Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve long suspected that the Storm 2 would be bowing in the next couple months, within earshot of the original Storm’s one-year anniversary — and new evidence suggests that even if we can’t get an actual device in October, we’ll at least be able to make clicking sounds with our mouths as we amble around a non-functional display unit (you laugh, but it’s our idea of a good Saturday night). Boy Genius Report has been slipped a Best Buy inventory screen — a familiar sight in the phone scooping world — that reports an in-stock date for Storm 2 dummies of October 25. Those dummy units can end up arriving before or after the actual phones, and considering that we’ve seen other evidence pointing to an October launch, this could be the real deal. Tao envy might be a problem by the time this hits, but we’re sure there’ll be a few folks willing to give RIM a mulligan on its touchscreen dealings.

[Via PhoneArena]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

BlackBerry Storm 2 dummies coming to Best Buy around October 25? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 21:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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International musician and man-about-town Richie Hawtin has a track record of collaborating with Native Instruments on its DJ products, frequently putting stuff through its paces well before it’s made available to the public at large — and once again, the dude’s been caught using some unknown gear at a show in Berlin. Seems like pretty much everyone and their mother has made a controller compatible with the company’s Traktor line of software at this point save for Native Instruments itself, and that’s where this new hotness comes into play — check out the video after the break starting around 19 seconds, where you can clearly make out a couple NI-branded boxes allegedly designed to control two decks at a time (so a grand total of two, like Hawtin has here, would be enough to control a four-deck Traktor setup). We’ve heard rumors from inside the company that it’ll be available for around $200, which would be extremely competitive for a pro-level box that’s specifically matched to Traktor’s capabilities. Even if you don’t have the slightest urge to get on the decks at any point in your life, the lights sure are pretty, aren’t they?

[Via Engadget German and De:Bug]

Continue reading Native Instruments working on a $200-ish Traktor controller, blinkenlights guaranteed

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Native Instruments working on a $200-ish Traktor controller, blinkenlights guaranteed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Sep 2009 20:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Video is quickly becoming the metric by how computing platforms are measured: can a given device play back SD video? HD video? Can it encode them, too?

As of now, these are the dividing lines between netbooks and their more powerful cousins, the ultraportable netbooks. Why I seem to recall Nvidia stoutly maintaining that its ION platform (seriously, it’s just a GeForce 9400M, people!) plays back video smoothly, it apparently feels that it could use a kick in the pants from its GPU capabilities. (Nvidia also launched its next-generation GPU-as-CPU architecture, Fermi, on Wednesday.)

According to Hexus.net, NotebookJournal.de has let the cat out of the bag with the video above, which Hexus claims is scheduled for an announcement on Oct. 6. In a nutshell, Nvidia will announce Flash will now be processed using the ION, improving performance dramatically. Here’s hoping that it’s merely a software or driver upgrade, so those of you with existing Ion-based netbooks will get an unexpected performance boost.

EDIT: The above video has been made private, so you won’t be able to play it.

Sometimes genius looks like an elegant equation written in chalk on a blackboard. Sometimes it’s a hodgepodge of wires, canisters and aluminum-foil-wrapped hoses, all held together by shiny bolts.

Despite its homebrew appearance, this device, a scanning tunneling microscope, is one of the most extraordinary lab instruments of the last three decades. It can pick up individual atoms one by one and move them around to create supersmall structures, a fundamental requirement for nanotechnology.

Twenty years ago this week, on Sept. 28, 1989, an IBM physicist, Don Eigler, became the first person to manipulate and position individual atoms. Less than two months later, he arranged 35 Xenon atoms to spell out the letters IBM. Writing those three characters took about 22 hours. Today, the process would take about 15 minutes.

“We wanted to show we could position atoms in a way that’s very similar to how a child builds with Lego blocks,” says Eigler, who works at IBM’s Almaden Research Center. “You take the blocks where you want them to go.”

Eigler’s breakthrough has big implications for computer science. For instance, researchers are looking to build smaller and smaller electronic devices. They hope, someday, to engineer these devices from the ground up, on a nanometer scale.

“The ability to manipulate atoms, build structures of our own, design and explore their functionality has changed people’s outlook in many ways,” says Eigler. “It has been identified as one of the starting moments of nanotech because of the access it gave us to atoms, even though no product has comes out of it.”

On the 20th anniversary of Eigler’s achievement, we look at the science, art and implications of moving individual atoms.

AT&T and TerreStar on Wednesday jointly launched the Genus, a Windows Mobile smartphone that will connect to AT&T’s network, and, when out of range, can connect to the TerreStar satellite network.

The phone looks virtually identical to the Electrobit reference design that debuted in April, which is based on Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional and a 2.6-inch 320-by-240 touchscreen.

One caveat, however: although our earlier story claims that the phone does not need an external antenna, that’s not totally true: if you’re traveling outside the continental 48 states, you will.  The coverage area also formally includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Genus will launch in the first quarter of 2010 for an unspecified amount for enterprise and government customers. A consumer version is also planned, to launch sometime later in the future.

TerreStar successfully completed in-orbit testing on its TerreStar-1 satellite in mid-August, and is currently completing its integration with its ground-based beam forming system and its IP network. That also implies that the satellite capabilities won’t work on the other side of the globe in China, for example.

AT&T said that its monthly invoice will include the customer’s cellular voice
and data service charges, the satellite network access subscription
feature charge and the satellite voice and data roaming charges.

The phone will use GSM/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA. In conjunction with Windows Mobile, users will have 100 Mbytes of memory available, with microSD support for additional storage. Other features include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and vanilla GPS. There are also some interesting extras: a light sensor, a 2.5-mm stereo headphone jack, a SIM connector, and a 3.0-Mpixel camera. Finally, TerreStar claims that the phone will include a VOIP app, an interesting addition.

Potential customers should be warned that using the satellite capabilities to place calls will have a disastrous effect on battery life, however: talk time will be up to 5 hours using GSM, but only 1.3 hours via satellite. Likewise, standby times will be between 150 to 170 hours with GSM, and between 34 to 40 hours with satellite. Presumably, there’s an option to turn the satellite radio off when not in use.