Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve got the DROID in our hands… and it is sweet. Moto claims that this is the thinnest full QWERTY slider on the market, and we’re apt to believe it. The phone is incredibly slick and solid, and we’re definitely looking forward to putting it through its paces. We’ll have more photos, video, and a full review coming, so stay tuned!

Some quick observations on the phone:

• That big screen is killer. Bright, crisp, and tons of room for your icons and widgets.
• Speed is noticeably improved — particularly when moving from app to app. We did notice that some of the home screen scrolling looked laggy.
• Android 2.0 is definitely cleaned up — but it’s most definitely still Android
• The browser seems significantly improved — pages now load up in a fully zoomed-out mode, and the load times and scrolling are way snappier.
• The keyboard takes some getting used to, and it suffers from a similar hand-position issue as the G1, but it’s fairly usable. We think it’ll be second nature once we spend some time with it.
• Facebook is integrated into accounts, which means some of that BLUR functionality is here (though now it’s part of Android 2.0 natively). The good news is that when you add a Facebook account you can choose to pull all Facebook info and contacts, or just info related to your existing contacts — a real clutter buster.

Update: We’ve added a new gallery, and video is on the way!

Update 2: Video is up after the break! More coming too…

Update 3: And we’ve got a browser speed test to round things out.

Update 4: We’ve added another gallery of the car and home docks, which are pretty neat — the phone detects the dock magnetically, and switches to the appropriate mode. We’re told that there’ll also be third-party docks, and that Google’s the one behind the different interface modes, so this could be just the tip of the iceberg.

Continue reading Motorola DROID first hands-on! (update: video, impressions, more pics)

Filed under: Cellphones

Motorola DROID first hands-on! (update: video, impressions, more pics) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple recently told the media that its “holiday lineup is set,” meaning there will be no new Apple products for the rest of the year. That means for the next few months, Apple fanatics have nothing better to do but speculate, trade rumors and argue among themselves while they wait for the Cupertino, California, company to deliver a touchscreen tablet, rumored for an early 2010 release.

Why not pass the time with some creative fun? A few impressive mock-up illustrations of the fabled Apple tablet have surfaced on the web (like the one above), and we’d love to see even better ones. That’s why we’re hosting a contest inviting Wired.com readers to produce their own illustrations of the highly anticipated Apple tablet.

We’re handing out swanky JAYS V-Jays headphones ($100 value) to the winners of either one of two categories: Most Realistic Mock-Up, for anyone who can create the most realistic, convincing illustration of an Apple tablet based on the consensus of various rumor reports; and Most Creative Mock-Up, for anyone who can dream up the Apple tablet that we all really want.

A few notes: Even though many anonymous sources have described Apple’s tablet as a “larger iPhone,” you’re unlikely to win if all you do is re-size a photo of an iPhone. That would be yawn-inducing. Challenge yourselves artistically, have some fun and make a compelling device worthy of all the hype.

The image must be your own, and by submitting it you are giving us permission to use it on Wired.com and in Wired magazine. In the Reddit widget below, please submit images that are relatively large (ideal size: 800 to 1200 pixels or larger on the longest side).

We don’t host the photos, so you’ll have to upload it somewhere else and submit a link to it. If you’re using Flickr, Picasa or another photo-sharing site to host your image, please provide a link to the image directly and not just to the photo page where it’s displayed. Using an online photo service that requires a login will not work. If your photo doesn’t show up, it’s because the URL you have entered is incorrect. Check it and make sure it ends with the image file name (XXXXXX.jpg).

If all else fails, send your submissions to itabletcontest [at] gmail [dot] com and be sure to include a description; we’ll do what we can to get your mailed submissions into the form below.

You have until 12:01 a.m. Pacific time on Monday, Nov. 2. The Gadget Lab team will judge the images and our choices will determine the two winners, although the top popular vote-getter will get bragging rights and, perhaps, a consolation prize from the stacks of swag here at Wired HQ. Photoshop your hearts out!

