Discover cardholders can send money to anyone with a cell phone, email address
April 16, 2011 No Comment
With NFC payment systems just starting to roll out in the US, it’ll be awhile yet before you can cut up those credit cards for good. But in the present, at least, you can use your handset to make sure you don’t get stuck with a $100 bar tab… again. Discover just announced that it will let its cardholders send money to people in 60 countries — so long as they have either a cell phone number or email address. As AllThingsD notes, Visa and American Express have hatched similar plans, though Discover is the first of the bunch to partner with PayPal. While people sending money don’t need PayPal accounts, people receiving moola do — or, at least, they must be willing to create one. For senders the service is free and, in fact, they get 0.25 percent cash back for the first $3,000 exchanged. As for Discover, a smaller player than Visa and MasterCard, it hopes some of PayPal’s 230 million customers will sign up for a shiny new credit card while they’re at it. Discover cardholders can send money to anyone with a cell phone, email address originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It’s not exactly a minty fresh concept , but if you’re bored with networked media streamers slinging content and content alone, Awind’s McTiVia might just be the nugget of unconventional that you’ve been after. For all intents and purposes, this is a souped-up wireless router that pipes all content from your Mac or PC onto your HDMI-equipped HDTV. The goal? To create cord-free HDTVs, in a sense. It’s capable of controlling up to eight computers via mouse or keyboard, and it also doubles as a WiFi access point for those needing to usher themselves into the modern century. She’s expected to hit retail in late May for $199, and we’ll be doing our darnedest to test one out as soon as shipments begin. Gallery: McTiVia networked streamer press shots Continue reading McTiVia networked streamer slinging PC content to TV screens this May McTiVia networked streamer slinging PC content to TV screens this May originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 06:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Watch Windows 8′s new Metro login while this creepy guy watches you (video)
April 16, 2011 No Comment
Remember that leaked build of Windows 8 that hit the torrents just a few days back? Already old hat. That was build 7850. Today we’ve got a peek at what claims to be a newer build, 7955 , of the upcoming OS and it’s starting to show a few of those Metro flourishes we’ve all been anticipating. In the video after the break you’ll catch a glimpse of a new Windows Phone 7 -inspired login screen and the (somewhat perplexing) ability to set a video as your user tile. It’s not a drastic overhaul — it still looks a whole lot like Windows 7, as you’d expect at this stage of the game — but it’s nice to think Microsoft is moving quickly to bring its stunning Metro UI to the desktop. [Thanks, Vygantas ] Continue reading Watch Windows 8′s new Metro login while this creepy guy watches you (video) Watch Windows 8′s new Metro login while this creepy guy watches you (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We’ve peered back in time to the early days of the universe, just following the Big Bang, and unraveled the mysteries of the human genome — yet we don’t really know how a moving bicycle manages to stay upright without a meatbag manning the handlebars. Scientists have long thought that it had something to do with the gyroscopic effect created by the spinning wheels and the caster effect of having the front wheel trail the steering axis (don’t worry, it’s all explained in a video at the source link). Researchers at Cornell, however, have created a tiny bike that generates neither of those effects yet, thanks to carefully calibrated mass distribution, still stays vertical when moving over 5MPH. The insights learned here could lead to self-stabilizing rides for us and cooler wheels for our pedal-happy automatons to inherit. PR after the break. Continue reading Scientists unlock the secrets of bike stability, make riders optional Scientists unlock the secrets of bike stability, make riders optional originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 12:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We’re still waiting for some specific US launch details for the Xtion Pro and Wavi Xtion motion sensors that ASUS showed off at CES earlier this year, but it looks like folks in Japan can now already get their hands on half of that duo. Unity Corportation has just announced that it’s releasing the Xtion Promotion sensor (complete with an SDK) in the country for
