(Credit: Lego)Even though I’m an adult, I’m known to pull out the bucket of Legos and play fairly often. They’re great for sparking the imagination–and that’s now true in the kitchen, as well.
The Rolling Cookie Cutter from Lego allows you to make cookies in …
Originally posted at Appliances & Kitchen Gadgets
It’s an age-old problem. What do you do when you’re just barely out of range of a nearby WiFi signal, and moving closer really isn’t a convenient option? hField Technologies has been solving said quandary for years with its continually revamped Wi-Fire, and we were fortunate enough to grab hold of the newest, third-generation version in order to put said company’s claims to the test. Quite frankly, we were more than skeptical about this so-called range extender; let’s face it, this thing has all the markings of an ‘As Seen On TV’ trinket that does little more than fantasize about delivering on its promises. Thankfully for all of the parties involved, we’re happy to say that our doubts were hastily shelved. Read on for more.
Continue reading Wi-Fire long-range WiFi adapter hands-on and impressions
Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless, Networking
Wi-Fire long-range WiFi adapter hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sony wowed us this morning with its Vaio X Series, but details are now emerging. According to this video, the .55-inch thin system may be more netbook than notebook. And boy, do I want to hold it in my arms.
Thanks to its 11.2 inch display it looks really compact and that carbon fiber outside and keyboard, oh that keyboard, make my mouth water. As for what is on the inside, we don’t know much. The guys at NetbookNews say there is discussion of an Intel Atom processor (they seem to be hoping for the next generation Pineview CPU), but we won’t be surprised if they go with Intel’s new ULV offering. Either way it is something low powered since Sony has been touting crazy all day battery life (from the video though the battery doesn’t seem to be replaceable).
Now it would be typical Sony to jack up the price on this 1.5 pound baby, but I am thinking it might not be as high as some anticipate (crossing my fingers for under $750). Don’t forget Sony was saying a few months ago it wants to enter the low cost ultraportable space. Our sources tell us this sweet lappie will launch sometime in October with Windows 7. [Netbook News]
Here it is, folks. Sony Ericsson’s newly official XPERIA X2 in the flesh. It’s got a flashy (gimmicky?) home screen, along with a view for “snacking” on bubbled-up information. Lots of buzzwords, but we’ll need more time hands-on to know how we feel. The hardware? It’s still a heavy beast, but perhaps just a bit more loving in this incarnation. We don’t love the resistive touchscreen one bit. After a strong caveat that what we’re looking at is preproduction software, a Sony Ericsson rep admitted that Windows Mobile 6.5 isn’t all it could be — though we’re unsure why Sony Ericsson didn’t throw a bit more hardware at the problem, Toshiba style. Still, the interface breaks down to stylus-friendly Windows Mobile-isms with just a few taps, and none of the “wow” of the floating Sony Ericsson home screen seemed to excuse any of the UI lag it introduces. Again, early software, but the X1 didn’t exactly rise above its preproduction jankiness.
Update: Video is after the break!
Continue reading Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 first hands-on (with video!)
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
Sony Ericsson XPERIA X2 first hands-on (with video!) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Creative’s Zii EGG may be snagging the majority of headlines for the company these days, but it looks like it’s not about to let its regular PMPs fall by the wayside, and it’s now announced its new Zen X-Fi2 player that ditches the few buttons found on the original Zen X-Fi in favor of full touchscreen controls. That, of course, also comes with an increase in screen size (to 3-inches), and a new interface that seems to include a few elements from that patent filing we saw a while back. Otherwise, the specs aren’t too far off its predecessor, including the same 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB options, a microSD card slot for further expansion, a built-in microphone and FM radio, an RSS reader (which must be synced up with your PC). Still no firm word on a release date, unfortunately, but you can now pre-order it from a number of retailers for $129.99, $179.99, or $229.99, depending on the capacity. Not convinced just yet? Then perhaps smooth jams of the videos after the break will change your mind.
[Thanks, Sim]
Continue reading Creative announces Zen X-Fi2 touchscreen PMP (video)
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video
Creative announces Zen X-Fi2 touchscreen PMP (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tired of working out to the same exercises on the Wii Fit? A new version is designed to offer a fresh batch of challenges.
The latest edition, dubbed Wii Fit Plus, will offer new exercises, yoga activities, and balance games, the company said late Monday.
Nintendo's Wii Fit …
CoPilot Live's map view could use some cleanup and suffers some lag when switching between the vertical and horizontal positions.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)
CoPilot Live is the fourth turn-by-turn GPS application with offline built-in maps for all of North America that I have on my iPhone 3GS. After Navigon, iGo My Way, and TomTom, I thought there would be nothing new I could find in a navigation app. I was wrong.
