Mar 11

$92 MD500 Android tablet from Hott actually looks pretty cool

Posted in: Android, android tablet, AndroidTablet, MID, tablet, Today's Chili
Hott's $92 MD500 Android tablet actually looks pretty cool

At this point we really need another tablet like we need another hole in the head, but when this one could cost around $100 and still look quite good, well, it’s worth talking about. It’s the Hott MD500, an Android device with a 4.8-inch, 800 x 480 screen and plenty of OS customizations to make it rather more media-friendly, including the ability to “play every codec” according to the guy doing the demonstration. We’ll believe that when we see it, but it is shown playing a 720p clip from the cinematic masterpiece Tokyo Drift without too much trouble. The somewhat iPhone-esque design looks very nice and is much smaller than a comparable Archos 5. The price is $92 to distributors without any flash memory and, since you can get a 4GB microSD card for a few bucks these days (even a legit one), we wouldn’t be surprised if these sell for $115 or $120. Whether they’ll ever hit retail in the US is, of course, another question. Video demonstration is embedded below if you want to hear the hype, just try not to lose your breakfast every time this is enthusiastically called an iPad killer.

Continue reading $92 MD500 Android tablet from Hott actually looks pretty cool

$92 MD500 Android tablet from Hott actually looks pretty cool originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 11

Stunning Revelation: Cell Phone Industry Draws Most Complaints

Posted in: att, Sprint, t-mobile, Today's Chili, Verizon Wireless

Samsung_Reclaim.jpg

And you thought it was only your carrier that sucked. The Better Business Bureau reports that the cell phone industry was the one most complained about during 2009, with a total of 37,477 complaints, according to the Wall Street Journal–a repeat showing from 2008.
On the bright side, BBB spokesperson Alison Southwick said in the report that cell phone companies have a high resolution rate with customers that file complaints.
Bringing up the number two spot are cable and satellite TV companies, with banks landing in third.
The report said that lately, companies offering free trials for credit scores, teeth whiteners, and weight-loss supplements are also perennial “high scorers.” I have a headache now just from thinking about some of these.
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Mar 11

Virgin Galactic Lands Legal Protection Against Space Tourists

Posted in: science, space, Space Tech, Today's Chili
Virgin_Galactic_SpaceShipTwo.jpg
Enter at your own risk–or so should read a sign on the door of every passenger spaceship in the future.
Space tourism operators like Virgin Galactic have won a legal reprieve against potential litigation by surviving family members in the event of passenger injuries or death during flight, according to Space.com.
“This helps give us a really solid insurance foundation” for the business, Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn said in the report regarding the new legislation, which was signed into law on February 27 by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson. “It includes the principle of informed consent. Participants will be required to sign a waiver before flight.”
The possibility of lawsuits with staggering sums attached is only higher in the space tourism industry’s early years, thanks to the high costs that will invariably draw enthusiasts with very high net worth statements. The law won’t hold in the event that the space tourism operator is found guilty of gross negligence or willful misconduct, according to the report.
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Mar 11

Opera Mini 5 on Android mini review

Posted in: Android, feature, Features, Opera, review, Today's Chili
Opera Mini 5 on Android mini review

Opera’s Mini 5 beta finally hit Android in the wee hours of this morning and, while writing about what it looks like is nice, we thought a little walk-through to demonstrate the impressive speed of the thing was worthwhile. So we have a short video for you below, with a comparison against the stock Android browser, plus some impressions of just how it is to use. So, click on through, won’t you?

Continue reading Opera Mini 5 on Android mini review

Opera Mini 5 on Android mini review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 11

More Numbers Point to Android Gains on the iPhone

Posted in: Android, BlackBerry, Google, iPhone, Microsoft, palm, Smartphones, Today's Chili

nexus one.jpg

Industry research firm comScore has unveiled the latest round of wireless industry numbers, and it’s looking better and better for Google’s smartphone OS.
Over the past three months, Android’s share of the U.S. market shot up from 2.8 percent to 7.1 percent of mobile subscribers, a 154 percent increase, according to Fortune. In comparison, Apple grew from 24.8 percent to 25.1 percent; obviously that’s many more customers to begin with, but the numbers are still telling. RIM also grew from 41.3 percent to 43 percent.
If RIM and Apple are staying put, relatively speaking, it’s Microsoft and Palm that have the most to fear. Microsoft dropped from 19.7 percent to 15.7 percent of mobile subscribers, while Palm slid from 7.8 percent to 5.7 percent.
Since these numbers reflect mobile subscribers rather than sales, I’d guess that Microsoft and Palm are both losing subscriber share as people abandon their older WinMo and Palm OS devices for shiny new BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android handsets.
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Mar 11

TiVo returning to the UK thanks to partnership with Virgin Media

Posted in: dvr, set-top-box, tivo, Today's Chili, YouTube

It looks like TiVo’s freshly minted Premiere hardware will soon be setting sail eastwards as The Daily Telegraph is reporting Virgin Media’s next generation set-top box will be built around it. Loyal readers of Engadget HD will already be aware that TiVo and Virgin hooked up last November and this latest news relates to the first hardware to be spawned from that relationship. According to TiVo CEO Tom Rogers, the Premiere will “heavily inspire the development work” going into Virgin’s next TV appendage, which may or may not mean that the cable company will simply rebadge the well-received new boxes. What’s assured though is much greater integration with online content, with search linking you out to Amazon, BBC’s iPlayer, YouTube or good old standard broadcast channels. The whole thing’s about unlimited choice, apparently, and should be showing up on the Queen’s isles by the end of this year. We can wait, but we’d rather we didn’t have to.

