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Tough day to be Garmin or TomTom, Wall Street is surely impressed with Droid's free GPS functionality. Garmin and TomTom are each down 15%+ today! http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/28/the-game-has-changed/

Gee, the choice is easy for me. Which is less likely to file a lawsuit when I use it the way I like.

Google has already sent a cease and desist order http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/24/google-hits-android-rom-modder-with-a-cease-and-desist-letter/ to a system modder. Can't use Android anymore.

I've been running Maemo on a Nokia N800 for a few years now. Mostly happy, but the apps and gui could be a little more polished. I've built and installed a number of apps, but usually, I just use the app installer - debian based, so it rocks.

That's why I don't think this is the case. Netflix has said that they had help from Sony, so I think it is more likely a PS3 application and not a BD-Live Java application.

According to this article, it was an analyst who believed that the implementation was BD-Live, rather than citing some inside source. I'm still hoping for some more interesting BD-Live Java homebrew....

Does it matter?

This is largely the point; phone companies gather 100s of patents that cover every aspect of their phones. These patents are often so broad that courts will not uphold them or will force them to be narrowed.

Still, the lawyers use these patents as a sort of negotiation tool. In this and many other industries, patent lawyers aren't lawyers as much as strategists; for all we know, Nokia is doing this as a defensive method because they know they are infringing on some Apple IP. Or, perhaps, they want some cool multitouch features in their next phone.

See this article for a fascinating analysis of Apple and Palm's patent war:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/apple-vs-palm-the-in-depth-analysis/

Except the google study didn't display any evidence of this happening - there was no correlation between higher temperatures and higher failure rates on mechanical drives.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/18/0420247
http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/18/massive-google-hard-drive-survey-turns-up-very-interesting-thing/
http://labs.google.com/papers/disk_failures.pdf

Even if it were, it'd be easy to rememdy - boot all your servers off SSD and keep them in a "hot" room. Keep your SANs-full-o'-spinning-rust in a "cold" room. You've just saved a fortune in air con despite being unable to convince your CTO that heat isn't as big a killer as many people claim it to be.

We had a power failure at one of our data centres, due to a combination of a stupid JCB driver and IBM's ineptitude (not keeping the diesel tanks full). Power for the servers was restored about six hours before the air-con was back up and running, and most of our equipment got cooked (ambient temp ranging from 35 to 40 degrees depending which part of the data centre you stood in) - we demanded IBM guarantee us a 3hr turnaround on any parts that died for the next 6 months due to heat failure. 18 months later and our hard drive failure graph is the same as it ever was.

Shoddy components on hardware is another matter I guess, but we've never had any hardware die due to a single faulty component apart from the occasional RAID card. Expect, as "hot" DC's become more common, that the heat thresholds on lots of enterprise equipment will increase... for a price, of course ;)

Yeah, the CPU in the current crop of Android phones isn't that impressive. It looks like the next generation coming out this year should have the more modern ARM Cortex which is the same CPU behind the iPhone 3GS and the Palm Pre.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/14/core-values-the-silicon-behind-android/

From a no name company, but this number that just got posted on Engadget seems incredible. Android, and apparently an open OS that runs ordinary Android apps.

Same concept, but seems like more of a generalist device (and also much uglier). Can read not only ebooks, but can surf the web on the little LCD on the bottom, and then when a button is pressed, mirrors the content on the eye friendly e-ink display.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/20/watch-spring-design-alex-push-the-web-to-e-reader-format-video/

Just found the answer over at Engadget: No web browser So Kindle 2 International for me. But I'll hold off until after Thanksgiving to see if Amazon reacts but cutting prices/doing a bundle.

The "free wifi" bit is actually for anything, not just on the Nook. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/u/Wi-fi-at-Barnes-and-Noble/379001240/ Borders did the same thing as well. http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/30/borders-pulls-a-bandn-offers-free-wifi-to-all-patrons/

Endgagdet story from 2007
Siggraph 2007 video
Siggraph 2009 demo

Apparently "Sholes" wasn't considered to be a very good name for the phone.

More info.

What non-Android phones have significantly higher processing power? iPhone is also an ARM device, and runs at 600MHz.

