Hasta La Gadget!

XtremeMac has unveiled a couple new products aimed at Apple users to allow wireless streaming of music to non-Bluetooth home or portable audio systems. The two new products include the BT Connect, and the BT Home Connect. Both devices allow wireless streaming using Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) sound.

The BT Connect receiver lets users of the iPhone, iPod, or iPad stream music wirelessly from their device to audio systems that lack integrated Bluetooth connectivity. The device has 10 hours of playback per set of AAA batteries and is designed to be small and compact for clean and simple installation.

This device remembers Bluetooth connections after pairing for easy connectivity and will sell for $59.95. The BT Home Connect is a Bluetooth audio receiver designed to be used with your favorite home speakers allowing the streaming of AAC quality audio with no wires. This device ships with a 3.5 mm to RCA converter for use with a variety of speaker systems and audio receivers.

Once paired with your device the BT Home Connect remembers your connection for easy access in the future. This device also sells for $59.95. The main difference between the two devices is that the Home Connect doesn’t offer a battery power option. Additional details on both devices, including availability will be announced later.

XtremeMac unveils new BT Connect and BT Home Connect devices is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

While the two events are entirely unrelated, a major service outage coinciding with potentially the biggest mobile of the year hitting stores worldwide is just plain old unlucky. Users of RIM’s BlackBerry service in the EMEA region are at the wrong end of a network problem affecting BBM, email and internet. At the moment it doesn’t appear to be of the vast and crippling scale as last time, but small consolation if you’re one of the unlucky ones. RIM has acknowledged the issue, and you can bet the farm on the fact there is more than a handful of slightly stressed engineers on the case, hoping to keep customers from making that impulse purchase. Let us know in the comments if you’re affected.

Update: We’ve just received this official statement from RIM in the UK:

“Our apologies to any customers impacted by the BlackBerry service issue today. We can confirm that services have been restored and are now operating normally.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

BlackBerry outage affecting users in Europe, Middle East and Africa (update: service restored?) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 06:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Civil unrest in China has resulted in demonstrations and violence against Japanese interests in the country. With many of the world’s electronics manufacturers having facilities inside China, it comes as no surprise that some of those factories have been damaged during the violence. Panasonic has issued an official statement about damage to its Chinese manufacturing operations.

So far, Panasonic reports that there were no injuries to its personnel in China. However, the company has had damage to several of its manufacturing facilities. Damage to facilities include Panasonic’s Industrial Devices Company, Qingdao factory where electric components such as switches are constructed. This factory suffered damage to the building and equipment. Panasonic says that preparations to restart operations at the factory are underway, but no ETA is available.

Panasonic also suffered damage to its Industrial Devices Company, Suzhou factory where printed circuit board materials and printed circuit boards are manufactured. Panasonic says that there was some damage to the building and equipment, but no major damage was sustained to production equipment. Operations at this plant restarted on September 17.

Panasonic’s Systems & Communications Company, Zhuhai factory where the company manufactures fixed-line phones has stopped operations and workers have stayed home. That plant was closed after 10 Chinese employees started a protest at the site. This location is preparing to restart operations. Panasonic says that it’s unable to forecast the effect of the damage at this time and will announce if damage and plant closures will affect its financial outlook at a later date.

Chinese Panasonic facilities damaged during protests is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

We can’t guarantee what this box contains, but if the list of specs is accurate then it’s definitely too good to gift-wrap. The photo above was posted to a Chinese forum thread entitled “Padfone 2 specs revealed” by a user called cj1024, and indeed the A68 model number at the top of the list does sound appropriate, considering the original Padfone was the A66. If we assume it’s legit, for the sake of argument, then maybe we can expect ASUS’s next modular phone to come with the same quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor and 13-megapixel camera resolution that are already strutting around in the LG Optimus G, alongside an uncommonly bright, 4.7-inch 1280 x 720 Super IPS+ display, LTE and 2GB of RAM. You can digest the rest for yourself, or just wait until October 16th.

Update: Keen-eyed doubter Firuz has spotted a problem: the display icon says “SuperAMOLED” even though the specs state “Super IPS.” Dodgy ‘chop or actual packaging error? You decide.

Filed under: Cellphones

Packaging hints at ASUS Padfone 2 having 4.7-inch 720p display, 13MP camera, quad-core S4 Pro originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Sep 2012 06:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you want to take full advantage of the last chance you’ll ever get to see the space shuttle Endeavour in-flight you’ll need to wake up and get going a bit early this morning. Californians in the Los Angeles basin and San Francisco area will need to be out looking for the space shuttle and its 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at about 8:15 AM PDT.

It’s worth noting that time is one hour later than NASA originally planned. The flyover time was shifted by an hour to allow more time for fog over the San Francisco area to dissipate before the flyover. Obviously, if the fog is still heavy, space shuttle fans on the ground will have a hard time seeing the historic last flight of Endeavour.

The shuttle and its 747 will be in the air in the California area for 4 1/2 hours. NASA is encouraging people who see the shuttle to share their sightings and photos using the hash tags #spottedtheshuttle and #OV105. OV105 is Endeavour’s official vehicle designation. NASA also has a flickr group where it is encouraging people to share their images.

The shuttle will fly over NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center and the Edwards Air Force Base area after takeoff with a low flyby northbound to Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area. Anytime after 9:30 AM PDT the space shuttle should be able to be spotted at locations such as the Bay Area Discovery Museum, Chabot Space and Science Center, the California State Capital, Exploratorium, Lawrence Hall of Science, and Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Starting at 11:30 AM the shuttle will be flying over regional landmarks, including The California Science Center, Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, Disneyland, The Getty Center, Griffith Observatory Los Angele City Hall, the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific Malibu Beach, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, the Queen Mary, Universal Studios an Venice Beach. The shuttle is scheduled to land at about 12:45 PM at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Space shuttle Endeavour to fly over California this morning is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.