Hasta La Gadget!

So, here’s the skinny — when SceneTap launches in a month or so, it’ll provide Android and iOS users with a frightening amount of analysis before you hit the town. As the story goes, the startup will be tapping into an infrastructure of cameras spread across an untold quantity of bars. The goal? To provide a real-time snapshot of what the demographics are at any location on any given night. According to the company, demographic information, social commentary and “other comprehensive features” will be shown, all of which will help people decide where they’d like to go. For the privacy freaks, they’ll (hopefully) be comforted by the fact that no actual recording is going on, and each person is tracked anonymously. Hailed as a “new type of social network,” SceneTap will initially cover 50 clubs, and of course, there’s no DUI checkpoint feature for those hoping to do something as impractical as drink and drive afterwards. Head on past the break for the rest of the deets, and be sure to ping the company if you’re hoping for a Snooki Sighting push alert in version 2.0.

Continue reading SceneTap app analyzes pubs and clubs in real-time, probably won’t score you a Jersey Shore cameo

SceneTap app analyzes pubs and clubs in real-time, probably won’t score you a Jersey Shore cameo originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, we’ve been fairly certain for a while now that we’d see the sexy Samsung Galaxy S II saunter on over to AT&T, but now we’ve attained what appears to be the first official photo of the handset. Samsung’s Singapore division has a series of professional shots of planned accessories, including this “Samsung Galaxy S II Desktop Dock,” a handsome pyramid stand sporting HDMI and 3.5mm stereo-out jacks — and of course, an AT&T logo on its comfortably cradled smartphone. We’re still not quite sure when Samsung’s flagship will hit the US, but it had better get a move on — we’re slated to see a Galaxy S III by this time next year, after all.

Update: We should probably note it looks like the Galaxy S II’s seen a bit of a makeover for AT&T, gaining the four familiar capacitive touch buttons and generally appearing more like the Infuse 4G.

[Thanks, Solomon T.]

Samsung Galaxy S II for AT&T ratted out by its own HDMI dock originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Jun 2011 14:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, ASUS — what a teaser. Especially when it comes to the release dates and exact prices of your latest keyboard-packing Eee Pad 10.1-inch Android tablets. The word remains mum regarding final pricing, but the company’s UK division recently announced via its Facebook page that the Transformer 3G and Slider tabs will be available in the region during August; and sadly, that’s about all. It’ll be letting out more details on how to snag one just before they’re out, and hopefully you’ll get a chance to before they sell clean out. For now, you can re-skim our review of the UK Transformer and additional Slider coverage — just think of it as a consolation prize.

ASUS slipping Eee Pad Slider and Transformer 3G into UK hands this August originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The introduction of Google Wallet felt a little too good to be true, didn’t it? It’s magical, like the tech equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. In reality, the tech behind mobile payments has been around since 2003 on a much smaller scale using near-field communications, more commonly known as NFC. The idea behind Wallet (amongst other services, like ISIS) is contactless pay — using your phone as a credit card — and is just one of the many ways NFC can be useful in our everyday lives. In fact, we’re only scraping the surface of what’s theoretically possible.

Google is definitely not the first company to dabble in NFC, but it appears to be poised and ready to push the tech’s adoption forward at a rapid pace with the advent of Wallet and Offers. Until now the coals have been hot; but if a fire’s going to start, someone monolithic has to throw a few newspapers in as kindling — and Google volunteered. But what good is NFC if it’s just an acronym that causes our eyes to glaze over? Is El Goog the only instigator? After the break we’ll focus on what NFC is capable of, and why we want it on our phones as soon as yesterday.

Continue reading Engadget Primed: What is NFC, and why do we care?

Engadget Primed: What is NFC, and why do we care? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jun 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s App Guy has quite a job on his baby-soft hands: to boost Windows Phone 7’s numerically-challenged Marketplace by encouraging developers to port apps across from other platforms. The little fellow helped iPhone devs out a couple of months ago with an API mapping tool to make it easier to translate iPhone APIs to WP7 code. Now he’s extended the mapping tool to work with Android APIs too, and backed it up with a 90-page white paper and a promise to get more involved in developer forums. Will the App Guy’s efforts unleash a flood of new apps for Windows Phone? We don’t know, but we dig his shorts.

Microsoft releases Android developer poaching package for Windows Phone 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 10 Jun 2011 04:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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