Archive for April, 2009
Korea Telecom really wants to get you on the WiBro tip. The aptly-named (if a wee bit uninspired) Egg is essentially a router for connecting WiFi devices (such as the Nintendo DS or iPod Touch) to the company’s wireless broadband network. According to the Korea Times, both KT and SK Telecom (the country’s two main WiBro operators) have mere 170,000 WiBro customers total, “making a mockery” of its “most wired nation” aspirations — so they can certainly stand to expand their customer base a little bit. Subscribers to the company’s flat-rate data plan will get the device for free (trust us, they’ve paid enough). Or you can pick one up for yourself at the Apple store in Samseong-dong or Myeong-dong, the next time you’re in Seoul. This guy should be hitting the shelves sometime in May for ?220,000 (that’s about $163).
[Thanks, Stafford]
Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless
KT’s Egg gives your WiFi device access to the wonderful world of WiBro originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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April 27, 2009
While we here at Engadget are doing everything in our power to get this philosophical “economy” back “on track,” it’s items like these that aren’t doing anything to help. No innovation. No stimulating capabilities. No utility at all, really. Just a webcam that scans business cards, an MP3 player shaped like a cow and a flash drive that’s absolutely not certified for circulation by the Democratic National Committee. Though, we must say that they’re all tailor made for Crapgadget, which is (just barely) good enough for us — drop your vote for the lamest below!
Read – CowCow MP3 player
Read – 4-Port Soccer Ball USB Hub
Read – MSI StarCam Flip Webcam
Read – USB Bird Fan
Read – Bling Bling USB Card Reader
Read – Obama Flash Drive
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Storage
Crapgadget: No wonder the economy sucks edition originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
NVIDIA’s been dabbling in the CPU space behind closed doors for years now, but with Intel finally making a serious push into the GPU realm, it’s about time the firm got serious with bringing the goods. BSN has it that the company’s next-generation GT300 will be fundamentally different than the GT200 — in fact, it’s being hailed as the “first truly new architecture since SIMD (Single-Instruction Multiple Data) units first appeared in graphical processors.” Beyond this, the technobabble runs deep, but the long and short of it is this: NVIDIA could be right on the cusp of delivering a single chip that can handle tasks that were typically separated for the CPU and GPU, and we needn’t tell you just how much your life could change should it become a reality. Now, if only NVIDIA would come clean and lift away some of this fog surrounding it (and the rumored GTX 380), that’d be just swell.
[Thanks, Musouka]
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
NVIDIA’s GT300 specs outed — is this the cGPU we’ve been waiting for? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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April 26, 2009
As a perfect complement to Shenzhen’s scattered keyboard keys we spotted the other day, tipster Riley G. spotted this charging herd of giant mice statues in Xiamen, China. Two whole tactile, usable buttons? How quaint! Another shot is after the break.
[Thanks, Riley G.]
Filed under: Peripherals
Herd of oversized concrete computer mice seen rushing for the shore — do they know something we don’t? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Transportation
Boeing’s Airborne Laser begins flight tests, future uncertain originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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April 25, 2009
While RED has been pretty tight-lipped about its planned RED RAY product, some footage shown off at RED’s NAB party gave a sizable hint that RED RAY could be much more than meets the eye — specifically a $1,000 device that can play cinema-quality 4k video off of standard DVDs. At the party they played an uncompressed showreel of 4k footage on a Sony 4k projector, which clocked in at 1.3GB per second, and then showed that exact same footage under the “RED RAY” codec at a mere 10Mb/s (megabits, not bytes; about half the bitrate of SD DV), at a compression rate of 700:1. Attendees claimed they could see zero visible compression, though a projector in a ballroom isn’t exactly the best case scenario to test that sort of thing. Unfortunately, there’s little other info about how they’re achieving this (we hear “wavelets” come into the equation at some point), or to what nefarious aims, but with compression like this the implications for content distribution are pretty stunning: 1080p+ streaming for all. Naturally, the down side of all of this is probably some pretty hefty processing power on the consumer end, but we’ll cross that I/O bridge when we come to it.
[Thanks, Ben H]
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Storage
RED blows away small room of videophiles with 4k RED RAY footage at half the bitrate of MiniDV originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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April 25, 2009
We already knew that Daimler was looking to Tesla for its battery know-how within the electric Smart, and evidently the two have already put together a working prototype. Our best buds over at AutoblogGreen have hosted up a video and photo gallery of a Tesla-powered Smart fortwo which was recently spotted at a heretofore unnamed automotive show. Amazingly, the vehicle was actually outfitted with the motor and gear box (version 1.0) from an original Roadster, though the incommodious nature of the show floor made it impossible to peel out and really cause a scene. Check the read link for all the multimedia goodies.
Filed under: Transportation
Tesla-powered Smart fortwo gives rides, ignites imaginations originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Apr 2009 10:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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April 25, 2009
Nokia’s first ever full touchscreen S60 phone has had quite the bumpy ride into reality. After launching here in North America, it was on the receiving end of heavy pounding from early adopters who couldn’t adequately take advantage of 3G services. Now that those issues are ironed out (and you’ve had five minutes to cool your jets), we’re wondering how you’d tweak / change / overhaul the 5800 XpressMusic. Needless to say, our own personal list would likely span a few pages (collated, double-spaced, 1-inch margins), but this post isn’t for us. In fact, it has been specially crafted just for you, so feel free to let off some steam in comments below. Just keep it constructive, okay?
Filed under: Cellphones
How would you change Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Apr 2009 02:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
April 24, 2009
Have you ever heard of a Motorola V10 phone? Well, the device has just been announced by Motorola over in South Korea. This mid-range 2G clamshell does seem to bear a passing resemblance to Motorola’s RAZR V9, and seems to keep its square-ish and slim design. The Motorola V10 should be available for purchase in South Korea in a few weeks, though no pricing was mentioned at this time.
From Uberphones.
Permalink: Motorola V10 Looks Similar To V9 from Ubergizmo | Cheap | Hot: Apple’s Netbook | Hot (FR): Test du Palm Pre
April 24, 2009
Two years after we thought it was all over, it sounds like the saga of Sony, Immersion, and the rumblin’ DualShock has yet another chapter: a New Jersey electrical engineer named Craig Thorner is now suing Sony and its attorneys, claiming that he was more or less duped out of one of his patents in a shady deal designed to help Sony and PDP/Electrosource beat Immersion’s cases against them. Oh yeah, it’s a tangled mess — Thorner first signed over his patent to Immersion, hoping to score a little slice of royalty pie when the lawsuit settled, but then took it back when he decided Immersion wasn’t pursuing it hard enough and signed it over to PDP/Electrosource, who promised him $150,000. So where does Sony come in? Thorner says PDP and Sony were teamed up to beat Immersion, and that Sony was secretly the one licensing the patent but trying to remain out of the picture to keep the price down — and he’s got proof, in the form of a $150,000 wire transfer between the two companies. Not only that, but Sony’s attorneys apparently promised Thorner that they could “wear two hats” during negotiations and represent both him and Sony, which is ten kinds of shady. You can guess what happened next: Sony lost, PDP settled, and Immersion sued Thorner for breaking his agreement — and Sony’s attorneys didn’t help him defend the lawsuit. Did we say ten kinds of shady? Eleven kinds. Of course, it’s doubtful that Thorner is totally innocent here, so it’ll be interesting to see how Sony responds, but at this point we’re treating the DualShock 3 as a miracle of nature and leaving it at that.
[Via Joystiq]
Read – GamePolitics article (with PDF of the complaint)
Read – Law.com article
Filed under: Gaming
Sony sued for cheating man out of rumble patents originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
