On this, the day of the Zune HD, Donald and Jasmine naturally talk about the now-available player and its updated Zune Software and Marketplace. But the day would not be complete without some love for the next-generation Archos 5, a super sweet Internet media tablet that includes everything but the kitchen sink.
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Originally posted at MP3 Insider
From the outside, the new Lenovo T400s touch doesn’t look all that exciting — unless you’re the sort to get excited over ThinkPads, in which case you’re probably quite stoked that it looks exactly like the non-touch T400s. But it’s actually a pretty crazy product — it’s a regular laptop with a high-end four-finger capacitive touchscreen. Not a tablet, not a convertible, just a laptop. And a ThinkPad, so you’ve already got both a touchpad and a TrackPoint to get around. It’s a little puzzling until you use it, and realize that just casually reaching out and touching the display sort of makes a lot of sense. Sort of — there aren’t a lot of apps that take advantage of multitouch right now, and while Lenovo’s SimpleTap app launcher / control panel system is a cool demo, it’s more of a nifty feature than a killer app. Still, it’s nice to see a responsive capacitive touchscreen make the touch features of Windows 7 much more fun to use, and while we didn’t end up trying to touch our regular laptop screens when we were done with the T400s touch, we’d certainly spring for the option if we were in the market. Check a little video after the break.
Gallery: Lenovo T400s unboxing and hands-on
Continue reading Lenovo T400s touch hands-on and impressions
Filed under: Laptops
Lenovo T400s touch hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Zune HD’s lack of a compelling software market will make it nothing more than a repeat failure, according to mobile developers and an analyst.
Microsoft on Tuesday released its newest media player. Priced at $290 for the 32GB version, it’s packed with impressive hardware features, including a vibrant, touch-sensitive OLED display. Still, the hardware alone won’t be enough to make the device a success, observers say.
“They apparently had no idea the App Store was coming or was going to be big,” said Phillip Ryu, co-creator of the popular iPhone app Classics. “This all reeks of last-minute scrambling.”
The center of criticism is Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace, the Zune HD’s version of an app store. But it’s not really a store: Third-party developers cannot easily create apps to be sold through Zune Marketplace. In fact, no apps will be sold at all.
Instead, Microsoft has handpicked third-party companies to code apps that will be offered for free in Marketplace. The initial software available for Zune HD will include games, a weather app and a calculator. And in November, Twitter and Facebook apps and some 3D games will launch in the “store” as well.
Unlike other mobile stores, Microsoft’s Marketplace is essentially closed to outside developers.
That’s an unusual move in the mobile tech landscape. By contrast, Apple’s App Store allows anyone to submit iPhone and iPod Touch apps, although Apple exerts stringent (and often capricious) control over which apps make it to the public. Google’s Android Market is completely open to any developers who wish to offer apps for it. Research in Motion, Verizon, Nokia and Palm have also all opened mobile app stores to compete with Apple’s.
Even Microsoft is drafting developers for its Windows Mobile 6.5 app store — but oddly enough, the company is not integrating the same store for its Zune media player.
Microsoft’s Zune marketing manager Brian Seitz said the Windows Mobile Marketplace is being separated because the Zune HD has a different focus than smartphones. Seitz said the Zune HD’s focus is music and video playback.
However, Microsoft’s message is contradictory, because Seitz later said that since the Zune HD features Wi-Fi and not a constant cellular connection, the device would focus on gaming.
“The thing that Zune HD is made for is really rich music and video playback experiences for people,” Seitz said in a phone interview with Wired.com. “We know there’s other things folks want to do with these devices that are sometimes connected … and those apps are typically games.”
Seitz added that the Zune HD’s primary goal is not to compete with Apple’s App Store. However, he did acknowledge the Zune HD’s main competitor is the iPod Touch.
Matt Drance, Apple’s former iPhone evangelist and current owner of Bookhouse, an iPhone app development company, said Microsoft was wise to shy away from directly competing with the App Store, because the tech giant is already too far behind in this market segment.
“I’ll give [Microsoft] credit for acknowledging they’re not ready to compete,” Drance said in a phone interview. “They’re going to have to do something really special at this point. When you’re staring in the face of 75,000 apps in the App Store that have been downloaded 2 billion times, you can’t just say, ‘Hey, me, too.’”
There’s very little Microsoft can do with the Zune HD at this point, MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinen said, because the software that launched with the Zune is too underwhelming to drive momentum for the gadget.
Kuittinen questioned why Twitter and Facebook apps were not immediately available for the Zune HD upon launch, because practically every smartphone today supports this type of software. He added that Microsoft failed to communicate to the public, via marketing and media, what exactly the Zune HD would do other than play music and video. This added up to a poorly executed launch, he said.
“To get the maximum impact you have to have the software services the moment you’re ready,” Kuittinen said. “When you start bringing it out later it dilutes the impact.”
“We’re getting close to Christmas now, so if you don’t start now telling consumers what the device can do, it’s going to be kind of late to give them Twitter app in November,” Kuittinen added.
What, then, should Microsoft do? Lower the price, suggests Kuittinen, who believes the price difference between the iPod Touch and the Zune is not a strong enough selling point. Microsoft is selling the 16GB Zune HD player for $220 and the 32 GB version for $290.
