It’s been a long road to the T-Mobile G2 (and this review). Just two years ago, Android made its entrance into the smartphone market with the G1 , a partnership with the fourth-place carrier, and a lot of promises about keeping things open. Since then we’ve seen the likes of the Droid family, Google’s Nexus One , and the powerhouses that are the Samsung Galaxy S line — to name a few. Yes, the Android landscape has become more than just a little crowded. But of those many, there are few who leap beyond what we’ve come to expect from the Google-backed enterprise into the realm of the top tier. For all the Android devices you can purchase, only a few rise above the noise. At a glance, the G2 looks like one of those handsets — designed and manufactured by HTC (and known as the Desire Z in Europe), outfitted with a (nearly) stock build of Android 2.2, and equipped with T-Mobile’s new HSPA+, which the carrier claims can offer network speeds nearly equivalent to 4G. So is the G2 the sum of its parts — The pure Android experience you’ve been waiting for — or does it fall short of the hype? Find out below in the full Engadget review! Gallery: T-Mobile G2 review Continue reading T-Mobile G2 review T-Mobile G2 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Verbatim’s USB 3.0 Store ‘n’ Go external drives play nice with magnets, your data
October 6, 2010 No Comment
We’re guessing from the photo up there that Verbatim is saying your data is safe even if you happen to drop a magnetic paperclip dispenser on it. That’s cool, because we happen to have one of those sitting right here on the desk, and for too long we’ve lived in fear of the thing toppling over and wiping the bits right off of our drives. But, the real talking point here is the interface: Verbatim ‘s first USB 3.0 external storage. It’ll be available in your choice of three sizes, with 500 and 750GB models shipping later this month and a 1TB monster coming in November. Naturally they’re also backwards compatible with last-gen USB but will surely cost well more than those drives who are exclusively down with 2.0. How much more? That we just don’t know right now. Continue reading Verbatim’s USB 3.0 Store ‘n’ Go external drives play nice with magnets, your data Verbatim’s USB 3.0 Store ‘n’ Go external drives play nice with magnets, your data originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …The Global Work Party Begins: Maldives President Finishes Solar Panel Installation
October 6, 2010 No Comment
photo courtesy Sungevity It’s only 10/6 and the first 10/10/10 Global Work Party event is already over, or will soon be: President Mohamed Nasheed of the Maldives’ new solar panels have been installed on the roof of the presidential residence. The 11.5 kW system was designed by S… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …
Is that Leica M9 Titanium announced at Photokina last month not limited enough for you at just 500 units available? Then take a gander at the Leica M9 Neiman Marcus Edition pictured above, which is available exclusively through Neiman Marcus’s Christmas Book, and is limited to a mere fifty units. The camera itself is, of course, the same M9 you already know and covet, although it’s wrapped in a brown ostrich leather trim this time around, and it comes paired with a chrome-finished Summicron-M 35mm f2.0 ASPH lens for this occasion. Sure it costs $17,500, but that includes Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 and a personal delivery from a Leica photography expert, who will also provide a private training and orientation session. It’s really quite a bargain when you think about it. Continue reading Leica announces Nieman Marcus Edition M9: $17,500, limited to 50 Leica announces Nieman Marcus Edition M9: $17,500, limited to 50 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …
This Halloween, millions of Americans will dress up in costumes and pretend to be celebrities or other important figures. Most journalists won’t take serious note of this. Yet recently a few women have slipped into some vestments and claimed that they’re “women Catholic priests,” and writers at Time magazine think there is some sober journalism to pursue. For the second time in two weeks, Time has published an article trumpeting women who are pretending to be genuine Catholic priests. As we noted last week , Dawn Reiss was the culprit in a flimsy piece. Now the bleary-eyed Tim Padgett is in on the act. There’s little that separates the two articles, except Padgett accidently pulls the cover off the real agenda at play for these renegade women. The truth is that these so-called “Catholics” aren’t very Catholic at all. Padgett notes: The Womenpriests use a liturgy that stresses gender neutrality (“In the name of God our Father and Mother …”), and they don’t toe the Vatican line against birth control and abortion, endorsing instead the Catholic tenet of informed individual conscience. They also favor the kind of new-age, Mother Earth music that can grate on even progressive Catholics. Oy . Like Reiss, Padgett fails to note that the ordination of women in the Catholic Church is simply not a possibility. Like Reiss, Padgett makes no mention of John Paul II’s 1994 Ordinatio Sacerdotalis , which reiterated the Church’s assertion that it simply does not have the authority to change the nature of sacraments, which Christ himself instituted. The issue will never be “up for a vote.” Someone needs to get the memo to the folks at Time. Photo by Pascal Shirley for Time . Original caption: (left to right) Nancy Corran and Jane Via photographed saying mass at the San Diego parish, Mary Magdalene Apostle Catholic Community on Sunday, September 5, 2010. — Dave Pierre is the author of the heralded new book, Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church .
