It’s hear, it’s happening — CES 2013. Brad and Myriam (plus a little bit of Tim) took to the stage for the first day of the conference proper. So, if you want to know what’s going down with mobile in Vegas this week, here’s a good place to start.
Hosts: Myriam Joire (tnkgrl), Brad Molen
Producer: James Trew
Music: Tycho – Coastal Brake (Ghostly International)
Hear the podcast
Continue reading Engadget Mobile Podcast 164 – CES special – 01.09.13 show 1
While Google’s offered free WiFi access in NYC subways from time to time, it’s apparently now set to help get a permanent solution live in a Manhattan neighborhood. There are no details regarding a time-frame, but the company’s linked up with the Chelsea Improvement Company to provide the access in Southwest Chelsea. Aside from the perks of pro bono interwebs for all, the initiative will serve to provide internet to likes of low-income and student housing in the locale — though, it seems a natural undertaking given Google’s office in the area. At the very least, it’s another nice chip toward municipal WiFi in the Big Apple. Full presser after the break.
Continue reading Google to help set up free WiFi blanket in NYC’s Southwest Chelsea neighborhood
Via: Yahoo! News, BGR
T-Mobile USA isn’t just happy to have an official deal with Apple in place; it’s ready to crow about the fans who’ve already signed up. CEO John Legere told those at a Citi conference that his carrier is activating 100,000 new iPhones every month, despite many of those users still having to chase down an unlocked model and forgo 3G until T-Mobile’s spectrum refarming comes their way. That rate mate be accelerating — there’s 1.9 million total iPhone customers on Magenta’s network, or 200,000 more since they were last counted on December 6th. Legere wasn’t about to predict how that statistic would change once T-Mobile was clear to sell Apple gear in an official capacity; something tells us, however, that the rate won’t exactly slow down.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple, T-Mobile
Source: TmoNews
It’s just a concept, sure. But if it means more dog’s eye view videos are destined for YouTube, we whole-heartedly support Sony’s Action Cam Pet Mount.
We’re a little tied up this week (there’s a… rather minor electronics event going on) but we’re still bringing you our usual list of what to check for in HD. Our favorite show, Justified, kicks off its latest season this week, while many others return from winter break. Of course, there’s also the National Championship game tonight, and NFL playoffs action this weekend and, some day soon — NHL hockey. Look below for the highlights this week, followed after the break by our weekly listing of what to look out for in TV, Blu-ray and videogames.
Continue reading Must See HDTV (January 7th – 13th)
Filed under: HD
We heard about it some time ago and managed to get some fingers on time with LG’s new 23-inch Windows 8 optimized monitor at today’s CES press conference. It’s a nice looking peripheral, for sure. The IPS panel is cocooned by a black bezel, which meets a white shiny plastic rear at its tips. Along the bottom bezel are a number of touchscreen controls, including things like Menu, for adjusting picture quality and the like. The screen sits on a leg with a large hinge for adjusting your viewing angle. Unfortunately, the single leg support shake a bit when you tap the screen, so you’re going to want go a bit easy when tapping on those Metro tiles.
All in all, its quite responsive. We were able to tap and slide through the Microsoft UI in a breeze. As long as you’re not too aggressive with you’re touchscreening, it looks to be a pretty nice compliment to Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system.
Dell’s had a fairly minimal presence here at CES 2013 but it does have this bit of news to share: its XPS 13 Ultrabook is getting a 1080p screen later this month, according to a company spokesperson. In general, it’s encouraging to see PC makers step it up on the resolution front, but it’s particularly good news here, as the XPS 13’s mediocre 1,366 x 768 screen was one of the few things we criticized in our review. Now that the weak display is getting taken care of and the trackpad drivers have been fine-tuned, that leaves just one lingering flaw: no SD card reader. Perhaps we can’t have it all, but it does sound like this will be a stronger choice than it had been. No word yet on how much that upgrade will cost or when, exactly, it will become available, but we’ll keep you posted.
For the most part, the 2013 Toshiba Qosmio X875 gaming laptop is just like the 2012 version. The company just announced an updated version, but the only main difference is that it will now be offered with a 1TB 7,200RPM hybrid hard drive, which uses 8GB of flash memory to help speed up boot-ups and application load times. All told, Toshiba is promising a 3.6x increase in read / write speeds over last year’s model, and that programs will launch up to 30 percent faster. Other than that, this really is the same notebook. Same “Black Widow” design and even the same specs: up to 32GB of RAM, up to 2TB of storage (including a 1TB hybrid hard drive option), a 3GB NVIDIA GTX 670M GPU and an optional 3D display powered by NVIDIA’s 3D Vision 2 technology. If you’re interested, you can get it with the hybrid drive on February 3rd, starting at $1,480.
Griffin and Crayola are already best of friends through their ColorStudio HD collaboration for the iPad. They’re deepening that relationship at CES with a handful of iPad accessories and apps based around the quintessential crayon. Heading up the pack, the Crayola Light Marker you see above upgrades the earlier input by letting kids draw in the air; they can splatter (thankfully virtual) paint and play other games without scribbling directly on the tablet’s screen. A pair of cradles are joining the marker, including the Digital Activity Center portable lap desk (after the break) and the briefcase-like Color & Play Workstation. The software side is being rounded out with special Barbie and Hot Wheels versions of the ColorStudio HD app, each of which has drawings themed around the perennial favorite toys. Griffin expects the Light Marker, Digital Activity Center and Color & Play Workstation to reach young artists’ hands in the spring for $30, $40 and $20 respectively; the specialized iPad apps should arrive later in January, each for $3.
Continue reading Griffin and Crayola intro contact-free Light Marker, drawing workstations
Filed under: Peripherals, Tablets, Apple
Source: Griffin (1), (2), (3)
If you didn’t get enough mobile news during the week, not to worry, because we’ve opened the firehose for the truly hardcore. This week, two of the best cameraphones out there were pitted against one another in a shootout rematch and a very handy widget was added to the latest nightly builds of CyanogenMod. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the “best of the rest” for this week of December 31st, 2012.
Continue reading Mobile Miscellany: week of December 31st, 2012
Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile
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