Archive for May 22nd, 2009

It’s the podcast you’ve been waiting for, maybe! Join Josh, Paul, and Nilay as they rock through their greatest hits, including: Palm Pre Launch Details, Storm 2 (The End of SurePress), Moblin Two-Point-Oh, and everyone’s favorite, a little ditty called Slim PS3 Cease and Desist. Available now for just four easy payments of clicking below!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Fly Like an Eagle

03:13 – Palm Pre on June 6th for $200: It’s official!
23:10 – BlackBerry Storm 2: the official unofficial hands-on
35:20 – Moblin 2.0 beta impressively demoed on video
54:36 – Slim PS3 update: mysterious Chinese firm issues a cease and desist… to Engadget

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Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 147 – 05.22.2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 16:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In some really encouraging news, Paul Thurrott at SuperSite for Windows is reporting that Microsoft isn’t gonna put the arbitrary limit on its netbook-bound Windows 7 Starter Edition where users could only run three applications at a time. Now the only thing holding you back from simultaneous Skype, AIM, browsing, DVD playback, and Plants vs. Zombies will be the space on your screen and the specs in your portable. So how will they tempt users to upgrade to Home or Premium now? We’ll just have to wait and see on that one.

[Thanks, Stephen]

Filed under: Laptops

Microsoft dropping three app limit from Windows 7 Starter Edition originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 16:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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webOS’ web technology-based app architecture seems to become less and less of an issue by the day; most of our fears were allayed the moment we saw Classic break cover, and this is another strong sign that the Pre’s going to be able to handle just about any multimedia-rich stuff we throw at it. A Sprint-sourced page out of a Pre slide deck entitled “The Pre Application Story” lists a series of “showcase apps” that the carrier thinks (or, at the very least, optimistically hopes) will be available around the time of the phone’s launch, and the most interesting thing on here has to be a listing for Sling Media — you know, those cats making Slingboxes and SlingPlayer builds. Beyond that, we don’t have anything — it could be 3G or WiFi-only (though the fact that this is on a Sprint slide gives us hope that they’ll leave EV-DO enabled), it could launch next month or next year, and for all we know, it only works with boxes that aren’t even out yet. It’ll be kind of cool to see this app running as a card on the Pre’s interface, won’t it?

[Thanks, sdafdsfasdf]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Video

SlingPlayer coming to Pre “at or near launch”? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 15:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You didn’t think Microsoft was going to ship Windows 7 with that same tired Vista-esque branding it’s been using on the betas and RCs, did you? No way, man — and if those crazy-cool wallpapers didn’t prove it to you, the eager monkeys at MS China have thoughtfully posted up the new branding for your perusal right now. We rather like it — it conveys a welcoming sense of lightness that contrasts well with the battleship-heavy aesthetic of Vista, and that’s pretty much exactly how Microsoft needs to position 7. A few more shots of the branding being used at the Chinese PCBETA event at the read link.

[Thanks, Nicola]

Read – Microsoft China Windows 7 site
Read – Branding at PCBETA

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

Windows 7 branding leaks out originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 15:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lot’s been made of the new Zune commercial that Microsoft aired recently. If you have haven’t seen it, take a look. Now don’t get me wrong. I think there’s a lot that Microsoft can do with Zune, but this ad doesn’t quite do it for me. What’s wrong? First, it took a shot at Apple that felt silly — after all, most consumers don’t spend $30,000 to fill up their iPod (how much did it cost to fill yours?). Even if that’s the case, buying a Zune Pass won’t fill up an iPod either. Second, it started to make a value play that’s real, but stopped short of actually making it.

The ad was interesting as it begins the discussion of the value of the Zune Pass. That’s important. The power of the Zune Pass lies at the core of the differentiation of their whole business model, subscription services vs. single song downloads. Microsoft needs to go further and explain how these two models can co-exist with each other. Up until now there were only two models for music, the free and ad supported stuff on radio, or music you bought or owned (or perhaps acquired elsewhere). Zune Pass and other similar services change all that. While consumers “rent” video content all the time from theaters, cable companies, Netflix etc, there’s also a lot of other stuff sold on DVD. There’s no reason for this to be binary — rent or buy — it’s just never been applied to music and when it has, it’s not been explained or marketed well at all.

