The last time Konami released a Vandal Hearts game was over a decade ago, so fans of the RTS series have been understandably curious about the recently-released Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment. The game, available for download on Xbox LIVE and PSN, serves as a prequel to its PSOne predecessors, but it only manages to revive the series with a middling amount of success.

Like previous games in the series, Flames of Judgment won't exactly wow anyone with its story. Following an epic war between Balastrade and Urdu, players start out controlling war orphan Tobias as he defends his academy from unidentified invaders. Tobias then sets off to explore the world, figure out who's trying to destroy it, and gather some friends along the way. Like much of the game, the story is a reliable standard for the genre, but it doesn't actually feel fresh.

There's a definite cartoon-like quality to many of the environments and character designs, but the problem is that this style doesn't quite mesh with the game's graphics engine. This is because the graphics look like they belong on the last generation of consoles. The result is just weird and somewhat off-putting.  That said, the game's voice-acting, music, and sound effects are all well-done; the voice-acting in particular stands out against the weird imagery.

While gameplay is generic overall, there is a nice character-development mechanic. In order to develop skills, you need to have your characters perform the abilities you want them to improve in: if you want to make a warrior, arm it with a weapon and have it fight more; spellcasting skills will improve the more a character uses magic. However, main party characters all have significant boosts in certain skill areas, so it makes sense to simply follow the predetermined character development path the game sets forth. 

Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment is one of those titles that feels like it was created for fans of the turn-based strategy genre. If you love turn-based strategy, you could do far worse, but anyone looking for a long-lasting strategy game with original play mechanics might want to consider downloading the demo first.

Verdict: Download the demo

Soap is dead. Never stood a chance, really. It had a good run, but the age of washing our hands in plasma-gas filled boxes has finally dawned.

As the NY TImes has it, several laboratories are working on the technology, which bathes your hand in room-temperature plasma gas to kill even industrial grade bacteria like MRSA. Or your foot, to knock down athlete's foot.

It's got a clear and present destiny in hospital use, where doctors and nurses could kill off lingering bacteria, viruses, and fungi in as little as four seconds—as opposed to the time-intensive scrubbing process they endure today.

Prototypes exist today that are both portable and wall-mounted, and they can cost as little as $100 to build. And it won't stop at just hand sanitizers: eventually you may see plasma gas incorporated into air-conditioning systems and burn treatments.

It's been real, soap. I'll remember you fondly in those four seconds while I'm washing up before dinner. [NY Times via DVice]

Not quite sure if you've heard, but Microsoft launched a new mobile operating system today. Crazy, right? Unfortunately, it'll be a few weeks seasons still before you can actually wrap your palms around an actual Windows Phone 7 Series device, but the folks over at MSDN aren't holding back. They've hosted up a 22 minute video walkthrough to explain every nook and crannie of the fresh OS, and if you're one of those "impatient" types, you owe it to yourself to hit the source link and mash play. Grab a beverage first, though.

[Thanks, Nathan]

Microsoft offers up lengthy Windows Phone 7 Series video walkthrough originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Have you ever heard of Lumigon? Me neither. Apparently they're a Danish company who've spent two years working on these three ultra-stylish Android phones. You can tell they're European, right? Though saying that, Nokia is European too...

The three T1, S1 and E1 models all run Android 2.1, and have TFT capacitive touchscreens, A-GPS, 720p over HDMI output, and Freescale i.MX51 processors. It sounds like they'll also have a Lumigon-developed skin over the top of Android, "to give the user even more user-friendliness," they claim. Mm-hmm.

While full specs haven't been offered by Lumigon yet, the phones will be able to be used as universal remotes and pair up with Lumigon's Bluetooth keyboard. The touchscreen candybar T1 will go on sale in the next couple of months, with the T9 slider S1 a month or two later, and the E1 later this year, featuring a "unique navigation system and a shape never experience in mobile phones." [Lumigon via Engadget]

The Astonishing Tribe, the design firm that more or less defined the look and feel of Android the first time around, has built an entirely new homescreen interface for the OS, in 3D. It's alternately beautiful, gratuitous and bizarre.

What you're seeing in the video is a recording of a live demo; TAT Home is a real piece of software, and one that I've seen in action on a handset before the concept was made public. My feeling now is the same as it was then: There's a lot of eye candy here, and some concepts that could definitely stick—I'm thinking about the homescreen switcher, in particular—though a lot of the widgets and concepts go a little overboard. What's exciting whether you like the UI concept or now, though, is how close it shows we are to full 3D cellphone interfaces, and how well current hardware could run them.

TAT Home could end up as a standalone app, though I'd expect most of the adoption to come through carrier or handset maker partnerships; none have been announced yet, but don't be surprised if it hit the market under a different name, with a slightly different look. [TAT]

The new, 3G-compatible SlingPlayer Mobile is now available on the App Store. After what seems like an infinite wait, Sling users can finally stream video over AT&T's network.

Read More: App Store, Ars past coverage

I'm going to need someone to prop up my iPad while I play Xbox on my phone and drink coffee, so we need some more interns in New York City.

But this time, we're looking for a few different kinds of interns. Four different kinds, to be precise:

Writing Intern: Your main task will be writing posts, but with a secondary focus on all the other intern duties as outlined here.

Promotion Intern: Great for people who like to talk to other people. You'll be promoting our stories on Digg, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. You should know how to angle stories a certain way, and be familiar with social networks as well as other major sites. When I say familiar, I mean you should read them and know what kind of stories they're apt to post.

Research Intern: You should be good at pulling together multiple forms of information from multiple sources for our editors. This includes online and offline sources and even calling up people to arrange (and possibly conduct) interviews. Mostly, you should have a good grasp of technology and be able to locate and dissect information fast.

Copyediting Intern: English. You should know it. And you should be able to recognize when we screw up. You'll be going through our posts as a copyeditor, fixing typos and correcting our grammar. If you're already doing this in your spare time (for free), you'll love this position.

All of these internship positions will still have the primary task of finding stories for us—so think of this as your secondary superpower—as outlined here. Look that over (click the link and read it first!) and see if you're qualified.

If you think you're suited for one of those four positions (choose one only, please), send an email to jobs@gizmodo.com with the subject "NY Writing Intern" or "NY Promotion Intern" or "NY Research Intern" or "NY Copyediting Intern"—whichever one fits you the best. No attachments. No. Attachments.

Remember, it's full time, you need your own laptop, and you need to be able to get to Manhattan daily.

Good luck!

P.S. If you email me directly, and not jobs@gizmodo.com, you're automatically fired.

Continue reading Motorola Quench hands-on with video

Motorola Quench hands-on with video originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the Super Bowl just concluded and baseball's spring training only weeks away, a question occurred to us: whatever happened to the push for copyright holders to tone down their copyright notices?

We hear and see the warnings whenever a football or baseball game is televised, whenever we read books, whenever we watch a movie. These are the sort of warnings that make claims like, "Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL's consent is prohibited," despite the apparent wrongheadedness of the statement.

Should copyright holders be held more accountable for inaccurate warnings? In 2007, two different efforts to provoke change on the issue tried to force the issue. Both ended without success, even as courts have cracked down on some of the worst copyright overreaching by the leagues.

Two years after Opera first attempted to get their browser on the iPhone, and it's here. Sort of. Wired UK has seen it, gushed over it, and proclaimed it as being fast, yet missing that all-important pinch-to-zoom.

Instead, users have to adopt the double-tap method to zoom in on webpages, which will be a sore point for iPhone owners I'm sure—although Wired says "we didn't find ourselves missing the feature at all."

"Scrolling through webpages is silky smooth, with nary a glitch or stutter regardless of the size of the page. The interface is instantaneously responsive as well, just as you'd expect from the iPhone."

Unlike Opera on other platforms, such as Symbian, the iPhone version actually remembers which website you were browsing last—it's not news to non-Opera users, but the legion of fans will obviously want that feature incorporated on their phones.

While the hands-on experience seems to be overwhelmingly positive, they do acknowledge that there's a good chance Apple will never allow it onto the App Store. It's seen as a competitor to Safari, yet Opera told Wired "we are confident that Opera Mini will meet the requirements," due to issues with their compression technology not rendering "rich, content-heavy documents like Safari does," and because it doesn't render HTML, instead using "a custom binary representation of the website."

It sounds like they're saying it could co-exist quite comfortably with Safari on the iPhone, with the user choosing between the two based on what site they want to visit. Until Apple actually allows Opera onto their handset though, this is just the stuff of dreams sadly. [Wired UK]

Forget everything you know about Windows Mobile. Seriously, throw the whole OS concept in a garbage bin or incinerator or something. Microsoft has done what would have been unthinkable for the company just a few years ago: started from scratch. At least, that's how things look (and feel) with Windows Phone 7 Series. This really is a completely new OS -- and not just Microsoft's new OS, it's a new smartphone OS, like webOS new, like iPhone OS new. You haven't used an interface like this before (well, okay, if you've used a Zune HD then you've kind of used an interface like this). Still, 7 Series goes wider and deeper than the Zune by a longshot, and it's got some pretty intense ideas about how you're supposed to be interacting with a mobile device. We had a chance to go hands-on with the dev phone before today's announcement, and hear from some of the people behind the devices, and here's our takeaway. (And don't worry, we've got loads of pictures and video coming, so keep checking this post for the freshest updates).

First the look and feel. The phones are really secondary here, and we want to focus on the interface. The design and layout of 7 Series' UI (internally called Metro) is really quite original, utilizing what one of the designers (Albert Shum, formerly of Nike) calls an "authentically digital" and "chromeless" experience. What does that mean? Well we can tell you what it doesn't mean -- no shaded icons, no faux 3D or drop shadows, no busy backgrounds (no backgrounds at all), and very little visual flair besides clean typography and transition animations. The whole look is strangely reminiscent of a terminal display (maybe Microsoft is recalling its DOS roots here) -- almost Tron-like in its primary color simplicity. To us, it's rather exciting. This OS looks nothing like anything else on the market, and we think that's to its advantage. Admittedly, we could stand for a little more information available within single views, and we have yet to see how the phone will handle things like notifications, but the design of the interface is definitely in a class of its own. Here's a few takeaways on what it's like to use (and some video)...

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Series hands-on and impressions (updated with video)

Windows Phone 7 Series hands-on and impressions (updated with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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WHISTLER, British Columbia — When the best speed skiers in the world take to the slopes for the men’s downhill, it’s not just their bodies and their minds that are honed to a razor’s edge. Their skis will be as well. The selection, setup, care, and preparation of a set of world-class downhill racing skis is an intricate blend of art and science, practiced by a group of almost exclusively European technicians in what are called the wax cabins here.

If you thought the (admittedly weak) Liquid e was all Acer had in store for Mobile World Congress, you'd be badly mistaken. We've got a foursome of other smartphones on tap, so we won't waste any time breaking 'em down. Up first is the neoTouch P300 and neoTouch P400, each of which ship with Windows Mobile 6.5.3. The P300 gets a luscious 3.2-inch WQVGA touch panel, slide-out QWERTY keyboard (backlit, no less!), WiFi and a March ship date, while the May-bound P400 packs a 3.2-inch HVGA touchscreen, 600MHz Qualcomm 7227 CPU, WiFi and a 3.2 megapixel camera. Moving on, there's the beTouch E110 (shipping in March in black and dark blue), complete with a 2.8-inch touch panel, Android, 3 megapixel camera, FM tuner and a 1,500mAh battery. Finally, the beTouch E400 touts Android 2.1, the same 600MHz power plant as on the P400, a 3.2-inch HVGA resistive touchscreen, smart LED lighting (acts as a message indicator) and an April ship date. Pricing remains a mystery on the whole lot, but we're hoping to learn more as we dig our heels in at the show.

Acer launches neoTouch P300 / P400, beTouch E110 / E400 smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the announcement of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft's made it clear that they're finally—and truly—getting back into the game. They also brutally kneecapped their existing phone software, effectively taking Microsoft out of mobile for the next six months.

The last time a company broke so cleanly with their past like this, it was Palm, and the circumstances where similar: Palm OS was old and tired, and long overdue for a replacement. Palm as a company was perceived as lagging behind the rest of the players, and many had gone so far as to give up hope for anything interesting coming from them before a seemingly inevitable collapse. Then, they announced the Pre, discontinued their other phones, and clawed their way back into the running. They left their old OS out to die. They did it because they had to.

With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft has done the same thing, leapfrogging from a straining platform that bears a glaring resemblance to its earliest ancestors to the most exciting piece of mobile software the tech world has seen since the iPhone. Here's the difference: Windows Mobile 6.5.x isn't going away. When Palm preannounced the Pre, their Palm OS and Windows Mobile phones still existed, but there were only a few, and their phaseout was just over the horizon. Microsoft, on the other hand, is keeping Windows Phone 6.5.x alive for enterprise—we'll see more than a few Windows Mobile 6.5.3 phones announced before Mobile World Congress is over. Some of these phones—the standard issue corporate gear, the slide-out QWERTY emailing machines—will live out their dreary lives in so many belt holsters, as if nothing was announced in Barcelona today. The rest—the touchscreen consumer hardware, the phones you'll be able to pick up at your local Best Buy—have just been so brutally and thoroughly maimed, and rendered so spectacularly unbuyable, that Microsoft has effectively taken themselves out of the phone market until October—at the earliest.

Yes, Everything Is Different Now: Microsoft is ready to barge back into consumer smartphones, and they're not fucking around. But before they can, they need to purge, and that's exactly what they're doing. Microsoft just went on sabbatical from the category they helped invent. They better hope it pays off.

We've seen leaks of the HTC Legend and Desire (formerly known as Bravo) previously, but what look like the official pics and specs for those and the Touch HD Mini have appeared a day ahead of HTC's MWC press conference.

The Desire, pictured above, will reportedly pack a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen and will run Android 2.1 with HTC Sense. The Legend looks to have a 3.1" HVGA screen, a 5 megapixel camera, and a 600 MHz CPU, while the HD Mini is a WinMo 6.5 handset with a 3.2" HVGA screen, 5 megapixel camera, and HTC TouchFlo 3D.

