Hasta La Gadget!

Yes, yes, it’s nothing more than a 3D render, but it’s beautiful 3D render. The Motobecane Motivo is a concept electric scooter which looks like a cold-war era East German moto crossed with a 1950s Italian radiator.

Scooters should be electric. In Italy and Spain they are ubiquitous and used to both speed through the city streets and terrorize pedestrians (if you don’t believe me, try a stroll around Naples one afternoon). They are also used almost exclusively for short trips and parked in urban areas — a prime case for making them electrified.

Miguel Ángel Iranzo’s design keeps the battery packs in suitcases (walnut covered suitcases) which slot on to the frame. The juice then runs down to the wheels where it turns motors in the hubs. It fails in some ways — the lack of a fairing means nowhere to balance your shopping on the way home, and the silent running means that unlucky Neapolitans will have no warning of the entire family bearing down upon them, skittering across the cobbles at 60mph and fully loaded, dog and all, on a single two wheeled death machine.

Dandyism Rule: Ride Must Be Stylish [Yanko via NoQuedanBlogs]

You know what was missing from the so-call “unveiling” of India’s $10 laptop yesterday? Photos. Now we think we know why. The $10 laptop is not a laptop at all, the display-less and keyboard-less prototype device demonstrated is just a 10 x 5-inch wide slab that stores (and apparently prints) distributed learning materials which can later be retrieved by an impoverished child… using a laptop and paper he can’t afford to purchase. It’s also said to cost $30 and could be a component to a low cost laptop in the future; a claim that is fiercely disputed by Taiwanese component makers. Still, without any official photos of the device or specs posted to one of the many government agencies involved in the project, well, we still can’t say we’re 100% confident saying what this device is. Not that chest-thumping rhetoric and purposeful misinformation should be a surprise from politicians seeking re-election.

Update: Added that image to the right of what’s purported to be the non-laptop prototype by The Hindu (and we’re not going to argue with the Hindu).

[Via OnlyGizmos, Thanks Shrikanth G.]

Read — Not a laptop 1
Read — Not a laptop 2
Read — Taiwan’s laptop industry skeptical

Filed under: Laptops

India’s $10 laptop is not a laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 03:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Next time you are in the neighborhood you may not be able to avoid getting drinks or a coffee with someone you have been promising for a while.

Google has launched a new feature in Google Maps called Latitude that allows users to share their location with friends and family. The service won’t pinpoint the exact location but it offers a good idea of where your friends are, says Google.

Location aware services are becoming increasingly popular among smartphone users. For instance iPhone users can download Loopt, a map sharing application for cellphones that pretty much works along the same lines as Google Latitude.

Google users have to opt in to use the Latitude feature and invite friends to join. If accepted, users can spot friends in the same neighborhood through the maps and text, IM or email them.

Naturally, all this raises questions about privacy. Google says it has plenty of settings in its latest feature to take care of privacy concerns. Once
you’ve shared your location, you can hide it from individual friends or
all of your friends at once, says Google. Users can also turn off Google Latitude
completely at any time.

Google Latitude is available for Android phones, the iPhone and iPod Touch, most color BlackBerry phones, Windows Mobile and Symbian users.

For a more detailed take on how Google Latitude works check out this Epicenter post.

Photo: Google Latitude Map View/Google

Mixing influences from Gil Scott-Heron to Beck and Donald Fagen, Dan moves between jazzy instrumentals and singer/songwriter terrritory with ease — but has also been known to don a wig and leather pants to play the role of Teutonic bassist Klaus Shave in the heavy metal parody band Pink …

Originally posted at Crossfade

We knew the nuvifone was an ASUS-sourced piece, but who knew the partnership was going to run so deep? Garmin and ASUS have joined hands to create the Garmin-Asus strategic alliance with the goal of designing and producing a whole line of co-branded handsets. The first model will be what we’ve come to know so well over the past year simply as “the nuvifone,” but it’ll be branded as the nuvifone G60 by the time it actually comes to market in the first half of the year. Several Garmin-Asus phones are expected in 2009, and it sounds like the second model in the series will be announced at MWC later this month. Now, wouldn’t it just be great if we had a G60 here that we could use to navigate to Barcelona?

Update: Engadget Chinese just returned from the press conference in Taiwan with several updates. First, the OS on these phones has not been finalized. According to ASUS’ chairman, “We have expertise in WinMo, Linux and Android, but we believe the software is more important then the OS.” The partnership, which puts Garmin in charge of the “Navigation centric” UI also brings an end to ASUS-only branded cellphones.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Handhelds

Garmin, ASUS form partnership for phones, nuvifone G60 first model originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Feb 2009 01:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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