Gadget Talks

Archive for January, 2010

Motorola's Backflip has yet to springboard itself over to AT&T, but those who call China home can hop on the bandwagon right away. Said phone -- which sports a full touchscreen and a physical QWERTY thanks to the horizontal clamshell design -- is now available from Moto's Chinese portal for 4,298 Chinese yuan (in unlocked form), which translates to right around $630. While the rest of the world awaits the phone's launch later this quarter, you can hit up Mobile.163.com for a downright beautiful gallery of in the wild shots. Go on, it's safe. We think.

[Thanks, Me]

Motorola Backflip spotted in the wilds of China originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 23:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Me and my DH have between us an MDA Vario 2 and an XDA 2, both of which have various programs running which can produce reminders, often overriding the system sound settings. Is there some fool proof way to be sure no unexpected sound comes from our phones in the middle of a hushed concert audience (other than leaving our PDA's at home)?
Thks Robin, but we need those programs on, we just don't want them to make any noise!!

Armatix has apparently been working on its so-called "smartgun" concept for quite a while, but it's now finally shown up at the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show (SHOT, naturally) with its first actual product: a .22-caliber pistol that relies on a wristwatch as a safety. As you can probably figure out, the gun will only unlock itself when its in close proximity to the watch, which sends a "wireless arming signal" that, of course, also activates some green LEDs for good measure. Previous incarnations of the company's concept also relied on a fingerprint ID as an additional safety, but that seems to have been left off this production model, which will run €7,000 (or $9,700) when it starts shipping next month.

Armatix pistol / wristwatch combo tells time... to stay put originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 22:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, the iPad happened this week, but we also caught sight of several hot green gadgets and clean tech innovations this week that stand to shape the future of green consumer technology.

First off, design star Philippe Starck brought haute design to clean tech with two novel designs for home wind turbines. Starck's high-profile products have made him a household name, so we're interested to see if his latest creations kick off a trend towards "designer" wind power.

We were also impressed by researchers at Princeton University who recently found a way to integrate piezoelectric chips into flexible, durable rubber-based circuits. We've seen piezo power sources before, but applications for the new chips are sure to put bounce in your step: energy generating shoes, movement-powered microsurgical devices, and self-charging pacemakers are right around the corner.

Interest in green transportation is building as Florida rides high on the government's recently announced grants for high speed rail -- the sunshine state is set to blaze a trail with $1.25 billion in funding. And for those with a soda habit, Takara Tomy's cola-powered RC car is one sweet ride. The biobattery-powered car can convert any sugary liquid to energy, so pour in some Jolt and you're good to go.

Finally, love it or hate it -- the launch of Apple's iPad has dominated the newswires all week. While we appreciate the device's toxin-free, recyclable construction and impressive battery life, we have to ask: is it really green?

Inhabitat's Week in Green: turbines, rubber circuits, and cola-powered cars originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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...and he took it to the 52nd Annual Grammys. Nice product placement, Apple. Video of the whole thing after the break. Say, what kind of pocket did that come out of?

Continue reading Stephen Colbert has an iPad... (video)

Stephen Colbert has an iPad... (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 20:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Curious folks around the world enjoy a bit of hackintosh every now and then (although once is enough for many), but no geek has successfully ventured as far as Toni Nikkanen of Finland, who became the first person to run OS X on a phone -- the Nokia N900. As you can see in the video after the break, Toni's hack relies on PearPC -- a PowerPC emulator -- to install good ol' OS X 10.3 (Panther), but the mammoth sluggishness means it's far from usable. Still, if you can spare 90 minutes for each boot-up plus plenty more for the snail-paced cursor, then head to the source to learn from Herra Nikkanen.

[Thanks, Matija]

Continue reading Mac OS X 10.3 installed on Nokia N900 via PearPC, barely usable for impatient geeks

Mac OS X 10.3 installed on Nokia N900 via PearPC, barely usable for impatient geeks originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 19:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was quite the week for Apple, first with its best-ever earnings and then the launch of the iPad. While Apple didn't create this category of device, it did answer the fundamental question of why this form factor needs to exist. The meta lesson is that the story told is as important as the hardware, software and services being sold -- and while everyone may not be convinced, I do think Apple will win over the majority of a skeptical audience with high expectations. But there's also four important lessons that Apple taught the market this week, as it enters a space that's been mostly a failure.

