Archive for August 4th, 2009

There’s a lot of talk of 2010 being the year of the tablet or, more correctly, the year of the Mobile Internet Device (MID). These devices were supposed to change the world a few years ago (remember Origami?) but never did and we basically bumped over MIDs and into netbooks, resulting in the race to the bottom we’re now seeing.

But now we learn that Dell might be making a MID and that Apple is planning a bigger Touch. These two rumors are fairly concrete – I’d give the Tapplet a 75% chance of happening and a Dell MID about 80% – but there’s a big problem: people don’t like MIDs.

Searching for photos on the Web takes way too much time. There are simply too many photos to sort through and not enough good ones. Image search is a major priority for all the big search engines (Google, Yahoo, and Bing), and they’ve all been tweaking their image search to make it better. But for the longest time, Flickr (which is owned by Yahoo, but separate from Yahoo Image Search) has been my default image search engine because that is where I can usually find the best photos.

Flickr’s been coasting. Its image search hasn’t been updated in a while—until today. But once again it has turned up the awesome on image search.

It’s no secret that Palm has plenty of Apple veterans in its upper ranks (starting right at the top), and it looks like there now may be even more reminiscing about old times going on during lunch breaks, with the company recently announcing that it has hired Jeff Zwerner as its new Senior Vice President of Brand Design. In addition to working at Apple for a stint from 2001 to 2003 as Creative Director for Packaging and earlier from 1995 to 1996 as a Senior Art Director, Zwerner also founded the San Francisco branch of Factor Design, which has done work for Coca-Cola, Gap, GE, Hewlett-Packard, L.L. Bean, Nike, the Walt Disney Company and, yes, Apple.

[Via PreCentral]

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm hires Apple vet Jeff Zwerner as new SVP of Brand Design originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last March, two reporters for Current TV were caught and detained by the North Korean military after illegally crossing into the country from China as they reported on fleeing refugees. While some initial reports seemed optimistic that the pair — Chinese-American Laura Ling and Korean-American Euna Lee — would be released shortly in an act of good-will, that didn’t prove to be the case: both reporters were subsequently sentenced to twelve years in a North Korean labor camp for “hostile acts against the DPRK” and illegal entry into the country. Repeated calls by US officials to free the pair have seemed to fall on deaf ears.

But today, their story has a happy ending. Former President Bill Clinton has managed to convince North Korean President Kim Jong Il to pardon both reporters, only hours after arriving in North Korea during a surprise visit to the country.

We’ve been messing around with Kodak’s latest pocket camcorder, the Zi8, and find the shooter to be an interesting hybrid. With a flip-out USB plug, HDMI out and an easily accessible SD card slot, this is clearly a “premium” mix of features for the class, but the $180 pricetag keeps the device firmly grounded in Walmart-friendly reality. Other odd perks like a line-in jack and 1080p have us scratching our heads — but in a good way. Overall, we’d feel pretty comfortable saying the footage is about the best you can obtain at this pricepoint. Colors are great, the image stabilization isn’t a gimmick (sorry, Flip), and if you squint hard enough you can almost believe the 1080p is 1080p. Still, the camera is hampered by its cheap approach to processing and compressing the footage it’s taking in — despite its limitations, we’d say the iPhone 3GS is besting most cheap pocket camcorders on this front, motion just looks much more fluid. But don’t take our word for it, check out a couple of video samples after the break.

Continue reading Kodak Zi8 impressions: surprising functionality, but it’s still a pocket camcorder

Filed under: Digital Cameras, HDTV

Kodak Zi8 impressions: surprising functionality, but it’s still a pocket camcorder originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When I walked in to SpinVox’s plush UK HQ this morning the tension in the building was obvious. Following a fortnight of controversy and allegations that the whole thing is powered not by technology but by a simple, massive, call center operation, this was the first ever live demo to the media of their famed voice to text platform. There were nervously exchanged glances and bad jokes from senior staff. But the guys managed to hold it together for long enough to usher us in to a conference room and ply us with pastries. We were not asked to sign an NDA, but we were asked not to record anything that happened in the room. Ironic, really – and the reason that some media declined the invitation.