Apple’s iPod Touch comes in three models: $200 for 8GB, $300 for the 32GB and $400 for a 64GB model.
The iPod Nano, by contrast, costs $180 for a 16GB version, making it — price-wise — another possible competitor to the Zune HD.
“What exactly do they have to lose at this point?” Kuittinen said. “Why not just go to $130 or $140? They’re going to lose money anyway.”
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Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com
Roomba not sucking the way it used to? Samsung sure hopes not, as it has just recently pushed out a robotic vacuum cleaner of its very own. Quietly showcased during IFA earlier this month, the Furot II packs an oh-so-familiar design and sports an integrated camera and mapping system that enables it to find its way, remember its course and clean your floors with practically no human assistance. There’s also an array of sensors that keep it from slamming into this and that, and the rechargeable battery keeps it humming for around 1.5 hours before petering out and making a beeline for its charging station. We get the impression that it’ll be available in both black and refulgent red, though no price and release date is currently available.
[Via Coolest-Gadgets]
Filed under: Household, Robots
Samsung’s Furot II robovac wants a piece of your Roomba originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The portents have hung in the air for a while, but it’s clear now that the traditional dumb PMP is dead, like a dull and rusted Swiss army knife. In their stead we’ll have…smart PMPs.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but yeah, we’re talking about the iPod touch model: It’s about platforms. That run apps. That people can develop awesome little programs for. In other words, a good PMP won’t just have great codec support and be able to push HD video, it’ll get you on Twitter or Facebook or tell you what’s good to eat nearby.
Not convinced? Check out the new Archos 5, which dumps the old OS for Android. Or the Creative Zii, also allegedly launching with Android. If you’re in the second tier, grabbing a popular app-friendly platform is not a bad way to compete.
Apple itself noted that old-school iPods were on a death march—so the company added a video camera to the nano, to keep it alive for a generation or two more. True, Sony’s X-Series appears to be keeping on keeping on, but it feels like an anacrhonism, albeit with a nice screen—no extendability, and a horrible internet browser.
The argument really comes down to the Zune HD, launching this week. It finds itself in an awkward position, essentially because of the effective limbo Microsoft’s mobile OS is in—in other words you can’t easily develop apps for both Zune HD and Windows Mobile, which Zune’s Brian Seitz basically admitted to the Seattle Times: “What we didn’t want to do was build two parallel app store experiences that didn’t work together.”
So there’s no open app store, but in the meantime, Microsoft’s providing the apps with a handful of chosen developers, so we’re stuck with games, and soon a Twitter and Facebook app. But what is clear is that Zune is a platform that people can develop for. And it seems inevitable that’ll be common with the next version of Windows Mobile, or the mysterious project Pink, if that is something else—at least, if Microsoft’s actually serious about the Zune having a future.
In other words, it’s startlingly clear now that the traditional PMP is history, replaced by PMPs powered by mobile platforms. They’re smartphones without the “phone,” and even lacking that major element, they’re surprisingly valuable, more pocket computer—with internet and apps—than glorified video player.
You know your gadget has truly made it when the folks at Rapid Repair take the time to carefully dissect it. After all, why waste an afternoon figuring out all the ways consumers might need to repair the Zune HD, …
Originally posted at MP3 Insider
MSI’s Wind U210 has certainly been making the rounds, but it has yet to plant its feet firmly on US soil. Until today, obviously. Checking in at 3.2 pounds, this 12.1-inch netbook is equipped with a larger-than-usual 1,366 x 768 display, AMD’s 1.6GHz Athlon Neo MV-40 processor, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, a 250GB hard drive and a 6-cell battery that’s reportedly good for four hours of usage. The rig’s also packing an ATI Radeon X1250 in the graphics department, a 1.3 megapixel webcam, HDMI output, three USB 2.0 sockets, a VGA port and a 4-in-1 multicard reader. For those interested in buying a Vista-equipped machine just a month before Windows 7 swoops in to save the day, both Amazon and NewEgg would be more than happy to make your wallet $430 lighter.
Continue reading MSI ships 12.1-inch, Athlon Neo-equipped Wind U210
Filed under: Laptops
MSI ships 12.1-inch, Athlon Neo-equipped Wind U210 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 17:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
(Credit: Rory Reid/CNET UK)We’re seeing some pretty futuristic cars here at the Frankfurt Motor Show, but none more so than the Peugeot BB1. According to its maker, it’s a totally original response to the current and future needs of urban mobility, and one of those needs is drive-anywhere Internet access.
If you look past the uber-beautiful models casually sitting inside the BB1 (it won’t actually come with these), you’ll see an iPod dock carved into the steering wheel. This connects your music collection to the BB1’s entertainment system, and also feeds data to a centrally mounted display, on which you can fiddle with the radio, navigation options and Internet. Yes, you read that correctly–the Internet. The World Wide Web. The Jesus tubes, people.
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Originally posted at Frankfurt Auto Show 2009
Filed under: Transportation
Volkswagen E-Up! concept rolls into Frankfurt, hits the road in 2013 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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