Hasta La Gadget!

Details are rather scant on this little gem right now, but here’s what we can tell you: you’re looking at the world’s first HD Radio portable device prototype, and it’s slated to do just about exactly what you expect. In other words, it’ll slip into your pocket, tune into HD Radio as well as standard analog FM broadcasts and connect with any set of cans that use a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. Unfortunately, the manufacturer is being kept under wraps, and there’s no Bluetooth headset support baked in. That said, you can expect it to land in an undisclosed “big box retailer” this summer for under $50.

Filed under: Handhelds, Portable Audio

Portable HD Radio prototype gets pictured, coming this summer for under $50 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 22:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 21, 2007 by CyberNet.

We’ve said enough about Snap Previews already, but it’s going to be mentioned once more.  This time around, there’s another option to getting previews that’s similar to Snap, but yet very different. It’s called iReader, and instead of the pop-up screenshot previews of linked sites, it gives you a preview in words.

iReader is made by Syntactica who previously had a run with a search engine which, according to Read/Write Web, got shut-down by Google. The linguistics behind that search engine have been put to use again with iReader. You can read in detail how it works here, but in a nutshell, it weighs parts of speech differently, and analyzes the concept in the context of the sentence structure. From that it determines what’s important, and turns it into a bulleted summary.

As far as previews go, I’d say it’s better than Snap for a few reasons.  First, the Snap Previews are so small that you really can’t see what you’d actually be getting into by clicking.  But more importantly, iReader is an extension for your browser which means you, the reader is in control.  It’s your choice if you’d like to use the tool or not, which is not the case with Snap where control lies in the hands of the publisher.

I installed it in my Firefox browser, but it’s also available for Internet Explorer and can be used on both a PC or a Mac. Now, would I actually use it? Probably not. When I hovered over a link, it took about three seconds for the preview to appear.  In that time, I probably could have actually clicked on the link which would be more useful than reading a summary.

Another issue that I ran into was that it started pulling information from sidebars.  For example, I tried it on CyberNet, and after hovering over a link, the first two bullets told me about CyberMarks which came from the left side column and had nothing to do with what I would have been clicking through to.

This browser extension is still in Beta which means it should only get better over time. If I had to pick between Snap Previews and iReader, it would definitely be the latter, but yet I still am not overly impressed. You can find the download for iReader here.

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• Good-Riddance Snap Previews!
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Jeri Ellsworth (who previously fashioned a totally superb, functioning NES purse) has cobbled together a gigantic Etch A Sketch using a 52-inch projection television, some tent poles, a golf tee and gear-reduced motors. The sketcher uses aluminum powder, just like in the traditional toy, and they plan on eventually enabling it for IRC bot control. Check the video after the break to see it in action, and get a glimpse of how it was constructed.

[Thanks, Hack A Day]

Continue reading Video: HD Etch A Sketch for giant doodlers

Filed under: Displays

Video: HD Etch A Sketch for giant doodlers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 20:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It wasn’t all that long ago that DisplayLink was still courting manufacturers and showing off its then newfangled USB graphics adapter technology, but the company is now celebrating a fairly significant milestone, with it announcing that it has sold more than a million of its USB graphics chips. Those have found their way into more than thirty different products from a number of manufacturers, including both wired and wireless USB adapters, projectors, USB docking stations, and a whole range of USB-connected monitors. Of course, DisplayLink isn’t about to rest on its laurels now, and it says it expects to see an even greater range of products using its chips as wireless USB and USB 3.0 become the norm.

[Via I4U News]

Filed under: Displays, Peripherals

DisplayLink sells a million USB graphics chips originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 18:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint is kicking off an exciting little contest that’ll ultimately award two lucky winners with their very own Pres, Touchstones, and one year of Simply Everything service — pretty awesome stuff. Both Sprint and Palm have been famously tight-lipped about pricing for the Pre thus far, but using a few basic calculations derived from the game’s legalese, an eagle-eyed tipster pointed out that it seems that we can probably get within a few bucks of the full retail price. Here’s the deal: we know that Simply Everything runs $99 a month. After federal taxes, FCC surcharges, and some fudge factor for local taxes, you’re looking at, say, $105 to $110 a month. We can say with some confidence now that the Touchstone itself will run $69.99 at retail — and that leaves the Pre itself. Sprint’s rules say that the prize package’s approximate retail value is $1,800, so if you subtract $105 for the plan (since Sprint can’t be factoring in local taxes here) and $70 for the Touchstone, that basically leaves you with a nice, round $469.99. That sounds like a big number at first, but first off, very few folks will be paying $470 for a Pre — they’ll either be upgrading or adding new lines at a significant subsidy — and to put the number in perspective, AT&T charges $549.99 full retail for the BlackBerry Bold. We’re basically just thinking out loud here, but $470 seems like it’d give Sprint plenty of wiggle room to blow this thing out on contract, doesn’t it? Check out shots of Sprint’s mind-blowing contest for the ages after the break.

[Thanks, Jonathan]

Continue reading Fuzzy math: Palm Pre to run about $470 full retail?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Fuzzy math: Palm Pre to run about $470 full retail? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 May 2009 18:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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