Windows 7 RC and XP given extensions on life well into 2010

Whether or not Windows 7 does launch in October as previously suggested, those who have (or plan to get) Release Candidate will be happy to hear that Microsoft won’t be pulling the plug until June 1, 2010, well over a year from now and 11 months after its initial expiration date. After that, you’re gonna have to fork over the Benjamins for one of the retail SKUs if you wanna keep 7 alive. As for those still living in Redmond’s past, the company’s also extended the life of XP, at least for OEMs. Companies using the older OS will still be able to install it on netbooks for up to one year after 7’s official shape date. Seeing as the new system’s likely to have a more expensive licensing fee, it’s probably the best move if the company plans on keeping that 96% grip on the netbook OS market.

[Via gadgetmix]

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Windows 7 RC and XP given extensions on life well into 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 May 2009 00:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rock n Roll Hotel

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CNN.com: London’s newest hotelier Mark Fuller is showing commendable bravado for someone about to open a luxury hotel during a global recession.

“F*** the recession, let’s get on with it,” he says, while sitting on the roof terrace of the Sanctum Soho, a 30-room establishment dubbed the rock’n’roll hotel, as much for its “anything goes” service philosophy as the pedigree of its owners, which include the co-managers of heavy metal band Iron Maiden.

“We do not recognize there is a credit crunch because we believe you should battle through it,” Fuller says, adding “If you get panicky and scary about things like this you’re no man at all.”

The former band manager turned entrepreneur, is looking quite the rock star tonight, decked head-to-toe in black while a shiny silver skull stares ominously from his belt buckle. Downstairs, staff are frantically preparing for a launch party that promises to be heavy on champagne, cocktails and celebrities. It’s almost like the crunch doesn’t exist.

This is Fuller’s world and he’s hoping plenty of people will want to join it. “In every downturn in the economic climate I think people look for some affordable glamour and escape,” he says. The partners in his new hotel venture ooze rock credential: Iron Maiden co-managers Rod Smallwood and Andy Taylor.

While non-music types and the tone-deaf are welcome to stay in the hotel, over-enthusiastic groupies are not.

“If you’re on the road for three months, you can never escape,” Smallwood says. “The fans, some of them, think they have a God-given right, just because they’re staying in the same hotel, to put a camera in your face over your cornflakes.”

“The rule here is no autographs and no photographs,” he says firmly. “Say Paul Weller is sitting in the corner having a beer and you go and ask for an autograph or photograph, you will not stay here again.”

Along with privacy and a beer at all hours, guests have access to an on-call guitar doctor, a necessity, apparently, if you break a string while strumming in your room. Guests who have inadvertently left their guitar at home can hire one from reception.

The rock star concept extends to the room decor. The silver wallpaper and mirrored columns may appear garish in daylight, but at 3am one suspects they add a touch of glamour. Free standing baths are a bold leap from the bed and the mini bar is well-stocked with champagne.

Forget the recession, live like a rock star in new hotel [CNN.com]

Mr. Brightside USB keyboard light illuminates your keys, taste in music

Have you ever found yourself furiously typing in the dead of night wishing your keyboard had its own personal light? Well, Mr. Brightside is here to help. This little guy is a USB keyboard light sure to take away your extremely minor lighting gripes, and it’ll look good doing it. Mr. Brightside comes in lime green, pink, black and blue for the many shades of your moods. They’re available now for $20.22.

[Via Coolest Gadgets]

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Mr. Brightside USB keyboard light illuminates your keys, taste in music originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI’s all-in-one Wind Top AE1900 gets dissected

MSI’s new all-in-one Wind Top AE1900 may look all neat and tidy on the outside, but it’s an expectedly different story on the inside, as the folks at Blogeee.net found out when they unceremoniously ripped one apart. Of course, there aren’t exactly a ton of surprises to be found, but it does look like anyone hoping to upgrade the RAM may be out of luck, as the standard 2GB of RAM is simply soldered on with no slot provided for expansion — although there seems to be a bit of confusion as to whether that’ll be the case in the actual retail version, or just this early version sent out for review. Hit up the read link below for a closer look.

[Via Eee-PC.de]

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MSI’s all-in-one Wind Top AE1900 gets dissected originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ferrari splitting ex-Gizmondo exec Stefan Eriksson’s tale optioned for a movie

At last, former Gizmondo head honcho Bo Stefan Eriksson’s story is finally going to be told on film — or rather, the one told in Wired will be. Writer-director Craig Zobel and producer Beau Flynn have optioned the rights to create a movie based on the publication’s October 2006 article “Gizmondo’s Spectacular Crack-up” by Randall Sullivan, which chronicles the build up to his infamous car crash. Flynn’s production company Contrafilm will be backing the project, and should the movie actually make it to theaters and be successful, we suspect there’ll be plenty of material for a sequel.

[Via Gizmodo]

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Ferrari splitting ex-Gizmondo exec Stefan Eriksson’s tale optioned for a movie originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 21:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Palm Eos, Pixie, or Centro 2? What Really Matters

The Internet has been buzzing today about Palm’s second WebOS smart phone, the follow-up to the upcoming Palm Pre.

I’ve heard from some friends as well, and the predictions are coming into line – Palm’s working on something that’s lower-cost, and yes, it will have a QWERTY keyboard. Boy Genius Report published a blurry photo of a supposed phone, and Engadget followed up with a Photoshop rendering, the name “Eos” and a pretty comprehensive list of specs.

