Hasta La Gadget!

LAS VEGAS — We’ve seen more than a few “wireless boomboxes” that can stream music from your computer to a set of remote speakers. Few promise as much as the inMotion Air from Altec-Lansing.

Announced here at CES Wednesday, this unit seemingly has all the bases covered. It can stream your music library from your computer up to 300 feet away via its own wireless adapter, and it can stream the songs stored on your phone or your iPad via Bluetooth. It’s smart enough to be able to navigate your existing shared iTunes or Windows Media libraries, and it comes with a remote control that works with both file systems, so you can call up songs, playlists or internet radio stations while the thing sits next to you on the back porch. The rechargeable lithium-ion battery will be good for seven hours, the company promises.

The design of the inMotion Air is stark but monumental: It’s an austere, slim wedge with silvery buttons on top and a handle built into the back to carry it. It weighs a little more than a pound, and it comes in a matte black finish or in gunmetal gray. We haven’t had a change to hear it yet, so we can’t comment on the sound quality. It will cost $200.

Connecting wirelessly involves plugging a small adapter into the host computer. The adapter also has stereo outputs on it, you can just plug your desktop speakers into the adapter and leave the thing plugged in without having to swap any cables whenever you want to switch from one speaker system to another.

Anyone sitting nearby can sync their phone or iPad to the inMotion Air by connecting over Bluetooth and make it play the songs stored on their devices. Audio playback over Bluetooth is notoriously sub-par, but Altec-Lansing says it’s tried to keep the quality higher than average by using the Apt-X codec. The technology boosts the fidelity and clarity of the audio coming over the Bluetooth signal, Altec-Lansing claims.

See Also:

• TDK Resurrects the Boombox
• Ears-On With the SuperTooth Disco Bluetooth Boombox
• Sonos S5: All In One Wi-fi Boombox
• AirPlay Can Stream to Apple TV From Any iOS App – Not Just iTunes

Sifteo cubes, in development for more than two years, promise a revolutionary way for adults and kids to play tabletop games.

Originally posted at CES 2011

We’re lucky to be bathed in warm, refreshing 4G waves while reporting live from Vegas, Sprint and Clearwire taking care of that. Verizon‘s catching up in a big way with its LTE rollout and now OnStar is onboard — conceptually, anyway. The company has outfitted a Buick LaCrosse with a 4G LTE modem for the purpose of experimenting with what can be done in a car with that kind of bandwidth. It wouldn’t have been our choice of cars for such application, Buick not exactly screaming “hot new thing” at this point, but of course it’s not really about the car, it’s about the bandwidth.

What are they going to do with it? High-def streaming both ways, for one thing, including the ability to watch home security cameras from within the car or, alternatively, to look at cameras within the car when it’s parked in the night, in an alley, somewhere you’re having second thoughts about. OnStar wants real-time streaming of traffic cameras and even Skype video chat, which sounds like overkill to us, but don’t let us rain on your crazy mobile video chat parade.

At this point we’re not sure how much of this stuff will find its way into a proper car of the future (Buick or other), but you can get a bit of a taste in the video teaser below.

Continue reading OnStar partners with Verizon to bring LTE 4G to your rear view (video)

OnStar partners with Verizon to bring LTE 4G to your rear view (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

So yes, it’s looking about as confirmed as can be: thanks to a full-page ad in the latest issue of Rolling Stone, we’re finding out that the name of HTC’s first LTE phone for Verizon — and its first LTE phone regardless of carrier, actually — will definitely be “ThunderBolt.” This is the same phone that we’ve seen rumored and leaked over the last few months as the Mecha and the Droid Incredible HD, but we’ll admit — ThunderBolt seems like a pretty solid name for a phone that’s sporting a 4.3-inch display and some of the fastest data around.

Behind and to the right of the ThunderBolt, though, is another leak: the Inspire 4G for AT&T, though it’s unclear what “4G” means in this context exactly — AT&T’s in the same boat as T-Mobile right now where they’re topping out with HSPA+ and don’t have any LTE markets live, so it seems they might be borrowing a play from their smaller rival’s playbook and labeling the HSPA+ airwaves as straight-up 4G. We’re sad to see that trend start to snowball — but we’ll admit, T-Mobile kinda forced their hand on that one. At any rate, we’re pretty confident both of these suckers are going to get official here at CES this week, so keep your ear to the ground.

HTC ThunderBolt for Verizon and Inspire 4G for AT&T break cover courtesy of Rolling Stone ad originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 00:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Android Central  | Email this | Comments

Lenovo’s U1/Le Pad looks to be one of the big hits of CES, thus far. Granted, it’s still early in the show. Heck, the show technically hasn’t even started yet. Still, the thing is darned cool. It’s an iPad-like tablet (the U1), which converts into a laptop with the help of a dock (the Le Pad).

For the time being, the device doesn’t appear to be coming to the US, sadly, so we’ll just have to admire it from afar. I did manage to snap a shot of the device up close tonight, and seeing it in person only makes me want one all that much more.