Hasta La Gadget!

So that meeting a few days ago where financial analysts physically beat a few choice WinMo 7 nuggets out of Robbie Bach yielded something else that’s pretty interesting, too: the expansion of the Zune franchise. Virtually everyone and their mother has been calling for a Zunephone since the day the first Zune 30 rolled off the assembly line, and a very, very carefully-worded statement by Bach in the meeting has us believing that we could finally see it make the bold leap to GSM (or CDMA, or both) this year. In response to a question about how Zune fits into Microsoft’s mobile strategy, Bach had this to say:

“Now, your other question was about I’m getting old. Zune, so Zune has been critically successful. And the way Zune is going to be successful for us in the future is you should think of that as our media service across multiple screens. We’ll continue to have the Zune device screen. But, we now have Zune on Xbox. We have Zune on the PC. There are other places where Zune logically could go that we don’t get to talk about yet. And I think lots of different screens with that capability can go.”

If you read between the lines there, it certainly sounds like Robbie’s got his eyes on the prize — but whether Zune will come to Windows Mobile or live as its own brand remains to be seen. No guarantees, but we’re hoping all will be revealed at MWC next month.

Microsoft’s Bach says ‘there are other places where Zune logically could go’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not to be outdone by the Catholic Church with its iPod wielding Bishops and text messaging Pontiffs,
the Rev. Canon David Parrott blessed mobile phones and laptop computers today at the St. Lawrence Jewry Church in London. The service, he said, was to “remind the capital’s busy office workers that God’s grace can reach them in many ways.” Except through novelty bud earphones — those clearly belong to the devil himself.

Vicar gives his blessing to cellphones and laptops (but not to their most common uses) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Add one more piece of tech to your glasses vs. glassless 3D display battlemap, as TCL was showing off this autostereoscopic display in an odd reflective frame at its CES booth. Around the corner from a conventional RealD shutter glasses setup, it whipped through several animated 3D renderings similar to those from Alioscopy and Magnetic3D. The frame made it hard to tell but it seemed to have a little less pop than the competition, with slightly better clarity. All the glassless displays we saw this year used similar lenticular lens technology applied to 1080p HDTV screens to achieve their affect, with mostly similar results, with so many players, there should be plenty of billboards and in-store opportunities for you to get a look yourself soon enough.

TCL completes the no-glasses 3D trifecta at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get there faster and enjoy the drive with the upcoming JVC KW-NT3HDT. For deep-pocketed car enthusiasts, this attractive installed navigator provides quality map data as well as better-sounding HD radio. The navigator includes maps for all 50 states, Canada, and Puerto Rico, and text-to-speech for street-name pronunciation, plus a host of useful extras including lane guidance, speed limit display, adaptive volume control (it raises the volume when engine noise is higher), and Bluetooth for hands-free calling.

The 6 million points-of-interest database is oddly small, but you can update it by downloading free PC Link software, searching for new POIs on Google Maps, saving your results on an SD card, and uploading them to the navigator. That’s something you’ll never do, but at least you know you could. You’ll also get two-way iPod control and the HD radio includes iTunes tagging. All this will run you $1199.95 when the KW-NT3HDT is available in March.

Shouldn’t the whole Pokemon thing have been over a long time ago? And yet new products keep rolling out. Even if you don’t know a Squirtle from a Charizard, it’s hard not to like the new Pokewalker accessory, which lets budding Pokemon trainers take their creatures with them.

The Pokewalker comes with Nintendo DS Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver versions of the game, and can wirelessly transfer any character from either game. By walking with the character, players earn Watts, which are used within the Pokewalker to encounter and catch wild Pokemon or search for hidden items. Watts can also be transferred to the Nintendo DS games to unlock new routes.

As if that weren’t enough, and it certainly should be, there are special versions of certain Pokemon that can be found only on the Pokewalker. And dig on this: Players can wirelessly connect two Pokewalkers to trade items. Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver (with Pokewalker accessory) will hit shelves on March 14.