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The Samsung Tango View Cleaner has an onboard webcam and mic

Gadget Lab Notes is an eclectic roundup of gadget news briefs and intriguing products that catch our eye.

Samsung Tango View Cleaner-Bot Streams What it Sees
If you’ve always wanted some sort of spy cam in your home, and your floors are perpetually dirty, Samsung has created the hybrid device you’ve been looking for. The Tango View VC-FL87W is an autonomous, Roomba-like vacuum cleaner with a built-in webcam that can stream its view to a smartphone or tablet. An onboard mic and low-light video support make it a sneaky (creepy?) way to keep tabs on what’s going on in your abode when you’re not around to keep an eye on things. Or you can just have fun getting a mouse-eyed view of the world as your floors get cleaned.

Samsung Robotic Vacuum Cleaner [Akihabara News via Slashgear]

Expedition Tripod Is Made of Wood Instead of Metal
The Expedition Tripod is made of sustainably harvested varnished ash in Germany. Why wood? It absorbs vibration better than metals like carbon, steel, or aluminum (or so they manufacturer says). And craftsmen have used the same techniques to build it for over a century.

Wood Camera Tripod [Photojojo via Uncrate]

LinkedIn and Snaptu Join Forces to Bring a Smartphone-Style App to Feature Phones
For international users who want to access LinkedIn on the go but are lacking a smartphone, life will soon get easier. LinkedIn is working with mobile developer Snaptu to create an app that lets dumbphone users access their update stream and profiles, search their network, accept invitations, and invite users to their network. Snaptu is also working with Facebook to bring the social network to feature phones.

LinkedIn Teams Up With Snaptu [TechCrunch]

Google Joining In on the NFC Payment Game
Although Google has explicitly stated that they don’t sell hardware, they have, according to Bloomberg’s sources, been purchasing “thousands” of VeriFone’s NFC payment terminals. The search engine giant is planning to install them in the tech-forward cities of San Francisco and New York City so users can swipe their Android smartphone to pay for transactions. There have been previous rumors that Google was developing their own payment system; this Verifone-purchasing information is right in line with that.

Google is said to ready payment test in New York and San Francisco [Bloomberg via Engadget]

Harman GHS-1 Gaming Headphones Look Sweet, Are Packed With Features
Currently available for $80, Harman’s GHS-1s feature a directional (cardioid) boom mic and passive noise reduction for filtering out background noises. It’s got in-line volume control and mic on/off switch as well as a mechanism in the headband so it can fold up compactly. They’re designed for longwearing comfort, and won a Red Dot Design Award for their good looks.

GHS-1 [Harman via Crunchgear]

Magic Spoon, A Simple Solution for Transporting Flatware
When I decide to eat some food in my room, it’s always a pain to juggle a glass, plate, and forks or spoons as I walk across the house. The Magic Spoon design fixes at least part of that problem by elongating and bending the handle of your utensil, turning it into a hairpin-type clasp. Just slide and clamp it onto a plate or cup to secure it.

The Magic Spoon [Yanko Design]

Even before the Incredible S was announced as the company’s new top-of-the-line set back in February, the rumored Pyramid was the upcoming HTC phone that was capturing everyone’s imagination thanks in no small part to its promise of a dual-core processor — something the Incredible S notably lacks. We hadn’t seen what this beast might look like, though… until today. Chinese site xda.cn has posted alleged renders of the Pyramid’s front and rear, showing a careful evolution of HTC’s current design language along with claims of a 4.3-inch 960 x 540 display, 8 megapixel primary and 1.3 megapixel front cameras, 768MB of RAM, and Android 3.0 (that last bit doesn’t sound right to us, though — Android 2.x with Sense would be more plausible). Rumors have this one pegged for launch on T-Mobile at some point this year; it’d be nice if that happened at CTIA next week, but considering how tied up they might be with Sprint at the show, it’s hard to say if that’ll happen.

Moving on, we’ve got some visual evidence here that HTC’s pressing on with its Windows Phone line. The first of the two, the Ignite, looks like a midrange slate thanks to an 800MHz Qualcomm processor (clocked slower than the current batch of 1GHz units that are out there), a mere 3.7-inch display, and a 5 megapixel camera around back. The Prime, meanwhile, looks like a little brother to the 7 Pro thanks to a slide-out QWERTY keyboard and similar specs to the Ignite — not blockbusters by any stretch, but HTC (along with other OEMs) might be waiting to pull out the big guns until Mango. Check out those renders at the source link.

HTC Ignite, Prime, and Pyramid renders surface? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 13:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We said it’d be coming on the 17th, but you didn’t believe us. Why didn’t you believe us? No matter, Verizon‘s finally fessing up and letting us know the good news: the HTC Thunderbolt drops on March 17th for $249.99. In the PR, which is conveniently embedded below, VZW predictably talks up the phone’s status as the first 4G LTE device on its network, offering up to 12Mbps down and 5Mbps up, a connection that can be shared with up to eight Wi-Fi devices — if you pay the extra $20 per month for Mobile Hotspot service. Verizon is generously including a 32GB microSD card, which means you can take video along in a format that will do that 4.3-inch WVGA display justice. In case you haven’t looked at a calendar lately the 17th is just two days away, which doesn’t leave much time to find pants with pockets big enough for this beast.

Update: If you’d like to save 50 bones and are setting up a new account for handset, Emilie wrote in to let us know that you can get a little thunder for $199.99 at Wirefly.

Continue reading Verizon Wireless stops being coy, confirms HTC Thunderbolt for March 17th at $249.99

Verizon Wireless stops being coy, confirms HTC Thunderbolt for March 17th at $249.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, Danger’s servers are going away, but the Sidekick brand belongs to T-Mobile — and that particular component of the teen-friendly smartphone ecosystem pioneer isn’t going anywhere. Of course, the carrier’s been saying for a couple months now that it’d be relaunching Sidekick on Android, but they’re making the device very official today with the unveiling of the Samsung-sourced Sidekick 4G. Though it lacks a swiveling display, T-Mobile is quick to note that the phone’s got a “pop-tilt” mechanism that should still be pretty unique in the market — and this is the first Sidekick with a touchscreen (3.5 inch WVGA, to be exact). The Android 2.2-based unit has a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 3 megapixel primary cam, and a pretty fierce-looking user interface (dare we say a tad Kin-like?) that comes loaded with a couple Samsung staples — Samsung Media Hub, notably — along with Qik video calling, DriveSmart texting-while-driving lockout functionality, and Sidekick Group Text and Cloud Text, which together form some manner of cross-platform messaging tool. Pricing and availability are a little murky at this point, but we can expect it “later this spring” in your choice of black or “pearl magenta.” Follow the break for the full press release.

Continue reading T-Mobile Sidekick 4G from Samsung announced, coming ‘later this spring’

T-Mobile Sidekick 4G from Samsung announced, coming ‘later this spring’ originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apparently in an effort to reduce confusion and settle the situation once and for all, Sony Ericsson’s Spanish outpost has taken to the wires today to clarify the pricing and availability situation of the Xperia Play there: €649 off contract and unlocked (which works out to roughly $907) on April 1st. That more or less lines up with what we’ve been hearing in other European locales, though in Spain, Vodafone will have a 15-day exclusive on the white model — other carriers will only have access to black at first, and none of the carriers have come clean with on-contract pricing details just yet. Clearly, $900 is an enormously tough sell, but a weak dollar never helps these situations — we’ll need to wait for word on the US retail picture before we’ve got the whole story.

Sony Ericsson Spain confirms Xperia Play for €649 on April 1st originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 14 Mar 2011 17:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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