Full specs, from the Android forum at MoDaCo:

HTC Desire (Bravo)

* CPU Speed - 1 GHz
* Platform - Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC SenseTM
* Memory - ROM: 512 MB, RAM: 576 MB
* Dimensions - (LxWxT) 119 x 60 x 11.9 mm (4.7 x 2.36 x 0.47 inches)
* Weight - 135 grams (4.76 ounces) with battery
* Display - 3.7-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution
* Network - HSPA/WCDMA:
o Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
o Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
o 850/900/1800/1900 MHz (Band frequency, HSPA availability, and data speed are operator dependent.)
* Onscreen navigation - Optical Trackball
* GPS - Internal GPS antenna
* Sensors -
o Proximity sensor
o Ambient light sensor
o G-Sensor
o Digital compass
* Connectivity - Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets,
and PBAP for phonebook access from the car kit
* Wi-Fi® - IEEE 802.11 b/g
* 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
* Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
* Camera - 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flashlight
* Audio supported formats
o Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma,
o Recording: .amr
* Video supported formats
o Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
o · Recording: .3gp
* Battery - Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery
* Capacity - 1400 mAh
* Talk time:
o Up to 390 minutes for WCDMA
o Up to 400 minutes for GSM
* Standby time:
o Up to 360 hours for WCDMA
o Up to 340 hours for GSM
* Expansion Slot - microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
* AC Adapter Voltage range/frequency - 100 ~ 240 V AC, 50/60 Hz
* DC output - 5 V and 1 A
* Special Feature - Friend Stream

HTC Legend

* CPU speed - 600 MHz
* Platform
- Android™ 2.1 (Éclair) with HTC Sense
* Memory ROM - 512 MB, RAM: 384 MB
* Dimensions - (LxWxT) 112 x 56.3 x 11.5 mm (4.41 x 2.22 x 0.45 inches)
* Weight - 126 grams (4.44 ounces) with battery
* Display - 3.2-inch AMOLED touch-sensitive screen with 320 X 480 HVGA resolution
* Network - HSPA/WCDMA:
o Europe/Asia: 900/2100 MHz
o Upload speed of up to 2 Mbps and download speed of up to 7.2 Mbps
* Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE:
o 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
* Onscreen navigation - Optical trackball
* GPS - Internal GPS antenna
* Sensors -
o G-Sensor
o Digital compass
o Proximity sensor
o Ambient light sensor
* Connectivity - Bluetooth® 2.1 with FTP/OPP for file transfer, A2DP for wireless stereo headsets, and PBAP for
phonebook access from the car kit
* Wi-Fi® - IEEE 802.11 b/g
* 3.5 mm stereo audio jack
* Standard Micro-USB (5-pin micro-USB 2.0)
* Camera - 5 megapixel color camera with auto focus and flash
* Audio supported formats -
o Playback: .aac, .amr, .ogg, .m4a, .mid, .mp3, .wav, .wma
o Recording: .amr
* Video supported formats -
o Playback: .3gp, .3g2, .mp4, .wmv
o Recording: .3gp
* Battery - Rechargeable Lithium-ion polymer or Lithium-ion battery
* Capacity - 1300 mAh
* Talk time -
o Up to 440 minutes for WCDMA
o Up to 490 minutes for GSM
* Standby time -
o Up to 560 hours for WCDMA
o Up to 440 hours for GSM
* Expansion slot - microSD™ memory card (SD 2.0 compatible)
* AC adapter - Voltage range/frequency: 100 ~ 240V AC, 50/60 Hz
* DC output - 5V and 1A
* Special feature - Friend Stream

HTC Touch HD Mini

(Full specs unavailable). [MoDaCo]

It's 2010 and everyone is dancing. Well, maybe not everyone but at least Donnie Osmond and Mickey Mouse, as I saw this morning at the unveiling of Dance Star Mickey, the newest plush incarnation of everyone's favorite mouse.

Donnie Osmond, reigning Dancing With the Stars champ, was on hand to unveil the new toy which, I'm glad to report, actually dances really well. Mickey stands about two feet tall and packs a lot of gear that makes him wiggle his tail with surprising fluidity. He gets down in six styles, including soul, disco, and techno, but sadly there's no fist pumping in that last one. But he does squeak out some suggestions while dancing to pump up his audience.

His moonwalk ain't bad, either. And despite his impressive dancing abilities Mickey doesn't lose any softness on the outside, remaining cuddly as ever to the touch.

While Dance Star Mickey's limber moves stole the spotlight, Donnie himself couldn't help challenging life-size Mickey to a little dance contest of their own.

Dance Star Mickey, whose moves are powered by two AA batteries, mambos onto shelves in October and will electric slide into your home for $69.99.

Toy Fair is the annual event where we get to completely regress back to childhood and check out all of the awesome toys coming out for the rest of the year. And well, we love toys.

Plants vs. Zombies was planted on the iPhone App Store today, and we couldn't download it fast enough. The tower-defense-style gameplay, where you have to collect the power of the sun in order to place offensive and defensive plants on your lawn to fight off the incoming zombie hordes, was a blast on the PC and Mac, but it seems as if it had been designed for touch screens. We finally get to test that assertion.

If you need to know more about the mechanics and gameplay of the title, feel free to read our original review of the PC version. On the iPhone, the graphics remain clear and easy to read and understand, and the ability to tap on the falling suns to collect them and tap where you'd like to plant your army works incredibly well and is very satisfying. This is a direct port of the original game with a few new features, so don't expect anything shockingly new, but this version of the game may be superior to the original due to the touchscreen.

Andrew Stein, director of mobile platforms at PopCap Games, laid out what the game includes. "We've stayed true to the original computer version with the full-featured gameplay of Adventure mode, and have optimized this adaptation around a seamless touch interface," he said. "Plus, we've added great content, including the new Quick Play Arena which allows easy replay of any level after completing the Adventure mode, and more than a dozen achievements to reward successful completion of in-game challenges." Ars pinged PopCap to ask about an iPad-specific version of the game, but were given a solid "no comment."

We've been playing all morning, and at $2.99 this is an absolute steal compared to the original's $20 price point. Today, we can literally say it's time to nut up or shut up.

Plants vs. Zombies was planted on the iPhone App Store today, and we couldn't download it fast enough. The tower-defense-style gameplay, where you have to collect the power of the sun in order to place offensive and defensive plants on your lawn to fight off the incoming zombie hordes, was a blast on the PC and Mac, but it seems as if it had been designed for touch screens. We finally get to test that assertion.

If you need to know more about the mechanics and gameplay of the title, feel free to read our original review of the PC version. On the iPhone, the graphics remain clear and easy to read and understand, and the ability to tap on the falling suns to collect them and tap where you'd like to plant your army works incredibly well and is very satisfying. This is a direct port of the original game with a few new features, so don't expect anything shockingly new, but this version of the game may be superior to the original due to the touchscreen.

Andrew Stein, director of mobile platforms at PopCap Games, laid out what the game includes. "We've stayed true to the original computer version with the full-featured gameplay of Adventure mode, and have optimized this adaptation around a seamless touch interface," he said. "Plus, we've added great content, including the new Quick Play Arena which allows easy replay of any level after completing the Adventure mode, and more than a dozen achievements to reward successful completion of in-game challenges." Ars pinged PopCap to ask about an iPad-specific version of the game, but were given a solid "no comment."

We've been playing all morning, and at $2.99 this is an absolute steal compared to the original's $20 price point. Today, we can literally say it's time to nut up or shut up.

Straight out of Denmark comes a trio of additions to the ever-growing Android lineup, the result of "two years of top secret international development work" by Lumigon Corp. The first phones are the T1 and S1, both shipping before July, the latter of the two offering a sliding T9 keypad, both featuring Android 2.1, Freescale processors, 720p output over HDMI, FM tuning and broadcasting, and the handy ability to act as a universal remote. Next will be the E1, coming sometime later and offering a "unique navigation system and shape never experienced in mobile phones." It's so mind-blowingly beautiful that the company hasn't deemed your or our eyes capable of beholding such a wonder, so no pictures have been released just yet. Perhaps if we spend our days in devotional contemplation we'll be mentally prepared for its eventual release.

Continue reading Lumigon T1, S1 and E1 Android smartphones offer a lovely blend of uniqueness and Scandinavian style

Lumigon T1, S1 and E1 Android smartphones offer a lovely blend of uniqueness and Scandinavian style originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple may have the iPhone, but the iPhone doesn't have the Xbox. Today, Microsoft leveraged their most compelling entertainment asset, the Xbox 360, into Windows Phone 7 Series. But what does this mean, practically speaking?

(Note: If you don't understand what the heck Windows Phone 7 is, read this first.)

Here's the official word from Microsoft on how WP7 will incorporate Xbox Live.

"Games—This hub delivers the first and only official Xbox LIVE experience on a phone, including Xbox LIVE games, Spotlight feed and the ability to see a gamer's avatar, Achievements and gamer profile. With more than 23 million active members around the world, Xbox LIVE unlocks a world of friends, games and entertainment on Xbox 360, and now also on Windows Phone 7 Series."

What we saw in Microsoft's demo today fleshes that concept out a bit. There will be a Spotlight section, with your Xbox Live avatar and notice of friends' achievements. And of course, there will be games—"premium titles" with achievements and multiplayer connected to other cellphones, PCs and Xbox 360 consoles.

Don't let the simple interface fool you. Xbox Live on a phone is more than having your avatar on one more screen because of the three types of games I believe we'll see on Windows Phone 7.

The Three Games of Windows 7 Phone

The first type of game will be a lot like an iPhone title. Powerful pocket hardware will push impressive graphics (that make the PSP and DS look sad). That's a simple idea that I know all of you can wrap your heads around.

Now, some of these games may be released cross-platform, as Microsoft teased today. They'll be what I classify as the second type of gaming on Windows Phone 7—casual, connected titles that allow anyone with a Live account to join in (no matter if they're on a WP7, 360 or PC). You won't see the most beautiful XBLA titles on the phone, of course, but something like Worms? Why not? A buy it once, play it anywhere model would make this type of game incredibly enticing.

The third type of game—the one that will appeal most to the hardcore gamers—is the Xbox 360 expanded title, something unmentioned by Microsoft but that I see coming a mile away. Imagine a minigame accompaniment to Halo that could unlock more content/resources/anything. Now imagine that such a game is driven by some of the most powerful handheld processors in the world. (You should be picturing something that looks a lot like Call of Duty's Nazi Zombies on the iPhone.) But with the iPhone, Nazi Zombies never leaves your phone—nothing about it will affect your Call of Duty experience on your home console.

Such no longer needs to be the case when the game is connected to Live. AAA franchises can make their way to the mobile space with Microsoft in a way that they never could with Apple. Put differently, pocketable games can have console-level repercussions.

Microsoft's Mobile Trump Card: Nobody Else Has an Xbox Live...Not Really

While the iPhone is a treasure trove of pocketable amusements, they're pretty much self-contained entities working in a closed box. Sadly, pretty much the same thing can be said about the Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. Nintendo and Sony have both experimented with connecting their mobile and home platforms on a title-by-title basis (and no doubt, the PSP's early promise of Remote Play still sounds like a revolutionary idea today), but neither company has been all that successful in bridging the gap to create a seamless digital experience.

Plus, let's face it, neither Sony nor Nintendo is relevant in the smartphone business—the present and future of pocket gaming. And while the iPhone is tough competition, it's one phone. Windows Phone 7 Series is a specification (that includes baseline hardware specs and software specs) for many phones that could potentially be on many carriers.

Imagine if Nintendo let any willing manufacturer integrate Wii/DS services. That's essentially what Microsoft is doing here.

But when it really comes down to it, is Microsoft selling us the Xbox 360 experience on cellphones, or are they pitching putting cellphone games on the Xbox 360? And will anyone want to create original, non-ported content for the Windows 7 Phone Series when there are 75 million iPhones and iPod touches out there already?

Time will tell. Despite what promises to be the most full-featured mobile gaming platform of all time, Microsoft must woo developers to create compelling mobile content before any of this matters.

That's right, grab the tissues and take some time to mourn the death of the Tamagotchi as we knew it. The guys at Bandai have gone and totally revamped the beloved virtual pet, giving it the new name of TamaTown Tama-Go to match that of the already existing Tamatown.com virtual world. Though there have been very minimal changes to the purpose of the toy -- you still have to remember to keep your little character well fed and rested -- the $20 pocketable keychain has morphed into an Easter egg shaped device with a slightly larger and higher contrast four-grayscale display. Why make a portable device larger than before? Well to accommodate attachable collectible figures, of course! Obviously sold separately, the $7 TamaTown figures attach to the top of the Tama-Go and are preloaded with two character specific games and goods. We understand that these sorts of changes are better processed in images (and dreams), so hit the gallery below for more miniscule figures than you can (probably) handle.

Tamagotchi renamed TamaTown Tama-Go, no change in amount of attention it requires originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Buffalo today unveiled the first-even four-port USB 3.0 hub. Right now? May not be that useful. But sooner than you think, this is going to be the multi-port hub that you need.

USB 3.0 has already started working its way onto PCs, and it won't be long before it's become the new standard. As well it should: Buffalo's BSH4A03U3 hub is backwards compatible with USB 1.1 and 2.0, but offers data transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps.

The 4-port USB 3.0 hub will be available in Japan later next month, AC adapter included, for $88. There's no word yet on when it might be available stateside, but the clock's ticking. [Buffalo via CrunchGear]

At least two of them sure seem to think so! Jailbreak scenesters Sherif Hashim and iH8sn0w are both reporting bannings—by Apple ID, strangely—following their latest hacks. Is Apple attacking jailbreak from the bottom up? Maybe.

Both Sherif Hashim and iH8sn0w were behind the discovery of recent iPhone exploits, and both are currently receiving a "This Apple ID has been banned for security purposes" notification whenever they try to log into the (actual) App Store to download an app. But. But! While Sherif's exploit was publicly documented, IH8sn0w's was shared only with the Dev Team. So: Is Apple somehow detecting certain exploits and banning automatically? Unlikely. Are the keeping an ear to the ground and banning active jailbreak scene hackers? Possibly, but that would be petty, and it wouldn't really stop them from doing their work. Is something incidental happening here? Probably.

The content of the error message is telling: It's the same dialog that pops up in OS X apps that use your Apple ID when said ID has been locked out due to a suspicious number of failed login attempts. My guess, though it's firmly a guess, is that some behavior or glitch associated with the hacks these people are attempting triggers some kind of heuristic response from Apple's servers, not explicitly because a phone is hacked or owned by hackers, but because something's just off.