Continue reading Entelligence: Time for Microsoft to tell a better Zune tale

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Entelligence: Time for Microsoft to tell a better Zune tale originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 15:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OnStar has been working with the CDC for a few years now in an effort to deliver real-time crash information to first responders, and it looks like it has now finally come up with something that’s ready to be put to use. That comes in the form of OnStar’s new Injury Severity Prediction technology, which apparently takes some recent CDC findings into account, and uses a whole range of sensors in the vehicle (along with other crash data) to predict whether a crash is likely to have caused severe injury to the people in the vehicle. That information can then be relayed to first responders with a simple severity prediction of “normal” or “high,” which OnStar says should be especially helpful in cases where crash victims cannot speak for themselves. While there’s no exact date for a rollout just yet, OnStar says it should be available to OnStar advisors “early next year,” and that it’ll be available on all vehicles equipped with OnStar’s Automatic Crash Response system.

[Via GM FastLane]

Filed under: Transportation

GM touts new crash severity-predicting OnStar technology originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 14:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See folks, this is the kind of mess you end up with after you gleefully do a deal with the devil. According to a roundup of reports over at Unwired View, three of Russia’s major mobile operators could be looking at massive (we’re talking hundreds of millions of bucks) fines if they can’t sell through their iPhone allotments, and unless a significant market shift happens within the next few months, that situation seems remarkably unlikely. We’re told that Vimpelcom pledged to sell 1.5 million iPhones within two years, while Megafon committed to 1 million and MTS the same. Today, just 900,000 iPhones have been imported to Russia, with over half entering the country via grey market channels; we’ll let you figure out the math there, but it ain’t pretty for Russia’s carriers. Of course, we’re not shocked in the least — after getting burnt by a bootable-but-not-usable iPhone over there, are you seriously going to give Apple another chance to win you over?

Filed under: Cellphones

Sluggish iPhone sales could lead to stiff fines for Russian operators originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI’s Wind U115, the huggable, lovable, notable, and ultraportable hybrid SSD/HDD is now available to faithful readers in the UK and Japan. It’s been spotted making the rounds on the Interwebz in the £450 – £500 (approx. $675-$750) range. A bit pricey for a 10-inch netbook, sure, but perhaps the Atom Z530 processor, 6-cell battery, and 720p video playback will make it worth your while. You have been making some irrational decisions lately — but we’ll talk about that later. Hands on video after the break.

Read – MSI Wind U115 Hybrid Unboxed
Read – MSI Wind U115 Hybrid now shipping in UK

Continue reading Video: MSI Wind U115 for sale in Japan, UK

Filed under: Laptops

Video: MSI Wind U115 for sale in Japan, UK originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 13:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Pre launch continues to befuddle — sure, we finally know that June 6 is when the magic happens, but the mechanics of actually snagging Palm’s baby on that day are still pretty mysterious, and that’s leaving a lot of room open for misinformation. Today’s cloudy tea-reading comes courtesy of an ever-changing list of stores on Sprint.com that are marked as having June 5 “special hours,” which some are reading to mean that only those stores will be blessed. We don’t buy it. First, we’ve been told specifically that all stores will have Pre stock, even if it’s minimal, and second, the special hours distribution just doesn’t seem right to us if it’s really correlated with Pre stocks: New York, Chicago, LA, and San Francisco are each currently showing just one store within 50 miles as having special hours, and Philly, Atlanta, and Houston have none listed at all. That’s a way different list than when our friends at jkOnTheRun checked earlier, and it’s a recipe for total launch chaos if it’s true — but we’re guessing the real deal is that all stores will get stock, but only one flagship store in each major metro area will be going all out on launch day with special hours.

Oh, and if you’re planning on avoiding all the drama and just rolling into Best Buy on the 7th, we’d say think again: Boy Genius Report says that the Blue will go “weeks after launch with little or no replenishment.” Ouch — guess Sprint CEO Dan Hesse wasn’t kidding around about shortages. Bottom line? Keep calling your local Sprint store to see if they get any information about the Pre, and keep it locked right here as we lead in — we’ll be working hard to let you know exactly when and where your best bet’ll be.

Read – Sprint Store Locator
Read – Boy Genius Report on Best Buy stock
Read – jkOnTheRun post

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm Pre available at a single store in NYC on launch day? Unlikely. originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Canadians have had to wait quite a while to get their first official taste of Android, and even longer to know how much it’d cost, but it looks like that last detail has now finally been cleared up. According to The Boy Genius Report, Rogers will be asking the ever popular $199.99 for both the HTC Dream and HTC Magic on a three-year contract when they launch on June 2nd, or a hefty $649.99 off-contract. As Boy Genius points out, that’s actually $100 more than the previously rumored off-contract price, which briefly spurred talk of a too-good-to-be-true $149.99 on-contract price.

Filed under: Cellphones

Rogers to sell HTC Dream, Magic for $199.99 on contract originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 May 2009 12:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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