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Unannounced BlackBerry Curve 8910 took CES refuge at Case-Mate’s booth?

Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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RIM has an interesting reputation in the trade show world: it rarely makes any announcements of interest or consequence during events, but if you look hard enough, you still might just find something juicy. Last year’s CES, for example, briefly saw a Curve 8900 mysteriously running AT&T-branded firmware, which we now know foretold a release several months later. This year’s shindig in Vegas proved to be a little less bombastic — or so we thought, anyway, until a dude cleaning out his camera’s memory card noticed that Case-Mate (of all companies) allegedly had an unannounced Curve 8910 chilling in its booth. It’s pretty common for manufacturers to give valued accessory partners some prototypes ahead of time to make sure there are plenty of add-ons available by the time a device is released, they just don’t usually… you know, put those prototypes out at a booth for everyone to enjoy. We actually stopped by Case-Mate this year and didn’t catch the 8910, but we don’t know how long it was actually out — and besides, telling the difference between this and a Bold 9700 takes a Mike Lazaridis-like understanding for the subtle differences in RIM’s industrial design. Next year, though, be on notice, guys: we’ll be scanning your kiosks with a fine-tooth comb.

Unannounced BlackBerry Curve 8910 took CES refuge at Case-Mate’s booth? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pico projectors caught in the wild, one on a camcorder, one in Samsung’s W9600 cellphone (video)

Posted on 15. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Yeah, we know: you haven’t bought a pico projector and you really have no plan to do so. Still, it’s kind of fun to see them doing their thing, beaming little, dim images onto walls from improbably small boxes. The folks at PicoProjector-info are happy to oblige, posting two videos of DLP picos in action at CES. The first is a Texas Instruments model that’s been stuck atop a camcorder (presumably with bubblegum), pointing backward to splay the image of whatever it’s filming into the wall — and to temporarily blind whoever dares pick up said camcorder. Next up is a demonstration of the Samsung W9600, which we spent a bit of time with ourselves at CES. Now you can see how it looks in motion, as both videos are embedded after the break.

Continue reading Pico projectors caught in the wild, one on a camcorder, one in Samsung’s W9600 cellphone (video)

Pico projectors caught in the wild, one on a camcorder, one in Samsung’s W9600 cellphone (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jan 2010 07:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Next-gen dashboards get Tegra 2, Moblin, Atom, we go hands-on

Posted on 14. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Intel Atom processors, capacitive touchscreens, NVIDIA Tegra 2 graphics, Moblin installs… sounds like a suite of hot next-gen ultra-portables, right? Think again. Those are just some of the technologies used in the dashboards of cars that will be appearing on showrooms in the coming months and years, dashes that were largely on display at CES — minus the cars themselves, usually. There we were treated to mobile glimpses of Google Earth, Pandora, and Slacker Radio on the go, plus the ability to lock and unlock your car via Ye Olde Internets. It’s the future, and it’s coming soon, so click on through already and get a sneak peek.

Continue reading Next-gen dashboards get Tegra 2, Moblin, Atom, we go hands-on

Next-gen dashboards get Tegra 2, Moblin, Atom, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jan 2010 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sonim’s ‘unbreakable’ handset shattered on the BBC

Posted on 11. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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What happens when you let all comers batter, submerge, and otherwise abuse your so-called “unbreakable” handsets on the show floor at CES? Well, sometimes they break — as a certain BBC News video makes abundantly clear. Are you ready for the truth? Hit the source link.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Sonim’s ‘unbreakable’ handset shattered on the BBC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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First Else hands-on at CES: ’still alive and kicking’

Posted on 10. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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We caught up with Else at CES to check on how they’re doing with the First Else since we last saw them back in November. According to CTO Eldad Eilam, the basic functions of the ALP-based phone are finally done and dusted, so now Else will mainly focus on fine-tuning its snazzy visual effects until beta around the end of March. There’s no doubt that it’s also finalizing plans — pricing, content distribution, and remote sync service, etc.– with various partners in the US and Europe. If you happen to be in Asia, then sorry — apparently Else has no intention to visit you guys just yet, but you might get lucky if you sneak into Sharp’s factories in Japan or China. For the rest of us, we shall continuously gaze at our hands-on videos until First Else’s expected end-of-Q2 launch — we’ve got a new one for you after the break.

