Hasta La Gadget!

Nokia World 2009 just kicked off over in Stuttgart, and while the outfit’s CEO didn’t have much to say outside of a few nice teases, Mr. Anssi Vanjok did the honors of officially unveiling the N97 mini. Of course, we’ve already seen this not-so-minuscule handset previewed over in the wilds of Russia, but it’s certainly nice to have Nokia’s formal seal of approval on the device. Nokia’s pushing the mobile’s social networking capabilities, not to mention calling it the world’s “slimmest travel companion” thanks to the built-in Lonely Planet guidebooks. As for price? Try €450 ($639), but Sir Anssi asserted that the phone should be available for free on contract in “many, many markets.” As for specs, we’re looking at a tilting 3.2-inch touchscreen and full QWERTY keyboard, with the first shipments starting in October.

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia finally comes clean with N97 mini: €450, ships in October originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PlayStation Home not “social” enough for you? Fret not PS3 users (or soon-to-be PS3 users), ’cause Sony Computer Entertainment Europe head Andrew House has recently dropped a not so subtle hint that some more traditional social network features are on their way to the console. While he obviously didn’t get too specific, House did tell the Financial Times that Sony has plans for more social networking features, and apparently wouldn’t rule out a partnership with “popular sites such as Facebook,” much like Microsoft has already announced for the Xbox 360. In PS3 price-cut news, House also noted that Sony is indeed aware that “consumers are watching their euros and pounds more carefully than before,” but added that “it would not be fair to say this is a reaction to current market conditions.”

[Via Joystiq]

Filed under: Gaming

Sony’s Andrew House hints at more social networking for PS3 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Take this rumor with a fairly large grain of salt and please hold your “bag of hurt” comments until the end. Boy Genius claims he’s got it on word from a “pretty reliable source” that the next big iTunes revision will include better organization options for your iPhone / iPod touch apps, something vague concerning integration with Twitter, Facebook, and Last.fm, and… Blu-ray support. To be fair, the HD disc format wars are all but over at this point, and the most recent Final Cut Pro actually lets you burn video directly to a third-party BD drive, only to have to play the discs on another, non-Mac device. This is all pretty sketch at the moment, and we doubt the boys in Cupertino will be showing their hands until just after the eleventh hour — let’s not forget, also, that iTunes is also available for Windows which does have other third-party Blu-ray playback software. In possibly related whispers, AppleInsider has offered some none-too-descriptive hints at possible iMac refresh with some improvements catering to the “semi-professional audio / video crowd.” Between this and talk about a tablet, we can’t wait for the next Apple press conference, if only to subside all the rumors for a few months.

Update: Our resident HD expert Ben Drawbaugh has chimed in on the matter, hypothesizing that this might be referring to support for Managed Copy, a digitized (and DRM restricted) copy of the film that you would save onto your local hard drive. But in that scenario, it still doesn’t behoove Apple to add that to iTunes unless it was looking to put Blu-ray drives on its own machines, which makes this (still very faint) rumor all the more interesting.

Read – Apple iTunes 9 details, Blu-ray, app organization
Read – Apple’s next iMacs rumored with compelling new features

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Blu-ray support coming with iTunes 9? originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just a few weeks after debuting its Twitter and Facebook widgets, Verizon is refreshing them by giving viewers an onscreen cellphone-style keyboard to mash out their own tweets and Facebook status updates from the remote. Though we wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to just use ones actual cellphone to spread your inane viewing habits amongst those unlucky enough to count you as a friend, the services have apparently been quite popular so far, with millions of Tweets and Facebook photos viewed since it was released. As usual, the free apps can be found in the Widget Bazaar, where Verizon CIO Shaygan Kheradpir will be looking for more tools that “engage viewers” once the SDK is released later this year. Not close to your TV (or an area with FiOS TV service?) check out a few screens of the new functionality below.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Updated FiOS Twitter and Facebook widgets add onscreen keyboard, not friends or followers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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INQ’s unique take on the featurephone just got a significant facelift in the form of the new INQ Mini 3G and the INQ Chat. Leaving behind the INQ1’s last-gen looks, the new INQ Chat offers a QWERTY keyboard in an E71-esque chassis, 2.4-inch screen, GPS and a 3.2 megapixel auto focus camera, while the Mini 3G takes up the T9er’s mantle with a slim candybar form factor, 2.2-inch screen and 2 megapixel camera. The big deal of course is still the (award winning) software side, which already includes features such as Skype, Facebook and Windows Live Messenger integration, along with a Synergy-style integrated address book. New additions include a Twitter app, push Gmail, and iTunes syncing, courtesy of DVD Jon’s doubleTwist software, and INQ claims that it’ll be much more proactive with software updates this time around. The phones are only dipping their toes into the media playback pool, with hardly any onboard storage, empty microSD slots, and the ever-annoying USB-to-3.5mm converter headphone jack situation, but all the parts are there. INQ’s also going to pull together an “app store” of sorts by curating freely available Java applets compatible with the handsets.

We had a look at the phones, and while the style might seem aggressive for some, the build of both phones is pretty quality for the target market, and they’re certainly tighter in the design department than the INQ1. The keyboard on the INQ Chat is quite good, especially for featurephone land, and we like that INQ kept some T9-style predictive text in the software to make QWERTY use even more of a pleasure. No, these phones still don’t replace smartphones, but they’re designed to be a low-cost alternative to the smartphone for carriers, who are a little tired of heavy phone subsidies and intense data use from the iPhone types — and sure wouldn’t mind making a few bucks off your Facebook addiction. Unfortunately, there still aren’t any plans for bringing these phones to the States. INQ is “in talks,” but for now these handsets are Europe bound, and should hit stores by Q4.

Filed under: Cellphones

INQ Mini 3G and INQ Chat offer slimmer, sexier angle on “social mobile” segment originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Aug 2009 21:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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