Hasta La Gadget!

So far, iPad keyboard cases seem to follow two schools of thought — the folio and the mini-clamshell — and while both have their merits, neither do the job quite as well as the set of chiclets on your standard netbook. Best Buy’s in-house Rocketfish label has a different idea: forget about making it svelte, and just hand you a full-size Bluetooth laptop keyboard that holds your iPad as well. It’s called the iCapsule, and as you can probably tell it can accommodate your slate in both portrait and landscape modes, and when you’re done it folds up into a hardshell case with an integrated carrying handle. The unit takes two AA batteries — rather than a rechargeable Li-ion cell — and costs $100 to own, though it’s presently both on sale for $80 and unfortunately out of stock. We’ll let you know if we get the chance to try it for ourselves. Two more pics at our source link, if it has piqued your curiosity by now.

[Thanks, Yeti]

Rocketfish iCapsule keyboard case looks ugly but exceedingly useful originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CES: part tech fest, part carnival, and all fun. Sadly we couldn’t bring you everything we saw in the booths as they’re so full and have become so immense that we’d need the entire week to take it all in; we did, however, drop by a few of the showier booths and take a handful of pics of each for your ocular entertainment. So without further ado, hop past the break and see what the likes of Samsung, Microsoft, Intel, Sharp, Panasonic, and more had to offer at CES 2011.

Continue reading CES 2011 booth tours: the best of the rest

CES 2011 booth tours: the best of the rest originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A picture of Samsung's first generation Vibrant, released during the Summer of 2010

Pictures of what look to be leaked press promotional materials of a new Samsung Android-based smartphone have been circulating the web this morning. If they’re the real deal, it could mean that last year’s Samsung Vibrant will soon have a 4G brother.

The mystery device highlighted in the leaked materials is aptly named the Samsung Vibrant 4G, according to pictures acquired by mobile blog TmoNews. From the looks of it, the hardware specs line up with the first-generation, 3G Vibrant (shown above): 1GHz processor, 4-inch super AMOLED screen, 16GB SD card storage (upgradable to 32GB), all the bells and whistles of the non-4G predecessor.

To keep it from being a complete rehash of last year’s model with 4G tacked on to the end, the new Vibrant does seem to have a few new upgrades. First, there’s the addition of a front-facing camera (pixel resolution not yet specified), a feature that seems to be about par for the course in the coming generation of smartphones we saw at CES last week. While it’s playing catch-up with the iPhone 4, we think it’ll soon be a standard for higher-end smartphones in the industry.

Another perk: The new Vibrant will supposedly run an upgraded version of Android, version 2.2 ‘Froyo,’ rather than the 2.1 ‘Eclair’ of last year’s model. (Though it’s still no version 2.3 ‘Gingerbread,’ the most recent release.)

What T-Mobile really seems to be hyping, according to TmoNews’ photos, is the phone’s claimed increase in speed. The Vibram 4G would run on T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network, which T-Mobile spokesperson Erica Gordon says is capable of “theoretical peak download speeds of up to 21 Mbps.” Depending on the city you live in, what you’ll probably get is something closer to what independent test groups have found, somewhere in the area of 4 to 5.5 Mbps down and 1 to 2Mbps up.

T-Mobile offered no comment to specific questions about the rumored device, and Samsung followed suit.

If the phone does indeed exist, T-Mobile and Samsung are most likely betting it will do as well as its predecessors in the Galaxy S series of smartphones. We’ll continue to report on news of the Vibrant 4G as it breaks.

See Also:

• Samsung Vibrant Looks Like an iPhone, Has Battery Life to Match
• First Look: Samsung Vibrant Rips Off iPhone 3G Design
• Samung
• First Look
• T-Mobile, Garmin Announce New Android Phone

Photo: Samsung Vibrant (Stefan Armijo/Wired.com)

Last year was really hot. I mean, did you see what Katy Perry wore to the Grammy’s? Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed this anecdotal evidence, reporting this week that 2010 was the hottest year on record, tying a record set in 2005. The total temperature for the year was 1.12 degree Fahrenheit above the average temperature for the 20th century.

The NOAA has been keeping data on the temperature since 1880. the organization has weather stations set up in more than 200 countries. According to the data, nine of the 10 hottest years have occurred in the last decade (1998 was the third hottest year). The last 34 years have all been above the 20th century average.

The scientists were, naturally, quick to draw a connection between the temperature rise and human impact. Says researcher David Easterling, “In my mind, it reinforces the notion that we’re seeing a signal from increasing greenhouse-gas emissions. If that weren’t a fact, we’d see temperatures tapering off and cooling, but we’re not seeing that.”

The iPad’s screen-lock switch, previously removed in a software update, will be back soon by popular demand.

Apple moments ago released a beta version of iOS 4.3, the next version of its mobile operating system. Some beta testers have noticed that a menu option allows iPad customers to set the physical switch to lock the screen to stay in landscape or portrait mode.

The iPad already used to do this in older versions of iOS. However, in iOS 4.2 Apple turned the switch into a mute button.

Several iPad customers polled by Wired.com found that modification to be extremely annoying: Many use Apple’s tablet for reading and watching video (rather than listening to music), so a screen-lock switch was far more useful than a mute switch.

Now, thanks to many vocal nerds who complained about the change, iOS 4.3 appears to allow iPad customers to set the switch’s functionality to locking the screen or muting the volume. The screenshot above comes from a beta version of iOS 4.3, which means it will likely make it to the final version of the software update.

Hurray — yours truly along with Wired.com’s Charlie Sorrel will be glad whenever iOS 4.3 officially ships. This is even better news to us than the earlier discovery of a wireless hotspot feature in iOS 4.3 for iPhones.

See Also:

• Steve Jobs: iPad Screen-Lock Switch Is Gone for Good
• IOS 4.2 Changes iPad Screen-Lock Switch to Mute Button
• iPad Gets New Button: Screen Rotation Lock

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com