Then again, this could go the other way, and signal a future in which jailbreakers—not just hackers—risk blacklisting their Apple IDs should they crack their phones. That'd be a terrible PR move on Apple's part, but it could be one of the easiest ways to quell the massive rise of piracy outside the App store. This would be kind of terrible! But I wouldn't rule it out. [Redmond Pie via BGR]

"But mommy...it's like your Kindle and Daddy's iPod Touch! I want one NOW!" Yep, that's how the discovery of Fisher Price's iXL is going to go down in the Toys R US aisle, like it or not. In what we can only compare to a shrunken Entourage Edge, the $80 clamshell device is meant for 3-to-6 year olds that are just learning to read and write, and it packs a color, resistive touchscreen and a plastic stylus. While some tots may complain about the not-very-finger-friendly display or the rather chunky and heavy design, Fisher gets that it's all about the software. In addition to the "app based" home screen (which we were told was modeled after the iPhone or iPad), the iXL comes preloaded with games, an animated story book and other applications -- additional children's e-books will be available for download from its online store when the device goes on sale this summer. Using a Mac or a PC, parents can also sideload those illustrated titles, as well as pictures and MP3s using the onboard USB port. Well, you heard the kids... they want it now!

Fisher-Price iXL is a tweener that no kid needs convincing of originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It is clear that, according to Google, the American telecommunications Industry has dropped the ball when it comes to getting broadband out to the people. The search giant has decided to show us how it should be done, announcing its plans to run 1Gbps fiber pipes to up to 500,000 households. For obvious reasons, reporters focused on the size of Google's bit pipe. There was less focus on open access and innovation aspects of the plan. Hopefully, Google has kept an eye on the ISP landscape in Europe and Asia, as there are many lessons to be learned from ISP experiences there. In this article, we'll remind Google of some best practices, reviewing how open access infrastructure has been implemented elsewhere and the innovative ways fiber to the home can be delivered. 

FLO TV may not have had the best Super Bowl commercial (not by a long shot, actually), but the fledgling mobile programming service is doing its darnedest to make some waves over in Barcelona. The biggest news is that Qualcomm will be on hand at MWC in order to showcase a FLO-enabled smartbook, a device will will purportedly bring together live television and live social networking updates -- something that would come in handy while watching the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, for example. In other, more international news, FLO-EV is being introduced, with Qualcomm describing it as the "next evolution of the FLO air interface." Finally, Audiovox has announced that an in-vehicle system based on FLO TV is now sweeping the nation, with Advent-branded solutions hitting up showroom accessory departments en masse. Now, if only these guys and gals could convince people to care about TV on-the-go...

Continue reading FLO TV storms automotive lots, FLO-EV gets launched and FLO smartbook apps surface

FLO TV storms automotive lots, FLO-EV gets launched and FLO smartbook apps surface originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unhappy with FileVault performance, don't mind a little Terminal-fu, and like being on the bleeding edge of tech? Check out this tutorial for using EncFS as a replacement.

Read More: Techie blurbs

Microsoft shows off the latest version of its mobile phone operating system, called Windows phone 7 series.

As we see in this first ever video, the Windows Phone 7 interface is filled with simple, beautiful animations not so dissimilar to the Zune HD. UPDATE:

UPDATE: Here's more video showing us the experience of maps and web browsing. Very sharp.

UPDATE 2: And here's a full features rundown clip that's a must-watch.

UPDATE 3: One last video from Recombu—here we see a giant Windows 7 Series mockup running the interface in real time. It probably offers the best feel of general navigation we've seen yet.

When it comes to cybersecurity, the Obama administration is taking the same approach to the policies of the Bush administration as it has in so many other areas: there are differences, but they're mainly matters of subtle emphasis and focus. Take the Trusted Internet Connection initiative, which the Bush administration launched in late 2007, and which is aimed at securing the government's network infrastructure by routing all of its network traffic through a smaller number of access points.

The original goals of the TIC program were to establish a baseline set of security practices for government systems that access the Internet, to consolidate all federal Internet access points into about 50 officially certified TICs, and to put in place an audit process to ensure that all government agencies stay in compliance with the program. Of these three goals, it was the network consolidation piece—the entire federal government accessing the Internet through only 50 connections total—that grabbed headlines and caused the most push-back from federal agencies. It's this part that the Obama admin has eased up on, but only a bit.

It's astounding that until this moment, three years after the iPhone, the biggest software company in the world basically didn't compete in mobile. Windows Phone 7 Series is more than the Microsoft smartphone we've been waiting for. Everything's different now.

Today, at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Microsoft is publicly previewing Windows Phone 7 for the first time. The brand new, totally fresh operating system will appear in phones this year, but not until the holidays. All of the major wireless carriers and every likely hardware maker are backing it, and they'd be stupid not to. It's awesome. Further details are forthcoming, but here is what you need to know:

The name—Windows Phone 7 Series—is a mouthful, and unfortunately, the epitome of Microsoft's worst naming instincts, belying the simple fact that it's the most groundbreaking phone since the iPhone. It's the phone Microsoft should've made three years ago. In the same way that the Windows 7 desktop OS was nearly everything people hoped it would be, Windows Phone 7 is almost everything anyone could've dreamed of in a phone, let alone a Microsoft phone. It changes everything. Why? Now that Microsoft has filled in its gaping chasm of suck with a meaningful phone effort, the three most significant companies in desktop computing—Apple, Google and Microsoft—now stand to occupy the same positions in mobile. Phones are officially computers that happen to fit in your pocket.

Windows Phone 7 is also something completely new for Microsoft: A total break from the past. Windows Mobile isn't just dead, the body's been dumped, buried and paved over by a rainbow brick road.

The Interface

It's different. The face of Windows Phone 7 is not a rectangular grid of thumbnail-sized glossy-looking icons, arranged in a pattern of 4x4 or so, like basically every other phone. No, instead, an oversized set of bright, superflat squares fill the screen. The pop of the primary colors and exaggerated flatness produces a kind of cutting-edge crispness that feels both incredibly modern and playful. Text is big, and beautiful. The result is a feat no phone has performed before: Making the iPhone's interface feel staid.

If you want to know what it feels like, the Zune HD provides a taste: Interface elements that run off the screen; beautiful, oversized text and graphics; flipping, panning, scrolling, zooming from screen to screen; broken hearts. Some people might think it's gratuitous, but I think it feels natural and just…fun. There's an incredible sense of joie de vivre that's just not in any other phone. It makes you wish that this was aesthetic direction all of Microsoft was going in.

Windows Phone 7 is connected in the same sense as Palm's webOS and Android, with live, real-time data seamlessly integrated, though it's even smoother and more natural. Live tiles on the Start screen are updated dynamically with fresh content, like weather, or if you've pinned a person to your Start screen, their latest status updates and photos.

The meat of the phone is organized around a set of hubs: People, Pictures, Games, Music + Video, Marketplace, and Office. They're kind of like uber-applications, in a sense. Massive panoramas with multiple screens that are kind of like individual apps. People, for instance, isn't just your contacts, but it's also where social networking happens, with a real-time stream of updates from like Facebook and Windows Live. (No Twitter support announced yet, it appears—a kind of serious deficiency, but one we're sure will be remedied by ship date.)

As another example, Music + Video is essentially the entirety of Zune HD's software, tucked inside of Windows Phone 7.

A piece of interface that's shockingly not there: A desktop syncing app. If anyone would be expected to tie their phone to a desktop, you'd think it'd be Microsoft, but they're actually moving forward here. All of your contacts and info sync over the air. The only thing you'll be syncing through your computer is music and videos, which is mercifully done via the Zune client.

Hello, Connected World

The People hub might be the best social networking implementation yet on a phone: It's a single place to see all of your friends' status updates from multiple services in a single stream, and to update your own Facebook and Windows Live status. Needs. Twitter support. Badly. But you have neat things going on, like the aforementioned live tiles—if you really like someone or want to stalk them hardcore, you can make them a tile on your Start screen, which will update in realtime with whatever they're posting, and pull down their photos from whatever service.

All of your contacts are synced and backed up over-the-air, Android and webOS style, and can be pulled from multiple sources, like Windows Live, Exchange, etc. Makes certain other phones seem a little antiquated with their out-of-the-box Contacts situation.

Holy Crap! The Zune Phone!

Microsoft's vision of Zune is finally clear with Windows Phone 7. It's an app, just like iPod is on the iPhone, though the Zune Marketplace is integrated with it into the music + video hub, not separated into its own little application. It's just like the Zune HD, so you can check out our review of that to see what it's like. But you get third-party stuff like Pandora too built-in here. Oh, and worth mentioning, there will be an FM radio in every phone (more on that in a bit).

Pictures is a little different though, and gets its very own hub. That's because it's intensely connected—you can share photos and video with social networks straight from the hub, and via the cloud, they're kept in sync with your PC and web galleries. The latest photos your friends post also show up here. Of course, you get around with multitouch zoom and scrolling stuff too.

Xbox, on a Phone

I'll admit, I very nearly needed to change my pants when I saw the Xbox tile on the phone for the first time. Obviously, you're not going to be playing Halo 3 on your smartphone (at least not this year), but yes, Xbox Live on a phone! It's tied to your Live profile, and there are achievements and gamer points for the games you can play on your phone, which will be tied to games back on your Xbox 360.

If Microsoft's got an ace-in-hole with Windows Phone 7, it's Xbox Live. Gamers have talked about a portable Xbox for years—this is the most logical way to do it. The N-Gage was ahead of its time. (Okay, and it sucked.) The DS and PSP are the past. The iPhone showed us that the future of mobile gaming was going to be on your phone, and now that just got a lot more interesting. The potential's there, and hopefully the games will be plentiful and awesome enough to meet it.

Browser and Email

Yes, the browser is Internet Exploder. And yes, the rumor's true: It won't be as fast as Mobile Safari. Not to start. But it's not bad! Hey, least it's got multitouch powers right out of the box. Naturally, you've got multiple browser windows, and you can pin web pages to the Start screen, like any other decent mobile browser.

The Outlook email app makes me question how people read email on a BlackBerry. It is stunning. I never thought I'd call a mail app "stunning," but, well, it kind of is. It's the best looking mobile mail app around. Text is huge. Gorgeous. Ultrareadable. Of course, it's got Exchange support too.

Apps, Office and Marketplace

Remember what I said earlier about Windows Mobile being dead? So are all the apps. They won't work on WP7. Sorry Windows Mobile developers, it's for the best. Deep down, we all knew a clean break was the only way Windows Phone wasn't going to suck total balls.

The Marketplace is where you'll buy apps. Since we've got like 6 months 'til Windows Phone 7 launches and people should be excited to develop for it, hopefully there'll be plenty of stuff to buy there on day one. Apps have some standardized interface elements, like the app bar on the bottom for common commands.

Naturally, Bing and Bing Maps are built into the phone as the default search and maps services. They're nice, smart, and very location-focused. Bing's also used for universal search on the phone, via a dedicated Bing button. Bing Maps is multitouchable, with pinch-to-zoom. It's rich, with built-in listings with reviews and clever ways of searching for stuff. And yeah, Office! It's connected to that cloud thing, for OTA syncing and such. Business people should be happy.

Hardware and Partnahs

Another way the old Windows Mobile is dead is how Microsoft's handling partners and hardware situation. With Windows Mobile, a phonemaker handed Microsoft their monies, and Microsoft tossed them a software kit, and that was that. Which is why a lot of Windows Mobile phones felt and ran like crap. And why it took HTC like two years to produce the HD2, the most genuinely usable rendition of Windows Mobile ever.

Microsoft's not building their own phones, but they're going to be picky, to say the least, with Windows Phone 7. Ballmer phrases it as "taking more accountability" for people's experiences. There's a strict set of minimum hardware requirements: a capacitive, multitouchable screen with at least four points of touch; accelerometer; 5-megapixel camera; FM radio; and the like. There are serious benchmarks that have to be met. And only chosen OEMs get to build the phones now, not like before, when anybody with $20 could get a license. The OEMs that Microsoft's announcing they're working with at launch are: Qualcomm, LG, Samsung, Garmin Asus, HTC, HP, Dell, Sony Ericsson, and Toshiba. AT&T's their "premiere partner" in the US (dammit).

Every phone will have a Bing (search) button and a Start button. Custom skins, like the minor miracles HTC worked, are now banned. The message to hardware makers is clear: It's a Windows Phone, you're just putting it together. Basically, phonemakers get to decide the shape and whether or not there's a keyboard.

One other word on hardware, in a manner of speaking. Hardware it won't work with? Macs. Which is kind of stupid to us—a lot of the people Microsoft wants to use Windows Phone 7, like college students, have been going Mac in droves. You wanna lure them back Microsoft? Let them use your phone with any OS.

The Big Picture

Windows Phone 7 Series is, from what we've seen, exactly what Microsoft's phone should be. It's actually good. It brings together a bunch of different Microsoft services—Zune, Xbox, Bing—in a way that actually makes sense and just works. But there's a real, lingering question: Are they too late? The first Windows Phone 7 Series…phone—goddamn that is a stupid name—won't hit until the end of this year. That's more than three years after the iPhone, two years after Android, hell, even a year after Palm, the industry's sickly but persistent dwarf.

History is on Microsoft's side here—we know what happened the last time Apple had a massive head start. Microsoft is, if nothing else, incredibly patient. Remember the first Xbox? Back when it was crazy that Microsoft was getting into videogames? It's cost them about a billion dollars and taken nearly 10 years, but now, with Xbox Live, Project Natal and their massive software ecosystem, they arguably have the most impressive gaming console you can buy. That was a pet project. Now, mobile is the future of computing. What do you think Microsoft will sink into that?

The mobile picture is now officially a three-way dance: Apple, Google, and Microsoft. The same people who dominate desktop computing. Everybody else is screwed. Former Palm CEO Ed Colligan famously said a few years ago: "PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They're not going to just walk in." That's precisely what's just happened. Phones are the new PCs. PC guys are the new phone guys.

[Microsoft]

Windows Phone 7 Series. Get used to the name, because it's now a part of the smartphone vernacular... however verbose it may seem. Today Microsoft launches one of its most ambitious (if not most ambitious) projects: the rebranding of Windows Mobile. The company is introducing the new mobile OS at Mobile World Congress 2010, in Barcelona, and if the press is anything to be believed, this is just the beginning. The phone operating system does away with pretty much every scrap of previous mobile efforts from Microsoft, from the look and feel down to the underlying code -- everything is brand new. 7 Series has rebuilt Windows Mobile from the ground up, featuring a completely altered home screen and user interface experience, robust Xbox LIVE and Zune integration, and vastly new and improved social networking tools. Gone is the familiar Start screen, now replaced with "tiles" which scroll vertically and can be customized as quick launches, links to contacts, or self contained widgets. The look of the OS has also been radically upended, mirroring the Zune HD experience closely, replete with that large, iconic text for menus, and content transitions which elegantly (and dimensionally) slide a user into and out of different views. The OS is also heavily focused on social networking, providing integrated contact pages which show status updates from multiple services and allow fast jumps to richer cloud content (such as photo galleries). The Xbox integration will include LIVE games, avatars, and profiles, while the Zune end of things appears to be a carbon copy of the standalone device's features (including FM radio).

