Netflix passes 20 million subscribers; focuses on ISP disputes, HBO, Facebook in Q4 results
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Netflix just released its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2010 and of no surprise to anyone who was paying attention last year it did quite well by passing 20 million subscribers, more than double its base at the start of 2009 . However, per Biggie’s Law mo money = mo problems, and it took the opportunity to respond, surprisingly sharply, to potential threats from its Hollywood content providers and the ISPs its Watch Instantly service streams over. News of note going into 2011? A huge focus on personalization including new integration with Facebook and a mention that Apple TV has already surpassed the iPad in viewing hours. It also showed off the one-click Netflix button on an unspecified (looks like Toshiba to us) remote and compared the “consternation” over its success to the rise of Fox as a broadcast network two decades ago. We’ll hop on the earnings call in a few minutes for more details, check after the break for more of the details. Continue reading Netflix passes 20 million subscribers; focuses on ISP disputes, HBO, Facebook in Q4 results Netflix passes 20 million subscribers; focuses on ISP disputes, HBO, Facebook in Q4 results originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Motorola Atrix 4G and Xoom tablet launching at the end of February, Droid Bionic and LTE Xoom in Q2
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Motorola had one of the best CES showings of any company in recent memory, and now we’ve got some rough ship dates for all that new gear: CEO Sanjay Jha just announced on the company’s earnings call that the Atrix 4G for AT&T and 3G Xoom for Verizon will arrive at “the end of February,” while the LTE-enabled Droid Bionic and LTE Xoom will arrive at “the end of the second quarter” as previously promised. That sounds good to us — and with that earlier Best Buy leak suggesting the Xoom will hit on February 17 , we’re hoping that Moto’s taking a long view of when the end of February actually begins. Even better, a late February Xoom release supports those rumors that Honeycomb will be generally released in March , which is when the real Android tablet invasion will begin. It’s all happening, folks. Update: Oh boy. Jha followed up his Xoom comments in the Q&A portion by hinting that the Xoom might slip to March, but that he’s very confident they’ll make their timeline. Fingers crossed. Motorola Atrix 4G and Xoom tablet launching at the end of February, Droid Bionic and LTE Xoom in Q2 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 17:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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So we’ve just installed Google’s first public-access preview of its tablet-focused Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system , an early build of the platform’s SDK that features “non-final” code and APIs; it’s intended primarily for developers who want to get a head start on making their tablet app dreams come true, but naturally, we needed to install it and take it for a test drive ourselves. Here are our quick observations: Like Android SDK emulators before it , Honeycomb’s is extremely slow — nearly to the point of uselessness in this case. We’ll give them a mulligan since this is a preview build, but seriously, we wouldn’t recommend installing this unless you enjoy pulling your hair out. There appears to be some sort of orientation bug that prevents us from going landscape, which is what we really wanted. Sorry about that! We’ve shot the video sideways and rotated all of our images; if we’re able to figure it out or a newer build is released with orientation properly working, we’ll update. The browser looks great — specifically the UI, which is going to make desktop browser users feel right at home perhaps more than any other tablet browsing experience to date. As with the rest of the emulator, it was too slow to really use — and it kept crashing on us — but we’re digging the look. The system for adding and managing widgets is a joy to use — it makes your entire desktop accessible from a single screen, and we like the amount of detail you can preview for each widget before deciding whether to use it and where to place it. In general, the window animations and screen transitions seem cool, but none were smooth or fast enough in the emulator to know for sure. Jury’s still out until this gets faster or we’re using Honeycomb on actual tablets. We’re not in love with the dim, squashed segmented display that Google is using for the time in the lower right; we’re hoping there are plenty of alternative fonts available. Since the emulator doesn’t provide a “Google experience” build with access to the Android Market, Gmail, or other “branded” Google apps, we weren’t able to deep-dive on how real-world applications are going to look on the platform — but with any luck, Motorola’s Xoom should be shipping within a few weeks. In the meantime, check out a video after the break! Update: We’ve figured out the orientation trick — you need to uncheck automatic orientation in Settings, then flip the emulator from landscape to portrait (counterintuitive, we know). We’ll be updating the media as soon as we can! Gallery: Android 3.0 Honeycomb preview emulator hands-on Continue reading Android 3.0 Honeycomb preview emulator hands-on Android 3.0 Honeycomb preview emulator hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Facebook may be developing, testing VoIP calls straight through its website
