Hasta La Gadget!

A 30-year-old Texas man claimed this week that he was talking on his Motorola Droid smartphone when it exploded in his ear.

Wearing a bandage over his head, Texas resident Aron Embry showed broadcast reporters his Droid 2 phone, which appears to be cracked with a burn.

“I heard a pop, I didn’t feel any pain initially, I pulled the phone down, I felt something dripping,” Embry told Fox News in a video interview.

Motorola has said it’s investigating the claim. The company has not acknowledged a manufacturing defect.

Incidents of exploding mobile devices have made rounds on the web in the past, and often times the cause seems to be faulty batteries. For example, amid incidents of iPod Nanos catching on fire in Japan, Apple in August 2008 issued a recall for a small number of iPod Nanos (0.001 percent) containing defective, potentially hazardous batteries. Also, in 2006, Apple issued a recall for iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 notebooks, because their batteries contained cells manufactured by Sony, which were causing batteries to explode.

From Switched

Wondering just how well a tablet would do if picked up and marketed by all four major carriers in America? We’re still waiting for the breakdown within our borders, but there’s hardly a doubt that the unprecedented carrier arrangement has helped Samsung shatter its estimates on Galaxy Tab sales. Purportedly, the outfit has just passed the one million mark in global sales of the 7-inch Android tablet, but Information Week is quick to point out that Sammy’s not clear on whether that’s units in the sales channel or units in the hands of consumers. Either way, one million’s nothing to scoff at, particularly when you consider that only 600,000 had been sold as of November 22nd. The firm’s now hoping to move 1.5 million of ’em by the year’s end, and while that’s still well short of the estimated seven million iPads that have been sold to date, it’s a sales rate that we’re sure no one at Samsung is kvetching about.

Samsung sells one million Galaxy Tab units, throws an Android party to celebrate originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 11:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After going through some rough times with its RedEye mini dongle and doing right by replacing them, ThinkFlood appears to be running full beam ahead once more. Specifically, the company has announced that RedEye owners will soon have the ability to setup and control their remote systems straight from their PC or mobile browser. On the mobile front, apparently the web app will even work on Android and BlackBerry devices, despite being optimized for Safari on iOS — hinting that non iPhone owners could possibly let their phones control more than their social lives soon. Setup wise, the web version also allows users to automatically align and move multiple buttons at once, plus assign commands to over 70+ keyboard shortcuts. Combined with the ability to make adjustments using a mouse on a computer’s larger screen, tweaking custom RedEye remote layouts just got infinitely easier — you hear that Harmony? The iOS app 2.0 update is also now available as a free ‘Plus’ download in the iTunes store, and finally supports the iPad’s lovely screen in either orientation. In a sense, it’s further substantiating the tablet’s new career path as a jumbo-buttoned geezer remote of the future, but hey — no gripes here.

Continue reading ThinkFlood’s RedEye universal remote control becomes web compatible, leaves past woes in the dust

ThinkFlood’s RedEye universal remote control becomes web compatible, leaves past woes in the dust originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Dec 2010 10:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, we’ve already gorged ourselves on plenty of Gingerbread by way of Mr. Blurrycam and even Eric Schmidt himself, but it’s only now that Google’s officially (or accidentally) given us a tour around the next Android release. In a recent voice search video tutorial from Google Hong Kong, eagle-eyed peeps have spotted many tell-tale signs of Gingerbread on what appears to be a Nexus One. As you can see above, said firmware sports the previously-seen black status tray with its new icons, along with a subtly tweaked launcher bar at the bottom of the home screen. A quick peek in Settings also reveals the restyled buttons, as well as a new tab called “Related” or “Similar” on Market’s app description page. Help yourself to some more spicy goodness before it’s too late — the video’s right after the break (from 0:47).

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Update: Surprise surprise! Google’s pulled the offending video, but fear not — we’ve got a backup posted after the break.

Continue reading Android Gingerbread officially teases you in Google’s voice search video tutorial

Android Gingerbread officially teases you in Google’s voice search video tutorial originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Dec 2010 12:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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They keep pulling us back in — Logitech’s latest Google TV ad takes a different, and yet still stalker related tack to sell users on the viability of search and web in their living room, focusing on the Kevin Bacon obsessed (and incredibly familiar looking) Ivan Cobenk. The main gist is that the Google TV is the key to easily finding your favorite video content, wherever it is… along with the slight danger of turning into Kevin Bacon. Give it a watch, while we’re still not totally sure the Revue belongs in every living room this bit is far more convincing than the old screaming anthromophized HDTV.

Logitech, Google TV enlist Kevin Bacon (and his biggest fan) for a new ad originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Dec 2010 23:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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