Hasta La Gadget!

It looks like the world had better (finally) get ready for Virgin Mobile’s Helio Ocean 2 — not only have unboxing shots of the long-awaited set surfaced today, a Virgin press release hyping the company’s sponsorship of Britney Spears’ Circus tour casually mentions that it’ll be launched alongside Brit’s big comeback. “Select fans” will be given Ocean 2s to capture and share images and videos from each show using the phone’s blogging, email, and social networking features, so we’re guessing that means we’ll be seeing a launch before the tour kicks off in March — and with units out in the wild already, it could be as soon as a couple weeks on February 12. Check all the unboxing shots at the read link — it looks pretty slick, even if it is way late to the game.

[Via unwired view and Heliocity]

Read – Unboxing photos
Read – Virgin Circus press release

Filed under: Cellphones

Virgin Mobile Helio Ocean 2 unboxed, scheduled for launch with Britney Spears originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shortly after Acer snapped up E-Ten last year it’s been making public and private mention of plans to launch an Acer-branded smartphone. Now we’ve got a date: February 16th at the big Mobile World Congress cellphone event in Barcelona. We’ll be there so let’s call it a date, deal? Iaaaaiaiaiiaa!

Filed under: Cellphones

Acer smartphone launching February 16th, everybody flamenco! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 05:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We knew it was bound to happen, and sure enough, it’s happening. For the millions of Americans still waiting for their $40 voucher before buying one of those newfangled DTV converter boxes, the US Senate has just given its stamp of approval on providing them a four month reprieve as it attempts to get its act together. Oddly, there’s no mention of Congress looking for new sources of funding, though we are told that consumers holding expired coupons can now request new ones. We suspect more details will flow out on all of this soon, but for now, you can bank on the digital TV transition — originally scheduled to go down on February 17th — now occurring on June 12th. Until it changes again, of course.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Senate okays digital TV transition delay to June 12th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been waiting for this. Ever since Tim Cook made his non-specific, veiled threats in response to a direct question about how the Palm Pre “almost directly emulates the kind of touch interface” found on the iPhone, the entire tech community has waited for the next move. Now Lynn Fox, a Palm spokesperson has stepped into the fray. In a response given to Digital Daily and presumably crafted by a team of lawyers over the 2 days since the Apple analyst call, Lynn says the following:

Palm has a long history of innovation that is reflected in our products and robust patent portfolio, and we have long been recognized for our fundamental patents in the mobile space. If faced with legal action, we are confident that we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves.

The gauntlet is thrown. Now, will Apple risk the ire of a million new and middle-aged fanboys and crush Palm’s Cinderella comeback by forcing the Pre into some state of unreleased legal limbo? Or will Rubinstein and Jobs quietly sort it out over a yoghurt parfait in some strip mall in The Valley? Oh boy, this is going to be good.

Filed under: Cellphones

Palm responds to Apple’s veiled threat: “we have the tools necessary to defend ourselves” originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC’s got an all-new version of its GPS-centric Touch Cruise handset, with a thinner, slicker design and a new HTC Footprints app for integrating that location data with photos and notes. Of course, the phone doubles as a traditional in-car navigation system, cradle included, with GPS and a-GPS, but there’s plenty else to love here, including quad band GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a microSD slot and a 3.2 megapixel camera. The 2.8-inch QVGA screen betrays this phone’s consumer-bent, but the truly notable functionality here is actually in the software: HTC Footprints takes geotagging a step further, allowing to to take notes and audio clips and embed them in a “postcard” of sorts, all still tied to that GPS location data — the cards are even auto-named by their location. Footprints also works outdoors and indoors, which isn’t quite explained, but we’re guessing it just remembers where you were when you lost a signal. There’s a world-friendly WCDMA / HSPA 900 / 2100MHz version, of course, but us North Americans will be getting the 850 / 1900MHz flavor as a unlocked handset for $500 to $600 in Q2. Check out the read links below for the full PR and some early hands-ons, and there’s video after the break.

[Via Phone Scoop; thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read – HTC PR
Read – Touch Cruise hands-on (in Russian)
Read – Touch Cruise hands-on (in English)

Continue reading HTC debuts new Touch Cruise phone with ‘Footprints’ geotagging

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Handhelds

HTC debuts new Touch Cruise phone with ‘Footprints’ geotagging originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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