Hasta La Gadget!

Imagine all of the waiting rooms and typing classes it’s seen in its half-century on earth. IBM this week is celebrating the 50th birthday of its best-selling Selectric line of office typewriters. First introduced in 1961, the line featured a rotating typeball that increased typing speed and could be changed for italics, symbols, and different fonts and languages. The typewriter also eschewed the traditional moving carriage, with the typeball and ribbon taking on the motion, reducing the unit’s overall size and leaving more space on office desks for family photos and troll dolls. These innovations helped make the line nearly ubiquitous in offices spaces, and in 1964, the Selectric line offered up an early word processor capable of storing characters. IBM would go on to retire the line in 1986. Fittingly, the now defunct typewriter will be honored with its very own postage stamp.

Continue reading IBM Selectric Typewriter turns 50, yells at tablets to get off its lawn

IBM Selectric Typewriter turns 50, yells at tablets to get off its lawn originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure how Don Draper would have sold a 60 percent price increase on your most popular service package but maybe Netflix executives can make a guess after they start watching the first four seasons of Mad Men today on Watch Instantly. Netflix’s Lionsgate deal will keep reruns flowing for years to come, while a new agreement with CBS International is bringing its programming — including Showtime shows like Dexter that were recently yanked from the US Netflix service — to viewers in Canada (who already had Mad Men) and Latin America (where it locked up a cache of telenovelas yesterday). This CBS agreement is separate from their (also non-exclusive) US deal that brought Star Trek back, but international viewers will still get to both TOS and TNG, as well as shows like Twin Peaks and 90210. Check the press release after the break for more details on the international deal, the source link for a time warp back to 1960s NYC or hit the comments below to explain how canceling your $7.99 per month service is a stand against greedy corporations.

Continue reading Netflix adds Mad Men in the US today, CBS content in Canada and Latin America later

Netflix adds Mad Men in the US today, CBS content in Canada and Latin America later originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Since you clicked your first link, you were promised one thing about the internet: you may have to pay a cover charge, but once you’re in, everything’s free. Except that suddenly doesn’t seem as true anymore. You know what? Good. More »

Last time on Days of our Rumored Amazon Tablets’ Lives: Bezos teased us with a “stay tuned” cliffhanger, but shook his head at the notion of a color E Ink Kindle this year. While DigiTimes spilled its cup of beans about the devices’ possible use of Fringe Field Switching displays and fabrication by Quanta Computer, the Wall Street Journal threw its two cents in with a report pegging a couple of new Kindles for Q3. Now loose-lipped sources are feeding the DigiTimes hearsay flames with a leaked supplier parts list that has Wintek, J Touch and CPT providing touch panels with NVIDIA processors at the tabs’ cores. The Seattle-based company also purportedly plans to ship four million of these 7- and 10-inch slates by 2011’s end. So, what to believe? We’ll find out in due time, but with all this gossipy buzz you can place your bets on something.

Amazon tablet rumors flare on leaked supplier parts list originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 27 Jul 2011 13:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell launches Stage streaming software to its laptops, desktops, and Android devices