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Here is an announcement, here is an image. Both of these date from 2006.

Pfffff...... his sound system goes to 11 .4 , bitch!

IT EXISTS.

That's what I did when an app came out with an insulting pricetag.

No you are just dilusional. It's a proven fact and anyone that knows anything about HDTV knows that distance removes your ability to see a difference.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/09/1080p-charted-viewing-distance-to-screen-size/

Lumpy is spot on. 1080p you have to sit 10 feet or closer to a 92" screen. anything further away and it becomes less noticable. 4K would be about 7 feet for a 92" screen.

A lot of people that know absolutely nothing at all about HDTV or vision say what you do, "your eyes suck" Let me guess you can hear the difference between cables as well....

So this new iPhone will be exactly like the Samsung Galaxy Round then?

No, according to Forbes it will probably be curved from top to bottom like the LG Flex, not curved from side to side like that Samsung device. That, IMHO, makes a bit more sense than curving it from side to side since (as the Forbes article points out) it addresses that little pain-point where either the phone is too far from your mouth, or not close enough to your ear. And I'm afraid that both Apple, LG and Samsung were all beaten to it on the curved mobile phones front by Motorola, the DynaTAC was shaped to bring the microphone closer to your mouth, a feature it inherited from much older conventional land-line phone designs.

No modern phone (should) have the need for you to have the microphone up close to your mouth. In fact, it is preferable not to, for the person on the other end.

Maybe, but a curved phone feels more natural, at least it does IMHO. Even so I still think this curved/flex display craze is a fad.

Yep. It's very obvious in this video: http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/29/samsung-galaxy-round-hands-on/

More glare.

I'm going to enjoy pointing that out to proud owners.

Hello, you look like a person that would like to choose a phone that suits your needs rather than one that Apple says is best for you.

Luckily, with Android, you can get a both a phone that is curved along the top-bottom axis like the Galaxy Round or a phone that is curved along the left-right axis like the LG G Flex
Naturally flat phones will also be supported in parallel with the curved ones if you should prefer that. (We have yet to see if this will be the case with products running a competing OS.)

Have a nice day, and remember, there is no wrong way to hold a phone.

Hello, you look like a person that would like to choose a phone that suits your needs rather than one that Apple says is best for you.

Luckily, with Android, you can get a both a phone that is curved along the top-bottom axis like the Galaxy Round or a phone that is curved along the left-right axis like the LG G Flex
Naturally flat phones will also be supported in parallel with the curved ones if you should prefer that. (We have yet to see if this will be the case with products running a competing OS.)

Have a nice day, and remember, there is no wrong way to hold a phone.

So this new iPhone will be exactly like the Samsung Galaxy Round then?

No, according to Forbes it will probably be curved from top to bottom like the LG Flex, not curved from side to side like that Samsung device. That, IMHO, makes a bit more sense than curving it from side to side since (as the Forbes article points out) it addresses that little pain-point where either the phone is too far from your mouth, or not close enough to your ear. And I'm afraid that both Apple, LG and Samsung were all beaten to it on the curved mobile phones front by Motorola, the DynaTAC was shaped to bring the microphone closer to your mouth, a feature it inherited from much older conventional land-line phone designs.

No modern phone (should) have the need for you to have the microphone up close to your mouth. In fact, it is preferable not to, for the person on the other end.

No, I think it is to extract more money from wallets.

Yep. It's a "novelty" - a conversation point.

All it has to do is look weird and people will find ways they think it's "better" to justify it to themselves.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/29/samsung-galaxy-round-hands-on/

The sad thing is: In a few years we'll all have this whether we want it or not, there won't be anything but curved phones in the shops. After that they'll start selling us "classic shape" phones at a premium price. So it goes.

Is this for anti glare or something?

You can see in this video, the glare is *much* worse.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/29/samsung-galaxy-round-hands-on/

So this new iPhone will be exactly like the Samsung Galaxy Round then?

