With the Sony Reader Daily Edition, the 3G-enabled ebook reader battle is pitched. At the end of this year, it’ll fight Amazon’s Kindle 2 and DX and Plastic Logic‘s eReader to the death. Here’s how they all stack up now:
Aaaand we can’t not do a proper sizemodo, naturally: 
Update: Microsoft tells CNET, “We are looking into the details of this situation. We apologize and are in the process of pulling down the [Polish] image.”
Update 2: And… it’s down. The un-shopped image is now up on the Polish site, although whatever harried graphics monkey that got the call to fix it didn’t do so well lining up the text box. At least that’s one mistake that won’t get you fired though, right?
[Thanks, David and Matt W]
Read – Microsoft’s English site
Read – Microsoft’s Polish site
Filed under: Software
Microsoft sucks at Photoshop originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Don't mind the boxes in the background. I kinda live out of my office.
(Credit: Eric Franklin/CNET)
Last month I bemoaned the fact that although the 27-inch HP 2709m has less features and a lower resolution than the 25-inch HP w2558hc (albeit with a larger screen), at …
The votes are in, dear readers, and you’ve spoken loud and clear: from our original 23 finalists, your votes have boiled it down to five well-deserved winners who’ve clearly put time, effort, thought, determination, and old-fashioned elbow grease into their designs for gracing the metal back of Amazon’s 6-inch Kindle.
So what happens next? We’ll be working with winners and coordinating with the good folks at Adafruit Industries to turn these designs into reality thanks to some insanely high-powered precision lasers — picture that scene in Goldfinger where the film’s namesake tries to cut 007 in half to get an idea of just how high-powered we’re talking about here — and rest assured, we’ll be posting plenty of pictures as they come out of the workshop! Follow the break for the lucky five (presented in order with the most votes first).
A huge word of thanks to Amazon, Adafruit Industries, everyone who submitted entries, and the voters who figured out where these Kindles belong!
Continue reading Engadget’s Kindle design contest: we have winners!
Filed under: Announcements, Misc. Gadgets
Engadget’s Kindle design contest: we have winners! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
That lone, white MacBook remaining in Apple’s notebook family will soon undergo a design overhaul and be joined by additional models, according to a blog citing anonymous sources.
People familiar with Apple’s plans say the 13-inch MacBook will be redesigned with a slimmer, lighter enclosure and new internal architecture, reports AppleInsider. If the rumor is true, this would mark the first refresh for the MacBook form factor in three years.
At May’s Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple rebranded its 13-inch unibody MacBooks, instead calling them MacBook Pros, positioning them in the higher-end notebook category. The only device remaining with the name MacBook is a polycarbonate, white model priced at $1,000, which has become Apple’s entry-level notebook.
We wondered what would happen with the MacBook after the rebrand: The MacBook is Apple’s best-selling notebook, so we felt it was unlikely the company would sell only one device to float the name. A refresh for the polycarbonate model MacBook, which introduces multiple model options, would make sense.
AppleInsider’s sources say to expect the new MacBooks in the coming months.
See Also:
Photo: new-york-city/Flickr
We had a good feeling that Microsoft might have a thing or two to announce around Windows 7 Media Center at the upcoming CEDIA show in Atlanta this September, but now we can start the official countdown. The after-hours event at ESPN Zone will help kick off the show in Atlanta at 6:30pm — the event is invite only, but don’t worry, we’ll be brining you the events live as they happen. Although the specific announcements are anyone’s guess, the invite did let us know that all of the Windows Media Center news and updates will break there, as well as the winner of the Ultimate Install Contest. So that’s just over two weeks until all your home media hopes will be fulfilled — or destroyed — depending on your perspective.
Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Software
Microsoft’s CEDIA event September 9th to reveal what’s new in Media Center originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
This is one of my most (and by that I mean least) productive multitasking co-workers.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET)
If you can’t read through this article in one sitting, you may be in serious trouble. The good news is you wouldn’t discover what your problem is. Are you still reading?