Illustration of an Apple tablet: Photo Giddy/Flickr

To enter the contest, submit your iTablet mock-ups in the form below. Then vote on your favorites!

Submit your mock-up

Submit an iTablet mock-up

While you can submit as many illustrations as you want, you can only submit one every 30 minutes. Images must be your own. No HTML allowed.

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A Peek just for Twitter?

(Credit:
CrunchGear)

Peek, the makers of e-mail- and messaging-only handhelds like the Peek Pronto, are working on a brand-new Peek made only for Twitter. We don’t know too many details about it, such as how much it’ll cost and if there will be …

Today, as soon as Google showed off its beta GPS navigator, the stocks of Garmin, TomTom and other companies in that industry fell into the toilet. It’s hard to compete with free Google apps, but that’s not why they’re screwed…

TomTom owns Tele Atlas, who drives the roads of the world in order to make maps, and until recently was a major map provider for Google. Nokia owns the only major competitor, Navteq, who has also provided maps for Google. Look at Google Maps now, though, and you’ll see that the entire US bears just one single copyright: Google’s.

Street View wasn’t just a neat way to get imagery to accompany the data already found in Google Maps. As it happens, it was a way to drive the same roads that were already in Google Maps, tracing them with Google’s own road teams, and—through efficiency and brute force—do away with those costly map licenses. Google has mapped the US, and will surely map the rest of the world soon enough.

This is just a timely example of Google’s monstrous growth, and the destruction it causes. Any business that trades in data or packages it for public consumption may one day face the same issues. It’s not just whether or not to compete with the behemoth, but even whether or not to go into business with it. In either case, there is a chance of being destroyed.

Garmin might have a long-standing relationship with Navteq, but they don’t own any maps. How can they compete with a free Google app when they still have to pay? (Worse, Garmin is still stuck in the hardware business, where profits are extra thin.) TomTom owns the maps, but charges $100 for their own app because they also make money licensing maps to car makers, competing GPS makers and web services—like Google. Before, Google was a fat revenue source for TomTom; now Google is a sprightly competitor.

If a unique supply of data was the only thing keeping TomTom and others on the Google chuck wagon, who will be next to fall off?

I was always afraid of spiders growing up, not because of the eight legs or the umpteen eyes, but because of the way they kill their prey. They get them in a nice convenient position, then they use their venom to hollow out their victim’s insides, until they’re just dead-eyed shells. To be killed in such a manner is my worst nightmare; perhaps I should ask TomTom how it feels.

I am a fan of Google products, and a daily user of them. This is not an attack of Google’s business practices, but an explanation of the sort of destructive innovation that has made them so huge so fast. (It’s also a warning to consider carefully any entities that gets this strong, especially if you plan on going into business with one.) Though predecessors like Microsoft experienced similar explosive growth, and grew a similar sudden global dependence, we’ve never seen the likes of Google. The GPS business isn’t the only one that will be consumed by its mighty maw before it’s had its run.

We’ve already seen the devaluation of the office apps that make Microsoft rich; we’ve already seen how Google’s experiences with Apple and others helped it create telecommunications platforms (both mobile with Android and completely virtual with Google Voice) that threaten its former partners’ existence; we’ve already seen how Google converts photos, videos, news wire stories and other former commodities into freebies by smashing the false notion of scarcity that “service” providers had literally banked on.

So who is next? What other hallowed brands will go the way of Garmin and TomTom? Corbis and Getty? Reuters and AP? Warner and Disney?

This is a tale already told, bound to be told again, but the fundamentals are worth studying—even if we use Google Docs spreadsheets to do it. I have never spoken with a spider, but I am certain they’re not evil, despite what fantasy lore tells us. They’re just doing what comes naturally, and doing a hell of a job.

Filed under: Desktops

Lenovo teases new ThinkCentre all-in-one desktop originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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