Hasta La Gadget!

Believe it or not, the crew at Engadget HQ will be packing up and headed to CES 2011 a fortnight from today, and it looks as if quite a few undercover products from NEC will be making the same trip. The company has just revealed that its single-screen Cloud Communicator tablet will be on display, but moreover, a dual-screen version will be making it awfully tough for the former to get any attention whatsoever. Now, dual-screen devices aren’t exactly new, but an Android tablet with a pair of 7-inch LCDs is definitely more inciting than Kno’s education-minded megabook and the two-faced e-readers that swarmed CES 2010. Details on the hardware are few and far betwixt, with NEC only revealing that both panels will be touch-enabled, WiFi, 3G and Bluetooth modules will be baked in and that a stylus will be included for good measure. Also, it’ll fully support the use of different programs on each LCD, which — if executed properly — could melt our faces into the desert sand below. Sadly, our prying for images got us nowhere, but we’re assured to see more at next month’s extravaganza. Hang tight.

Continue reading NEC teases dual-screen Cloud Communicator Android tablet, promises more at CES

NEC teases dual-screen Cloud Communicator Android tablet, promises more at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been mostly bad news about content blocks for Google TV since the platform launched in late October, but it sounds like Sony’s staying optimistic: Hiroshi Yoshioka, head of the company’s TV division, told the New York Times that Sony’s Google TV sales have been “in line with expectations,” and that “it might take a little longer for users to really start having fun” with the new platform. What’s more, Yoshioka also said Sony’s TV group and Google collaborate more on Google TV devices than Sony Ericsson and Google do on Android phones, which sounds insane to us — but perhaps not entirely surprising, given that the Xperia X8 is only just getting Android 2.1.

Of course, all this cheerleading from Sony comes against the backdrop of Google asking TV manufacturers to delay several planned CES Google TV product introductions while it reworks the software and tries to negotiate with the networks on continued content blocks, so “expectations” could mean almost anything, really — especially since Yoshioka didn’t provide any hard Google TV sales numbers and later said that Sony’s TV business would fail to meet its targets and struggle to become profitable this year. Ouch. We’ve got a feeling we’ll be hearing more about all this at CES one way or another — stay tuned.

Sony says Google TV sales meeting expectations, TV division working more closely with Google than cellphone group originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Dec 2010 10:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We were expecting to see a slew of new Google TV-powered displays and boxes at CES in a couple of weeks, but now The New York Times is reporting the list of new product partners at the show may be much shorter than expected. The cause is reported to be Google’s last minute decision to ask for more time to work on its software first, resulting in no new hardware from LG, Sharp and Toshiba at the show, leaving only Samsung and VIZIO to show off their products. The always popular unnamed sources now peg timing for the next full fledged assault of Google TV hardware as after the company completes updates including the addition of the Android Market some time next year. Of course, Chrome OS and Honeycomb already provide plenty of examples of a disconnect between the good folks at Mountain View and their hardware partners, but with some already casting doubt on the platform’s potential, and the company’s ability to work out licensing deals with Hollywood, it’d be good to see more than last week’s partial facelift as a sign of what is to come.

NYT: Next batch of Google TV devices delayed, pending software updates originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Dec 2010 22:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As promised, Notion Ink has just released a video of the Adam tablet in action, complete with that snazzy new Eden UI — the first anyone’s seen of the device since its first working prototype. While the footage itself is of disappointingly low quality, it seems to show a device somewhat worthy of the hype, with a responsive screen, a multitask-friendly interface and plug ‘n play peripherals — though we’re holding out for Pixel Qi screen tests and some closeup shots before we place any orders ourselves. Notion Ink singled out vocal critic AndroidPolice to launch the (seemingly incomplete) video and gave the publication an exclusive interview too, so take your lingering doubts about the tablet’s capabilities and head on down to our source links.

Update: Now in 720p!

Update 2: There’s a brand-new video after the break, showing off more Eden UI, a speedy PDF reader, and the Adam’s virtual keyboard — and reportedly all shot in daylight to boot.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading Notion Ink releases Adam demo video, attempts to explain itself (update: second vid)

Notion Ink releases Adam demo video, attempts to explain itself (update: second vid) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Dec 2010 23:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You might have heard how careless some third-party apps can be with your personal data, but it may not yet have hit home — offenders can include must-have programs like MySpace and Pandora, too. The Wall Street Journal tested 101 popular apps for iPhone and Android and discovered that over half transmitted unique device identifiers (UDID) to a flock of advertisers without so much as a prompt, and that some (including Pandora) even transmitted a user’s age, gender and location to better target their marks. Now, before you boycott your favorite music apps, you might want to hear the other side of the story, which is that all this data is typically processed in batches and anonymized so that advertisers can’t necessarily separate you from the crowd. However, the worry is that there may be little stopping nefarious individuals from creating a database that links your UDID to all this other data you send out. It’s a juicy proposition for targeted advertising, sure, but also potentially real-world crime, so we doubt this will be the last we hear of UDID privacy scares.

Wall Street Journal says apps may violate privacy, fingers MySpace and Pandora originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 18 Dec 2010 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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