Non Geek-Speak Tech News and Reviews
So… You wanna be in movies? A lot of people do. And as movie making moves beyond Hollywood and the traditional big studios, there’s work out there around the country on location, for extras and all sorts of production helpers. If show business is calling you, realize it’s who you know that counts. This week, [...]
It’s the height of summer and the height of the outdoor sports season. Bikers, Hikers, Runners and Walkers are everywhere and thanks to technology and smartphones, they are finding new routes, training buddies and activities. There’s a network of websites that take outdoor connectivity to a whole new level. If you’ve been following the Tour [...]
It was quite the rage just a few years ago when our mobile phones could also take photos. Then came video. And now, with the new iPhone 4 and a special $4.99 app, you can actually make fairly sophisticated home movie right on a phone that fits in the palm of your hand. Released with [...]
Is this the new norm for hot high tech gizmos? Apple’s iPhone 4, despite the issues, is hard to get. Expect a wait to get one. The iPad is so popular it’s hard to know when a new one can be had. And now Verizon’s new Droid X smartphone can’t be found in stock anywhere [...]
So Steve Jobs is irritated about the bad press his iPhone 4 is getting for the design that causes the antenna to denigrate the wireless signal when the phone is held a certain way? That’s what he complained about in his press conference called to address the massive fallout over the iPhone 4. Steve, trust [...]
There were lines outside some Verizon stores today as must-have-it-first shoppers showed up early to get the new Motorola Droid X, the most advanced smartphone yet to run the Android operating system. And for Motorola and Verizon, the introduction of the big screen, 8 megapixel, feature loaded X could not come at a better time, [...]
PC World – Samsung Electronics on Friday reported a record high operating profit for the second quarter, driven by strong sales of memory chips and LCDs, but it warned that stiff competition in consumer electronics means it may not be able to maintain profitability at current levels.
Macworld.com – CodeWeavers, makers of utilities that bridge the software chasm between Windows and the Mac, has released major updates for two of its flagship products: CrossOver Mac and CrossOver Games.
Reuters – Microsoft Corp set out its ambitions to dominate the consumer electronics market on Thursday with Windows-powered tablet computers and smartphones designed to beat back advances by Apple Inc and Google Inc.
Amazon has released an update to its Kindle app for the iPhone and iPad. Version 2.2 adds a variety of new features, such as instant word lookup that quickly finds definitions for highlighted words. The included dictionary provides over 250,000 entries and definitions, however users can also choose to look up content on Google or Wikipedia…. Amazon Kindle – Google – iPhone – IPad – Wikipedia
Intel on Thursday landed a crucial victory in a private lawsuit that accused it of unfair pricing sub. required.
Bell this evening became the second Canadian carrier to detail its iPhone 4 pricing and confirmed many of the details leaked out a day earlier. The provider is matching Rogers’ efforts and will have its own 6GB smartphone data plan for $30, again only available until September 30.
We know you’ve got questions, and if you’re brave enough to ask the world for answers, here’s the outlet to do so. This week’s Ask Engadget question is coming to us from Ryan, who reckons it’s about time he stopped playing with Lego blocks and began playing with a real man’s robot platform. Just kidding about the Lego bit.
It’s really no surprise that Redbox is going nationwide with its $1.50 Blu-ray rentals , at every step along the way of its Hollwood dealmaking, the company has pointed out its aim towards procuring a supply of high definition movies, and now the day is finally here. The high definition disc packing kiosks currently number 13,300, and the plan is to have Blu-ray in all 26,000 locations by the fall. While we spotted plenty of Blu-ray enabled locations with a San Francisco zip code, other areas in the Midwest and East Coast weren’t so lucky. The site points out a few of the movies on offer, including Green Zone, Book of Eli and Bounty Hunter, but there’s no way to check which movies are in stock at each box . Of course, at this price, we might be willing to take our chances until Redbox gets things straightened out, or starts offering an online competitor to Netflix
You might remember that an LTE modem for Verizon passed FCC muster not long ago — now, it seems we’re getting our first glimpse of it. As is usually the case with these early devices on next-gen networks, this USB stick doesn’t look quite as svelte as we’d probably like it to be, but we have little doubt that they’ll get progressively thinner and sexier over the course of a year or three.