Besides just flipping the script on the brand, the company seems to be taking a much more vertical approach with hardware and user experience, dictating rigid specs for 7 Series devices (a specific CPU and speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button configuration), and doing away with carrier or partner UI customizations such as Sense or TouchWiz. That's right -- there will be a single Windows Phone identity regardless of carrier or device brand. Those new phones will likely look similar at first, featuring a high res touchscreen, three front-facing buttons (back, start, and perhaps not shockingly, a Bing key), and little else.

Carrier partnerships are far and wide, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, while hardware partners include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm. We're told that we likely won't get to see any third-party devices at MWC, though Microsoft is showing off dev units of unknown origin, and the first handsets are supposed to hit the market by the holidays of this year.

We had chance to go hands-on with a device before the announcement, and we've got some detail to share on just what the experience is like, so click here to read our hands-on impressions (with lots of pics and video on the way!).

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Series is official, and Microsoft is playing to win

Windows Phone 7 Series is official, and Microsoft is playing to win originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft on Monday announced its latest mobile operating system at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, Spain.

Continue reading Live from Microsoft's Windows Phone press event at MWC 2010

Live from Microsoft's Windows Phone press event at MWC 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Ballmer. Aggressive. Unpredictable. Highly territorial. He'll be unveiling Windows Phone 7 today, Microsoft's smartphone that looks every bit as bold as Ballmer. And you can watch the press conference live starting at 9am Eastern right here:

[Microsoft Livestream and Image]

Can't get enough of hearing about implementations of ARM's Cortex-A9 MPCore processors? Good. ST-Ericsson's powerhouse U8500 system-on-chip has come a major step closer to appearing in mainstream devices with today's newly announced support for the Android operating system. Having optimized the OS to take advantage of Symmetric Multi Processing -- a method for extending battery life by sharing the load between the two processing cores and underclocking when necessary -- the partner company is now ready to start dropping these 1.2GHz dual-core beasts inside the next generation of smartphones. The claim is that you'll get all that additional power while sacrificing nothing, as devices based on the U8500 would maintain "the cost and power consumption characteristics of a traditional feature phone." We're promised built-in HDMI-out support, 1080p video recording, and 120 hours of audio playback or 12 hours of Full HD video off a 1,000mAh battery -- pledges we'd very much like to see fulfilled.

ST-Ericsson's U8500 brings dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 to the Android world originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At last, the Missile Defense Agency Airborne Laser has killed an actual ballistic missile in mid-air. The best part: They recorded it in video. This is not Star Wars pew-pew. It actually looks like the Enterprise's phasers.

It happened February 11, 8:44 Pacific Standard Time, at the Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center-Weapons Division Sea Range off the central California coast. The missile—representing a SCUD—launched from a platform at sea. Second later, the Airborne Laser Test Bed's sensors—flying on a Boeing 747-400F—detected the launch, tracking its trajectory with a low-energy tracking laser. A second laser was focused ont he missile to measure the atmospheric disturbance, gathering data to achieve the perfect firing solution.

Seconds later, the ALTC unleashed its megawatt-class High Energy Laser, causing a massive structural failure in the missile as it was rising in the sky. In other words: Boom. The engagement took only two minutes, demonstrating that this weapon will be extremely useful in destroying waves of missiles, one after the other. Like Missile Command, but from the air. [Boeing and Lockheed Martin]

We didn't think it could be done, but the fine folks at Texas Instruments have just unleashed a tiny, tiny beast in their all new DLP pico chipset. The nHD DLP chipset, as it's known, boasts 640x360 resolution, a contrast ratio of "better than" 1,000:1, RGB LED wide color gamut (which should more faithfully reproduce colors), a new, and a lower powered processor. Overall, the package is 20 percent thinner and 50 percent lighter than the current generation DLP chipset. We hear the chipset should be available in the second quarter of 2010. The full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Texas Instruments unleashes new nHD DLP chipset, now with more pico

Texas Instruments unleashes new nHD DLP chipset, now with more pico originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel and Nokia have merged their mobile operating systems in a bid to compete with more established mobile platforms.

BUG 2.0, the second version of Bug Labs' Lego set for hardware hobbyists, is here, and it's two things the first one wasn't: blazing fast—and powerful as a Droid, to be specific—and ready for Android.

The newest version of the BUGBase, the brain and nerve center of any and all BUG-based Frankengadgets, has been upgraded to TI's OMAP 3 platform, bringing the base up to speed, in terms of processing power, with the likes of the Droid and Palm Pre. Now that the BUGBase has the power of a high-end smartphone, it's only appropriate that it'd support Android, which it does, and which gives any BUG device the potential, if not immediate access, to tap into the endless potential of the App Market.

There's no release date or price on the new BUGbase yet, but the transition should be seamless—though it'll replace your old BUGbase complete, any other BUG modules, be they touch displays, WI-Fi radios, GPS receivers or speakers, will work straight away. [Bug Labs via Crunchgear]

We knew good and well Acer was prepared to ship a few more Android phones in the new decade, and it's sure starting off on the right foot here in Barcelona. Just a few months after the original Liquid began to ship, along comes a minor upgrade in the Liquid e. The main improvements? For starters, Android 2.1 has supplanted Android 1.6 as the onboard operating system, but much to our displeasure, the Snapdragon in this bad boy is still underclocked to 768MHz. If you still have the will to care, you'll get to enjoy the 3.5-inch WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera (with AutoFocus), inbuilt GPS, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, 256MB of RAM, an accelerometer, 3.5mm headphone jack and support for 7.2Mbps HSDPA. Head on past the break for the full release, but don't expect to find any pricing or release details.

Continue reading Acer Liquid e rolls with Android 2.1, underclocked 768MHz Snapdragon

Acer Liquid e rolls with Android 2.1, underclocked 768MHz Snapdragon originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Samsung first announced their Bada OS cellphone operating system I thought they were crazy. After seeing their flagship Bada OS phone—the Samsung Wave—in action, I don't think they are crazy anymore. They are suicidal.

I will have to try it myself, but just looking at this hands on is making me cringe. [Mobile Review]

Texas Instruments has just made its OMAP 4 system-on-chip official, and garnished the announcement with the first development platform for it, aggressively titled Blaze. We already caught a glimpse of it in prototype form earlier this month, and the thing is quite a whopper -- you can see it on video after the break and we doubt you'll accuse TI of placing form before function with this one. The company's focus will be on promoting innovative new modes of interaction, with touchless gesturing (or "in the air" gesture recognition) figuring strongly in its vision of the future. Looking at the SOC diagram (available after the break), you'll find that its grunt will be provided by the same ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore class of CPU that powers the iPad, though TI claims it will be the only mobile platform capable of outputting stereoscopic 720p video at 30fps per channel. Perhaps its uniqueness will come from the fact that nobody else cares for the overkill that is 3D-HD on a mobile phone, whether it requires glasses or not. It'll still be fascinating to see if anybody picks up the chunky Blaze idea and tries to produce a viable mobile device out of it -- we could be convinced we need multiple displays while on the move, we're just not particularly hot on the 90s style bezel overflow.

Continue reading Texas Instruments introduces ARM-based OMAP 4 SOC, Blaze development platform

Texas Instruments introduces ARM-based OMAP 4 SOC, Blaze development platform originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 08:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AT&T, Orange, Telefónica, China Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, and several more carriers have announced the formation of the Wholesale Applications Community, which aims to create a viable alternative to Apple's walled-garden approach to apps.

They'll be joined on the hardware side by LG, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson as they attempt to create an open system for app development and distribution. What they lack in momentum they make up for in mass: combined, the alliance services more than three billion customers worldwide.

There's no question that apps are big business, especially for Apple, but to date it's been largely limited to Apple and, to a lesser extent, the Android Market. The Wholesale Applications Community plans to initially use JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements to work towards a common standard within a year. Eventually, they hope to establish a common standard where apps can be ported across mobile platforms.

The amount of fragmentation in the app world has only been increasing, so it should be a relief to developers and consumers to see an effort to streamline the process while at the same time opening it up. It'll be interesting, though, to see how quickly and effectively they can pull actual standards together. With that many chefs, it can be hard not to spoil the soup.

Leading Operators Unite to Unleash Global Apps Potential

Wholesale Applications Community to push apps market to over 3 billion customers with strong support by world-leading device manufacturers

BARCELONA, Spain—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Twenty-four leading telecommunications operators have formed the Wholesale Applications Community, an alliance to build an open platform that delivers applications to all mobile phone users.

"This approach is completely in line with the principles of the GSMA, and in fact leverages the work we have already undertaken on open network APIs (OneAPI). This is tremendously exciting news for our industry and will serve to catalyse the development of a range of innovative cross-device, cross-operator applications."

América Móvil, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, KT, mobilkom austria group, MTN Group, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom Telecom, Softbank Mobile, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor Group, TeliaSonera, SingTel, SK Telecom, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, VimpelCom, Vodafone and Wind are committed to create an ecosystem for the development and distribution of mobile and internet applications irrespective of device or technology.

Together, these operators have access to over three billion customers around the world. The GSMA and three of the world's largest device manufacturers – LG Electronics, Samsung and Sony Ericsson – also support this initiative.

The Wholesale Applications Community aims to unite a fragmented marketplace and create an open industry platform that benefits everybody – from applications developers and network operators to mobile phone users themselves.

The alliance's stated goal is to create a wholesale applications ecosystem that – from day one – will establish a simple route to market for developers to deliver the latest innovative applications and services to the widest possible base of customers around the world. In the immediate future the alliance will seek to unite members' developer communities and create a single, harmonised point of entry to make it easy for developers to join.

"The GSMA is fully supportive the Wholesale Applications Community, which will build a new, open ecosystem to spur the creation of applications that can be used regardless of device, operating system or operator," said Rob Conway, CEO and Member of the Board, GSMA. "This approach is completely in line with the principles of the GSMA, and in fact leverages the work we have already undertaken on open network APIs (OneAPI). This is tremendously exciting news for our industry and will serve to catalyse the development of a range of innovative cross-device, cross-operator applications."

Jonathan Arber, Senior Research Analyst at independent analyst house, IDC, said: "Attracting and retaining developers is vital for any application store offering to succeed. However, mobile application developers currently face a high level of fragmentation in the industry, in terms of both technology platforms, and individual operators' working practices. Developers want to meet the largest possible addressable market, as efficiently and painlessly as possible, and the Wholesale Applications Community initiative can meet these criteria by providing a simple, single point of access to a large number of operator storefronts. The initiative should also help to drive uptake of existing, open standards among developers, operators and manufacturers, thereby reducing fragmentation and benefiting the whole industry."

The alliance plans to initially use both the JIL and OMTP BONDI requirements, evolving these standards into a common standard within the next 12 months. Ultimately, we will collectively work with the W3C for a common standard based on our converged solution to truly ensure developers can create applications that port across mobile device platforms, and in the future between fixed and mobile devices.

The alliance will serve as one point of contact for the industry and is open to all relevant parties – from telecommunications operators and device manufacturers to internet service providers and application software developers. For more information go to www.wholesaleappcommunity.com or email info@wholesaleappcommunity.com.

If you've seen one of those tiny pico projectors, chances are, Texas Instruments' DLP tech is inside. And their latest version, the mHD DLP Pico, may be the first to squeeze into a cellphone that's humiliating to use.

The new, low power chipset drives an optical module that's 20% thinner and 50% smaller than TI's last pico projector, which was notably 20% thinner than its predecessor.

Resolution has taken a hit in this smaller form factor, dropping from DVD quality to 640x360. But the system claims a 1000:1 contrast ratio (that's LCD monitor territory) and a wider color gamut thanks to RGB LEDs. Of course, brightness will probably still be the chief issue.

TI's latest pico hardware is planned for production starting in Q2 of this year, and I wouldn't be surprised if it popped up in some handset at MWC this week. [SlashGear]

What, our hands-on with video wasn't good enough for you? Fine, Eldar at Mobile-Review.com has a rather lengthy preview of Sammy's 1GHz Bada phone, the Wave, including so many macro photos you could probably make yourself a compelling reproduction of Mr. Murtazin's thumbprint. Impressions of this pre-production phone were very positive, coming to the conclusion that it will "definitely become one of the milestones not only for Samsung, but also the whole industry." Yeah, it's looking that good, but we do have to wonder just how warmly the buying community is going to welcome yet another mobile OS. We'll find out soon enough, as the phone is set for release in April.

Samsung's Wave gets the preview treatment originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google's Blogger unit last week shut down six music blogs that had received multiple complaints of copyright infringement. What happened next showed just what a mess the whole process is: some of the bloggers appear to be innocent, having spent plenty of time clearing the tracks they used with record labels first. Another never received past takedown notices and was shocked to find his blog suddenly removed. And those who didn't care about copyright infringement in the first place have just moved to new domains.

According to Blogger's terms of service, Google maintains the right to cancel blogs that violate its policies, including those on copyright. It does so after multiple uncontested DMCA takedowns arrive. (Those takedown letters are all archived at chillingeffects.org; each one is a list of hundreds of allegedly offending URLs.)

But the process for handling these claims has problems: the claims themselves can be wrong, they don't always get forwarded, and even when they do, individual bloggers often fail to file a counter-notice.

Convergence has always been a big theme in tech, and its focus at MWC this year seems to have landed firmly on procuring an application platform that is OS-agnostic. Earlier today, we heard of the big carrier cabal intent on slaying the beast that is multi-platform development through cooperation, but if you ask Adobe the answer is much simpler: just slap AIR on your phone. The company's grand vision of the future sees AIR as the facilitator of a "feature-rich environment for delivering rich applications outside the mobile browser and across multiple operating systems." If that sounds like your cup of tea, it's now available on Android and there are a number of cool demo videos at the DevNet link below. As to Flash Player 10.1, that's also heading to Android, to be completed within the first half of this year, while also including support for WebOS, Symbian, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry devices. We all know who's missing from that party, but Reuters reports Adobe has expressed confidence that Apple will "eventually bow to market pressure" and join in on the fun as well. We shall see. Video of AIR apps running on the Droid awaits after the break.

