Archive for November 20th, 2009

Mangrove WinMo tablet rough-handled, teased for being ‘tubby’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  SlashGear  | Email this | Comments

The Engadget Show is happening again, humans! This Sunday, November 22nd, we’ll be bringing that live magic back to the stage as we sit down with Drew Bamford (you can read a bit about him here), director of HTC’s Innovation Center (the place where things like the Sense UI are born). We’ll also be joined by Joystiq’s Editor-in-chief Chris Grant for a special roundtable discussion focused on gaming. As a bonus, we’ve got giveaways for everyone in the audience, plus one of the lucky attendees will walk away with that Modern Warfare 2 Xbox 360 bundle we just got our hands on!

The show takes place at the Tishman Auditorium at Parsons The New School for Design. As you may already know, we film live in front of an audience once a month — but if you can’t make it, don’t worry. We’re bringing the video back home to Engadget (and as a free download here, in the iTunes Store, or the Zune Marketplace) for your viewing pleasure.

The beautiful venue (which you can see in a photo after the break) is located at 66 W. 12th Street between 5th and 6th Aves. Seating is limited and tickets will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis — which means if you want to join us in the audience for the show, you’ll have to arrive early and be prepared for a little wait.

Here are the facts you need to know about the show:

• The show is graciously sponsored by Nokia, and hosted by Parsons The New School for Design
  
• The total show length will be around an hour
• The amazing Glomag will be performing live along with visualist Dan Winckler!

Here is what you need to know if you want to be part of the audience:

• There is no admission fee — tickets are completely free
• The event is all ages
• The venue seats just over 450 people
• Parsons students are welcomed, and we encourage them to come!
• Tickets will be available for pickup at the Tishman Auditorium at 2PM on the 22nd, and we’re strongly encouraging people to get their tickets and not stand in line — if you have a ticket, you’ll have a seat!
• You’ll need to hold onto your ticket stub to be eligible for the giveaways
• You cannot pick up tickets for other people — if you want your friend to get a ticket, bring your friend!
• The show begins at 5PM, and doors will open at 4:30PM

If you’re a member of the media who wishes to attend, please contact us at: engadgetshowmedia [at] engadget.com, and we’ll try to accommodate you. All other non-media questions can be sent to: engadgetshow [at] engadget.com.

Continue reading The Engadget Show tapes this Sunday with HTC’s Drew Bamford and Chris Grant of Joystiq!

The Engadget Show tapes this Sunday with HTC’s Drew Bamford and Chris Grant of Joystiq! originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today’s bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they’re added throughout the holiday season.

True smartphones like the Palm Pre, Motorola Droid, and iPhone are all chewing up a majority of wireless mindshare these days, which makes it particularly easy to forget that there’s this huge, vibrant catalog of cool non-smartphone handsets sitting right below them in your favorite carrier’s lineup. They can play music, games, sometimes last for days on a charge (try that with a G1 — we dare you), and often take up just a fraction of the space in your pocket that a more powerful handset would. They’re not for everyone, but odds are you know a couple folks who fit the featurephone mold, and… well, it is the season of giving, isn’t it? Follow the break for a few of our recommendations.

Note: Looking to give a few smartphones away to friends and family? This particular guide’s all about regular cellphones — but don’t worry, we’ll be posting our smartphone guide in the not-too-distant future!

Continue reading Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Cellphones

Engadget’s Holiday Gift Guide: Cellphones originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

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.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Chrome_OS_babies_and_bathwater’;
In an age where products that have never been announced get coverage and even critiqued over rumored shipping delays, it’s no surprise that Google received a lot of coverage this week with an update on its Chrome OS strategy. While not quite rumorware, it’s a lot like the cloud it depends on: more vapor than substance.

