Hasta La Gadget!

Before I gave in and started using an iPhone, I was a stalwart Palm supporter. In the late ’90s, I was actually a beta tester for the very first Pilot 1000 device. It was light years ahead of what anyone else was doing at the time, and it “just worked.”

(Credit: Palm)

Palm led the handheld industry through most of the 2000s, but due to a lack of innovation after the introduction of the Treo 600 series of smartphones, Microsoft’s Windows Mobile slowly ate away its market share. But Redmond’s offerings didn’t catch on with consumers, and that gave a second lease to the Palm OS and its family of products.

Then there was the Foleo, a Linux-based Netbook that perhaps arrived ahead of its time. When it was introduced in mid-2007, reactions were mixed. It was one of the first devices from a reputable and established company to fill the gap between smartphones and laptops, but critics weren’t receptive to its $500 price tag and lack of compatibility with third-party software.

But Palm was also quietly tuning a version of Linux for its next-gen handsets. Last week at CES, Palm announced a new operating system, called Web OS, and the first device to run it, the Pre. It also announced an application store, called Pre Catalog. And that’s when things got very interesting: the Pre blew everyone away.

Critics, pundits, and all kinds of bloggers (including myself) knew Palm had something to show. We also knew that if Palm didn’t hit a home run, it would be game over, if you’ll forgive the mixed metaphors.

As it turned out, Palm hit what appears to be a grand slam. Palm has a competitor to the iPhone and the G1. For the first time in years, gadget fans were drooling over a Palm device.

In short, Palm went from a company that nobody cared about to a leader in the smartphone field overnight. No small accomplishment, considering that no real demo units have been sent out, and a mass launch is still months away. This much excitement over a phone hasn’t been seen since Steve Jobs introduced the first iPhone two years ago.

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It looks like if you want to get a hands-on with Sony’s latest Walkman, the touchscreen NWZ-X1000, you’ve got to do two things: travel to Japan, and seriously glad-hand the product. Despite our efforts in Vegas, the Sony crew wouldn’t let us snag the player from under its glass housing, but the Stuff team gets to toy with the OLED-faced PMP in this video. From the looks of things, Sony is at pains to recreate something akin to Cover Flow, but the rest of the UI looks sadly like a whole bunch of Windows CE-based devices we see coming out of Asia on a daily basis. Of course, this might be an early iteration of the interface, so we’ll hold our final judgments till we get a thorough hands-on with the PMP. The player is set to come in 16GB and 32GB iterations, and will launch sometime this Summer. For now, enjoy the video after the break.

Update: Sony’s people tell us that you’re looking at $299 for the 16GB and $399 for 32 — right in line with the iPod touch.

[Via anythingbutipod]

Continue reading Sony’s NWZ-X1000 Walkman PMP handled on video

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Sony’s NWZ-X1000 Walkman PMP handled on video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the Eee Top may get a lot of zombie-hand loving, it’s not the only game in town when it comes to cheapo all-in-one PCs. Shuttle announced its X50 desktop at CES as well, a system with more than just a few similarities to the competition, namely its CPU, base RAM, display size and resolution, chipset, GPU, and OS. In case you don’t know those by heart: 1.6GHz Intel Atom 330, 1GB of RAM, 15.6-inch,1366 x 768 resistive touchscreen display, 945GC mainboard, GMA 950 graphics, and Windows XP. The real difference is the hard drive — the Eee Top sports a 160GB, the X50 just 80GB — and the price point, with the Shuttle clocking in at $499 ($100 cheaper). Our take? We’re starting to see the emergence of what amounts to the netbook desktop — a one piece, low power system meant for the kids’ room, the kitchen, or grandma’s rest home suite. The Shuttle wins in the looks department, but don’t make any fast decisions — come its March launch, you’ll be seeing plenty of these.

[Via Fudzilla]

Filed under: Desktops

Shuttle’s X50 all-in-one desktop pulls up alongside the Eee Top originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Jan 2009 08:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sling Media announced today that they’ve lost their top executives, including co-founders (and brothers) Blake and Jason Krikorian, CEO and SVP of business development respectively. Also on the way out is Jason Hirschhorn and Ben White, President and Chief Creative Officer of Sling Media Entertainment Group, and Greg Wilkes the VP of sales. paidContent spoke with the effervescent Blake Krikorian, who said, “I’m out of there now. I want to just cut it … it’s best just to get it done because it’s not easy.” So much for being stoked about that EchoStar acquisition, huh?

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Sling Media loses most of its top brass originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With enough influences to drive a music critic insane, Honey Claws have similar creative range as Danger Mouse and the Beastie Boys. With help from their self-made DJ machine (called the “Junkbox”), they’re skilled at mashing up songs, as well as introducing a new sound with their original party …

Originally posted at Crossfade