CoPilot Live offers a quick way to switch between modes of travel, which include auto, RV, motorcycle, biking, and walking. This makes the app ideal for getting around town, especially, say, if you need to change from driving a car to walking. The Navigon app offers a similar option, but you have to dig pretty deep into the menu to change your travel mode. With CoPilot you can do this anytime, even in the middle of an existing route, just via a few taps.
CoPilot Live offers a quick way to switch between different modes of travel.
(Credit: Screenshot by Dong Ngo/CNET)
Another nice thing about CoPilot is the Live Services option, which includes Live Weather and Live Link. Live Weather lets you see local weather or weather in a different city. Live Link connects CoPilot Live users, allowing them to send messages or share locations. I wasn’t able to try this out as I was the only one I know who used the app during the testing.
The Live Services option, of course, requires an Internet connection and is only available when there’s a cellular or Wi-Fi signal. Unfortunately, the most anticipated feature that also requires an Internet connection, the real-time traffic option, is not yet available, though there’s a placeholder for it within the Live Services section of the app. According to ALK Technologies, maker of the CoPilot Live, this service will be added via an update that’s coming out by the end of the month and costs another $20 per year, on top of the current $35 flat fee for the app. No other iPhone GPS apps currently offer real-time traffic.
Also missing is the text-to-speech feature, where the app would read out the name of the street. Nonetheless, the app has a wide selection of voices for you to choose from. It includes voices of 29 languages, each with a few options of accents, both male and female. It’s probably the most versatile GPS app for the iPhone in terms of languages it supports.
…
Apple users have less protection from viruses and malicious software than Windows users do. But they’re still safer, security experts agree, because so few malware programs target the Mac.
Apple’s new Snow Leopard operating system, which landed in stores Friday, adds a few security enhancements to protect Mac users from malware. But like previous versions of the Mac OS, Snow Leopard lacks security features that are built in to Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, such as full Address Space Layout Randomization to thwart attacks from malicious code.
That makes Macs more vulnerable to attack, explained Charlie Miller, a security researcher and author of the book The Mac Hacker’s Handbook. But despite its weaknesses, Mac users have no reason to panic — yet. Apple’s PC market share is still roughly only about 10 percent, giving hackers and malicious software coders very little economic incentive to target the Mac.
In short, Mac users are ducking behind a short wall — but as long as the enemy is firing in another direction, they’re not in grave danger.
“If you’re a bad guy and you’re doing this to make money … you don’t want to spend 90 percent of your time on Windows and 10 percent on Mac,” Miller said in a phone interview. “You’re going to want to spend 100 percent of your time on Windows.”
The security debate has long raged between Mac and Windows fans. Apple has actively fostered this feud, marketing its Mac software as superior with security. In a memorable TV ad, actor Justin Long, who personifies the Mac, teases “PC” actor John Hodgman for being more vulnerable to catching viruses.
Mac owners’ smugness may not last forever. As Apple slowly expands its market share, it is gradually becoming a bigger target for attack. Two years ago there were zero pieces of malware targeting the Mac platform, and in the past year, there were a few hundred, according to John Viega, a security researcher and author of the book The Myths of Security.
Those hundreds of pieces of malware are small compared to the 1.8 million total pieces of malware discovered last year, but it would be unfair to compare these numbers directly, Viega said. He noted that because so few Mac users are running anti-virus software, there’s far less need for malicious coders to create hundreds of different variants of the same attack, as they do for Windows.
In Snow Leopard, Apple has added security enhancements including Executive Disable, which prevents memory-corruption attacks, and some virus detection. Apple also added hardware-enforced Data Execution Prevention, which defends against buffer-overflow attacks — a major security feature that Windows has had for years, Miller said.
However, the anti-virus function in Snow Leopard only blacklists the most common pieces of malware, so it’s not a complete anti-virus system, Viega said.
Also, Apple has only just started implementing the Address Space Layout Randomization anti-exploitation technique by moving to 64-bit addressing in Snow Leopard, Miller said.
“I think that Apple is pointed in the right direction,” Viega said. “They care about getting security right. It’s just that they are much farther behind the rest of the industry because they got a late start, and they have a little bit of a disconnect in their marketing department, who wants to brag about their great security.”
“Their good track record is more a matter of luck in small market share,” Viega added. “As their market share continues to grow, they’re only going to become a bigger and bigger target.”
When discussing security, another issue to consider is that the landscape of internet threats has evolved over the years to be less platform-centric, said Leander Kahney, owner of the Cult of Mac blog and former news editor of Wired.com. Phishing, for example, is a security threat that involves tricking the user into handing over personal information.