No, according to Forbes it will probably be curved from top to bottom like the LG Flex, not curved from side to side like that Samsung device. That, IMHO, makes a bit more sense than curving it from side to side since (as the Forbes article points out) it addresses that little pain-point where either the phone is too far from your mouth, or not close enough to your ear. And I'm afraid that both Apple, LG and Samsung were all beaten to it on the curved mobile phones front by Motorola, the DynaTAC was shaped to bring the microphone closer to your mouth, a feature it inherited from much older conventional land-line phone designs.

So this new iPhone will be exactly like the Samsung Galaxy Round then?

"Which part of "up to a maximum of $500,000" did you not understand?"

What really makes this a joke is that sorting out and turning over the data could actually cost them almost as much.

What makes you think they even still have the data?
After all, this happened, how many years ago?
Google has already published its intent to destroy all of this data, and it has been ordered to do so in several countries already:
http://www.techhelpfox.com/tutorial/1283730/Australian-Government-Google-Must-Destroy-Street-View-Data,-Commit-To-Third-party-Audit
http://www.insidecounsel.com/2013/06/21/uk-regulator-orders-google-to-destroy-user-data-co
http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/12/google-street-view-settlement/

The last one (the latest) is an order from the US Government, and Google being a US company, it was obligated to do so. The Brazilians are too late to the party. Google should not have any data left to Sort or to Turn over.

Right, the music industry made such a big comeback and now you see music stores on every corner. CD's are still sold, but not many in independent shops.

Who said anything about CD's? Before Technology seems to be interesting again.

You mean like using 3D printing to make a titanium jaw?
83 Year-old Woman Gets Replacement 3D Printed Titanium Jaw

Actually, yes, Intel and PC manufacturers were subject to a massive antitrust action for doing that.

At least for the Canadian version of this thing, it doesn't recognize the USB-Ethernet dongle.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/06/nintendo-wii-mini-hands-on/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/03/viasat-exede-review/

I actually like the idea as a concept. Fuel Cells have been used in small applications and there was talk from the Doe PNNL about a new system just last year. I think if a large scale consumer of power, Microsoft, were to start pushing the tech you'd start to see more commercial viability of these kinds of projects. I'd also advocate going the geothermal or solar route as well to look at powering data centers but ultimately I think power efficiency will render more savings. This year we've seen AMD roll out the first ARM based server, which although not as powerful as say a Xeon class server, does offer significant power savings in terms of compute-per-watt. With the usual technology refresh cycles that occur in all data centers we may see power reduction occurring gradually. Obviously other Server manufacturers are pushing on compute-per-watt as well with other architectures but we also have more and more servers going into production so you still have to solve the power generation side of the equation as well.

Samsung alone accounts for 1 million of those, leaving 1.3 million per day for others. Here are the per-company numbers.

It will be interesting to see if LG can deliver enough of the Nexus 5 to bump their numbers over the holidays.

I guess that means Korean children can assemble phones faster than Chinese children?

Bring out the clowns (... err lawyers): http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/31/rockstar-consortium-nortel-patent-google-lawsuit/

Samsung alone accounts for 1 million of those, leaving 1.3 million per day for others. Here are the per-company numbers.

It will be interesting to see if LG can deliver enough of the Nexus 5 to bump their numbers over the holidays.

I have been using Gmail a long time as well, and every few months something seemed to break in my third party setup. I just don't mess with it anymore. My Gmail accounts are for spam purposes anyway. We have heard enough about or losing accounts by signing up for Google+ that no one who cares about data integrity should be using it. I may be an iTool but I have not lost mail.

The question I have to ask is why should I have to setup my third party client every few months because Google wants to bork it's end users. The answer is that Google want traffic to it's site and just mining out email for data is not profitable enough. I know it is a free service, and you get what you pay for, which is why I pay for my mail.

Apple has no reason to censor anything, there's lots of complaints on the forums already

And yet they do it. Frequently. Here's a few more examples.

