Archive for October 23rd, 2009

Do we really need to tell you what this is all about? Steve Ballmer. Windows 7 launch day. Pure magic. Sit back and enjoy a spirited conversation with the CEO of Microsoft — then stick around to watch Josh, Paul, and Nilay get into it over the week’s news!

Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Special guest: Steve Ballmer
Produced by: Chad Mumm
Directed by: Michael Slavens
Music by: Bit Shifter
Visuals by: Paris and outpt
Opening titles by: Julien Nantiec

Download the Show: The Engadget Show – 002 (HD) / The Engadget Show – 002 (iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted)

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Filed under: Announcements

The Engadget Show – 002: Steve Ballmer, Droid, Nook, and new Macs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew Clearwire would be snaking its 4G services to select markets in North Carolina, Hawaii and Texas before the year’s end, but it’s always reassuring to hear a corporation come right out and affirm that those leaked dates are still solid. What’s interesting about the latest announcement is that both Clearwire and Sprint will be offering 4G in these same cities under their own brands, even though the signals and towers used will be the same. Starting next month, WiMAX will officially land in Greensboro and Raleigh, North Carolina (Charlotte is already lit up, despite these companies’ claims) and Austin; Dallas/Fort Worth; San Antonio, Texas. In December, the companies will get things fired up in Honolulu and Maui, two areas where we’re certain techs from Sprint / Clearwire are more than eager to go “test things out.” So, now that this has all panned out, how’s about another leak sheet for 2010 rollouts?

Filed under: Wireless

Clearwire and Sprint slinging WiMAX to NC, HI and TX in November / December originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The cat may have gotten out of the bag ahead of the Windows 7 launch, but Verizon has just now gotten official with its latest subsidized netbook offerings, which include some unfortunately pricey 3G-equipped versions of HP’s Mini 311 and Mini 110. As expected, the 311 is the first one out of the gate (available right now), and packs an 11.6-inch screen, an Atom N270 backed up by NVIDIA’s ION chipset, 2GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Windows 7 Home Premium and, last but not least, a price tag of $249.99 on contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate. The Mini 110, on the other hand, kicks things back a whole generation to Windows XP and straight-up Intel internals, and will be available for $199.99 (on contract and after rebate again) sometime in mid-November — in the meantime, you can still pick up the carrier’s HP Mini 1151NR netbook while supplies last.

Filed under: Laptops

Verizon rolls out HP Mini 311, Mini 110 netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mom / wife / building superintendent still won’t let you get a drum set, huh? Well, you can show them, you can show them all with the new iGOG VelAUcity app, which for a mere $5 lets you do velocity-sensitive drumming on the iPhone. It works pretty great, too… to an extent. The technology appears to be based on the iPhone’s built-in mic (VelAUcity doesn’t work on an iPod touch), and the app recommends you use it with headphones, but not a headset with its own built-in mic, which would gum things up. In practice the drumming is really great, with multiple hit points on the drum pads and pretty good velocity sensitivity (for an iPhone app), but there are plenty of mic-introduced foibles like the potential for feedback or stray noises messing things up — you basically would have trouble using this in a live application, though there are plenty of sliders so you can tweak things and give it a shot. Our favorite part perhaps is the mic trigger mode, which lets you do your fake drumming next to the iPhone, adding a whole new level of fake realness. Our least favorite part was the crashiness and the buginess — part of which might’ve be blamed on our speed-strapped 3G. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. Video demonstrations are after the break.

[Via Create Digital Music]

Continue reading iGOG VelAUcity brings velocity-sensitive drums to your humble iPhone

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

iGOG VelAUcity brings velocity-sensitive drums to your humble iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You know what happens when you realize your $399 price point can’t compete with the International Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook at $259? You jack it up by $50 and hope people view it as an ultra-premium product, that’s what. IREX’s DR 800SG e-book reader, which admittedly comes with a salacious set of specs and features, has just landed on Best Buy’s site as promised. The problem? It’s $449, and not the $399 that we’ve been hearing for a little while now. ‘Course, Best Buy has been known to inaccurately post MSRPs before the product actually hits the shelves (it’s backordered for “one to two weeks” at the moment), so we suppose anything could happen. So, anyone snapping this up? Wait, who let the crickets out?

