Hasta La Gadget!

We hoped Boxee would surprise us at the eleventh hour and announce it had finally added Netflix to the service — technically making good on its end of January deadline. Instead, the company’s blog is now reporting that the service is “anticipated soon.” Apparently, the service is running fine on the device in the company’s offices — which, mind you they said back in December too, — but it still failed to satisfy Netflix’s security requirements. While that sounds like a big thing to miss in our books, a comment by Boxee’s VP of Marketing, Andrew Kippen, suggests the company just discovered the issue only an hour before midnight. This marks the second time users have been asked to re-adjust their expectations for when the big red box might pop up on their favorite media manager, but to Boxee’s credit, we were glad to see the company come right out with the situation instead of leaving us all on pins and needles. Now, let’s just hope this whole incident gets sorted out pronto, so we don’t have to break bad news to our Watch Instantly lovin’ hearts ever again.

Boxee delays Netflix integration again, cites security requirements as the culprit originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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College students eagerly awaiting India’s ambitious $35 tablet are going to have to put their dreams on hold — there’s been a delay. Earlier this week, the Times of India reported that the Indian government dropped HCL Technologies, the company responsible for manufacturing the great democratic tablet, for failing to follow through on the 600 million rupee (or $13,198,416) guarantee — apparently a disagreement over production costs is to blame. Last summer, the country’s Human Resource Development Minister, Kapil Sibal, made a number of appearances toting a mockup of the Android-based tablet, and promising a launch date of January 15th. Officials say the project is still on track and should be ready this summer. However, while the government seeks a replacement for HCL, skeptics continue to sound warnings that parts alone will cost more than $35. We’d like to chalk this up to haters hating, but we can’t seem to forget what became of the $10 laptop.

India’s $35 tablet delay dashes hopes, destroys dreams originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Still hanging on to your Fisker Karma pre-order slip despite the decidedly sizeable boost in MSRP, up to $95,900? Well, we now have an idea of when you might actually have a chance of getting a car. The most recent estimates we heard indicated deliveries starting in late 2010, but that obviously didn’t happen. Now Fisker is indicating that full production is set to begin in March, about two months from now, with people getting their rides “soon after.” Initial examples of the car are to be produced in Europe, Finland to be exact, and they’ll need the services of a fairly substantial boat to get across the Atlantic before they become available here. But, still, a potential release date just a few months away is a reasonably encouraging thing — and you can’t deny the car is still quite a looker.

Fisker Karma now set for production in March, deliveries this spring — maybe originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 08:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Asus has confirmed that three of its upcoming tablets will run the next version of the Google mobile operating system, Android 3.0. aka Honeycomb.

The Eee Pad tablet will run Honeycomb and start shipping this summer, Asus spokesman Gary Key told Wired in an e-mail message.

That contradicts a report in The Inquirer, in which Asus marketing specialist John Swatton said Asus Android tablets would not launch until the fall.

Information around hardware requirements and technical specifications for running Honeycomb has been murky at best. Korean consumer-electronics firm Enspert originally speculated that Honeycomb would require a dual-core processor in order to run. But according to a Twitter status update sent by Android Open Source lead Dan Morrill, there’s no “hard minimum processor requirement” to run version 3.0.

By way of comparison, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is running Android version 2.2 Froyo, and will be upgradable when Honeycomb is officially released. Motorola’s Xoom tablet will launch with Honeycomb in the spring. It hasn’t been said if that’s the case for the Eee Pad series or not.

Photo: Courtesy of Asus

According to a post that’s just gone live on Boxee’s blog, users of the Boxee Box won’t see VUDU or Netflix content on their TVs until January. We know, the wait will be painful. According to the Boxee team, VUDU offerings should hit the platform as soon as next week, but Netflix won’t be made available until the end of the month. The company claims that both services are up and running in its offices, but more time was needed to “test each application to make sure they are ready for launch.” It’s nice to know where we stand, though it would have been even nicer to get more frequent updates on the status of these apps, instead of a last-minute blog post on New Year’s Eve.

Still, the post has equal touches of hopefulness for the bright future Boxee sees for home entertainment, and acknowledgment of the massive challenges the startup faces in the coming year. In their words: “As we get ready for the New Year tomorrow and CES next week, it’s clear that in 2011 we will be competing with companies that spend more feeding their employees that we have to pay ours. We’re confident though that our small team will continue to push the envelop of what people expect from their TVs.” Here at Engadget, we’re eager to see how it all plays out, but we’re definitely rooting for underdogs like Boxee who have pioneered so much of what the world is just waking up to. 2011 is going to be a crazy year!

Netflix and VUDU not hitting Boxee Box till January… as if you couldn’t have guessed originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Dec 2010 21:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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