1. Define what your product does. The first thing Apple did was answer that question immediately and then define what the product needed to do. Apple explained what capabilities need to be in the this class of device and then went on to show how each of those features not only worked but were optimized for the iPad. That's something we've seen lacking in this category to date.

2. Leverage what you've done before. I believe the iPad is likely to do well with consumers as it leverages Apple's previous successes with the iPod and the iPhone. At the base level, that's compatibility and synchronization with iTunes as well as backward compatibility with existing applications. That's important -- as a user I can use my existing content library and my application collection. It also means that iPad has 140,000-plus applications at launch. But it's more than that. Apple is not only leveraging its ecosystem of devices and software, it's leveraging the lessons it spent a decade teaching consumers. Apple taught its market about MP3 players, digital music, smartphones, capacitive multitouch screens and mobile apps. It can now go directly to selling the form factor, as well as new features such as productivity and e-books.

Continue reading Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch

Entelligence: Lessons from the iPad launch originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apparently all is not well in e-book land. In an unusual move, publisher Macmillan took out an ad in the Publishers Marketplace magazine protesting the tactics being used by Amazon regarding pricing. The issue is Macmillan is trying to raise prices to $15.00 and up, and Amazon is trying to lock the prices at $9.99 and up per title.

The negotiations have been going on for over a year, and finally came to a head on Friday when Amazon pretty much banned titles published by Macmillan by refusing to directly sell them. Macmillan took the fight public when he paid for an ad in the industry paper, the Publishers Lunch:

“Under the agency model, we will sell the digital editions of our books to consumers through our retailers. Our retailers will act as our agents and will take a 30% commission (the standard split today for many digital media businesses). The price will be set the price for each book individually. Our plan is to price the digital edition of most adult trade books in a price range from $14.99 to $5.99. At first release, concurrent with a hardcover, most titles will be priced between $14.99 and $12.99. E books will almost always appear day on date with the physical edition. Pricing will be dynamic over time.”

[via Mediabistro]

Update: Congrats, you all win the internet. The source material was someone unclear on exactly who wanted to raise the price, and who wanted to keep it the same.

Um, okay? Just days after Apple introduced its exceedingly underwhelming iPad while simultaneously attempting to convince that masses that said product was the portable gaming device they had been waiting their whole lives for, Sony's own hardware marketing honcho has come forward and extolled Cupertino's decision to finally make the gaming leap. In a recent interview, John stated the following:

"Apple's entrance into the portable gaming space has been a net positive for Sony. When people want a deeper, richer console, they start playing on a PSP."

While we can't seem to shake the suspicion that Mr. Koller is drawing links that probably don't exist (at least fully) in reality, research firm NPD does show that sales of the PSP have "nearly tripled since the iPhone went on sale in June 2007." Of course, it's not like the PSP has gained functionality, become the home of more than a few killer titles and spawned a UMD-less sibling since the heydays of '07, but hey -- who are we to question the suit?

Sony's John Koller: Apple's entrance into gaming market drives consumers to PSP originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ahh Steve. You can always be depended on to serve up a healthy dose of crazy. It’s just fortunate that people put up with your own special brand of crazy that no other CEO could put up with. For example, at a company wide Town Hall, Steve Jobs had some very special things to say about Adobe and Google and their business practices.

Typically after each product launch Steve holds a company wide “Town Hall” meeting at corporate headquarters. These meetings give Steve a chance to talk to the employees, and also give employees a chance to ask questions (if they are brave enough). During the most recent meeting, Steve had a few choice things to say about Google and Adobe, and offered somewhat of an explanation about why the iPhone/iPod/iPad won’t support Flash.

On the subject of Google, Steve said that their avowed policy of “Do no Evil” is “bullshit.” He called the release of the Nexus phone a direct attack on the iPhone, and stated that he won’t let them win.

Google wasn’t the only target of Jobsian ire, Adobe took their lumps on the subject of Flash. Steve called Adobe lazy, and said that while they have the potential to do interesting things, they don’t. He said that the reason Apple doesn’t support Flash is because it’s so buggy, and whenever a Mac crashes it’s most likely because of Flash. Steve also predicted that it won’t be long before everyone leaves Flash behind as the standard moves forward to HTML5.