Continue reading Adobe brings AIR to Android, promises Flash 10.1 in the first half of the year

Adobe brings AIR to Android, promises Flash 10.1 in the first half of the year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes that's right, you can now be a certified couch potato anywhere you find yourself with the new update to SlingPlayer Moblie, which can play back your DVR shows and control live TV from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

Do you hear a faint fapping? That's the sound of thousands of iPhone and iPod Touch users who have been hotly anticipating 3G SlingBox streaming for the some time now, finally able to control their home TVs on the go. Full channel-changing and PVR support is included.

The app costs $30 or comes as a free upgrade for existing users and can be snatched up riiiiiight now on iTunes. [iTunes - Thanks David!]

Acer's keen on racking up lots of firsts for its netbook arm, with this Aspire One 532G having the claim of being the world's first to use NVIDIA's Ion 2 graphics technology for 1080p playback.

The 10.1-inch LED-backlit screen will playback videos at 1080p with 7.1-channel audio output. It'll also be suitable for 3D gaming, Acer claims, though why you'd want to do that on a little netbook is beyond me. A 10-hour battery life, Wi-Fi and the choice of embedded 3G all figure, along with an Intel N450 Pine Trail chip and HDMI video output. On sale in just a month or two, it'll be available in several colors—blue, red, and silver.

Acer Aspire One 532G: first netbook with dedicated graphics for true
Hi-Def video enjoyment

Playback 1080p on external screen for viewing Hi-Def content with friends and family

The new Acer Aspire One 532G sets the netbook trend in the digital world where Hi-Def viewing online is growing dramatically. Acer presents the world's first netbook with dedicated next-generation NVIDIA® ION™ graphics acceleration enabling users to enjoy Hi-Def content online as well as playback at 720p; alternatively, connect through HDMI output to a secondary Hi-Def TV/LCD monitor for sharing Hi-Def content with friends at a larger 1080p resolution.

With up to 10 hours* of battery life, integrated Wi-Fi®, 10.1" Hi-Def LED backlit display and optional 3G, the Aspire One 532G matches outstanding performance with an ultra-compact design, offering all the power you need. Netbook users can now enjoy flawless Hi-Def web content streaming and multiple Internet applications with ease.

Flawless web Hi-Def acceleration† and Hi-Def entertainment
Go beyond simple Internet browsing to experience full high-definition video on sites like YouTube HD, Hulu and Facebook, Aspire One 532G with dedicated graphics accelerates web Hi-Def content streaming effortlessly. Enjoy smooth and flawless 3D computing, mainstream PC gaming, boost the performance of editing and converting videos, face-tagging photos and Hi-Def video playback up to 1080p via HDMI-output to HDTV; and effectively perform everyday Internet browsing, emailing, chats, photo viewing, document editing and such on the Aspire One 532G. All of these are achieved with the new Intel Atom™ N450 platform and next-generation NVIDIA® ION™ GPU with dedicated 512MB memory.

Smart power and Hi-Def performance
The Aspire One 532G makes no compromise on great performance and battery life; it mobilizes online Hi-Def computing, at the same time lowers power consumption for longer-lasting battery. NVIDIA® Optimus™ Technology intelligently, automatically, and seamlessly transitions between the powerful NVIDIA® ION™ GPU, and battery-saving integrated graphics – depending on the needs of the application – delivering great battery life and great performance when you need it.

Care-free mobile companion
Making light work of Internet multi-tasking, the Aspire One 532G needs only a single charge for up to 10 hours* of cable-free power, enabling users to stay connected and get the most on-the-go. The innovative AC adapter is travel friendly, lighter than typical adapters, saves 1/3 charging time and comes with interchangeable AC converters. No matter where you are, you can always have the right plug.

Measuring only 1" thin and about 1 kg in weight, the Aspire One 532G is available in three contemporary colors – Sapphire Blue, Ruby Red and Pearl Silver. Its compact form, fluid Hi-Def cinema and flawless Hi-Def flash video quality along with great battery life, truly realizes barrier-free communication.

This highly efficient netbook is Energy Star® v5.0 qualified and compliant with RoHS and WEEE EU directives, regulating the use and disposal of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment. It also features LED backlight, making it mercury free.

The Aspire One 532G will start shipping at the end of Q1 2010.

Tired of your BUGBase lagging out while you're trying to set up that crazy homebrew alarm system? Hope is on the way in the form of BUG 2.0, Bug Labs' next-gen development platform that moves up to a Cortex A8-based OMAP3 core from the original BUGBase's ARM11. The processor bump isn't the only change, though: they're announcing full support for running BeagleBoard apps and -- get this -- Android. That means that you won't necessarily need to be locked into Bug's own development environment for doing your thing, and obviously, folks already familiar with Android development should have a much easier time making the transition. Even better, the base maintains backward compatibility with existing BUGmodules, so most of your current investment won't be for naught -- save the old base, of course. Price and availability are yet to be announced.

Continue reading Bug Labs intros BUG 2.0 platform with faster processor, Android support

Bug Labs intros BUG 2.0 platform with faster processor, Android support originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Toshiba spits out K01 QWERTY slider at MWC

Toshiba spits out K01 QWERTY slider at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After 13 days Nokia had seen 1.4million downloads of its free Ovi Maps. Now, less than a month after giving away the good for free, they've seen 3m downloads—with a map being downloaded every second. [TechRadar]

Vodafone launches what it says is the "lowest cost mobile phone on Earth", aimed at people in developing countries.

It looks like the next generation of little green robots just got a little bit faster, with Comsys Mobile announcing its ComMAX CM1125 reference design at Mobile World Congress 2010 (and beating HTC to the punch). It'll apparently find life inside Windows Mobile handsets as well, where it will not only offer WiMAX, but bring GSM/Edge, WLAN, GPS, Bluetooth, and even FM radio to the table, all in a design with "exceptionally low power operation." It's said to be able to switch from WiMAX to Edge seamlessly, though we image that transition would feel something like being inside KITT on Turbo Boost and hitting the Emergency Braking System. No word on when we'll see phones at retail based on this design, but we'll endeavor to bring you more information on this design (as well as more Knight Rider references) as the show progresses.

Comsys joins GSM and WiMAX into holy matrimony under Android as ComMAX CM1125 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Already offering video to your TV and computer, EPIX is ready to unveil the third part of its "Big On Any Screen" service when it demonstrates a mobile version of the channel today at MWC 2010. It's teamed up with Adobe and the Open Screen Project for a Flash Player 10.1 implementation that it claims offers "highest mobile viewing quality available on mobile devices today," if it can match up with the Flash player available on PCs then it has a chance. The ability to pause a movie on the TV or PC and pick up later on your handheld is in the works as well. No word on where we'll see this launch or if your cell carrier will need to be tied to your TV service for access, but we'd figure Verizon's VCast will be near the top of the list.

EPIX brings movie streaming to mobiles courtesy of Adobe's Open Screen Project originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Behold! Windows Phone 7. Someone wasn't quite careful enough with his last minute update of this MWC signage and a passerby managed to snap this first glimpse of the WP7 interface, featuring bold, rectangular icons and Xbox integration.

This shot seems to confirm, to some extent, the bit of the last significant batch of rumors that promised tight Xbox integration. It also shows off the simplistic, geometric start page, including big, square icons for phone calls, messages, Twitter, and Facebook and a large band for accessing your pictures.

The device in the shot is a simple one: the screen is surrounded by a black bezel with a thin metal trim. Three hardware (or maybe touch?) buttons below the screen are the only visible controls, with a backwards arrow, a home-button with the Windows icon, and something that looks like a sideways magnifying glass. Is this the Zune phone? Or just another device in the WP7 stable? [Engadget]

A team is created in an attempt to strengthen a challenge to online fraudsters that has yet to result in any convictions.

Toshiba's just let slip its MWC press, and here's what we've got: the TG01's successor... the TG02. It's a minor update to the original, and yes -- it's exact to that early prototype roadmap leak we saw way back in April. On offer here, we've got this 9.9mm badboy with a 4.1-inch capacitive WVGA touchscreen, 1GHz processor, and a newly retooled 3D menu to boot, running Windows Mobile 6.5. All in all, as we said, a pretty minor update to the handset. There's no firm information for now as to when the TG02 will launch, or how much it'll cost. We'll let you know when we do. Full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Toshiba updates TG01 handset with the TG02

Toshiba updates TG01 handset with the TG02 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We've seen bits and pieces of Qualcomm's FLO live TV service, curiously even on an iPhone, but at MWC it'll be showing it off on Snapdragon-powered smartbooks. It enables real-time updates via Twitter while watching live TV.

If you don't have a Twitter account, or can't stand the thought of getting updates about footballers while watching a sports match, Qualcomm will also give the viewer info from breaking news services and other e-magazines. FLO TV has heaps of different channels to watch, including ESPN, Comedy Central, MTV, NBC and Nickelodeon. The jargon-filled press release is below, but in the meantime there should be some solid news including product launches with FLO TV coming this week. [Qualcomm via TechRadar]

Image credit: Electricpig

Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies, products and services, today announced FLO-EV, the next evolution of the FLO™ air interface for new deployments of mobile TV and other advanced broadcast mobile media services. Intended primarily for international markets, FLO-EV builds on the success of FLO technology to enable a rich suite of mobile content and services with greater channel capacity and significant performance improvements. FLO-EV is designed to help wireless operators lower the deployment costs for delivering multimedia content to mobile devices.

Analysts have predicted the global market for mobile media services will surpass $90 billion by 2018. Adoption of mobile media is being driven through a combination of increasing consumer awareness and industry investment. Wireless operators, broadcasters and content providers are all seeking to implement the best technologies to drive new mobile media business models. FLO-EV can help them by substantially lowering the cost of rolling out mobile media services while preserving features critical to the user experience, such as high-quality video, reduced power consumption, rapid channel changing times and increased channel capacity.

"As a technology enabler and leader in the mobile media space, Qualcomm is continually looking to improve the capabilities of FLO technology to deliver more advanced broadcast services to our worldwide customers," said Neville Meijers, senior vice president and general manager of MediaFLO Technologies. "FLO-EV is the result of our continued innovation and dedication to providing the most compelling and technically advanced offering to both wireless operators and mobile media consumers. By pushing the envelope with our design and development efforts, we are confident of staying at the forefront of the rapidly expanding and dynamic mobile media industry."

FLO-EV features a variety of technical enhancements to the original FLO Rev. A air interface (TIA-1099), including a 3-5 dB improvement in performance with the same spectral efficiency. This link margin can translate into a 30-50 percent reduction in capital and operating costs to deploy a FLO-EV network. Moreover, the costs savings can be realized without negatively affecting channel change times or increasing power consumption on the mobile device, thereby preserving a high-quality user experience. FLO-EV is well suited for new mobile TV network launches and as an upgrade to existing FLO Rev. A networks. FLO-EV can increase the channel capacity of a FLO Rev. A network by 50 percent or more using the existing transmit sites with no increase in radiated power.

The MediaFLO™ services platform enables the broadcast delivery of high-quality mobile entertainment and information to the mass market. In addition to live mobile TV, the MediaFLO platform supports enhanced mobile broadcast services such as streaming video and audio, clipcasting media, datacasting, interactive applications and targeted advertising – providing a compelling mobile media experience while enabling profitable business models. Invented for mobility and complementary to 3G and Wi-Fi services, the MediaFLO platform is designed to increase capacity and coverage and reduce costs for multimedia content delivery to unlimited mobile devices simultaneously. The MediaFLO platform is based on the FLO™ air interface, an open standard recognized by ETSI, ITU-R and TIA. Additional information is available at www.mediaflo.com.

Nokia and Intel have joined up to marry their Moblin and Maemo platforms, creating the MeeGo spawn which will be seen on devices by the ends of the year. Another operating system?

Moblin is, of course, the open source mobile Linux that's been seen on phones and netbooks with Intel's Atom processor. Maemo was seen on Nokia's N900, and was pretty much heralded as the savior for their phones, especially with the latest version, Maemo 6, expected to debut on some phones this year.

While the jury is out on whether we need another mobile OS, MeeGo "will acelerate industry innovation and time-to-market for a wealth of new internet-based applications and services and exciting user experiences," according to reps from both Intel and Nokia, at a Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.

Actual firm information on what MeeGo will look like, do or why the hell there's a market for it are beyond me, but all shall be revealed soon, I'm sure. [MeeGo via TechRadar]

From the MeeGo site:

MeeGo includes:

* Performance optimizations and features which enable rich computational and graphically oriented applications and connected services development
* No-compromise internet standards support delivering the best web experiences
* Easy to use, flexible and powerful UI/app development environment based on Qt
* Open source project organization managed by the Linux Foundation
* State of the Art Linux stack optimized for the size and capabilities of small footprint platforms and mobile devices, but delivering broad linux software application compatibility

MeeGo currently targets platforms such as netbooks/entry-level desktops, handheld computing and communications devices, in-vehicle infotainment devices, connected TVs, and media phones. All of these platforms have common user requirements in communications, application, and internet services in a portable or small form factor. The MeeGo project will continue to expand platform support as new features are incorporated and new form factors emerge in the market.

Well this one is a... doozy? Today Nokia announced a rather bizarre partnership with Intel. Namely, the two companies are merging their odd, half-finished, Linux-based OSs into one crazy little package called... MeeGo. No, really. Intel is mixing its peanut butter Moblin with Nokia's chocolatey Maemo to create a "software platform that will support multiple hardware architectures across the broadest range of device segments, including pocketable mobile computers, netbooks, tablets, mediaphones, connected TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems." That broad enough for you? According to the company's press release, the new platform will begin baring fruit (AKA devices) later this year, though the specific types of devices weren't touched upon. Nokia's CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo claims that the union will "create an ecosystem that is second to none" through openness, though at this point it's largely bluster. Why the two monoliths have decided to pair up on these decidedly niche platforms rather than focusing energies on their front and center products is anyone's guess, but luckily you can attempt to decipher more detail in the PR, included for your convenience after the break!

Continue reading MeeGo: Nokia and Intel merge Maemo and Moblin

MeeGo: Nokia and Intel merge Maemo and Moblin originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Omnifone's MusicStation music download store—which is pre-loaded on all HP laptops—is also getting an Android launch if you're looking for another way to download music on your Nexus One. [Business Wire]

As well as the TG02, Toshiba's brought the K01 slider phone all the way from its Japanese R&D department to Mobile World Congress, showing off a very nice sounding 4.1-inch OLED screen.

