Hasta La Gadget!

Canadians frequently wait longer for new technology than their American counterparts, but they’re catching a break today. Following a MobileSyrup leak, Rogers has confirmed to Engadget that some of its stores will be selling the Moto X in “limited quantities” this weekend — a full week ahead of the AT&T release. We wouldn’t count on finding the Android flagship after dealing with spotty availability during previous early launches, but the news is still a pleasant surprise for Motorola-minded Canucks.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google

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Source: MobileSyrup

We’d like to imagine that somewhere in Mountain View, a group of high-level tech execs are giving ICANN the stink eye. After all, the organization has recently passed a resolution that prohibits dotless domains, effectively squashing Google’s dreams to own and operate http://search. This development follows a study ICANN published a few days ago, detailing how hard it’ll be to mitigate security and stability risks that could come with the unusual domains. Google had big plans to turn http://search into a service where users could choose among a number of search websites that registered to be a part of it. Now that the one-word wonder is no longer an option for Page and Co., the company has to make do with .search (with a dot), assuming its bidding spree for a pile of gTLDs pays off.

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: Domain Name Wire, Domain Incite

Seems that one of the better smartphone values on the market today is about to reintroduce itself to AT&T’s customers, as @evleaks has just tipped the LG Optimus G Pro in white. Up until this point, the carrier has sold the phone only in black, but its large 5.5-inch, 1080p display, Snapdragon 600 SoC and 13MP camera seem to grab all the attention. AT&T currently sells the Optimus G Pro for $100 on contract or $440 outright, but there’s no definitive arrival date for this pearly creation.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, AT&T, LG

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Source: @evleaks (Twitter)

We’ll say this about the AR.Drone’s battery life up to now: it always seemed perfectly suited to our short attention spans. For those able to focus on flying objects a bit longer, however, there’s the AR.Drone 2.0 Power Edition. The quadricopter’s already gotten some love abroad and is set to hit our shores this month, priced at $370 over at that fine purveyor of massage chairs, Brookstone. This time out, the limited edition phone-controlled device brings 36 minutes of flight time (not the first boost we’ve seen from the company), thanks to two 1,500mAh lithium-polymers. Also new are sets of color blades (including black for when you’re feeling a bit stealthier).

Filed under: Robots, Transportation

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Source: Brookstone

Smart pedometers are just the beginning. Sensors of all kinds are emerging to track the way we move, what we do at home and the way we sleep.

Last week, I wrote about a Helsinki-based company called Beddit that ran an Indiegogo campaign for a sleep sensor you attach to your bed. They say it is so sensitive, it can pick up a person’s heart-rate. After making devices like this for medical professionals for a couple years, they are looking at the consumer market with a cheaper product for $149.

They quickly reached their goal of $80,000 in about a week and are looking to tack on more. The company’s pledging to build a web app called Beddit Cloud for backing up and sharing sleep data if they can reach $200,000. The original Beddit already syncs to a mobile app through Bluetooth.

But if they build Beddit Cloud, then a person can automatically upload their sleep measurements to a private web account. This will include visualizations for looking at long periods of sleep data, spreadsheet exports and an anonymous aggregated comparison of your sleep data with other Beddit Cloud users.

They’ll also make the data easily shareable to social networks, putting in some of the social features that are common in more generalized activity trackers like the Jawbone Up. There will also be an open API for third-party apps. They’re planning to have it out by the second quarter of next year if they make this stretch goal.