Hasta La Gadget!

It’s been a while since we heard from those lovable rapscallions at FON, but it looks like the Fonera 2.0 wireless router is finally ready to make the jump from developers-only to the consumer market — it’ll go on sale in Europe on April 21, and in the US, Japan, Hong Kong, and Taiwan in May. The new unit runs Linux, and supports BitTorrent and services like RapidShare and MegaUpload, so you can set downloads to run without firing up your computer. The launch party seems like it was pretty adorable — it took place in FON CEO’s Martin Varsavky’s Paris flat, with pasta, wine and cheese. Experience it yourself (in French) after the break.

Continue reading Fonera 2.0 on sale in Europe April 21, US in May

Filed under: Wireless

Fonera 2.0 on sale in Europe April 21, US in May originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Apr 2009 08:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve seen surprisingly few Kindle 2 hacks ’round these parts, and therefore few apps that run on the beloved e-reader itself. One notable exception is Savory, which monitors the device’s Documents directory for files sporting either the .epub or .pdf extensions — when one of these guys rears its ugly head, it’s converted to a Kindle filetype. The only hitch is that the program (as currently available) chokes on image-based PDFs — according to the author, images in PDFs are fine, as long as there is some text to extract. Sure, the software doesn’t do anything that Amazon doesn’t already do for free — but it does make the conversion quick and painless. Ready to give it a go? Hit the read link for the files, and you’ll be mere moments away from all those terrific Left Behind books someone scanned and posted on The Pirate Bay. You’re welcome.

Filed under: Handhelds

Savory for Kindle 2 automates PDF and EPUB conversions, doesn’t make James Patterson any more enjoyable originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 05 Apr 2009 03:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ktul.com: You likely know you can comparison shop stores and brands online to find your best buy. Now for the first time, you will soon be able to compare deals when it comes to grocery stores – and not just for one item on your list.

A new company, Grocio.com, will take your individual shopping list and show you where to get the best deal.

Gerald Buckley has big ideas, most of which are posted on the walls of his office. They keep him focused on the prize – his website called Grocio.com – where you can actually comparison shop grocery stores.

Gerald quickly learned there was comparison shopping for everything BUT groceries. And, it’s no wonder – there are about 36-thousand grocery stores nationwide, each with 120-thousand items. But, he finally figured it out and Grocio.com will be up and running by the end of the month.

Gerald’s idea won the Entrepreneurial Spirit Award last year in Tulsa. That gave him money, a downtown office and business coaching. Customers are already signing up for Grocio.com all over the country because the site does more than comparison shop.

“We something very cool. We match digital coupons to the grocery list. So, you don’t have to go out and find all of these things, we do all of that hard work for you.”

New Website Will Save You Money At The Grocery Store [ktul.com]

Oops, it looks like a Dell middle manager somewhere got a little too excited and let a full set of netbook roadmap slides leak out. The biggest news is a planned Mini 11 due sometime between now and the end of Q3, but the Mini 10 is where most of the action is in the short term — the current model will get options for Vista, a 3G modem, and potentially a 1.86GHz Atom on April 17th, a new 1.6GHz Atom N270 SKU will arrive in May and everything will be updated again in the second half of the year with Intel’s Pine Trail processors. Interesting, but we’re wondering when Dell will realize that the Mini 10’s HDMI output and 720p screen are useless unless it can handle true HD video — Ion, anyone?

Filed under: Laptops

Dell netbook roadmap leaks out, get ready for the Mini 11 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, chalk this up for out of the ordinary — Sony’s PR team just sent us a “Statement from Sony PlayStation on PSP and Competitive Landscape” that basically boils down to SCEA director of hardware marketing John Koller calling the DSi a kid’s toy that “ignores significant gamer demographics” and has minimal third-party support compared to the library of “blockbuster” titles on the PSP. Seriously, it’s so weird we’re just going to reprint the whole thing:

If Nintendo is really committed to reaching a broader, more diverse audience of gamers beyond the “kids” market that they’ve always engaged, there isn’t much new with the DSi to support that. Significant gamer demographic groups are being ignored, and there continues to be limited opportunities for games from external publishers to do well on the DSi. Compare that with the PSP platform, where we have many blockbuster franchises from our publishing partners launching this year, representing a wide variety of genres and targeting diverse demographics. Games such as Rock Band Unplugged from MTV Games, Assassin’s Creed from Ubisoft, Dissidia Final Fantasy from Square Enix, and Hannah Montana from Disney demonstrate the commitment that publishers have to the PSP. From our own first-party studios, we’re launching unique versions of LittleBigPlanet and MotorStorm, and we’re also planning a steady stream of downloadable games — both new titles and PSone classics — to add to the content that PSP owners can already purchase wirelessly through PlayStation Store.

Pretty strong words in response to the fairly un-hyped US launch of the DSi tomorrow — especially since Ninty’s sold just about twice as many total DS units than Sony’s 50m PSPs, hard numbers from which no amount of marketing bluster can really distract. In fact, if we were in charge at Sony, we’d be more worried about the emergence of the iPhone and iPod touch, which have sold over 30m units total and attracted a ton of buzz from game developers while the PSP seems to be stagnating in the face of endless rumors of a UMD-less PSP2. Harsh truth? Maybe, maybe not — you tell us.

Filed under: Gaming

Sony says the DSi is for kids, the PSP is for winners originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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