It's a bit thicker than the TG02 at 12.9mm deep, mostly due to the addition of a QWERTY keyboard. A 1Ghz Snapdragon processor, and microSD card slot are all that's known about the TG02, until we grab some more information (and pics) from Toshiba.

Has your phone changed your life? Tell us how

We've just been sent into an Auditorium here at ONCE in Barcelona -- just seconds away from the Fira convention center -- and we're about to get underway. Keep it locked!

Continue reading Live from Nokia's (and Intel's) MWC 2010 press event

Live from Nokia's (and Intel's) MWC 2010 press event originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Will 'sorry' Google learn from the Buzz storm?

The eagle-eyed folks of learnbemobile have come across this stupendous leak of Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 OS. It would appear that some last minute alterations were taking place under the covers in Barcelona, though apparently no one bothered to check if there were cameras around before lifting said covers. You can see what appears to be some kind of Xbox Live integration -- which was heavily rumored already -- taking up a corner of what's presumably a new home screen for the OS. There are also big, finger-loving notice icons for calls, text messages, and email, with sections for Facebook, Pictures and "Me" filling out the rest. We don't have any more info than these few shots, and the aforementioned site just has the images camped out on its Facebook page, but it definitely looks to be the real deal. If this is the new face of Windows Mobile, color us excited for today's event -- it looks like a radical departure (or at least a crazy skin). You can check out a few more shots in the gallery below.

[Thanks, HJ Willems]

Update: The official announcement has now been made and fully corroborates the visuals leaked here. Check out our hands-on experience with the fresh new software to learn more.

Windows Mobile 7 interface and device leaked on MWC banners originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A malicious software program that flirts with internet users to try to get their personal information could be making a comeback.

The TG01 had it all on paper—an amazing screen, the first use of the super-fast Snapdragon processor, and a thin build not seen since before Nicole Richie started putting on the pounds. The TG02 will hopefully perform better.

It's not that the TG01 had anything particularly wrong with it, it just didn't live up to its specs. Lag weighed it down, as did Windows 6.5—which could be the downfall of the TG02, as it's not been updated with the later 6.5.3 by the sounds of it. We presume it'll be available as an OTA update, and perhaps even Windows Phone 7 at a later date, too.

Anyway, the TG02, which we first caught wind of in late January, has a 4.1-inch capacitive display, 1GHz Snapdragon processor, and newly-designed 3D interface. It's 9.9mm thick, which is only 0.1mm slimmer than the TG01, but is still slinky on the greater scheme of things. One thing I didn't like about the TG01 was the cheap build, so I hope Toshiba's at least used some more premium materials for the TG01.

UPDATE: Full specs below.

Mobile phones control household appliances

Big doings over in Barcelona today. Twenty-four telecom operators, with the support of the GSMA and three major hardware manufacturers, have formally announced they will come together to form the Wholesale Applications Community. Essentially, the goal of the alliance will be to create a viable, cohesive and open industry platform for mobile app developers. Members of the Community will include AT&T, China Mobile, China Unicom, Deutsche Telekom, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, TeliaSonera, Sprint, Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone among others, and they'll be supported in their endeavors by LG, Samsung and Sony Ericsson. The total customers of the group is about 3 billion, giving WAC (our name) some considerable -- albeit theoretical for the moment -- power. The group plans to work on coming up with a standard for working across platforms over the next twelve months. WAC's website just went live a bit ago -- there's a link to it below -- and the full press release is after the break.

Continue reading Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community

Twenty-four telecom operators unite to form Wholesale Applications Community originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Details were shed on the open source Symbian^3 platform just a week ago, but at Mobile World Congress the friendly guys at The Symbian Foundation got reckless with details on HDMI support, and both 2D and 3D gaming graphics.

It'll be "feature complete" within the next month or two, and the first products with the platform will be released in the third quarter. More information is below via the press release, but do check out this spiffy video of the Android-esque multi-screens with widgets, and Cover Flow-like media player. [Business Wire via Nokia Conversations]

The Symbian Foundation today unveiled the Symbian^3 (S^3) platform, the first entirely open source release following the platform's transition to an open source license on 4 February, 2010, which was the largest of its kind in history.

S^3 is expected to be "feature complete" by the end of Q1 and the release will include: significant usability and interface advances, faster networking, acceleration for 2D and 3D graphics in games and applications, HDMI support (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), music store integration, an improved user interface with easier navigation and multi-touch gesture support, a feature-rich homescreen, and the ability to run even more applications simultaneously.

Members of the Symbian community, including device creators, network operators, hardware technology providers, professional services companies and application developers are already engaged with S^3 and the first devices using the platform are expected to ship as early as Q3 this year.

S^3 introduces major advances, which include:

* HDMI support enables users to plug their phone into a TV and watch a high-definition movie at 1080p quality without a Blu-ray player.
* Music store integration embedded within the radio enables users to identify a song and learn more about it. The addition of a "buy now" button, which links with the user's chosen music store, makes purchasing easy.
* More efficient memory management due to Writeable Data Paging allows more applications to run in parallel for a faster, more complete and efficient multi-tasking experience, especially on mid-range hardware.
* A new 2D and 3D graphics architecture takes full advantage of the hardware acceleration available to deliver a faster and more responsive user interface. Users, developers and device creators will all benefit greatly from the visual enhancements and smooth transitions that will significantly improve the look-and-feel of their applications and services. Combined with industry-standard OpenGL ES, the new architecture also provides a great platform for high performance games – all without slowing the phone down.
* The industry-leading networking architecture, ready for 4G networks, provides next-generation Internet experiences on today's devices. Consumers will benefit from the architecture's ability to seamlessly balance each individual application's needs regarding factors such as bandwidth, latency and jitter. This improves the consumer's experience of network-dependent applications and Internet services like VoIP and media content streaming.
* One-click connectivity for all applications greatly simplifies the process of connecting to the Internet, without interrupting the user. New global settings allow the user to configure platform-wide behaviour, for example ensuring the device automatically switches from cellular to WLAN when a free WLAN network is available.
* Usability enhancements across the user interface include the adoption of a direct "single tap" interaction model, making it much easier to complete common tasks on a device. Multi-touch support for gestures such as "pinch-to-zoom" forms the basis of a gesture framework that can be extended and leveraged by the developer community.
* The Homescreen takes a big step forward with support for multiple pages of widgets and a simple flick gesture to move between them. The widget manager makes discovery and download of new widgets simple and support for multiple instances of a native widget means that consumers can monitor multiple weather forecasts, news feeds, social networking accounts or multiple email accounts simultaneously through a common interface.

Lee M. Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation, said: "S^3 is another huge milestone in the evolution of our platform. Now that it is fully open source, the door is open to individual contributors, device creators and third-party developer companies, as well as other organizations, to create more compelling products and services than ever before. We have enjoyed significant momentum since we completed S^2, with companies including Sun, Nokia, Ixonos, Comarch and Accenture, among others, contributing to S^3. We are now looking to build on this momentum and remain on course to complete S^4 later this year."

The developer experience has also been greatly improved. The Qt toolkit is pre-integrated into all kits and the runtime in S^3 will run on existing devices back to S60 3.1. The Web Runtime support provided in the platform remains a key part of the developer story, allowing web developers to directly re-use their skills in HTML, CSS, Javascript and AJAX to create Homescreen widgets and standalone applications.

Acer's updated its Android range of phones with the Liquid e, running Android 2.1 and built using a Qualcomm Snapdragon 768 MHz processor, so isn't quite as zappy as some others we've seen recently.

While we don't have images of the Liquid e yet (seen above is the previous Liquid model), it has a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen is a WVGA job, the camera is a 5.0-megapixel sensor with autofocus; and there's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and HSDPA/HSUPA on the wireless side.

Internally, the ROM is 512MB (with a microSD slot), RAM is 256MB and an accelerometer, light sensor and proximity sensor all feature. Full release and specs below, with pricing and availability not yet known. Acer's not exactly known for its smartphones, but this Liquid e sounds like quite a step-up from the first Liquid which we saw last year.

Acer is proud to present Liquid e, the new version of the already well known Liquid smartphone.

Acer Liquid e features the latest Android™ 2.1 Operating System (aka Éclair). Building on the processing and graphical capabilities of the Qualcomm™ Snapdragon™ and its high definition screen, Liquid e is the state-of-the-art for multimedia, web browsing, and social media integration. It should thrill both avid users of internet on-the-go and new users eager to experience the rich possibilities offered by this innovative device.

This appealing high definition smartphone is the ideal solution for users demanding the best from their devices and in particular for high-definition video playback or streaming, gaming and browsing smoothly rich-content internet sites.

What's new on Liquid e with Android Éclair 2.1:
• Home screens - The new version now handles five home screens by default, allowing users to easily install more applications from the rich selection available on the Android Market, as well as shortcuts and widgets;
• Quick Contacts – a feature that lets users easily switch between the address book and the social network applications;
• Live wallpapers to customize your Liquid e on the fly;
• A new keyboard layout with an extended dictionary for predictive input;
• An updated version of the Android browser, supporting HTML5, double-tap zooming, video tagging support and geo-location API support.

With its 3.5" high-definition capacitive touch screen, Acer Liquid e offers an unparalleled experience when watching pictures or videos, and proposes an abundance of new applications on Android™ Smart Handhelds - games, professional applications and web applets that will enrich the end user experience.

Powered by the powerful Qualcomm™ Snapdragon™ processor, Acer Liquid e provides instant access to web pages, smooth streaming of videos or music, and instant response from popular mail, maps and search applications. The high-speed processing capabilities and high-speed internet access (HSPA) of Snapdragon™ brings to life the Android™ experience: no idle-time, almost instant uploads of web pages and downloads of rich multimedia content. The developer community can now take full advantage of these capabilities to bring to market innovative applications that demand raw computing power and superior handling of 3D graphics.

Twenty-four of the largest phone operators join together to make it easier to sell and distribute mobile phone apps.

Well here it is, Samsung's pico projector phone live and in the flesh here at Mobile World Congress. And surprise surprise it's running Android 2.1 with a TouchWiz 3.0 skin just as we heard. The only difference is the name: Halo is the codename, the official product name announced today is Beam. As a smartphone with integrated pico projector it's very impressive. However, as you can see from the pictures and video (it's coming), the 6 lumen brightness struggles even under the semi-controlled lighting demonstration set up here on the show floor in Barcelona. Samsung tells us that the TouchWiz implementation is nearly identical to what you'll find on Bada with "very small" differences. Unfortunately, the people we spoke with on the show floor weren't able to articulate exactly what those were. To us, having only used the two devices for a short period of time, they do look identical. Beam features a nice pass through trick that allows it to project the image seen by the 5 megapixel camera through the TI pico. Not sure how we'd use that in real life but it's a neat trick nonetheless. Now click into the gallery and prepare to be amazed at just how thin a smartphone with integrated projector can be while we wait for the summer launch.

Update: Video is now after the break.

Continue reading Samsung Beam (Halo) Android projector phone hands-on

Samsung Beam (Halo) Android projector phone hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The time has finally come for us to see Symbian's milestone shift toward finger-friendly operation in motion. Firstly, to allay any fears that it'd lack all the modern amenities, we'll note that kinetic scrolling, swiping, and pinch-to-zoom are all present and accounted for, while a "visual multi-tasking" option allows you to see the open applications in an interface not a million miles away from the Pre's card implementation. Customization is also a big deal in the S^3 UI, with multiple Home Screen pages available, accompanied by a litany of widgets you can add and manage. The media player application looks like a homage (read: copy) of Apple's Cover Flow UI, right down to the album covers flipping around to reveal the track listing. We're not complaining, we consider that a very intelligent and pleasing way to browse through music. Go check out the moving picture show after the break.

Continue reading Symbian S^3 officially announced, previewed on video

Symbian S^3 officially announced, previewed on video originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A follow-up from the Cliq, called the Cliq XT—or Quench, depending on where you live—has been shown off running Android 1.5 (which is a shame when most companies are looking at 2.1 now), and has MOTOBLUR.

Whether that's for better or worse, I'll leave up to you to decide—but in the meantime it has support for Adobe Flash Lite, a 3.1-inch 320 x 480 screen and a 5.0-megapixel camera with autofocus and flash. A-GPS with turn-by-turn directions, and Wi-Fi and HSDPA connectivity.

On sale sometime in the next month or two, it'll be exclusive to T-Mobile in the US, under the name of Cliq XT, but in other parts of the world it'll be known as the Quench. Hate to say it Moto, but with Android 1.5 you're not quenching my desire for an Eclair. Full release below. [Motorola]

Today Motorola, Inc. (NYSE: MOT) announced QUENCH with MOTOBLUR, Motorola's Android-powered content delivery service, which organizes messages and synchronizes contacts to keep conversations in constant motion. QUENCH's sleek touch-screen design, combined with great navigational features such as pinch and zoom and a touch pad, as well as the inclusion of Adobe Flash Lite, make browsing the web on its 3.1" high-resolution display a breeze. Motorola QUENCH™ will be available beginning in the first quarter of 2010. In the U.S., it will be called CLIQ XT™ and be available next month exclusively through T-Mobile USA. This is the eighth Android-powered device launched by Motorola around the globe.

"As we continue to expand Motorola's portfolio of Android-powered devices, we remain committed to delivering more of what people want from their handheld devices in easier ways," said Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola and CEO of Motorola Mobile Devices and Home business. "QUENCH with MOTOBLUR showcases Motorola's design heritage by offering a compelling differentiation from the traditional Android experience, giving people an easier way to have more messaging, more Web and more music."

MOTOBLUR is Motorola's Android-powered content delivery service created to make phones more personal and socially smart. It is the first solution to sync contacts, posts, messages, photos and much more - from sources such as Facebook®, MySpace, Twitter®, Gmail™, work and personal e-mail and Last.FM - and automatically deliver them to the home screen. Content is fed into easy-to-manage streams allowing you to spend less time managing your life and more time living it.

Messaging is made easier on QUENCH with the combination of MOTOBLUR features, a palm and pocket-friendly design and Swype, a new feature that makes responding to messages and entering text easier than ever. MOTOBLUR keeps happenings, messages, news feeds and more readily available for browsing and responding on the customizable home screen. Contact information, such as email addresses, profile pictures and phone numbers, is automatically synced whenever the details change online, so there's no need to manually update.

