Creaky or cracking hinge up in your Alienware lappy? Its days are numbered — though exactly what that number is remains to be seen. Dell Forum Liaison Chris Mixon posted that the company is working on getting a hinge replacement program going for the M11x laptop with “an ETA around March,” but cautions that start date is “dependent on a 3rd party vendor and other details so it is not concrete.” In other words, April or May might not be a bad month to keep in mind if you hate being disappointed, but know that the hinges will be repaired regardless of when your warranty expires. So, hopefully no fears for disappointment there. [Thanks, Esteef] Dell to begin fixing busted M11x in March — or thereabouts originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …NYC crowns Rachel Sterne as Chief Digital Officer, we question her analog existence
January 26, 2011 No Comment
CEO, COO, CIO, CFO — all TLAs that most folks would be proud to see blooming on their business cards. Get ready for a new one. It’s CDO, Chief Digital Officer, a position recently created in New York City and now occupied by one Rachel Sterne. She’s something of a social media maven and is the founder of GroundReport, an aggregator of user-created news stories. She’ll now be tasked with improving the city’s ability to leverage social networks and the internet as a whole to communicate with its residents. We’re not sure if this will actually entail the digitization of Rachel herself, but we’re wondering if maybe that’s already been taken care of . See for yourself after the break. [Image credit: meyers ] Continue reading NYC crowns Rachel Sterne as Chief Digital Officer, we question her analog existence NYC crowns Rachel Sterne as Chief Digital Officer, we question her analog existence originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Wondering where your HP Slate has been all these weeks since you ordered it? Well, at least one of those precious Windows 7 tablets has taken a little detour from its supposedly enterprise-centric destiny to make a cameo appearance… as a dashboard infotainment system. HP, in its inimitable wisdom, has decided to grace the opening of its Vancouver store last month with a customized GMC Yukon Denali truck, which is where we find the company’s Slate casually showing off its Acrobat Reader and other big boy OS advantages. We wouldn’t really say embedding the Slate into your dash is the worst idea in the world, though the rest of the characterful customizations to this Denali just might be. [Thanks, lmwong] Continue reading Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Samsung takes aim at Apple’s notebook crown, projects 60 percent increase in laptop sales in 2011
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Samsung has sought to take market share from all manner of iProducts over the years , and it seems the company is now shooting to steal Apple’s MacBook thunder in 2011. Sammy sold ten million laptops in 2010 — only 150,000 less than Jobs & Co. through the first nine months of the year — and purportedly plans to move between sixteen and seventeen million portable machines in 2011. That is a massive increase in sales, but if the Korean company’s 9 Series is an indication of what’s to come, we can’t say it’s a completely unrealistic goal. Whether they move more product than Apple is still to be determined, but given its record Q4 earnings , there’s no indication that the Cupertino crowd will be slowing down any time soon. Game on, fellas. Samsung takes aim at Apple’s notebook crown, projects 60 percent increase in laptop sales in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …AMD Radeon HD 6990 shows up in its metallic flesh, looking larger than life
January 26, 2011 No Comment
What does the next great superpower of desktop graphics look like? Well, it shares an unmistakable family resemblance to the current champ , but its dimensions have somehow been made even larger. Yes, we’re talking about AMD’s Radeon HD 6990 — a dual-GPU monstrosity that’s set to serve as the company’s 2011 flagship — which has just been shown off at an Asia Pacific Fusion Tech Day gathering. Aside from the crazy imagery (one more after the break and a gallery at the source), we’ve found a promise that this polygon deliverator will be available in late Q1 2011. Which gives us just enough time to rent out a room big enough to house it. Now, when’s Crysis 2 coming out? [Thanks, Christopher] Continue reading AMD Radeon HD 6990 shows up in its metallic flesh, looking larger than life AMD Radeon HD 6990 shows up in its metallic flesh, looking larger than life originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 07:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Google ‘not happy’ with Android Market purchase rates, many changes coming
