Windows Phone commercial is confusing for a variety of reasons

Okay, so we understand Microsoft is trying hard to rebrand Windows Mobile as Windows Phone with the launch of WinMo 6.5, but this commercial — labeled with AT&T logos in the US but also running unlabeled worldwide — doesn’t seem to do a good job of pointing out that Windows Phone is a platform and not a device. In fact, if we didn’t know better, we’d think that the HTC Pure is, in fact, the “Windows Phone” — even though the dude in the spot is holding a totally different generic device. See how that could be weird for people? It’s almost confusing enough to distract from the jubilant anthropomorphic app icons in tights. Video after the break.

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Windows Phone commercial is confusing for a variety of reasons originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Storm 2 accessories roll into Best Buy

Silicone skins for the Storm 2 are starting to find their way into shipments destined to Best Buy stores around the country, another solid signal that RIM’s second touchscreen effort is hitting retail sooner rather than later. What we found amusing about this first batch is that the packaging seems conflicted about what to call the thing — 9550, Storm II (as opposed to Storm2 or Storm 2, interestingly), and even the phone’s codename Odin all make appearances front and center. We suppose they’re just trying to make it crystal clear what phone the skin’s intended for, and with leaks going back a solid year, you’ve got to cover all your bases.

[Thanks, Caffoni]

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BlackBerry Storm 2 accessories roll into Best Buy originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 20:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups

Backing up your personal PC to external media might still be a novel concept for some, but any IT manager fresh out of school can tell you that regularly backing up mission-critical servers — and storing those backups in multiple physical locations — isn’t merely important, it’s practically non-negotiable, and it only becomes that much more critical before undertaking hardware maintenance. Alleged details on the events leading up to Danger’s doomsday scenario are starting to come out of the woodwork, and it all paints a truly embarrassing picture: Microsoft, possibly trying to compensate for lost and / or laid-off Danger employees, outsources an upgrade of its Sidekick SAN to Hitachi, which — for reasons unknown — fails to make a backup before starting. Long story short, the upgrade runs into complications, data is lost, and without a backup to revert to, untold thousands of Sidekick users get shafted in an epic way rarely seen in an age of well-defined, well-understood IT strategies.

The coming weeks are going to be trying times for both Microsoft and T-Mobile, a sideline player in this carnage that ultimately still shoulders responsibility for taking users’ cash month after month and keeping tabs on the robustness of its partners’ workflows. We’re betting that heads are going to roll at both of these companies, formal investigations are going to be waged, users are going to be compensated in big ways, lawsuits are going to be filed, and textbooks could very well be modified to make sure that lessons are learned for the next generation of college grads tasked with keeping clouds running. Why there weren’t any backups — even older ones — that could’ve been used as a restore point is totally unclear, so we’re hoping Microsoft has the stones to come clean for the benefit of an entire industry that wants to understand how to make sure this never happens again.

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Sidekick failure rumors point fingers at outsourcing, lack of backups originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marathon winner disqualified for wearing iPod

I have no idea why people run marathons.

It seems a peculiar act of masochism in which people actually die. (As evidence, might I point to two deaths in the recent San Jose, Calif., half-marathon.)

But many humans seem to enjoy the pain and the sense of achievement they feel …

Originally posted at Technically Incorrect

Portable NES modded into a cartridge, hearts modded into love

We’ve seen NES mods that incorporate a screen and controls into a cartridge in the past, but this example from Airz in BenHeck’s forums is just so clean and well-polished that we had to give it some love. Inside Airz says it’s just a generic Chinese media player that can play NES, Gameboy, and Gameboy Color ROMs, along with the relevant controller bits, a 2.8-inch LCD, 4GB of storage, and a rechargeable battery. Oh, and if you’re feeling particularly retro, you can hook it up over TV-out and play on the big screen. Not bad — and it’s for sale if you’re as in love as we are. Video after the break.

[Via 8bitfix; thanks, Gusto]

Continue reading Portable NES modded into a cartridge, hearts modded into love

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Portable NES modded into a cartridge, hearts modded into love originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 18:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CyberNotes: Remember the Milk – Free Simple Task Manager

This article was written on September 01, 2006 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Free For All Friday

You can’t but help remember the name, “Remember The Milk.” I’m sure we’ve all said something along the lines of “Remember ________” and without fail at sometime or another we’ve forgotten because we didn’t write it down. If you’re having trouble mentally managing your to-do list, you may want to check out “remember the milk,” a task manager in beta. Their slogan says: ”The best way to manage your tasks. Never forget the milk (or anything else) again.” They’ll be celebrating their 1 year anniversary in October and have made many improvements and updates to the service along the way.

Remember The Milk Logo

– Getting An Account–

Signing up for an account is simple and free, and there’s nothing to download because everything is web based. This means you can access your list just about anywhere that you have an Internet connection.  I literally registered for my account in under a minute. If you don’t speak English, there are 12 different languages that they support. They are: Bosnian, German, Swedish, Turkish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch, UK English, French, Japanese, Brazilian, Portuguese, and Spanish.

