Archive for June, 2009
June 30, 2009
Your fancy new iPhone OS 3.0 starting to look a bit long in the tooth? Heads up, Apple’s now sending out the beta OS 3.1 and its SDK to the developer community to finagle with. We’re still looking to see what’s been changed here, so for now, if you’re someone who needs the Latest and Greatest and happens to have the right access, download away!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Filed under: Cellphones
iPhone OS 3.1 beta now available for developer community originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We haven’t heard much about the PS3 slim since E3, but that doesn’t mean it’s been entirely quiet out there — the hot rumor today is that Sony’s signed manufacturing agreements with both Foxconn and Pegatron to build the revised model in time for July delivery. That much we believe, since it’s been backed up by a couple different credible reports, but here’s where it gets totally insane: there’s a suggestion that the slim will be the last PS3 model of this generation, and that a next-gen console based on Sony’s motion controller is due in spring 2010. We don’t buy that at all, since the PS3 is just entering its prime and Sony was clear that the motion controller was for the existing console, so we think this rumor is getting garbled down the wire — it’s far more likely that the slim is being prepped for an August launch to coincide with those rumored price cuts, and that new PS3 bundles that include the motion controller are set to drop next year. That’s just our take on the matter, though — we’ll see how things shake out.
Filed under: Gaming
Sony placing PS3 slim manufacturing orders for delivery in July? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Need a little more proof that Intel’s got some fly SSDs about ready to roll? We have confirmation from Micron that it’s working on new and improved 34nm chips in capacities of 8, 16, and 32Gb. These lovelies are 17 percent smaller than the previous rainbow colored flash delights, and are faster too, offering 200Mb/s transfer speeds and when combined into an SSD, able to keep up with SATA 6Gb/s transfers. This press release confirms the chips will show up in flash memory from Lexar, but we’re guessing that official Intel announcement can’t be far off now.
Filed under: Storage
Micron’s smaller NAND chips mean more, faster flash memory in the same old enclosures originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 07:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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June 30, 2009
One of our favorite intellectual property rips of recent months is without a doubt the SciPhone Dream G2 from China. Having completely missed the point of Google’s open-source OS being, well, open-source and thus free for SciPhone’s use, the company instead chose to hack the G2’s “proprietory” OS to look like Android. The charger, however, built to look like the iconic Android mascot is pretty damn cute; enough so that the idea of paying $150 just to get our hands on the 100-240V USB charger has crossed our minds. See the Android’s naughty bits after the break.
[Thanks, Steven]
Continue reading SciPhone Dream G2 Android charger is best ever
Filed under: Cellphones
SciPhone Dream G2 Android charger is best ever originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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June 29, 2009
Palm Pre owners, there’s a new update for your favorite toy. The version 1.0.4 of webOS will be downloaded soon (12MB) to your devices and you will be asked to approve the installation.
Version 1.0.4 only fixes some security issues. [photo source]
Permalink: WebOS 1.0.4 Update Available from Ubergizmo | Hot: Wii, PS3 and Natal Motion Sensing
June 29, 2009
Vuzix is back with a brand new VR visor - the Wrap 920AV that won’t make you look like some weirdo from the set of Star Trek, as it resembles more like a standard pair of specs this time round. A couple of AA batteries are able to power it for up to half a dozen hours, although we think that this might actually weigh down the Wrap 920AV at the same time. You will get a viewing equivalent of a 60″ display viewed from 9 feet away when wearing this, alongside removable noise-canceling earphones, and quantum optics technology that enables you to view through the lenses while watching a video simultaneously. There is no word on pricing, but the Vuzix Wrap 920AV looks set to hit the streets sometime later this year.
Permalink: Vuzix Wrap 920AV VR Visor from Ubergizmo | Hot: Wii, PS3 and Natal Motion Sensing
June 29, 2009
It’s not enough that humans gave robots a place to congregate to plan our demise, now we’ve adapted them with the ability to extract fuel from the very nectar of life. All that innocent experimentation with fuel cells that run on blood has led to this, a flesh-eating clock. This prototype time-piece from UK-based designers James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau traps insects on flypaper stretched across its roller system before depositing them into a vat of bacteria. The ensuing chemical reaction, or “digestion,” is transformed into power that keeps the rollers rollin’ and the LCD clock ablaze. The pair offers an alternative design fueled by mice, another contraption whose robotic arm plucks insect-fuel from spider webs with the help of a video camera, and a lamp powered by insects lured to their deaths with ultraviolet LEDs. Man, this is so wrong it has to be right.
[Via Hack a Day]
Filed under: Household, Robots
Carnivorous Clock eats bugs, begins doomsday countdown originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 04:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Apple’s guided tour videos have featured an endless variety of creepy-android perfect “Apple Store employees” in the recent past, but we’d just like to take a moment and pour one out for OG Bob Borchers, who kicked off the entire series in 2007 with the original iPhone tours and followed ‘em up with the iPhone 3G tour. Bob’s leaving his post as Apple’s senior director of worldwide iPhone product marketing to join VC group Opus Capital — yeah, it’s not hard gadget news, but we’re getting a little misty on Sunday evening remembering how closely we all watched those initial demos looking for any tiny nuggets of information about the then-mysterious platform. Peace out, Bob — it’s been a ride. Video after the break.
Continue reading Bob the Apple guided tour guy leaves for greener pastures
Filed under: Cellphones
Bob the Apple guided tour guy leaves for greener pastures originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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June 28, 2009
So Microsoft France’s product manager for Windows Mobile, Audrey Zolghadr, is saying that the company’s upcoming Windows Marketplace launch will be accompanied by around 600 apps certified and available on day one. Depending on your perspective, that’s either ridiculously anemic — the iPhone’s App Store has a couple orders of magnitude more currently available, for example — or a veritable cornucopia. Though the Ovi Store has no shortage of “items” to buy, an overwhelming majority of those are currently wallpapers, ringtones, and the like, and Palm’s App Catalog launched with so few apps that many folks (we’re not naming names) literally had every app installed within a few minutes of buying the phone. At the end of the day, it’s all about signal-to-noise ratio; if Microsoft can deliver 600 apps and half of those are terrific, they’re on the right track — though at this point, we’re thinking the next battle in Smartphone Platform Wars doesn’t really kick off until WinMo 7 swings by anyway.
[Via PhoneArena and WMExperts]
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Windows Marketplace launching with 600 apps, or one bazillion times what the App Catalog has originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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June 28, 2009
As recently as May Sony has itself stated that a PSP phone “could happen,” and now a report from Nikkei business daily states that Sony is planning on putting together a team as early as next month to build product that would act as a combination of a PSP and a Sony Ericsson handset. It makes plenty of sense, both as a differentiation from Nintendo and as a confrontation of the looming iPhone threat — and hey, it might also act as a decent salve over the lukewarm reception of the pricey PSPgo. Unfortunately, if Sony is just about to get started on this, we likely wouldn’t be looking at any resulting product for a while to come. Sony declined comment according to Reuters, which doesn’t mean a whole lot, but it’s worth keeping in mind that we’ve been hearing this sort of rumoring since back when the N-Gage (as a product) was still almost relevant.
[Via Mac Rumors]
Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Handhelds
Sony investigating PSP phone? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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