Hasta La Gadget!

Lusting over the new Focus Electric? It’s still a few years off yet, but if you’re already thinking about practicalities you’re wondering how you’re going to charge the thing. Got 120V power in your garage? No problem, you can charge off of that easily — if you don’t mind waiting 20 hours. A Level 2 charger will drop that down to between three and four hours, but it requires some hardware installed in your home. If you want to do that for the Leaf or the Volt you’re looking at $2,000 installed, and that installation is permanent.

Ford is making things much easier, and much cheaper, with a $1,499 charger made by Leviton that’s not only cheaper than the competition but completely modular. It hangs on the wall and simply plugs into a 240V outlet, handling the necessary electrical wizardry to quick-charge your Focus without burning down your house or singeing your cat. Ford is partnering with Best Buy for installation, which could be a good or bad thing depending on your propensity for Geeks in Squads.

Ford partners with Leviton and Best Buy for $1,499 Focus Electric charging station originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You may remember Viliv from last year’s CES, but it’s back again this year with a smattering new of tablets. The X70 Slate is powered by Intel’s upcoming 1.5 GHz Oak Trail processor, and has a 7-inch 1024 x 600-resolution capacitive multitouch display. That new silicon is supposed to simultaneously speed up Windows 7 performance (both Starter and Home Premium are available), and improve battery life (they claim 6.5 hours, which is better than the Galaxy Tab). A custom split keyboard was added by Viliv, which eases thumb typing so you don’t have to awkwardly reach across the screen to hunt and peck for keys. It’s got a 3 megapixel shooter around back as well as a 1.3 megapixel shooter up front in addition to an optical trackpad. This thing should be hitting retailers like Best Buy and Amazon in April for an unspecified price, but you can check out our hands-on photos while you patiently wait to find out.

Update: Video after the break!

Continue reading Viliv X70 Windows 7 slate with Oak Trail hands-on (updated with video)

Viliv X70 Windows 7 slate with Oak Trail hands-on (updated with video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft offered a brief glimpse of its revised Surface earlier this week at the Ballmer keynote, but now we’ve had a chance to check the Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface (as its officially termed) for ourselves. The “2.0 experience” firmware is early and a bit buggy right now (especially with finger input), but there’s plenty of time fix that up before its launch later this year. The hardware itself is much thinner, with a 4-inch profile that can now be placed vertically against the wall (although we suggest using the stylish legs when possible). The 40-inch 1920 x 1080 gorilla glass display was crisp as all out, but since we could get close and scrutinize, you’ll definitely notice the pixels. The first demo we got to see is also probably the most impressive, wherein a paper with “I can see” written on it is scanned and read very clearly (a dev monitor was hooked up to show what Surface could “see”). Meanwhile, we couldn’t help but touch every point to watch the ripple effect emanate from our fingers.

Apps are arranged in a row that you can sift through or rotate 180 degrees for someone facing opposite. We kept accidentally opening apps when we tried to scroll through, which is annoying but again, we were reminded it’s early firmware. Some of the apps we have seen before with the original Surface — some changes are required to make compatible, but we’re told it’s a fairly smooth transition process. Some highlights from what we saw:

• Bing, which for now only does image search (maps and local to come). The screen right now is a bit too sensitive and would detect sleeves as much as it would our fingers (you can see typos galore in the gallery). Images are scattered about a new results widget, and you can move around a bit from there or pull out individual ones to rotate and scan.
• A Red Bull with a printed code on the bottom that launches on-screen prompts for videos that you can smoothly rotate and scale on the fly, and a RBC Royal Bank that’ll make you feel really guilty about that cup of coffee from this morning.
• Oldies like Social Stream, Garibaldi Panorama, and Galactic Alliance.

Another plus for the SUR40? It’s cheaper than its predecessor — but at $7,600, it’s still not ready for consumer market. We’ve got a ton of pics below and video after the break!

Update: We’ve added our full impressions and cleaned up the footage after the break. Enjoy!

Continue reading Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface hands-on with video! (update)

Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface hands-on with video! (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The MoGo product line is all about making normally-thick Bluetooth accessories insanely thin, and the trend continues with a couple new ones targeted at tablets and scheduled for launch in the second quarter. We had a chance this week to check out hand-built prototypes of a speakerphone / handset and headset with charging case, both designed to be thin and small enough to fit into the business card holder built into a tablet case. The speakerphone is pretty clever: set it on a table, it’s a speakerphone, hold it to your face and it becomes a tiny handset appropriate for holding private calls through the telephony services on your tab (or Tab, as the case may be). The headset, meanwhile, fits in a vanity-style case — also designed to stow away in a business card holder — but the real magic here is that the case doubles as a battery that charges the headset when it’s docked. Perfect for Skype, eh?

ID8 Mobile’s Bluetooth tablet accessories include business card-shaped headsets and handsets originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 14:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Photos: Jonathan Snyder/Wired.com

See Also:

• R2-D2 Headphones: Most Appropriate Merchandising, Ever
• Marshall Headphones (Probably) Go to 11
• High-Fidelity Headphones Will Keep You Runnin’
• B&W Headphones Create Symphony Hall for Your Ears