CIO Rob Wheatley took us through a technical explanation that, while honest about the existence of human agents in the process, didn’t give away as many secrets as he made out, before leaping to what we all came for: the demo.

The big technical question surrounding SpinVox – the one they refuse to answer (as they did again today) – is what proportion of the messages they process are seen by a human being. Whatever the answer their backers are clearly convinced: today they raised another $25 million (£15 million) from existing investors.

So what happened in the demo, and what can we infer from it about those proportions?

Last we heard, Dell was secretly at work on a handheld / MID that would challenge the likes of the iPod touch, but it turns out it may also have its eye on the Kindle and the still emerging e-reader market, or the two may be one in the same — or neither, but bear with us for a minute. According to Wired’s Gadget Lab, Dell is looking to shake things up in a fairly big way by offering a touchscreen tablet of unspecified size for free to folks willing to enter into a contract and sign up for “one or more digital media subscriptions.” Details are otherwise a bit light, as you might expect, but Dell is rumored to be collaborating with Intel on the device, and the pair are supposedly looking to launch it in “about six months.”

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Handhelds

Latest Dell tablet / MID rumor: Intel-based, free-on-contract originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That new BlackBerry Curve 8520 for T-Mobile is in the house, sucking down EDGE data like it’s going out of style (oh, right, it is). For a device that can be scored for $50 at Walmart as of tomorrow ($130 at T-Mobile stores), this is a surprisingly solid handset. The keyboard is classic BlackBerry goodness, and the overall heft gives us at least a little bit of assurance that the phone can hold up to wear and tear better than its predecessors. Most of the changes are for the better, like a trio of media keys up top and the rubberized sides, but we’re not completely sold on the touchpad. It works great when it works, but if it’s too clean or our thumb is at the exact wrong moisture level, we found that we kind of “stuck” to the pad instead of gliding across it. A bit of texturing could go a long way. We also found the QVGA screen to be pretty dim, which is particularly unfortunate in light of RIM’s higher-end, high-res wonders, but it’s certainly passable. We’re planning on spending some more time with the handset, testing that EDGE network to the limit, giving UMA time to handle some of legendary conversational stylings, and seeing how many Engadget Podcast episodes we can narcissistically cram onto the bundled 1GB microSD card.

In speaking with RIM, it’s quite clear that the decision to go EDGE was primarily based on price, along with the fact that T-Mobile’s 3G rollout is still lacking — it’s still a head scratcher to us, though. The spokesperson also seemed pretty confident that the new touchpad interface is the way of the future, and we get the feeling the BlackBerry’s legendary trackball isn’t long for this world. Check out a quick video hands-on after the break, or you could opt for some fine unboxing shots below.

Continue reading T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 unboxed and handled (with video!)

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

T-Mobile’s BlackBerry Curve 8520 unboxed and handled (with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Could this mean the death of the Cassingle?

Continue reading Maxell launches flash storage line

Filed under: Storage

Maxell launches flash storage line originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Eldar Murtazin over at mobile-review has chimed in on those alleged Nokia N97 Mini shots that leaked last week — and as anyone who follows the mobile industry knows, when the ridiculously well-connected Eldar speaks, folks tend to listen. The dude says that the N97 Mini is very much real, as is the name, which — get this — he claims was leaked by Nokia itself in an effort to stave off an unnamed competitor who’d also been planning to release a smaller version of one of its handsets with a “Mini” label slapped on the name. At any rate, the N97 Mini apparently isn’t pulling any punches — it’s said to be exactly what you see, little more than a smaller N97 with a reconfigured keyboard and no camera lens cover. That sounds like a tough sell at first, especially when you throw in Eldar’s claim that it’ll step down to 8 and 16GB versions from the N97′s 32GB, but the good news is that Espoo’s seemingly looking to get this on the market for about €100 less ($144) than the N97. As for an official announcement, Eldar says that Nokia’s planning to unveil it at Nokia World next month; the original model was revealed at last year’s show, and frankly, we’re hoping for a little bit more innovation than this by the time they’re done unveiling the new lineup. Rover, perhaps?

[Via Unwired View]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Nokia N97 Mini is seriously just a smaller, cheaper N97, it seems originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 14:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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