Hasta La Gadget!

Uh, whoa. Bloomberg just reported that Palm is putting itself up for sale and that offers will potentially come in this week. That’s pretty wild news, considering CEO Jon Rubinstein was adamant just a few days ago that Palm had a plan to get profitable — even while his company’s stock price went on a buyout-rumor fueled rollercoaster. Bloomberg says that Palm’s already retained Goldman Sachs and Qatalyst Partners to find a buyer, with HTC (yes!) and Lenovo both expressing interest — and Dell’s apparently already taken a pass. Naturally none of these parties are saying anything on the record — we just pinged Palm and they declined comment — but if this is true, things are about to get wild, and fast. We’ll keep you updated, stay tuned.

[Thanks, Sean]

Bloomberg: Palm is up for sale originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do we need an excuse to show you a gallery of the most amazing, mind-bending mechanical spiders ever to emerge from the fevered brains of roboticists?

No, we do not.

Something about multilegged creatures just seems to fire the imagination of robot builders. Their stability, agility and — let’s face it — creepiness are hard to match.

They’re fast, resilient and occasionally cute. They climb walls, leap off buildings and spy on enemies.

The amazing thing is how many people seem to be building multilegged robots lately, from NASA to British defense firms to French performance artists.

Technically, not all of these are spiders. Many stand on six legs, not eight, and some were modeled after cockroaches rather than tarantulas. Details, details.

On to the spider robots.

Above:

La Princesse

Ironically dubbed “La Princesse,” this 50-foot spider bot roamed the streets of Liverpool in 2008. It was an art project that, instead of sending people fleeing in a panic, drew crowds of admirers. La Princesse was constructed by the French performance art firm, La Machine.

Photo: Matthew Andrews

It was an interesting week in green tech, as Inhabitat explored the past and future of solar technology. We dug up the world’s first modern solar panel (still working after 60 years!) and wrapped our brains around MIT’s plan to create super-efficient photovoltaic panels by folding them up like origami. Not to be outdone, IBM unveiled plans to roll out a new solar desalination system that could transform entire expanses of desert into rivers.

Solar power also took to the skies this week as the Solar Impulse plane made its first successful flight. And speaking of futuristic transportation, Minority Report-style podcars may be just around the corner if this solar powered urban transit system takes off. We were wowed by Finland’s new all-electric supercar, which will be vying for the Progressive Auto X Prize this summer.

We also took a look at several innovative kid-friendly designs including an incredible Game Boy made from paper and a biometric baby monitoring alarm clock that lets parents monitor their babies’ temperature and heart-rate remotely, as well as cue up lullabies from anywhere.

The past week also produced several promising developments from the realm of energy storage as Hitachi announced that it’s developing lithium-ion batteries that last twice as long. And finally, meet BOB, a battery the size of a building that is capable of powering an entire town in Texas. The gigantic sodium sulfur backup battery can store up to 4 megawatts of power for up to 8 hours.

Inhabitat’s Week In Green: solar panels, solar planes, solar trains originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 22:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Entelligence is a column by technology strategist and author Michael Gartenberg, a man whose desire for a delicious cup of coffee and a quality New York bagel is dwarfed only by his passion for tech. In these articles, he’ll explore where our industry is and where it’s going — on both micro and macro levels — with the unique wit and insight only he can provide.

A few months ago, some videos leaked from Microsoft showed a book-like device with two touch screens and a stylus. The user is seen researching, creating and designing content in a manner that looks both intuitive and innovative. Called Courier, the product doesn’t (yet) exist beyond the conceptual videos, but it shows Microsoft is thinking in some new ways. Ross Rubin discussed Courier’s role for creative professionals last week but I think there’s even more at stake here — I think the concept shows computing models are evolving. Here’s what Courier represents to the market:

The pen isn’t dead. The pen’s been searching for a place in computing for more than a decade. We’ve seen experiments in all different types of pen computing from the PC to the PDA and the phone. They’ve all pretty much failed, and today’s hot commodity is capacitive touch. Microsoft’s Courier video shows how the pen can play a prominent role in the evolution of computing interfaces. While fingers are great for many things, there are tasks better served by the ability to manipulate at the pixel level. Handwriting and the ability to take written notes is one of them. Content creation and painting is another. It’s clear Microsoft knows all this — in addition to Courier, there’s the Deskterity project that melds pen and touch on Surface.

Continue reading Entelligence: What can Courier teach the market?

Entelligence: What can Courier teach the market? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 20:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Man, Microsoft is not even trying to be coy with its Pink launch tomorrow — these happy and attractive young people pictured on the livestream page are clearly being delighted by the “Turtle” portrait slider that keeps leaking all over the place. Or maybe they’re just stoked they can use SanDisk microSD cards with it — that’s how the kids react to removable storage nowadays, right?

In other news, Reuters says the phones won’t actually be called Pink, and that they’re likely scheduled to ship this summer, so that’s something, we suppose. Honestly, we just don’t know what Microsoft is going to offer here that’ll be more attractive to teens than Windows Phone 7 — we’re still hoping to be wowed tomorrow, but we’ve got a suspicion we’ll just be confused and sad. Which isn’t a bad way to market something to teens, we suppose. Microsoft Pink: it’s like having bad feelings.

P.S.- If you squint just right, that dude totally looks like a young Bill Gates. He also loves cuddles.

Continue reading Microsoft Pink livestream page offers glimpse of Turtle, Pink name changing at launch

Microsoft Pink livestream page offers glimpse of Turtle, Pink name changing at launch originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Apr 2010 18:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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