Hasta La Gadget!

Remember how Adobe said Flash 10.2 wasn’t living up to its full hardware-accelerated potential on Honeycomb thus far? Well, it seems the company’s found a solution by the name of Android 3.1. We’ve been inundated with tips (and have confirmed with Adobe) that there’s a sticky-sweet new build of Android on the way for the recent crop of slates that OEMs and carriers are rolling out, and that — just like last time — you’ll need that software to take advantage of all the hardware rendering and compositing that your Tegra 2 silicon can afford. With any luck, 720p playback won’t burn our eyeballs this time around. By the way, the Android Market item above was updated this morning to read “requires an upcoming release of Android 3” rather than “Android 3.1,” but it’s unclear whether the original number was inaccurate or whether Adobe got in trouble.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Android 3.1 gets namechecked by Adobe Flash Player 10.2, will be required to enjoy accelerated 720p video originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 19:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Video, the vestige of Google’s in-house efforts at sharing moving pictures before the YouTube acquisition, is being closed down almost entirely. Everyone that isn’t involved in the Google Video for Business and Education programs will see their videos terminated from Google’s servers soon, with playback no longer available after May 13th. Options for downloading content you’ve uploaded or migrating it to YouTube have been made available, though they too won’t last beyond the 27th of next month. We suppose this makes sense in light of all the riches that Google is pouring into YouTube and the fact that its more popular video site is shedding its time limits for vids, but still, we had a bit of a soft spot for Google Video and the obscure stuff we could find on there. Better get the most out of it while the thing’s still around.

Google shutting down most of Google Video, urges you to back up your greatest hits now originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 05:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When Apple released its redesigned MacBook Air in October 2010, much was made of the switch to flash storage using a custom-built Mini PCI Express form factor SSD drive. It took a few weeks but these SSDs would ultimately be released as the commercially available Toshiba Blade X-gale SSD module, model TS128C. Now we’re seeing user reports showing MacBook Airs equipped with a second, even faster SSD with a SM128C part number — the “SM” hinting at its presumed Samsung manufacturing origins. Samsung’s SSD manages up to 260MBps read and 210MBps write speeds compared to Toshiba’s 210MBps read and 185MBps write performance. Of course, it’s hardly unusual for Apple to multi-source components. And a recent decision to source parts from Korea’s Samsung would have been a smart move to keep just-in-time supply lines fully stocked following the spate of disasters in Toshiba’s home country of Japan. Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be any way of confirming which SSD you’re about to purchase without cracking open the retail box and running the OS X System Profiler. Good luck with that.

Some MacBook Airs sporting faster blade SSDs, probably from Samsung originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Apr 2011 03:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP must have thought it could sneak this one by us — and it would have succeeded too, if it wasn’t for those meddling tipsters. A close examination of the recently announced EliteBook 8560w’s press shot reveals it has a CFast slot, an interesting tidbit not mentioned in the release or the spec sheet. This is, to our knowledge, the first notebook to ship with a slot for the updated CompactFlash format, though the lack of cameras and other devices using the medium makes it a somewhat superfluous feature at the moment. Still, with transfer rates significantly faster than current CompactFlash cards and twice that of SDXC cards (with room to grow), we assume its only a matter of time before Nikon and Canon slap these bad boys in a few high-end shooters. Closeup shot after the break.

[Thanks, Reznov]

Continue reading HP tries to sneak CFast slot by us in EliteBook 8560w

HP tries to sneak CFast slot by us in EliteBook 8560w originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In this week’s Gadget Lab podcast, Dylan Tweney and Mike Isaac discuss the upcoming BlackBerry PlayBook. We got one, and we tested it. Bottom line? It looks great, but it’s missing a few big things — like an e-mail client. Its support for Adobe Flash is causing us concern too, because Flash doesn’t run stably yet.

After that, Mike Calore comes on to talk about the Eye-Fi Mobile X2, a kind of amped-up SD card for your camera that also doubles as a Wi-Fi adapter. The newest version can transmit photos directly to your smartphone: no computer or Wi-Fi network required. Instagram fans, rejoice!

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Like the show? You can also get the Gadget Lab video podcast on iTunes, or if you don’t want to be distracted by our stylish eyewear, check out the Gadget Lab audio podcast. Prefer RSS? You can subscribe to the Gadget Lab video or audio podcast feeds.

Or listen to the audio here:

Gadget Lab audio podcast #112

http://downloads.wired.com/podcasts/assets/gadgetlabaudio/GadgetLabAudio0112.mp3