[Thanks, Tom]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

IREX 8.1-inch DR 800SG e-reader now listed at Best Buy for $449 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Say you’re North America’s largest wireless carrier — how do you go about burying a product you’re about to carry that you secretly wish didn’t exist? One creative option would be to opt out of announcing it when its manufacturer does, then quietly launch it on the same day that you’re announcing the phone you’re calling the “must-have device of the year.” Tricky, eh? Yeah, sure enough, by all appearances it seems that Verizon doesn’t plan on celebrating the arrival of the Storm2 with the same fanfare it gave the Storm, despite the fact that the new device directly addresses the biggest complaints dogging the original model. It’s a “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me” sort of situation, we suppose. Anyhow, it looks like pricing should come in at $179.99 on contract, though $100 of that comes in the form of a mail-in rebate that you’ll get on a prepaid debit card, so you’ll actually be laying out close to $300 before taxes when you march into the store on October 28. Hey, look at it this way: at least you can keep refreshing Engadget on your old Storm to learn about the Droid while you’re waiting in line for the Storm2, right?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Filed under: Cellphones

Verizon launching Storm2 on October 28 for $179.99? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Windows 7 launch seems to have gone off mostly roses and sunbeams, but we’re hearing today that quite a few people have had issues installing the downloadable $29 student upgrade edition on 32-bit Vista — apparently the file doesn’t unpack to an ISO, but instead to an executable and two bundles that don’t function properly, and eventually the process errors out with a 64-bit app trying to launch on 32-bit systems. It’s possible to create an ISO using some hackery, but the install process seems to be 50/50 after that — we’ve heard of both success and further crashes. For it’s part, Microsoft says it’s looking into things, so hopefully a newly repackaged download will be forthcoming — every party has its ups and downs, right?

Update: Our friends at DownloadSquad have a handy guide to making the ISO, in case you’re interested — and they say the installer does work in the end.

Update 2: We just got a tip that Microsoft is offering refunds to users who are having issues. [Thanks, Christopher]

[Thanks, Tom]

Read – Original thread
Read – Microsoft response

Filed under: Software

Windows 7 student upgrade installer not working for many originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Sharp solar cell sets Conversion Efficiency record

Sharp solar cell sets Conversion Efficiency record originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You can’t make heads or tails of what carrier might be getting this version of the Bold 9700 just by looking at the wireframe diagram buried in the ID label documentation, but here’s an important clue: it got tested for WCDMA Band IV, also known as AWS — so yeah, that would be a pretty solid indicator that this puppy is T-Mobile USA’s version. You could spend literally hours thumbing through the hundreds of pages of RF test results here, so curl up on a cushy futon and geek out — just do us a favor and don’t actually print it out, okay?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

BlackBerry Bold 9700 gains FCC clearance in T-Mobile trim originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Finally, the teaser‘s over. The latest delivery to Engadget‘s UK penthouse is the Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset due out in the US on 8th November, and we took no time to extract the pebble from the transparent cylinder. In front of us are the two parts of the STONE: an earpiece of a breakthrough form factor that instantly makes you pity its rivals, and behind it is the accompanying portable charging base which serves as an external battery. The latter is equipped with a micro-USB port and an LED indicator — simply green or red — to show whether there’s enough battery juice for one full charge. It’s a pretty neat idea as this is the only feasible way to fit eight hours of talk time (or twelve days of standby time) into such tiny package: two on the earpiece and an extra six from the surprisingly light battery base — our scale reckons it is just under one ounce. We also dig the auto-off function when you dock the earpiece and vice versa. Docking and undocking are pretty straight forward too: just snap in for the former, and poke your thumb through the bottom hole of the base to push the earpiece out. The generic click button hidden under the Jabra badge is easy to access and responds well. Above that is the invisible vertical touch strip for volume control and similarly it responded nicely to our strokes. What’s left on the earpiece are the two LED indicators on the underside for Bluetooth connectivity and battery. So far so good, but what really matters is the ear-on experience and the audio quality — listen for yourself after the break.

Continue reading Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review

Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Wireless

Jabra STONE Bluetooth headset review originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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