Archive for June 13th, 2009

Tired of blaming GPS on petty mishaps like the destruction of cars, a demolition crew in Georgia has managed to accidentally destroy an entirely wrong house based on GPS coordinates. Oddly enough, it wasn’t even the first time they’d been by: the man who cuts the grass noticed that the power box was missing from the home and holes were punched into the walls about a month ago — it was suspected as vandalism, but it now seems that the stealthy, directionless demolition company was to blame. The demolition company says it had “paperwork” authorizing the destruction, complete with the coordinates and a description of the home, which the owner’s father had built with his own hands “brick by brick.”

[Thanks, Leonard]

Filed under: GPS

GPS coordinates lead demolition crew to destroy wrong house originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 15:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bad news for folks hoping a pre-order would save them from that yearly camp out in front of their local Apple Store: iPhone 3G S pre-orders have sold out, and folks who are making new pre-orders are being told that they’ll have to wait up to two weeks to get a phone. AT&T customers who do already have pre-orders in still have to line up at 7AM to nab a phone, but at least they’ve got a guaranteed slot if they show up, while the rest of the world will have to battle over remaining stock when Apple Stores open at 8AM and AT&T stores open to general customers at the same time. Looks like we might get a good riot or two out of this.

Update: AT&T just pinged us to clarify that it’s still accepting pre-orders, but not for delivery on the 19th, and online pre-orders will be shipped directly to your home, so you actually don’t have to hit up a store at all. But what fun is that?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

AT&T’s iPhone 3G S launch day pre-orders already sold out originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 14:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These days, Shuttle’s particular brand of small form factor PC isn’t as exactly stunning as it once was, but it’s still fun to see just how much they can cram in there. Shuttle has taken its barebones SX58H7 Core i7 kit and is now offering it preconfigured with Core i7 Extreme processors, 6GB of RAM and GeForce GTX 285 graphics (With support for SLI or ATI CrossFireX). Unfortunately the base price for the H7 5800 is a silly high $2,149, and once you actually get to any of those previously mentioned trimmings, you’re looking at around $4k for a computer. It might be slight technical feat, but we can’t imagine Shuttle burning up the sales charts with this one. The barebones kit retails for $719.

Filed under: Desktops

Shuttle’s H7 5800 packs Core i7 and all the trimmings into a small form factor PC originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already gotten word of some of the specs for MSI’s new X-Slim X600 ultraportable, and gotten up close with the laptop itself, but those few remaining details has now finally been revealed in full, along with some fresh new pics of a hereto unseen black model. According to Notebook Italia, there will be two variations of the laptop available: one packing a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Solo processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, and the other sporting a slower 1.2GHz Intel Celeron processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 320GB hard drive — the latter also ditches the built-in Bluetooth. Otherwise, you’ll get ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4330 graphics on each, along with HDMI out, three USB ports, a six-cell battery and, of course, that 15.6-inch 1,366 x 768 screen. Still no official word on a US release, unfortunately, but it looks like these will sell for €799 and €949 (or roughly $1,120 and $1,320) when they hit Europe at the end of June.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Laptops

MSI X-Slim X600 specs get detailed in full originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d be careful about putting too much stock into an admittedly far off rumor, but the gang at 1UP claim they’ve heard from those in the know that Microsoft’s set to release a new Xbox console in Fall 2010, and that current media darling Project Natal is “the cornerstone” of that evolution. Specs-wise, it’s suggested we’re looking at only a marginal boost analogous to Nintendo’s GameCube-to-Wii transition — place your bets on how long it’ll take to “max out” this time — as well as a rebranding (Xbox Natal, anyone?) aimed at attracting the highly coveted, more mainstream / casual audience, before Mario and the crew catch a second wind with the oft-rumored Wii HD. There’s nothing unbelievable about these whispers, but again, Fall 2010 is quite a ways off and anything can happen in the meantime. First unveiling will allegedly be the 2010 Game Developers Conference in early March, so your best bet for now is to hold tight and keep a close eye on who gets a primetime slot among that event’s keynote speeches.

