Archive for November 12th, 2009

Comcast TV Everywhere launch details: December, free for existing subs, really goes anywhere

November 12, 2009

Comcast’s Amy Banse just hit the stage at NewTeeVee Live and announced key details about the company’s new On Demand Online launch. If you can’t check out the video (embedded after the break) here’s the important stuff: It will be available at no additional cost to existing subscribers and allow the authorization of up to 3 devices per household. Log in once from home to Comcast.net or Fancast.com, download the Move Networks powered player to authorize your PC and proceed to stream from the very healthy library of VOD, whether at home or anywhere else, despite previous rumors to the contrary. The bad news? Yes, this does still count against the 250GB monthly cap if used at home and still no word on HD streaming, but within the concept of making content available to subscribers wherever they want to view it, this seems like a good first step.

[Via Media Experiences 2 Go]

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Comcast TV Everywhere launch details: December, free for existing subs, really goes anywhere originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Xbox LIVE gets 1080p Zune Video store, Twitter, Facebook and more on November 17th (video)

November 12, 2009

Remember all those fantastic features that Microsoft promised were in the works for its Xbox 360 back at E3? Get ready folks, because they’re all arriving in five days. At an undisclosed time on November 17th, users will be able to login to Xbox LIVE and check out the totally bodacious new portals available to kill time and act social without actually combing your hair. As we’d heard, Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm (US and UK only) modules will all be featured, not to mention on-demand 1080p / 5.1-channel HD video through the Zune Video outlet. In case that’s not enough (and be honest, it’s never enough), users will also see a new “News and More” section in the “Inside Xbox” channel with streams from MSNBC, The New Yorker and Dilbert. Yeah, Dilbert. Hop on past the break for a few video demonstrations, and then get back to your Modern Warfare 2 binge before your teammates see you slacking off.

Continue reading Xbox LIVE gets 1080p Zune Video store, Twitter, Facebook and more on November 17th (video)

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Xbox LIVE gets 1080p Zune Video store, Twitter, Facebook and more on November 17th (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic debuts MW-10 photo frame / iPod dock / sound system

November 12, 2009
Can something manage to be both an iPod dock and a photo frame yet still manage to look like neither? It can if it’s Panasonic’s new MW-10 “multimedia audio system photo frame,” which looks more like a shrunken down LCD TV than anything else. If that suits your decor, however, it looks like you’ll get quite a bit from this little package, including a 9-inch WVGA display, 4GB of internal memory, an SD card slot, an FM tuner, some puported “audiophile-quality sound,” and even a built-in CD player to complement the iPod dock ’round back. Look or this one to hit US retailers sometime in December for $299.95 — or if that’s too long to wait, you can pick one up in Japan right now, where it launched last month.

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Panasonic debuts MW-10 photo frame / iPod dock / sound system originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qualcomm chips promises 1GHz speeds in ‘mainstream smartphones,’ simultaneous HSPA+ / LTE support

November 12, 2009

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon has brought about a new wave of possibilities for smartphones, but evidently those chips are just too exclusive to slip into so-called “mainstream smartphones.” In order to remedy such a tragedy, the outfit has today introduced the MSM7x30 family of solutions, which uses an 800 MHz to 1GHz custom superscalar CPU based on the ARM v7 instruction set. The chips support 720p video encoding / decoding at 30fps, integrated 2D and 3D graphics (with support for OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1), 5.1-channel surround sound, a 12 megapixel camera sensor and built-in GPS. In related news, the outfit also announced that it is sampling the industry’s first chipsets for dual-carrier HSPA+ and multi-mode 3G / LTE, which ought to make those champing at the bit for a speedier WWAN highway exceedingly giddy. Hit the links below for all the technobabble.

Read – MSM7x30 solutions
Read – Dual-carrier HSPA+ and Multi-Mode 3G/LTE chipsets

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Qualcomm chips promises 1GHz speeds in ‘mainstream smartphones,’ simultaneous HSPA+ / LTE support originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel shells out $1.25 billion to settle all AMD litigation

November 12, 2009

Intel sure sells a lot of chips, but man — it sure blows a lot of that profit on lawyers. Just months after it got nailed with a $1.45 billion fine from the EU in an AMD antitrust case, nearly two years after AMD hit Intel with another antitrust probe and nearly 1.5 years after the FTC sparked up an investigation of its own, Intel has finally decided to pony up in order to rid itself of one of those back-riding monkeys. In an admittedly brief joint announcement released simultaneously by both firms today, Intel has agreed to cough up a whopping $1.25 billion in order to settle “all antitrust and IP disputes” with AMD. In fact, the pair went so far as to say the following:

“While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development.”

Aside from AMD’s coffers filling up with cash, the agreement also gives both firms patent rights from a new 5-year cross license agreement. Of course, we’re betting that this isn’t the end of this exceptionally bitter rivalry, and we highly doubt Intel wrote a check this large while grinning from ear-to-ear. That said, we’re eager to see what AMD does with its newfound cheddar, and if we had our druthers, we’d sit back and watch it invest heavily into beating Intel to the punch with its next few platforms.