“It’s a different kind of criminal activity,” Kahney said in a phone interview. “There’s going to be exploits where they try to steal people’s passwords, identities or credit card numbers. The kinds of attacks you can get through a website or an e-mail are not platform specific.”
What will make the Mac OS just as secure and safer than Windows? Miller said all Apple has to do is finish adding Address Space Layout Randomization. He expects Apple will soon.
“I’m going to keep saying Snow Leopard is less secure than Windows 7,” Miller said. “Fix that one thing and I would stop saying it.”
See Also:
Photo: ShannonKringen/Flickr
Daaaamn. We just got back from our time with the Sony X-series and it’s making us rethink the entire definition of thin as the word is applied to ultra-portable laptops — see how it casually jockeys our 15-inch MacBook Pro workhorse in the pic above. Sony’s X-series is so thin that it’s dangerous: on one hand, it’ll cut a jugular or cake with little effort, and on the other, it has just enough flex to make us worry about its ruggedness. But this isn’t Sony’s first experiment with this form factor and the carbon-fibre frame and aluminum keyboard should help with rigidity when this goes production in both glossy- and matte-plastic finishes. (The displays were all matte, at least for now.) The new X is followup to the rarely seen VAIO X505 that was available in limited markets early in the decade — only then it wasn’t sporting an Atom, 2GB of memory, or a 31Wh removable battery. According to Sony, the choice of an Atom processor is far from decided and is only on display to run the engineering prototypes here at IFA, so there’s still hope for at least CULV internals when this thing ships. Unfortunately, access to the rest of the internal specs were software blocked and Sony was zipped tight on details.
Further visual inspection reveals a pair of USB jacks, SD/Memory Stick slot, WWAN SIM slot, and folding feet on the bottom to prop up the lappie so you can attach an Ethernet cable in the mechanically yawning RJ45 jack or a Kensington lock. Unfortunately, the only video output option is VGA. Nevertheless, the Windows 7 box we tested performed as expected for such a small device — lethargically, but capably for casual internet browsing and tweeting. And honestly, we could see ourselves dropping a premium (less than $2,000 we’re told) for this 11-inch ultra-portable as opposed to the VAIO P. At least now we know what Sony meant when they said they wanted their products to be aspirational. See the new X up close with its X505 cousin in the gallery. Trust us, it’s worth a look.
P.S. It’ll be announced with official specs in October with units available for retail about a week after Windows 7 launches.
Gallery: Hands-on Sony X-series slimster
Sony VAIO X slimster hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Nokia has introduced two new phones loaded with music features and revealed the pricing of its upcoming Booklet 3G netbook at its ongoing Nokia World conference in Germany.
Here’s a rundown of the key announcements.
Last month Nokia introduced the Booklet 3G, a netbook-sized laptop that promised some power-packed features. Booklet 3G will have a 10.1-inch screen, up to 12 hours of usage time, Atom processor and Windows 7. It will weigh about 2.75 lbs and include 1 GB of RAM and 120 GB hard drive. It will also sync with a Nokia handset and offer easy access to Nokia services such as its Ovi app store. See the complete list of specs. But the Booklet 3G comes with a rather hefty price tag. It will cost €575 or $820.
Nokia showed off two new phones at the conference, the first of which is the Nokia X3. The X3 slider phone will have a 2.2-inch display and 3.2-megapixel camera. The phone targeted at music lovers will have stereo speakers, dedicated music keys and support for up to 16GB of storage via microSD card. The X3 will have a ‘flight mode’ so users can listen to music in-flight even though their phones need to be switched off. Music on the phone can be managed using Nokia’s Ovi Player PC software and and Windows Media Player 11. The X3 will be on sale in the fourth quarter of the year for €115 or $165, before taxes and subsidies. See additional features of the Nokia X3.
Nokia also launched the X6 phone. The slim phone has a 3.2-inch touchscreen, 32GB storage and will include access to the company’s ‘Comes with Music’ music subscription service. The X6 also has a 5-megapixel camera, dual LED flash, TV-out, video editing, full web browser and Flash Lite support. It will also ship in the fourth quarter for €459 or $655, without taxes and subsidies.
Nokia also disclosed the pricing of its N97 phone. The device, which gathered mixed reviews, has a 3.2-inch touch display, QWERTY keyboard and fully customizable homescreen. The N97 will cost €459 or $655, without subsidies.Meanwhile, check out Nokia’s hands-on video with the Booklet 3G laptop.
See Also:
Photo: Nokia
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