Other Music isn’t the sort of place you’d go to pick up the new U2 record; its primary mission is to turn its customers onto, well, other music. Now, some of Other Music’s titles are available as MP3 downloads.
The physical and download Other Music stores are …
Originally posted at The Audiophiliac
Upstart company Interead is looking to jump into the ever-expanding library of e-book readers with its debut, the COOL-ER. Company founder Neil Jones describes it as the “iPod moment that e-readers have been waiting for,” calling the device the first of its kind to be designed specifically for the non-technologically inclined reader in mind. Indeed, the aesthetics seems to borrow liberally from the iPod nano, and features eight different color options. It weighs in at 6.3 ounces, or a little less than half of the Kindle 2, with the same 6-inch e-ink screen, and is small enough to fit comfortably in your jacket pocket, he says. It’s got 1GB internal memory and a SD card slot, as well as a 2.5mm headphone jack with a 3.5mm converter bundled with every device. The feature set is pretty barebones, with no keyboard, text-to-speech, WiFi, or Whispernet equivalent — all files have to be loaded via USB or SD card — but in its place is a more attractive $250 MSRP, and Jones assures us at that price the company’ll be making a profit on each unit sold. Format support includes EPUB, TXT, JPEG, any kind of PDF, MP3 for audio, and eight languages including Russian and traditional / simplified Chinese. The company’s also launching an e-book store and offering an extra discount for customers who register their COOL-ER. It’ll go on sale May 29th for US and Europe via its website, with retail distribution partner expected to be announced closer to the launch date. We’re gonna wait until we get a few chapters into Alice in Wonderland before giving a final verdict, but in the meantime, check out our initial hands-on in the gallery below.
Gallery: COOL-ER e-reader hands-on
Read – Product page
Read – Online store
Filed under: Displays, Handhelds
Interead’s COOL-ER claims to be the ‘iPod moment’ for e-readers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 May 2009 09:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We’ve got the skinny on ASUS’s latest North American foray, with the Eee PC 1008HA Seashell, UX50 and U80V “thin and light” all vying for your slice of the stimulus this summer. The quite familiar (by now) 1008HA will be retailing for $429, featuring 802.11n, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, a new thin form factor and six hours of battery (thanks to the Super Hybrid Engine) to set it slightly apart from the netbook competition. The UX50 and U80V, on the traditional laptop angle, are a slightly odd couple, with the UX50 pairing a ULV Core 2 Solo processor with discrete GeForce G105M graphics, aiming for long battery life but in a standard 15.6-inch form factor, while the U80V does the “thin and light” thing with a high speed Core 2 Duo processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD4570 graphics and a 14-inch screen. Both laptops include 4GB of RAM and 802.11n WiFi, with the long-lasting UX50 going for $1,199, while the powerful but slim U80V retails for $899. To be honest, we weren’t stunned by the U80V’s thinness or weight in hand, but it’s really pretty good considering what’s under the hood. We didn’t get to see the UX50 in person, but it better get some pretty epic runtimes to justify that price. Meanwhile the 1008HA is looking just peachy — there’s an odd adapter for the display output that conveniently stashes underneath the chassis, but overall this is just a straightforward and fairly excellent aesthetic refinement of the netbook. Our favorite part, however, has nothing to do with the shell: ASUS finally righted the wrong that was the Eee PC’s funky shift key placement, and we couldn’t be happier.
Filed under: Laptops
ASUS bringing 1008HA, UX50 and U80V laptops Stateside, we go hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 May 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Wii MotionPlus will likely make the Wiimote much better.
(Credit: Nintendo)
The MotionPlus, a $20 accessory designed to improve motion detection for the Nintendo Wii remote control, will easily sell 10 million units after its market debut on June 8, an analyst contends.
Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter told Edge this week that the majority of those sales will occur when the accessory is bundled with Wii Sports Resort, EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’10 later this year.
He contends that 20 percent of U.S. and European Wii owners will buy those three titles, helping the Nintendo sell 8 million units of the Wii MotionPlus in just a few months. Pachter predicts another 2 million units will sell with new Wii consoles.
EEDAR analyst Jesse Divnich, also interviewed by Edge, isn’t so quick to agree. He estimates that only 3 million units of the accessory will sell by the end of 2009 and that sales will reach 10 million units during Nintendo’s next fiscal year, which starts in March 2010.
Although they don’t agree on exactly when the 10 million mark will be reached, the analysts both predict that the accessory will be popular.
“I expect MotionPlus to be a sneaky success and ultimately attach to at least one third of the (Wii’s) installed base,” Pachter told Edge.
“Our forecast could be conservative,” Divnich added. “Yearly sales could balloon much higher.”
In addition to selling well, the MotionPlus is set to transform the Wii experience.
