Hasta La Gadget!

Research in Motion, perhaps becoming increasingly desperate to come up with an answer to the latest smartphones, apparently is developing a tablet as well as a slider touchscreen phone.

The report, from The Wall Street Journal, puts the tablet’s release as early as this year, according to unnamed sources. As the Journal notes, RIM has talked about releasing a new phone with a new operating system by September, but hasn’t released details about that phone or any tablet plans.

The new phone would ship with four gigabytes of storage space and a five megapixel camera, according to the Journal, plus now commonly-shared features like multiple home screens and the ability to search across the device.

In reality, what RIM needs is a little sizzle. For years, the company has thrived on providing business-oriented devices oriented around email, and that has helped  RIM hang on to the fifth spot worldwide in phones owned, with 3.6 percent. The comScore numbers cited in the report also refer to phones owned, not sold. But RIM’s growth has also outpaced the industry at 45.2 percent
year over year, according to IDC.

The BlackBerry
Storm and Storm 2
nominally thrust RIM into the smartphone space, but its limited feature
set and wonky touch interface quickly was overtaken by the iPhone and
the galaxy of Android touchscreen devices.

But Strategy Analytics has marked RIM’s North American smartphone share decline to 38 percent in the March quarter from 54 percent in the year-ago quarter, the Journal reported.

If true, it appears RIM is certainly reacting to the rise in consumer smartphones. It seems safe to say that RIM needs to deliver a winner, however, to bolster the perceptions of consumers.

June 12 marked the one year anniversary of the change from analog to digital TV, a doomsday move that we all seem to have survived just fine. Or have we? To measure the success of the switch, Retrevo commissioned a survey on how the past year has been for TV-watchers.

Retrevo surveyed over 200 online respondents and asked how they were impacted by the DTV switch. The majority, 52 percent, said it didn’t matter to them (perhaps because they have cable or satellite TV service), while 41 percent bought a conversion box. Surprisingly, 19 percent went out and bought a new TV.

But people seem undecided whether the DTV switch was worth it, at all. When asked if the switch was a good thing, 51 percent said yes, 23 percent said no, and a giant 26 percent just didn’t know.

For more results, check out Retrevo’s blog entry on the survey.

We’ve been reading about it for what seems like ages, looking over images of the FCC prototype with a magnifying glass, and now Nintendo is showing it off at its E3 press conference. The company that Mario built is trumping up how superior its glasses-free technology is better than others, “a solution that lets you take 3D gaming along with you wherever you go” according to Reggie. The upper screen is surprisingly only 3.5-inches, not the wider that we’d expected. There is a slider on the side that lets you tweak the 3D effect, seemingly enabling you to adjust its depth based on your distance from the screen — or turn it off entirely. As with the current DS, the bottom is a touchscreen, and is not 3D.

That’s what looks to be an analog stick on the side there, as well, that Nintendo is calling a “Slide Pad.” There is a gyro, motion sensor, it’s compatible with DSi games, and has two cameras enabling 3D photos. Nintendo is also talking up partnerships including Disney, games that are said to be playable today, at the show, with one of the highlights being a new Kid Icarus game which looks quite action-packed to say the least — and has better graphics than most of the Wii titles Nintendo has shown thus far. Nintendo has mentioned the 3DS will have the “biggest launch support ever” from third party devs, and a 3D Nintendogs should be a huge seller — if only because it has cats too. Other games include Madden, Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil, a Batman title, Splinter Cell, and, finally, a Metal Gear Solid entry.

Nintendo is also talking about how the system will seek out WiFi hotspots or other 3DS systems “without you knowing,” which sounds a bit ominous, to be honest. Systems can communicate regardless of which games are being played. It can even pull in new DLC directly from other consoles, all without a monthly fee.

Still no release date or price, but Nintendo is showing off two colors, red and blue, and they’re said to be playable on the show floor. You can be sure we’ll be running there right now.

Update: Complete press release and full list of launch games after the break, including some biggies, like Metal Gear Solid “The Naked Sample,” Madden, FIFA, and more!

Continue reading Nintendo 3DS gets official, includes 3D camera

Nintendo 3DS gets official, includes 3D camera originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 12:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Following in the footsteps of its iPhone kin, the SoundHound music discovery app for Android now has free and premium versions. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-19736_1-20007745-251.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Android Atlas/a/p

Look up at the sky — is it falling? It sure seems as if that kind of doom is imminent, at least if this whole iPhone 4 pre-order situation is any indication of future tragedy. We’ve received hundreds of tips this morning from friends near and far that iPhone 4 pre-orders aren’t going through, though a few of us here on staff were able to get a confirmation during the wee hours of the morning. From AT&T in the US to O2 over in the UK, it seems that just about everyone ambling to get their name on a future iPhone 4 is experiencing a great deal of frustration. AT&T’s servers seem to be completely hosed here in America, and since Apple’s own online order process has to ping those to check on your contract status, neither option is… um, working. Those who decided to line up at a local store are facing similar issues; employees aren’t even able to fully process pre-orders in store due to systems being overwhelmed, and no one seems to exactly know when things will be back to normal. And you thought the most enraging part of this was the inability to select a white model. Let us know how your experience has been in the poll and comments below, won’t you?

Update: So, it sounds like Best Buy is taking pre-orders (even for white units), but chances are remarkably high that you’re not actually getting in any line. Still, it’s a working option for the moment. In other news, the Apple Store app is seeming to allow iPhone 4 orders, but it looks as if they’re reserving off-contract phones (read: full price ones), so we’d only recommend this avenue if you enjoy things like “arguing about contract dates” and “yelling at brick walls.” We’re guessing you’ll be doing both on the 24th.

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iPhone 4 pre-orderers overwhelm servers, world on the brink of ending originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 11:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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