Continue reading First Else hands-on at CES: ’still alive and kicking’

First Else hands-on at CES: ’still alive and kicking’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Spracht Aura EQ hands-on

Posted on 10. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Another day, another Bluetooth headset. Well, not exactly. This futuristic accessory rocks a capacitive volume control, meaning you can turn it up to 11 with just a swipe of your finger on its outside. If that hasn’t got you stoked, the Aura EQ has also collected a CES Innovation Award, which should reassure us that the built-in six-band equalizer and dual mics do the job they promise. Unfortunately, we can’t offer any corroboration or dispute to their claimed usefulness since no functional units were on hand. What we can say is that the earpiece that enters your ear canal is quite threatening looking and never really fit us very well — though there will be multiple adapters in the final package. Finally, there’s a cool audio enhancement feature, which collects sound from up to five feet in front of you and amplifies it should you need to focus in a noisy environment. The Spracht Aura EQ is coming out within the first half of the year when you’ll be able to grab one for $79.

Spracht Aura EQ hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 01:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Huawei U8230 quick hands-on

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Some of you may be familiar with the Huawei U8230’s corporate cousin, the U8220, sold on T-Mobile UK as the Pulse — and it comes as no surprise that there’s very little different in the new model. Like the Pulse, the U8230 features a 3.2 megapixel cam paired with a secondary VGA piece up front, quadband EDGE / triband HSPA, and a 3.5-inch display. The screen’s decent and the system seems snappy enough (for a virgin demo unit, anyway), but the navigation buttons below are all placed along a single piece of plastic with mechanical switches underneath. It’s an unsettling, vaguely crappy-feeling setup, but not a deal-breaker by any stretch — particularly if it holds up over the course of a couple years’ use. We doubt we’ll ever see this one stateside, but frankly, we’d like to see Huawei work more with US carriers — this would make a great free-on-contract device around these parts.

Gallery: Huawei U8230 quick hands-on

Huawei U8230 quick hands-on originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Inbrics M1 is the thinnest Android slider we’ve seen, probably everything we ever wanted

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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We don’t know what everybody else in the phone business has been doing lately, but Inbrics has just unveiled what looks to be the near-ultimate Android phone. The Inbrics M1 is a slider handset with a (great) 3.7-inch WVGA AMOLED display, 3 megapixel camera, front-facing VGA camera, 16GB of built-in storage, microSD slot and all the other usual trimmings, but what’s particularly stunning is that the phone is not only half an inch thick, but it has a full QWERTY keyboard that’s surprisingly clicky and typable. The phone is running Android 1.5 right now, but it should be up to Android 2.0 by the time it hits the market in March. The biggest concern is the 800MHz Samsung processor, the same chip that’s in the Samsung Moment, but the interface (as demonstrated in the video after the break) is smooth as butter, and they demo’d it playing back 720p video just fine.

Inbrics actually has a lot of custom UI and software running on top of Android, but the most interesting part is what they’re doing with video calling and beaming media from handset to videophone to TV to laptop over DLNA or through an access point device that plugs into the TV over HDMI. Inbrics also has a Cover Flow-style media browser that isn’t super deep in functionality, but still puts the stock Android stuff to shame, and some rather sexy custom widgets.

The plan is apparently to get a carrier to bite and rebrand this phone in the US, so price and availability are still pretty hard to pin down, but if this phone can hit the market soon it sure could give the rest of the QWERTY Android sliders out there some body image issues.

