Ready for a taste of a sweet Honeycomb tablet with a Sony twist ? You’d better be — Japan’s Nikkei is quoting Sony chief executive, Sir Howard Stringer, saying that the company’s first Android 3.0 tablet will be on sale by the end of summer. Better yet, it’ll pop for retail in the US first, according to the report. This lines up nicely with the reported September launch of the PlayStation Certified Tegra 2 “S1″ tablet featuring that unique “wrap” design we first told you about back in February. Or will it be S2 clamshell ? Who knows, Howard isn’t saying. The new tablet tattle was apparently uttered at the same event where Howard spilled the beans about Apple’s plan to use Sony sensors . Come on Howie, quit the teasing and just come out with it you saucy Welsh minx. Sony’s Howard Stringer confirms Honeycomb tablet in US by summer originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 05:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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No matter how hard Skype and others try to convince us otherwise, we still do most of our web communications via text or, if entirely unavoidable, by voice. Maybe we’re ludittes or maybe video calling has yet to prove its value. Hoping to reverse such archaic views, researchers at the MIT Media Lab have harnessed a Kinect’s powers of depth and human perception to provide some newfangled videoconferencing functionality. First up, you can blur out everything on screen but the speaker to keep focus where it needs to be. Then, if you want to get fancier, you can freeze a frame of yourself in the still-moving video feed for when you need to do something off-camera, and to finish things off, you can even drop some 3D-aware augmented reality on your viewers. It’s all a little unrefined at the moment, but the ideas are there and well worth seeing. Jump past the break to do just that. Continue reading Kinect used to make teleconferencing actually kind of cool (video) Kinect used to make teleconferencing actually kind of cool (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Boy oh boy, these Taiwanese companies are seriously gunning to take the bottom out of the Honeycomb tablet market. After we saw ASUS stride forward with very competitive pricing on its 10-inch Eee Pad Transformer, we’re now being treated to Acer’s riposte, an eminently reasonable
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Gingerbread may not be a very likely option, but T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide users can now get a dessert of another sort (albeit a slightly stale one), as the phone has finally received an update to Android 2.2 (a.k.a. Froyo ). Unfortunately, there’s apparently no over-the-air update planned, and the software required for the installation is Windows-only, so anyone with a Mac looking to upgrade will have to find a PC-using friend willing to help them out. If you’re all set to go, however, you can download the update from HTC at the source link below. [Thanks, Frenchy] T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide gets PC-assisted Froyo update originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 02:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Looking for your fibrous dose of gadget leak? Look no further than China which has, again and again , outed several spy shots of what appears to be the Xperia X10 Mini Pro’s successor. Dubbed the SK17i and codenamed “Mango,” this time we’re looking at some proof of Android 2.3 on this little Sony Ericsson slider, along with a homescreen UI not dissimilar to that of the X10 Mini and X8 series. Other than that, we’re not seeing anything new here, though we can’t help but wonder if the unused Xperia Duo trademark has finally found its rightful owner — you know, maybe Duo as in a two-part slider phone? As always, only time will tell. [Thanks, @Tehpriest ] Sony Ericsson X10 Mini Pro successor spotted as SK17i, sports Gingerbread originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Here’s yet another juicy leak from China to go with your breakfast. Delivered by the same folks who brought us the sixth-gen iPod nano display module leak , this time we have what appears to be a chassis for the next touchscreen nano. According to Apple.pro , the circular hole at the top right is likely to house a little camera, which would bring back the good old days with the camera-donning fifth-gen nano . Obviously, to make space for such an imager here, the spring-loaded clip on the back would have to be downsized and shifted, which would explain why the four screws are off-centered here, unlike those on the current-gen nano (as seen in iFixit’s teardown shot after the break). That said, let’s not forget that this rumor is coming straight out of KIRFdom, so we’ll remain skeptical until this baby pops out around September time, as has been the case with most nano launches in the past. Continue reading Next-gen iPod nano chassis leaked with camera? Next-gen iPod nano chassis leaked with camera? