Hasta La Gadget!

Pandigital’s best known for its hard, hard work in the game-changing digital photo frame world, but the company’s feeling a bit froggy of late. It’s latest leap is into the burgeoning e-reader market, and unlike those from Barnes & Noble and Amazon, this one’s sporting a 7-inch LCD — you know, now that Apple has suddenly made that “okay” again. At any rate, the forthcoming Novel boasts a full-color 800 x 600 resolution touchscreen, inbuilt WiFi and dimensions of 5.5- x 7.5- x 0.5-inches. The highlight here is the partnership with B&N, which gives this guy access to the bookseller’s eBookstore, not to mention the ability to share content via LendMe. Pandigital also throws in 1GB of internal memory, an SD / MMC card slot, orientation sensor, and the rechargeable battery is said to be good for a mediocre six hours on a full charge. The $199.99 Novel should be out and about next month supporting PDF, ePUB and HTML formats (yeah, there’s a web browser), and in case you were wondering, it’s based around Android and gets powered by an ARM 11 processor. Did Pandigital — of all companies — just out a remotely interesting e-reader? Yes, yes it did.

Continue reading Pandigital intros 7-inch Novel e-reader, nabs access to B&N eBookstore

Pandigital intros 7-inch Novel e-reader, nabs access to B&N eBookstore originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 08:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony’s never been one to craft a “low-cost laptop,” and even the company’s minuscule VAIO W netbook remains one of the most expensive in the sector. But this, friends, might just be one worth the premium. Announced over in Australia, the limited edition VAIO W you’re peering at above has been designed in partnership with Billabong, and the Imperial Lime lid is certainly the primary selling point. Expected to ship Down Under next month, the 10.1-inch machine will be outfitted with a 1.83GHz Intel Atom N470 CPU, 2GB of RAM, a 1,366 x 768 resolution panel, Windows 7 Starter and a GPU that’s incapable of handling 1080p material. You’ll also find an Ethernet jack, a pair of USB 2.0 sockets, built-in webcam and a 250GB hard drive, but none of those ho hum specs help to justify the AU$749 ($619) price tag. The lid, on the other hand…

Sony hangs ten with Billabong, pops out gnarly special edition VAIO W netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 May 2010 07:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wish your mobile phone’s caller ID was like the kind you can get from landline phones? A new app from PhoneTell does just that. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20005690-248.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Web Crawler/a/p

Google’s gift to attendees of its I/O conference last week was the hot new HTC EVO 4G cellphone. One of the lucky giftees was developer Matthew Mastracci, who showed his gratitude by teaming up with two friends and hacking the hell out of the poor little EVO.

A few hours later and the team had successfully rooted the phone, and “managed to get the standard su tool installed.” This means that they had root, or super-user access to the phone and its file system. This lets you do anything you like to it. Here’s the video:

What does this mean for security? Not much. If you have physical access and a little time, you can hack pretty much any device. More interesting is the reminder that the new wave of smartphones – Android and iPhone – both use variants of the UNIX operating system under the hood, first developed way back in 1969. That these modern pocket miracles are running on an OS invented before I was born still kind of blows my mind.

Root on an HTC EVO 4G! [Grack]

See Also:

• HTC EVO 4G $200, on Sale June 4
• Sprint, HTC Unveil First 4G Android Phone
• Root
• The Droid Has Been Rooted — Now What?

Is this a white iPhone? The photos come from Chinese-language site Apple Pro, and have lit up speculation across rumor sites that Apple will have a white-faced version of its expected new iPhone 4G when launched next month.

It makes some sense: the current iPhone comes with a choice of black or white backs, so why not offer a choice of faceplates, too? Apple may well do this, but I don’t think these photos have much to do with a real iPhone. They are either prototypes or – more likely – good old Chinese knock-offs.

The biggest giveaway is the presence of screw holes in the base of the metal frame. Those were found in the Gizmodophone, but are not seen in the more recent, and better finished, iPhone 4G shown off by Vietnamese site Tinhte. Also, what’s going on with the extra slot above the phone earpiece?

Is it real? Who knows. At least, though, there are some mysteries left for Apple to reveal at the expected iPhone 4G launch event on June 22nd 7th at the WWDC.

iPhone 4G with his face black and white brothers [Apple Pro via Apple Insider]