Hasta La Gadget!

iPhone 4 parts just keep on dribbling out of China and turning up around the world — this time it’s the next-gen phone’s outer case on a video from iPhone Portgual. The site actually has two cases, which it says were purchased by a reader in China, and while they look genuine enough, we obviously can’t tell for certain whether they’re real. In any event, at this rate we’ll have enough leaked parts to assemble the entire damn thing by the time Steve takes the stage at WWDC to announce it in a few days — or hey, maybe he’ll just show it off at D8 tonight. Either way, we’ll be there. Videos after the break.

[Thanks, Mike]

Continue reading The iPhone 4’s outer case makes it on camera… in Portugal

The iPhone 4’s outer case makes it on camera… in Portugal originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 12:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Panasonic’s new touch-screen ultracompact comes fully loaded for snapshot success.

My friend Kiko has a problem. He has an addiction to bike polo. He also choses to ride a freewheel bike, which means that with a mallet in his hand he only has one brake. Luckily, Kiko is also a tinkerer and has his own workshop, so it was an easy job for him to come up with this ingeniously simple solution, which operates two brakes with one lever.

In bike polo, most of the time you are playing one-handed. If you ride a fixed-gear bike like many players then you can brake the rear wheel with your legs and pull the lever for the front brake with your left hand. If you ride freewheel, the usual solution is to keep the back brake so you can skid (important in polo for quick turns and looking cool). The problem is that the back brake isn’t good at actually stopping you quickly.

Kiko’s fix was to hook up two cables to a single lever, activated by the left hand. The design is incredibly simple, but does rely on some workshop skills to do it properly. After all, you really don’t want to mess up your only way of stopping, right? Here’s how to make it:

Find the hole in the brake lever where the brake cable is usually fixed into place. Drill through the opposite side with the same diameter hole and thread through an aluminum rod. This rod should be drilled with small holes for the cables to pass through, and these holes should have rounded seats for the cable-ends fashioned with a file.

The next step is to make a metal plate with three holes. The central hole is for mounting it on the lever assembly, and should be made to fit the already existing nubbin from which the cable used to protrude. The other two should be drilled, threaded and fitted with two barrel-adjusters, as seen in the photos.

Once made, you pass each cable through its own pair of holes. Pulling on the lever pulls both brakes. Best of all, you can tweak them using the barrel-adjusters to balance the brakes, adding a little more power to the back to help skidding, for example.

Does it work? Yes. Very well. If Kiko’s game last night was anything to go by, then it might be better than riding fixed. And it isn’t just for bike polo. Operating two brakes with one hand could be great for somebody with just one arm, or a stroke victim without the use of a hand.

A great DIY project, and one that is totally in the home-made spirit of bike polo.

See Also:

• The End is Nigh: Commercial Bike Polo Mallet Heads
• It Had to Happen: Bike-Polo Mallet Shafts Openly On Sale

According to the Korea IT Times, Samsung will be taking quite an unusual route with the launch of its upcoming flagship, the Galaxy S, by releasing it simultaneously in 110 countries around the world. Sure, it seems as much a publicity stunt as anything else, but this move indicates both a confidence in Super AMOLED supplies and, more importantly, a rapidly approaching date for the Galaxy S’ retail availability. We already knew that it’ll be arriving in Asia this month, so assuming this global debut is working to the same schedule, most developed countries will get their taste of Samsung’s latest before the first half of the year is through. Neat, then we can pit one of these against an iPhone 4G and figure out which has the more gorgeous display.

[Thanks, Martin]

Samsung Galaxy S set for simultaneous launch in 110 countries, probably this month originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Jun 2010 10:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MSI, the OG of Atom-powered netbooks, is all set to try the same budget-hardware trick with tablets: behold, the Wind-Pad. This originally-named slate will have a 10-inch, 1024×600 capacitive touch-screen and contain a 1.66GHz Atom processor, 2GB RAM and a 32GB SSD along with HDMI-out, 3G and a claimed eight-hour battery life.

Care to guess which OS the all-plastic computer will run? Android? Chrome? Nope, it will be encumbered with a full-on desktop operating system in the shape of Windows 7. MSI has papered a thin software covering over the top in the shape of the Wind Touch UI, which should make things a little more finger-friendly. Windows 7 does technically support touch out of the box, but I have tried it and it pretty much sucks.

Essentially, then, this is a netbook without a keyboard. On the other hand, the video demonstration shared by TweakTown and shot at the Computex show this year, shows that although this is no slick and sexy iPad, it does seem a lot easier to use than a regular netbook.

And remember, the Wind in its many forms has been a winner in the market, both as the perfect hackintosh machine and as a cheap-o portable computer. Apple certainly doesn’t need to worry about anything, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be a hit – as long as the price is right. Available in the first half of 2010.

MSI Wind-Pad [MSI]