We know the iPhone 4S is a killer still camera—perhaps its greatest selling point—but how about video? Do the new guts and 1080p bump make a big difference? Yes. A giant yes. See just how amazing for yourself. More »
Kids lacking the imagination to bring their own toys to life now have the option of letting a games console do it for them. Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure has teleported into stores, boxed with three toy figures and a ‘portal device‘ that brings them to life in-game. The bundle totals up at $70, and Activision is billing it as the “first true cross-platform game”, with the toys playing nice across Wii, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, 3DS and iOS versions. The statuettes, which connect to the portal peripheral through embedded RFID tags, also store game data across platforms. The business plan presumably involves groups of kids investing in Spyro’s latest yarn and swapping characters amongst themselves, while holding onto their own precious in-game achievements. If your little brother has trouble trading with friends who couldn’t care less about the antics of lava-belching monsters, they can always can stump up an extra $8 for new figures. Click ‘Read more’ for some explanatory cartoon violence.
Continue reading Spyro figurines bridge the console divide, bring flame-grilled peace to the world
Spyro figurines bridge the console divide, bring flame-grilled peace to the world originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Kinect hack lets you manage your bank account with gestures, will occupy your living room (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Know what beats selling CDs (or USB sticks) and swag out of the trunk of your struggling band’s party wagon? Striking a deal with Google to pitch those wares on the interwebs, that’s what. Rolling out to official YouTube partners over the next few weeks, the newly created Merch Store will offer fans from all across the globe an opportunity to purchase MP3s, tickets for concerts and gatherings, and, of course, merchandise straight from your dedicated page. Helping ol’ Mountain View make these coffer-filling goodies available are a handful of established online retailers like Amazon, iTunes, Songkick and Topspin. So, if you just can’t wait for the Rebecca Black arena rock tour to blitz through your small town, keep clicking refresh on that artist channel for the inevitable slew of merchandising, merchandising.
YouTube ‘Merch Store’ makes your artist channel a one-stop shop for the groupie goodies originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Filed under: Cellphones
Motorola intros Elite Sliver and Elite Flip Bluetooth headsets with NFC pairing (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 11:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Bill shock? It’s “a real consumer problem that needs to be fixed,” according to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. The department teamed up with the CTIA and the Consumers Union today to address the problem of unexpected mobile bill charges. The solution? Alerts about overages and international roaming sent to subscribers before they rack up bills they can’t afford. It’s a plan the organization talked up last year, thanks to the findings of a Consumer Task Force. The FCC hopes that a rollout of the plan will be completed in the next 12 months.
Continue reading FCC and CTIA get set to hit back against bill shock
FCC and CTIA get set to hit back against bill shock originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Modern haunted houses don’t feature rubber bats and bowls full of peeled grapes masquerading as eyeballs, they screw with your phobias and recreate nightmares. I thought that going through with a thermal cam would be less unnerving. Wrongo. More »
Redmond houses quite a few little teams beavering away on quirky projects and one of those has just gone public with its latest creation. It’s codenamed “Data Explorer”, which perhaps isn’t an ideal codename since it describes exactly what the enterprise-focused service does. Instead of manually searching and copying data into a report, Data Explorer pulls information from SQL databases, spreadsheets and other “random sources” that could be relevant, and then attempts to “clean it up, transform it, merge it together and then publish it out” as a coherent report. You can learn more and sign up for the beta at the source link, or click past the break to watch a Microsoft exec demo the tool using a real-world case study — we found it a bit dense, but you’ll be fine as long as you remember that kids love frozen yogurt.
Continue reading Microsoft reveals Data Explorer tool, gets into the sorbet business (video)
Microsoft reveals Data Explorer tool, gets into the sorbet business (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It’s with broken heart that we announce that the doors have officially shut for good on all remaining webOS retail stores. The news likely won’t come as a shock to many, given HP’s intent to scrap the operating system from its future plans. This isn’t the first physical manifestation of the company’s announcement, when factoring in the plethora of layoffs taking place; nonetheless, anyone affected or touched by a Palm device over the last 19 years may likely mourn the loss. That said, at least the stores went out with a bang: Veers were cleared out for $50 each, the Pixi was sold for $25 ($15 if you purchased four or more) and the Touchstone could be had for a cool $2.50. The retail outlets may now be a thing of the past, but the memories of the products sold in them will hopefully live on forever. Never forget.
webOS brick-and-mortar stores close forever, may they rest in peace originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 10:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Some BlackBerrys, spending a little relaxing time off-network. Photo Zitona/Flickr
RIM has decided to compensate its users for last week’s disastrous BlackBerry service outage. How? Free apps, of course. Rumors that it will also send out candy are false.
In order to make amends for the “service interruptions,” which took down BBM, e-mail and pretty much everything else for up to three days last week, RIM will give users free games and utilities. You’ll be able to pick from SIMS 3 and Bejeweled, amongst other games, which will certainly appeal to the stern
business types who still use BlackBerrys.
There’s something for all the school kids who use BBM for free messaging with their friends, too — Vlingo Plus, a virtual assistant, is also on the list.
I kid. It’s a nice gesture from RIM, and the ailing Canadian company will also give its enterprise customer a month of free technical support (or a one month extension if they’re already paying).
But the real damage has been done. RIM positions itself as the serious business company, but outages like this one and previous ones erode trust and might just see corporate customers leaping to frivolous platforms like Android and iOS, which don’t route users’ data through private — and seemingly fragile — networks.
Research In Motion Offers Free Premium Apps to Customers Following Service Interruptions [RIM PR]
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