Hasta La Gadget!

What’s the best technology to use to track people who like to wander off? You might be inclined to say GPS, but stagger into a cave or basement (or, sometimes, a city street) and suddenly you’re off the grid, man. Not with Ekahau’s T301W wristband: it uses Wi-Fi to beam location information. Yes, we know that your average cave doesn’t have Wi-Fi, but Ekahau has a range of beacons available that will fix that, and when in the presence of those beacons (or any other configured Wi-Fi network) a wristband can be located to within a few feet. It’s the latest of a variety of similar devices from Ekahau, but the first small enough and waterproof enough to be wearable, which has the company envisioning everyone from cruise ship captains to secret service agents slapping these on their visitors. At $60 a pop, though, we’re not sure how many organizations will be able to afford that many.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wireless

Ekahau’s T301W Wi-Fi wristband wirelessly tracks kids, wandering grandparents originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Following in the footsteps of the QWERTY-equipped Samsung Reclaim, the company has now launched the Blue Earth, an environmentally friendly cell phone with a touch screen.

The Blue Earth was first shown at Mobile World Congress 2009 in Barcelona. The Blue Earth is made from post-consumer material (PCM) extracted from water bottles, in an effort to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions during manufacturing. It’s free of phthalate, brominated flame retardants (BFR), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

The Blue Earth features a touch interface with an eco-friendly theme, robust power management tools, a built-in pedometer, and a CO2 emission reduction calculator. It comes with a 5-star energy efficient charger that consumes just 0.03W in standby mode.

No word on a U.S. release yet; this month it’s launching in Sweden, with France, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Portugal soon to follow.

Perhaps the worst kept secret till now — outside of Walt Mossberg’s embargo slipups — was that T-Mobile and the latest BlackBerry flagship device were set for a November marriage. Hell, there were even invitations to the party. So, whether you call it the Bold 2, the 9700, or the Onyx, come next month you’ll be able to lovingly place its 480 x 360 display, WiFi antennae and all that other hotness in a Curve-sized space inside your pocket. We can expect this first official confirmation to be followed by similar appearances in the US and across Europe as the 9700 begins its ascension to the throne of the BlackBerry kingdom.

[Thanks, Richy]

Filed under: Cellphones

BlackBerry Bold 9700 official on T-Mobile Germany, November launch confirmed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Amiga owners are a loyal bunch. And they have to be — stuck with a machine frozen in time (even if OS 5 was claimed to be “better than OS X”) and little in the way of support, the manner in which they’ve stubbornly stuck with the platform over the years can only be described as a labor of love. If you’ve been wondering what all the fuss is about but no longer have a PowerPC-based Amiga system handy, the MorphOS Dev Team has just announced that its latest — MorphOS 2.4 — now supports Mac mini G4 machines. Available now, you can either hit the read link to download for yourself, or wait until the upcoming Amiga user group meeting in Bad Bramstedt, Germany. You know, whatever you find more convenient. As for us, we’re going to go play a game of Ooops Up! for old time’s sake.

[Thanks, Antti Jarvinen]

Filed under: Desktops

MorphOS for Amiga adds Mac mini support, someone in Europe is delighted originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 06:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news: It looks like Sidekick data fiasco is finally coming to an end. Over on T-Mobile’s Sidekick forums, an official Microsoft statement confirms “most, if not all, customer data” will return “as soon as possible”, starting with personal contacts.

The statement goes on to say they will “work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.”

The data loss was apparently caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. I’m not sure if that means sabotage or not.

Meanwhile, we now hear that a number of pissed off users have filed lawsuits. Maybe this isn’t the end to this after all. [T-Mobile]

Dear T-Mobile Sidekick customers,
On behalf of Microsoft, I want to apologize for the recent problems with the Sidekick service and give you an update on the steps we have taken to resolve these problems.

We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage. We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.

We now believe that data loss affected a minority of Sidekick users. If your Sidekick account was among those affected, please continue to log into these forums for the latest updates about when data restoration will begin, and any steps you may need to take. We will work with T-Mobile to post the next update on data restoration timing no later than Saturday.

We have determined that the outage was caused by a system failure that created data loss in the core database and the back-up. We rebuilt the system component by component, recovering data along the way. This careful process has taken a significant amount of time, but was necessary to preserve the integrity of the data.

We will continue working closely with T-Mobile to restore user data as quickly as possible. We are eager to deliver the level of reliable service that our incredibly loyal customers have become accustomed to, and we are taking immediate steps to help ensure this does not happen again. Specifically, we have made changes to improve the overall stability of the Sidekick Service and initiated a more resilient backup process to ensure that the integrity of our database backups is maintained.

Once again, we apologize for this situation and the inconvenience that it has created. Please know that we are working all-out to resolve this situation and restore the reliability of the service.

Sincerely,
Roz Ho
Corporate Vice President
Premium Mobile Experiences, Microsoft Corporation