Hasta La Gadget!

Those who have iOS devices will be able to download a special Halloween version of Angry Birds tonight at midnight.

Sure, Apple’s “Back to the Mac” press conference was all about software and a manila envelope or two, but Cupertino also sent out a silent love letter to its MacBook Pro lineup. Specifically, the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops can now be configured with a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7 processor, up from the 2.66GHz model they were limited to before, for the primo price of $200 more. That’s a pretty penny to pay for a simple 140MHz boost, but base clockspeed is only part of the story — this is almost certainly the Core i7-640M that Intel owned up to just last month, which can turbo to a lap-scorching 3.4GHz under load. If you feel like buying one, do be a dear and let us know for sure?

[Thanks, Steven H.]

Apple quietly updates MacBook Pro with optional 2.8GHz Core i7 processor originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 20:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This article was written on February 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

This is actually “old” news, but worth pointing out.  Back in December, Google added their first bit of Ajax to their search.  Although it’s been around for a couple of months, it took Read/Write Web pointing it out before I even noticed it.  Sometimes these new features blend right in, and it takes pointing it out before you notice it.

You’ll find this new addition if a search result has an address on the page. I searched for “Hotels, Chicago Illinois,” and as usual, a map with local results is displayed at the top. But as I scrolled down the page, I noticed one of the search results displayed the plus sign indicating there was an address on the page (pictured above) which Google had plotted on a map. The map will now display, only by clicking on the plus sign (The expanded version pictured below).  At first we weren’t quite sure if it was Ajax or something like DHTML.  After looking at the source code from the page before and after expanding the map, it’s definitely Ajax.

SearchMash, Google’s experimental search is pretty feature intensive, and they’ve had Ajax integrated into it for quite a while now.  One example of this is by clicking “more results”, Ajax is used to display more search returns.  There’s other Ajax integrated into the ride side column as well, with features such as displaying Wikipedia results. Perhaps Google will start integrating some of the features unique to SearchMash into Google search, like they’ve done with the Ajax?

There are many new startups creating search engines that are intensive with Web 2.0 features.  This is possibly Google’s first step in adding Web 2.0 elements to stay ahead of the competition.  While the “competition”is not an immediate threat to Google, in the future, Web 2.0 elements might be something Google needs to pay more attention to.

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Have you been looking for the definitive review of Windows Phone 7? Well, look no further. Microsoft’s next (and perhaps final) opportunity to break back into the smartphone race has officially begun, and Engadget has been cranking on a variety of launch devices across several continents to see if the platform holds water.

Back in July we took a deep dive on Windows Phone 7 using a developer device that Microsoft handed out to journalists, and now we’re back for the full review. What we realized going into this process was that really very little had changed between the summertime preview and the new OS’ fall launch. Even though there have been tweaks and fixes in Microsoft’s mobile experience, there hasn’t been any addition so large that we felt the software required a completely fresh look. Instead, what we needed to do was go back to the observations made during our initial experience with the OS, compare it to the final product, and figure out where the company improved (or diminished) specific facets of the operating system. And of course, we finally had a real chance to use Xbox Live and third party applications — two of the crucial elements of this OS. So, below is our re-edited, refreshed take on Windows Phone 7, complete with real answers to nagging questions, and our definitive score of Microsoft’s great smartphone hope at version 1.0. Read on for the full story!

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 review

Windows Phone 7 review originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 19:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Editor’s note: Wired.com contributor Jeremy Hart made a 60-day, 15,000-mile drive around the world with a few mates in a pair of Ford Fiestas. This is the last of his occasional reports from the road on the gadgets he drive-tested.

Feng shui master Kenny Hoo recommended we leave his home town of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 8:28 a.m. Eight is a lucky number in Chinese culture. Why not 8:08 a.m.? I did not ask.