It has been my presumption that multitaskers are generally more productive than people who prefer to do one thing at a time. Typical examples of those with what I call “occupational short attention span” tend to be workers in high-tech environments, including me and most of my CNET co-workers.
At any given time, we’re bombarded with e-mails, text messages, instant messages, and phone calls. That’s not to mention Facebook and Twitter feeds. And I want our boss to believe that all that communicating makes us a more productive bunch. Turns out that could be all wrong.
According to a new study released by a group of Stanford University researchers Tuesday, people who regularly deal with several streams of electronic information simultaneously do not pay attention, control their memory, or switch from one job to another any better than those who prefer to complete one task at a time. Actually, they fare worse.
…
The single largest roadblock that prevents most people from picking up a PlayStation 3 is the price. Sony’s just taken that roadblock and shrunk it. You’re now $100 more likely to buy a PlayStation 3.
The PlayStation 3 Slim is actually more similar to the current PlayStation 3 fat than you’d think. Sony has been slowly phasing out features in the PS3 for a while, dumping USB ports, dumping card readers and dumping the PlayStation 2 backward compatibility. So the step to a Slim, now, isn’t actually that steep, compared to what you’d get if you switched from a launch PS3.
What you do get with the Slim is a smaller size, a reduced power consumption rate and a lower price. The lower power usage partially comes from the 45nm manufacturing process, and provides a 34% decrease in power consumption. (It’s also 32% smaller and 36% lighter). And, the Slim adds the ability to bitstream Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio, which only matters if you’re an audiophile with a modern sound system. You also get a new matte finish, which makes the console look less “premium”, but eliminates the crazy fingerprint and dust problem the original had. Overall, it’s a net gain in goodness.
Because it’s basically the same console, the only differences you’re going to notice are audible ones. Like we said in our hands on, the disc drive in the PS3 Slim is louder than in the original PlayStation 3. Think of it like a laptop optical disc drive vs. a desktop optical disc drive. When you’re seeking around, it makes a louder grinding noise than its larger counterpart. This noise makes no difference in Blu-ray movie watching, since it’s all sequential, and is only occasionally encountered in games, especially since many game install bits and pieces to the hard drive.
Other than that, yeah, it plays the same PS3 games, and it watches the same Blu-ray movies.
Think about the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation 3 Slim like this. You have two wives (I don’t know, imagine you’re Bill Paxton). Ninety-five percent of the time, they both do pretty much the same things. One is slightly chubbier, the other is slightly svelter. The skinnier one is quieter most of the time, but can get yappy when she can’t find something. The thinner one also costs you a little less money, and…has a matted finish? This metaphor isn’t going anywhere good, but you get the point. They’re basically the same console, except now it’s thinner and cheaper.
So the only question now is whether or not you should buy a PlayStation 3 now, or wait until September for the PS3 Slim. Both options are $300, but if you want the ability to install Linux, you’ll have to get the PlayStation 3 fat. Then again, the three of you who want that probably already have a PS3.
By lowering the price and making a more economical console, Sony’s finally more or less evened the hardware landscape with Microsoft, and continued to ensure that the PS3 is still the best-value-for-your-money Blu-ray player. Now all that’s left is getting some more games on there. [Amazon]
Lighter, thinner, less power hungry
Way less fingerprinty
Matted finish and new “squarer” styling might appeal to some, repulse others
Needs a $24 stand to be stable in the vertical position
Continues the tradition of removing features (USB ports, backward compatibility, Linux support) in the PS3 to lower the price
[Via New York Times]
Filed under: Gaming
PlayOn for Wii beta to be announced tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The British Steam Car spouts off as it gets ready to make a run at a 103-year-old land speed record.
(Credit: The British Steam Car Challenge)
The Stanley Steamer may have finally been dethroned.
After holding onto its land speed record for 103 years, the homegrown Stanley automobile from the …
Originally posted at News – Cutting Edge
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