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Consider this a most speculative bit of news for now, but a few Facebookers have today been confronted by a new, heretofore unseen “Call” button when visiting their friends’ profiles. Mashing on that icon didn’t connect them and their buddies don’t seem to have received any alerts at all, but the fact remains that the world’s most popular website just did something a little bit different. The logical suspicion is that the Skype partnership that saw Facebook Connect infiltrate the web telephony service is now bearing fruit in the other direction with us seeing a bit of Skype functionality being built into the social network. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Facebook may be developing, testing VoIP calls straight through its website originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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After doing its best to lower expectations among those with Leaf pre-orders, Nissan is now doing all it can to ramp up production of the things. Just 3,000 cars total have been produced since October at the company’s factory outside of Tokyo, but by the end of March Nissan pledges to be pumping out that many each and every month. In 2012 a plant in Tennessee will come online and, in 2013, another new plant, this one in Sunderland, England. That means that if the company is going to meet its pledge of 25,000 Leafs (Leaves?) on the roads by the end of 2012 almost all will have to come from Japan — probably on one or more boats. Nissan ramping up Leaf production, trying to meet demand originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 16:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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We’ll be the first to admit that there’s not a lot of tech in use here — this is the story of a man using techniques that are hundreds of years old. Still, it’s a mesmerizing glimpse into the creation of art with a hugely useful purpose: glass eyes . The video below is a study of Jost Haas, a Londoner who shapes each orb by hand, said to be the last man in Britain who still manufactures them this way. It’s a 16mm film shot by Ben Todd and, if you like, you can consider this your five minutes and three seconds of zen for the day. Update : Loudmouthman was kind enough to share this link that contains another video of Mr. Haas in action plus some further information from one of the recipients of his work. Continue reading Visualized: the last glass eye maker in Britain Visualized: the last glass eye maker in Britain originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Acer’s been doing the dual-boot , Android / Windows thing on some of its netbooks for a little while now, but it looks to be branching out into a bit of new territory with its new Aspire One E100 model. It’s more or less the same as the D255 , but Acer is pitching this one directly at the education market, and it’s added some things like a special rubber coating and the potential for school branding — not to mention a slew of pre-installed education software — to make it a bit more attractive to schools and students alike. Otherwise, you can expect the usual 10.1-inch display, an unspecified Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and a promised eight hours of battery life. Acer debuts education-minded Aspire One E100 with Android and Windows originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Hack brings USB tethering to HTC Windows Phone 7 devices, Dell Venue Pro
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Cutting through the back and forth surrounding Windows Phone 7 tethering are two new hacks, with one being markedly easier than the other to implement. After discovering the option in Samsung’s Focus and Omnia 7 late last year, engineering minds over at xda-developers have now uncovered a method to allow USB internet tethering on HTC’s smattering of Windows Phone 7 handsets. Unfortunately, you’ll need to unlock your device before any of this will work, but the case is definitely different for Dell’s Venue Pro . For that one, you’ll simply need to modify the .INF file — no unlock required. Hit the links below for the devilish details, and try not to set up a P2P farm using your phone’s 3G connection. We hear carriers are none too fond of that foolhardiness. [Thanks, Lake] Hack brings USB tethering to HTC Windows Phone 7 devices, Dell Venue Pro originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It’s still going to be a little bit before you can get your hands on a Xoom , but if you’d like to start playing with the Honeycomb SDK right now — and hey, developers, we’d encourage you to do just that — Google’s now made it possible. A version of the Android 3.0 SDK billed as a “preview” is now available for download, featuring “non-final” APIs and system images that will help would-be Android tablet devs get their feet wet as they prepare for an inevitable onslaught of these things over the next few months. So go on, get it while the gettin’s good. Among the more delicious promises from Google are tablet-specific UI elements like “richer” widgets and notifications, a built-in GL renderer that permits GPU acceleration of both 2D and 3D visuals, and support for multicore processor architectures . Yay for making the most out of the available hardware. [Thanks, D] Android 3.0 Honeycomb SDK preview goes live originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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There’s a story going around today about an alleged problem in the power management unit affecting Motorola’s first two dual-core smartphones — AT&T’s Atrix 4G and Verizon’s Droid Bionic — that leads to a hodgepodge of issues: overheating, weird RF fluctuation, the list goes on. Sounds like a tragedy in the making, doesn’t it? Worst yet, the PMU problem is said to be a “major unfixable flaw that will plaque [sic] it forever.” Bummer! But let’s back up and consider the facts here. First, as best we can tell, the sources are two posters in a HowardForums thread, one of which doesn’t even have the information firsthand — he was allegedly given the news “by someone who is testing the devices.” Furthermore, there’s really no such thing as an “unfixable” bug; you might need to peel away several layers of software and hardware to fix an issue depending on how fundamental the flaw turns out to be, but engineers have proven time and time again that “unfixable” isn’t really in their vocabulary ( white paint aside , of course). Continue reading Editorial: bugs on unreleased phones don’t matter Editorial: bugs on unreleased phones don’t matter originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 14:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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