Continue reading …
Photo via Bank Tracks Since proper comprehensive climate and clean energy legislation has crashed and burned, the task of holding the nation’s biggest carbon polluters has fallen to the EPA . The EPA will begin regulating these emitters starting in January, and the air pollution permitting process is already underway. But not all of the details of how the regulatory framework has been set in stone. In fact, the EPA is c… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …
Photo: Carmen Galán and Carlos Rivera Could wool be the new future for a more sustainable brick? It may very well be, as researchers from Spain’s University of Seville and Glasgow’s University of Strathclyde have found by creating a stronger, unfired brick that combines wool fibres with a seaweed extract. … Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …
Worried that the Samsung Transform would be a slatephone? Don’t be — it’s more of a miniature Epic 4G . The Android 2.1 device’s got a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen, 800MHz processor and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, plus front- and rear-facing cameras for video chat — though they’re pretty low resolution and there’s no 4G to pump their streaming video data. We just got hands-on with the phone, and came away mildly impressed — though it’s a little sluggish compared to the Epic, it’s got much the same build quality, and the exact same hinge and buzzy vibrator if you want to get specific. There aren’t a lot of fancy functions on the keyboard, but it’s arguably got an even better layout that caters to landscape touch-typists like us — the keys are plasticy little numbers like those on the Samsung Intercept , but they’ve got a nice click and this time, a logical layout. The screen’s bright and clear enough, but unless our eyes deceive us it’s no AMOLED. Expect it to drop on October 10th for $150 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and be sure to watch a Sprint rep show off the phone’s Sprint ID functions after the break. Continue reading Samsung Transform, first hands-on! Samsung Transform, first hands-on! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Sprint guns for mid-range Android: $149 Samsung Transform, $99 Sanyo Zio, and $49 LG Optimus S include ‘Sprint ID’
October 6, 2010 No Comment
The rumors were dead-on — the Samsung Transform and Sanyo Zio are headed to Sprint this week, and by the end of the month the carrier will play host to an LG Optimus smartphone as well. Priced at $150, $100 and $50 (after $100 mail-in rebates) respectively, they’re definitely not high-end phones, but if you’re looking for a capable QWERTY messenger (with video chat!) the Samsung Transform just might fill the bill. In many ways it’s a scaled down Epic 4G, with the same look and feel, though a somewhat slower 800MHz processor, a 3.5-inch screen, and no 4G support, obviously. We weren’t terribly impressed with the Sanyo Zio the last time we saw it , but we’re happy to hear it’s now sporting Android 2.1 and hopefully some bugfixes, and we’re eager to try the LG Optimus S simply because it’s got Froyo at the $50 price point. Hardware’s only half the story here, however, because these three phones will ship with something completely new — a settings / apps / widgets / themes packaging solution the company’s calling Sprint ID. Rather than fill the device with bloatware apps or overlay a custom UI, Sprint’s installed a software button that takes you to a store exclusively designed for Sprint’s new Android devices. You pick a package — say, Business Pro — and it downloads a specific set of apps, widgets and a custom wallpaper targeted at business owners, though if you’d rather decline you can use a package that’s pretty much stock Android. The carrier’s launching Sprint ID today with 17 partners and 13 free content packs, with more on the way. There’s a Sprint exec waiting to walk you through Sprint ID in a video after the break! Continue reading Sprint guns for mid-range Android: $149 Samsung Transform, $99 Sanyo Zio, and $49 LG Optimus S include ‘Sprint ID’ Sprint guns for mid-range Android: $149 Samsung Transform, $99 Sanyo Zio, and $49 LG Optimus S include ‘Sprint ID’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …