Archive for August, 2010.
T-Mobile USA just dropped the knowledge on Twitter that it’ll be carrying the Motorola Charm starting next Wednesday, August 25 — but what it failed to mention is pricing. For what it’s worth, the company does specifically say that it’ll be “affordable” — and although a marketing department’s definition of “affordable” can be very different from ours, we’re encouraged by a handful of previous rumors that there would be ways to get it for free on contract. If you need us to jog your memory, the Charm is a cute little portrait QWERTY Android device with a Kodak-branded 3 megapixel cam and landscape display, giving it a rare form factor that could very well appeal to a whole new audience (read: BlackBerry folks). So, how much would you pay for it?
Motorola Charm hitting T-Mobile on August 25 at an ‘affordable’ price originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We know, we just told you less than 48 hours ago that the dual screen Toshiba Libretto W100 was finally on sale and after $1,100 of your hard earned cash, but it looks like those that didn’t move quick enough are out of luck. Both Toshiba and Amazon list the Windows 7-running Libretto W100 as out of stock at the moment. Now, of course, Tosh has always said the W100 was going to be available on a limited basis so there’s no telling how many of these were actually sold, but it certainly seems impressive for a very niche gadget. We’ve reached out to Toshiba to ask if they plan on refreshing the depleted stock and for a bit of information on how many they had boxed up to begin with — stay tuned, we’ll let you know what we hear.
Update: If you’re still lusting after one of these bad boys there’s still some available through Conics.com and some Japanese retailers.
Toshiba Libretto W100 sells out at Amazon, really was a limited run originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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In the market for a Sony shooter or two? The company’s upcoming lineup can’t seem to stay off the internet, which lucky for you serves as a great source for planning holiday gift plans. First up the Alpha A55, pictured above with an apparent articulating display. According to the DChome forums, there’s a 16.7 megapixel APS CMOS sensor, a translucent mirror, 15-point AF, 1080 / 60i video, 10fps continuous shooting, an ISO range of 100 to 25,600, dual memory card slots (we’d guess SD and MemoryStick), and an eventual retail price of $900 to $1,000. Also pictured on the site is the A33 — with an unmoving display — spec’d at a reported 14 megapixels, ISO range of 100 to 12,800, and 1080i video. The expected launch is August 24th, but bear in mind this all is just a rumor for now — keep your wallet and check and don’t do anything rash, k?
Sony Alpha A55 makes articulating cameo, A33 and some rumored specs tag along originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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And here we thought SanDisk had up and buried its once-thriving Sansa PMP line. After all — it was this company’s CEO that said “you can’t out-iPod the iPod.” For whatever reason, it looks as if the memory mainstay is about to try its hand once more in the saturated media player market, with a Sansa Fuze+ rumored for release in the near term. As you can clearly see above, there won’t be anything too special about the Fuze+, though the 2.4-inch QVGA display, capacitive touch controls and inbuilt FM tuner are certainly appreciated. It’ll ship in 4GB, 8GB and 16GB flavors, supporting the usual file formats (AAC, MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, Audible, MPEG4, H.264, WMV, etc.) and offering a rechargeable battery good for 24 hours on the audio side and 5 hours on the video side. USB 2.0 support is thrown in, as is the absolutely riveting confirmation that it’ll be “ready for slotRadio and slotMusic memory cards.” Knowing that, we aren’t so sure if our minds can take the wait till September 12th, but we’ll do our best.
Sansa Fuze+ leaks out with slotRadio support, 24 hours of battery life originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Practically everything we’ve heard — both officially and through tipsters — lines up with information coming out of Phone Arena this week detailing a truly Google-heavy upcoming Fall and Winter release schedule for our friends at Big Red. Starting next month, it seems that we’ll see a global version of the just-launched Droid 2, possibly with a white option (though it seems this could also be the R2-D2 model), and the Motorola WX455 we’d leaked has been named “Citrus” and will (as you probably could’ve guessed) target the low end of the market and the young’uns who are looking for an affordable way to get into Android; as WWAN-enabled laptops go, they’ll be picking up the Dell Vostro V13 and the HP Pavilion DM1.
Follow the break for the rest of the action!
[Thanks, Steven C.]
Continue reading Verizon’s remaining 2010 roadmap to be an Android-fest of phones and tablets?
Verizon’s remaining 2010 roadmap to be an Android-fest of phones and tablets? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google will launch a Chrome OS tablet on the Verizon network Nov. 26, know to retailers as “Black Friday,” according to the Download Squad. The device is being built by HTC, a company that’s made several Android devices in the past. If true, the move will fulfill Google’s announcement earlier this year that it would launch Chrome OS tablets in time for the holiday season. However, it’s not yet clear how Chrome OS tablets will coexist with those running the Android operating system, which is also offered by Google.
Roughly six months after it launched an investigation into the allegations at the heart of the Blake Robbins v. the Lower Merion School District school spying case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced on Tuesday that no charges will be filed. There was a lack of evidence “beyond a reasonable doubt” that school officials acted with criminal intent, said U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger — something that’s required in order for the government to prosecute a criminal case.
Lyric Semiconductor, a spinout from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, announced on Tuesday a new approach to a technology called “probability processing.” Probability processing uses probability bits, which calculate the probability of an event happening. This technology required the company to redesign processors to natively process probabilities from the ground up and to write a new programming language to express probabilities. Sampling of Lyric’s general-purpose programmable probability processing platform is scheduled for 2013.
The world of open source software has ample choices for editing and manipulating audio and video media files. But when you just want put your feet up and relax, fewer really ideal options are available. One solid choice is the Gxine is a media player. The VLC Media Player is a cross-platform media player that runs on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, BSD, Solaris, QNX and PocketPC. One of its coolest features is the built-in streaming server. VLC Media Player streams in unicast and multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. You will not find this combination in most other media apps.
How many times have we all seen comments like this on a Facebook status update: “Not like, but dislike,” or “I’d press Dislike if there was a button.” It’s a common complaint about the social networking site’s comment options; one can press the “Like” button to give a thumbs-up to a friend’s post, but there is no analogous “Dislike” button. Now, enterprising scammers have taken advantage of that desire and built a Facebook app that gleans personal information and even adds a $5-per-month surcharge to unsuspecting users’ mobile phone bills.
