Archive for October 10th, 2009

Well, this is shaping up to be one of the biggest disasters in the history of cloud computing, and certainly the largest blow to Danger and the Sidekick platform: T-Mobile’s now reporting that personal data stored on Sidekicks has “almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.” They’re still looking for a way to recover it, but they’re not giving users a lot of hope — meanwhile, servers are still on the fritz and customers are being advised not to let their devices power down because anything that’s still on there will be lost the next time the device is turned on. Another communique is promised from T-Mobile on Monday to give everyone a status update on the recovery efforts, but at this point, it’s not looking good at all.

T-Mobile: we probably lost all your Sidekick data originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Acer’s issued a voluntary recall for some of its Aspire laptops — all of which were manufactured before September 15th of this year. It seems that some of them are experiencing an overheat of the microphone cable after “repeated” and “extreme” pressure is applied to the left palm rest. The affected models include the AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG. Acer’s set up a website where you can enter the serial number of your device to see if yours might be one of the affected.

Filed under: Laptops

Acer issues recall for some Aspire laptops originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/hardware/Conan_O_Brien_talks_to_the_co_creator_of_USB_on_The_Tonight’; Now this is kind of amazing. Remember those Intel “rock star” ads — featuring the co-creator of USB, Ajay Bhatt? Of course you do. What you might not know is that the Ajay Bhatt in those commercials is actually an actor. Apparently, Conan O’Brien made this discovery and felt compelled to sit down with the actual Ajay and pick his brain about technology… and, er, other things. Just watch the video after the break — you’ll thank us later.

[Thanks, Carter]

Continue reading Conan O’Brien talks to the co-creator of USB on The Tonight Show

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Conan O’Brien talks to the co-creator of USB on The Tonight Show originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh yeah, everyone loves the extended battery, but are we really kosher with the added bulge? A team of boffins at the University of Missouri certainly aren’t, as they’ve spent the last good while of their lives researching and developing a new nuclear battery that could be used to power devices much smaller than, well, most anything. The radioisotope cell, as it’s called, can reportedly “provide power density that is six orders of magnitude higher than chemical batteries,” and while some may question the safety of this potentially volatile device, the liquid semiconductor (used instead of a solid semiconductor) should help ease concerns. The current iteration of the device is about the size of a penny, and it’s intended to power a variety of MEMS systems. Now, if only these guys could find a way to make a standard AA last longer than a week in our Wiimote, we’d be pleased as punch.

[Via BBC, thanks Jim]

Filed under: Peripherals

Mizzou’s nuclear battery to power things smaller than your brain can imagine originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 11:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know that sweeping feeling of guilt that comes over you every time you’re pulled over as part of a “standard traffic stop?” Yeah, those natural emotions are about to make you look incredibly suspicious on the way to your next flight — or it will if the FAST project is ever turned into reality. The Homeland Security-funded Future Attribute Screening Technology effort, which has already ate away at $20 million in taxpayer dollars, essentially hopes to let flyers keep all of their clothes on while forcing them to stand on a Wii balance board (or similar) and have an array of sensors watch their every reaction to a battery of questions. The problem? Every innocent person on the planet’s going to start sweating and shaking just being in that kind of scenario, and only the trained terrorists of the world are apt to be able to put truth aside and fake the machine into thinking everything is cool. Oh sure, we’re being a little dramatic here, but seriously — maybe the TSA should just require a complete life history as a prerequisite to boarding.

[Via Popular Science]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Peripherals

Wii balance board could be used in fruitless airport security effort originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 10:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’ve somehow managed to hold out from joining into the HTIB revolution, the time for caving is upon you. LG has just tapped Sir Mark Levinson to engineer the acoustics behind its latest bundle, the HB954SP. Packing a 5.1-channel sound system that includes 1,000 total watts of power, a quintet of oval drivers and a ported subwoofer, the system gets direction from a BD-Live-enabled Blu-ray player that’s actually a fair bit more stylish than the tried-and-true black rectangle. You’ll also find a pair of HDMI inputs, an iDock function for charging and controlling your iPod / iPhone right from the BD deck, 1080p upscaling of traditional DVDs, touch sensitive controls, a USB port for loading up external media and an optical audio input. There’s nary a mention of price, but it should splash down this November for a hefty premium.

LG’s 5.1 HB954SP Blu-ray HTIB system makes room for your iPod or iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Elecom‘s USB-powered numeric touch keypad is pretty simple. You plug it into your machine, tap your digits on the board and watch the numbers appear in your calculator app. Once that gets boring, you can also use this as a secondary trackpad. And given that it supports a variety of multi gesture functions (zoom in / out, shift up / down, etc.), we’d say the secondary features here may just be more enticing than the primary. Suddenly overcome with a feeling of want? Get yours later this month for ¥6,500 ($72).

[Via Akihabara News]

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Elecom’s USB numeric touch keypad does touch gestures on the side originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Got a cool grand to drop on a Windows Phone? Oh, yeah? Then have a gander at Samsung’s latest fashion piece, the Armani-branded M7500. The cool cats over at PhoneArena managed to get their paws around a unit, and as predicted, they didn’t hesitate to bust out the camera and give us all a good look. They also took the chance to give us a brief overview of how the handset handled, calling it “bulky even for a WinMo smartphone,” though praising the high-res display and well-spaced keyboard. Feel free to hit the read link if you’re interested in more, but don’t be shocked to hear more than a little criticism.

[Via MobileTechWorld, thanks Arnaud]

Filed under: Cellphones

Samsung’s WinMo 6.5-powered Armani smartphone gets previewed originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 04:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re an US-based company, you’d be kidding yourself if you said you didn’t want to take advantage of the pound-to-dollar exchange rate. We can’t say for certain that the current Forex ratings on currency is why Eye-Fi is suddenly barging into the British market place, but whatever the case, UKers can look forward to slapping a WiFi-enabled SD card into their digicam starting on October 19th. The Eye-Fi Home Video, Eye-Fi Share Video and Eye-Fi Pro will all be splashing down in 4GB flavors, with prices set for £49.99, £69.99 and £199.99 in order of mention. Got it, chum?

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless, Storage

Eye-Fi bringing trio of WiFi-enabled SD cards to UK originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 02:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CEATEC is a breeding ground for new innovations, and Hitachi made sure to get its name on the A-list with a simple face-recognizing television that seeks to save power whenever you glance away. Essentially, the prototype plasma on display packs an inbuilt camera that notices when your face is peering at it, and whenever you glance away, a power-saving mode goes into action. Unfortunately, that means that the panel goes black, and while we understand the point here, we can envision such a feature causing all sorts of rage around the house, particularly if you’ve got a handful of viewers trying to keep watch from a few feet further away than yourself. Hit the read link to have a look at how things work in practice — here’s hoping you can opt for the sound to stay on throughout the blackout, at least.

Continue reading Hitachi’s face-recognizing display turns off, saves power when you look away (video)

Filed under: Displays

Hitachi’s face-recognizing display turns off, saves power when you look away (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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