I don’t think Chrome would be a bad idea if it were something that was targeted to complement existing PC architectures. Why isn’t it? If it’s web-based, Chrome OS could and should co-exist with Mac OS, Linux and Windows. It’s the idea that Google is promoting Chrome as a PC OS replacement for mobile devices and riding the netbook hype all at the same time that gets me, as does the fact that I need to get a new device to run Chrome OS. That’s ridiculous, as are reference design requirements like SSDs instead of hard drives. Worse, trying to merge the PC and phone into some weird new intersection of devices is not what the market wants or has ever looked for. This type of specialized hardware sounds like it’s going right into the ‘tweener category and we know what happens to those devices. You just have to look how successful netbooks running Linux and Firefox have been to get a sense as to how well this concept is likely to go over with consumers.

Continue reading Entelligence: Chrome OS, babies, and bathwater

Entelligence: Chrome OS, babies, and bathwater originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

[Thanks, Christopher]

Continue reading Grace E-motorbikes are ultralightweight, German, and very expensive

Grace E-motorbikes are ultralightweight, German, and very expensive originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink DVICE  |  Grace E-motorbikes  | Email this | Comments

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/software/How_to_Run_Chrome_OS_as_a_Virtual_Machine’;
Itching for some Chrome OS? Well, we all are, but you might be a bit disappointed at the fact that while Google has open-sourced its progress on the OS so far, the version that is currently available for download seems eons behind what Google showed off at its event yesterday. Still, if you just have to see it for yourself, the good news is that it’s a total breeze to get a virtual machine running. We used a VMWare image that was packaged up by the kind folks at gdgt, and set it up with VMWare Fusion running on a recent model MacBook Pro. Your mileage may vary depending on your particular setup (there’s also an image available for the free, cross-platform VirtualBox software), but the principles should remain the same. Check it out on video after the break.

Continue reading How-to: run Chrome OS as a virtual machine

How-to: run Chrome OS as a virtual machine originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

You know what we love? Dancing robots and Christmas tunes. So combining the two and throwing the video up on YouTube would be akin to heaven, right? Well, as you’ll see in the amazing video after the break: it doesn’t get much better than this. In fact, it might even be enough to clear the “bah humbug” out of us for good.

Continue reading Robots perform synchronized interpretive dance for the holidays, fill us with cheer

Robots perform synchronized interpretive dance for the holidays, fill us with cheer originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Plastic Pals  |  YouTube  | Email this | Comments

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/gadgets/Barnes_Noble_s_Nook_now_sold_out_for_the_holidays’; Hoping to put your hands on a Nook this holiday season? Here’s hoping you got in the door early, because bookseller Barnes & Noble claims that the Kindle-competitor has sold out for anyone hoping to gift the thing this year. According to the New York Times, B&N says pre-orders on the device have exceeded its expectations, and the well has now run dry on forthcoming stock. To make up for the loss, the seller is offering placeholder certificates for buyers, with a promise that the next round of devices will be shipping out around January 4th. Are suburban moms to blame? Only B&N knows for sure.

Barnes & Noble’s Nook now sold out for the holidays originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  New York Times  | Email this | Comments

Continue reading FLO TV for iPhone proof-of-concept caught in the wild

FLO TV for iPhone proof-of-concept caught in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Electricpig  | Email this | Comments

Shakespeare’s plays have a long, long history of being modded to fit the times. We’ve seen Macbeths do the running man, and Cordelias dressed like Susie Sioux — and we’ve also seen Forbidden Planet, so we know that Robby was just a tinned up Ariel. So robots in Shakespeare? Sure, we’ve seen that before, but what haven’t we seen intertwined into bad theatre? Well, Texas A&M’s just staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream to include robotic cast members. Working with Professor Robin Murphy, who heads up the Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue, director Amy Hopper hacked the script a bit to include an air robot — which is about the size of a pizza, and has been used in military operations — playing a fairy, and six small radio controlled helicopters. The robotics team used the opportunity to observe how cast and audience members reacted to the robots, and we’re pretty sure the audience warmed to them far more quickly than they would to Christian Bale or Sean Penn.

Robots perform in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said to outdo the cast of New Moon originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Wired  | Email this | Comments