TiVo returning to the UK thanks to partnership with Virgin Media originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 11

T-Mobile Targets March 14 for HSPA+ Modem

Posted in: 4G, hspa, t-mobile, Today's Chili, usb
T-Mobile_webConnect_Rocket_HSPA+_Modem.jpg
T-Mobile announced that the webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick, the first HSPA+ device for the U.S., will be available beginning on Sunday, March 14. HSPA+ is interesting because it could enable 4G LTE-like speeds using existing 3G infrastructure, as we found in an early hands-on test.
The carrier announced the device at MWC in February, and is also targeting late 2010 for broad national availability of HSPA+. Right now, it’s still just for Philadelphia, although we should see several major cities light up with HSPA+ on both coasts well before the end of 2010, according to the carrier.
The webConnect Rocket USB Laptop Stick retails for $99.99 with a two-year contract and an Even More webConnect data plan. $60 per month gets you 5GB, while $30 gets you just 200MB; both charge 20 cents per megabyte over that. Another new option, Even More Plus webConnect, drops the annual contract and lowers the monthly prices by $10 in each case, but raises the up-front price of the modem.
This is all looking really interesting; only the 5GB cap will prove worrisome. It’s bad enough on 3G, but as we move to faster networks, that will only become more limiting as time goes on–especially that T-Mobile is already touting the modem’s ability to “download large files” and “watch video from a laptop on the go.”

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Mar 11

Motorola Puts Bing on Android Phones

Posted in: Google, Phones, search, Today's Chili

Motorola will be loading Microsoft’s Bing search onto its Android cellphones in China this month, ousting Google on its own smartphone platform. Motorola Android models will get the new feature when they are launched in this quarter.

Google isn’t being completely ejected from its own party: Bing, along with an alternative to Google maps, will be offered as a choice to customers when they first fire up the phone. We imagine that, as Google is the second most popular search engine after Baidu, that most people will still opt for it over Bing.

Why would Motorola do this? Speculation from the Wall Street Journal says that Motorola is planning for a future when Google may pull out of China. Reuters says that “Having search alternatives on the Android phones should lessen Motorola’s dependence on Google.” We have a much less conspiratorial explanation: Money. Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo pay company’s to make their search the default. The Mozilla Foundation, for example, received $66 million from Google in 2007 for search royalties.

Could it be that, in an effort to increase its market share, Bing is offering more money than Google? Perhaps Motorola is just playing it smart, adding the new, money-spinning Bing while keeping Google and its own customers happy by keeping the old options around?

It’s a moot point anyway, we guess. Pretty much anyone knows how to type google.com into the URL-bar.

Motorola: Microsoft To Provide Search Functions On Its New Phones [WSJ]

Motorola, Microsoft in deal to put Bing on phones [Reuters]

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com


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Mar 11

Stihl’s autumn calendar automatically rips through to tomorrow

Posted in: ad, ads, advertising, Today's Chili

Unless they’re incredibly quiet or potentially explosive, you won’t find us waxing poetic (or even prosaic) about leaf blowers. But if a company that produced leaf blowers made a motorized calendar that tore off its own pages? We’d tell you about that in a heartbeat — even if the wonderfully wasteful contraption turned out to be a viral ad by agency Euro RSCG rather than an actual household organizer, and even if its pages aren’t nearly as saucy as Stihl’s usual NSFW fare. Believe it or not, there’s no blade inside that brushed aluminum shell; the process works by ripping out the bookbinding thread along the calendar’s spine using a motorized reel. Join us in celebrating the wonder of pressed dead wood floating to earth all by its lonesome with a short video after the break.

Continue reading Stihl’s autumn calendar automatically rips through to tomorrow

Stihl’s autumn calendar automatically rips through to tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 11

NES harmonicas hit eBay, three lucky gamers cheer

Posted in: diy, Today's Chili

Remember the HarmoNESica? A brief refresher, then: it’s what happens when you’ve got a copy of Super Tecmo Bowl, a Pocket Pal harmonica, and the desire to create a unique musical instrument. But if you don’t have any of the aforementioned ingredients and just want the end result, eBay’s got you covered as usual — three HarmoNESicas have been gathering bids at the online auction house this week. Whether your pleasure be Dick Tracy, Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda, there’s a harmonica to match; and if (for some reason) you want to actually play one of the games, you’ll find the ROM guts tastefully included. But before you make your bid, remember: there’s more than one way to skin an NES cartridge.

NES harmonicas hit eBay, three lucky gamers cheer originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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