Hasta La Gadget!

Now that Verizon’s most recent Droid RAZR family has had its taste of Jelly Bean, it’s time for Motorola to shift focus to the rest of the devices that have made the cut for the upgrade — and it’s doing just that with an updated timetable for the rollout. Among those phones and tablets that aren’t already on Android 4.1, only the Atrix HD and Asia-Pacific RAZR HD models should get the refresh before 2012 bows out. A larger contingent that includes the Electrify M, the LTE-equipped Xoom and some international models like the European RAZR i will have to wait until the first quarter of 2013 for their turn. Other devices like the Droid Bionic, original RAZR and Photon Q are still on deck, but don’t yet have a schedule. That’s not a comforting sign when we could see a version of Android beyond 4.2 in the spring, so we’re hoping that Motorola is trying to underpromise now and overdeliver later.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Google

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Via: Android Central

Source: Motorola

HTC isn’t going to let Nokia keep the Chinese limelight for long: the phone maker has just launched three variants of its late 2012 flagship phones for China’s mainland, all of which should reach local stores by mid-December. Those looking for sheer brawn will want the Butterfly. While it’s ultimately a slight variant on the J Butterfly (Droid DNA to Americans) that should reach China Unicom, the 1080p smartphone should come to the country in rarer brown and white hues alongside the black we’ve already seen in the US. Localized models of the Windows Phone 8X and 8S are similarly inbound, but their aces in the hole should be sheer ubiquity — variants are on the way for WCDMA (China Unicom), CDMA2000 (China Telecom) and TD-SCDMA (China Mobile) networks. We don’t immediately have pricing for the two Windows Phone 8 handsets, but the Butterfly should cost a suitably large ¥4,799 ($771) contract-free.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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Via: Engadget Chinese (translated)

Source: HTC (translated), Sina Weibo (translated)

When we hear of a “new way to stream music around your home and garden,” bass-heavy speakers disguised as unnaturally large rocks come to mind. It’s not entirely clear what type of “garden” the good folks at Veho envisioned for the Mimi X-3, but we’d be willing to bet underground sprinklers and fresh morning dew were never part of the picture. Whatever the venue, this cord-free combo does pack an interesting twist — a proprietary 2.4GHz wireless transmitter comes bundled in the box, letting your 30-pin dock connector-equipped iOS device stream music 95-120 feet without the need for a WiFi network. The rectangular speaker module itself can pump out tunes through its dual 4.5-watt speakers and 9-watt subwoofer for up to six hours on a full charge, and can receive transmissions from a computer using the bundled USB adapter as well. All those accessories may seem a bit excessive when you see the price, though. The X-3 is shipping now for a hair under $500.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Wireless

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Source: B&H, Veho

You may have not noticed, but your cable box at home has a Firewire port on it, designed to serve up content to other devices in your home. This almost useless port — thanks DRM — is a result of an FCC mandate that has been enforced for almost ten years. Due to the lack of use, the cable industry asked that the rules be updated to require an IP interface instead. That request was granted in the fall of 2010 and was supposed to go into effect this very month.

Evidently two years wasn’t long enough to find an acceptable industry standard stack to deliver video over IP, so TiVo and the cable industry requested an extension. The FCC let it be known last week in a Memorandum Opinion and Order that a single standard wasn’t actually required, as long as the IP interface on the cable box used an industry standard — the Commission did bless the DLNA Premium Video Profile as a suitable example. We’ll have to wait and see if any other standards are in the mix, but regardless, TiVo and the rest of the cable industry now have until June of 2014 before every one of their boxes has to be able to deliver HD content to 3rd party devices like TVs, Blu-ray players and tablets via IP. In this particular context, TiVo is being treated as a cable company box supplier, although we’re not sure how this will apply to its retail devices. Only time will tell if this mandate will bear fruit, but with any luck, the second time will be a charm.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: FCC

Our favorite shows, anywhere, that’s all we really want. Of course that is asking too much but we’ll be closer to the dream now that Silicondust has announced its three tuner HDHomeRun Prime CableCARD is a certified DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS). While the options this opens are seemingly limitless, one specific use case is watching premium cable on a PS3. CableCARD tuners aren’t exactly known for their ease of setup, but once you do get this working with your cable company and on your network, it’ll show up like any other DLNA source to your PS3. From there you can browse the list of channels and watch any you happen to subscribe to.

The PS3 isn’t the only DLNA Digital Media Player (DMP) or Digital Media Renderer (DMR) that works with a DLNA DMS, and plays MPEG2 video. However, at this point it’s the only one we know of that also supports DTCP-IP, which is the DRM required to play premium content. A representative of Silicondust told us he’s confident more compatible devices are on the way, while even more devices will support the unprotected content. Keep an eye out for an official list of compatible hardware on its site some time after this update starts rolling out later this month. Finally, yes, you will be able to use your DLNA Digital Media Controller (DMC) to record content to your other Digital Media Servers — is that enough acronyms for you? If this interests you, then stay tuned for CES where Silicondust plans to announce phase 2, which is where we think things could really get interesting.

Continue reading HDHomeRun Prime is the first CableCARD tuner to deliver live TV to DLNA Devices

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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