Archive for November 24th, 2009

Glowing red cyborg eyes, bombs dropped from stealth fighters, emotionless calls of “DRRROOOIIID” every time you get a text message — it’s enough to scare yesterday’s lunch out of anyone. Verizon’s no-holds-barred advertising campaign for the Motorola Droid has been so hellishly frightening overwhelmingly successful, in fact, that it appears to be paying dividends either directly or indirectly against Moto’s biggest rivals. YouGov’s BrandIndex — an ongoing survey measuring brand loyalty through some secret-sauce methodology that only analysts would fully comprehend — shows a marked spike in Moto’s score in the critical adult male category, while Apple and RIM have taken hits over the same period. These numbers look terribly volatile over a relative short span, so we’re not going to be rushing to any conclusions — but by any measure, it’s pretty wild to see Moto go from a has-been to besting the bulletproof cult of iPhone in just a few short weeks. In the long term, it’ll be interesting to see just how deeply Moto’s and Apple’s carrier relationships are factoring into public sentiment; after all, momentum’s certainly on Verizon’s side right now.

Survey: Droid advertising scaring men right into dutiful brand loyalty originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been a hot minute since we’ve heard anything about LG’s Monaco, but now it seems as if the wait for this to transition from presentation slide to reality is almost over. Unfortunately, Windows Mobile 7 won’t be onboard as previously rumored, but prospective Telus customers can look forward to LG’s S-Class interface sprucing things up somewhat. Other specs purportedly include a Snapdragon processor, WVGA display, 5 megapixel camera and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, though nitty-gritty details beyond that are nil. Peep that read link if you’re lusting for a few more angles, and don’t kid yourself — you are.

LG’s Monaco (IQ) spotted in Telus garb, rocking WinMo 6.5 and Snapdragon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wow, talk about digging deep in the memory bank. The same phone that we spotted way back in July (known then as the iPAQ K3 Obsidian) has finally emerged in official fashion on AT&T. Dubbed the iPAQ Glisten, this all-business smartphone boasts a vanilla coat of Windows Mobile 6.5, a 2.5-inch AMOLED display, 3.1 megapixel camera, 256MB of SDRAM, a microSD expansion slot, A-GPS, 3.5 millimeter headphone jack, a QWERTY keyboard, 802.11b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0+EDR. ‘Course, you’ll still be dealing with a resistive screen and a dated OS, but if you’re turned on in some weird way, it’ll be “available in the coming weeks” for $229.99 after a mail-in rebate and 2-year agreement.

HP’s Obsidian becomes iPAQ Glisten, officially comes to AT&T originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Considering the proliferation of 3G, WiFi, in-home broadband, and front-facing cameras on phones, you’d think that there’d be far more obvious ways to bridge video calls between phones and PCs — but alas, it’s virtually impossible, particularly in the States where carriers have a complete aversion to the topic. Enter Fring — one of the mobile industry’s VoIP pioneers that has spread its love from Symbian to almost every smartphone platform worth mentioning over the years — which is stepping out today with a new build for S60 handsets that offers video support through Skype. The way we see it, this is great news for a couple of reasons: one, Skype is one of the few videoconferencing systems with widespread traction, and two, this suddenly makes front-facing cams useful to a whole swath of Nokia users on networks (ahem, AT&T and T-Mobile) that don’t offer video calling themselves. Whether we actually use it is another story altogether, but hey, it’s cool to have it if we absolutely must see your beautiful face face right now in stunning low fidelity. Follow the break for a video demo.

Continue reading Fring adds Skype video support on S60, threatens to make front cams useful

Fring adds Skype video support on S60, threatens to make front cams useful originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The VUDU web based architecture is evidently really paying off, because this makes the third VUDU update in the last month. The company tells us that since its UI is pulled from the web like any other website, it can continue to easily roll out updates. This week’s addition is a welcomed one, as we’ll no longer have to reach for our computer or handheld just to look up the details of a movie on Wikipedia. But what’s even more useful is the fact that you can browse beyond the movie’s Wikipedia entry to the actor’s pages, etc., and links are even added so you can quickly get back to actor’s list of movies available on VUDU. We haven’t been able to try this for ourselves yet, but it does sound like something we’d find useful. Of course the only thing left to add now that Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes are accounted for is IMDB, which can’t be far behind — right, VUDU? There’s one more screen cap of the new feature after the jump.

Continue reading VUDU updates keep rolling by integrating Wikipedia

VUDU updates keep rolling by integrating Wikipedia originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The newer, embiggened Nintendo DSi LL (as it’s known in Tokyo Town) has been available to the kids in Japan since the beginning of the week, and Enterbrain, Inc. is reporting that Nintendo has pushed 103,524 units in its first two days. To perspectivize things, the DSi was snatched up to the tune of about 170,000 units in the same time period, while the PSPgo sold around 28,000 units. To celebrate, the kids at PC Watch have ripped one of these bad boys — and you’ll never guess what they found! (OK, maybe you will.) Check out the link below for the hardcore details — and don’t say we didn’t warn you.

Nintendo DSi LL sells 103k in two days, ripped open in two minutes originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  PC Watch (teardown), Kotaku (sales)  | Email this | Comments

You know how to ruin a luxurious shooter already steeped in fine retro-styling? Slather on the Swarovski crystal, that’s how. This £1,999 CrystalRoc bastardization of Olympus’ E-P1 Micro Four Thirds wundercam more than doubles the price of the de-iced original. So sad… then again, maybe you like it.

Olympus Pen E-P1 spoiled by Swarovski originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news, kids — the solar-powered jet with globetrotting ambitions has started sneaking out of the hangar and onto the runway for some mild exercise in the form of landing gear and taxi testing. Captained by Bertrand Piccard — a real person — the Solar Impulse project is still on track for a 2012 globe circumnavigation attempt powered only by the sun’s rays from above and the well-wishes from below. The humongous bird is described as having “the wingspan of an Airbus and the weight of a car,” and its recent outdoorsy jaunts have done nothing to dampen spirits, making that roadmap for its first flight early next year seem entirely viable. We’ve got no less than three videos for you after the break, but we won’t mind if you only watch one.

Continue reading Captain Piccard’s Solar Impulse starts runway testing

Captain Piccard’s Solar Impulse starts runway testing originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that most epic triumph of human engineering and physics research has finally taken place, and strangely enough our planet’s still in one piece too. The search for the Higgs boson particle resumed yesterday, somewhere under the Franco-Swiss border, with the CERN research team successfully executing what the LHC was built to do — accelerating proton beams to nearly the speed of light, then filming the wreckage as they crash into each other. Having encountered a number of bumps in the road, the researchers have had to significantly scale down the energy at which their early collisions will take place, with the very first ones said to have happened at 900 billion electron volts. Still, plans are afoot for an imminent shift up to 1.2 trillion electron volts (TeV), which would be the highest energy level any particle accelerator has achieved yet, before a ramp up to 7 TeV over the coming year if all goes well.

Large Hadron Collider reboots, makes first protonic bang! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you like your software homebrewed with just a hint of alpha then boy do we have an app for you. The WebOS homebrew community just released Precorder; an app that lets your Palm Pre record audio and 30fps 480×320 pixel video in H.264/AVC format — you can can even control the built-in LED for recording in low-light situations. Unfortunately, there’s no video preview presented while recording but hey, it’s alpha software bro… and it’s free. Check a video sample after the break.

Continue reading Palm Precorder brings video recording homebrew to the Pre

Palm Precorder brings video recording homebrew to the Pre originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Palm Infocenter, WebOS Internals (Precorder)  | Email this | Comments