Hasta La Gadget!

(Credit: mobileread.com)

Update at 7:25 a.m. PST: Kindle 2 has been officially announced.

Amazon.com unveiled the second generation of its Kindle e-book reader during an event Monday morning at New York’s Morgan Library and Museum.

The event started at 7 a.m. PST/10 a.m. EST, and we’re updating it live below. Below the CoverItLive box, see photos of the new, $359 Kindle 2, which will start shipping February 24. (See also press release and Kindle 2 site.)

Amazon Kindle 2: Complete CNET coverage

…

The leaked information had it right. Here are the full details on Amazon’s new Kindle 2:

New Functions
• “Whispersync” to sync Kindle, Kindle 2 and other devices wirelessly
• Text to speech (yes, it will read to you)

Price
• $359 on February 24

Form
• 8″ x 5.3″ x 0.36″.
• “25 percent thinner than the iPhone”
• 10.2 ounces
• New 5-way controller
• 3.5mm audio jack
• USB 2.0

Display
• 6″ diagonal E-Ink®
• 600 x 800 pixel resolution at 167 ppi
• New E-Ink features 16 shades of grey

Battery Life
• Battery life has been increased by 25 percent
• Read for 4 days straight with EVDO on, 2 weeks EVDO off

Storage
• 2GB, or 7 times more storage than the first Kindle, or 1,500 books

Performance
• 20 percent faster page turning

Formats supported
• Kindle (AZW), TXT, Audible (formats 4, Audible Enhanced (AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively
• PDF, HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion

And you can pre-order it from Amazon now.

Samsung today got a jump on Mobile World Congress with the launch of its UltraTOUCH s8300 slider phone. The new handset features HSDPA, UMTS, EDGE/GPRS 3G, a 2.8-inch touch screen display, and an 8MP camera.

Samsung executive vice president JK Shin said in a release issued today:

With its refined contoured design, Samsung UltraTOUCH is our elegant full-touch hero at this year’s Mobile World Congress, proving again that Samsung’s mobile phones are at the forefront of style. We are committed to strengthening our portfolio of full-touch phones by introducing a variety of handsets to suit every lifestyle. UltraTOUCH leads this portfolio as our most iconic, high-end phone and will further enhance Samsung’s leadership in the premium full-touch market.

The UltraTOUCH is 12.7-millimeters thick, features a 3×4 sliding keypad, and has an anti-smudge/anti-scratch screen. The handset also features geo-tagging, 30fps VGA video capture, and a “groovy” music player.

No word on availability or when–if ever–the thing will actually come to the States.

It may be hard for you monogamists to understand, but in the world of CPUs, it’s perfectly acceptable to play friends with multiple chipsets. To that end, the leaked Intel slide above sure explains a lot about what’s going on with the newfangled 1.66GHz Atom N280. First spotted in the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE with Intel’s older 945GSE chipset, many wondered why the supposed match-made-in-heaven GN40 chipset (and its 720p hardware-based video decoder) was left out. Apparently, it’s all part of the plan. Both the N280 + 945GSE and N280 + GN40 are considered “off-roadmap” solutions meant to give companies a subtle differentiating factor until the “real” N270 successor hits the scene. So yeah, that 1000HE you’ve got on the brain isn’t actually a hodgepodge of components, but a real, certifiably okay combination of CPU and chipset — though it’d be so much more bodacious with that GN40. Confused yet?

[Via Fudzilla]

Filed under: Laptops

Intel slide shows Atom N280 with 945GSE and GN40 chipsets originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s out, and it works; the WiiGator GameCube Backup Launcher we mentioned last week has been released to the open arms of a community of incredibly clumsy gamers. Yes, you who can’t possibly keep your discs from getting scratched or cracked or covered in peanut butter by your two-year-old sibling can now play backups of GameCube games on your Wii without having to install any modchips or void any warranties. The app, available with source at the read link, runs in the Wii’s Homebrew Channel and enables the playing of GC games from a DVD-R (demonstrated in some incredibly dramatic shakeycam footage below). There are some issues with save games on certain types of memory cards, and not all titles work, but before you complain feel free to crack open those C files and try fixing things yourself, Mr. Critical.

[Thanks, Omega]

Continue reading WiiGator Backup Launcher released, makes chipless GameCube backups on Wii a reality

Filed under: Gaming

WiiGator Backup Launcher released, makes chipless GameCube backups on Wii a reality originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Feb 2009 09:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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