Hasta La Gadget!

Ion’s Twin Video camcorder lets you capture front and rear video feeds with the touch of a button. The company says it’s great for “interviews, vlogs, and creating videos for YouTube.”

So we were lucky enough to sit down with Sir Richard Branson at this morning’s launch of his iPad-only Project magazine, and just like the last time we hung out, our conversation was both entertaining and illuminating. The highlight? In addition to telling us that Project would eventually hit both Android tablets and other devices “in time,” Sir Richard was totally candid in saying that he had “no f**king idea why” Project was only on the iPad and not on the web — although he did say Project was a “proper magazine” and not “just thrown together for the web.” (Ouch.) Sir Richard was also excited about the possibilities for advertising, saying that the new medium can “bring advertising alive.” We’ve definitely got our doubts about limiting content to one platform without any robust sharing options — and we obviously think it’s possible to do high-quality content on the web — but there’s no doubt that Sir Richard is an extremely charming pitchman, so make sure to check out the whole interview.

The Engadget Interview: Sir Richard Branson on Project and the iPad originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rumors are buzzing about an impending Windows Phone 7 software update that will bring Microsoft’s new mobile OS up to speed with the iPhone.

While we like Windows Phone 7, it seems highly unlikely that it will catch up to the iPhone quite that fast.

Tech blog WP Central quotes Chris Walsh, who worked on an early jailbreak-like hack for Windows Phone 7 called Chevron WP7, claiming that in January 2011, Windows Phone 7 will get a “massive” software update that’s worthy of being called Windows Phone 8.

“MS took 3 months to do what Apple did in 3 years,” Walsh tweeted.

Walsh claims the update will introduce Bing turn-to-turn GPS navigation, custom ringtone support, copy-and-paste and some form of multitasking.

While I believe Windows Phone 7 will soon gain these features, that hardly sounds like a massive update to me. The only major new feature would be multitasking; custom ringtones I’d file under “meh,” turn-by-turn navigation is a thumbs-up but hardly mindblowing, and copy-and-paste is yes, an important tool, but not that big: Android has only partial support for copy-and-paste, and that hasn’t stopped it from becoming the most popular smartphone operating system.

Furthermore, to say such an upgrade would “do what Apple did in 3 years” is an incredible overstatement. To catch up with the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 devices would also need front-facing cameras, something comparable to AirPlay to stream video onto a TV box, and more — not to mention 300,000 third-party apps. Windows Phone 7 is just a month old; it’s got a lot of catching up to do, and it would take a few miracles for the platform to be up to speed with the iPhone by January.

Microsoft declined to comment.

Rather than rush out new features, I think Microsoft is probably prioritizing getting Verizon to hop on board with Windows Phone 7 — a move that would boost its growth to compete with its more direct rival: Google Android. I’d place a bet on CDMA Windows Phone 7 handsets arriving before we see devices up to par with the iPhone.

See Also:

• Why Windows Phone 7 Will Make Android Look Chaotic
• Microsoft Tells Windows Phone 7’s App Story
• Windows Phone 7 Doomed? Actually, It’s Just Getting Started …
• How Microsoft Hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on Windows Phone

Photo of Windows Phone 7 devices running software tests in a server rack: Mike Kane/Wired.com

This article was written on January 29, 2008 by CyberNet.

Yesterday we wrote about Qtrax, a business that was launching “the worlds first 100% legal and free Peer-2-Peer music application” with all 4 major record labels on board. There was a ton of hype surrounding the launch, particularly because they said they had 25 million songs available for free.  Unfortunately for them, the hype was for nothing and all that has come out of this is a lesson for future business owners on how not to launch a business.

By the time they actually managed to get the software launched late yesterday, not a single song was being offered for download. Some launch, huh?  Engadget described it as a “barely skinned version of the open source Mozilla-based Songbird music player.” Several hours after launch, they managed to get 10 million tracks to show-up, but downloads still did not work. Sounds like they jumped the gun to me.  To make matters worse, none of the four major record labels have actually signed any type of contract. Some people have called the Qtrax team liars while others have said they are misrepresenting the actions of the music labels and the service is a total fraud.

The only benefit to this whole situation that I can see is that Qtrax has been plastered all over the place because of the mis-haps they have experienced.  And to me, it seems like they are generating more publicity for themselves than they would have received had everything gone as planned. To say that they had the four major record labels on board when they really didn’t though, that’s pretty bad. It makes you wonder what their investors are thinking at this point, doesn’t it? If they can manage to actually get the major record labels on board though, this could be big and would probably help people forget about the fiasco that came about when the service first launched.

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