Hasta La Gadget!

Guess what humans? It’s that time again — the Engadget Show returns this Saturday, May 22nd at 5pm… and it’s shaping up to be a killer! First up, we’ll have an exclusive interview with Adobe’s CTO Kevin Lynch (taped at the Google I/O conference), which is sure to be both informative and wildly entertaining. What’s more, Josh, Paul, and Nilay will be putting the new HTC Evo 4G through its paces live onstage, then they’ll be joined by our very own Chris Ziegler and Laura June for a hard-hitting round of Q&A with the audience. That’s right, it’s your chance to ask the Engadget editors anything, live and in-person, plus much more (see instructions in the bullet points below). And as usual, we’ll have some rocking 8-bit music from minusbaby and visuals from notendo and plenty of those good ‘ol Engadget Show shenanigans.

You like giveaways? Well then, this is your lucky week (if you attend). Many of you will be walking away with shiny new Voyager Pro headsets, courtesy of Plantronics and we’ve got tons of Engadget t-shirts to hand out!

Oh, and did we mention we’re also giving away a brand new iPad (courtesy of The Little App Factory and bundled with all of their software titles)? Well we are, alongside a handful of other goodies.

The Engadget Show is sponsored by Sprint, and will take place at the Times Center, part of The New York Times Building in the heart of New York City at 41st St. between 7th and 8th Avenues (see map after the break). Tickets are — as always — free to anyone who would like to attend, but seating is limited, and tickets will be first come, first served… so get there early! Here’s all the info you need:

• There is no admission fee — tickets are completely free
• The event is all ages
• Ticketing will begin at the Times Center at 2:30PM on Saturday, doors will open for seating at 4:30PM, and the show begins at 5PM
• You cannot collect tickets for friends or family — anyone who would like to come must be present to get a ticket
• Seating capacity in the Times Center is about 340, and once we’re full, we’re full
• The venue is located at 41st St. between 7th and 8th Avenues in New York City (map after the break)
• The show length is around an hour
• If you have a question for the editor Q&A, email your question to showquestions [at] engadget [dot] com, or hand the question in to us at the venue by 3:30PM. You must hand in the query on an index card or piece of paper when you pick up your tickets.

If you’re a member of the media who wishes to attend, please contact us at: engadgetshowmedia [at] engadget [dot] com, and we’ll try to accommodate you. All other non-media questions can be sent to: engadgetshow [at] engadget [dot] com.

Subscribe to the Show:

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Continue reading The Engadget Show returns, this Saturday, May 22nd with Sprint’s Evo 4G, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch, and an Engadget editors Q&A!

The Engadget Show returns, this Saturday, May 22nd with Sprint’s Evo 4G, Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch, and an Engadget editors Q&A! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 May 2010 18:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While Adobe evangelist Ryan Stewart wants us to focus on Flash 10.1 performance — admittedly impressive — running on his Nexus One, we can’t help but be distracted by the Android 2.2 “Froyo” build apparently supporting his device. Can you blame us? It’s not like we’re alone with waning interest in Flash, especially for video playback. Anyway, from the looks of the homescreen in the grab above, we’ll be treated to an updated launcher, Android tutorial, and global search box when the OS is revealed (presumably) at Google I/O starting May 19. And with the giant Froyo statue apparently already delivered to the GooglePlex’s confectionary art show, well, the stage is set for 2.2 to be launched in time for Adobe’s planned June release of Flash 10.1. Get your glimpse into the future of Flash and Android in the video after the break.

Update: How much faster is a Nexus One running Froyo? 450 percent faster, according to the Android Police. They claim to have a device running the as-yet-unreleased firmware that can perform over 37 million floating-point operations per second in the Linpack benchmark… compared to about 7 megaflops without. Oh yeeaaah.

[Thanks, Taylor]

Continue reading Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ and Flash run like butter on Nexus One (update)

Android 2.2 ‘Froyo’ and Flash run like butter on Nexus One (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 May 2010 23:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s not easy to launch a new product category, especially if devices don’t have a magically-delicious hook, but that’s not why ARM thinks it’s taken so long to deliver the smartbook. In an interview with ZDNet UK, VP Ian Drew said Adobe’s blame was undeniable — Flash didn’t deliver ARM optimization in time for subnetbooks to be viable. Compounding the issue, the tablet craze has manufacturers all atwitter, he said, diverting smartbook resources to the iPad party instead. As far as netbooks are concerned, Drew cited poor adoption of Linux; he reminded us ARM smartbooks can’t do x86. Asked if Atom (which can) might be the real reason for delay, he said absolutely, positively no way. The executive said manufacturers apparently hadn’t brought up that idea even once. Guess we’ll have to take his word on that one.

ARM blames Flash, netbooks and tablets for smartbook delay, oh my originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 06 May 2010 02:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch says Flash works just fine on the Apple iPhone, thank you very much — and he thinks that’s exactly why Apple keeps on denying it access. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, he explained his belief that by eliminating Flash, Cupertino is forcing developers to build apps natively for iPhone OS rather than one of Adobe’s cross-platform solutions, and thus creating a “walled garden” of applications that users must flock to an iDevice to be able to use. Lynch compared Apple’s control over development formats to 19th century railroad lines that competed for customers by using differently sized rails, and pledged that Adobe would not be part of such a competition. “It’s not HTML vs. Flash — they’ve been co-existing for over a decade,” he said, adding, “We’re going to try and make the best tools in the world for HTML5.” So, what do you think about that, Steve?

Adobe decries Apple’s ‘walled garden,’ yet pledges ‘best tools’ for HTML5 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 May 2010 19:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple may be the subject of either a Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission inquiry focusing on its iPad/iPhone development practices, according to a report on Monday.

The New York Post reported that the two agencies are “locked in negotiations” over whether or not Apple barred competition by forcing its developers to use only Apple’s programming tools, and presumably, avoid using Adobe’s Flash technology.

As the Post noted, an inquiry does not mean a criminal investigation,
merely questions Apple will be obligated to answer.

It’s the latest chapter in the ongoing saga, which began with Apple’s iPhone OS 4 launch. Accompanying language in the software development kit said that developers “must not call any private APIs,” an oblique reference to Flash. Apple also noted that developers had to write their code directly in C, C++, or Objective-C. Weeks later, Adobe said it was halting Flash development for the iPhone OS platform, and an Adobe evangelist added an inflammatory memo.

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs then fired back, calling Flash a “closed system” in an open letter to Adobe and to the software industry at large. Jobs identified a number of objections to Flash including its reliability, security, and performance, and its ability to access what Jobs referred to as the “Open Web”.

But the real reason, Jobs wrote, was simply that Flash represented a bottleneck to third-party apps. Apple, Jobs wrote, “cannot be at the mercy of a
third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements
available to our developers.” Adobe has no interest in writing the best
possible iPhone, iPod, and iPad apps, Jobs argued.

“It is their goal to
help developers write cross platform apps. And Adobe has been painfully
slow to adopt enhancements to Apple’s platforms,” Jobs wrote.

The FTC had not responded to a request for comment at press time. Apple was also unavailable before West Coast business hours.