Hasta La Gadget!

Believe it or not, HD Radio‘s still kickin’. It’ll never be the runaway hit that MP3 was, but considering what satellite radio has been through over the past couple of years… well, maybe things aren’t so gloomy after all. Best Buy’s house label has just introduced a followup to last year’s NS-HD01 portable HD Radio — a unit we were able to toy with for a tick — with the predictably named NS-HD02 boasting a far nicer display and a trio of newfangled features. Best Buy’s trumpeting Artist Experience (on-screen program related images, including targeted ads), Live Pause (enables users to pause playback for up to 15 minutes) and Bookmark (self explanatory), but it ought to be focusing on the 2.5- x 3-inch capacitive touchpanel that looks to be leaps and bounds better than the LCD we kvetched about last year. It’ll also boast a 3.5mm headphone jack and ship with a pair of sure-to-be-lackluster earbuds, and it’ll land in Best Buy stores on October 24th for $69 (a $20 premium over the HD01).

Insignia intros second portable HD Radio: NS-HD02 with ‘live pause’ and bookmarks originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In the market for a MacBook Air? Well, now may not be the best time. Apple Insider is reporting indirect sales channels (read: non-Apple stores) are running out of the thin-and-light with no indication of a replenishment. Indeed, we just checked Amazon, Best Buy, and a few other online retailers and were consistently greeted by limited- and out-of-stock notices. So, you know what the means — new hardware rumors. Or rather, old ones resurfacing, such as the 11.6-inch display from late September. Compounding the community’s curiosity would be vague tweets from famed company insider John Gruber, who casually mentioned “the imminent” new MacBook Air as a possible reason for the recent Apple Store downtime. Of course, that didn’t turn out to be the case, and for all we know it could just mean some refreshed specs — if even that, really.

AI reminds us that October has been historically the month of refreshed Mac hardware in the lead-up to holiday shopping… but that doesn’t mean it’s the case now. All we really know now is that third-party outlets aren’t currently stocking the Air and it’s unknown if they’re getting anymore shipments of this particular model — which, we know, isn’t nearly as exciting as the imagination. Sorry about that.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

MacBook Air supply dwindling for online retailers, rumor mill raises an eyebrow originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Oct 2010 20:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It would seem NVIDIA is ready to take the plunge into selling its graphics cards directly to consumers. Only problem with this plan, however, is that the company has opted to partner up with Best Buy, who’s started stocking its shelves with NVIDIA-branded GPUs a wee bit ahead of the official announcement. As most of us already know, NVIDIA and AMD traditionally rely on add-in-board partners to build and support the actual graphics boards, but now the (original) Green Team seems set to take those reins into its own hands. HardOCP has discovered Foxconn will be responsible for building these perfectly generic GeForces and NVIDIA is promising a pretty generous three-year warranty to go with their luxurious packaging. The company’s official response to these revelations has been to say that Best Buy will be the only place the own-brand cards can be purchased and that the effort is intended as a “complement” to products from its partners. Yes, we’re positive they’ll see it that way too.

Continue reading NVIDIA starts selling own-brand GPUs at Best Buy, AIB partners left befuddled

NVIDIA starts selling own-brand GPUs at Best Buy, AIB partners left befuddled originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 05 Oct 2010 14:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’d heard from a couple of internal sources on Friday that Qualcomm was pulling the plug on the ill-fated FLO TV direct-to-consumer service, and now we’ve reason to believe that the deed is in fact done. Despite the company’s best attempts at playing up the idea of carrying around a mobile TV and paying yet another content subscription bill, it seems as if the public’s wishes are finally being recognized. According to our sources, Qualcomm is informing partner retailers to stop selling FLO TV products immediately, and sure enough, a glance over at Best Buy’s website reveals that only a couple of accessories remain in stock. We’re guessing that Wally World is hoping to rid itself of as much stock as possible before the news goes mainstream, but in all likelihood, those units will too vanish into the night in short order. It’s bruited that Qualcomm is still in discussions with AT&T and Verizon on the future of its wholesale MediaFLO service, and we’ve reached out for comment on the future of service for those who already sprung for a FLO TV Personal Television. We’ll let you know what else we hear, but for now, be sure to stay away from a product you were never, ever interested in to begin with. It’ll be a challenge, we know.

FLO TV killed by Qualcomm, its four users look shocked and saddened originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re under the age of ten there probably isn’t much that can top seeing the Jonas Brothers in concert, chasing after Justin Bieber or a new episode of iCarly, but Toshiba and Best Buy are hoping its new jointly created Kids PC can elicit similar feelings of excitement from them youngins. The 13.3-inch Satellite L635 Kid’s PC, as you may have figured out by now, isn’t a netbook — no siree, it’s a big kid system with a dual-core Intel Celeron P4600 processor, 2GB of RAM, a DVD drive, and 250GB of storage. But, of course, there are some aspects that set it apart from mommy and daddy’s laptop — in addition to the “gender neutral” gray and neon green coloring it’s got a rubberized, wipeable keyboard that makes it easy to clean off the cookie crumbs and cooties. Toshiba’s also gone and loaded the 4.2-pound machine up with loads of child friendly software; it comes with NetNanny parental controls, KidZui’s web browser and games like Lego Batman. It isn’t a bad package for $499, but it’ll only available exclusively at Best Buy starting on September 26. Hit the break for the full release and the gallery below for some hands-on shots of the not-so-little guy.

Continue reading Toshiba and Best Buy team up on the Satellite L635 Kids’ PC, one-ups the kiddy netbooks

Toshiba and Best Buy team up on the Satellite L635 Kids’ PC, one-ups the kiddy netbooks originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 23 Sep 2010 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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