XtremeMac InCharge Auto & Home BT chargers stream music, phone calls over bluetooth


There are many ways to get your phone’s tunes to your system’s speakers, and now thanks to XtremeMac, you have two more. At $80, the InCharge Home BT is just $20 cheaper than an Apple TV, and it only lets you stream audio over bluetooth (vs. video, and WiFi for the Apple TV). Its on-the-go counterpart, however — the InCharge Auto BT (also $80) — is a much easier sell, beaming music and phone calls to a car stereo without a need to tether your handset to your receiver. Despite the company name and ubiquitous “Made for iPhone” branding, XtremeMac has confirmed that both devices offer identical functionality with non-Apple handsets as well, along with iPods, iPads, and other bluetooth-enabled gadgets. Available now, both devices support A2DP, connect to your speakers using a bundled 3.5mm cable, and include a 10-watt USB port for charging your devices — assuming you don’t mind cording up, on occasion.

Continue reading XtremeMac InCharge Auto & Home BT chargers stream music, phone calls over bluetooth

XtremeMac InCharge Auto & Home BT chargers stream music, phone calls over bluetooth originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 May 2011 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bluetooth Box Makes Any Stereo AirPlay-Ready

This little box will turn any line-in capable stereo into a Bluetooth receiver

XtremeMac’s InCharge Home BT is a little box that will turn any stereo into a Bluetooth receiver. Thus you can stream music via AirPlay from your iPhone (or any other Bluetooth music source) to the box, whereupon the radio waves will be converted back into a signal that is then pumped through a jack into your regular stereo. The tiny black box also has a USB port for charging your phone.

It’s a tough sell, especially if your home is already full of Apple gear. At $80, the InCharge Home BT is just $20 cheaper than Apple’s $100 Airport Express. The AE will also stream music over AirPlay, using Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth, and it will also charge your phone via USB.

But it does more. You can use the AirPlay Express as a router (very handy in hotel rooms with ethernet connections), and you can plug in a printer for wireless printing. You can also use it to extend a wireless network, bringing not just tunes but a better signal to dark corners of the house.

So why would you opt for XtremeMac’s box? First, it is tiny. Second, it uses Bluetooth, which doesn’t have the latency of Wi-Fi streaming. Hit play on an Airport Express setup and you have to wait a couple of seconds for the sound to buffer. Bluetooth is instant, and this also means you can beam game soundtracks to speakers and have it stay in sync with the game itself.

Thirdly, it should run a lot cooler. I have two AirPort Expresses which lie discarded. They run so hot it seems wasteful to leave them on all day for music streaming, so I now just jack in a cable.

The XtremeMac InCharge Home BT will be available soon.

InCharge Home BT product page [XtremeMac]

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Garmin nuLink! 2390 torn apart by FCC, put back together again on US site

Garmin nuLink! 2390

Last week Garmin announced the latest member of its high-end GPS navigator family, the nuLink! 2390. Sadly, it was a Europe only affair, leaving American consumers wondering why the company was giving us the cold shoulder. (Whatever it was baby, we’re sorry, come back.) Then we spotted an unnamed 4.3-inch Garmin making its way through the FCC that matches up quite nicely, size- and feature-wise, with the 2390. The newest nuLink-enabled device is even showing its face over at the company’s US website (you really do love us!), though it’s not available to order and you’ll have to do some serious digging to unearth it. Whenever it does hit American shores you’ll be able to pull in 3D traffic data and search Google thanks to its GSM radio and tether your phone to it using Bluetooth for hands-free calls. It also has voice recognition software so you can furiously bark commands at it when you miss a turn and a tracking feature for keeping tabs on unruly teens. If you’re into seeing gadgets splayed open like an organ transplant patient check out the gallery below.

Garmin nuLink! 2390 torn apart by FCC, put back together again on US site originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 16:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung’s 11.6-inch Series 9 now shipping in the US, priced at $1,160

It’s been about a month since Samsung’s 11.6-inch Series 9 laptop first surfaced for pre-order on Amazon, and now it’s finally available for shipping. Touting a $1,160 price tag, this duralumin-enclosed little beast packs an Intel Core i3-380UM processor, 2GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD. The 2.3-pounder also ships with 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 3.0 and WIMAX 4G capabilities, along with a 1.3-megapixel HD webcam and a 1366 x 768 display with 340 nits of brightness. The newest addition to the Series 9 family is available on Amazon, Circuit City and Tiger Direct, but if they don’t suit your fancy, you can check with Samsung to find a full list of retailers, below.

Samsung’s 11.6-inch Series 9 now shipping in the US, priced at $1,160 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 May 2011 09:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motion Computing’s CL900 tablet now available for order, starting at $899

It’s been a while since we first laid eyes upon this rugged little guy, but Motion Computing’s CL900 tablet is finally available for orders, starting at $899. Designed with enterprise markets in mind, the 2.1-pound Windows 7 slate runs on a 1.5GHz Intel Oak Trail Atom Z670 processor and rocks a 10.1-inch, 1366×768 multi-touch display that’s shielded in Corning Gorilla Glass. Seated atop that display is a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera, with a 3.0-megapixel sensor keeping watch over the backside. Boasting a thickness of 15.5mm, the device also offers up to 2GB of RAM (along with a 30GB or 62GB SSD), promises a battery life of up to eight hours and houses a USB port, SD card slot and Bluetooth 3.0 module. For now, the CL900 is only available at select retailers, though Motion is selling peripherals and accessories directly from its site. Check out the source links for more details.

