Hasta La Gadget!

Can you believe it? No, seriously — can you believe it? Nearly two full years after its surprise introduction to the world, the nüvifone G60 is finally coming to US shores. In an official press release outed today, the Garmin nüvifone G60 has been blessed with an October 4th launch date on AT&T. Oddly enough, nary a mention of “ASUS” or “Garmin-Asus” is found, but regardless of semantics, you can bet that it’ll be looking for buyers this Sunday. The internal GPS chip and 3 megapixel, auto-focusing camera will enable users to geotag photos and emails and navigate using the same heralded user interface that folks rely on today with the company’s standalone PNDs. You’ve already pounded the specifications into your head by now, but the last figures you’ll need to know are these: it’ll run $299 on a two-year agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate, and if you’re hoping to access Premium Connected Services — which includes traffic updates, white pages, weather, movie, local events and fuel price content — you’ll be forking out $5.99 per month after the 30-day trial expires. So, after all of this, who’s in?

Filed under: Cellphones

Garmin nuvifone G60 officially coming to AT&T: October 4th for $299 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, that didn’t take too long or anything. After almost two years of delays, Garmin and AT&T have announced that the nuvifone G60 will be available in AT&T stores and online at www.wireless.att.com beginning October 4th for $299 with a two-year contract and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

That sounds expensive, considering the iPhone 3GS in the glass case next to the nuvifone G60 will be cheaper. But check this: the nuvifone G60 integrates an actual Garmin GPS navigator with a 3.6-inch touch screen and a full-blown voice, data, and mobile Web-capable device. It comes loaded with millions of points of interest (POI) as well as maps for U.S. and Canada. In another first, the company is also bundling a dashboard and windshield mount in the box.

The nuvifone G60 includes text-to-speech capability for speaking street names, and offers one-step navigation to address book contacts. It also includes what the company calls “a real GPS receiver with Garmin’s HotFix technology and assisted GPS,” which should hopefully mean that it locks down even in the middle of nowhere. Be assured that I will test that.

Other cell phone-like features include a 3-megapixel auto-focus camera, an HTML-capable Web browser, 3G and Wi-Fi radios, and a touch-screen virtual QWERTY keyboard. Nuvifone Premium Connected Services add real-time traffic, white pages, weather, movie, local events, and fuel price comparisons for $5.99/month on top of that. Stay tuned.

We actually have a tinfoil-lined ten-gallon-hat here in the Gadget Lab office into which we toss items which prey on paranoia. You know the kind of thing: radiation-eating cellphone cases and “reports” on the dangers of Wi-Fi both feature heavily. And you might think that the Flipside wallet, a radio shield for credit cards, might end up in the Hat of Shame.

But sometimes the paranoia is justified, and when it comes to RFID, paranoia of Philip K. Dickian proportions is quite appropriate. You see, governments and credit card companies think it’s OK to store your sensitive information on these easily readable chips, at the same time sticking their heads into a huge pile of sand. The problem is that RFID is far from secure, and can be hacked and read easily from afar.

So, along with mesh Faraday cages for the newer, more “secure” passports, we’re actually pretty interested by the Flipside. The polypropylene clamshell case will hold seven cards (or six and a sentimental photograph), plus 15 US bills (other bills may need to be folded to fit). Inside the compartments are divided into a cash side and a card side. The cash side does without the aluminum shielding so you can keep a bus or toll pass in there and offer it to a chip-reader while the other cards remain safe. $40.

Product page [Flipside via Uncrate]

Accordions and robots don’t seem to have much in common — although an accordion-playing robot would make for a killer Weird Al song. Nevertheless, the RAPHaEL hand showed that push-box tech can make for some impressively limber fingers. Now the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory has created its successor, the RAPHaEL 2, and it too has already won an award. This time it grabbed top honors at the ASME Student Mechanism and Robot Design Competition with its air-powered digits, which now use a closed loop control mechanism and more advanced data acquisition hardware from National Instruments, enabling it to better sense what it’s groping and to adjust pressure accordingly. It’s also made of a more durable polycarbonate, but a carbon fiber version is said to be in the works, which should look totally awesome.

Filed under: Robots

Second-generation air-powered robot hand gets more sensitive originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on September 12, 2006 by CyberNet.

Business Week is reporting more dilemmas and trouble for an already struggling Dell.  There’s currently a federal investigation going on taking a look at their finances. As a result, their quarterly reports have yet to be released. We last wrote about the trouble at Dell with their massive battery recall, and the fact that dealing with Dell for this issue was frustrating and time consuming.  It appears as though the battery replacement issue is just one of many issues going on right now which are clouding Dell’s reputation.

Visit BusinessWeek Online if you’d like to read the full report into all of the financial details. Generally, investors are worried, and the pressure is on the executive team. They announced four new Dell PC’s today, one of them being a “business desktop” called the Optiplex 745 which is designed to help out businesses with the costs of energy that it takes to operate multiple computers.  Dell CEO Kevin Rollins says that

“This reduction in power is significant and reduces annual PC costs by $80 [per desktop], We recognize that energy consumption is and will be an emerging, critical requirement [in corporations].”

Prices will start at $899 for the Optiplex 745 and will run the Intel core 2 Duo E63000 chip which is designed to help save on power.

In reading some of the comments on the BusinessWeek article, it appears that some consumers are still struggling with both customer services issues as well as inconsistencies on their website with pricing. Dell does have a good chunk of the market with computer sales and with that on their side, they may be able to right themselves.

News Sources: BusinessWeek, and InternetNews

Thanks for the tip Alison!

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