Maybe I should have, because no sooner had we crossed into Singapore for the last part of the Asian leg of the Fiesta World Tour that I realized we had left our Spot Tracker in Malaysia. So with no chance to turn back, I am afraid our “live” positioning device has reported us stuck in Malaysia, not where we really are in Australia.

As I write this, the smell of the Pacific Ocean fills the Australian air. Sydney, our final destination after 57 days, 21 countries and 15,000 miles round the world, is just over the horizon.

Most Canadians live within a few hundred miles of the U.S. border. In Oz, the same is true of the ocean. That leaves 3,000 miles of nothing in the middle. It’s called the Outback, and to my mind, it is the real Australia.

The Outback is not a place to go unprepared. You must venture into the bush with enough supplies to survive. In addition to water, our key survival tool was the Iridium satellite phone. Mobile coverage in this never-never-land is almost non-existent. The Iridium kept the expedition on the road and us safe for the eight days across the Red Centre.

I had to put away the Huawei E5 mobile Wi-Fi hotspot as, with virtually no mobile signal, it was as much use as a chocolate teapot.

Remoteness brings other problems: Like the most basic human needs. Aussies call toilets “dunnies,” and with hundreds of miles between dunnies, getting caught short is a very real threat. And the threat does not end there. Squatting in a desert inhabited by some of the world’s deadliest snakes and spiders leaves your derriere exposed, literally. So, I invested in a portable folding dunny, shown in the photo above. See it and my Outback gadgets in action in the video below.

Snakes are not the biggest threat to Outback adventurers. Kangaroos can be as big as a Fiesta and colliding with one is best avoided. One deterrent is an ultrasonic siren called a ShuRoo (for “shoo, (Kanga) roo,” I suppose). They work like moose scarers in the northern United States and Canada.

They take half an hour or so to hook up to the vehicle. And reports are they work well. Sadly, ShuRoo did not return our calls, so we did not get the chance to test one.

The most pesky critter in the bush is the fly. A single fly is not so bad. But hundreds are. So, the award for the most basic and cheapest gadget of the trip so far goes to the $8 Great Aussie Fly Net.

Of our long-term gadgets, the Handpresso continues to deliver reviving shots of caffeine. But espresso/Red Bull shooters seem the only way to keep some of us buzzing after eight weeks on the road.

The Fiesta sound system is good. It even has USB connectivity. But the guys at Singapore-based micro speaker company X-Mini gave us some of their iPod/Pad/Phone speakers to try out in Oz. The single speaker is about 50 percent bigger than a golf ball. The stereo speakers look like tiny version of the B+W Zeppelin and splits in the middle for left-right separation. The sound is punchy and punches well above its weight.

Under the awesome Southern Hemisphere stars, by a mulga-wood campfire, eating kangaroo fillets, the X-Mini’s banged out some great Aussie rock. Best track for the Outback? “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC. I’m biased. The band’s singer Brian Johnson is a mate — and a car guy like me.

“The song was written as the band crossed the Outback,” he told me. “It was hot as hell. Hence the name.”

I’ve added a film from Sydney with Brian here.

In the time I’ve written this, Sydney is coming into view. I can see the famous Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Part of me is feeling elated as to have crossed the Pacific the long way round.

The other part feels deflated. Daily life without a 500-mile drive each day will feel rather ordinary. It is time to plan the next trip.

Photos and videos courtesy Jeremy Hart.

See Also:

• Big Crocs, Big Trucks and Big Magnets in Oz
• Spy Cameras and Solar Tuk-Tuks: Hunting Asia’s Madcap Gadgets
• Making the Perfect Espresso Near the Iraq Border
• A Bit of Drama Where Gas Is Cheaper Than Water
• From An Irish Matchmaker To The Best Road Ever
• Espresso and GPS Enliven Our European Road Tour
• Firearms, Boots and Dirty Cars as Canvases
• Travelling Around the World in a Gadget-Filled Ford Fiesta
• Rockford Spins, Drive-Thru Weddings and Flatbread Tacos