…
Originally posted at The Digital Home
Clearwire may not be as ubiquitous as you’d like it to be, but it’s taking a huge step forward in hopes of wildly expanding by linking up with Cisco. In essence, the two have joined hands in order to “enhance and expand CLEAR 4G mobile WiMAX services throughout the United States,” with Cisco providing the core infrastructure and Clearwire providing the guidance. Potentially more interesting is the notion that Cisco’s Linksys brand will soon be delivering “new mobile WiMAX devices,” such as routers that will presumably tune to WiFi and WiMAX waves. Specific product details are sorely absent, though Clearwire does reiterate that it’s hoping to have WiMAX service to more than 80 markets across the US by the end of next year.
Filed under: Wireless, Networking
Cisco signs on to provide infrastructure, build Linksys WiMAX routers for Clearwire originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 May 2009 08:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This alleged spy shot of a PS3 Slim box may very well turn out to be a fake–or not.
(Credit: Kotaku)
Back in 2004, after the PS2 was on the market for four years, Sony went ahead and shrank its design down and brought out a new model dubbed the “…
Originally posted at Fully Equipped
It wasn’t long ago that RealNetworks and its kludgy Player software were the bane of computer users everywhere. But, a few legal accusations later, Real is now the apple in the eye of every fair use advocate, fighting for the right for users to make legal copies of DVDs — so long as you make them through its RealDVD software, of course. The company is now escalating its legal battle against Hollywood big wigs, suing the six major movie studios and the DVD Copy Control Association for anticompetitive activity, asking for monetary damages due to the sales it has lost since the industry asked for that initial injunction against RealDVD. We’re not entirely sure who’s going to come up on top of this one, but if Kaleidescape can survive the CCA, maybe Real can too.
Filed under: Home Entertainment
RealNetworks steps up its RealDVD legal case, just wants your approval originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 May 2009 08:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Asus Eee PC 1008HA
(Credit: CNET)
The latest revision of the Asus Eee PC line, the 1008HA (also called the “Seashell”), is finally coming to the U.S., according to Asus. The revised model, recently released in the U.K., looks to be a fairly major overhaul of the Eee PC, with a slimmer design and a weight less than 2.5 pounds. CNET UK recently reviewed the 1008HA, and said:
“(The 1008HA) is a small, light, and sexy device aimed at the fashion-conscious Netbook fan who puts portability slightly above performance…The glossy black finish, the gently tapering lid, and the wedge-shaped profile all contribute to an overall design that’s more aesthetically pleasing than that of rival Netbooks.”
We got a sneak hands-on peek at the 1008HA earlier in May, and it’s definitely the best-looking Eee PC yet (see pics after the jump). We liked the tapered design, along with the thin 10-inch LED display, and slightly faster Intel Atom N280 (most Netbooks have the N270).
The smaller chassis necessitates some compromises, and many of the ports are recessed into tiny pockets, hidden by flaps, including the video output, which requires a mini-VGA-to-VGA adapter. Also worth noting–the battery is of the non-removable type, to allow it to fit into the extra-slim body. Fortunately, the keyboard seems to have gotten plenty of attention, and we especially liked its full-size right shift key.
The Eee PC 1008HA will cost $429–which is close enough to our $399 sweet spot for Netbooks to be a contender–but keep in mind that Dell’s just-announced $299 Mini 10v has potentially shifted the conventional wisdom on Netbook pricing.
Also newly announced from Asus are a pair of mainstream laptops, including one with Intel’s new CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage) processor. The $1,199 UX50 uses the 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Solo SU3300 in a 15.6-inch 16:9 chassis, with a backlit keyboard and Nvidia’s new G105M mobile graphics chip. The 14-inch U80V has a traditional Core 2 Duo T9550, along with ATI’s HD4570 graphics, a backlit keyboard, and a cool-looking illuminated touchpad, all for $899.
After the break, more pics of the 1008HA, along with the UX50 and U80V. …
Today only, freebie-software site Giveaway of the Day is offering Wondershare Music Converter, normally $29.95, free.
True to its name, the program converts music files from one format to another–great if you have, say, some WMAs you want to turn into MP3s. But it can also remove the DRM …
Originally posted at The Cheapskate
We’ve yet to see anything roll across LG’s official wire, but oodles of legitimate UK sources are now reporting that LG’s hotly anticipated Viewty Smart is making its way out to Orange shops. Strangely, it seems as if pricing details are still being held captive (really? at this point?), but we fully anticipate at least a small premium for 8 megapixels in a phone. Oh, and if you really needed any more affirmation that a 12 megapixel smartphone was in the works from this company, LG also took the opportunity to nod its head and promise one for “later this year.” Goodie, goodie.
[Via Pocket-lint]
Filed under: Cellphones
LG’s Viewty Smart shipping this month, 12MP smartphone “later this year” originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 May 2009 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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