Filed under: Gaming

Project Natal basis for new Xbox console coming Fall 2010? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 06:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This one’s been making the rounds in Europe for some time now, and finally passed through the FCC late last year, but it looks like Sonoro’s Eklipse iPod dock / CD player / clock radio has only just recently gotten fully official in the US, and given a price. Unfortunately, while it has dropped a bit compared to the Euro conversion, it is still a fairly hefty $550, which will buy you 7.5W of power output, a nice little OLED display, a compact remote, and an auxiliary jack in case the iPod dock and slot-load CD player aren’t enough options for you. There’s still no official word on a release date, however, but it looks like at least one retailer is now taking pre-orders for it.

[Via OhGizmo!]

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Sonoro Eklipse clock radio / iPod dock gets official, priced originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week all the Nikon fanboys supporters were out in full-force critiquing the D5000, so we couldn’t let another week slip by without giving Canon advocates (and haters, we don’t discriminate) a similar chance with the T1i. Hitting the market at just about the same time, this well-specced entry-level DSLR packed a few niceties than alternative units simply did not: 1080p video, a 15.1 megapixel sensor and a price tag below $1,000. That said, there are still some areas that we reckon Canon could’ve improved upon, and if you feel the same way, we’d love to hear about it. Are you kosher with the 20fps 1080p mode? Is the image quality up to snuff? How’s that stock lens treating you? Cut loose, won’tcha?

Filed under: Digital Cameras

How would you change Canon’s T1i DSLR? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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	Video: Archos 9 pctablet resistive touchscreen impresses Honestly, that resistive touch-screen looks pretty damn impressive to finger taps.		Palm Pre runs Doom, smartphone-loving space marines rejoice If you were holding off on buying a Pre until it had some great games, start warming up that credit card.
	Johnny Chung Lee joins Project Natal team, puts Wii hacking experience to good use In this time of economic hardship, it warms the heart just to hear that someone’s found any job.	Other news of import Jon Rubinstein’s new salary: $850,000 per year, Pre-tax Atom N270 / N280-based netbooks may be stuck at Windows XP Kindle DX sold out, but not for long
	Digital TV transition: 12 hours in, how are things going? The day is finally here, after the pushback and staggered changeover, analog television broadcasts across the country are giving way to a future of digital TV and making room for new services to take over the airwaves soon.		Nokia N97 NAM preorders shipping in both colors We’ve received confirmation from Nokia that preorders of the beastly N97 have now started shipping to American customers in both available colors, black and white.
Blu-ray gets Managed Copy next year, requires new hardware Transformers Blu-ray owners get an early peek at the sequel via BD-Live		Sprint confirms direct HTC Snap sales for June 21 MMS and tethering functional on some AT&T iPhone 3Gs running 3.0?

The Daily Roundup: here’s what you might’ve missed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 22:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you haven’t been following this phenomenon in geek culture, you’ve truly been doing yourself a grave disservice. Not quite an Obama-level disservice, but we digress. Just a few months after refreshing its SATA HDD dock to bring along multicard support, the outfit has done the multimedia crowd one better by offering up an HDMI-equipped version. As expected, the device supports 2.5- and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives and can connect to one’s PC via USB 2.0; from there, just hook up your component jacks or HDMI cable and enjoy crystal clear playback of whatever content you’ve got slammed in there. Too bad all this fun will set you back $79, but we suppose it’s still a wee bit cheaper than an unadulterated media streamer.

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Brando’s latest SATA HDD Multimedia Dock does HDMI, the ancestors proud originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you were to put the Pre on a scale of hacker friendliness from 1 to 10, where 1 is the iPhone (remember how long it took for the first jailbreaks back in the day?) and 10 is, say, OpenMoko, we’re starting to get the impression that Palm’s latest effort falls somewhere way past the 5 mark. We got out first hint that they’re being good sports about letting developers play with the Konami code access to developer mode, and now we’ve got news that it’s easy — nay, trivial — to run whatever firmware you’d like on the phone. It seems all you’ve got to do is hold down the volume up key when connecting the Pre to your computer via USB, then you can flash the phone ’til you’re blue in the face; even better, the enterprising dev who found the trick says that it’s mega simple to modify the stock build and he’d wiped out the activation check with minimal effort. This can only be good news for tweakers and anyone wanting to walk off the App Catalog’s beaten path, and if this ultimately means we’re a few solid steps closer to a Pre running WinMo 6.1, sign us up. Way up.

[Via Daring Fireball]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Homebrew Pre firmware just a button, cable away? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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