Hasta La Gadget!

This one’s still a long ways from actually panning out, but Fudzilla is reporting that Microsoft could be about to phase out its standard Xbox 360 Elite console and instead fill out the top end of the scale with limited edition models like the recent Resident Evil 5 bundle. According to the site’s unnamed sources, Microsoft would get the transition started by simply letting inventory dry up beginning sometime in the second quarter of this year, during which time it would apparently limit sales of the console to North America and Europe. Then, once those have all been moved off the shelves, Microsoft would supposedly shift its attention to new, potentially even pricier, limited edition consoles, which themselves could well be limited to select retailers. In other Xbox 360 news, Fudzilla also says that Microsoft could soon be offering a new standalone hard drive that’s bigger than the 120GB drive now found in the Elite, although there’s no indication as to exactly how much bigger.

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming

Xbox 360 Elite being phased out in favor of limited edition models? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A lot has changed in the TV widget world since we first caught wind of Intel’s CE 3100 processor and Gigabyte’s connected box that took advantage of it. Mainly, a metric ton of new players have emerged, and many companies are simply shoving the widget functionality within the HDTV and bypassing the extra set-top-box altogether. Nevertheless, Gigabyte had its Yahoo! Widgets box (the MD300) on hand this year at CeBIT, so we sashayed over to snap a few shots. At this point, it’s tough to say just how viable this thing is. On one hand, it’ll be nice to give existing HDTV owners the option of adding access to widgets; on the other, Gigabyte has to know that the appeal is limited now that almost every HDTV hitting the market has this functionality baked right in. Have a peek below, won’t you?

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

CE 3100-powered Gigabyte / Yahoo! widgets box eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The App Store loves novelty camera apps, but some (below) are more useful than others. This week, we also found a video streamer, a price-shopping helper and eight extra mouths for your mouthy self.

iPet Photo: Whether your cat or dog is turned on by monkey sounds, bird sounds or the sounds of other dogs, this camera app draws their attention for a quick snap. I tried it on my dumb cats, and it works fine, especially on the dumber of the two. Costs a buck.

Air Video: I had this local wi-fi video streaming app up and running in no time flat, serving up a MPEG4 video from MacBook Pro to iPhone in seconds. As you might have guessed, it does require a bit of Mac or PC software running, but it’s pretty unobtrusive. Nice way to watch movies when you should be doing something else. File compatibility is a little thin, but there’s a “convert” function I didn’t get a chance to test fully that might be very effective. Good way to spend $3.

PriceOfUnit: For nerds with a grocery fetish (like me), you can comparison shop the price-to-quantity ratios of everything from olive oil to pet food. It’s a little rough around the edges, but a good thing to have if you really want to gauge the value of your condiments. And it’s free.

MouthOff: A well designed novelty app that gives you an assortment of moving cartoon mouths, this moves the cartoon to mimic you actually talking, by reacting to the pitch and volume of your voice. It’s surprisingly well synced, though some mouths (green monster, gold-toothed pimp) are cooler than others. (That dog face reminds me of the Ballchinian from Men in Black.) One dolla make you holla… literally.

ReplayCam 25shot!: It’s no Cycorder, but this subtle multiple-shot camera app lets you make temporary videos, and save frames as stills. It will even save all the shots in a pretty 5×5 grid, assuming your subject is pretty enough to be looked at in a 25-shot matrix. It’s $2. (Macworld reviewed it in greater depth.)

This Week’s App News on Giz:
• Amazon Kindle Is Now an iPhone App

• Watchmen Getting an iPhone MMO Game

• Cydia Opening Paid App Store for Jailbreak Apps

• This iPhone App Will Result in At Least One Accidental Shooting

This list is in no way definitive. If you’ve spotted a great app that hit the store this week, give us a heads up or, better yet, your firsthand impressions in the comments. And for even more apps: see our previous weekly roundups here, and check out our Favorite iPhone Apps Directory and our original iPhone App Review Marathon. Have a good weekend everybody—your regular iPhone Appster, Johnny “Egypt Me” Mahoney will be back from Cairo next week.

We first caught wind of SDXC back at CES, and just today Pretec announced the world’s first SDXC card. Much to our pleasure, said card was on hand at the outfit’s booth at CeBIT. Sadly, we were forced to photograph the one behind the glass bubble, as some incredibly evil individual managed to swipe the product sample from the outfit’s booth last night (seriously, the Polizei are out for you!). Also on hand was a devilishly fast 666x CompactFlash card along with a mighty capacious 100GB CF card that hums along at 233x. Last, but certainly not least, was the 64GB ExpressCard SSD, which looked suspiciously like most every other ExpressCard we’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, these newcomers were so new that pricing information wasn’t yet available, though all of the devices mentioned will be shipping this year. We’ll keep you posted on further deets, but till then, feel free to meander around in the gallery below.

Gallery: Pretec 32GB SDXC, 666x CF card and 64GB ExpressCard SSD eyes-on

Filed under: Storage

Pretec 32GB SDXC, 666x CF card and 64GB ExpressCard SSD eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Education technology is not our usual beat, but Brian and I saw a cool demo today that impressed us. It was by mimio, which makes a series of classroom tools that can turn regular old surfaces–blackboards, dry-erase boards, even just walls–into interactive surfaces.

You first load the included software onto your PC and attach it to a projector, which beams an interface filled with all sorts of learning tools, quizzes, and multimedia. Then attach the Interactive Bar to your surface and, using the Interactive Stylus as a mouse, you can manipulate anything on the screen: write and draw, drag and drop, play audio and video, and so on. There’s also a tablet for remote interaction. The whole system is very portable, so you can take it from classroom to classroom easily. The various solution combinations start at around $549–much more reasonable than similar products that need to include a board.

Take a look at our video of the demo (including me acing some addition) after the jump.