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Intel shells out $1.25 billion to settle all AMD litigation originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 10:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm Pixi review

November 12, 2009

It’s hard to believe that Palm is already pushing its second webOS device, the Pixi, out the door. It seems like just a few weeks ago that we were eagerly awaiting the release of the Pre, a phone that was considered to be the last gasp for the badly ailing company, and now it’s poised to add an entirely new handset to the mix. The Pixi — a sleek, tiny device — seems clearly aimed at the only market Palm has recently enjoyed unfettered success with: the Centro demographic. From the looks of things, the Pixi is positioned to step into the role of the “cheap and cute” smartphone once firmly controlled by the company’s previous (and now discontinued) Palm OS offering. Of course, the landscape in 2009 is very different from the landscape of 2007, with fierce competition — both from outside as well as the company’s own sister product. Can the Pixi find a place in the smartphone race, or does it do too little to distance itself from the pack? We’ve got the answers inside, so read on to find out!

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Palm Pixi review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ferrari-styled OutRun arcade machine set for crazy scooter transformation? (video)

November 12, 2009
Ferrari-styled OutRun arcade machine set for crazy scooter transformation? (video)
If you’re a child of the ’80s and a gamer to boot you surely remember OutRun, the game that rocked a generation with only some parallax effects and pixelated blonde hair — though the giant arcade cabinet with gold wheels certainly didn’t hurt. Now “contemporary artist” Garnet Hertz (creator of the twitching, crunchy frog server) is proposing to give that very cabinet a new lease on life, and a motorized one at that. Hertz wants to take an arcade machine and merge it with an EVT America Electric Trike, making those stylized five-spoke rims actually move. But that’s only half of it. He plans to power the display with an iPhone 3GS and use it to render a sort of halcyon 16-bit view of the world ahead, with every road a 64-color dream lined with palm trees. A recent video showing off some of the tech is embedded below, and while we think this is about as likely to turn a wheel as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cabinet is to travel in time, we’ll certainly be first in line with four quarters if it ever does.

[Via Autoblog]

Continue reading Ferrari-styled OutRun arcade machine set for crazy scooter transformation? (video)

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Ferrari-styled OutRun arcade machine set for crazy scooter transformation? (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ViewSonic VPC08 keeps Windows XP, clamshell style alive

November 12, 2009

The xpPhone isn’t even out yet and already it has competition. ViewSonic has announced its own take on the idea of a phone with Windows XP as the OS, in the form of the VPC08. With an Intel ULV processor, half a gigabyte of RAM, and 8GB of storage, it has just about enough to let you run XP productively, and once you open up the clamshell casing you’ll find a 4.3-inch display and a full QWERTY keyboard to do it with. The outside is adorned with a 2 megapixel camera, plus a 2-inch screen and numeric keypad for your old school phone needs. An asking price of $800 and what we suspect to be pretty atrocious battery life will likely be the biggest hindrances to this device ever making it out of China and on the world stage. All the same, we totally wanna play with one. You should mosey on past the break to find a picture of the retro-looking externals.

[Via Cloned In China]

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ViewSonic VPC08 keeps Windows XP, clamshell style alive originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Seiko Ocean Theater alarm clock brings the life aquatic to your bedroom

November 12, 2009

If you’re anything like us, you’re terrified of whales for pretty much no reason. Seiko‘s newest alarm clock — the Ocean Theater — probably isn’t for you then. Fair enough, but plenty of people are not maladjusted, and we’re willing to admit that it’s pretty cool, even if it’s terrifying. The clock, which responds to touch, can project various marine life upon your walls, and we imagine it’ll be a huge hit with children. As you’ll see in the video after the break, if this thing works as advertised, it’s really rather impressive. The Ocean Theater also doubles as an iPod dock, and will be available from Japan Trends; it’s up for pre-order now and runs $235. Like we said, definitely check out the video after the break.

[Via Uber Gizmo]

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Seiko Ocean Theater alarm clock brings the life aquatic to your bedroom originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 04:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Digital ‘Cloud’ could form over London for the 2012 Olympics

November 12, 2009
No, we’re not talking about “the cloud” where data goes to disappear and (hopefully) be retrieved again. We’re talking about an actual (well, artificial) cloud that promises to be both a real structure and a massive digital display. That’s the bright idea of a team of researchers from MIT, anyway, and it’s now been shortlisted in a competition designed to find a new tourist attraction to be built in London for the 2012 Olympics. Dubbed simply “The Cloud,” the structure would consist of two 400-foot tall mesh towers that are linked by a series of interconnected plastic bubbles, which would themselves house an observation deck inside and be used to display everything from Olympic scores and highlights to a “barometer of the city’s interests and moods” outside (that latter bit comes courtesy of the group’s partnership with Google). As if that wasn’t enough, the whole thing also promises to be funded entirely by micro-payments from the public (which would also determine its final size), and be completely self-powered, with it relying on a combination of solar power and regenerative braking from the lifts in the towers. Video after the break.

[Via Inhabitat]

Continue reading Digital ‘Cloud’ could form over London for the 2012 Olympics

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Digital ‘Cloud’ could form over London for the 2012 Olympics originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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