Getting Organized–

Yes, there are lots of task managers out there, however this one is particularly nice because of a tabbed user interface that makes it simple to manage different to-do lists. You’re able to have as many to-do lists as necessary. Just like other such services, you’re able to share and publish your list. An additional feature that they offer is the capability to send your to-do list via text message to your phone. It makes getting organized simple and easy and leaves you with no excuses to be unorganized.

With one click you’re able to see what’s due today, tomorrow, or a week from today.  You’re also able to prioritize with a color coded/numbered method.  If a task is due today it is displayed in bold.  If it is overdue, it will have an underline.  You’re also able to estimate your time for tasks and postpone a task to a later date.

–Managing Tasks–

I’m all about using RSS to manage everything and make life simpler. RTM (Remember the Milk) allows you to receive your lists via RSS, email or instant messaging. Instant messengers services that are supported include Skype, AIM, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, Jabber, MSN and Yahoo! You’re able to add tasks no matter where you are via email or from your phone. Another feature that I like is the ability to view tasks on my Google calendar (you can also view them with Apple iCal).

They offer a “Quick Add” which allows you to add important dates and times you find on the Internet to your account. This service is available for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera. You could use this for online bill services, exam dates taken from an online syllabus, and the list goes on and on. Another example they offer is to keep track of an auction ending on eBay. You would highlight the date and time and then click the “add to RTM” bookmark. It’s as simple as highlighting the date and clicking, and your task has been added.

–Other Helpful Features–

Tagging seems to be the popular feature for any service to have lately, and RTM is no exception. You can create tags for different entries such as exams, grocery store, bills, etc.  This makes recalling important dates related to the tags easy and convenient.

They also have a good sized list of keyboard shortcuts (some of them pictured below) to save you some time.

Shortcut Key

-Overall-

Overall, Remember The Milk is a helpful to-do list service that has some great Web 2.0 features implemented.  If you haven’t tried out such a service and you’re still using the paper, pencil, post-it note method, check it out. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how simple, easy, and convenient services such as RTM can be. And of course, it’s free!

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Blackra1n jailbreak now available for iPhone OS 3.1.2, iPod touch 3G


Wow, judging by our tips jar we’d say you’re all pretty darn excited about Geohot’s Blackra1n jailbreak, which lets you open up iPhone OS 3.1.2 devices including the iPod touch 3G and new iPhone 3GSs — but you can’t unlock yet, so don’t get any big ideas about switching carriers. Windows-only at the moment, but with this level of enthusiasm out there we can’t imagine a Mac version is far behind.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Blackra1n jailbreak now available for iPhone OS 3.1.2, iPod touch 3G originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sprint HTC Hero now on sale to everyone

Sure, you’ve been able to get it a little early in one way or another, but the Sprint HTC Hero officially launched today, which means a second US carrier is now selling an Android device. High five. Now, is anyone spending the $179 ($479 off-contract)? And Sprint customers, we have to ask: Hero or Pre?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

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Sprint HTC Hero now on sale to everyone originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo intros SL410 and SL510 ThinkPads overseas

Do you love Lenovo laptops, but at a distance? We thought so. That’s why we’re happy to report that a variation of the company’s SL400 and SL500 laptops have been announced for non-US markets. The devices, creatively dubbed the SL410 and SL510, will be offered with a choice of a Core 2 Duo T5870, T6670, P7570 or Celeron 900, T3000, or T3100 CPUs, a 16:9, 14- or 15.6-inch LED display, GMA 4500MH, 4500MHD or AMD M92-S2 XT GPUs, a range of hard drives up to 500GB, 1GB to 4GB of RAM, and both contain multitouch trackpads. The laptops are said to be retailing starting at 5600 Yuan (or around $820) for the SL410 — we haven’t heard a price on the SL510 yet. No word on when these models will be headed stateside, but we’re certainly going to do our best to find out.

[Via Cloned In China]

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Lenovo intros SL410 and SL510 ThinkPads overseas originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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David Hockney paints with his iPhone, results not typical

Artist David Hockney isn’t afraid of picking up new media — over the years, he’s used Polaroids, photocollages, and even fax machines to create his art — in addition to regular, old-fashioned painting. Now, he’s taken to using his iPhone to create new works of art. The resultant “paintings” have been exhibited at the Tate Gallery and Royal Academy in London, as well as galleries in Los Angeles and Germany. Like artist Jorge Colombo (whose iPhone fingerpainting was featured on the cover of The New Yorker), Hockney uses the iPhone app Brushes to create his works. In an interview with the New York Review of Books, Hockney notes that he prefers and still uses the original version of the app, not the more recent updates. Hmm… maybe the reason our own Brushes paintings stink is because we’re using the update!

[Via All Things D]

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David Hockney paints with his iPhone, results not typical originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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