It's more a piece of furniture than a functional system. Not much better than a tablet really since it's using a mobile graphics processor as well (GT775M). This isn't a powerhouse system but you're paying a premium for it, especially in the 27" model (MSRP $2000) for a system that's great for doing spreadsheets or word docs. You may as well spend your money on an HP 20" Rove for half the cost and you get it to go with a touchscreen.

I've seen 4K on a not-yet-released 20-inch Panasonic tablet - it's jaw-dropping. You might not be making "full use", but...oh, my it's beautiful. This from a guy who doesn't care much for TV or video.

OK, you're asking "why a 20" tablet? WTF?" - one vertical market for this is radiologists, who definitely need all the resolution they can get, high dynamic range, and a big screen. Saw it at a medical convention.

The flaw in your logic is the same flaw that the ISPs try to use to justify these types of things. You are assuming that there are 100 users on an OC48 burning up the bandwidth all day long. The facts do not support this. Just like with electricity, water and gas, there are peak times and there are times where almost no data is being transferred and they rely on that to sell that 2048mb line to not 100, but more like 1000 people. Additionally, they rely on the old guy that uses the tubes for nothing more than checking his email and looking at new pics of his grand kids to compensate for the guys like us that watch netflix, hulu etc. They oversell their services like you wouldnt believe and they are hugely profitable for it. Verizon

This is not news. It's a PC. It's made by Microsoft. Why would it not run Windows apps?

Microsoft is already doing this with Windows 8. http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/20/windows-phone-8-and-windows-8-share-lots-of-code-nt-kernel/ But Ubuntu and Apple are the innovators... lame...

Sure. Why not

And Apple already has curved glass patents.

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2013/08/apple-granted-37-patents-today-covering-a-projection-system-curved-glass-macbooks-with-cellular-antennas-much-more.html
http://www.engadget.com/2012/12/25/apple-patents-a-method-to-refine-curved-glass/
http://mashable.com/2013/10/02/apple-patent-glass-cylinder/

The Kin was a special case. Weird politics combined with stupid decisions caused it to be delayed a lot; it would have been a decent product had it shipped on time. Basically, if MS had let the "Danger" guys just do their thing... the previous Danger product, the Hiptop, was a big success.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/02/life-and-death-of-microsoft-kin-the-inside-story/

On the other hand, the MS tablet products prior to the iPad worked as designed, but the design wasn't all that great. They thought Windows compatibility was the most important thing, when actually battery life, thin and light hardware, and GUI user experience were all more important. The iPad was the first non-sucky tablet, and it didn't matter that you had to buy all-new apps for it.

You're gonna have to define "nobody much." Five million sold in 2012 seems like quite a few, especially when compared to the number of set top boxes everyone else has announced selling. Would be interesting to see Chromecast number, though. If Google would release them, of course.

You're gonna have to define "nobody much." Five million sold in 2012 seems like quite a few, especially when compared to the number of set top boxes everyone else has announced selling. Would be interesting to see Chromecast number, though. If Google would release them, of course.

"Steam Machines" -- the new name for the company's "Steambox," a living room gaming console for playing PC games -- will become available next year "made by different manufacturers," including Valve itself." http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/25/valve-steambox-annnouncement-2/

Xbox may not be the best analogy, but the point still stands: Valve doesn't have to hit a homerun with this to be successful, they can easily weather a slow start. Even if some of their partners bow out, presumably some will hang around and give the project a chance to grow legs. As for the deep pockets comment, many start ups have to make money pretty quick to cover development costs and expenses. Valve isn't under that kind of (heh heh) pressure.

And they have deep pockets...

