Hasta La Gadget!

C’mon, let’s all color ourselves shocked at once. It’ll be fun. We promise. If you’ve been calling the underside of a rock home for the past decade or so, you may have missed out on a Chinese outfit by the name of Meizu. For all intents and purposes, the company has done its darnedest to copy Apple in every respect, particularly with the software on its M8 and M9 smartphones. Strangely, we’ve never actually heard confirmation that Cupertino’s best lawyers were breathing down Meizu’s neck… until now. As the story goes, Meizu CEO Jack Wong’s forum postings have been rather tense of late, and one in particular seems to explain why: Apple’s all up in his grille. The details are hidden beneath a good bit of pent-up rage, but what is clear is a mention of Apple’s lawyers and their “unreasonable negotiation tactics.” In essence, Jack finds it absurd that Apple could claim rights to the touchscreen smartphone form factor, and while Apple could only serve a relative few in China, he (obviously) expects Meizu to serve far more. We won’t pretend to be sad on Jack’s behalf — we mean, the guy had it coming — but we can’t shake the looming depression when thinking of a world with no future Meizu devices to chuckle at.

Apple’s lawyers finally going after Meizu, or so it seems originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 11:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG fans waiting for the company to launch a tablet may want to consider the iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab or the BlackBerry PlayBook instead. LG has decided to cancel plans to launch an Android tablet by the end of the year, according to a Reuters report.

LG says it wants to wait for a newer version of Android to support its efforts to bring a tablet to market. That could mean an LG Android tablet is unlikely to launch before mid-2011.

The move is a setback for LG, which is now likely to lose ground to competitors in the tablet category.

Since the launch of the iPad in April, tablets have become one of the hottest consumer products of the year. So far, Apple has sold more than 3 million iPads. Meanwhile, Dell, Samsung and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion have introduced or announced new tablets.

Though, LG  has scrapped its Android tablet, the operating system is being used by other tablet makers. The Dell Streak, a device with a 5-inch screen, and the Samsung Galaxy, a tablet with a 7-inch touchscreen display, both use Android OS. The Streak runs Android 1.6 but Dell has said it plans to upgrade it to Android 2.2 later this year, while the Galaxy tablet will debut with Android 2.2 Froyo.

That makes LG’s decision puzzling. LG has had a checkered past when it comes to its tablet plans. The company was working on a prototype based on the Windows 7 operating system but it seems to have abandoned that.

Now it seems LG wants to wait for Android 3.0 ‘Gingerbread,’ which arrives next year.

So far, Google hasn’t been clear on what kind of devices are best supported by the current version of Android OS. Though Android is open source, Google controls the app store, Android Market. Devices that don’t meet Google’s guidelines for Android systems don’t have access to the Android Market.

However, Samsung has been able to convince Google to support its 7-inch tablet. All apps from the Android market can run on the Galaxy Tab though not every app will be optimized for the device.

LG could have done the same.

See Also:

• Why 2010 Will Be the Year of the Tablet
• How the Tablet Will Change the World
• Build Your Own Tablet for $400
• Samsung Introduces 7-Inch Tablet to Rival iPad
• RIM Unveils Tethered Tablet, the BlackBerry PlayBook

Photo: Samsung’s Android tablet/Samsung

For those that want the photo frame feature of the iPad, but already own an iPod or iPhone, there’s the MW-20.

Windows Phone 7 is coming. Finally. Microsoft is holding an event in New York City next Monday to celebrate the launch–see, we’ve got the invitation to prove it [above]. Microsoft’s well-compensated CEO Steve Ballmer will be on-hand at the event, as will executives from T-Mobile and AT&T’s CEO, Ralph de la Vega.

The invite tells promises,

Enjoy light snacks, beer and wine while you get hands on for an exclusive showing of T-Mobile powered Windows Phone 7 devices and an early preview of some of our applications that will be available for launch.

Beer and tech at 9:30 on a Monday morning. Sounds like any other day here at Gearlog world headquarters.

Too little, too late? Maybe. But at least there will be beer on-hand to dull the pain.

The biggest complaint about 3D in home electronics? Okay, there are plenty: content, price, general apathy–but generally when people are finding something to whine about, all eyes tend to turn to those pesky 3D glasses. They get lost, get scratched, and will no doubt be eventually be sat on more then a few times during their living room career

Nintendo made a big splash when it introduced its glasses-free 3DS console of over the summer. The logical question quickly became: when will the rest of the industry release their own glasses-free 3D products? Of course there are a number of hurdles to deal with when implementing such a technology on a product the size of an HDTV.

Toshiba, apparently, has overcome these. This week at CEATEC in Tokyo, the company announced plans to sell a glasses-free LCD TV. The set will go on sale in December–in Japan. No word on an international release for the set. Boo.

Of course there are other limitations with the technology. The first seems to be size. The set will only be available at 12 and 20 inches–pretty tiny, given the fact that today’s sets are topping off at well over 100 inches. The second limitation is, you guess it, price. The 12 inch set runs 120,000 yen ($1,440). The 20 inch set is double that price.

Toshiba doesn’t seem to expect to be selling a lot of these things. The company will be producing 2,000 of the sets a month, compared to the 1.25 million total LCD TVs the company ships a month.

Sometimes it’s just important to say that you’re first, right? Given how competitive the HDTV market is, at present, it certainly couldn’t hurt.