Dec 13

ROCCAT Studios unveils first US peripherals ahead of CES

Posted in: europe, Games, gaming, germany, Today's Chili
European peripherals maker ROCCAT is planning a big splash for January’s CES, demanding that American gamers get some “serious German engineering.” Awkward stereotyping aside, the company’s first official foray over here will see it release the flagship Isku illuminated keyboard and the Kone[+] mouse. There’s also mention of the ROCCAT Talk system, which will let the devices chat to each other as you play, but didn’t say how — or why it’ll improve matters. There’s also a tight lid being placed over the pricing, but since its keyboards retail for $150 and mice $100 on the other side of the Atlantic, we wouldn’t expect it to stray too far from that particular tree.

Continue reading ROCCAT Studios unveils first US peripherals ahead of CES

ROCCAT Studios unveils first US peripherals ahead of CES originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 21

EU to launch first two Galileo satellites today, as sat-nav system lurches forward

Posted in: europe, government, launch, money, navigation, politics, satellite, space, Today's Chili
The EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system has been beset by delays and budget overruns in recent months, but its future is looking slightly brighter, now that its first two satellites are primed for launch. The European Space Agency is expected to send the satellites into space today, as part of a long-term project that will cost an estimated €7 billion (around $9.6 billion). Slated to take off from Kourou, French Guiana, the pair of satellites will ride on the back of a Russian rocket to an altitude of nearly 15,000 miles, where they’ll test system functions both in space and on Earth. If all goes according to plan, they’ll also become Galileo’s first operational satellites, paving the way, officials hope, for many more to follow. In fact, the European Commission is looking to complete the 30-satellite constellation by the year 2019, with two scheduled to launch during every quarter, beginning in 2012. The idea, of course, is to offer Europeans an alternative to US-operated GPS, with a free consumer service scheduled to launch in 2014, followed by a more precise, paid service in 2020. Nevertheless, budgetary concerns loom large over the project, which, according to the EC, has already racked up a development and deployment bill of over €5 billion ($6.8 billion), since 2003. The commission will present a finalized proposal to EU member governments by the end of the year, in the hopes of obtaining that extra €7 billion, though it may face more acute criticism, considering today’s dour economic climate. It remains unlikely, however, that Galileo will be totally shut down, as the EU says it could bring in an extra €90 billion over the next 20 years.

EU to launch first two Galileo satellites today, as sat-nav system lurches forward originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 21 Oct 2011 04:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 20

Major Chinese supplier halts rare earths production in attempt to boost prices

Posted in: europe, government, industry, market, politics, price, Today's Chili, us
With prices sliding and uncertainty rising, China’s biggest producer of rare earth minerals has suddenly decided to suspend all operations, in a move that could strain already tense relations with the West. Baotou Steel, a miner, refiner and vendor located in Inner Mongolia, announced the decision in a statement today, explaining that it’s simply looking to “balance supply and demand” in response to a prolonged price slump within China. Since June, in fact, prices of neodymium oxide and europium oxide have declined by 34 and 35 percent, respectively, with many analysts attributing the drop to mounting economic uncertainty in the US and Europe. Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced plans to merge or close some 35 rare earths producers within the mineral-rich northern region of Inner Mongolia, effectively crowning Baotou Steel as the industry’s epicenter. Now, of course, that’s all changed, though the shutdown will only last for one month. It’s also worth noting that China still exerts rather considerable influence upon the market, accounting for roughly 97 percent of all production of rare earths — a group of 17 minerals used to manufacture gadgets like cellphones, flat-screen TVs and EV batteries, among others. And while new deposits and market projections may point to a transforming landscape, it’s unlikely that Chinese influence will wane anytime soon — much to the chagrin of Western free trade advocates.

Major Chinese supplier halts rare earths production in attempt to boost prices originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Oct 2011 10:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 17

Remember those faster-than-light neutrinos? Great, now forget ’em

Posted in: europe, gps, light, Opera, satellite, Today's Chili

A week ago the world went wild over CERN’s tentative claim that it could make neutrinos travel faster than light. Suddenly, intergalactic tourism and day trips to the real Jurassic Park were back on the menu, despite everything Einstein said. Now, however, a team of scientists at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands reckons it’s come up with a more plausible (and disappointing) explanation of what happened: the GPS satellites used to measure the departure and arrival times of the racing neutrinos were themselves subject to Einsteinian effects, because they were in motion relative to the experiment. This relative motion wasn’t properly taken into account, but it would have decreased the neutrinos’ apparent journey time. The Dutch scientists calculated the error and came up with the 64 nanoseconds. Sound familiar? That’s because it’s almost exactly the margin by which CERN’s neutrinos were supposed to have beaten light. So, it’s Monday morning, Alpha Centauri and medieval jousting tournaments remain as out of reach as ever, and we just thought we’d let you know.

