Hasta La Gadget!

That’s me above, on the left. I’m Robin, reaping all of the benefits of fighting supervillians on the mean streets of Gotham, without the whole thing about watching my parents brutally murdered by a mob boss. All things considered, life was pretty good, growing up in the East Bay in the ’80s, save for the fact that my cousin was somehow promoted to the role of Batman – most likely because he was visiting from afar (and maybe brought his own costume up from Southern California). And then there’s the whole holding hands thing — I can pretty much guarantee that ended the moment the photographer parent put the camera down. I mean, Arkham Asylum isn’t going to patrol itself.

Despite early photographic evidence to the contrary — and a few select themed birthday parties — I was never really a DC Comics kid growing up. I’d chalk a fair amount of that up to the fact that, so far as these photo albums indicate, I didn’t arrive on a rocketship from an exploding homeland, and was never independently wealthy, as the poor tailoring job on the Robin suit can attest.

Continue reading Growing Up Geek: Brian Heater

Growing Up Geek: Brian Heater originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jul 2011 14:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Earlier this week, Pandora announced that it would finally be dropping its longtime support for Flash in favor of HTML5. The move is one piece of a big redesign for the site, one which will begin rolling out to Pandora One (the $36 / year premium version) subscribers in pieces, as part of a limited testing period before being made available to the service’s entire massive user base.

The timing could have been more ideal, of course. A day after the announcement, Spotify quickly grabbed the attention of those following the online music industry by formally launching in the US. It’s important to note right off the bat, however, that these two services are not really direct competitors, in spite of how some might spin it. Spotify is an all-you-can eat subscription service, making it more akin to the likes of a Rhapsody and Napster. Pandora, on the other hand, is built largely around passive music discovery. You log-in, you enter an artist, and you let the music come to you. This redesign takes that ease of use to a whole new level. Check out our impressions below.

Continue reading Pandora Radio’s HTML5 redesign hands-on

Pandora Radio’s HTML5 redesign hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 16 Jul 2011 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Like The Beach Boys’ Smile and Duke Nukem Forever before it, the US version of Spotify has been elevated to a sort of mythological status by collective anticipation. Music nerds and tech geeks all over this fine nation of ours have waited with bated breath for the service to work out all of its licensing kinks and finally make its way to our shores. In an interview earlier this week, a Spotify higher-up promised us that the service will be pretty much the same as the one that Europe has already come to love — the question, then, is whether or not disappointment is inevitable after so much waiting. Spotify gave us the opportunity to take the premium desktop and mobile versions of the service for a spin. Check out the result below.

Continue reading Spotify US premium service hands-on

Spotify US premium service hands-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 15:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The age of lugging around a pricey DSLR kit just to capture casual fisheye, wide-angle and macro photos may be nearing its end — for some of us, at least. Designed by a startup duo in California, the Olloclip was the first project featured in our Insert Coin series, and we were thrilled to learn not only that it was successfully funded, but that the device is ready to ship to both early supporters and new customers just two months later. The accessory brings the functionality of all three lenses to the iPhone 4, and it does so well enough to warrant leaving your pro kit at home on occasion — assuming, of course, that your photographs aren’t responsible for putting food on the table.

While a bargain compared to its professional equivalents, $70 is a lot to spend on any iPhone accessory, so the lens’s price tag may not sit well with some users. Also, design limitations mean you won’t be able to use the lens with other devices, and there’s no way to guarantee compatibility with future iPhones as well. Nonetheless, we had a blast shooting with the Olloclip, and we think you will too. Head past the break to find out why.

Continue reading Olloclip three-in-one lens for iPhone 4 review

Olloclip three-in-one lens for iPhone 4 review originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday Netflix did something pretty big: it cut the umbilical cord on its streaming video offerings. What was once a funny little niche offering, a rag-tag collection of canceled TV shows you never watched and ’80s movies you never rented, had grown into something big, something that still wasn’t quite great but was legitimately very good. As such, that service deserved its own plan, to stand tall and apart from the red envelopes that made the company famous.

But there’s one problem: after cutting Instant loose, creating a new $7.99 streaming-only plan, Netflix stuck the dagger right in its own side by not re-thinking its disc-based rentals — plans that looked a lot more valuable before than they do now. Netflix has succeeded in making its on-demand offerings so good that those unlimited snail mail samplings can’t quite stand up on their own two feet anymore. At least, they can’t stand up tall enough to support their $7.99 and up prices. Maybe, Netflix, it’s time to go back to the fundamentals.

Continue reading Editorial: Netflix was too cheap before, but now it’s just wrong

Editorial: Netflix was too cheap before, but now it’s just wrong originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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