A team of researchers in Italy are on the hunt to find the real Mona Lisa. That lawn mower looking machine they’re holding is actually a geo-radar device that will scan the ground to locate the skull of the mysterious woman with an even more mysterious smile. More »
Everything’s coming up Jack Dorsey these days. Last week Apple started stocking Square’s iPhone credit card readers in its 235 US retail locations, and now, according to Reuters, Visa has put its plastic where its mouth is. The credit card giant has invested in the personal payments startup, scoring itself a spot on Square’s advisory board in the process. No word on how much Visa is actually dropping on the company, but one thing stands to reason: it probably didn’t make the deposit via Verifone. If you would like to invest in a Square reader, it’ll cost you a lot less — the company is still offering smartphone plug-ins for free on its site.
Square gets financial backing from Visa, asks to see some ID originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Manufacturers just aren’t willing to wait for the eighth of May — they want to announce their spiffy new Intel Z68 Express motherboards now, dang it, whatever the consequences. Well, we can’t really complain, especially when said motherboards reveal brand-new Intel products in trade. The above image was pulled direct from a PDF flyer for the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 motherboard, which depicts an intriguing benchmark — if you pair one of Intel’s 20GB Larsen Creek solid state drives with a standard 1TB magnetic hard drive, Intel’s SSD caching technology can allegedly give you much speedier performance. Of course, there’s no such thing as a 20GB Larsen Creek drive, right? This is the part where we’d tell you that Intel may finally be democratizing solid state storage and making it an affordable upgrade to all — except we know full well that Z68 is the company’s premium Sandy Bridge-supporting chipset, so don’t get your hopes up too far.
[Thanks, Anton]
Intel’s Larsen Creek SSDs leak out, courtesy of ASRock’s Z68 motherboard originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Casio goes Commando, the Nexus S heads for Sprint, the Droid Incredible 2 shows up, and our jaws drop at AT&T’s audacious FCC filing.
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HTC Droid Incredible 2 to launch Thursday
Sprint announces Nexus S 4G for May 8
Casio G’zOne Commando heads to Verizon
Gingerbread to arrive soon for G2x
Where is your Gingerbread update?
Digging through AT&T’s FCC filing
Confirmed: Google Voice for Sprint live for some
Recipe for a successful Android phone
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Originally posted at Dialed In
Though it’s available only in select markets for now, the new Verizon Unleashed plan offers unlimited calling, messaging, and mobile Web for $50 per month.
Originally posted at Dialed In
As the PlayStation Network / Qriocity outage stretches into its second week, over on the PlayStation Blog rep Patrick Seybold has just posted an updated Q&A based on the inquiries of concerned users. Beyond the security of our personal information, the most important question is when service might be restored and he reiterates Sony expects to have “some services” up and running within a week from yesterday. When it comes to the most important personal information like credit card numbers, there are assurances that the credit card database was encrypted and there is no evidence anything was taken, but that’s a possibility that still cannot be ruled out completely. To keep things secure, Gamasutra reports game developers are getting new SDKs with updated security features as well. When the service comes back up, expect a mandatory system update that requires a new password before getting back to your Mortal Kombat or Portal 2-related plans.
Sony update on PSN / Qriocity outage: ‘some services up and running within a week’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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HTC’s been riding high on its smartphone success as of late, and now it looks like its ready to cruise into the automotive market. That’s right, the world’s third most valuable smartphone manufacturer is seeking to add a North American “automotive business development director” to its team. According to a job post that appeared on the Taiwan-based company’s website, HTC is looking to hire an “experienced leader in the automotive electronics industry” to “develop business in the automotive market.” Does that mean we’ll be seeing an HTC-branded EV hitting the pavement stateside in the near future? We doubt it, but we suspect this could mean an uptick in HTC in-car accessories and built-in console computers this side of the pond.
[Thanks, Brian]
HTC job post reveals intention to make a mark on American cars originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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The Google Docs Android App gives users the ability to access and edit documents, spreadsheets, and more. Photo courtesy of Google
Smartphone users have had Google Docs on their devices for quite a while now, as long as they accessed it through their browser.
Today, Google introduced the Google Docs app for Android, finally providing a native environment for the service, as well as some convenient new features.
The app lets you create, edit, upload, and share documents from your phone, and allows for near real-time collaboration.
You can also take a photo of an actual, physical text document and convert it into a Google doc, without the need for a third-party app. This feature should be handy for keeping track of receipts on trips (expense reports, anyone?) or quickly sharing other important textual information with your phone’s contacts.
From what I could tell, the Google Docs app works swimmingly, though the app experience isn’t quite as fluid as on the PC. In the Docs app, for example, you have to click a button in the upper right to enter editing mode and then save your changes. It’s a minor quibble, but the app is otherwise great for accessing and changing any of your documents on the go.
Google Docs App [Android Market via Android Community]
There are really no words to describe the this photo, except to point out the obvious: It has a robot. And a bike. And a lady in white tights with really big hair.
In other words, this photo sums up all that is awesome and good and wonderful and yes, a bit juvenile about what we write about here on this blog. If there was ever an official photo of Gadget Lab, this would be it.
(Thanks, Erik, Caitlin and Pete)
Three recently released tablets duke it out for the privilege to challenge reigning Web speed champs, the Xoom and the iPad 2.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