Why? Valve isn't making the boxes. They are refining a Linux distribution specifically for running Steam. They've been refining Steam to work on a big screen for over a year already. The really hard part is getting Windows only titles to work on a Linux based system. They are partnering with PC manufacturers to bundle the SteamOS and controller with. If they don't sell they can throw Windows on there and sell them as a regular PC.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/26/mobilebench-benchmarks-samsung/ - "MobileBench group aims to improve mobile benchmarking, recruits Samsung but lacks Qualcomm, NVIDIA "

even if android was sluggish, which it isnt, it still would not be worth the crap that is windows phone.

http://androidandme.com/2013/07/devices/last-years-nexus-7-may-get-lag-fix-in-4-3-ota/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/project-butter-improves-android-4-1s-speed/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/project-butter-improves-android-4-1s-speed/

even if android was sluggish, which it isnt, it still would not be worth the crap that is windows phone.

http://androidandme.com/2013/07/devices/last-years-nexus-7-may-get-lag-fix-in-4-3-ota/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/project-butter-improves-android-4-1s-speed/

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/27/project-butter-improves-android-4-1s-speed/

If these laws had been applied in another era, two well known scientists would have been jailed for cheating at roulette . (Those would be Edward Thorp and Claude Shannon)

Oh what total horseshit, the ONLY market Nokia has is in dumbphones where they measure their profits in pennies, they had not one, not two, but THREE internal OS teams all backstabbing and cockblocking each other at EVERY turn, the OS that so many here thought actually had a prayer, the MeeGo? Was was being actively sabotaged from TWO fronts, Intel for fear that the ARM version would get more sales than the X86, and the Symbian team for fear that MeeGo might steal their thunder, and for those that say "Oh android would save them"? Tell that to HTC who despite increased sales is is losing money because that is what happens in a race to the bottom, only the leanest companies that can cut costs to the bone make any green.

So I'm sorry but Nokia was circling the drain long before Elop even walked in the door. the entire management was a mess, they had lost more than half their value in less than 6 years, they had no product that could compete with iOS 2 and Android froyo and gingerbread, and all they had left was dumbphones which thanks to motorola using the mediaTek SoC that allowed a complete dumbphone to be built for less than $5 USD they were fucked with a capital F. The situation at Nokia was an exact copy of what happened at Palm, they sat on ass and stuck with a profitable product without bothering to sink the R&D into a new OS until the world passed them by, Symbian for Nokia and Garnet for Palm.

So pretty much the only choice was to buy a fully complete OS and throw a Hail Mary and with HP paying insane-o money for WebOS (a better fit for Nokia IMHO) there literally wasn't any other OSes to go with, it was that or close the doors and give the money back to the shareholders.

And you are frankly full of shit, Nokia hadn't been a "premium" brand since the late 90s, in fact only in parts of Europe were they even known, the USA saw Nokia as the company that along with Motorola made shitty dumbphones sold at Fred's and other dollar stores. There is your "premium" brand for ya chief, sold right next to the generic soda.

As for Nokia making any money with Android? I'd point out the #2 maker of Android HTC is expecting another year of losses because guess what? In a race to the bottom only the leanest of companies will make consistent profits...hey that is what i said would be the case, didn't I? Like it or not Nokia was top heavy, had too high of an operating cost, too little experience in the Android smartphone market, no experience with writing low level drivers for Android, and their factories cost more per unit than HTC,LG, and Huawei and all of those are showing inconsistent profits, again if they are lucky a few dollars per unit because surprise! That is what a race to the bottom is, it is great for consumers because they price gets as close to cost as can be while still making devices profitable but Nokia's costs made their ability to compete in that shark tank non-existent. Even their ability to compete with dumbphones has been falling like a stone thanks to the Mediatek SoC that lets Chinese companies and those subcontracting (like Motorola) to sell dumbphones for sub $10 USD retail. I'm sorry but Nokia didn't have the chops to play in the Android market, they would have been eaten alive, as HTC,Huawei and others are right now.

"The only way a flexible display could matter is if it unfolds to make a larger display than the watch face" That is what i'm talking about and that is whats going to happen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIu1_zoLRgE and http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/21/apple-patent-application-flexible-display-band/. E ink is a good idea as well, and they have flexible color versions even at reasonable refresh rate coming out soon.

