Hasta La Gadget!

When offered a chance to take a Ford Focus Electric for a spin we jumped at it, though were admittedly a bit perplexed when told it would be on the show floor. As it turns out the company set up a loop upon which a Transit Van and Focus Electric were driving, one after the next, up a steep incline and over the heads of fellow journalists, stopping at a little dyno to see just what this thing was putting down, and then back around to where it all started. No shocking information was gleaned, and we still can’t get anyone to confirm or deny the ability for a 480v quick-charge, but it sure beat walking.

Continue reading Ford takes us on the world’s shortest test drive in the Focus Electric (video)

Ford takes us on the world’s shortest test drive in the Focus Electric (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What must surely be the industry’s worst-kept secret just got even further out of the closet with a new suite of pictures showing not the outside but the inside. After all, we’ve already seen the outside at every possible angle, even in motion playing games. TGBus is the source here again, its disembodied hands apparently completely bored with actually playing games, so they broke out the Torx and spread it asunder. See for yourself on the other end of the source link, and feel free to contact your local Sony representative and tell them what a great job they’re doing on keeping this thing quiet.

PlayStation Phone torn apart, found to not contain actual PlayStations originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 09:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Giddy on the announcement of the new CDMA iPhone 4, Verizon chief financial officer Francis Shammo let slip plans to bring Apple”s iPad to his company’s network.

Speaking in an interview in New York yesterday, Shammo told Bloomberg that “Verizon will get an embedded chip in the iPad for use on its network.” Customers who want to use the iPad on Verizon’s network currently have to buy a MiFi device, which shares its 3G connection via Wi-Fi.

It’s not surprising that Verizon will get a CDMA iPad, especially now Apple has proved itself happy to make a Verizon-specific model of the iPhone 4, complete with compatible radio. What is surprising is that somebody so high up at the telco would let this news slip.

There’s one more thing to consider. The Verizon iPhone is Verizon-only – there’s no SIM-card slot, and therefore you can’t switch carriers when traveling. This is fine on a phone, which needs a contract, but what about then iPad? The tablet can be bought contract-free, and hooked up to whatever network the buyer fancies. A Verizon-tied iPad would be a limiting investment indeed.

Verizon Will Sell IPad That Connects to Its Network [Bloomberg]

Photo: Jonathan Snyder / Wired.com

See Also:

• Verizon Wireless Finally Gets Apple's iPhone
• Verizon or AT&T: Which Will Deliver the Best iPhone Experience …
• Verizon to Sell Apple's iPad, But Is iPhone Next?

The different positions of the mute button on the Verizon and AT&T iPhones. Photo by SlashGear

The Verizon iPhone 4 might look exactly the same as the AT&T iPhone, but it isn’t: small hardware changes mean that even Apple’s own Bumper cases won’t fit.

To accommodate the CDMA radio required by Verizon’s network, the iPhone’s external antenna has been redesigned. This, in turn, has required the mute switch to be moved a few millimeters down the side of the iPhone, towards the volume buttons. Therefore any case – including Apple’s – which has accurate cut-outs for the switches won’t work with the new iPhone.

You can see the difference in the above photograph from SlashGear. Think its no big deal? What about the case manufacturers, who now have to make two models of every line? Or customers at the Apple Store (or any other store that stocks accessories) who now have to make sure they buy the right case, instead of just grabbing the one they like the look of?

It looks like there is just enough space to keep the switch in its former position on the new phone, but that would have it pressing right up against the line in the antenna-band. And that would make it ugly, something Apple could never bring itself to do.

Verizon iPhone 4 moved buttons means AT&T bumpers won’t fit [SlashGear]

See Also:

• Verizon Wireless Finally Gets Apple's iPhone
• Verizon or AT&T: Which Will Deliver the Best iPhone Experience …
• Apple Refunds Bumper Case Purchases, Launches Bumper App

If your doctor’s ever uttered the words, “I’d like to run more tests,” you know the wait for results can be torturous. Engineers and students at the University of Rhode Island (URI) are hoping to stop the torture with a new lab-on-a-chip technology that cuts way back on the wait for important lab results. The system provides results in 30 minutes, using a portable device and just a drop of blood. The blood is placed on a small plastic polymer cartridge, smaller than a credit card, and inserted into a shoebox-sized biosensor. It then travels across the cartridge to a detection site where reagents enable the sensor to detect biomarkers of disease. Basically, your doctor pops a bloody piece of plastic into a box, and out come your results. The first cartridges were developed to assess the risk of heart disease, but researches suggest they could be designed to detect everything from HIV to Alzheimer’s. The URI team estimates costs at $3200 for the sensor and $1.50 for the test. No official word on a release date, but we hope they won’t make us wait too long — we can’t stand the suspense.

Lab-on-a-chip aims to take suspense out of blood work originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 07:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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