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Having a Market full of apps is a very good thing for owners of Android handsets, but those owners buying few premium apps is a bad thing for developers who keep that Market full. That, of course, is also bad news for Google, which is make a variety of changes to appease devs, some of which Android Platform Manager Eric Chu outlined at the Inside Social Apps conference yesterday. After already nuking the 24 hour trial period Google is now working on an in-app payment system, which would enable the direct-selling of add-ons, costumes, and enough other bits and bobs to ensure you’ll never buy a fully-featured app again. Google is also negotiating with more carriers to allow users to have app purchases appear on their bill, rather than using a separate payment system, as is already possible on AT&T. Finally, a team of honest to gosh humans is working on helping to weed out apps that violate the company’s terms of service, sifting through the Market to find bogus downloads. We wonder if they’ll also be looking for free apps that quite capably provide the functionality of premium ones. Those, it seems, are the greatest threat to the paid apps — and perhaps the greatest asset of the Market itself. Google ‘not happy’ with Android Market purchase rates, many changes coming originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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There’s no question that AMD’s new Fusion Zacate platform is pretty killer when it comes to ultraportables or notbooks (as we like to call ‘em), but there’s no reason the affordable, solid-performing APU couldn’t power a budget 15.6-inch system, right? Well, that’s certainly the way a few laptop manufacturers see it. Following in the footsteps of Toshiba’s Satellite C655D , MSI’s decided to cram its 15.6-inch CR650 with AMD’s latest Fusion APU. Equipped with a Zacate E-350 CPU with Radeon HD 6310 graphics on the same die (the same chip in the HP dm1 we just reviewed) , there’s no doubt the rig can handle full HD and light games without a hiccup. We’re not exactly drooling over the design, but it does have the basics, including a DVD drive, six-cell battery, HD webcam, and speakers that claim superior SRS sound. It will also be configurable with 250, 320, or 500GB hard drive and DDR3 RAM. There’s no word on the price just yet, but our guess it should ring up at under $600 when it finally hits shelves. MSI CR650 scores an AMD E-350 Zacate APU originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 06:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Vint Cerf on IPv4 depletion: ‘Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?’
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Father of the internet, Vint Cerf , is taking one on the knuckles this week for the inevitable diminution of the world’s IPv4 addresses. Last Friday, The Sydney Morning Herald ran a sensational story titled, “Internet Armageddon all my fault: Google chief,” in which Cerf warned of an end to unique IP addresses “within weeks.” The story was, of course, a bit tongue-in-cheek, considering the industry has long anticipated and prepared for said Armageddon. Back in 1977, Cerf led a team of DARPA researchers in creating IPv4, which limits IP addresses to four 8-bit numbers or 32-bits total, providing for 4.3 billion addresses: not nearly enough by today’s standards. In the article, Cerf said he never expected his protocol to take off, adding, “Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?” The IPv4′s successor, IPv6, which enlists four 32-bit numbers or 128 bits total, was developed soon after Cerf’s protocol and is now getting attention from internet giants like Google and Facebook, who will launch World IPv6 Day this June. Considering IPv6 makes for 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 unique addresses, we probably won’t be hearing of an IP apocalypse anytime soon. Vint Cerf on IPv4 depletion: ‘Who the hell knew how much address space we needed?’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Apple’s ‘PC’ shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats
January 26, 2011 No Comment
Canalys is a pretty well respected global stat-keeper and now it seems to be relying on that reputation to push through a pretty controversial message: tablets, such as Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab, are PCs . “Accept new market realities,” urges its polemic press release, before laying out global quarterly shipments that peg Apple as the world’s third most prolific PC vendor (without tablets, Apple doens’t even break the top 5 according to IDC and Gartner ). The company that was laboring with a mere 3.8 percent market share in 2009 has shot up to 10.8 with the aid of its 10-inch touchscreen device. Canalys’ stance will inevitably be controversial, but then it’s kind of hard to deny that machines like Samsung’s Sliding PC and ASUS’ Eee Slate make the distinguishing lines between tablets and netbooks look like a particularly technical form of bokeh. Continue reading Apple’s ‘PC’ shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats Apple’s ‘PC’ shipments grow by 241 percent in iPad-inclusive Canalys stats originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 05:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …XCM’s F-1 Converter lets XBox 360 players get behind G25, G27 racing wheels (video)
January 26, 2011 No Comment
We’ve never been shy about our affection for Logitech’s G25 and G27 steering wheels, and now we can share our love with our friends of the Xbox 360 persuasion. With the brand new F-1 converter from XCM , die hard Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 Slim fans can get behind the same wheels we’ve been behind since 2006 . If that wasn’t reward enough, the F-1 also sports a built-in combo-attack memory function for fighting games, and rumble support is baked in for good measure. So go ahead, ye of the XBox 360 ilk, plug her in, caress the contours of her beautiful leather-wrapped curves, feel the way she kicks — we’ll try not to get jealous. Video game voyeurs can check out the F-1 in action after the jump. [Thanks, Roadography] Continue reading XCM’s F-1 Converter lets XBox 360 players get behind G25, G27 racing wheels (video) XCM’s F-1 Converter lets XBox 360 players get behind G25, G27 racing wheels (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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