Hasta La Gadget!

Google plans to push a software update to Nexus One phones that will address some of the “spotty 3G” issues that customers have complained about, a range of problems that have generally resulted in degraded 3G service.

“Ivar,” self-identified on the Google Nexus One forums as a Google employee, said that the company will push a fix “in the next week or so”.

“Our engineers have uncovered specific cases for which a software fix
should improve connectivity to 3G for some users,” Ivar wrote. “We are testing this
fix now, initial results are positive, and if everything progresses as
planned, we will provide an over-the-air software update to your phone
in the next week or so.  It may be, however, that users are experiencing
problems as a result of being on the edge or outside of 3G coverage,
which a product fix cannot address.”

Hat tip to Wired.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010, 10am Pacific. The moment when Steve Jobs (or Phil Schiller) will step onstage and (probably) announce the Apple Tablet is almost here. Tune in NOW at live.gizmodo.com, so you don’t miss a bit of our liveblog.

So far, we’ve got our usual pre-game countdown, with observations of the line, celebrity look-a-like sightings, angry rants about how cold it’s going to be in SF, and photos of what people are wearing. Us? A tasteful Target and Walmart ensemble, naturally.

And if you’re a developer, work in the industry or are a member of the press that will be at the event tomorrow, email Brian Lam (his email’s in the masthead on the left <—) for info on a meetup tomorrow night. [Liveblog]

The U.S. Patent Office granted Apple a number of patents just before the expected launch of its tablet Wednesday morning, and surprise! One of them concerns an Apple tablet.

However, the patent in question, “Proximity Detector in Handheld Device“, doesn’t cover the tablet itself, but a means of data entry within it.

In short, the patent defines what a tablet or other portable device would have to do to detect an object approaching it, determine what that object was, and then provide an appropriate response. The patent describes how a tablet could detect a finger or other stylus before it actually touches the surface of the tablet or touchscreen, and then deliver the appropriate response:

“The processor instructs the display device to display one or more
GUI
elements in response to detected object, and perform actions associated
with the GUI
element when an input is made at the GUI element via the input means,”
in the words of the patent.

The tablet could perform detection
based on “capacitive, electric field, inductive, hall effect, reed, eddy
current, magneto resistive, optical shadow, optical visual light,
optical IR, optical color recognition, ultrasonic, acoustic emission,
radar, sonar, conductive or resistive” according to Patently

Apple, who is credited with discovering the newly-granted patent.

Apple was also granted patents concerning the management of wireless
channel bandwidth, with applications in video conferencing; color
management, so that colors are accurately represented across a range of
devices; an image-rotation patent, that orients the image to the same
orientation as to when the image was originally captured; and two other
patents, covering switching IC ports to card slots, and timeline-based
manipulation of audio and video tracks.

ASUS exec confirms Eee Pad tablet plans, picks a bad day originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, we obviously can’t confirm this, but we just got two very interesting images of what certainly looks like a prototype Apple tablet, or what could be the tablet bolted down to a table. It’s big — really big — and it’s running what clearly looks like an iPhone app, although we’ve never seen an iPhone app with that interface or at that resolution before. We also see a WiFi icon and a cell service indicator, although tragically there’s no carrier listed. As far as fakes go, this is as convincing as it gets, so either this is the real deal or someone deserves a hearty congratulations.

On a totally separate note, we also received a tip claiming to have some specs — we can’t verify any of this either, but we’re told that the device will have a 10-inch screen and look like a larger iPhone with a MacBook-like aluminum back, and that pricing will run $800 on contract with Verizon and $1000 without when it arrives in March. We’re also told that the official name remains a secret and that Apple employees are still calling it by the codename of “K48” — a name we last heard in May from the same source that pegged the iPhone 3GS exactly. This source also tells us that the iPhone will be coming to Verizon as well and that we’ll see iLife ’10 tomorrow, but there won’t be any MacBook updates. A relatively safe set of predictions — which is why we sort of believe them.

Just 13 hours to go — we’ll find out if any of this is the real deal soon enough.

Update: Based on some rough measurements, that screen does appear to be between 9- and 10-inches diagonal. Additionally, it looks as though there could be a front-facing camera on the opposite side of the home button (up top in these photos) due to that cutout section, though the images are really too grainy to know for certain.

Update 2: Our source has shared another photograph, this time showing an iPhone resting on the tablet for comparison. Check it out after the break (bigger image for inspection available in the gallery).

Update 3: Gizmodo managed to snag some images of what appears to be the back of the tablet from Chinese forum WeiPhone before they were mysteriously yanked. WeiPhone is the same forum that leaked the K48 name way back when, so who knows — the image shows what could be RF testing, but one of them feels kind of render-y to us. Check ’em all in the gallery!

Continue reading Is this the Apple tablet? (update: new images)

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Tablet PCs

Is this the Apple tablet? (update: new images) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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