If you’ve ever been snickering over the latest YouTube viral video on your smartphone in the evening and ended up frustrated by slow load times and a congested network, you’re not alone — and that’s exactly the problem. New research from mobile web optimization firm Bytemobile shows that more and more of us are making demands of our devices, our mobile carriers, and video-hosting sites such as YouTube by consuming large amounts of video content on our phones. Our video consumption tends to peak around 10 p.m., at which point bandwidth takes a nosedive and stalling cripples our viewing experience.
We’ve been reading reports tonight that the popular European music service Spotify has hit yet another delay in making an entry in the U.S. market. According to Billboard, Spotify’s negotiations with U.S. record labels have broken down and are “back to square one.” Apparently, the startup is still aiming for a 2010/early 2011 U.S.
Google has indicated it’s going to be working with developers on checkins for location-based applications through its Places API. This spring, Google announced Places as a revamping of its local and local-business listings. Originally, we saw Places as a SEM/user review mechanism, perhaps a Yelp competitor. However, with the recent preview of the Google Places API at Google I/O , the company showed developers a whole world of geographical, commercial and social information attached to each Place on its vast radar. In a May blog post, Maps API Product Manager Thor Mitchell wrote , “Each Place Page consolidates together everything we know about a single Place, be it a business, point of interest, or geographical feature such as a city or neighbourhood
It seems like a no-brainer, but at this point Microsoft has yet to confirm a separate 250GB HDD for its new Xbox 360 consoles — and really, if you’re picking up the 4GB model next month , that might come in handy. Newer press shots show a different side of the packaging, however, and if you get a high-res snapshot, you can see that it’s touting the various accessories you can buy to enhance your new Xbox 360 4GB experience: wireless controllers, Kinect, and… a 250GB HDD. Now, it could very well be misleading advertising — such a disc drive already exists, but you have to buy the current slimmed-down model or Halo Reach special edition bundle to get it. Somehow, though, we get the feeling this HDD is destined to be wrapped in separate packaging all by its lonesome — Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg even insinuated as much not two weeks ago.
According to several reports and data from Google, the search engine is fully blocked in mainland China as of today. Also fully blocked are ads and mobile access. Image search is partially blocked, as are Google Docs, Google News and Google Groups. Other sites and apps that were previously and remain blocked include YouTube, search suggestions, Google Sites, Blogger and Picasa. Google and China have been at odds since at least the beginning of this year, when a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack” was conducted on Google’s corporate infrastructure; the attack originated in China
According to several reports and data from Google, the search engine is fully blocked in mainland China as of today. Also fully blocked are ads and mobile access. Image search is partially blocked, as are Google Docs, Google News and Google Groups
It’s hard out there for a prez, you know? Hardly anyone knows better than one Barack Obama, who sat down this morning on ABC’s The View in order to talk smack with a few ladies who undoubtedly helped put him in office. If you’ll recall, Obama fought hard early on for the privilege of maintaining his prized BlackBerry , and while he eventually won out, we learned today that a grand total of ten individuals are authorized to ping it
Airprobe software, combined with hardware and crypto cracker tool, allows people to test the snoop factor of their GSM mobile phones–and even intercept calls of others.
AFP – The latest Apple iPhone went on sale in several countries Friday, but although New Zealand was listed to be among them the gadget was mysteriously unavailable.
Poor guy can’t catch a break . Talking to analysts today about the world of tablets, Steve Ballmer put on a brave face about his lack of a strong competitor to the iPad, saying of Windows 7 products in the works with third parties: “They’ll be shipping as soon as they are ready.” Unfortunately, Apple’s iPad looms large, with Ballmer stating that “they’ve sold certainly more than I’d like them to have sold.” Perhaps more revelatory, Steve likened the tablet challenge to the situation Microsoft faced when the netbook started out as a Linux product, mentioning that part of their chore is “tuning Windows 7,” in addition to working with hardware partners.
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