Hasta La Gadget!

The rumors were true, and Nintendo‘s knight in shining armor is finally about to see its first-ever price drop. For nearly three years now, the console has sold briskly at $249.99, but beginning on September 27th at Best Buy (and everywhere else, naturally), the happy-go-lucky machine will be offered for just $199.99. Interestingly, it appears that suits at BB expect Nintendo to make an official announcement on the drop this Friday, yet retail stores won’t begin selling at the discounted rate until Sunday. Something tells us that won’t go over well, but we guess we’ve but a few days left ’til we find out exactly how the Big N plans to play this.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Wii price drop confirmed: $199 starting this weekend originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Sep 2009 23:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel wouldn’t let anyone touch it — or even close the browser out to the home screen — but we just got a quick glimpse of the new phone-oriented Moblin 2.1 running on an unnamed Compal MID and an Acer netbook. It’s certainly pretty, and the widgets look nice, but we’re not going to be happy until we can poke at it ourselves. One more pic after the break!

Continue reading Moblin 2.1 eyes-on

Filed under: Handhelds, Software

Moblin 2.1 eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Sync’s pretty awesome as it is, but it’s had one glaring flaw in its implementation: no support for Gmail, just Calendar and Contacts, which means you aren’t able to get true push email delivered. Well, they’ve gone ahead and completed the holy Google trinity today with the introduction of Gmail support into the Exchange ActiveSync mix, so any phone with Exchange support should theoretically be able to get in on the action. We say “theoretically” because they’re only quoting support for the iPhone and Windows Mobile at this point, but it seems like anything that can speak the EAS protocol should be able to make this happen. Let us know your trials, tribulations, and successes getting this set up in comments, won’t you?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Google adds support for push Gmail via Exchange ActiveSync originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See that? That’s the device that will forever change the way you to listen to music. At least that was the promise made in the teaser running up to today’s press event. The buttonless MH907 buds are the world’s first “Motion Activated” headphones with Sony Ericsson’s “SensMe Control” tech: bung them into your ears to automatically start listening to music, remove one bud to pause. The buds are activated by body contact and mimick the way we control sound now. What’s cool is that the headphones seem to use your body as an electrical conduit (a Body Area Network) based on this quote from the webinar:

“Requires conductive surface to activate the controls – i.e. your ears, hence it won’t turn things on in your pocket by just squeezing the ear buds”

If so, this is a first consumer application of this technology that we can recall. Available globally this week for any Fast Port equipped phone for just €39. Video fun after the break.

Update: SE has further clarified that the technology is capacitive in nature. In other words, removing an ear bud isn’t breaking the flow of current between buds (and across your noodle) — it’s destroying the dynamic capacitor formed by the touch of human skin. Right, this is technology we’ve seen before in capacitive touchscreens and trackpads.

Continue reading Sony Ericsson’s motion activated MH907 headset could change things forever (update: or not)

Filed under: Portable Audio

Sony Ericsson’s motion activated MH907 headset could change things forever (update: or not) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Sep 2009 06:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It was always curious that Google’s response to the FCC inquiry about Google Voice and the App Store had been redacted, but now we’re starting to see why — El Goog and the FCC have just released the full text of the letter, and it flatly contradicts Apple’s take on the matter. If you’ll remember, Apple claimed that while Google Voice hadn’t been approved, it also hadn’t been rejected, and that its status was in limbo while the folks in Cupertino “studied” the matter. Not so, says El Goog: according to its letter, Phil Schiller himself told Google that GV had been rejected on July 7 for duplication of functionality, following a similar conversation on April 10th during which Schiller rejected Google Latitude in part because it might “offer new features not present on the preloaded maps application.” Yeah, that’s a huge discrepancy, and it makes Apple’s version seem even more divorced from reality that it already is. Things are starting to heat up — we’ll see what the FCC makes of all this.

Update: And here we go — Apple just pinged us to say the following: “We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter. Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google.”

Update 2: So we’ve been thinking about it, and here’s our question — if Apple didn’t reject GV, and is still studying it, what exactly did Phil Schiller say to Google to make them think it had been rejected? The difference between “rejected” and “on hold pending further discussion” isn’t a subtle one, and Google clearly thought GV had been explicitly rejected. For whatever it’s worth, reports of GV’s “rejection” are how this whole mess got started, so either this is all one huge misunderstanding, or someone here isn’t telling the entire truth.

Read – Google unredacted FCC filing [Warning: PDF]
Read – Google Public Policy Blog explaining decision to release letter

Filed under: Cellphones, Software

Google says Phil Schiller himself rejected Google Voice from the App Store originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Sep 2009 11:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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