staples, NewEgg and Target. Also, the pricing arrangement has been expanded to additional products, but it still doesn't cover on-contract smartphones and other items. While customers might end up saving some coin with the new deal, they'll see the item return period drop from 30 days to 15. By the looks of it, company founder
Richard Schulze might be
getting his way with plans to save his
struggling creation.
[Image credit: Daniel Oines,
Flickr]
Filed under:
Misc
Comments
Via: Bloomberg
Source: Best Buy
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Microsoft confirms Office 2013 licenses can't be transferred to other computers
It's
no secret that copies of
Office 2013 bind themselves to a single computer, but Microsoft has now confirmed to
Computerworld that the software's license can't be
reassigned to another PC, as is possible with Office 2010. When asked whether a license could be transferred to another machine if the original rig was destroyed, lost or stolen, Microsoft replied with a frosty, "No comment." However, Redmond did mention that the productivity suite could be reinstalled on the same PC after a crash. Just how Ballmer and Co. will enforce the policy remains a bit murky, but it's pretty clear they hope folks who have a penchant for switching up computing environments will be enticed by an
Office 365 subscription.
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Microsoft
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Source: Computerworld
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Fleksy predictive keyboard is free for iOS now and forever
We've long been fans of
Syntellia's Fleksy for its astonishingly accurate predictive touch keyboard, and were excited to see an
Android version finally come out to play at
CES 2013. Well now there's news that'll please fans on the iOS side: the company has announced the full version of the app, formerly $4.99, is now available for the unbeatable price of free. This isn't just a special weekend offer either; CEO Kostas Eleftheriou told us in an email that it'll be free
forever. Eleftheriou said that this is in the interest of a "more open keyboard space, so that more innovations can happen in the area," but also as a service to the blind community, which was Fleksy's original target audience.
Interestingly, the updated app even includes a direct button to email Apple's CEO Tim Cook so that users can advocate for a more native OS-level integration of Fleksy. It's an audacious goal, but as Eleftheriou stated in the blog post, it's also one that many users have demanded. While we're not sure if such a grass roots campaign will work with Cook and co., you can certainly download the new fully gratis version of Fleksy at the App Store source to give it a go yourself.
Filed under:
Cellphones,
Software,
Mobile
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Source: Fleksy Blog,
Fleksy (App Store)
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Gracenote unleashes its vast musical know-how to developers
You've probably used
Gracenote thousands of times and have been none the wiser, but for good reason: the musical metadata service lives in the background of several apps, appearing only momentarily to bring meaning to your favorite tunes. Now, Gracenote is looking to expand its reach by opening its APIs and SDKs to app developers -- effectively putting its massive database in the hands of all who seek it. Of course, ripping CDs isn't quite what it once was, and that's why Gracenote has also opened its MusicID song recognition service to developers, allowing them to harness the same functionality of apps such as Shazam and SoundHound. The free service is available now, and for extra insight, you'll find the full PR after the break.
Filed under:
Software,
Mobile
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