Continue reading Inbrics M1 is the thinnest Android slider we’ve seen, probably everything we ever wanted

Inbrics M1 is the thinnest Android slider we’ve seen, probably everything we ever wanted originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 21:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Synaptics Fuse concept hands-on

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Good news and bad news: the good news is that we got to look at Synaptics’ Fuse concept phone, which pairs capacitive touch overload with tilt sensing, squeeze sensing and a fair bit of haptics. The bad news is that Synaptics is holding off on showing the actual UI until MWC in February. So for now we’ve got a working prototype that demonstrates that the sensors really do work. It’s an abstract affair, involving the formation of little 3D spheres that roll around on the screen and can be tweaked, pushed and generally confused by the various input methods. Everything works great, with wonderful touch sensitivity on the back of the “phone” being one of our favorite elements we’d like to see in more devices. One thing that became clear while playing with the phone is that while it’s targeted at improving one-handed operation, it’s actually impossible to actuate all the various sensors simultaneously with one hand, which we suppose Synaptics should see as a mark of distinction. Check out a couple videos of the demo in action after the break.

Continue reading Synaptics Fuse concept hands-on

Synaptics Fuse concept hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s ‘combo’ femtocell for Verizon in the wild at CES

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Verizon’s current Wireless Network Extender is cool and all, but it’s got one huge Achilles’ heel: it only does 1X data, which is pretty egregious by 2010 standards (or 2007 standards, for that matter). Enter Samsung’s revised ‘combo’ femtocell, so named because it offers both 1X and EV-DO service simultaneously. It’s got support for up to eight connections — up from the original unit’s four — and sports a decidedly more retro look that we’re not sure we love. Really, though, who cares how it looks — you stuff it behind a bookcase and you’ve got five bars of 3G around the home. Samsung’s placard says we can expect this to launch in the second quarter of the year, so stay tuned.

Gallery: Samsung’s ‘combo’ femtocell for Verizon in the wild at CES

Samsung’s ‘combo’ femtocell for Verizon in the wild at CES originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG CEO says about half of its new smartphones will run Android

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Well, here’s a tiny mystery of sorts that’s emerged amidst all the hubbub of CES. As the Korea Herald reports, LG CEO Nam Yong reportedly said yesterday that while LG will have smart phones running on Windows Mobile, “about 50 percent of our smart phone models will run on Android.” Now, that’s not so hard to believe considering the number of LG Android phones we’ve already seen or heard about, but it is fairly surprising in light of the deal LG and Microsoft announced back at MWC last year, which supposedly made Windows Mobile LG’s “primary smartphone OS.” Obviously, something doesn’t quite add up here, unless by “about half,” LG actually means “less than half” — which seems to be a distinct possibility.

[Thanks, Jules]

LG CEO says about half of its new smartphones will run Android originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5.3 shown off very, very quietly

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Say, for a moment, that you’re Microsoft and you’re on the cusp of releasing a version of the much-maligned Windows Mobile 6.5 that actually made it touch-friendly for once — but like all WinMo versions before it, you’re relying on carriers and manufacturers to wage an inexcusably slow, arbitrary, incomplete upgrade campaign. Wouldn’t you think that quietly burying its launch amongst a sea of more interesting (and less controversial) products might be a good idea? Indeed, that appears to be the angle Microsoft is taking at CES by discreetly showing off a Toshiba TG01 and Pharos Traveller loaded with the long-rumored 6.5.3 with “tiles” along the bottom and finger-friendly adjustments throughout the UI. As far as we can tell, this truly is what 6.5 should’ve been — in our quick look, we’re finally comfortable not having a stylus handy, even on a resistive display. It’s still not pretty, but this is a case where function is at least earning its money trying to trump form.

Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.5.3 shown off very, very quietly originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 12:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung launches Jitterbug J in Red at CES

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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Samsung’s handset for your golden years — though, they’re attempting to change that — surfaced at CES in red to support the American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women movement, and Samsung Mobile’s support will ring in at $500,000 based on handset sales (though we’re really hopeful they don’t have to sell 500,000 sets to make that happen). So if you’re looking to contribute, and maybe know someone who could benefit, you’ll get your chance sometime this month. Pricing wasn’t mentioned in the PR, but, the original Jitterbug J launched at about $149 — so you can set your sights there.

