Hasta La Gadget!

Apple finally delivered on its promise of a new iPhone during an event Tuesday at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

It’s no totally new “iPhone 5,” mind you; Apple’s revamped iPhone 4S brings an incremental hardware upgrade to the popular iPhone 4. But the 4S’ stat boost is no slouch, adding a host of beefier under-the-hood specs to an already impressive device.

In usual Apple style, the company dropped a wealth of information on the public all at once. We’ve gathered the crucial details on the new iPhone 4S so you know what you’re in for when they hit the shelves Oct. 14.

Apple’s Hot New Processor: The A5

In a step up from the iPhone 4’s single-core A4, the 4S will sport the A5 processor, an Apple-designed, Samsung-made chip that boasts two cores and can be found in the iPad 2. That means better graphics processing (up to 7x faster than the previous iPhone, according to Apple VP Phil Schiller), faster iOS performance and significantly enhanced gaming. Apple’s demo of the iOS-exclusive Infinity Blade II game looked smooth as silk and almost Pixar-esque in quality, according to Wired.com’s Apple reporter, Christina Bonnington.

A Faster World Phone

The 4S will run on AT&T’s HSPA+ network, which means download speeds of up to 14.4 Mbps, and uploads reaching 5.8 Mbps (according to Apple, that is). While Apple says it’s “4G speed,” make no mistake — HSPA+ ain’t 4G proper. It’s not LTE, it’s not Wi-Max. We’re thinking the battery drain of a 4G antenna was too much for Apple to sacrifice, not to mention the infancy of existing 4G networks.

Also, that speed will only come on AT&T’s HSPA+ network — not Sprint’s, not Verizon’s. Bummer for those on different carriers.

The iPhone 4S will also come with both GSM and CDMA antennas, which means you’ll be able to use the phone anywhere around the world. A nice touch, especially for business-class jet-setters.

Carrier Agnosticism

The first iPhone launched exclusively on AT&T. To Apple’s chagrin, the network couldn’t handle the influx of data-hungry customers, and complaints of terrible AT&T service have been widespread ever since. In February of this year, the iPhone 4 finally came to Verizon’s vaunted network. Continuing the trend toward carrier agnosticism, Apple said Tuesday the iPhone 4S would be available on Sprint’s wireless network for the first time (as well as Verizon and AT&T).

It’s a huge slap in the face to AT&T, which once held the keys to the iPhone kingdom. Now, Apple must compete with Android’s multicarrier reach and can’t afford to play favorites in the carrier arena.

New Camera for Smartphone Shutterbugs

The iPhone 4S really beefs things up on the photo front. It packs an 8-megapixel camera that comes in at 3,264 x 2,448 resolution. That’s 60 percent more pixels than the iPhone 4’s 5-megapixel camera. A backside-illuminated sensor ensures that those extra pixels don’t go to waste by gathering more light into the shot. The iPhone 4’s camera is composed of five Apple-designed lenses (there were four in the iPhone 4), providing a 30 percent sharper image. It’s got an f/2.4 aperture, which lets in more light, and a hybrid IR filter for better color accuracy and more color uniformity.

The camera can also take 1080p HD video with real-time image stabilization. Temporal noise reduction should help in low-light scenarios.

Siri, the Voice-Activated Digital Assistant

The iPhone 4S will launch with a beta version of Siri, a voice-controlled, language-deciphering virtual assistant — probably the coolest feature revealed during Tuesday’s event.

Think of Siri as Hal 9000, only nicer. Wondering what the weather is like in Paris? Ask Siri, and she’ll tell you (yes, Siri has a female voice). Looking for a good local restaurant? Apple’s partnership with Yelp will aid Siri, pulling up nearby eateries and ratings straight from Yelp’s user-generated reviews site, all using your GPS data. Exchange rates, stock market information and other data will be just a question away — Siri will even read back your SMS messages from your pocket if you ask her to.

While Siri will launch in beta (a very Google-esque move by Apple, a company notorious for only shipping products that are fully finished), we’re excited to give this feature a test drive.

