Hasta La Gadget!

It’s happened before when Canadian government overturned the CRTC’s decision and allowed Globalive to enter the Canadian cellphone market, and it looks like Ottawa is about to again weigh in and reverse an even more controversial ruling by the regulatory agency. As confirmed by Industry Minister Tony Clement on Twitter, the government plans to overturn the recent CRTC decision that effectively imposed usage-based internet billing if the agency doesn’t back down and “go back to the drawing board.” Citing a senior government official, The Toronto Star further reports that the reversal could come as early as next week. As any Canadians reading this may well be aware, the issue of usage-based internet billing has been simmering for some time, but it reached a tipping point with the CRTC’s decision last week that affected smaller internet service providers who rely on the major telecom companies’ networks. Under the new ruling, those companies would be have been faced with increased costs that would drastically limit the amount of maximum amount of data they’re able to offer to customers each month — one such ISP, Teksavvy, had in fact already sent out notices to customers informing them that their current 200GB cap would be dropping to just 25GB on March 1st, with any additional data use to be charged by the gigabyte.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: The CRTC has announced that it will review its decision, and delay any implementation of it by at least 60 days.

Canadian goverment vows to reverse CRTC decision on usage-based internet billing originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Wondering where your HP Slate has been all these weeks since you ordered it? Well, at least one of those precious Windows 7 tablets has taken a little detour from its supposedly enterprise-centric destiny to make a cameo appearance… as a dashboard infotainment system. HP, in its inimitable wisdom, has decided to grace the opening of its Vancouver store last month with a customized GMC Yukon Denali truck, which is where we find the company’s Slate casually showing off its Acrobat Reader and other big boy OS advantages. We wouldn’t really say embedding the Slate into your dash is the worst idea in the world, though the rest of the characterful customizations to this Denali just might be.

[Thanks, lmwong]

Continue reading Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job

Visualized: the HP Slate’s new job originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Jan 2011 08:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As technology advances, so do babies. Seriously, it’s amazing how often we see toddlers finding their way round smartphones and tablets these days, but according to Rullingnet founder Dr. Dan D. Yang, a lot of these products or apps are either too predictable or too dull to inspire the younglings, especially her own two-year-old daughter. As such, Dr. Yang came up with the Vinci tablet, which is essentially a seven-inch Android Froyo tablet bundled with educational 3D games, music videos and animated storybooks for ages of three and under.

The prototype we saw was actually a Galaxy Tab housed within a rubber frame, but Rullingnet is working with Samsung to produce a similar-looking 1.3-pound device sporting a flush spill-proof housing, an unnamed Cortex-A8 processor, a 3 megapixel camera on the back, and a microSD slot. Wireless components are removed to reduce radiation exposed to children, but parents will be able to install or upgrade apps via the micro-USB port. Expect to see a late Q1 or early Q2 release for about $479. For now, have a look at one of the preloaded games after the break.

Continue reading Rullingnet’s Vinci tablet is a rugged Galaxy Tab for babies, we go hands-on (video)

Rullingnet’s Vinci tablet is a rugged Galaxy Tab for babies, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Jan 2011 14:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just over a week ago we caught a glimpse of a device that claimed to be a Telus-branded version of the 4.3-inch HTC Desire HD, a beast that has yet to make the leap to North America and doesn’t officially exist in any variants that fully support the 3G frequencies used there. Well, now we’ve got the smoking gun in the form of an FCC approval for a device with model number PD98120 that supports WCDMA Bands II and V, which means it’s ripe for uses on AT&T, Bell, Telus, and Rogers (sorry, T-Mobile). The original European version of the Desire HD is the PD98100 — and the DLNA’s certification site actually refers to the phone as the “PD98 series” — so we think we can safely say that’s what we’re looking at here, particularly considering that the FCC label location document shows a device laid out in the Desire HD’s very unusual way. It’s anything but a slam dunk that AT&T might take an interest in this… but yeah, Telus subscribers, you can probably start saving your cash now.

HTC Desire HD gets FCC approval with North American 3G, might be for Telus originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Dec 2010 14:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A quick gander at Samsung’s Canadian support site for the Galaxy S line reveals that two Android 2.2 updates are currently available: one for the Vibrant — offered by Bell, Virgin Mobile, and SaskTel — and one for the Fascinate as sold be Telus. This all follows just a few days after Sammy had to pull the Vibrant’s Froyo update on word that it seemed be killing the internal microSD storage, so hopefully, this build will be just a little more drama-free. Oh, and Samsung had originally said that Telus Fascinate owners would be waiting until next year to upgrade their units, so it’s pretty neat that they were able to rein that in a bit and get it pushed at the tail end of ’10. So have fun, Canadians — you’ve beaten your friends with T-Mobile Vibrants and Verizon Fascinates to the punch on this one, and we encourage you to lord it over them at every opportunity.

[Thanks, Robert B.]

Samsung Vibrant and Fascinate get Froyo in Canada, hopefully with fewer bugs this time originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 03:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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