Hasta La Gadget!

Sony Ericsson’s new Android-based phone interface, like those from other cellphone manufacturers, integrates Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and other social networking services into one unified portal on your portable. The difference is that Sony Ericsson’s interface — UXP, formerly known as Rachael — actually looks useful.

The company plans to launch a slew of new Android-based phones this year. Top of the list is the Xperia X10 — which confusingly carries the same codename that UXP used to have: Rachael. It’s a device with a 4-inch touchscreen, a 1-GHz Snapdragon processor and 8.1 megapixel camera that will be available this quarter. The company will also introduce the Mini, a compact phone with a 2.6-inch display that will be available in a touchscreen-only version as well as one with a slide-out keyboard.

But it’s UXP that forms the heart of these phones’ experience. Sony Ericsson has been working on the UXP interface for more than two years, the company says.

“We have done extensive skinning of the Android platform. because we really wanted to make it a bespoke experience,” says George Arriola, head of user experience for Sony Ericcson.

Sony’s UXP interface attempts to do the same thing as rivals like Motorola’s MotoBLUR: namely, aggregate social networking feeds such as Facebook and Twitter into one stream, integrate that data with your phone address book and contacts, and personalize the multimedia experience.

“We took a very sophisticated PlayStation middleware and shrunk it to fit the Android OS,” says Arriola.

Palm was the first of the smartphone makers to kick off the trend of integrating social media updates and contacts with the launch of the Palm Pre, though the Pre was based on Palm’s own operating system webOS, not Android. But the Android phones launched since then have tried to follow the path blazed by Palm.

Motorola has the MotoBlur interface that’s now a part of most of its phones, including the Cliq, Backflip and Devour. HTC has introduced Sense, its custom UI that’s available on phones such as the HTC Hero and upcoming phones including Legend and Desire.

But Sony’s UXP interface is the most visually attractive implementation that I have seen so far.

At the heart of Sony’s experience is a widget called Timescape. Timescape collects social networking feeds and presents them in a card-like view.  A bar at the bottom of the screen has little icons that lets users filter the information stream by network such as Facebook, Twitter or Flickr.

The phone also updates the address book with a contact’s latest social networking update. That means if you click on a name in your address book, you can see their last social-feed post and use it as a reference point while making the call.

What makes this experience slick is the way the cards rain down on the screen, offering an almost 3-D–like effect as they scroll past. Clicking on one of the cards pulls up the contact and their status update.

Rather than contribute to info clutter, Sony’s attempt to jazz it up by using better visual effects actually does make it easier to handle the information stream.

The UXP interface also introduces a concept called “infinite pivot” — an infinity-shaped icon that helps you drill deeper and pull up related views.

Sony is also trying to offer a better experience for music, video and photos. The widget that controls this is called Mediascape. Click on the Mediscape icon and you get three options: My Music, My Videos and My Photos.

Music and videos are divided into recently played, recently added and favorites. There’s also access to PlayNow, Sony Ericsson’s music-downloads service.

A recommendation engine can suggest other artists or songs based on the music preferences of a user. Clicking on the  infinite-pivot icon next to an artist’s name in music and videos offers suggestions and even searches the web.

And in a bid to keep the custom look throughout the phone,  Sony redesigned the interface to services such as the phone dialer, calendar and alarm, says Arriola.

Overall, Sony Ericsson’s UXP skin for Android is not as confusing as the MotoBlur interface and more polished than the HTC Sense UI. Instead, UXP is a snappy, sophisticated treat. It works, though, only if you buy into the premise that instead of checking your Facebook and Twitter when you want to (as in the iPhone), you would like these services streamed and updated constantly to your phone.

Now if only they could get U.S. wireless carriers to offer Sony Ericsson phones on contract — and at prices slim enough to match the hardware.

Check out the candid photos of the Sony UXP interface on the Xperia X10 phone below.

C’mon, let’s be honest with ourselves here — we all think our current router is unsightly. Like, truly hideous to look at. In fact, the bulk of us spend the first 20 minutes post-unboxing trying to figure out how to best hide it. Berlin-based designers Johannes Laue and Johannes Schroth have done what should’ve been done by multi-national corporations years ago, with the 4010-Overdress project delivering an array of delectable wood and metal enclosures that simultaneously make your router / set-top-box beautiful while maintaining all of the core functionality. There’s no indication of when (or if) these beauts will ever be produced for public consumption, but seriously, someone at Netgear or D-Link should ping these fellows as soon as possible.

Conceptual 4010-Overdress router covers can’t materialize soon enough originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Mar 2010 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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UPDATE: It seems that the copyright holders are really protective of their video or really embarrassed by it. Either way, let’s hope that they don’t take this video version down.

I think that this will be roundly ridiculed throughout the Japan-centric blogostweetsphere, so let’s leave it up to them to dissect how this terrible video panders to the lowest common pop denominator.