The iPhone 3GS' CPU is a lot faster than any current Android phone. There is far more to the CPU performance than MHz, and the one in the 3GS is a much newer design. The one in current Android phones is of the same design as the old generation iPhones.

You joke, but check out this cool project to add real time imagery into Google Earth:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/30/video-google-earth-animated-with-real-time-human-and-vehicular/

It's also worth noting that the original review was posted in July.

Last month HTC released a firmware update that eliminates the laggy interface issues.

Good news for HTC Hero early adopters: HTC has a new firmware update out now for the device, and it considerably speeds up the interface if the multitude of reports to be found on the internet can be believed. Seeing as this was the number one gripe with the overall excellent UI, we're incredibly glad HTC has gotten work on this, and we'll be spending some more time with the device to return our newly tinted impressions. There's a video after the break demonstrating changes, and most actions seems quite a bit quicker and smoother, all the way down to opening and closing the apps menu, and sliding between home screens. The update doesn't really include much else in the way of features, but since it's addressing the main pain point of the phone, we sure don't mind -- and neither will Sprint users, who we suppose will be getting this newly improved interface right out of the gate.

I think this is what you meant!

Does this remind anyone of the Shadowrunner decks?

Maybe if I get this, Vuzix Wrap Eyewear, a neon green mohawk, and leather jacket I can start calling myself a "Decker" ;)

"According to some reports, the failure was due to a SAN (Storage Area Network) gone wrong at Microsoft's end. It is claimed that Microsoft does not have a working backup of some of the data that has gone missing from customers devices. The SAN upgrade is rumoured to have been outsourced to Hitachi to complete"

"Microsoft, possibly trying to compensate for lost and / or laid-off Danger employees, outsources an upgrade of its Sidekick SAN to Hitachi, which -- for reasons unknown -- fails to make a backup before starting"

"I've been getting the straight dope from the inside on this. Let me assure you, your data IS gone. Currently MS is trying to get the devices to sync the data they have back to the service as a form of recovery.

It's not a server failure. They were upgrading their SAN, and they outsourced it to a Hitachi consulting firm. There was room for a backup of the data on the SAN, but they didn't do it (some say they started it but didn't wait for it to complete). They upgraded the SAN, screwed it up and lost all the data.

All the apps in the developer store are gone too.

This is surely the end of Danger. I only hope it's the end of those involved who screwed this up and the MS folks who laid off and drove out anyone at Danger who knew what they were doing.

"Epic fail" doesn't begin to describe this one.

For something far outside the box, build a rocket using your free 360!! Hack up the graphics processor for missile guidance [borrowing from the PS2 hype]. And guide your missile with your controller... no really, there's precedent. No, this project won't happen anytime soon. Yes, we all wish it would!

Flash is indeed running on Android already. Just not on the G1, unfortunately.

Have you used the Hero? You might be disappointed:

The Hero represents a valiant effort from HTC -- though unfortunately, the company appears to have bitten off more than its last-generation hardware can chew. If this build of Android were to be loaded atop the guts of a 3GS or Pre, the performance would likely be astounding, but fused with the two-year old architecture of previous devices, it's mostly disappointing.

As for whatever succeeds the Hero, that might actually be able to run HTC's UI layer well enough to really give Palm and Apple a run for their money.

To me it's obvious that Apple would be lucky (and quite happy) to capture 10% of the smartphone market...

Well "Captain Obvious", I guess they got Lucky after all.

"RIM increased its share of the lucrative (smartphone) market to 19.5% (7.4 million units) from 10.9% while Apple more than doubled its share, up from 5.2% to 10.7% (4.1 million units)."

That report is from March 2009. Before the 3Gs, and the $99 iPhone 3G...

So who is that market share eroding from? Windows Mobile.

Yeah or this: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/06/htc-touch-hd2-hands-on/

I'd love to see New York City sue Apple over the rights to using an Apple as a logo. And then force Apple to come up with a new logo.

Actually, the reverse happened. Apple ended up losing that one.

Apple's lawyers have become the trolls of the tech world.

Yes, but they're doing this for legal safety; either Woolworth's trademark claim gets denied (Apple wins), Woolworth settles (Apple wins), or the government determines that the logos are sufficiently distinct and grants Woolworth's application (Apple still wins).

BZZZZZZT, but thanks for playing.

