Hasta La Gadget!

Let’s hope he got his preorder in, and that he’s not waiting for the white one. Otherwise, he’s going to be one unhappy camper, eh? Sorry, couldn’t help ourselves.

Update: Video interview with the Yosemite Squatter posted after the break.

[Thanks, BT228]

Continue reading First iPhone 4 camper spotted, one week early (update: video)

First iPhone 4 camper spotted, one week early (update: video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 22:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might be familiar with firmware impresario Conflipper by now, a man who’s earned a reputation tearing apart ROMs — often for unreleased devices — and pulling out the juicy bits for everyone to see. Turns out the dude runs a site called Shipped ROMs with… yes, you guessed it, a bunch of shipped ROMs for a wide variety of phones on it, and it seems HTC’s legal cats in Taiwan have taken issue, saying they’ve got “very strong reasons to believe that the HTC Intellectual Property was illegally obtained by fraudulent means” in a strongly-worded cease and desist letter sent to him earlier today. We reached out to HTC’s US branch for comment and got back the following:

“While HTC tries to take a hands off [approach] about the modder / ROM chef community, this site’s sole purpose [is] to make HTC’s content available for download from a source other than HTC. That content is not just the open source parts and kernels of Android but all of the software that HTC itself has developed. This is a clear violation of our copyrights and HTC needs to defend itself in these cases.”

In other words, these guys are just really against hosting official ROMs on unofficial servers. Anyone can dump a ROM from a phone and flesh it out, so we can’t imagine there’s any competitive concern — and no first-party site makes so many firmware builds available for so many devices in such a concise, well-organized way as Shipped ROMs is doing. Ultimately, it’s HTC’s property — it seems like they’re probably in the legal right here — but the unsavory PR effect with some of the company’s staunchest enthusiasts makes the endeavor more trouble than it’s worth, we’d argue. Tread carefully, HTC.

HTC slaps phone firmware site with cease and desist letter originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve already seen some evidence that Macs running Steam are generally more powerful than PCs running Steam, and it looks like Apple is busily working to make sure that all potential performance is put to good use. As Valve’s Rob Barris has confirmed on the company’s forums, Apple, ATI and NVIDIA are all “involved” in improving Mac gaming performance, and that “performance is going to improve as drivers are updated.” Barris further went on to say that he expects “modest improvements in short term and larger ones in longer term,” but wouldn’t offer any specific dates as to when some of those updates might roll out.

Valve says Apple, NVIDIA and ATI are working to improve Mac gaming performance originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 20:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RadioShack joins T-Mobile in offering all T-Mobile phones for free this Saturday. However, RadioShack has two important advantages over just heading over to the T-Mo store — no family plans will be required, and all rebates will be instant. pOriginally posted at a href=”http://www.cnet.com/8301-17918_1-20008120-85.html” class=”origPostedBlog”Dialed In/a/p

Throughout the course of Windows Phone 7’s paced, deliberate unveiling this year, Microsoft has been very clear on the fact that it doesn’t intend for Windows Mobile — the legacy platform we know today — to disappear, arguing that it’s got several years of life left in it for certain verticals. We’re starting to see that philosophy play out today with the introduction of Windows Embedded Handheld, which is essentially a warmed-over version of WinMo 6.5.3 with some key UI and enterprise-focused enhancements. Microsoft is specifically calling out an “extended support life-cycle” for the platform, a sign that these phones aren’t for the gotta-have-it crowd — instead, the company intends to push these things through corporate fleets where Windows Mobile has traditionally dominated, places where Windows Phone’s flashy stylings and locked-down underpinnings won’t have the same draw.

To that end, Motorola has announced the ES400 as Windows Embedded Handheld’s inaugural device, a rugged smartphone with a 600MHz Qualcomm MSM7627 core, resistive VGA touchscreen, fingerprint scanner, and a trick 3.5G radio that can be user-switched between GSM and CDMA. Naturally, you’re not going to see this on carrier shelves, but the ES400 is being pushed as a solid option for field sales and service, healthcare, and retail use — so if you’re working in any of those fields, you might have a harder time shaking off the last remnants of WinMo than you ever imagined. Follow the break for Microsoft’s press release.

Continue reading Microsoft outs Windows Embedded Handheld platform, Motorola ES400 is the first to get it

Microsoft outs Windows Embedded Handheld platform, Motorola ES400 is the first to get it originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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