Hasta La Gadget!

You’ve seen the mockup of the Microsoft Store, now step inside for a look around the real thing. We asked Phoenix-area stringer Dennis Tarwood to head over to the snooty mall and check things out. Here’s what he experienced:

I’m in Scottsdale today to visit the off-Broadway tryout of a Microsoft store. (MSFT goes to the big city next week when they open in Southern California. As you can see from the photos, it bears a haunting resemblance to Apple Stores. (Despite Microsoft’s desire to distance their retail outfit from that of Mr. Jobs, the fact is, they did hire one of the same designers as a consultant, among other things.)

Though Windows 7 starts belting out its big opening number today, we’re here to see the whole show from Xbox to Zune. Still, the chanting before the store opening—as brought to us by brightly-shirted store employees—told us what today was: “Windows! Seven! Windows! Seven!”

Among those waiting in line were John Hernandez, an unemployed south Phoenix gentleman who jumped in line around 6 pm Wednesday and found himself in 23rd place. “I’m not much of a computer person,” said John. However, he heard there might be free stuff, so he stuck out the night outside the Scottsdale Fashion Square Mall, and says he received food and drink from helpful Microsoft staff.

Most of the line, however, showed up this morning, including George Nesbitt. An IT third-shifter, he headed over around 7:00 am for the 9:30 am opening and found himself #134. Breakfast had already been served by 8:30 as energy bars and water kept the hardy-ish line nourished.

At 9:30, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner came out to bow and cut the ribbon, while another exec, David Porter, contented himself to stay out with the crowd and provide exhuberant high-fives to the team when the store flew open.

The store was touted as a local shop, just your Mom-and-Pop monolith in a town run by a former Wal-Mart exec. Towards that end, comically large checks with serious donations of $25k to $50k were presented to well-known local charities and partnerships announced, complete with training and software. (You’ll hear $1 mil mentioned with one check, but most of that was software donation. Your charitable mileage may vary.)

Inside the store, though, a Southwest feel was curiously absent as sleek and stylish took the day. Entry into the left-hand side of the store greets you with one of a few Microsoft Surface tables scattered through the store, available to help you find the product you need or simply get your fingers virtually wet.

The only local touches that were visible were Arizona Cardinals-skinned hardware and Grand Canyon panoramas on the constantly-shifting screens lining the walls. These changing panoramas gave the store an unexpected sense of space and breathing room on a very hectic first day.

No product is left behind as laptops from numerous manufacturers always flank you from the right and Windows 7 and Media Center PCs cover the wall to your left. A kids section rests in the back left in front of the relatively few shelves of PC software (mostly games).

Center back yields to the Microsoft Answers Suite (not a bar), where Technical Advisors (not Geniuses—or Gurus) meet you to take your hardware in and make it well. One gentleman with a dead laptop and an Xbox in for its fourth replacement received more help from Microsoft today than most celebrities in a year.

Oh, don’t rely on the store employees to be color-coded for your convenience. Microsoft Store employees are empowered to wear one of four colored shirts as desired, so you’ll have to ask your Customer Advisor to direct you to your Product Advisor or your Technical Advisor. At least that’s my advice.

In the end, it is an awful lot like an Apple Store, albeit one with Surface tables, Xboxes and more employee t-shirt colors. There’s no shame in that to start with, though; there’s certainly something to be said for building a show similar to the one that’s doing gangbusters down the street before taking it out on the road.

Chris Mitchell from Muninetworks.org joins us to discuss Net Neutrality and who should own the pipes.

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Originally posted at The Real Deal Podcast

(Credit:
Gizmodo)

The Dell Adamo XPS isn’t only ridiculously thin, it opens like no laptop ever seen before. Its propped-up keyboard can only be opened by sliding a finger on the lid’s heat-sensing strip. See it below to believe it…

Did your mouth drop? Because mine did. All …

Like Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, a new dual-screen device has two faces to match its double identity: It promises to be an electronic book reader and a netbook at the same time.

The Wi-Fi enabled device, called eDGe, will fold like a book and can be used as an e-reader. It will also serve as a digital notepad you can use to write notes or highlight text, send e-mails and instant messages, browse the internet and run apps, say the device’s creators. Under the hood, eDGe will be powered by Google’s Android operating system.

The left half of the eDGe will have a 9.7-inch E Ink e-paper display. Users will be able to read e-books in PDF and EPUB format and take notes or draw diagrams using a stylus. The right side of the device is a 10.1-inch LCD touchscreen that can be used to check e-mail and surf the web.

The $490 eDGe won’t be available until February, 2010, says its creator, Entourage Systems, a startup based in McLean, Virginia. But the company is taking pre-orders for the device.

Currently, e-book readers and netbooks are among the fastest-growing categories in consumer electronics. Not surprisingly, companies are trying to find ways to meld the two. Netbooks pioneer Asus, for instance, is also working on a dual-screen e-reader. Asus showed a prototype of the device at the CeBIT trade show in March and plans to unveil it at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Asus’ e-reader will likely have two color touchscreens, a speaker, a webcam and a microphone, along with the capability to make inexpensive Skype calls.

The eDGe will have an ARM processor, 4 GB storage, an SD card slot and 2 USB ports. Weighing about 2.5 pounds, eDGe’s dual screens will work together, the company says. That means a user will be able to highlight a word from the e-paper screen and drag it to a browser on the LCD screen in order to do a Google search on it. (See a list of eDGe’s specs.)

As with many hybrid devices, eDGe runs the risk of not being good enough as either an e-book reader or as a netbook. Also, eDGe doesn’t have the kind of integrated access to an e-bookstore that companies such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble can offer with their e-readers. However, because eDGe uses the EPUB format, its customers can access the 1 million free, public-domain books digitized by Google. To get the latest Dan Brown bestseller, Entourage says it is building its own e-book store and inking deals with publishers.

Still, the eDGe packs in some appealing extras. The device will come with a text-to-speech function and a 1.3-megapixel webcam. It will offer about 16 hours of battery life in e-reader mode and up to 6 hours when running the LCD screen, says Entourage Systems.

See Also:

• Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader …
• New Asus Color E-Reader Folds Like a Book
• 5 Things That Make Us Want Barnes & Noble’s Nook E-Reader
• Sony’s E-Book Reader Adds Touchscreen, Wireless Downloads

Photo: eDGe/ Entourage Systems

Epson’s P-6000 ($599.99) and P-7000 ($799.99) Multimedia Viewers were always a bit too rich for our blood, but those hemming and hawing might just have the final bit of motivation they need to pull the trigger. A forthcoming firmware update for the 80GB and 160GB (respectively) photo viewers brings along a hotly-anticipated new feature: tethering. Put simply, pro shooters (and novices, we guess) can now connect select Nikon and Canon DSLRs to their photo viewer via USB, and in real time shots will be simultaneously captured to the camera’s memory card and the viewer’s hard drive. Moreover, the update includes a remote shutter release function for added convenience, though we’re sad to say that the retail pricing of these buggers hasn’t budged. If you’re a proud owner already, keep your eyes glued to Epson‘s support site — the download should go live in “late-October.”

[Via Slashgear]

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Epson adds tethering, remote shutter release to P-6000 and P-7000 photo viewers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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