Finally, around dinnertime, Michael Arrington on TechCrunch christened it the “Pixie,” and Greg Kumparak on Arrington’s own TechCrunch site fell into the Eos camp.

The new device is supposed to be a slim, lower-cost WebOS gadget, destined to come out within several months of the Pre. Engadget purports to have almost suspiciously precise specs, and even to predict that it’s coming out on AT&T.

The problem with rumors like this is that people tend to take them too literally. Six months before launch, a lot of specs are subject to change. Calling the frequency bands for AT&T, for instance, is extremely premature; unlike Apple, Palm are comfortable working on a range of bands and radio interfaces, and could swap a different radio in lickety-split if they get a good deal from a different carrier.

Today, The Gadgets Will Know My Fury

Today was a bad day. Unrelated, gadgets were misbehaving. Someone had to pay for it.

I was rushing off to meet with Owen from Valleywag, and I was late. I forgot that a surfboard on my roof was not tied down on my roof rack and as I stopped for a stop sign at the bottom of a steep hill, it just slid off and jammed itself under a car. Thank god no one was hurt. As I strapped it back on, carefully, some guy in a teal benz rolled down his window and said “nice pahking jaab!”, to which I shook my fist and made a giant “errrrrrr” sound. I was a little annoyed, since the board belonged to a friend and is now scratched up.

I was not happy. And through this angry, angry lens, every gadget’s flaw is amplified 1000 fold. It has nothing to do with how much they deserves the scorn. Sharp edges and obtuse design end up bothering me more when in a wicked state because I’ve become more sensitive to their design hiccups and less patient.

I got back in my car and drove a block, now really late for my meeting. I tried to call to say I would be late, but the call dropped. And since I was angry, so I did that thing where you try redialing 20 times in a row, pushing the buttons really hard. Then I noticed that I couldn’t get my car’s GPS to simply route to an intersection without clicking through two dozen buttons presses. And later on, every moment my phone hung while going through apps felt like an eternity. My rage built upon itself, one red wave after another, driving my ability to see clearly down deeper and deeper.* I got there and settled down, but for a good 30 minutes, every moment of delay and inconvenience caused by traffic lights, other drivers and especially my own gadgets kicked up my temper as if it were a humming, ticking needle of a seismograph through an earthquake.

Once, I crossed a line with my gadget-rage. I was trying to install a music player on a new notebook, and, as many of you know, sometimes wireless settings do not stick. It doesn’t matter who makes the operating system here, that’s not the point. What happened was that I was having a pretty frustrating day for various reasons, and after an hour of setting it repeatedly and having it reset repeatedly, I ended up discus throwing it onto a couch and jump-punching in the keyboard. Ridiculous, I know. I am guilty of ridiculous things, often. But I never would have been this incensed on a machine that worked flawlessly.

The point is, I wonder how many gadget companies test user experiences when users are rushing, focusing on other things, stressed out about work, or plain pissed off. Maybe they should, because I bet they’d find such a test—a super pissed off user experience test—to be most useful for their designs for gadgets to be used in the real world. A gadget that would sooth would have to have been designed by a gadget god.

Just like phones that can withstand drops from table height without shattering, and militarized solid state drive laptops that are dust and moisture proof, I would bet that testing gadgets to be smooth and invisible during user experiences where the users are in less than ideal states of mind would probably go a long ways towards making them better for all users. Angry or calm as monks.

*To feel better, I spend time with my dogs or hang out in the water.

Apple mulling price cuts, developing netbook competitor?

Sure, Apple just posted a record quarter of earnings, but it’s been taking a beating lately on the price issue — not only have cheap netbooks become the hottest category in the market, Microsoft’s Laptop Hunters commercials have reignited the Apple tax debate. That appears to have the wheels in motion in Cupertino: AppleInsider says the MacBook and iMac lines are soon to be bolstered with lower-cost options that should take some of the bite out of Redmond’s marketing. That’s certainly interesting, but here’s the real noise: according to AI, the low-cost machines are just an interim solution while Apple preps a new tablet line to take on netbooks directly without making any of the design sacrifices Steve Jobs has repeatedly pooh-poohed. Wild — but it jibes with those recent whispers about a Verizon / Apple meetup and those reports that Quanta’s busy building something with a 10-inch display. So — cheaper Macs in the short term, crazy-insane iPhone tablet / MID thing riding a unicorn sometime later. You believe any of that?

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Apple mulling price cuts, developing netbook competitor? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sheila the Laptop Hunter picks a PC, keeps it civil

We’re not sure if Microsoft is winding down its Laptop Hunter campaign, or just decided to step off the class warfare a bit, but this latest ad is pretty hate free. Shelia, a filmmaker with a $2,000 budget, asks the hard questions like “is this graphics card going to be powerful?” and walks out with an HP HDX 16t (an upgraded version of Giampaulo’s kit of choice). The MacBook Pro’s mere 2GB of RAM at that pricepoint just didn’t fly, though we have to wonder which self-professed video editor hasn’t already picked a side in the age-old Avid vs. Final Cut Pro debate — which could’ve helped cut down on the soul searching. Video is after the break.

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Sheila the Laptop Hunter picks a PC, keeps it civil originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Apr 2009 20:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dance more, jiggle less

Pst! Hey you! Yes, you…the lazy bum in the desk chair. This is your computer talking, and I’m getting pretty stressed out over here. I could really use a vacation, ya know? The weather is getting warmer, the air is getting balmier, the birds are getting chirpier…and …

Originally posted at MP3 Insider