Remember those faster-than-light neutrinos? Great, now forget ’em originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Technology Review  |  sourceCornell University Library  | Email this | Comments

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Oct 13

Mike Lazaridis apologizes for BlackBerry outage: ‘We’ve let many of you down’ (video) (Update: full services restored)

Posted in: BlackBerry, europe, mobilepostcross, network, research in motion, ResearchInMotion, RIM, Today's Chili, video
Now that BlackBerry services are returning to full functionality, RIM founder Mike Lazaridis has decided to issue a public apology for this week’s mysterious global outage. In a video address published today, Lazaridis acknowledged that RIM dropped the ball this week, but assured that his company is working hard to remedy the situation. “I apologize for the service outages this week,” Lazaridis said. “We’ve let many of you down.” The executive went on to say that services are approaching normal levels across Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, but could not give an estimate as to when RIM may see full global recovery. “It’s too soon to say that this issue is fully resolved,” Lazaridis explained, adding that there may be some instability as the system returns to normalcy. He reiterated, however, that his company is “working tirelessly” to restore services and, perhaps more important, consumer trust. Skip past the break to see the full video for yourself.

Update: RIM is holding a conference call now and Mike just said “we have restored full services.” That’s said to be the status globally, so go ahead, spend a few minutes and get that BBM backlog out of your system. You deserve it. If you’re still not receiving messages, RIM suggests pulling your battery and rebooting the phone. And those RIM folks probably need some sleep… “nobody’s gone home since Monday,” following “the largest outage we’ve ever experienced.”

Continue reading Mike Lazaridis apologizes for BlackBerry outage: ‘We’ve let many of you down’ (video) (Update: full services restored)

Mike Lazaridis apologizes for BlackBerry outage: ‘We’ve let many of you down’ (video) (Update: full services restored) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Oct 2011 10:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 12

RIM clarifies global service outage, doesn’t provide ETA for restore

Posted in: BlackBerry, canada, europe, mobilepostcross, research in motion, ResearchInMotion, RIM, Today's Chili, us, video

If you don’t own a BlackBerry yourself, chances are you know somebody who does. And if that person lives in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America or South America, they’re probably quite unhappy with RIM at the moment. This week’s service outage began with a server failure in the UK, and spread like wildfire to Africa and the Middle East, before continuing on to parts of Asia, the US, Canada and a good portion of South America. This is only the latest BlackBerry service outage for RIM, bringing email, BBM and web browsing services to a halt. But with BlackBerry services playing a critical role in real-time business and government communications, any interruption is unacceptable, and costly for all.

RIM CTO David Yach responded to questions during a press conference this afternoon, explaining the original cause of the outage (that UK server failure, along with a series of failed redundancies), and how that grew into the global outage we’re experiencing now:

“It’s a backlog issue. Clearly we have a backlog in Europe, based on the initial outage and the time it’s taken to stabilize that. At this point, we have not throttled the other regions, but as you can imagine, with the global reach of BlackBerry, people using it to contact others around the world, there’s a lot of messages coming to Europe from Asia and the Americas, and those would be backed up on the other system. It’s looking like over time that backlog built, and started impacting those other systems.”

The obvious solution would be to clear the backlog and restore service, but in doing so, RIM would purge any undelivered messages. Yach said that all emails will eventually be delivered, however, so you shouldn’t have anything to worry about there (there was no related comment regarding BBM messages). When asked what the company would be doing to “make right” by way of its customers, Yach emphasized that his focus was only on restoring service at this point, and made no promises of restitution.

Is the BlackBerry outage affecting you? Let us know by voting in our poll, or leaving a comment after the break.

Continue reading RIM clarifies global service outage, doesn’t provide ETA for restore

RIM clarifies global service outage, doesn’t provide ETA for restore originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 16:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 12

BlackBerry outage spreads to US and Canada, continues in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, South America (update: RIM confirms)

Posted in: BlackBerry, canada, europe, mobilepostcross, research in motion, ResearchInMotion, RIM, Today's Chili, us

It’s day three of RIM’s BlackBerry service outage in much of the world, including Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil and Chile. But now the problem appears to have spread into Canada — RIM’s home turf — and we’re even hearing reports of some service issues in the US as well. We’ve reached out to RIM for comment, but we’d like to hear from you. Let us know whether or not you’re having issues in the poll below, and jump past the break to sound off in the comments.

