Archive for August 11th, 2009

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Zune_HD_video_hands_on_chock_full_of_media_edition’; We’ve witnessed a very interesting development cycle with the Zune HD, getting to witness the software at various early stages of development, instead of a completed device all at once. Our latest glimpse of the player is along the lines of what’s been cropping up the last week or so: wild transitions, fun motion graphics and plenty of beautiful media to show it all off with. We did get to touch the new keyboard briefly, and while there’s no telling what sort of predictive text Microsoft has worked in, since we only had a URL bar to work with, it’s a passable (and certainly beautiful) attempt to cram a full QWERTY touchscreen keyboard into such a small device. Reports are conflicting as to whether there will be a landscape keyboard in the final build of the device, but it’s been spotted in some iterations of the device — it didn’t show up when we tried to rotate the player, however.

Unfortunately, while the browser is up and running, the hotel we were at wasn’t able to offer us a working internet connection — hopefully we’ll be able to rectify that soon. For now hold tight, check out the gallery below and the peep the video after the break for a magical exploration of the Zune HD’s truly impressive interface.

Continue reading Zune HD video hands-on: chock-full of media edition

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Zune HD video hands-on: chock-full of media edition originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MacBook Pro owners suffering from 7200 RPM noise pollution and performance issues, Apple has acknowledged your pain and wants you to know that it’s working hard to remedy the situation. According to CNET, the problem seems to be restricted to 500GB / 7200 RPM hard drives, with the likely culprit being code that’s somehow “causing the drive to sleep during use.” No word yet on a release date for the patch, but you’ll know as soon as we do. As you know, we’ll pretty much take any opportunity we can find to run a Lloyd Dobler Photoshop.

[Via Register Hardware]

Filed under: Laptops

Apple ‘fesses up to 7200 RPM HDD issues, aims to dispatch a fix forthwith originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like we’ve got not one, but two nuggets of good news for you today: firstly, the latest Gigabyte swivel-screen tablet has been unboxed, undressed and appropriately groped up, and secondly, Amazon have now got stock of the device at $679 plus shipping. That might still seem a bit rich for a netbook, albeit with expanded functionality, but it’s significantly more affordable than what our European comrades have to pay. As to the unboxing — and there’s a lot of it since Gigabyte decided to pack the unit in like a matryoshka — the Liliputing crew do a thorough inspection as well as a size comparison against devices from ASUS and Lenovo. Slide past the break to see the pair of videos and judge for yourself.

Continue reading Video: Gigabyte T1028X unboxed, handled, available in good ol’ USA

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

Video: Gigabyte T1028X unboxed, handled, available in good ol’ USA originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 16:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia doesn’t trust its Symbian mobile operating system any more and plans to equip many of its smartphones with the mostly open source Maemo operating system it uses in its Internet tablets, according to undisclosed Nokia sources speaking to the Financial Times in Germany. The Finnish company completed the acquisition of Symbian just four months ago. So guys, that was $ 373 million well spent, huh?

According to the Nokia source: “Symbian is much too cumbersome to keep up with modern operating systems. We have to react.” Nokia hasn’t provided an official response; a Nokia spokesman only said that they don’t comment on industry speculation. But this is clearly dynamite stuff.

Today Facebook has posted a note to its blog indicating that it’s updating its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities — one of the site’s documents that establishes user rights and Facebook’s Terms of Service. The post notes that these changes “mostly include clarifying changes and minor updates”, but there is at least one change that has some significant implications: Facebook users are banned from “using their personal profiles for their own commercial gain”, with selling status updates to advertisers explicitly being singled out as a violation.

This stands in stark contrast to Twitter, which permits (or at least, doesn’t actively discourage) so-called “Sponsored Tweets”, which typically include a link to an online store along with a tag indicating that a tweet was sponsored. The idea behind such updates is that users can share products they like with their friends and make money in the process, but it’s a system that can quickly devolve into a spam fest. With plenty of services in this space that include Izea and Magpie, the PayPerPost model is becoming disturbingly popular.

It is not often that a company waits ten years to take its first venture capital. MyWebGrocer, which was founded in 1999, raised $13 million today in a series A investment from the Stripes Group, a private equity firm in New York City. This is definitely a late-stage growth round. Stripes is a private equity firm that likes to invest only in profitable companies, and there was even an investment bank involved (Montgomery & Co.) as an adviser to MyWebGrocer. Guess who wants to lead any eventual IPO?

MyWebGrocer, which is based in Vermont, was initially funded by its founder Rich Tarrant and then from operations as it grew to power the websites of 5,000 grocery stores across the country. Now it is looking to expand more aggressively, which is why it raised the series A.

Sony’s certainly had its share of battery problems but, like most battery-makers, it’s also doing its part to try to improve things, and it’s now announced a new lithium-ion battery that should not only be more stable, but last significantly longer than traditional batteries as well. That’s apparently possible in part due to its use of an olivine-type lithium iron phosphate for the cathode material, which should help boost the battery’s overall lifespan to four times that of conventional lithium ion batteries, not to mention provide an 80% capacity retention after 2,000 charge-discharge cycles and, perhaps most impressively, a promised 99% recharge in just 30 minutes. According to Sony, the batteries are especially well suited for use in power tools (where they’ll first show up), but it does say they’ll also eventually be “expanded to a wide range of other mobile electronic devices.”

[Via Sony Insider]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household

New Sony lithium ion batteries promise 4x the capacity, 99% recharge in 30 minutes originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Everyone knows how hard it is to raise funding right now. But the European VC market has been even more abysmal than the US one of late, with first round fundings thin on the ground and down-rounds aplenty. So one startup has decided to jump ship from the VC merry-go-round and seek a ‘third way’ for itself.

Trampoline Systems, specialists in “social analytics” for companies, launched in the UK and the US last year but a search for a new $8 million round after an initial $5 million round in 2007 from Tudor Investments drew a blank (Tudor was hit badly by the crunch). So they turned to “crowdfunding” using a legally vetted web site to pull in investors – and the efforts are bearing fruit. Two weeks after launching the initiative they’ve now closed a $543,000 round.

I’m still finding it a little hard to believe that Aaron Sorkin (he of A Few Good Men, he of The West Wing) is writing the screenplay for the upcoming Facebook movie. But not only is he, but upon hearing the proposal (based on Ben Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires”), Sorkin claims it’s the fastest he’s “ever said ‘yes’ to anything.”

He claims he was just 3 pages into the 14-page proposal about the book, when he knew he would do it. But it gets better. “If you asked my why I said ‘yes’, I’m not sure that I can give you a clear answer,” Sorkin says.

It’s a far cry from the $1.2 billion number that was bandied about at one point, but it looks like Sprint could still be taking a fairly sizable hit over those pesky early termination fees, at least if a proposed class action settlement plays out as it seems likely too. As Sprint itself announced today, the company’s reached a $14 million settlement in the case, which will be placed in a common fund to be distributed accordingly to all the parties involved, which is where you come in (assuming you’re a current of former Sprint, Nextel, or Sprint Nextel customer, that is). The short of it is that you can either sign on to the class action suit or opt out of it by hitting up the site linked below, and then you’ll have to wait for the final approval hearing now scheduled for October 21st, which should actually settle the settlement once and for all. Details on the exact payout amounts to customers are buried in the documents on the settlement website, but it looks like the majority of customers will be receiving between $25 and $90 depending on their contract, plus some free bonus minutes.

Read – Sprint ETF Settlement website
Read – Sprint statement

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: Cellphones

Sprint details proposed $14 million ETF class action settlement originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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