Trust us — no one on the Engadget staff wants to know what their blood pressure is right about now. For those trapped in the hurricane that is CES , there’s probably no better product to have laying around than this… but only if you’re looking to confirm your suspicions about being in a high-stress career. Withings, the company best known for its connected scales , has just revealed the planet’s first iPhone-connected blood pressure monitor, with an aim to make measuring vitals as easy as pie for iOS users. The idea is fairly simple: just plug the arm band into your iPad, iPod touch or iPhone, dial up the gratis app and start the process. All of the data is logged on the user’s secure online space, and there’s even a secure sharing feature that’ll beam your abnormally high rates right to your frightened physician. It’ll go on sale tomorrow around the globe, with the asking price set at $129 / €129. Continue reading Withings fittingly debuts iPhone-connected blood pressure monitor at CES Withings fittingly debuts iPhone-connected blood pressure monitor at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 20:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Sadly, no, we still haven’t seen a gadget that lets your smartphone drive. Maybe next year, but this year it’s the BHF-2000 letting your smartphone talk while you drive. It’s the latest TalkNDrive, a lineup that specializes in advanced hands-free kits, and the BHF-2000 is the furthest ahead of the bunch. Like the others it uses Bluetooth to connect to your phone and then voice-to-text to read e-mails or SMS messages to you and accepts simple voice commands, but this one also accepts simple hand gestures, so you can silence playback by making the classic “talk to the hand” gesture, and it has a solar panel so that it can try to stay charged while clipped to your visor. Naturally it will let you take calls, just like the lesser-expensive 700 and 800 also on display — but they’ll just ignore your hand waving. Finally there’s the KlaT 7, a little wireless remote control that can clip on your dash, if you still need buttons. Gallery: TalkNDrive DriveNTalk BHF-2000 lets you drive while your smartphone talks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Keepin’ it real fake: ‘iPad phone’ is the answer to a question no one asked (video)
January 4, 2011 No Comment
The D-Pad and E-Pad are two pint-sized cellphones that are reminiscent of the iPad, except they are telephones, they are much smaller, and they are totally different. Featuring a 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen, 2.5mm headphone jack, 0.3 megapixel front-facing camera and 2 megapixel rear camera with LED flash, you don’t even have to get to the dual SIMs, telescoping antenna, or the CMMB mobile TV tuner before you realize this is all Shenzhen , and very little Cupertino. Available now in either pink or white for 550 Chinese yuan (about $70). Get a closer look — and some video to boot — after the break. Continue reading Keepin’ it real fake: ‘iPad phone’ is the answer to a question no one asked (video) Keepin’ it real fake: ‘iPad phone’ is the answer to a question no one asked (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Griffin gets an iPhone all up in your car’s OBD-II port with the CarTrip Bluetooth adapter
January 4, 2011 No Comment
If you’re not a car person there’s a good chance you don’t know much about the OBD-II lurking mysteriously beneath your dash. It’s there — if your car was built since the first Bush administration, anyway. Usually its needs go unfulfilled until your check-engine light pops on and some mechanic with greasy paws clumsily stuffs a code checker in there, but more and more tools are coming out to change that. The Autobot Mavia is one, and now Griffin is doing similar with the CarTrip. It’s an OBD-II adapter that connects wirelessly to an iOS device or writes directly to SD card, storing information on information related to car mileage, even giving you a real-time efficiency readout on your display with the CleanDrive app. And, yes, it’ll even pull warning codes and the like if things aren’t quite running how they should. All that for $89.99, a fair bit less than the Mavia will potentially be and available sooner — sometime before the first quarter is through. Griffin gets an iPhone all up in your car’s OBD-II port with the CarTrip Bluetooth adapter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive wrapped in Full Metal Jacket, probably tougher than you
January 4, 2011 No Comment
With a name like ioSafe , you know it’s hardcore. The company has made a name for itself by concocting products that can outlast minor disasters , and per usual, it’s using CES as a springboard for something else that you probably can’t destroy. This year, the Rugged Portable is on display, arriving in a pair of enclosure options and offering a bundled data recovery service to boot. The unit is quite literally wrapped in metal — the aluminum option can withstand up to 2,500 pounds of force, while the titanium shell doubles that up and shrugs its shoulders at up to 5,000 pounds. It’s also immune to submersion — your data remains safe in up to ten feet of salt water for as long as 72 hours, and it’ll still come out unscathed when dipped in oil and other toxins. Naturally, the HDD or SSD within (your call there) is covered by suspension springs, and the USB 3.0 interface ensures that you won’t be waiting around in the jungle for things to transfer. Those who snap one up will get one year of data recovery service included, a one-year ‘No Hassle’ warranty and up to $5000 for “third party forensic recovery services” if needed. Time Machine owners will be happy to know that this drive is fully compatible with the service, and you’ll be able to select HDDs from 250GB to 1TB or SSDs from 256GB to 512GB. As for prices? $149.99 for the stock 250GB HDD aluminum version, $3,899.99 for the 512GB SSD titanium build with an extended warranty, and everywhere in between. It’s up for pre-order today and should ship later this month in the US, with global availability details to follow in due time. Continue reading ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive wrapped in Full Metal Jacket, probably tougher than you ioSafe Rugged Portable hard drive wrapped in Full Metal Jacket, probably tougher than you originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Windows Phone 7 ‘NoDo’ update hitting phones in early February, ‘Mango’ coming later with IE9?
