We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Brett, who seems just marginally overwhelmed by the recent flood of network media streamers. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com . “I’m looking for a network media player that can play a variety of videos from my NAS as well as connect to media services like Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, etc. I thought I found the perfect match with the new Sony SMP-N100, but the DLNA sharing system was awful compared to an old Apple TV with XBMC installed. Any suggestions on the ultimate Network Media Player? Bonus points for being able to remotely queue videos or control it from a smart phone.” We’ve been to this rodeo before, but the situation (and consumer demands, too) has changed quite dramatically from just a year ago. Given that there are more players connecting to more portals than ever before, we’d curious to know what box you’d recommend for Brett. Don’t hold back, cool? Ask Engadget: what’s the ultimate network media streamer? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Brett, who seems just marginally overwhelmed by the recent flood of network media streamers. If you’re looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com . “I’m looking for a network media player that can play a variety of videos from my NAS as well as connect to media services like Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, etc. I thought I found the perfect match with the new Sony SMP-N100, but the DLNA sharing system was awful compared to an old Apple TV with XBMC installed. Any suggestions on the ultimate Network Media Player? Bonus points for being able to remotely queue videos or control it from a smart phone.” We’ve been to this rodeo before, but the situation (and consumer demands, too) has changed quite dramatically from just a year ago. Given that there are more players connecting to more portals than ever before, we’d curious to know what box you’d recommend for Brett. Don’t hold back, cool? Ask Engadget: what’s the ultimate network media streamer? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Malata launches a candy-colored educational smartbook, we give it a whirl
October 1, 2010 No CommentThe tablet craze may have pushed smartbooks out of the spotlight , but don’t tell Malata that — the ODM’s launching an ARM-powered mini laptop in China this very week. Spotted at Mobilize 2010, the Malata T9000 is a cute-as-a-button blue and black clamshell with a 10-inch, 1024 x 600 screen and a Marvell Armada 166 inside, running a Chinese version of Linux (on an 8GB SSD) designed for the educational market. It’s most certainly cheap and underpowered, but we weren’t really able to tell, as the UI didn’t actually launch any usable applications when we randomly clicked on the icons strewn about. That said, it’s got a fairly usable, springy little keyboard and a good number of ports, so it might be fun to tinker with, but we won’t shed a tear if the machine never makes it stateside. Gallery: Malata T9000 smartbook, hands-on Malata launches a candy-colored educational smartbook, we give it a whirl originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Malata launches a candy-colored educational smartbook, we give it a whirl
October 1, 2010 No Comment
The tablet craze may have pushed smartbooks out of the spotlight , but don’t tell Malata that — the ODM’s launching an ARM-powered mini laptop in China this very week. Spotted at Mobilize 2010, the Malata T9000 is a cute-as-a-button blue and black clamshell with a 10-inch, 1024 x 600 screen and a Marvell Armada 166 inside, running a Chinese version of Linux (on an 8GB SSD) designed for the educational market. It’s most certainly cheap and underpowered, but we weren’t really able to tell, as the UI didn’t actually launch any usable applications when we randomly clicked on the icons strewn about. That said, it’s got a fairly usable, springy little keyboard and a good number of ports, so it might be fun to tinker with, but we won’t shed a tear if the machine never makes it stateside. Gallery: Malata T9000 smartbook, hands-on Malata launches a candy-colored educational smartbook, we give it a whirl originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 21:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Marvell’s quad core Armada processor won’t see tablets or phones, destined for a mystery game platform
October 1, 2010 No Comment
Looks like that quad-core Armada processor won’t be having apps for breakfast after all — confronting Marvell’s Jack Kang at Mobilize 2010, he told us the chips proved too power-hungry for devices without a dedicated cord. That doesn’t mean we won’t see them soon, however, as the man let slip that it’s actually the quad-core chip that will appear in a new game system , though we can probably rule out the Nintendo 3DS for the same reason as the phones. Marvell’s still hoping to get in the mobile market in a big way, though, and that’s what the tri-core Armada 628 is all about, which uses low power profiles to save battery life. According to Kang, however, the system’s actually a little more exciting than that — its two up-to-1.5GHz cores kick in when the system’s under a multimedia strain, but actually shut off completely for day-to-day use, relying instead on the third 624MHz processor which slowly sips your battery juice. All we know is, we’d better find out which devices will sport these chips, and soon — our curiosity is beginning to gnaw. Marvell’s quad core Armada processor won’t see tablets or phones, destined for a mystery game platform originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 20:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says Apple’s 99-cent rental model threatens sales
September 30, 2010 No Comment