Pricing and Launch Date

Not so fast, eager beavers — the iPhone 4S isn’t available just yet. The phone will launch Oct. 14 on three of the big four U.S. carriers (AT&T, Verizon and Sprint). It will come in 16-, 32- and 64-GB versions at $200, $300 and $400, respectively. And yes, they’ll come in two colors: black and white. Preorders start Friday, so get your mouse-clicking fingers at the ready if you must own Apple’s latest, greatest iPhone.

Last week, OnStar issued a privacy notice informing customers that it would continue to collect data on vehicles still connected to its servers, even for those who have already canceled their subscriptions. The move elicited a chorus of protests from Democratic privacy advocates in the Senate, including Chris Coons, Al Franken and, most recently, Charles Schumer, who wrote a letter to the FTC yesterday calling for an investigation into what he sees as a bold violation of consumer rights. “By tracking drivers even after they’ve canceled their service, OnStar is attempting one of the most brazen invasions of privacy in recent memory,” the New York Senator said. “I urge OnStar to abandon this policy and for FTC to immediately launch a full investigation to determine whether the company’s actions constitute an unfair trade practice.” Find out more about OnStar’s new policy, after the break.

Continue reading Senator Schumer blasts OnStar for ‘brazen’ privacy violation, calls for FTC investigation

Senator Schumer blasts OnStar for ‘brazen’ privacy violation, calls for FTC investigation originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Sep 2011 09:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We can’t say we weren’t warned, since Verizon updated its data policy way back in February, but it’s still a punch in the gut to hear its “network optimization” plan went into effect yesterday. A new policy page pointed out by Droid-Life explains how the policy will affect only the “top 5 percent of data users with 3G devices on unlimited data plans” (LTE and tiered data users are in the clear) by managing their speeds when connected to towers it has deemed are congested. Those conditions, termed network intelligence by Big Red, are what it feels separates this scheme from mere data throttling since it will only affect a few users (those consuming 2GB or more of data per month) at certain times and places, but it’s hard to see it any other way. If you’re one of those affected, expect a message on your bill or My Verizon account, although you may go into and out of the affected group depending on your usage. Hit the source link below for all the details — anyone else think it’s not a coincidence this policy popped up just before the iPhone 4 came to Verizon and is being implemented only weeks before the next iThing is expected to arrive?

Verizon starts ‘optimizing’ (read: throttling) network for the most data hungry users originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Those militant leftists at the Data Liberation Front are at it again, bringing their tool for fomenting revolution, Google Takeout, to Google Voice. With the information emancipating service, users will be able to download their call history, voicemail and text messages, recorded calls, and even greetings. All audio is delivered in MP3 format, while SMS is spit out as an HTML file. Check out the video below for a brief, if not entirely informative, announcement from the guerrilla data warriors.

Continue reading Google Takeout comes to Voice, get your SMS and voicemail to go (video)

Google Takeout comes to Voice, get your SMS and voicemail to go (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Sep 2011 10:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, this is pretty… big. At this very moment, researchers at IBM are building the largest data drive ever — a 120 petabyte beast comprised of some 200,000 normal HDDs working in concert. To put that into perspective, 120 petabytes is the equivalent of 120 million gigabytes, (or enough space to hold about 24 billion, average-sized MP3’s), and significantly more spacious than the 15 petabyte capacity found in the biggest arrays currently in use. To achieve this, IBM aligned individual drives in horizontal drawers, as in most data centers, but made these spaces even wider, in order to accommodate more disks within smaller confines. Engineers also implemented a new data backup mechanism, whereby information from dying disks is slowly reproduced on a replacement drive, allowing the system to continue running without any slowdown. A system called GPFS, meanwhile, spreads stored files over multiple disks, allowing the machine to read or write different parts of a given file at once, while indexing its entire collection at breakneck speeds. The company developed this particular system for an unnamed client looking to conduct complex simulations, but Bruce Hillsberg, IBM’s director of storage research, says it may be only a matter of time before all cloud computing systems sport similar architectures. For the moment, however, he admits that his creation is still “on the lunatic fringe.”

IBM developing largest data drive ever, with 120 petabytes of bliss originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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