According to this was the original spec.. MS has since changed it but it is slightly better.. This is what MS says not me.

For something that could be attached to my wrist most of the time i would expect that it would check me (i.e. pulse, blood pressure, temperature, etc). And of course, have longer battery life. Qualcomm's Toq smartwatch have at least better battery life and can be read at sunlight, or something with more sensors like Whithing's Pulse (that is not a smartwatch, yet).

Anyway, it could be a hint for things to come, more devices that uses the computer power of our phones (or at least, devices that we carry with us but hidden, or in a pocket, or whatever) and via bluetooth or similar have satellite devices around us.

I love the buzzword bingo, it enabled me to pick up a 60" 2D dumb-TV for cheap because it wasn't "in" anymore. As for 4K I'd want it, but it'd have to be a TV or projector size where I could see it and from my current couch distance I can't. Now if I could get one of those huge 80-90" panels or an affordable native 4K projector (no, e-shift is not native 4K) then yes, but a 55-65" set doesn't make any sense from my couch distance. I could of course put a chair real up close, but meh. As for discs BDXL is already big enough to fit 4K movies with HEVC using the same laser, so if they can roll it out as a backwards compatible solution that reads both it looks doable.

I guess the main reason 4K has a better chance than 3D is that there's very little downside to 4K. Sony just released a 4K prosumer video camera for $4500, Blackmagic 4K production camera is $4000 base + accessories and if you want to go overkill on acquisition a Red Dragon 6K camera is $29k base and will probably come in under $50k complete and then you're ready to shoot Hollywood-class movies. I expect that already next year there'll be a "consumerish" $1500-2000 4K camera, if you don't already count the GoPro camera that has a very low framerate in 4K. Seiki managed to sell a 39" 4K set for $700 and 50" 4K for $1500 (under $1k on sale), it's coming.

Plus it has a bigger screen

Nope.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/25/toshiba-excite-13-review/

I think the Microsoft Account and related stuff is also quite bad privacy and security risk. Apparently 8.1 will send your searches to Microsoft in a similar way to Unity's "Amazon shopping lens". When enabled, the IE SmartScreen filter will send your browser URLs to MS. All sorts of little things here and there -- "would you like to send information to company X to improve our services". I suppose you can get rid of most of it by carefully unticking each buried checkbox, but it's getting increasingly hard to opt out of this kind of junk. What if I just want to be alerted about Patch Tuesday updates?

Same thing as iOS and as Android... by default (without jailbreaking or rooting), most tablets or phones you purchase require that you live within a closed system.

And therein lies the TRUE issue with Windows RT: Microsoft wants to double-dip by charging the OEM $85+ for a (limited) copy of Windows + Office, and then charge users the usual 30% for store purchases. They recently dropped this price premium, but it has permanently damaged the Windows RT launch, possibly beyond repair.

Android does not have this price premium associated with it (better-specced tablets were under the $400 mark at time of release for Surface), and although iOS DOES charge a premium, you get much better hardware (runs circles around Tegra 3), a better screen, and a much better walled garden (in terms of interoperability between devices, app and media availability, etc).

Microsoft has not been able to come close to matching the longevity and usability of the Itunes Store, but they sure liked pretending that what they offered for $500 could actually compete with the big boys (enough to blow $900 million on the charade).

I remember Nokia launching a bit of software like this for Symbian back in its dying days; you could use it to make a mobile-friendly, self-contained version of any RSS feed you felt like pointing it at. That was in the days when mobile-optimised sites were just starting to become A Thing and few of the optimised sites were intended for 2.6-inch QVGA displays. Probably came out of them.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/03/nokia-launches-ovi-app-wizard-will-probably-lead-to-ovi-populat/

It looks like it has since been replaced by something with a bit more flexibility:

http://xpresswebapps.nokia.com/