January 4, 2011 No Comment
Word on the street from Microsoft savant Paul Thurrott is that Windows Phone 7′s first update might go gold as early as this week — in time for Ballmer’s CES keynote, in fact, which means he might give it a mention and / or spend a few minutes showing it off. It’s said to be codenamed “NoDo,” short for “No Donuts” — a pretty obscure (and odd) reference to the fact that Redmond doesn’t want to release incremental, minor updates like Google did with Android 1.6 Donut . We’re not sure why they’d bother taking a swipe at an Android build that happened… oh, four versions ago, but Microsoft works in mysterious ways. Anyhow, it’ll apparently add copy / paste, CDMA location support (which might be the only thing holding up Verizon and Sprint from launching at this point), support for additional Qualcomm chipsets, and miscellaneous bug fixes. Moving on, Thurrott says that the rumored Mango update isn’t the next update after NoDo, but it’s real — and it’s big. It’ll add Internet Explorer 9 with HTML 5 and Silverlight support, but notably, its code line is being referred to internally as the “entertainment branch,” so there might be some other magic in store. Current version numbers for Mango are in the 7.2 range, but builds are in the 7500 range, suggesting Windows Phone 7.5 branding is a possibility. An exciting 2011 for Microsoft on the mobile side? Looks like, Windows Phone 7 ‘NoDo’ update hitting phones in early February, ‘Mango’ coming later with IE9? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
Continue reading …Oregon Scientific’s Touch Weather Series tells the temperature, doesn’t break the bank
January 4, 2011 No Comment
“Oregon Scientific” and “home weather station” kind of go hand in hand, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the company’s unleashing a new three-pack of colorful weather units here at CES this week. Starting on the left, the $24.99 model displays indoor temperature along with up to three channels of outdoor temps; it also includes a clock and calendar with alarm, which makes it a serviceable bedside clock if you’re really into the weather. Moving upmarket a tad, the $39.99 Touch Weather Thermometer with Humidity (pictured center) is exactly that: the aforementioned temperature features plus a daily min / max display and both indoor and outdoor humidity stats. Finally, the $49.99 Touch Advanced Weather Station (right) adds a 12-hour weather forecast along with 24 hours’ worth of historical barometric data. All are powered by a pair of AA batteries and have touchscreen control — hence the names, we imagine. Oregon Scientific’s Touch Weather Series tells the temperature, doesn’t break the bank originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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What’s “bringing excitement back into personal computing” more than anything else? According to Micron , it’s SSDs , and it says it’s now “accelerating this enthusiasm” with its new RealSSD C400 drives. Those are apparently the industry’s first drives to use 25 nanometer NAND technology, which naturally brings with it a number of benefits — namely, storage capacities from 64GB to 512MB (in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch sizes), peak read speeds of 415 MB/second, and write speeds varying by drive (the 512GB hits 260MB/s). No word on prices just yet, but Micron expects mass production to begin in February, and the drives will also sold by Micron’s Crucial division as the m4 SSD in the first quarter of the year. Continue reading Micron debuts RealSSD C400 drives using 25 nm NAND technology Micron debuts RealSSD C400 drives using 25 nm NAND technology originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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It’s not the first time that Samsung’s pimped up their hard drives with some USB 3.0 goodness, but come April, the Korean giant will be delivering three new product lines that are yet to be named. The first one is a basic portable model that goes up to 1TB, and comes encased in a smudge-resistant matte housing with a choice of four colors. The next one up is simply a premium version of the portable drive that not only looks prettier (as pictured above), but also beefed up with auto backup software and 256-bit Full Disk Encryption. A USB dock will be available for both portable lines. Last but not least, those looking for more storage space (and presumably faster spinning speeds) can turn to the desktop version, which will be available in three flavors: 1TB, 1.5TB, and 2TB. Press release after the break. Gallery: Samsung spices up the USB 3.0 hard drive party with three new models Continue reading Samsung spices up the USB 3.0 hard drive party with three new models Samsung spices up the USB 3.0 hard drive party with three new models originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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LG is busily preparing its CES presentation area right now, where the well known Optimus 2X is being joined by a pair of intriguing new devices, the Revolution you see above, an LTE-connected handset that seems destined to ride Verizon’s minty fresh 4G network , and an Optimus Black (pictured after the break). The latter handset promises the “power of light” housed within an “innovatively slim smartphone with the best display clarity.” Both the allusions to slimness — we’ve found specs listing it as a 9.2mm-thick device with a 4-inch screen — and display prowess match up to the LG “B” device we’ve seen leak out previously, which LG itself promised will be launching at CES. Other details include Wi-Fi Direct certification and the world’s first two megapixel front-facing camera. It’s gonna be a fun week, to be sure. Gallery: LG Optimus Black and LTE-equipped Revolution coming to CES Continue reading LG Optimus Black and LTE-equipped Revolution coming to CES LG Optimus Black and LTE-equipped Revolution coming to CES originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 18:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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