Hasta La Gadget!

Up to this point, I had never let my two young children listen to music through headphones. Maybe it’s because their hard-of-hearing daddy is paying for all the hundreds of hours he spent rocking out with his Walkman and, later, iPod, cranked to 11.

But the Disney Princess Headphones Jr. for Kids ($19.95 list) actually softened me up to the idea. The headphones fit my 2-year-old daughter perfectly in both size and style—very pink, cushy, and comfy, with glamorous pictures of Cinderella, Belle, and Aurora on each side (what more could a toddler girly girl want?). But the best part is the volume control; the loudest level is softer than even I would have sanctioned. And there’s a big instant-mute button, too. Very handy.

Post by Stephanie Chang

We’re not quite sure what sort of black magic it’s worked to make it happen, but it looks like Amazon is really taking the art of firmware updates to a new level with the latest upgrade for the Kindle. Not only does it finally add native PDF support (which would have gotten folks rightly excited on its own), but it promises to boost battery life by a full 85 percent. That translates to about seven days of use with the wireless on, and is apparently the result of a six month firmware improvement and testing program — can we get these folks working on other devices? Naturally, the latest firmware will be shipping on all new Kindles right away (just not the DX, it seems), and it will be pushed as a free update to existing Kindle 2s via Whispernet, although there’s no ETA on that just yet.

Kindle firmware update promises 85 percent battery boost, native PDF reader originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Amazon  | Email this | Comments

Several Palm Pre customers have reported major problems with their handset’s online backup system, resulting in the loss of phone numbers, calendar events, memos and other data.

The issue stems from corrupted backups, according to Pre enthusiast blog PreCentral. The Pre backs up its data as a “Palm Profile” online, and it only stores the most recent backup. That means if the most recent backup becomes corrupt, Pre owners could not revert to an earlier, non-corrupt profile.

“We are seeing a small number of customers who have experienced issues transferring their Palm Profile information to another Palm webOS device,” a Palm spokesman said in a statement. “Palm and Sprint are working closely together to support these customers to successfully transfer their information to the new device.”

Though Palm says only a small number of customers were affected, the PreCentral blog said it had received several tips throughout the day suggesting this was a widespread issue. Recently, T-Mobile Sidekick owners faced a similar problem. Microsoft, T-Mobile and Danger hosted the data of all of T-Mobile’s Sidekick users in the cloud, and recently the server crashed, losing everything. These incidents are rare, but they underscore the risk of trusting a third party to secure your data over the web.

Via DaringFireball

See Also:

• 6 Reasons Why the Palm Pre Is Special
• Palm Pre
• Apple Blocks Palm Pre iTunes Syncing Again
• Nothing Unusual in Palm Pre Return Rates, Say Analysts

Continue reading MSI eagerly supports HD video on its MT-V887 PMP

MSI eagerly supports HD video on its MT-V887 PMP originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 14:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Cloned in China  |  iMP3.net  | Email this | Comments

For this week’s Photoshop Contest, I asked you to envision true disasters befalling the dreaded Black Friday happening later this week. And yeah, I think it’s safe to say crappy sales aren’t as bad as this stuff.