Samsung launches Jitterbug J in Red at CES originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 08:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GestureTek brings Eyemo gesture control to Android, Momo tracking engine for Windows Mobile

Posted on 09. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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GestureTek was showing off some of its gesture-based options for controlling your TV at last year’s CES, and it’s now back again with a few more slightly interesting pieces of software. That includes a version of its Eyemo software for Android, which is already available for range of other platforms, and lets developers take advantage of a phone’s camera to add gesture control options to various applications — although that only involves gesturing with the device itself, not your hands. The company’s recently announced Momo software for Windows Mobile takes things one step further than that, however, and will indeed apparently let you control a game or other application with hand or body gestures — although that’ll likely work best on a device with a front-facing camera.

GestureTek brings Eyemo gesture control to Android, Momo tracking engine for Windows Mobile originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 07:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Rumor Touch hands-on

Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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LG launched another Rumor set on Sprint yesterday: the LG Rumor Touch. As you all likely sussed from the name, this iteration brings touchscreen — resistive — to the mix and it also comes loaded with a pretty stellar keypad. The touchscreen is pretty sharp as well, both with the haptic feedback when using it, response to your finger’s pokes, and the quality of the display itself. The feel of the set is a bit light, — but it doesn’t extend to cheap — the slide is solid with nary a bit of rattle, and the fit where the device’s various edges meet is good. A standout, while trivial, are the themes the Touch supports, whereby, depending on season, the UI changes to winter, turkeys for thanksgiving, and, well, you get the idea. While we covered off all the specs yesterday, we learned today the Touch Rumor should ship for mid-March, but still no word on pricing. So with that, why don’t you drop below and have a peek at the gallery and watch the video walkthrough we put together with one of LG’s finest.

Continue reading LG Rumor Touch hands-on

LG Rumor Touch hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Andy Rubin on multitouch in Android: ‘I personally don’t like two-handed operations’

Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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In a very special CES edition of All Things D today, our own Joshua Topolsky had an opportunity to directly confront Google’s Andy Rubin on the nagging multitouch issue — not necessarily multitouch itself, but the growing disparity in support between American and European devices (the Droid / Milestone being the most famous example):

“You call this a superphone — 3.7-inch capacitive display, but no keyboard and no multitouch. Yet it has multitouch outside the US. Why not America?”

Andy’s reply:

“It’s not an America versus outside America kind of thing. It’s a decision that is a result of the OEM model. I personally don’t like two-handed operations… there is no conspiracy.”

That doesn’t explain the fact that the European Nexus One seems to have some in-built multitouch enabled — nor does it explain why any manufacturer would ever opt to exclude it under any circumstances unless there’s some outside pressure involved. Surely Rubin’s personal preferences don’t play into this… right? Right, Google?

Andy Rubin on multitouch in Android: ‘I personally don’t like two-handed operations’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry wrist-on

Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by IBM. 

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We managed to track down the guys from Canada’s Allerta and got to spend some time with a couple dummy models of the soon-to-be-released inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry. Design-wise, it’s very attractive, with a brushed metal body and a leather band. As a bonus to early orderers, the first 1,000 sold will be custom-milled on a CNC router — ironically, it’ll actually be more cost-effective for them to do it that way while they build up production volume. In terms of functionality, it will launch with support for displaying text messages, caller ID, new e-mails, and BlackBerry Messenger messages (yes, it supports BBM!). It’ll give you information on who the message is from and a preview of the message’s contents. We couldn’t get a hard shipping date, but rest assured we’ll let you know as soon as we do — for now, our hands-on gallery will have to suffice.

inPulse smartwatch for BlackBerry wrist-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Jan 2010 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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