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It’s officially the weekend, which means you’ve got two choices: one, mimic iTr3vor and toss up a YouTube video of yourself dancing in an Apple Store, or two, blow your own mind with the magic of HTML5 . In between hour-long Pica-Pic sessions , we’d recommend killing time in The World’s Biggest Pac-Man game, which can be “played for fun” or linked to your Facebook account for those who savvy statistics. We’d bother telling you more, but we’re fairly sure you’re already firmly occupied with the source link. You’re welcome. Or, we’re sorry. The World’s Biggest Pac-Man game takes over the internet, your life originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 02:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It’s an iPhone 4 … but not the original iPhone 4. Verizon Wireless became the first CDMA carrier in the States to call an Apple smartphone one of its own, and the resulting handset is eerily similar to the AT&T variant in most regards. That said, we’re sure that a few of you folks would have done things differently if given the design credentials needed to do so, and this is place for you to vent. Would you have added any features to this guy not already found on the GSM iPhone 4? Offered a Big Red-exclusive color? Thrown an LTE radio in there? Changed up the antenna layout? Included a secondary display, Echo-style ? Go on and get creative in comments below — you never know what suggestions may shape the shape of the iPhone 5! (Or something like that.) How would you change the Verizon iPhone? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Feel free to ingest this with a healthy helping of salt for now, but if a spate of Newegg product listings are to be believed, Toshiba’s heretofore unnamed Honeycomb tablet will boast a tremendously unflattering moniker: ANT. Priced at $449.99, $499.99 and $579.99, the Tegra 2-powered slate is seemingly dubbed ANT-100, ANT-102 and ANT-104. Each one includes Android 3.0, a 10.1-inch panel (1280 x 800) and NVIDIA silicon, with the extra dollars on the latter two changing that 8GB of internal storage to 16GB or 32GB. There’s still no hard release date promised, but surely the shot above is proof that the day is near, right? Right ? Toshiba’s Honeycomb tablet to be dubbed ANT, start at $450? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Apr 2011 00:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Sprint plays the green card, drops $10 data surcharge on Froyo-based Samsung Replenish
April 15, 2011 No Comment
Sprint’s been playing the all-encompassing Eco-Friendly card for some time now, and it looks as if last year’s Restore (now available on Virgin Mobile USA for $79.99 off-contract) is gaining an ultra-green sibling. Samsung’s newly unveiled Replenish feels a bit like an Android 2.2-powered, somewhat matured BlackJack , boasting a 2.8-inch QVGA display, 2 megapixel camera / camcorder, inbuilt WiFi / GPS, a microSD card slot, an optional solar door charging accessory and a trio of color options (black, blue and — our personal favorite — “raspberry pink”). Curious about eco-cred? It’ll ship May 8th for $49.99 (on a two-year contract) with fully recyclable packaging and a casing that includes 34.6 percent post-consumer recycled plastic content. Oh, and there’s a postage-paid envelope to recycle your old phone, too. Folks opting to throw Ma Earth a bone by picking one up must activate it on an Everything Data plan, but the carrier will be waiving the $10 monthly premium data add-on charge to — get this — “make it easier for customers to make eco-friendly buying decisions.” Translation: you’ll buy whatever’s cheapest. Full release is after the break. Gallery: Samsung Replenish on Sprint Continue reading Sprint plays the green card, drops $10 data surcharge on Froyo-based Samsung Replenish Sprint plays the green card, drops $10 data surcharge on Froyo-based Samsung Replenish originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Skype acknowledges Android privacy vulnerability, says it’s ‘working quickly’ on a fix
April 15, 2011 No Comment
The results were certainly tough to deny, and now Skype has come forward and acknowledged that there is indeed a rather serious vulnerability in Skype for Android that could let malicious third-party applications access your personal information. Unfortunately, it’s not offering much else in the way of help just yet, with it saying only that it is “working quickly” to protect folks from the vulnerability, and that they should simply be cautious of third-party apps in the meantime. Skype acknowledges Android privacy vulnerability, says it’s ‘working quickly’ on a fix originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 15:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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