In Australia when plaintiff makes a false claim against another person they are legally permitted to sue the plaintiff under our woeful deformation laws. Given the obvious difference between the two logo's there is no way for Apple to win this so at the very least Apple will have to pay for Woolworths legal costs as well as their own (Apple loses).

This is not a trademark defence, this is an egotistical and paranoid corporation attempting to enforce its will on other corporations by using the wrong law as a bludgeon. Apple will lose this one like they lost their suite against NYC in a remarkably similar case.

nVidia's drivers are worse than ATI's. Microsoft released data showing that nVidia drivers cause 30% of all Windows crashes, greater than any other source, whereas ATI's less than 10%. I have had the chance to test nVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS and ATI Radeon Mobility X1400 in the same laptop and have seen some signifcant difference, with the GeForce graphics are a lot worse, things like image tearing and flickering, lines and pixels where the mipmap levels are, and in Aero blocks and corrupted graphics while resizing and moving windows around. With the Radeon graphics quality looks a lot better all around, textures have more detail, trilinear texture filtering is real trlinear texture filtering, mipmaps and textures don't shimmer, and on the desktop things like flash, windows resizing, and going from page to page and window to window are faster with no graphics distortion.

nVidia drivers responsible for nearly 30% of Vista crashes

I do not own a lenovo but that may be my next laptop. Great parts and long life are the most important with battery being next.

Right now I have a white macbook which I do CLI Linux development and XCode development. And i could do windows development too i guess...

I think the mac is the best but a lenovo would be very enticing to me because there would actually be a point to installing Linux on it. (OSX is built on BSD)

So choose what you want to develop and choose a laptop.

Always keep in mind the battery life.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/15/dells-latitude-on-instant-os-detailed-screenshooted/

The dell may be a fad but its really cool. :) ARM processor would be neat.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/10/the-ps3-laptop-from-ben-heck-to-engadget-with-love/ http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ujKhv5mRgIAJ:benheck.com/04-10-2008/playstation-3-portable+ben+heck+ps3+laptop&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

The usefulness of Coral caches is rapidly approaching zero these days. Here's some Engadget coverage of the item in question.

And, boy, you lose of those fuckin' shoes or they getcha!

Yeah, you know, I was worried about RFID in my soles so I made me some sandals* just to be safe. ;)

* this is not my page

You've seen this version, right?

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/21/seagate-2tb-barracuda-xt-worlds-first-sata-6gbps-hard-drive/

With the bits packed so tight on these drives and the extended cache we have a reason for USB3.

If you ask me, it is still overpriced for what amounts to a very inexpensive unit to manufacture. I am willing to bet it costs about 10-20 USD to manufacture.

You can bet that but here are the numbers. Prices will have dropped some, but probably not to 1/8th http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/15/wii-manufacturing-costs-ring-up-to-just-158/

Doubtful, no one other then AMD is able to succesfully compete in the graphics market, also AMD does not have any GPU's or ultra mobile devices, and that market is simply enormous

So enormous that AMD was forced to sell the long-running ATI Imageon line just 8 months ago. If what you're claiming is true, they should have been making money hand-over-fist...but they weren't. All this despite that fact that the only other 3D player in the market is PowerVR!

and nvidia is hoping with their next gen mobile chip to get into everything from phones to portable video players, that is a growth market.

Portable video players are a saturated market. You know when Apple caves-in and adds video RECORDING to their dying iPod line, that video playback is already thoroughly entrenched. And don't give me the bullshit that HD video playback will somehow kick-off a new "revolution," when the devices are too small to gain any benefit whatsoever from HD video (screen is too small).

The Zune HD is the only HD-capable player on the market, and the screen can't take advantage of this. You need a clunky dock and a real monitor to see the difference, and the number of people who will buy it for that purpose is small indeed.

Back to the subject, every single competing smartphone-level chipset can already do video pretty well, so why are people going to spend money on Tegra (especially when you don't even get a Coretex A8)? For the 3D graphics, of course! And that means you're entering yet-another saturated market: portable 3D gaming. Good luck convincing buyers that they need better graphics than a PSP, DSi or iPhone 3GS can already offer.

Nvidia is late to the party by a decade, and they expect to find more than scraps left at the dinner table? They're nuts.

