Archive for August 7th, 2009

Unbagging is a new feature inspired by one of our favorite Flickr groups: what’s in your bag? The premise is simple — empty out your bag, arrange what’s inside, and snap a photo. Engadget will be taking a look inside the bags of some of the people we know and love in the tech world, combining our two favorite pastimes of gadgetry and voyeurism. Want to be included? Send an email to unbagging [at] engadget [dot] com with your submissions!

Who better to kick off Unbagging with, right? In the picture above you’ll note Josh’s Leatherman, dual EV-DO cards, heart pills, vast array of phones (all active, mind you), and totally awesome Ray-Ban Wayfarer IIs. Before you ask: yes, he does carry all this stuff around. Take a look at the full rundown of assets after the break.

Continue reading Unbagging: Joshua Topolsky

Filed under: Meta

Unbagging: Joshua Topolsky originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The official word from Dell may be that its Mini 9 netbook has hit “End of Life,” but it looks like the company may have had a change of heart or (more likely) a surplus of excess stock, as the popular netbook has now made a surprise reappearance on its website. With a starting price of $299, however, it’s not as cheap as some of the past deals we’ve seen, but you do still have your choice of quite a few configuration options, and a promised ship date of August 24th. So, if you’ve been holding off, you better get in now before they disappear, again.

[Thanks, Rob and Nathan]

Filed under: Laptops

Dell Mini 9 makes surprise reappearance on Dell’s website originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

In one of the great blunders of journalism, Mark Twain once found his name listed in the obituary column. His famous reply, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated,” has forever become part of our lexicon for describing hyperbole. Yet, at a certain point in time, Mark Twain’s death was no longer exaggeration and Samuel Clemens did indeed pass away. Today, many are lamenting the passing of the personal computer as the information device of choice for the masses of consumers, and like Mark Twain, the news of its death is greatly exaggerated. But like all good things, the PC and its complex operating system foundation will also eventually come to an end. Here’s why the PC isn’t dead yet but over time might no longer be the dominant platform for the digital age.

Continue reading Entelligence: The death of the PC is greatly exaggerated (at least for now)

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Entelligence: The death of the PC is greatly exaggerated (at least for now) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As we noted early this morning, Twitter is still having some major issues getting its service stabilized following the DDoS attacks. Co-founder Biz Stone has posted a new update on the situation on Twitter’s blog today. Apparently, the attacks are still ongoing, and while Stone refuses to speculate on the motivation behind them, he does note that they appear to be “geopolitical” in their nature.

Says Stone:

The ongoing, massively coordinated attacks on Twitter this week appear to have been geopolitical in motivation. However, we don’t feel it’s appropriate to engage in speculative discussion about these motivations. The open exchange of information can have a positive impact globally and our job is to keep Twitter services running reliably to the best of our ability.

The Microsoft PR team tweeted out the first image to Twitpic of the Microsoft Retail Store opening in Scottsdale and Mission Viejo. The stores are slated to open sometime in the fall, with more locations opening after. In July, Microsoft’s master plan for the retail stores were leaked in a presentation. Image after the break.

Good news, kids! It looks like Lenovo’s O1 “OPhone” handset is finally ready to hit the shelves over on the Mainland sometime next month. Truth be told, the story arc of this Android-powered 3G (TD-SCDMA) handset has been quite the emotional roller coaster: Some were riveted by the sleek, sexy physical design of the thing, while others were repelled by its intensely KIRFish UI. China Mobile is obviously hoping for big things from the little guy — and getting it into stores before Unicom gets the iPhone sorted can’t hurt. Either way, it looks like someone’s just taken a bite out of iOrgane’s market share!

Filed under: Cellphones

Lenovo’s Android-powered O1 ‘OPhone’ due next month originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The gang’s all here, folks! Yes, it’s been a rough couple weeks apart, but Josh, Paul, and Nilay have finally managed to reunite, and Engadget Podcast 158 is the happy result. Join the boys as they take Apple to task for its recent App Store shenanigans and the dismissal of Eric Schmidt from the board of directors, pick apart the Windows 7 upgrade matrix, and then shift into cruising gear for a run to The Shack and some quick thoughts on a trio of new cameras. Yeah, it’s good to be back.

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, Paul Miller
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Ruby Soho

Hear the podcast

00:02:20 – FCC queries AT&T, Apple on Google Voice iPhone app rejection
00:03:10 – Google’s Eric Schmidt resigns from Apple board over “conflict of interest”
00:12:40 – Phil Schiller says Apple didn’t censor a dictionary.
00:35:15 – Official Windows 7 upgrade chart is ridiculous
00:45:20 – The Shack! Radio Shack’s current bid for relevance
00:52:43 – Nikon Coolpix S1000pj projector-cam beams into reality along with friends
00:59:28 – Kodak Zi8: Kodak Zi8 impressions: surprising functionality, but it’s still a pocket camcorder
01:04:38 – Sony Party-show dock: Sony’s Party-shot dock snaps incriminating Facebook photos while you drink

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Contact the podcast

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Twitter: @joshuatopolsky @futurepaul @reckless @engadget

Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 158 – 08.07.2009 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Everybody’s making noise about the upcoming Apple tablet, and who can blame them? It’ll certainly be an interesting device, but the thing is that nobody really knows what it’s going to be. Flat, to be sure, and tablet-shaped in all likelihood, but beyond that it’s pretty much anybody’s guess. Analyst-at-large Gene Munster has made a list of predictions anyway, since his job is to turn ignorance into money.

So what does he think you can expect? Sales, for one thing. Via a house-of-cards sort of logic peculiar to analysts like himself, he determines the features, then the price, then the sales, then the revenue. Here are his nested prognostications, as summarized by Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech.

Assetize, the startup known for selling Facebook vanity URL’s, has launched a new service targeted at Twitter users with unused, unwanted accounts. The same concept from Facebook vanity URL’s carries over to the Twittersphere. Assetize will let you park Twitter accounts, like domain names, for future use and in the meantime put ads on the account while you sit back and make money. To park your Twitter account, simply register with Assetize for an invite, then put in all of your account information, give keywords related to the parked account, and Assetize will then place ads on the account that are supposedly relevant to keywords you specify. In order to apply for the private beta, your Twitter account must have at least 200 followers.

We already knew that NVIDIA had to shell out anywhere from $150 to $250 million last year to resolve issues related to its defective GPUs, but it looks like that may have only been the beginning, with The Inquirer now reporting that the company has also been forced to pay an additional $119.1 million over the past four months to fix a faulty die and weak packaging material used in the affected graphics chips. What’s more, NVIDIA apparently won’t say whether it expects to incur any further charges related to the defective chips or not, although it simply describes the whole situation as “small distraction,” and says it hasn’t affected its ability to launch new products.

Filed under: Laptops

Faulty GPUs reportedly cost NVIDIA another $119 million originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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