This is the new Windows Phone, Mango—with 500 new features, according to his Ballmerness. Crazy things, like multitasking! And other legitimately exciting stuff. More »
Mango may no longer be a secret in and of itself, but we doubt Microsoft would’ve set up an entire event to preview its big Windows Phone update if there was nothing hidden up that Redmond sleeve. To that end, we’ve just come across an official press release from the company, released on its Romanian website. The machine translation awaits after the break.
Update: We’ve now swapped in the natively English press release. There’s also confirmation that Mango will indeed be known as Windows Phone 7.1.
Update 2: Turns out Microsoft “had to give [the SDK] a name” and dubbed it 7.1, so Mango retains its formal WP7 moniker.
The first thing to note is that the update will be “freely available” to all current Windows Phone handsets, something Microsoft already committed to, and will be ready for download “at the beginning of this summer.” (Update: it looks like our translation machinery betrayed us, tipsters are saying it’s actually the beginning of autumn.) Naturally, the new goodness will also figure in new devices and from new partners, including Acer, Fujitsu, and ZTE. Those fresh faces join Nokia and the incumbent partners of Dell (maybe) HTC, Samsung, and LG to expand the WP ecosystem.
A Beta SDK of the new Windows Phone free tools will be available within 24 hours, we’re promised, for developers to sink their teeth into.
In the communications department, Microsoft is introducing conversation threads, which seamlessly transition between MSN Messenger chats, SMS, and Facebook messaging to keep you talking to the same person irrespective of the method. New contact group tiles are also incoming, with the ability to send quick emails or IMs to entire groups. Twitter and LinkedIn contact integration is mentioned, though we expect this go a lot deeper in Twitter’s case, as Microsoft has already demonstrated. Speaking of more in-depth integration, Microsoft has improved the Live Tiles to allow the display of more dynamic information from apps, which will of course be able to multitask beautifully. Internet Explorer 9 is also joining in on the Mango fun with support for HTML5. Jump past the break for all the details.
Update 3: Would you look at that, Bing search has gotten a thorough sprucing up as well. Video of all the new goodness follows after the break — or you can click here to hit up Microsoft’s own video library, which is loaded to the gills with feature overviews.
Gallery: Windows Phone 7 ‘Mango’
Continue reading Microsoft announces Windows Phone ‘Mango’ update, coming in autumn (updated)
Microsoft announces Windows Phone ‘Mango’ update, coming in autumn (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 09:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Kobo has cracked the secret of touch-screen e-ink displays
Kobo has added a touch screen to its popular e-reader, and the result makes the Kindle look like a throwback to the days of the Psion Organizer.
The Kobo eReader Touch Edition gets around the main problem of touch-enabled e-ink screens — they’re dark and have low contrast — by using infrared sensors to work out where your fingers are. Thus, you get a bright six-inch display along with swipe-to-turn pages, page scrubbing (like scrubbing a video), an on-screen keyboard, long press to highlight passages and words and even double-tap to zoom a PDF.
The battery still lasts for two weeks, and the Touch reader has an SD card slot for expanding storage. It also weighs just 200 grams, less than the Wi-Fi Kindle’s 240 grams, likely thanks to the lack of an ugly hardware keyboard.
All in all, the new Kobo eReader Touch Edition looks sweet, and ties in with Kobo’s free apps for pretty much every phone and tablet out there. It is also a bargain, at $130, and will work with all those EPUB files you already have on your computer.
The Rumours are True! Kobo Launches the The Kobo eReader Touch Edition Today [Kobo blog]
Kobo eReader Touch Edition product page [Kobo]
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Continue reading NPG, CSU partner for $49 dynamic digital textbooks
NPG, CSU partner for $49 dynamic digital textbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Continue reading Sonos now streaming MOG music at 320kbps
Sonos now streaming MOG music at 320kbps originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Been loving the Opera Mini experience on your iPhone and wishing for it on your larger iOS device? Opera is today turning that desire into reality with the release of v6.0 of its Mini mobile browser, which now has support for all iOS portables, including the iPad and iPad 2, plus a specific shoutout for the iPhone 4’s retina display. The overall design of the web explorer has also been freshened up, with a “new look and feel,” while a social sharing function will let you blast URLs into Twitter and Facebook directly from the app. Additionally, the new version includes the ability to load tabs in the background and improves support for non-Latin alphabets like Arabic and Chinese. Hit the source link for the download.