View Poll

Update: RIM has posted the following statement to its BlackBerry Service Update page:

BlackBerry subscribers in the Americas may be experiencing intermittent service delays this morning. We are working to resolve the situation as quickly as possible and we apologize to our customers for any inconvenience. We will provide a further update as soon as more information is available.

Update 2: RIM UK has also posted a statement:

We know that many of you are still experiencing service problems. The resolution of this service issue is our Number One priority right now and we are working night and day to restore all BlackBerry services to normal levels.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

BlackBerry outage spreads to US and Canada, continues in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, South America (update: RIM confirms) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Oct 2011 09:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oct 11

ViewSonic ViewPad 10e coming soon to UK and Netherlands?

Posted in: europe, gingerbread, tablet, tablets, Today's Chili, uk, viewsonic
Is ViewSonic about to surprise the UK and Netherlands with a new ViewPad? We haven’t heard a single peep about the new tablet until the advert you can see above mysteriously leaked, at which point Viewsonic confirmed to Tablet Test that the device not only exists, but will be coming out “soon.” The ViewPad 10e gets a 9.7-inch, 1024 x 768 IPS display (that’s the same size and resolution as the TouchPad and iPad 2’s display), a 1.3 megapixel camera and it’s only 9mm (0.35 inches) thick. We don’t know much about what’s on the inside, except to say it’ll be running Gingerbread solo, rather than the “dual OS” setup of the ViewPad 10pro. There’s nary a release date to be found, but we do know that when it arrives, it’ll set Europeans back to the tune of €250 (about $340).

[Thanks, Andreas]

ViewSonic ViewPad 10e coming soon to UK and Netherlands? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Tablet Test (translated)  |  sourcePortableGear (translated)  | Email this | Comments

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Oct 11

BlackBerry services offline for some in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Again. (update: RIM confirms India, South America, too)

Posted in: BlackBerry, europe, mobilepostcross, research in motion, ResearchInMotion, RIM, Today's Chili

Well, RIM, things really aren’t looking good for you over in EMEA, are they now? We’ve received several reports of a second BlackBerry outage for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, and our friends over at T-Mobile UK and Vodafone Egypt have confirmed again on Twitter, just several hours after RIM tweeted that service had been restored. So, what’s going on over there? We’re reaching out to RIM for a statement, and like those of you affected, we can only hope that things get back up and running very quickly. Are you outraged? Experiencing perfect service (and in EMEA)? Jump past the break to tell us what’s up in the comments.

Update: RIM has issued the following statement:

Media statement – October 11
Some users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, India, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina are experiencing messaging and browsing delays. We are working to restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

Update 2: Another update from RIM:

The messaging and browsing delays being experienced by BlackBerry users in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India, Brazil, Chile and Argentina were caused by a core switch failure within RIM’s infrastructure. Although the system is designed to failover to a back-up switch, the failover did not function as previously tested. As a result, a large backlog of data was generated and we are now working to clear that backlog and restore normal service as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience and we will continue to keep you informed.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

BlackBerry services offline for some in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Again. (update: RIM confirms India, South America, too) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 11 Oct 2011 11:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceEngadget Spanish (translated), T-Mobile Support  | Email this | Comments

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Oct 10

UK server failure sends BlackBerry devices offline in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (update: restored)

Posted in: BlackBerry, europe, mobilepostcross, research in motion, ResearchInMotion, RIM, Today's Chili

If there’s one thing RIM doesn’t need right now, it’s another BlackBerry outage. Well, are you sitting down? RIM UK is currently investigating issues affecting “some users in EMEA” — that’s Europe, Middle East and Africa, for the acronym-disinclined. The company has turned to Twitter to acknowledge the outage, with T-Mobile UK and Vodafone Egypt chiming in as well (and pointing fingers at RIM, as expected). The Telegraph reports that the “glitch” hit around 11AM this morning local time, and is affecting email and instant messaging services, along with web browsing, leaving users unable to use their BlackBerrys for anything but making phone calls and sending texts. BlackBerry outages appear to be a rather frequent occurrence for RIM, typically hitting during peak usage times — like, for example, 11AM on a Monday. So are you currently without service? Jump past the break to chime in with a comment.

Update: BBC is reporting that email services have been restored after the outage affected millions of users.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

UK server failure sends BlackBerry devices offline in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (update: restored) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink The Telegraph  |  sourceRIM (Twitter), Vodafone Egypt (Twitter), T-Mobile UK (Twitter)  | Email this | Comments

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