iCloud Communications drops lawsuit against Apple, decides to change name instead
September 7, 2011 No Comment
iCloud Communications seemed mighty confident back in June, when it filed a lawsuit against Apple over the name of Cupertino’s online storage service. But the Arizona-based company has now dropped the suit altogether, opting to change its own name, instead. On Thursday, the VoIP provider filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with a US District Court, effectively bringing an end to litigation. CNET is also reporting that the company appears to have changed its name to Clear Digital Communications — a firm that, according to its Facebook page, is located at iCloud’s exact same Phoenix address. A wall post from last month, moreover, reads, “iCloud is now Clear Digital Communications,” while iCloud’s site, Geticloud.com, now displays a message confirming that “this website is coming soon.” Neither Apple nor the ostensibly erstwhile iCloud have commented on the development, but it certainly looks like the clouds of controversy have cleared away. iCloud Communications drops lawsuit against Apple, decides to change name instead originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 12:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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If the Impulse name sounds familiar but you just can’t put your finger on it, allow us to break out the iron and get the confusion straightened out. Two weeks ago we reported that a rumored device called the Samsung Impulse 4G might be on its way to guide AT&T into its new era as a LTE powerhouse. Turns out it was partially true: this morning, the carrier announced the Huawei Impulse 4G, which in reality is a rebranded Ideos X5 that will act as an affordable ($30 on two-year contract) HSPA+ device cooking up faux-G speeds at a max of 14.4Mbps. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly the LTE radio we were pining for. The Impulse also has a 3.8-inch WVGA display, an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 CPU, Android 2.2 and 5 megapixel image-snapper with 720p video capture. It’ll be hitting stores on September 18, and we’d say the specs line up with what we’d expect from a $30 Android phone. Follow below for the full press release. Continue reading AT&T introduces Huawei Impulse 4G, available September 18th for $30 AT&T introduces Huawei Impulse 4G, available September 18th for $30 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …MSI’s GT683DXR and GT780DXR shred pixels with NVIDIA’s GTX 570M (hands-on)
September 7, 2011 No Comment
We might still be smitten with a certain svelte ebony beaut , but we’re aware some of you require absolute maximum performance from your “portable” gaming rig . Here to heed your call for blistering frame rates is MSI, which has gone and refreshed two laptops from its gaming lineup : the 15.6-inch GT683DXR and its big brother, the 17.3-inch GT730DXR. While both retain the Core i7-2630QM from their forebears, the duo now feature NVIDIA’s beefy GTX 570M with 1.5GB GDDR5. And just like their predecessors, either can be stuffed with up to 16GB of RAM, dual 500GB or 750GB drives and a Blu-ray burner. Also on board is a premium sound system from Dynaudio, four USB ports (two of the 3.0 variety), Gigabit Ethernet, VGA and HDMI sockets and, of course, 802.11b/g/n WiFi. They’re on sale now, starting at $1,699 for the 15-incher and $1,799 for the 17-inch variant. MSI was kind enough to send us the smaller and lighter of the two, so hop on past the break for our brief impressions. Gallery: MSI G Series gaming laptops Gallery: MSI GT683DXR hands-on Continue reading MSI’s GT683DXR and GT780DXR shred pixels with NVIDIA’s GTX 570M (hands-on) MSI’s GT683DXR and GT780DXR shred pixels with NVIDIA’s GTX 570M (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 11:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Google Takeout comes to Voice, get your SMS and voicemail to go (video)
September 7, 2011 No Comment
Those militant leftists at the Data Liberation Front are at it again, bringing their tool for fomenting revolution, Google Takeout , to Google Voice . With the information emancipating service, users will be able to download their call history, voicemail and text messages, recorded calls, and even greetings. All audio is delivered in MP3 format, while SMS is spit out as an HTML file. Check out the video below for a brief, if not entirely informative, announcement from the guerrilla data warriors. Continue reading Google Takeout comes to Voice, get your SMS and voicemail to go (video) Google Takeout comes to Voice, get your SMS and voicemail to go (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …HP announces an avalanche of all-in-ones, slims down its TouchSmarts (video)
September 7, 2011 No Comment
At some point earlier this year, all-in-one desktops became a thing . Companies like Toshiba and Lenovo that had never before taken an interest in the space suddenly started selling ‘em, beefing up a market that HP, Dell and Apple had owned for years. You could tell what HP executives were thinking. Months earlier, the outfit had announced its TouchSmart 610 — you know, the one with the sprawling, tilting display. It’s as if the company had to prove it’s the real deal when it comes to all-in-ones — or, at least, that it could come up with something that’ll eat up less desk space than the 610. Okay, we just put a lot of words into HP executives’ mouths, but really, what else could this deluge of all-in-ones mean? The company just spat out seven new models for the US market, the highest-end of which have a markedly more minimalist look. The 20-inch TouchSmart 320, 21.5-inch 420 and the 23-inch 520 all boast the kind of free-standing display display you see in that photo up there — a screen that tilts 30 degrees, and leaves enough space underneath for you to stow the wireless keyboard. The lot have starting prices ranging from $600 to $800, with the highest-end 520 matching the 610, which will still be around for the foreseeable future. Moving along, HP also trotted out the similar-looking TouchSmart 7230, its first touchscreen all-in-one for the small business market, along with the Pro 3420, a non-touch model. That will start at $600, with the touchscreen pushing the 3420′s price northwards of $850. And, just to make sure it had its bases covered, the company introduced two plain-Jane models, the 20-inch Omni 120 and the 21.5-inch Omni 220, which steps up to Beats Audio, Sandy Bridge processors and a more striking design. These will each be available before the end of the month, starting at $400 and $800, respectively. Oodles of glossy press shots below and a short video after the break. Gallery: HP TouchSmart 520 hands-on Gallery: HP Omni 120 and 220, TouchSmart 320, 420, 520 and 7230 and Pro 3420 Continue reading HP announces an avalanche of