[Thanks, Chris]
Continue reading Opera Mini lands on the iPad in version 6.0
Opera Mini lands on the iPad in version 6.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We were expecting Toshiba to launch its Windows 7 tablet during the second half of this year, but rumor has it that the company may be abandoning the slate altogether. DigiTimes is reporting that both the 11.6-inch slab and a forthcoming Chromebook have disappeared from Toshiba’s product launchpad, according to sources within the industry. The Chromebook will reportedly be slashed due to disappointing netbook sales in 2010, whereas the reasons behind the tablet’s cancellation remain less clear. DigiTimes suggests that Toshiba may be throwing all of its weight behind its new Honeycomb-powered Thrive slate, meaning that its Windows 7 counterpart could either be delayed even further, or simply relinquished. There’s obviously plenty of speculation swirling around, but we’ll let you know as soon as we receive more concrete reports.
Toshiba abandoning plans for Windows 7 tablet, Chromebook? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 08:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Despite the off-putting product shots and video, the SoundJam looks like a great fix for the iPad’s crappy speaker
SoundJaw is a small plastic widget that fixes one of the worst things about the iPad 2 — its stupid, tinny backwards-facing speaker. It clips onto the bottom of the iPad 2 (and also the iPad 1) and bounces the sound back towards you, greatly increasing its volume.
The original iPad sounded pretty great for something so small. The curved back and decent amount of space inside probably accounted for the surprisingly bassy output, and the good-enough volume. The iPad 2 has a speaker grille so ugly I still can’t believe it was designed by Apple, and so easy to cover with your hands (or a folded-back Smart Cover) that it can be all but muted at any time.
Matthew McLachlan’s SoundJaw fixes this by scooping up the sound and sending it towards you and your ears, and not letting it get muffled in your lap. The clip-on plastic scoop can be seen in action here in his otherwise obnoxious video (Trains! Shaky camera! We’re so cool!), and appears to make quite a difference. You can actually test this yourself by cupping a palm over the speaker and redirecting the sound waves. Try it.
Pretty effective, right?
The SoundJaw is yet another Kickstarter project, and a $20 pledge will get you one of them if the $7,000 target is reached. If you pledge $225, McLachlan will meet you for lunch and bring along 8 SoundJaws, and if you pledge $750 you’ll get an iPad 2 and ten SoundJaws “to pass out to your friends.”
Or you could make your own. I’m currently experimenting with household junk and will report back if I have any success.
SoundJaw – iPad 1 and 2 Sound Booster [Kickstarter via Brownlee]
Not interested in forking over the $400 required for one of Google’s recommended Android Open Accessory development kits? Well, then it looks like you now have another considerably cheaper option courtesy of Shenzhen’s own Seeed Studio. It’s now offering what it’s dubbed a “Seeeduino ADK” board for a mere $80, which it says is fully compatible with Google’s ADK, and includes all the basics you need to start building your own Android accessories. You won’t be able to start building those just yet, however, as Seeed Studio says the board will only start shipping on June 20th. You can still get your order in right now at the link below, though.
[Thanks, Ian]
Update: Not surprisingly, this won’t be the only low-cost option. We’ve already seen some DIY alternatives at the Maker Fair this past weekend that could well result in even more affordable ADK-compatible boards popping up.
Seeeduino ADK lets you build Android accessories on the cheap originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 May 2011 08:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
This article was written on January 01, 2008 by CyberNet.
Personalized homepages were spotlighted in March with Yahoo completing a huge redesign for My Yahoo! and Google launching a variety of dramatically changing themes for their Personalized Homepages. Additionally, it was a rough month for YouTube after Viacom sued them for $1 Billion dollars. They also had to deal with being banned (and then unbanned) in Turkey and Thailand. Let’s take a look at those headlines:
Personalized Homepages:
YouTube Troubles:
The month of April started out with a bunch of fooling! Thanks to April Fool’s day of course. Several sites decided to have some fun with this notable day of practical joking including Google with their “Free TiSP (Toilet Internet Service Provider) Broadband Internet, and ThinkGeek who claimed they were shipping the iPhone nearly three months early. Then of course there was the launch of Joost which caused quite the hype as well. Here’s a look at those headlines:
April Fools Day:
Joost:
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