Well, this isn’t going to be surprising to many, but certain executives of certain big studios and networks aren’t wasting anytime letting everybody know what they think of Apple’s new 99-cent rental model for the Apple TV . If you’ve read our review of the tiny new iOS device, you’re already aware that one of Apple’s biggest challenges with the product is getting the content providers on board for such a reduced price — so far, the company’s managed to pull in ABC, Disney, Fox, and the BBC — but Jobs has said that studios will quickly “see the light” and join up. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes seems to disagree, however. “How can you justify renting your first-run TV shows individually for 99 cents an episode and thereby jeopardize the sale of the same shows as a series to branded networks that pay hundreds of millions of dollars and make those shows available to loyal viewers for free?” Bewkes recently asked, joining the now growing chorus of executives to decry the new scheme. Jeff Zucker recently said he thought Apple’s 99-cent rentals “devalue” the content, while Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said the rental model was “not good.” Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes says Apple’s 99-cent rental model threatens sales originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Look what landed in our galaxy this morning! You and your friends may be moaning about the recent news that Star Wars will have a 3D theatrical re-relase, but nobody’s going to complain about the cute weirdness that is the Droid R2-D2 edition, now are they? No surprises here — just hit the gallery below. Gallery: Droid R2-D2 hands-on Droid R2-D2 hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Well, it looks like Sprint and Clearwire aren’t taking any chances when it comes to some of the new antitrust rules now in place. Clearwire has just announced that the three Sprint executives now on its board will be resigning out of an “abundance of caution” — that includes Sprint CEO Dan Hesse , along with division presidents Keith O. Cowan and Steven L. Elfman. Not many more details than that at the moment, but Sprint does still hang onto the right to appoint members to the Clearwire board, and the four Sprint appointees currently on the board will remain in place. As The Wall Street Journal notes, however, the move would seem to clear the way for Clearwire to potentially make another deal, although no one involved is saying anything publicly at the moment beyond what’s in the brief press release after the break. Continue reading Sprint execs leave Clearwire board out of an ‘abundance of caution’ Sprint execs leave Clearwire board out of an ‘abundance of caution’ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 18:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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What’s the first thing you should do when you get the N8 ? Considering it packs the biggest image sensor embedded in a phone yet, Carl Zeiss optics, and an eight-digit pixel count, it seemed obvious to us that the answer was to take it on a picture- and video-taking stroll around London. On our way out we saw our iPhone 4 looking all sad and lonely, so we went ahead and brought it along as well. Below you shall find one gallery of pure, unadulterated N8 sample shots, another interspersed with the iPhone’s results for comparison’s sake, and a final one with side-by-side 100 percent crops from each image taker. Once you’ve digested all of those, we suggest hopping past the break and tucking into some tasty video comparisons for dessert. Naturally, all the images are entirely unretouched (but for our masterly watermarking) and the iPhone 4′s HDR hocus pocus has been left off. We’ve also provided a zip file containing all the full-res imagery shot with the N8 in a link below. A quick note is also merited about the N8′s resolution. The sensor’s display ratio is 4:3, which means that full 12 megapixel shots are only available in those dimensions. The camera software, however, defaults to shooting 9 megapixel snaps at the increasingly popular 16:9 ratio — this is done simply by cropping away the “excess” bars at the top and bottom of the image, meaning that the 9 megapixel images are giving us identical performance as the 12 megapixel ones, they’re just chopped down (from 4000 x 3000 to 4000 x 2248) for the sake of convenience. Now, on with the show! Gallery: Nokia N8 sample photos Gallery: Nokia N8 vs. iPhone 4: cameraphone fight! Gallery: Nokia N8 vs. iPhone 4: full resolution crops Continue reading Nokia N8 vs. iPhone 4: camera showdown Nokia N8 vs. iPhone 4: camera showdown originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We thought about calling this podcast “Unchained Melody” or “The Engadget Podcast: RAW” but our COO got a little concerned about violating some sort of intellectual property laws, so you just get the plain vanilla name. Regardless, it is quite a monster, complete with a radio play set in an AT&T store and 3-D versions of Jerry Seinfeld and Jar-Jar Binks. Dunno how else we can sell you on this one. Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel Producer: Trent Wolbe Music: The Addams Family AT&T Store music: El Remolon – Riki Ticki 00:02:37 – T-Mobile G2 now shipping to some pre-orderers 00:03:45 – T-Mobile G2 preview 00:06:30 – Editorial: Firmware, forums, and desperation — the dark side of Android hacking 00:08:00 – Apple TV review (2010) 00:13:15 – Roku adding Hulu Plus channel this fall 00:14:32 – Hulu Plus coming to TiVo Premiere too 00:24:38 – Roku XDS review 00:36:18 – Sony’s Google TV makes an early public appearance, reveals little 00:43:45 – RIM introduces PlayBook — the BlackBerry tablet 00:50:00 – BlackBerry PlayBook first eyes-on! 00:57:20 – HTC Mondrian stars in leaked AT&T ad campaign, jump-kicks lesser smartphones? (video) 00:58:02 – LG’s Optimus 7 gets previewed by Korean newspaper, has voice to text feature? 01:21:30 – Sony Ericsson LiveView acts as a 1.3-inch remote control for your smartphone, requires Android 2.0 Hear the podcast Subscribe to the podcast [ iTunes ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC). [ RSS MP3 ] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically. [ RSS AAC ] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator. [ Zune ] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace Download the podcast LISTEN (MP3) LISTEN (AAC) LISTEN (OGG) Contact the podcast 1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com. Twitter: @joshuatopolsky @futurepaul @reckless @engadget Engadget Podcast 214 – 09.30.2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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