Hasta La Gadget!

Plex fans among us just got treated to a smorgasbord — albeit one that isn’t completely free. The media front-end developer hopes to boost its bottom line through PlexPass, a subscription service that amounts to a paid beta program. Shell out $4 per month and you’ll get early access to in-development features, including a slate of premium-only extras during their incubation phase. One of the more ordinary (if important) features is going live today: a revamped Web Client not only rivals the native OS X app for speed but offers full media playback on top of the usual queue management. Whether you subscribe or not, you’ll want to get an updated Media Server app that supports both PlexPass and the new client along with improving the server’s behavior in several areas, such as lowering its memory use and supporting RTMP transcoding. We hope Plex keeps enough components on the free side of the fence as time goes on. For now, at least, we’ll see the paid model as a way for loyalists to reward a company that has been powering their home theater PCs for years.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, Software, HD

Plex launches new Web Client and PlexPass subscription, updates Media Server originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Aug 2012 22:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mozilla might be scaling back its official support of Thunderbird, but it still has love left for those who yearn for more in their e-mail clients than OS developers can give. The newly-released Thunderbird 15 update’s most conspicuous change is a deliberate visual harmony with its Firefox cousin: the company wants its apps to have more in common than just a shared name on the About screen. Under the hood, there’s now a live chat feature to skip the wait for e-mail, a Do Not Track option for web searches and the choice of using Ubuntu One cloud storage for large attachments. It’s hard to know if future Thunderbird releases will be as substantial once the community takes the reins. For now, though, Thunderbird aficionados can relax.

[Thanks, Keith]

Filed under: Internet, Software

Mozilla releases Thunderbird 15 with Firefox-like UI, live chat originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 02:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fisker has had more than its fair share of teething troubles with the Karma, but it has to be given credit for going out of its way to listen to early adopters. The hybrid car builder has confirmed to Autoblog that a question and answer session making the rounds is the official result of town hall discussions that have both acknowledged problems and promised fixes where they’re possible. The answers we’ve been given are a mix of sober realities and practical remedies. Drivers hoping for outright hardware upgrades to improve performance with existing Karmas will have to keep wishing; thankfully, a host of firmware fixes are on the way to improve at least the sedan’s Command Center system and mirrors. PR lead Roger Ormisher even hints that there could be an in-person council that would tackle concerns more directly than the remote pep talks. We’re mostly hoping for the day when Fisker stamps out the bugs and doesn’t need the Q&A to put Karma owners’ minds at ease.

Filed under: Transportation

Fisker confirms Q&A outlining Karma woes and fixes, may establish council to talk issues in person originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 06:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Corporate server managers everywhere were given a jolt this week when rumors emerged that RIM might implement a hard cutoff for BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10: any devices based on BlackBerry 7 and earlier might not connect at all, leaving IT leads with the uncomfortable choice of either running a BlackBerry server platform that’s supposedly without a future (BES 5) or having to upgrade both the servers and phones all at once. RIM is putting minds at ease — more or less. The company’s Kim Geiger has confirmed in a statement to the media that BES 10 will support legacy devices when it ships in the first quarter of 2013, and that existing server customers will get an upgrade for smooth sailing around when BlackBerry 10 arrives. That’s no doubt a comfort, but there are lingering doubts. Rumor source BGR maintains that companies will have to run both the old and new servers side-by-side to address everyone, which could make a truly harmonious environment complex, expensive or both. We’ve reached out to RIM for a more definitive explanation to hopefully settle the matter. In the meantime, we wouldn’t panic; no one is being pushed to adopt BES 10 right away, and those that want to upgrade don’t have to give up their legacy hardware.

Filed under: Cellphones

RIM says BlackBerry Enterprise Server 10 users will get legacy device support, IT admins (may) rest easy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aw, wouldn’t you look at the cute little… wait. Right, there’s a Chrome OS update. At its heart, the upgrade to Google’s cloud-based platform introduces a streamlined app list that both occupies less space and carries an internet-wide search box. It’s also possible to save files directly to Google Drive, and audio can now play through either HDMI or USB. Don’t lie to yourself, however: the real reason you’ll rush to update your Chromebook today is newly added support for custom wallpapers, which guarantees all-day, everyday viewing of your most favorite dog in the whole wide world. Or at least, a nice change of pace from Google’s run-of-the-mill backdrops. Isn’t it so sweet?

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Software

Chrome OS update revamps app list and Google Drive saves, allows relentessly adorable wallpapers originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 20:45:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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