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 00:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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TDK has slowly been rolling out some of its new audio gear since it first showed off the line at CES in January, but it’s now finally officially announced that the whole lot is readily available across the US and Canada. That includes both its two-speaker and three-speaker Boomboxes , its “room-filling” Sound Cube, a set of high-end headphones, and even a belt-drive turntable — those range in price from $249 for the headphones to $499 for the three-speaker boombox. Of course, while TDK is boasting quite a bit about the sound of the gear, it’s also placing a heavy emphasis on their appearance, for which it can thank design firm Ziba. Don’t miss the more coverage links below for a bit of insight into how it crafted the products. Continue reading TDK’s new line of Boomboxes and audio gear now officially available TDK’s new line of Boomboxes and audio gear now officially available originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Apr 2011 23:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Renewable art touches the sky, an electric Audi TT, and cryogenic energy
April 3, 2011 No Comment
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green. This week Inhabitat saw renewable energy projects blast off around the world as Kenya announced the construction of the largest wind farm in Africa and a team of Georgia Tech researchers developed a heart-powered nanobattery that can charge your gadgets on the go. We also learned that the mixture of saltwater and fresh water in estuaries could provide for 13% of the world’s power needs, and we took an in-depth look at a cryogenic energy system that produces electricity from liquified air. Finally, we showcased photographer Mitch Epstein’s haunting photos of “American Power” which recently won the Prix Pictet prize. It was also an epic week for architecture as the Pritzker Prize – the world’s highest architecture honor – was awarded to Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura . We also saw a high-tech solar skyscraper with a mind-bending wavy facade rise in Seoul, and we shared 15 visions for skyscrapers of the future — from vertical farms to shipping container towers and oil rig cities. Finally, this week we saw a bright future dawn for green transportation as a team of students unveiled a hyper-modified electric Audi TT that is powered by solar energy. We also learned that the European Union is considering banning gas cars by 2050 , and we took a look at Microsoft’s new database that tells you the cheapest place to charge your EV. Last but not least, we brought you a 10-seater pedal-powered party bike , and we showcased a stylish LED-lit jacket designed to keep cyclists safe at night. Inhabitat’s Week in Green: Renewable art touches the sky, an electric Audi TT, and cryogenic energy originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Apr 2011 21:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On , a column about consumer technology. “Don’t throw the past away. You might need it some rainy day.” -Peter Allen, from the song “Everything Old Is New Again” During the late ’90s and early ’00s, the hype bubble grew large about a number of ideas that never reached critical mass. WebTV was going to democratize the Internet, but it devolved into a market niche after being acquired by Microsoft. WiFi providers such as MobileStar and later Cometa Networks hoped to build vast WiFi networks that would compete with cellular plans. Those bubbles popped back in the day, but curiously, companies are now willing to pump some energy back into them. The question is whether they are in any better position to float this time around. Continue reading Switched On: Techonciliation Switched On: Techonciliation originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Apr 2011 20:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Crucial’s M4 / C400 SSD reviewed, hitting store shelves in late April for an undisclosed sum
April 3, 2011 No Comment
When Micron’s RealSSD C300 came out, there were no competitors in sight — 355MB / sec read speeds and a SATA 6Gbps interface made for an unbelievably spritely (though also finicky ) solid state drive. Today, that’s simply not the case, as Intel’s SSD 510 and OCZ’s Vertex 3 are furiously fighting for the crown in the high-end consumer SSD space. On or about April 26th, the C300′s successor will hit the market branded as the Crucial M4 , but this time it won’t be the cream of the crop, as even though it’s assuredly a speed demon, it’s actually shown up by its predecessor in a few tests. In particular, AnandTech noted that the drive seems to have sacrificed sequential read performance in exchange for faster write speeds — and was worried slightly about Crucial’s delayed garbage collection routine — but overall, reviewers are coming away fairly happy with the speedy performance they’re seeing. Still, the most crucial variable, price, has yet to be revealed — over a year later, the C300 remains an expensive drive, but the new C400 uses Micron’s 25nm NAND flash , which could make solid state storage cheaper. Read – AnandTech Read – The Tech Report Read – Hardware Heaven Read – Tom’s Hardware Crucial’s M4 / C400 SSD reviewed, hitting store shelves in late April for an undisclosed sum originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 03 Apr 2011 18:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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