Motion Computing’s CL900 tablet now available for order, starting at $899 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 12:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O (video)

Today at Google I/O we got a chance to play with Meta Watch, Fossil’s wearable development platform, which allows developers to extend the interfaces of devices and applications to the wrist. Both watches — one analog / digital with a traditional dial plus two small OLED displays, the other digital with a larger memory-in-pixel LCD (a highly reflective, always-on, ultra low-power screen) — feature Bluetooth for communication, along with a vibration motor, three-axis accelerometer, and ambient light sensor. The devices are built around Texas Instrument’s super efficient MSP430TM microcontroller and CC2560 Bluetooth radio and will run seven days on a charge. A set of contacts in the back allow the watches to interface with a debugging clip for charging and JTAG programming. The hardware is paired with an SDK which allows a tablet or smartphone running Android to register button presses and receive sensor data from the watches, and then respond by sending text or triggering the vibration motor. It’s also possible to design custom embedded wearable applications running directly on your wrist, and it will be up to developers to truly unleash the magical possibilities here.

Speaking of which, the Meta Watch is currently available to pre-order for $199 (see our source link), with availability pegged for June 30th. Based on what we heard today at Google I/O, the watch is being hawked to developers only, but it’s obvious that DIY-minded folks will be able to buy one as well. For now, just two of the models shown here will be sold, but there’s no telling what will happen once the platform builds up enough of a backbone to support an influx of actual customers. The company isn’t handing out a timeframe as to when it will be ready for the mass market, but we’d be shocked if it was still floundering around this time next year. Interested in having an early peek? Take a look at our gallery below and our hands-on video after the break.

Continue reading Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O (video)

Fossil Meta Watch wrists-on at Google I/O (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 May 2011 20:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Snail concept rolls out Braille-to-speech translation

A new concept that fits nicely in the things-you-never-knew-you-wanted category is determined to make speed readers out of the visually impaired. Snail — deceptive name aside — uses a pressure-sensitive touch pad to read patterns in a Braille passage, then translates them to speech, speeding up the reading process and allowing users to record audio passages for later playback. The user places his / her thumb, in the obvious opening and glides the device over a line of Braille. The translated audio is then played back either through a built-in speaker or over a connected Bluetooth headset. Snail was made with the blind in mind, but considering we’ve always been curious about what resides in those bumpy white lines, we wouldn’t mind rolling with one of these things ourselves. As is the case with so many concepts, however, there’s no telling when or if this Snail will slither on to the market.

Snail concept rolls out Braille-to-speech translation originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 May 2011 01:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Thumb Keyboard With Rear-Facing Trackpad

The Thumb Keyboard looks great for TVs, terrible for phones

The iTablet Thumb Keyboard is being marketed as an accessory for Android and iOS cellphones, and for the iPad. It might be better to focus on its ability to hook up to the Xbox 360 or media-center PC, though, as it is almost spectacularly ill-suited to mobile devices.

The keypad is similar in form to a console gamepad. You hold it in two hands and type on the QWERTY ‘board with two thumbs, as God intended (if God had been a teenager obsessed with texting). Round the back is a trackpad that you tickle with your fingers, and above that are the left and right mouse buttons. A function and caps-lock button on the front panel complete the lineup.

The Thumb Keyboard also has backlit keys and communicates via Bluetooth.

But even the greatest hater of on-screen keyboards would’t want to use this. First, you have to prop your phone up somewhere you can see the screen. Then you need to go back and forth between typing and touching the screen (the trackpad input obviously can’t be sent to a phone that lacks a mouse pointer). This is bad enough using an iPad at a desk with a proper stand and keyboard. Add in a device you have to hold and it becomes a nightmare.

For a media-center PC, though, it looks perfect, barely bigger than a regular remote and easy to just toss onto the sofa when you’re done. The marketing sure is ass-backwards on this one.

Should you require a Thumb Keyboard, you can have one for £80, or a ridiculous $131. Available now.

Thumb Keyboard product page [iTablet]

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Creative’s new Bluetooth speakers sound vaguely familiar

Creative’s family of Bluetooth speakers got a few more additions today. The company unveiled the wireless one-piece D80, which for most intents and purposes, is identical to its colorful sibling the D100, save for a lower price tag at $50 and a loss of battery power. The $300 ZiiSound D5x, meanwhile, looks an awful lot like 2010’s D5, though this one plays nice with the newly announced D3x modular speaker and DSx modular subwoofer, both of which are priced at $150 a pop. The D80 is hitting this month and the ZiiSound’s various components will be arriving this summer, so don’t throw out last year’s models just yet. Press info after the break.

Continue reading Creative’s new Bluetooth speakers sound vaguely familiar

Creative’s new Bluetooth speakers sound vaguely familiar originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 17:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Bluetooth Thumb Keyboard apes Backflip, may or may not be shipping now

iTablet Thumb Keyboard

iTablet has found itself on the pages of Engadget before, primarily for vaporware slates and cheap attempts to garner attention with its iMoniker. Now its parent company AHX Global is back with an actual product — a thumb-friendly Bluetooth keyboard. That’s right, no capacitive touch screens here, just backlit QWERTY keys and a “patented rear-facing touchpad” (oh, you mean like the Backflip). You can order the inventively named Thumb Keyboard now at the source link for £79.99 (about $132) but, having only seen renders and considering the company’s track record, we’re hedging our bets on whether this thing is actually shipping yet. Full PR is after the break.

Continue reading Bluetooth Thumb Keyboard apes Backflip, may or may not be shipping now

Bluetooth Thumb Keyboard apes Backflip, may or may not be shipping now originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 May 2011 16:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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