A middle-tier ARM SoC provider competing against TI, Freescale, Qualcomm and Samsung for the media player market, with a sideline in high-end compute and graphics boards that exist as a technology testbed for said SoC products?

Yeah, I have to agree: I don't see Nvidia dying anytime soon, but I have to say that (barring some impressive new market), their days of growth are over.

Intel has locked Nvidia completely out of the Intel chipset business, destroying one of Nvidia's major market segments (who buys Nvidia to run AMD processors anyway?) Clarksdale will close the door permanantly on LGA775, and simultaneously close the market for Nvidia's IGP chipsets. Yeah, there's still some money from selling SLI licenses and that silly PCIe bridge chip, but it's a pittance compared to the sales Nvidia used to see.

The only loophole remaining is Atom, and once that becomes a SoC offering, Nvidia will have nowhere to turn except Tegra.

And boy, is that going to be a competitive market! The ARM SoC field will be tough-going, and Tegra is not the only chipset out in the wild with high-end media capabilities. Oh, and if Intel delivers on it's promises with Atom SoC, Tegra will also have to compete with Atom. Sorry Nvidia, you just can't seem to get away from Intel :)

According to the Engadget story the Wii bowling session lasted 9 hours. That's pretty excessive. I bet someone woke up with a sore arm the next day.

Poach the other guy, it would be much more effective: "I'm a PC, and this is what I can really do."

It'd be a bit weird. See, the "PC guy", John Hodgman, has actually been a Mac user since 1984 - except for a brief period, which he summarized as:

My PC experience was relatively benign. I had two machines over those two years, and both ended with the PC, despite all of my diligent maintenance, freaking out at the end, unusable, overwhelmed with spyware and bugs, slowly singing "bicycle built for two" and plotting my demise. [source]

Relatively small? I believe you're talking about cingular, which was the second largest cellular network in the US behind Verizon and still is.

http://www.engadget.com/2005/02/02/the-engadget-guide-to-at-t-wireless-cingular-sbc-at-t-merger/

It "scored better"? You are vastly overestimating how much thought Intel Marketing put into the choice of the name. *grin* Actually, Intel Marketing is just copying Maybelline Turbo Boost mascara. Or maybe Vidal Sassoon Turbo Boost hair dryers?

Actually, in comparison, "SuperUltraMoreFaster Maker" isn't so bad. "Turbo Booster" gets 1,850,000 hits in Google. "SuperUltraMoreFaster Maker" gets exactly none. You're a creative genius!! Sorry, that means you'll never be hired by Intel Marketing.

My partly joking theory is that the staff of Intel Marketing long ago realized that Intel doesn't need marketing, since there is no one else besides AMD from whom to buy fast processors. So, it doesn't matter what they do. Mostly, they seem to do nothing. Sometimes, apparently due to boredom, they experiment with marketing. For example, buyers were offered Intel Bunny People dolls. How many buyers said, "Wow!!! A doll! I think I'll buy from Intel, rather than AMD"? The Intel web site is better now, but a few years ago, it was difficult or impossible to discover the Intel SKU of an Intel processor from the Intel web site, even after you spent 2 hours joining Intel's hardware buyer's organization. You could research processors on Intel's web site, but the Intel SKU wasn't listed. Wholesalers listed the processors by Intel SKU.

Intel's consumer division was so bad it ceased business. It would take many, many paragraphs to tell you how bad it was.

About 2 years ago, Intel Chairman Craig Barrett got bad press by announcing that Intel would go into competition with OLPC, One Laptop per Child: OLPC on 60 Minutes: Intel is evil. Typical story: Negroponte: "Intel should be ashamed of itself" for dumping its low cost PC. Look at the photo of Barrett! The photo looks like the personification of evil. *grin*

Now, Intel is trying to correct problems it has created by encouraging the sales of mobile computers with the Intel Atom processor, without communicating openly and honestly to customers that the Atom processor is very slow. For example, Intel: Some Netbook resellers saw 30% return rate.

Am I saying that, if I ran Intel Marketing, I could do better? Yes, I'm saying that. Maybe you could, also.

Your local retailer?

It's becoming difficult to find any home theater audio or video device that doesn't support streaming media out of the box.

It won't be long before you'll just key in the title from your remote and the movie will launch.

