Hasta La Gadget!

Digg If you’re an iOS developer (or good friends with one), today is going to be totally awesome. Apple has just let loose the official iOS 4.2 beta builds for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch — meaning that someone somewhere is going to be experiencing multitasking on the ‘pad (sans jailbreaking, of course). Additionally, Apple has decided to bestow a name upon its new printing experience (the direct-to-printer tech the company showed off at its fall event). And that name? AirPrint. In a piece of PR just issued by Apple (available to read after the break), it’s noted that owners of HP products with ePrint tech will be the first to take advantage of the new tool — so that’s something.

Of course, all that news should be lost in a cloud of excitement over 4.2. As usual, we’re going to take the OS for a spin on our developer iPad here and see what’s what, and then report back to you cats and kittens about whatever nuggets of joy we find. Stay tuned!

Continue reading iOS 4.2 beta hits Apple’s developer portal, wireless printing dubbed ‘AirPrint’

iOS 4.2 beta hits Apple’s developer portal, wireless printing dubbed ‘AirPrint’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 12:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HTC has just announced the Desire Z, an Android-friendly QWERTY slider. Like the T-Mobile G2, the Desire Z features a “pop-out” (don’t call it a slider) QWERTY keyboard with user assigned keys and system-wide shortcuts that let you quickly launch your favorite apps. Around back you’ve got a 5 megapixel camera with flash that’s HD video capable while an 800MHz Qualcomm MSM7230 processor pumps away efficiently inside with HSPA+ and 802.11n radios providing the data. Unlike the US G2, however, the Deisre Z comes loaded with HTC’s enhanced Sense UI and new HTCSense.com services. Look for it to land in major European and Asian markets in October before hitting North America sometime later in 2010.

Continue reading HTC Desire Z is the QWERTY slider your Android’s been waiting for

HTC Desire Z is the QWERTY slider your Android’s been waiting for originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Sep 2010 07:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twitter‘s been trending on its own social network this week over a much-hyped announcement… and now it’s been revealed. So what do we have? A relaunch of the Twitter.com, as it turns out. The format seems to follow the two-column style we saw recently in its iPad app, with the left side showing the stream and the right providing all the other content. The biggest addition here is embedded content: depending on the link, it’ll now open in-line in the right column. Sixteen media providers are on board, including YouTube, Vimeo, Ustream, and all popular picture services. The search bar and settings has been given placement at the top of the site in its own header. Rollout begins today to select members, but there’s no current announcement on when everyone will get the new experience. With any luck, it won’t be long. In the meantime, you know the drill… pics below!

Update: … and we’re in! So we’ve spent a few minutes going through the interface, and we have to say, it’s quite sleek. The in-line content makes the experience all the more enjoyable. Conversation threads are vastly improved, but it only shows one reply back at a time — you can go through an entire timeline, but it takes far too many clicks. The best thing about it? Quite snappy. It isn’t perfect, though: it seems the @mentions thread updates much more slowly — that’s particularly irksome, having to refresh for a quicker response. At the risk of sounding vain, the “My Tweets, retweeted” section could benefit from actually showing the number of retweets in the left column — we’d love to know at a glance which of our recent messages were most popular without having to click on each individually. Usual rules apply, no extension to the 140 character limit and no support for multiple accounts. No word on a new fail whale, but not to worry, we’ll let you know as soon as you see it.

We’re not quite ready to give up our dedicated Twitter clients (Tweetie, TweetDeck, and so forth), but it’s definitely up there now as one of the best-designed Twitter interfaces. Really, though: fix the @mention refresh and conversation threads, and we’re sold. Pictures below.

Twitter unveils new website with picture and video content embedded on site (update: hands-on!) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 19:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia’s just unveiled its aluminum-clad E7 QWERTY slider handset. One of the new family of Symbian^3 devices, it has a 4-inch tilting touchscreen display on the front and an 8 megapixel imager capable of 720p video on the back. Yummy. It’s said to be the best business device Nokia, or anyone else, has ever produced and comes with the touted ability to create PowerPoint slides on the go. The E7 also features Nokia’s new ClearBlack Display sorcery and is expected to ship before the end of the year in exchange for €495 (before taxes and subsidies). You’ll find the full press release after the break.

Update: By now you’ll have noticed that the E7 and N8 are almost identical outside of the E7’s 4-inch display and slightly bigger chassis required to host it. There are a few other differences, though. For example, The 12.9mm-thin N8 has an FM transmitter and 2mm charging connector unlike the slightly thicker 13.6mm E7. The E7’s bigger display also trims back the reported talk time to 540 minutes (the N8 does 720 minutes). Of course, as part of the business focused E-series, the E7 also features a healthy set of preloaded apps including Mail for Exchange (with MS Outlook sync of contacts, calendar, and notes and multiple calendars with meeting request support), IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, Quickoffice dynamic premium, Adobe PDF reader, and F-Secure Anti-theft. The N8 counters with the better camera and stereo mic, thanks to a big 1/1.83-inch 12 megapixel sensor and Xenon flash that require some extra girth on the backend. Oh, and no MicroSD slot on the E7 — you get 16GB and that’s it.

Continue reading Nokia makes E7 QWERTY slider official: ‘beautiful and all business’ (update: specs)

Nokia makes E7 QWERTY slider official: ‘beautiful and all business’ (update: specs) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 04:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s September 15th somewhere, right? Er… right! At any rate, it looks as if the leaks we saw earlier this month were 99 percent accurate, with Olympus pulling the trigger this morning on its mid-range E-5 DSLR. Boasting a familiar design, this 12.3 megapixel shooter ups the ante with a 3-inch dual-axis swiveling LCD, a TruePic V+ image processor, full-time Live View system, splash and dustproof magnesium alloy body, 720p movie mode (Motion JPEG) with a 7 minute-per-clip maximum, in-body mechanical image stabilization and an 11-point auto focus system. There’s also wireless flash control, support for both CompactFlash and Secure Digital (SDHC / SDXC) cards and an ISO range from 100 to 6400. Unfortunately, this bad boy will set you back an almost unconscionable $1,699.99 for the body alone, which sure seems lofty given all the other options popping up. Something tells us you should wait for Photokina to conclude before pulling the trigger, but even if you managed to get a pre-order in, it won’t leave the docks ’til October.

Continue reading Olympus E-5 DSLR gets official: 12.3MP, 720p movie mode, swiveling LCD

Olympus E-5 DSLR gets official: 12.3MP, 720p movie mode, swiveling LCD originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Sep 2010 02:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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