QUENCH delivers a complete Web experience on a full touch-screen device with pinch and zoom capabilities. Navigation is enhanced with a front-facing, centrally-located touch pad, so it's easier and more intuitive to flick through the Web. Adobe Flash Lite enables rich media content such as banners and videos to be displayed and fully enjoyed on the 3.1" high-resolution display.

The innovative new connected media player on QUENCH is not only connected to the Internet but your social networks as well. QUENCH connects you to your music with a new style of media player that lets you buy and instantly download music from an MP3 store while integrating third-party apps such as TuneWiki, SoundHound, GoTV, and YouTube™. The music search feature makes finding your songs easy while synchronized lyrics in any language you choose make learning songs easier than before. Share your favorite tracks, discover new ones2, find lyrics, watch videos, and stream FM radio.

QUENCH enables clear calls using dual microphones and noise cancellation technology, while crystal clear pictures are enabled by a 5.0 megapixel camera with autofocus and LED flash. Finding information online or within the device is made even easier with voice-activated search (English only). Simply say what you are looking for and QUENCH will find contacts, serve up Google™ Web search results based on location, or launch applications. Android Market™ provides fast access to more than 20,000 apps and widgets for limitless customizations and enhancements to QUENCH. Extras such as 3G and Wi-Fi® access, aGPS and stereo Bluetooth®1 make QUENCH a solid Android-powered device.

Finally, MOTOBLUR provides end-users with convenience and peace of mind, as lost devices can be located from a secure personal information portal and even remotely erased if necessary. Then, one user name and password brings back your contacts, messages and connectivity to your previously configured networks and email providers. Plus, with over-the-air updates, Motorola has the ability to improve current features and add new ones to QUENCH, ensuring the overall experience is continually enhanced.

Availability
QUENCH with MOTOBLUR will be available in multiple regions around the globe beginning in Q1 2010. In the U.S., the device will be called CLIQ XT with MOTOBLUR and will be available exclusively through T-Mobile USA beginning next month. For specific regional availability and pricing, contact your local Motorola representative. For more information, product specifications and images of QUENCH, please visit Media Center Fact Sheets. For multimedia assets from Mobile World Congress, visit MWC 2010 Press Kit. Also, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Samsung's headline act may've been the new Wave handset yesterday, but here at Gizmodo we're equally interested in the guts of these portable talky-phones. Take their two new CMOS sensors for phones, which show the future for Samsung's new camphones.

The S5K4E2 is a 5.0-megapixel sensor that measures just 1/4 of an inch and has an extended depth of field which will make for sharp photos (supposedly). It'll also shoot video at 14fps "at full resolution" and uses noise removal technology for clearer, less-noisy pics.

The second sensor, the S5K5CA, is 1/5th of an inch and is only 3.0-megapixels, with the main aim here being able to squeeze into extra small and slim phones. It'll shoot video in 720p and features a new JPEG rotation feature, which Samsung claims will save time when rotating images, eliminating lag.

Both camera sensors will be seen in phones in just a month or two, though I'm guessing the latter sensor has been used in the Wave, judging by the specs. [Business Wire]

Motorola has just announced its eighth Android phone at MWC, dubbed the CLIQ XT or Quench outside the US (and previously known as the Zeppelin). Highlights include a 3.1-inch touchscreen with a mysterious "high-resolution" (last time we heard, it was 480 x 320), "pinch and zoom" touch capabilities, 5 megapixel camera (with autofocus and LED flash), a navigation touchpad and a dual-mic noise cancellation system. The rest of the features are pretty bog-standard: stereo Bluetooth, AGPS, FM radio, Motoblur and Adobe Flash Lite. Unlike the CLIQ there's no physical keyboard here, but if that's how you roll then look out for T-Mobile USA's launch and pricing for this phone next month. The rest of us shall quench our thirst with something else for the time being.

Continue reading Motorola CLIQ XT / Quench joins the Android family at MWC

Motorola CLIQ XT / Quench joins the Android family at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eee PCs may not be as ubiquitous now as they were a year or two ago, but this T101MT model has popped up in France with its swiveling multitouch display and Windows 7 OS, looking mighty fiiiiine.

That display is a 10.1-inch LED backlit resistive multitouch with 1024 x 600 resolution. Inside is an Intel Atom N450 processor—better known as one of the new Pine Trail chips—and either 1GB or 2GB of DDRR2 RAM. Storage is listed as 160GB or 320GB (both with 500GB of ASUS WebStorage), depending on if you splurge for Windows 7 Starter or Windows 7 Home Premium.

The webcam is 0.3-megapixels, and a built-in mic is included along with three USB ports, one LAN and two audio jacks. A MMC/SD card reader polishes it off, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

Battery life is a purported 6.5 hours, which isn't that bad but we've seen better from other manufacturers. It'll go on sale in April—at least in Europe—with the price not yet known. It's a definite step-up from the early days of Eee PCs, so if you're in need of a dinky little portable machine, this one sounds like a player. [Blogeee via EeePC.it]

Filed under: Robots

UK police nab teen using $30,500 drone originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew this was coming, and sure enough, Sling hasn't kept us waiting for long. Our beloved readers have inundated our tip jar with the news that the 3G-enabled flavor of SlingPlayer Mobile is now live on the App Store, and from what we're hearing works very well. The placeshifting app will set you back just under $30, but will allow you to finally take your cable, satellite or PVR content on the move with you. We say finally, 3G streaming has been available on other phones for a while now, but good to see AT&T and company see sense and enable the goodness for the iPhone. Get downloading and commenting -- how does it compare to sliced bread?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

SlingPlayer Mobile v1.2 enables 3G streaming on the iPhone, now ready for download originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 03:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We'd already seen first hand what kind of GPU improvements Apple made with the iPhone 3GS (in comparison to the iPhone 3G, anyway), but if you've ever wondered how Cupertino's latest stacked up against Google's Nexus One in the graphical department, your answer is just a click away. The technical gurus over at Distinctive Developments set out to determine which handset was capable of pushing more frames per second when really taxed, and through a series of pinpoint tests, they discovered that the Nexus One (in general) lagged behind. The reason? Reportedly, Google's phone isn't using Neon floating-point optimization, but if it did, the scores you'll see just past the break could be quite different. Hey Mountain View, you getting all this?

Continue reading iPhone 3GS pitted against Nexus One in 3D frame rate test (video)

iPhone 3GS pitted against Nexus One in 3D frame rate test (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 02:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe's launching AIR, its cross-platform runtime, for smartphones. Why's that a big deal? It theoretically means developers can write an app once, and it'll work on tons of OSes—at least any that support AIR. Oh, and the iPhone.

Android's the first to get AIR, but WebOS, BlackBerrry and Windows Mobile are slated to get it too. And remember Adobe's initiative to push Flash apps onto the App Store for the iPhone? Apps developed for that will work just fine in AIR on other phones, letting Adobe have their iPhone cake and eat it too.

I saw an early build of it running on a Droid and Nexus One, where we messed with a couple of apps, like one streaming live video from a computer, and it's pretty impressive stuff, with multitouch and close-to-native performance in some instances. If AIR succeeds the way Adobe hopes, it'll be what Java once promised to be, a way to write once for tons of platforms. That's a not-insignificant-sized "if" though. [Adobe]

Robots born with the sole purpose of solving the Rubik's Cube are nothing new, but we're pretty sure we haven't seen one crack the code in under a dozen seconds before. The Cubestormer, which is built from a myriad Lego Mindstorm kits, recently took hold of the famous block and lined up every color without breaking a sweat. Oh, and did we mention that it took less than 12 seconds? It's worth noting again, either way. Hop on past the break and mash play to have your mind blown, not to mention your own intelligence insulted.

Continue reading Lego Cubestormer robot solves Rubik's Cube in sub-12 second whirlwind (video)

Lego Cubestormer robot solves Rubik's Cube in sub-12 second whirlwind (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Heavy Rain shouldn't have much going for it. Developed by a man known for his failure to properly end his last big game and filled with what look like quick-time events, it's endlessly dour and depressing... while being exclusive to the PlayStation 3. We said before that there is a good chance Heavy Rain is going to fail. That being said, our time with the game proved it to be a savvy, impressive, and often chilling experience.

If you're a fan of story-driven single-player games, do yourself a favor and at least rent the game. Get through the first few scenes, and give it an hour or two to allow it to grab you. Yes, that's a large investment on a game that is going to leave some cold. For those who are drawn in, however, this is something of an achievement in the art of gaming.

Things didn't go so well, huh, champ? We've talked a lot about love, but now it's time for our resident love doctor to talk about what happens when romance goes south. Here are the steps to breaking up... online.

Breaking up is hard to do, so the song goes, but it can be particularly painful in the digital world. If you find yourself separating from someone you'd created a digital identity with, follow these steps to keep your dignity (and assets) in tact:

1) Change Your Relationship Status If you don't do it, they will, which makes the preemptive relationship status change the way to go. Holding on to a fake "in a relationship with" could make you look desperate to your ex or any friends who know the truth. Better to cut the cord and move on, sadness and all. If you're not yet ready to move on and meet others (or don't want to provoke an online war with your ex), just remove the "in a relationship with" part but don't actually add "Single" or "Looking for Random Play." (Yet.)

2) Yank Some Pictures Some people remove all online signs of their relationship, including Facebook photos of the two of them in happier times. If you're both comfortable with the reminders of your time together, then no harm done (though it may make some future partners wary about why you continue to hold on to and display photos of your ex). If your ex would feel better with no photos online, then by all means respect her or his wishes. Whenever you have a choice, try to choose kindness.

3) To Unfriend or Not to Unfriend Might their feelings get hurt if you unfriend them? Yes, but such is life and love. It's fine to unfriend someone as long as you don't do it in a cruel way, like by sending them an evil message telling them that you're unfriending them due to their bad breath or the way they took nearly an hour to make it through their angel hair pasta. Before unfriending, though, consider whether you might want to date or be friends again in the future. If so, unfriending could be a wrong turn. Is it really that terrible that they might read your status updates or wall posts? Wait, really?

4) Limit Their Access Let's say you decide to stay Facebook friends but you want some boundaries. Change your privacy settings to either put them on limited profile or to modify their access for specific parts of your profile. You can limit their visibility by altering what they can or cannot see (such as placing an "Everyone but" limitation on new photos).

5) Change Your Passwords I don't care how much you trust the person. If you shared your passwords while you were together (for some, it's a sign of intimacy or trust), change your passwords. People sometimes do rash things in fits of jealousy, sadness, depression or revenge. As a sex and relationships columnist, I've heard all sorts of stories involving people breaking into each other's email accounts, bank accounts, Facebooks and more. There's nothing wrong with protecting yourself and your assets.

6) Save Things You Want Before your ex takes photos you want off of their Facebook (or god forbid their MySpace, if they still have one), copy any photos you want to your computer just in case it gets awkward to ask for them later. Even if you don't think you'll want them later on, you might – even if only for the memories. If seeing the photos makes you sad, transfer them to a folder on your hard drive. Still looking at them too often? Save them to an external hard drive. Still peeking? Have a friend babysit your external hard drive until you're able to move on.

7) Consider Blocking Them Hopefully you'll never need to block someone, but there are always those few key creepy people. Maybe it makes you feel gross to imagine that they have any sort of access to your life or that you ever kissed them or allowed them to insert Part A into Part B (and not in a cool gadget sort of way). If that's the case, why stop at unfriending? Block them and move on, as long as you're okay with not being able to see their profile either (which is what Facebook blocking entails). On Gmail and many other email systems, you can also set up rules to have their emails diverted into a separate folder in case you want to be able to receive emails from them but don't want their constant emails reminding you of what went wrong when you're trying to get work done.

Sometimes breakups are necessary and wanted. Other times they are exceedingly sad. If you're stuck in a real rut of sadness or depression, check out Peter McWilliams' classic How to Survive the Loss of a Love.

Read more of Dr. Debby's love advice here during Gizmodo's Bad Valentine celebration.

Debby Herbenick, PhD is a Research Scientist and Associate Director of The Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman's Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction. She blogs at MySexProfessor.com.

Gingerbread heartbreak shot by Jared Zimmerman/Flickr used under CC license

Bad Valentine is our own special take on the beauty—and awkwardness—of geek love.

It only took 126 career hops -- the first one being a soulless teen model -- for Barbie to land a job as a computer software engineer. All we know now is that she has a dual monitor setup and a picture of Ken at her cubicle. Oh, and she uses Linux on the world's smallest netbook.

Barbie slides into the cubicle, becomes a computer software engineer originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A scoop of sorts over at Phone Scoop (and verified elsewhere this evening) confirms that Windows Mobile 7 will not support flash at launch—which is officially tomorrow during the MWC—but will eventually support it, sometime.

Both Phone Scoop and Engadget are confirming the news this evening, which means tomorrow's big Windows Mobile 7 reveal will be revealing, yes, but will not include mention of Adobe or flash. Please note that this is reportedly for initial builds of the OS, and will most likely change with later versions. Most likely. [Phone Scoop via Engadget]

We'll cut to the chase: the 2010 Macworld Expo was a wild success. This was despite the expectations of nearly everyone—the press (yes, even those of us who still went to cover the conference), many of the exhibitors, and nearly the entire Internet. The conference's huge crowds ended up surprising everyone, all but guaranteeing a future for the Macworld Expo.

As the first Macworld San Francisco (MWSF) without Apple, IDG World Expo made huge efforts—arguably much more than in past years— to appeal to the Apple community. Offering free expo passes, huge discounts, and bringing in an emergency celebrity contingency were just some of the stops that IDG pulled out in order to lure in attendees.

We'll cut to the chase: the 2010 Macworld Expo was a wild success. This was despite the expectations of nearly everyone—the press (yes, even those of us who still went to cover the conference), many of the exhibitors, and nearly the entire Internet. The conference's huge crowds ended up surprising everyone, all but guaranteeing a future for the Macworld Expo.

As the first Macworld San Francisco (MWSF) without Apple, IDG World Expo made huge efforts—arguably much more than in past years— to appeal to the Apple community. Offering free expo passes, huge discounts, and bringing in an emergency celebrity contingency were just some of the stops that IDG pulled out in order to lure in attendees.

Well, that was a gimme.

Toy Fair is the annual event where we get to completely regress back to childhood and check out all of the awesome toys coming out for the rest of the year. And well, we love toys.

