Hasta La Gadget!

Just a year ago, Toshiba was dreaming of 512GB SSDs while simultaneously trying to figure out why in the world HD DVD became such a dumpster fire. Fast forward to today, and you can own one of these mythical masterpieces (albeit with a Super Talent logo) if you don’t mind parting with $1,499.99. Starting this very moment, the company’s most capacious MasterDrive RX device yet is ready to rumble, bringing with it loads of MLC NAND flash, 230MB/sec read rates and 200MB/sec write rates. Suddenly, that forthcoming Z Drive doesn’t look so outrageously priced, huh?

[Via HotHardware]

Filed under: Storage

Super Talent ships $1,500 2.5-inch MasterDrive RX 512GB SSD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise — money’s out there if your idea is good enough. Hot on the heels of Fusion-io’s grabbing of Series B funding comes this: news that doubleTwist has just acquired a solid $5 million to push forward on its all encompassing media venture. If you’ll recall, the project is being headed up by the notorious DVD Jon and DRM expert Monique Farantzos. In essence, the idea is to create a multi-platform media browser that can take media from just about anywhere and place it just about anywhere else, all without forcing you to figure out messy calculations like encoding and native resolutions. In related news, doubleTwist now shows screenshots and a video (after the break) of a Windows version, which is available today for download.

Read – DoubleTwist website
Read – Funding

Continue reading DoubleTwist nets $5 million in funding, debuts Windows version

Filed under: Home Entertainment

DoubleTwist nets $5 million in funding, debuts Windows version originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure why T-Mobile would be market-testing names other than “G2” for its upcoming HTC Sapphire, but it apparently is — and if these leaked slides are to be believed, it’s not doing so well on the ideas front. Seriously: “T-Mobile Genius 3G with Google” and “Prism 3G with Google” both trade in the well-known G-series branding for banal anonymity, and “myTouch 3G with Google” just sounds like a skin disease that’s gone from bad to worse. Interestingly, “T-Mobile G3” is also on the list, which makes us wonder if there’s a less-drastic G2 model in the works, but that’s pure speculation on our part — what we do know is that we’d take Vodafone’s Magic branding over any of these other sad options in a heartbeat.

Filed under: Cellphones

T-Mobile market testing terrible names for the HTC Magic / Sapphire originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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zweiPhone takes the embarassment out of the trendy iPhone.

(Credit: zweiPhone)

You know what I hate? When you bring out your iPhone to make a phone call or text somebody and the person you’re with goes, “Ohhhhh look at THIS guy; Jimmy Fallon over here think he’s cutting …

A Taiwanese company on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging the corporation infringed its touchscreen patents.

Chip design company Elan filed the suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The suit alleges that Apple’s MacBook, iPhone and iPod Touch feature technologies infringing on two of Elan’s patents.

"We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action," Elan spokesman Dennis Liu told New York Times.

The patents describe a "multiple fingers contact sensing method for emulating mouse buttons and mouse operations on a touch sensor pad." The lawsuit alleges the multi-touch trackpads in the latest MacBooks violate the patents, as do the touchscreens seen on the iPod Touch and iPhone models.

Elan may indeed pose a challenge to Apple’s famously powerful legal
team. Elan said in the past it won a preliminary court injunction
against Synaptics, disputing over the same patents. Synaptics countersued, and ultimately both actions were dismissed when both companies reached a cross-licensing agreement.

The legal battle over touchscreen technology is beginning to heat up. In January, Apple hinted at taking legal action against smartphone manufacturer Palm, whose upcoming Palm Pre smartphone appears to closely mimic the touchscreen interface of the iPhone.

"We are ready to suit up and go against
anyone," Apple chief operating officer (and acting CEO) Tim Cook
said in response to a reporter’s question about the Palm Pre. "However, we will not stand for having our [intellectual
property] ripped off and will use whatever weapons we have at our
disposal."

Looks like Apple — and maybe Palm, too — will have to aim their "weapons" at Elan first.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com