AT&T’s latest idea is actually kind of brilliant on multiple levels: totally free Wi-Fi in Times Square. And it could be how they save their network. More »
How good can a $15,000 B W 802 Diamond speaker sound? Really, really spectacular. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-13645_3-20005804-47.html” class=”origPostedBlog”The Audiophiliac/a/p
Our BFFs over at Joystiq have what seems to be a pretty solid line on PSN+, with multiple sources verifying features mostly in line with what was gleaned from that survey last year. Lucky for us, most of the features seem to have to do with giving new features to paying users, instead of taking away functionality from the existing free service. Notables include exclusive DLC, PSP Minis, and PSone Classics, “first hour” demo access, Sony Protection Plan service, and cross-game voice chat. The sources seem to be less clear on pricing for all these goodies, but someone tossed out a speculative $9.99. What everyone does seem to agree on is that we should be seeing this announced in full at Sony’s E3 media briefing a few weeks from now, so start stashing those Hamiltons!
Sony PSN+ rumors thicken for E3: new features for paid users, free users can still play online originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 10:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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There’s little reason to visit Times Square in New York unless you’re a sandal’n’socks wearing, guidebook-toting tourist (or if you work there), but AT&T just made visiting the tackiest plaza in Manhattan a little bit more attractive.
As of today, AT&T customers can grab free Wi-Fi when not buying helium balloons or miniature Empire State Buildings. This, we presume, is a way to improve the telco’s notoriously bad data performance in several metropolitan centers. The hotspot (singular) is located somewhere on 7th Avenue between 45th and 47th Streets. I like to think of it as being lodged between the McDonald’s golden arches and the TGI Friday’s sat next door. Once you have connected to any one of AT&T’s hot-spots, your phone should remember and flip over to any other AT&T spot whenever it encounters one.
This is AT&T’s first ever free outdoor hotspot, says the Wall Street Journal, and is a trial that could make its way out of tourist hell and into three other cities, and thence possibly into the world at large: Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco would be a perfect spot.
Setting up a Wi-Fi network is presumably a lot less hassle law-wise than getting permission for another cell-tower, and at least AT&T is doing something about its spotty network. It might not be an entirely fair test, though. Do the bridge-and-tunnel folks even have smartphones?
AT&T Sets Up Free Wi-Fi In Times Square to Ease iPhone Load [WSJ]
NYC photo: Charlie Sorrel
If you need a few more pixels in your video chats but don’t necessarily have the processor power to manage them all, you need a Skype HD-certified camera with an on-board hardware encoding. The TouchCam N1 from faceVsion is the latest to ship, a $120 model that manages 720p recording and also includes dual unidirectional mics to ensure that your voice gets through loud and clear from any angle. That seems to be the only real advantage over the Freetalk Everyman HD, which recently went on sale itself — for $70. The N1 does also offer a wider 78-degree lens compared to the Freetalk’s 58, but whether that’s worth the extra cheddar is something you’ll have to decide.
Continue reading FaceVsion ships its 720p TouchCam N1 to vowel-averse Skypers
FaceVsion ships its 720p TouchCam N1 to vowel-averse Skypers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 10:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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You may have a hard time buying yourself a full-sized hydrogen-powered auto, but thanks to Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies you can at least get a 1:10 scale version. The company’s H-Cell 2.0 fuel cell kit, unveiled back in February, is now shipping to forward-looking enthusiasts and comes with everything you need to mount it on a tiny boat, little plane, or R/C car (like the Tamiya TRF416 shown above). While Horizon indicates the cell will keep that car moving at 45mph for a full hour, an impressive figure, they still haven’t told us another very important number: the cost. We do, however, have the full system specs just after the break, along with a demo video of the thing in action. It may not be as fast as your neighbor’s nitro-powered beast, but what has he done for the environment lately?
Gallery: Horizon H-Cell 2.0 fuel cell
Continue reading Horizon’s H-Cell 2.0 hydrogen fuel cell for R/C cars now shipping (video)
Horizon’s H-Cell 2.0 hydrogen fuel cell for R/C cars now shipping (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 09:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Yes, the “iPhone 3G is dead” rumors are flying fast, and our latest entry is hardly a rumor: Apple’s online store currently lists the solitary 8GB iPhone 3G next to the full iPhone 3GS crop, but there’s no longer a tasty “select” button below it. Usually if something’s out of stock on the Apple store it will just say so, along with a projected time of delay, but with the 4G presumably around the corner this could indeed be marking the end of the 3G’s last stand.
[Thanks, J]
iPhone 3G missing a ‘select’ button on Apple Store, might not be long for this earth originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 09:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
$20 might at first seem expensive for a USB charging cable, especially as it is limited to Apple’s iDevices. But when you are down to the last few excited electrons in your iPhone’s battery and you just have to Tweet that your iPhone is sooo nearly dead, the $20 will look cheap.
So go spend it on Scosche’s flipSYNC already, a keychain USB/Dock cable that folds up into a tiny plastic capsule which itself looks just like the non-key part of your car key. Crack open the case and you have yourself two plugs, ready to gulp down a little extra juice from any nearby computer or other USB-teat.
For those of us not bound up in Apple’s world, there is another version which includes a standard USB connector along with both mini and micro USB plugs. This one is crazy useful, letting you connect phones, hard-drives and even cameras and card-readers to a computer for charging or data-transferring duties, and costs the same $20.
If you can stomach buying replacements for things you already have, then these two adapters, snuggled together on your keyring, could be the most useful $40 you spend since that handy, tasteful Laptop Burka.
FlipSYNC [Scosche]
Graphics card maker Nvidia has revealed, via a corporate blog post, a new laptop GPU, called the GeForce GTX 480M. The company calls it the “world’s fastest notebook GPU.”
NVIDIA has just announced that the GTX 480M, the mobile re-spin of its extravagantly overpowered Fermi desktop parts, will be arriving in the middle of next month. Touted as the world’s fastest mobile graphics processor, this chip will bring 352 CUDA cores and a 256-bit memory interface to up to 2GB of GDDR5 RAM. These are clear and convincing advances over the incumbent Green Team leader, the 360M, but things start to look a little worrying when we check the 480M’s clock speeds. The processor speed is nearly halved from the desktop GTX 480, at 850MHz, the memory does only 1,200MHz, and the graphics run at 425MHz — we didn’t know anything worthwhile even operated below 500MHz these days. Either way, you’re getting a computing powerhouse, with the 480M’s 897 gigaflops comfortably dwarfing its predecessor’s 413 and promising almighty tessellation performance. What it all means with regard to keeping your frame rates up while traversing the Terminus Systems, we can’t yet say. We’ll let the benchmarking gurus figure it out — go past the break for the full press release and spec sheet.
Continue reading NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M: ‘world’s fastest’ mobile GPU now official, landing in June
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480M: ‘world’s fastest’ mobile GPU now official, landing in June originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 May 2010 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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