all-in-ones, slims down its TouchSmarts (video) HP announces an avalanche of all-in-ones, slims down its TouchSmarts (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It’s been a very, very long time since Verizon and Motorola together announced the Droid Bionic — the better part of a year, in fact. Since then the phone’s gone into hiding, perhaps hitting the gym and training for this moment, it’s final and formal unveiling. The frequently-spied device finally ships tomorrow, and we have the full details plus early impressions right here, after the break. Gallery: Droid Bionic hands-on Continue reading Droid Bionic arrives at Verizon tomorrow, we go hands-on today (video) Droid Bionic arrives at Verizon tomorrow, we go hands-on today (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 08:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Strip out the old E-350 Zacate APU from MSI’s thin-and-light X370 , replace it with a brand new 1.65GHz E-450 Llano engine with around 20 percent higher CPU and graphics benchmarks, and what do you get? The X370-205US, that’s what, or equally the 206US white variant. The 13-incher just popped up at Amazon and Newegg with exactly the same $579 price tag as its vanquished predecessor, the same 1366×768 resolution, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, up to ten hours’ stamina and an easy-going 3.11 pound weight that will only hurt your chiropractor. MSI X370 with AMD E-450 upgrade arrives stateside originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Flybus consortium puts the brakes on energy waste, throws it back to the asphalt
September 7, 2011 No Comment
For anyone who’s logged time city bus surfing, you know there’s a heckuva lot of power in those screechy stops and starts. So, it stands to reason there’d be a way to harness that kinetic energy and shuffle it right back to the auto, itself. Well, that’s exactly what the Flybus consortium aims to do with a prototype that uses a Ricardo Kinergy flywheel to store energy created from braking, and redistribute it via a continuously variable transmission. The hybrid setup is purportedly much cheaper to produce than current, pricier EV rigs, and would also go a long way towards reducing fuel costs for commercial vehicles. Gearheads eager for a peek at the group’s design can get a look-see when it’s shown off this month at the Low Carbon Vehicle event in the UK. For everyone else, there are the source links below. Flybus consortium puts the brakes on energy waste, throws it back to the asphalt originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Google’s South Korea offices have been raided by federal authorities once again — this time, over alleged antitrust violations. According to the Wall Street Journal , the Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) stormed Google’s Seoul offices on Tuesday, amid claims that the company unfairly stifles competition by making its search engine the default option on Android handsets. South Korea’s largest mobile search operators, NHN and Daum Communications, filed a complaint with the KFTC in April, claiming that Android is “systematically designed” to discourage users from switching to different portals, and that Google excludes competitors by delaying OS certification for phone manufacturers that attempt to pre-load devices with other search engines. Similar charges, as you may recall, fueled an FTC investigation in the US, where anti-competitive allegations have been flying around for a few months, now. Google neither confirmed nor denied that yesterday’s raid took place, but a spokesperson said the company would “work with the KFTC to address any questions they may have about our business,” adding that its OS does “not require carriers or manufacturers to include Google Search or Google applications on Android-powered devices.” Google’s South Korean offices raided over alleged antitrust violations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …NVIDIA CEO sees major growth in mobile processing, quad-core tablets coming this year
September 7, 2011 No Comment
During a sitdown with reporters yesterday, NVIDIA Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang discussed his company’s near- and long-term financial outlook, while providing some insight into the chipmaker’s quad-core future. According to Huang, NVIDIA expects to rake in between $4.7 and $5 billion in revenue during fiscal year 2013, with revenue from its mobile chip unit projected to mushroom tenfold by 2015, to a whopping $20 billion. Huang acknowledged that these predictions could be affected by external factors, including the ongoing patent wars between tablet and smartphone manufacturers, but didn’t seem too concerned about their immediate impact. “At this point, it looks like it’s much ado about nothing,” he said. In fact, Huang foresees rather robust growth in the mobile processing sector, estimating that there are about 100 million devices that will need chips this year — a figure that could soon rise to one billion, on the strength of more affordable smartphones, efficient ARM processors and the rise of ultra-thin notebooks. And, despite his recent disappointment , Huang expects Android tablets to comprise a full 50 percent of the market in the near future, claiming that NVIDIA’s Tegra 2 chips can currently be found in half of all slates running Google’s OS, and about 70 percent of all Android-based handsets. In the short-term, meanwhile, NVIDIA is busy developing its quad-core mobile processors — which, according to the exec, should appear in tablets during the third or fourth quarter of this year (quad-core smartphones, however, may be further down the road). Huang also sees room to develop wireless-enabled, Snapdragon-like processors, thanks to NVIDIA’s recent acquisition of Icera , but he hasn’t given up on GPUs, either, predicting that demand for graphics performance will remain stable. The loquacious CEO went on to divine that Windows 8 will support apps designed for Windows 7 (implying, perhaps, that Microsoft’s Silverlight platform will play a major role in future cloud-based developments), while contending that smaller, “clamshell devices” with keyboards will ultimately win out of over the Ultrabook strategy that Intel has been pursuing. For the moment, though, Huang seems pretty comfortable with NVIDIA’s position in the mobile processing market, citing only Qualcomm as primary competition. “We’re the only people seriously on the dance floor with Qualcomm,” he argued, adding that companies without a solid mobile strategy are “in deep turd.” You can find more of Huang’s insights at the source links below. NVIDIA CEO sees major growth in mobile processing, quad-core tablets coming this year originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 03:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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