Who woulda thunk it? Giving WiFi to fidgety students on a bus actually makes them more productive. Nearly three years after an Arkansas school launched a trial that delivered laptops, iPods and wireless internet to a bus, an Arizona school district is discovering the merits of such a system -- though with this one, there stands a good chance for it to go well beyond the "pilot" phase. Students in Vail, Arizona have been able to handle school assignments, engage in research and even update their Facebook status on the lengthy rides to and from school, and the suits responsible for hooking Bus No. 92 up have stated that mischief has all but subsided and the bus has magically morphed into something of a "rolling study hall." As you'd expect, Autonet Mobile is responsible for the technology (the same company equipping select GM vehicles with in-car WiFi), and it has already sold similar tech to schools or districts in Florida, Missouri and Washington, DC. We always dreamed of being whisked off to another lousy school day on the GamerBUS, but this ain't a half bad alternative.

[Thanks, Nate]

Arizona school bus gains WiFi, students suddenly chill out and get productive originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In a potentially significant reversal of policy, the Federal Communications Commission could be poised to make the big telecoms share their high-speed Internet fiber networks with smaller companies. They would, in turn, offer more broadband services to the public. That's according to a Bloomberg story published on Friday, which adds that the proposal being considered comes from the Cbeyond broadband/telecom services firm. We contacted the FCC about this and got no response. But we also called AT&T, and they're taking it seriously enough.

If you're both ready and set, then you'll be pleased to know that Microsoft has major Windows Mobile goings-on to discuss tomorrow at 9AM ET (3PM here in Spain). What does that really mean? Well based on the torrent of circumstantial (and actual) evidence we've seen, it looks like the big M is set to deliver its most important piece of mobile news in years: Windows Mobile 7. Or, Windows Phone 7 Series... or whatever it is they're calling it these days. Regardless, it looks like a new era for Redmond's smartphone platform, and we'll be there covering the whole thing minute-by-minute... as only Engadget can.

If you're as curious as we are about Microsoft's plans, the event kicks off on Monday, February 15 at the times below. And here's the URL to park your browser at to see the action take place:

04:00AM - Hawaii
06:00AM - Pacific
07:00AM - Mountain
08:00AM - Central
09:00AM - Eastern
02:00PM - London
03:00PM - Paris
11:00PM - Tokyo

Microsoft's Windows Phone event at MWC kicks off tomorrow at 9AM ET originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iron Mr. Potato Head Man. Yes.

Toy Fair is the annual event where we get to completely regress back to childhood and check out all of the awesome toys coming out for the rest of the year. And well, we love toys.

PS3 3D video output turns up in 3.20 debug firmware originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, it's pretty clear that Windows Mobile 7 will be revealed by Microsoft at Mobile World Congress. We've been feeding on a veritable feast of WinMo7 rumors for several months now all pointing to Steve Ballmer's keynote scheduled for 3PM Barcelona time (9AM in New York). Now Adobe has issued a statement apparently confirming what we've already heard: Windows Mobile 7 will not support Flash. Unfortunately, the actual quote carried by Phone Scoop doesn't mention Windows Phone 7:

"Microsoft and Adobe are working closely together. While the newest version of Windows Phone won't support Flash at initial availability, both companies are working to include a browser plug-in for the full Flash player in future versions of Windows Phone. More details will be shared at Microsoft MIX next month."

Of course, the "newest version of Windows Phone" is technically 6.5.3 -- a WinMo update recently announced (but hasn't shipped) and presumably still works with Flash 10.1 beta (but isn't guaranteed). And since we can't find the Adobe statement on any of its usual press channels, we can't say for sure this quote is related to Windows Mobile 7. Still, we don't doubt the accuracy of Phone Scoop so don't get your hopes up for Flash in the initial builds of Windows Mobile 7 Windows Phone 7 Series devices.

Update: Sorry kids, we have independent confirmation: Windows Phone 7 will not support Flash at initial launch.

Adobe confirms no Flash in Windows Mobile 7 (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The new Iron Man helmet is too cool: It opens and closes slowly, just like in the movie, lights up, and JARVIS talks to you.

Not bad, for $35. There's also a redesigned Replusor glove that does the whole "yeoooowwwBOOOSHH" sound effect when you fire it at tanks, pets or small children, and Arc Lights in the Mark IV or Mark VI variants.

Toy Fair is the annual event where we get to completely regress back to childhood and check out all of the awesome toys coming out for the rest of the year. And well, we love toys.

In case you haven't noticed, Mobile World Congress is upon us, and you can bet that Samsung is here in a big way. The outfit is kicking things off with a couple of low-key releases: the S5K4E2 and S5K5CA CMOS image sensors. The former is a 5 megapixel chip that utilizes Samsung's own Enhanced Energy Steering technology and can capture video at up to 15 frames per second. We're told that it's also pretty darn good at reducing noise, and better still, it can slip into some of the slimmest and smallest handsets this world has ever seen. Moving on, there's the S5K5CA SoC imager, a 3 megapixel chip that combines both the image signal processor (ISP) with the CMOS image sensor. As the story goes, this one's some 25 percent smaller than prior 3 megapixel chips and the 720p video capture capabilities aren't too shabby, either. Both slabs are expected to hit mass production later this year, so go ahead and get ready to break the bad news to your existing cameraphone now. It's better this way, we promise.

New Samsung chips bring HD image sensors to slimmer, smarter mobiles originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SAN FRANCISCO—Most of our readers can identify with the problem of having too many devices that charge over USB and not enough USB outlets in the house. Or, a more common scenario might be traveling with your iPhone, Kindle, and perhaps soon an iPad, and then realizing that you brought the cables, but not the mini power brick. These are both scenarios that Fastmac hopes to address with its recently announced U-Socket that it displayed at the 2010 Macworld Expo, which the company hopes will eventually become ubiquitous at hotels, conference centers, and even your own home.

The U-Socket differs from homemade USB wall sockets (one of which you can find at Instructables) because it's the only such product that exists on the market that meets electrical safety specs. With what Fastmac's Michael Lowdermilk describes as "easy wiring," installing such a wall outlet is allegedly a simple task (Lowdermilk said he set up the company's booth sample all on his own). And, not only does it have your standard three-prong power plugs, it has two powered USB outlets on the sides, making it more useful than many of the DIY solutions out there.

SAN FRANCISCO—Most of our readers can identify with the problem of having too many devices that charge over USB and not enough USB outlets in the house. Or, a more common scenario might be traveling with your iPhone, Kindle, and perhaps soon an iPad, and then realizing that you brought the cables, but not the mini power brick. These are both scenarios that Fastmac hopes to address with its recently announced U-Socket that it displayed at the 2010 Macworld Expo, which the company hopes will eventually become ubiquitous at hotels, conference centers, and even your own home.

The U-Socket differs from homemade USB wall sockets (one of which you can find at Instructables) because it's the only such product that exists on the market that meets electrical safety specs. With what Fastmac's Michael Lowdermilk describes as "easy wiring," installing such a wall outlet is allegedly a simple task (Lowdermilk said he set up the company's booth sample all on his own). And, not only does it have your standard three-prong power plugs, it has two powered USB outlets on the sides, making it more useful than many of the DIY solutions out there.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson X10 mini and X10 mini pro hands-on with video

Sony Ericsson X10 mini and X10 mini pro hands-on with video originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 19:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week Inhabitat geared up for the Greener Gadgets Conference by showcasing some of the most exciting gizmos from this year's design competition. First we took a look at the IllumiCharger, a handy wall-mounted solar charger that one-ups your standard outlets with two usb ports. We also liked the Fair Energy Clock, a fool-proof adapter that vanquishes vampire power by staking out times to pull the plug. And in case you missed it, be sure to check out Corky, the kinetic mouse that generates energy with every click. Batteries be gone!

It was also another big week for solar power as technological advances produced photovoltaic cells that are smaller, more efficient, and more versatile in their applications. IBM unveiled a new breed of thin-film cells that are 40% more efficient than previous prototypes, while the University of Michigan announced the world's smallest solar-powered sensor, which measure a scant 9 cubic millimeters.

Finally, we were flat-out wowed by Porsche's latest supercar - a 911 hybrid that will be taking on the competition at the 24 hour Nürburgring race this May. The vehicle is based on the tried-and-true 911 platform but features some race-ready tricks under the hood: front wheel hybrid drive and a kinetic energy recovery system that stores braking energy in a flywheel that delivers a 160hp boost of speed with the press of a button.

Inhabitat's Week in Green: Illumicharger, thin solar cells, and a Porsche originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 14 Feb 2010 18:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There's a badass scene in the Clone Wars cartoon where General Grievous cuts down six Jedi, by himself, using some insane spinning saber techniques. This twirling dual-bladed Grievous lightsaber will let you do that to your friends.

In other toy lightsaber news, with the next releases, the blades will actually screw off, meaning when you're not deflecting Nerf darts, you can hang the lightsaber on your belt. Screwing the blade on does kind of kill the magic though—at least Luke coulda used the Force to do it.

STAR WARS GENERAL GRIEVOUS LIGHTSABER
(Approximate Retail Price: $34.99; Ages: 6 & up; Available: August 1, 2010)
JEDI warriors have long recognized the prowess of GENERAL GRIEVOUS as a highly skilled, elusive and often multiple-LIGHTSABER-wielding adversary. Now, kids can engage in LIGHTSABER battles just like this powerful cyborg with the new STAR WARS: THE CLONE WARS GENERAL GRIEVOUS LIGHTSABER. Battle with the power of GENERAL GRIEVOUS by spinning the two LIGHTSABERS simultaneously in one hand, take out the spinner and connect the two LIGHTSABERS for double-bladed LIGHTSABER action, or use the two separately to ward off an opponent. Both LIGHTSABERS include electronic lights and battle sounds!

STAR WARS LIGHTSABERS
(Approximate Retail Price: $9.99 to $19.99 to $34.00 up to $119.99; Available: August 1, 2010)
2010 is the year of the LIGHTSABER! Hasbro is offering its widest range ever of
STAR WARS LIGHTSABERS – the quintessential battle weapon for JEDI and SITH across the galaxy. From the BASIC and ELECTRONIC LIGHTSABERS, to the all-new spinning GENERAL GRIEVOUS LIGHTSABER, to the line of authentic high-end replica FORCE FX LIGHTSABERS, Hasbro offers STAR WARS fans of all ages a variety of ways to engage with the noble weapon of the JEDI. The new ELECTRONIC LIGHTSABERS even offer a DVD featuring the greatest lightsaber battles ever, including epic duels from the animated television series and the live action battles between the most famous JEDI and SITH. (Each sold separately.)

Toy Fair is the annual event where we get to completely regress back to childhood and check out all of the awesome toys coming out for the rest of the year. And well, we love toys.

SAN FRANCISCO—Leather gloves that work with your iPhone: seven of the sweetest words to ever be uttered on the Macworld Expo floor. The iPhone-toting Chicagoans on the Ars staff are painfully familiar with the dilemma of keeping one's fingers warm in sub-freezing temps or removing one's gloves to check the weather app to find out when the snow will melt. But until now, practically all iPhone-compatible glove solutions have been ugly, clumsy, or both. iTouch Gloves promise to save us with an aesthetically pleasing solution that happens to come with some exciting built-in technology.

It's not all about gloves, but we'll start with that. The iTouch Gloves are fully leather gloves that currently come in a variety of styles for both men and women. From driving gloves to your "classic" winter glove, unlined (on the cheapest end) to wool linings to a full cashmere lining, these gloves look and feel like any other mid- to high-end glove you might find in a department store. They are priced similarly as well—the unlined driving glove goes for $99.95 and they range all the way up to $194.95 for a cashmere-lined dress glove. These compare nicely to my $99 non-iPhone compatible leather gloves that I wear every day on price, but do more than keep my hands warm.

SAN FRANCISCO—Leather gloves that work with your iPhone: seven of the sweetest words to ever be uttered on the Macworld Expo floor. The iPhone-toting Chicagoans on the Ars staff are painfully familiar with the dilemma of keeping one's fingers warm in sub-freezing temps or removing one's gloves to check the weather app to find out when the snow will melt. But until now, practically all iPhone-compatible glove solutions have been ugly, clumsy, or both. iTouch Gloves promise to save us with an aesthetically pleasing solution that happens to come with some exciting built-in technology.

It's not all about gloves, but we'll start with that. The iTouch Gloves are fully leather gloves that currently come in a variety of styles for both men and women. From driving gloves to your "classic" winter glove, unlined (on the cheapest end) to wool linings to a full cashmere lining, these gloves look and feel like any other mid- to high-end glove you might find in a department store. They are priced similarly as well—the unlined driving glove goes for $99.95 and they range all the way up to $194.95 for a cashmere-lined dress glove. These compare nicely to my $99 non-iPhone compatible leather gloves that I wear every day on price, but do more than keep my hands warm.

In my last report from Physics@FOM, I will talk about something I am truly not competent to discuss: "Holography, ADS/CFT and the emergence of gravity." I realize that I am not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I have never found myself so lost so quickly in a presentation. I think this comes from the difficulties in conveying some very new concepts by Erik Verlinde, who is still in the process of grappling with them himself. Nevertheless, let me try.

Holography, and anti de Sitter space/conformal field theory are two ways of describing the bending of space and the entropy associated with it. The two models are very closely related to each other. So close that, according to Wikipedia—the fount of all reliable knowledge—theorists can't agree if they are the same or not. But the point about both is that they resolve the problem of unifying gravity with quantum mechanics by getting rid of gravity.

Bees have a way of saying "stop dancing immediately": It's pretty widely recognized that bees let their fellow hivemates know about the presence of food sources through an elaborate "waggle dance" that provides some positional information. Less well known is that the bees also have a stop signal, a high frequency buzz that causes their fellows to cease dancing. It turns out that if a foraging bee is attacked while at a food source, they return to the hive, figure out who else was there based on smell, and tell them to stop dancing. We'd apparently been aware of the stop signal previously, but didn't know what would activate the behavior.

Who needs purification when you've got mezcal?: If you were to give a biologist a sample preserved in ethanol, they'd typically obtain DNA by taking a piece of the sample, damaging it in the process. It turns out that a Mexican alcohol has provided a demonstration that this damage is unnecessary. "We hypothesized that DNA from a preserved specimen can leak into its preservative medium, allowing the medium itself to be directly PCR amplified" the authors write. "We successfully tested this idea on mezcal—the alcoholic beverage famous for the 'worm' (a caterpillar) that is placed in the bottle of many brands—and indeed obtained amplifiable quantities of caterpillar DNA." They point out that mescal is probably a lousy preservative, meaning that lab samples may give much better results.