As our own Will Andrews said to me, “This is like me walking down the street in Paris wearing garlic and a black beret while clutching a baguette”. In other words, it’s ok when Toast Girl does it because she’s pretty much being herself the whole time.

Seriously….McG?!

The TrickleStar line of products does a good job of killing vampire power drain already, but all of those still require you to lift a finger and flip a toggle switch to “off” in order to stop the flow of energy when nothing is there to be charged. Conor Klein’s Leech Plug, however, does the dirty work for you. Thanks to an integrated timer circuit and a mysterious array of “electromechanics” within, his AC outlet physically ejects the charging cord when the device on the other end is done charging; granted, that leaves you with quite a mess in your dining room floor, but hey, at least you’re doing your small part to keep this fragile planet from imploding on itself, right? Peek the video after the break.

[Thanks, Kevin]

Continue reading Leech Plug disconnects when your gadget is charged, does Ma Earth a favor

Leech Plug disconnects when your gadget is charged, does Ma Earth a favor originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s just the beginning of the year and already HTC is on a roll. The company has announced three new smartphones — two of those will run Google’s Android operating system — and a redesigned user interface that aggregates social networking feeds.

The three new HTC phones are HTC Legend, a Nexus One clone called HTC Desire and HTC HD Mini, the only one in the pack to run Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system. The phones have been designed by One & Co, the San Francisco-based design firm that HTC acquired in December 2008.

“HTC Legend and HTC Desire take Android to another level in both substance and style,” said HTC President Peter Chou in a statement.

Thanks to its close partnership with Google, HTC has emerged as a powerhouse maker of Android devices. The company designed the first phone to run Android, the T-Mobile G1. In January, HTC’s Nexus One became the first smartphone to be sold by Google.

Last June, HTC introduced Sense, a user interface that allows users to set up profiles for work and play and has widgets that bring in data from different social networking streams such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

Since then, the idea of aggregating all those feeds and offering them to customers through a single window has popular among cellphone makers. HTC rival Motorola got a jump on the idea with MotoBlur, an interface that aggregates Facebook and Twitter feeds and debuted on the Cliq.

HTC has tried to mimic that with its HTC Friend Stream that organizes updates from different online sources into a single flow. Friend Stream also lets users organize their contacts into different social circles such as groups of friends, colleagues or even high school friends.

All three of HTC’s phones announced Tuesday at the Mobile World Congress conference in Barcelona, Spain, will include the updated Sense interface.

HTC Desire Takes On Nexus One

Yet another Android phone from HTC, the Desire, with its 3.7 inch OLED display, is closest to the Nexus One in terms of its technical prowess and features.

The Desire uses the same Qualcomm 1-GHz Snapdragon processor that we have seen in the Nexus One phone. It has a 3.7-inch display and weighs about 4.7 ounces. It also runs Android 2.1, the latest version of the Android operating system, first seen on the Nexus One.

The Desire, formerly known as HTC Bravo, supports Adobe Flash 10.1. It has a 5-megapixel camera with flash and geotagging capability, digital compass, FM radio, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

The phone has an optical joystick surrounded by a narrow button instead of a trackball in an attempt to ostensibly improve usability.

Desire will initially be available in Europe and Australia before the second half of the year, says HTC.

HTC Legend Builds on the Hero

HTC Legend ups the ante in terms of design, says the company. The smartphone’s design is an extension of what we have seen with HTC Hero. The difference is in the softer look and the smooth surface milled from a single aluminum block also known as unibody construction.

It includes a 3.2-inch, OLED display and weighs 4.4 ounces (compared to 4.8 ounces for the iPhone 3G S and 4.5 ounces for the Nexus One). The Legend’s 600-MHz processor, though, is slower than the 1-GHz processor seen in the Nexus One.

Otherwise, the Legend mimics the Desire in terms of what it offers: a 5-megapixel camera, flash, geotagging, digital compass, FM radio, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.

The Legend will also run Android 2.1 operating system.

The Legend will initially be available in Europe through Vodafone around April, says HTC.

HTC Mini Dials It Down

The HD Mini is the only device in the batch to be based on Windows Mobile 6.5, a signal that HTC, despite its focus on Android, is not yet entirely abandoning the Microsoft platform. With its 3.2-inch LCD screen and 3.8-ounce weight, the Mini is a compact phone that shares almost all the same characteristics as the Legend. What is missing is a digital compass, flash in the camera and geotagging.

There’s also an unexpected design twist that seems to be of questionable value. Once the battery cover is removed, the inside of the phone is a bright yellow.  The bad news is that the Mini might not support the newly announced Windows Mobile Phone 7 operating system.

The Mini will be initially launched on Vodafone’s network in Europe.

See Also:

• Strapped to Android, HTC Takes a Dizzying Ride to the Top
• Now, a $100 Android Smartphone in the HTC Droid Eris
• Motorola Introduces New Android Phone, the Backflip

Photos: HTC