If you want the full experience - multichannel theater sound - the ultra high definition 2K x 4K video on the 50 or 250 or 1250 GB optical disk, it will be a one-click order that arrives by post in two or three days from Netflix or Amazon.

The sea going pirate retired from the trade not only because he was being ruthlessly hunted down by the world's navies - but because his markets were being flooded with easily affordable - instantly accessible - high quality product from the legitimate trader.

Personally, I think the Sony OLED Walkman looks better than the Zune, but you're right that the Zune will drop in price quicker.

I don't know about you, but as a hobbyists, I've been drooling all over the new nVidia chipset ITX boards, I really want to make an arcade unit with one of those. I'm also anticipating boards that support Athlon Neo for the same reasons.

1) arrange for a partner to drive a car with you.
2) Put a really big antenna on the car and on the RV
3) Park the car in Starbuck's parking lot, leeching off their WiFi
4) Explore the countryside in the RV, within a 237 mile radius of the car.
5) Pack up the car and move to the next starbucks.

Seems like Wacom is planning something just like that for the Desktop.
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/wacom-bamboo-multitouch-pen-tablet-spotted-by-mr-blurrycam/
I would totally buy one.
I often find myself trying to execute pinch gestures on my mouse pad after working with my MacBook ;)

Fair enough, I agree with that, but it's not a suicide move either, or a sign of non-commitment, as some suggested.

At this point something like the Zune HD, built to compete primarily against the Touch, is a suicide move without an App Store answer. A handful of included 3rd-party apps, is not that answer. The Touch has Need For Speed and Assassins Creed, for crying out loud!

Yes some individual parts seem cool - primarily the OLED screen. But I think at that size it's going to be a pretty marginal improvement over the screens the Touch has today, and it's just not enough to woo away most consumers anymore.

The sign of non-commitment is the lack of will to knock heads together at Microsoft to build that App Store answer today (really, yesterday). In my mind if they were serious about the Zune it would be the flagship for a Microsoft App Store, which would then expand to support the totally redesigned Windows Mobile next year. It's certainly a sexier leader than Windows Mobile.

The problem is the Zune guys have no pull, and Windows Mobile people insist everything begins and ends with them. Since Microsoft has had good success with the 360 it's amazing to me they don't give the consumer products divisions like the Zune more say in the direction things take.

Which is why I wish this article wasn't so damn biased. It leaves out so much good information that engadget didn't, like:

"Later this year, Zune plans to release free applications such as Twitter for Zune and Facebook for Zune, in addition to fun 3-D games such as "Project Gotham Racing: Ferrari Edition," "Vans Sk8: Pool Service" and "Audiosurf(TM) Tilt." Games can be added to Zune HD via Zune Marketplace over the Wi-Fi connection or when connected to the Zune PC software."

Read this article (really, it's better) and tell me the slashdot one isn't biased for leaving out the good stuff:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/zune-hd-3d-gaming-and-app-downloads-confirmed/
-Taylor

here is the Engadget article, which gives all the info, not just the part that looks bad. And this coming from some guys that have a huge love for Apple...
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/zune-hd-3d-gaming-and-app-downloads-confirmed/
-Taylor

This is a major oversight if Microsoft isn't going to allow 3rd party apps. Maybe when they get around to supporting it, you'll be able to install apps without using an iTunes-style interface. Directly from app's website perhaps?

It's just "Not Yet". This article is extremely biased, check out the Engadget article for actual info, not fanboy FUD.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/15/zune-hd-3d-gaming-and-app-downloads-confirmed/

-Taylor

No, it's not.

It's emulation only, it has a limited specific subset, and it has no graphics capability. It's a limited virtualization basically, that not many computers can run, especially the people upgrading from old systems.

Basically, you're not going to be able to run what you can run in xp. That is not necessarily a bad thing in all ways, but you know.

It really looks like Palm doesn't want homebrew tethering http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/15/palm-webos-system-upgrades-mandatory-hacking-scene-forbidden-fr/

There are homebrew tethering options for pretty much every unlocked phone. People were installing proxy servers on their iPhones before Apple added their tethering option.

The Sprint Simply Everything plan doesn't include tethering, if you get caught tethering you will be billed $40/month(or whatever Sprint is currently selling tethering for). Where did you get the $1000 figure from?