Hasta La Gadget!

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology.

During the holiday season of 2009 when netbooks were the hot commodity, Apple lost share in the PC market. It had nothing to compete with the sunken prices and shrunken sizes of those miniature laptops. PC vendors such as ASUS and Acer, on the other hand, did well in the netbook segment, as they could call on their expertise in building inexpensive Windows notebooks.

After the iPad’s introduction, though, the tablets were turned. While many PC vendors loathed the low profitability of netbooks, they were now faced with competing with their own products. With the exception of HP, which shelled out billions of dollars for webOS, the iPad set PC vendors scrambling to choose which operating system might best compete. Is it Windows, the devil they know, or Android, where they have far less experience than competitors from the smartphone market?

Switched On has already taken on the role that Windows might play in future tablets, but what about Honeycomb? In contrast to the original version of Android, which was in the works prior to the introduction of the iPhone, Honeycomb arrived a year after the iPad. Android licensees, particularly smartphone vendors, surely beseeched Google for a tablet-optimized version of their preferred mobile OS. But Google may also be a victim of the iPad’s jujitsu.

Continue reading Switched On: Honeycomb or the highway

Switched On: Honeycomb or the highway originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 May 2011 20:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Welcome to the latest episode of the The Engadget Show, in which we change things up just a little bit. Everything starts with a trip to the New Mexico desert for a ride on the Shredder, love child of a tank and a skateboard. Next, Tim and Associate Editor Jacob Schulman sit down with RIM’s Ryan Bidan to talk about the BlackBerry PlayBook. Then, Tim has a chat with Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally about the future of transportation, and just what’ll be driving you in to work in 20 years.

After that, Engadget founder Peter Rojas joins Tim and Managing Editor Darren Murph to look at a plethora of tablets. Favorites are chosen, lines are drawn, and allegiances pledged. There’s also talk of Amazon’s next play in the tablet space, the death of Flip, and what’s up next for GDGT.

It’s an action-packed show and it’s ready for you. What are you waiting for? Watch it now! The video stream is above, or download the show in HD below!

Hosts: Tim Stevens, Darren Murph, Jacob Schulman
Special guests: Ryan Bidan, Alan Mulally, Peter Rojas
Produced and Directed by: Chad Mumm
Executive Producer: Joshua Fruhlinger
Edited by: Danny Madden
Music by: Sabrepulse
Visuals by: Paris and Outpt

Shredder segment music: Minusbaby

Taped live at AOL Studios

Download the Show: The Engadget Show – 020 (HD) / The Engadget Show – 020 (iPod / iPhone / Zune formatted) / The Engadget Show – 020 (Small)

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The Engadget Show – 020: RIM’s Ryan Bidan, GDGT’s Peter Rojas, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, lots of tablets, Shredder test-drive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, you saw a Volt, Leaf, or Focus Electric and were convinced to go green, but are unsure whether your local municipality is as eco-friendly as you are. Well, Ford has done your homework for you (without even demanding your lunch money in return), and identified the “25 Most Electric Vehicle-Ready Cities” in the US. What makes a metropolis worthy of such status in the eyes of the Blue Oval boys? A utilities structure that allows off-peak charging, for starters, plus reduced red tape for getting your EV permits and inspections, incentives for offsetting up-front customer costs, urban plans for charging infrastructure, and EV-friendly city advisory committees. If your town’s lacking in those areas, perhaps it’s time to give your city council a ring — part of being an eco-warrior is political activism, right? PR’s after the break.

Continue reading Ford makes list of the 25 most EV-friendly cities, still likes selling cars to residents elsewhere

Ford makes list of the 25 most EV-friendly cities, still likes selling cars to residents elsewhere originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 22 Apr 2011 20:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in February, General Motors debuted its MyLink smartphone integration for the Chevy Volt and Equinox on the Engadget Show, letting drivers control their iOS, Android, and BlackBerry smartphone apps via voice or touchscreen. The company announced today that it will be offering the same technology — albeit rebranded as the tongue-twisting IntelliLink — on several 2012 Buick and GMC models, including the Buick LaCrosse, Regal, Verano, and the GMC Terrain. IntelliLink offers up a fairly similar feature set as its Chevy counterpart — connecting to iPhones and Android handsets via Bluetooth or USB, and leveraging Nuance voice recognition and Gracenote databases to control the likes of Pandora and Stitcher Radio. Autoblog reports that IntelliLink will hit the Buick Verano first, followed by the LaCrosse and Regal, though you might be more interested in the Terrain — owners will also be able to control their vehicle’s rear-view camera with IntelliLink, and who doesn’t like manipulating megapixels in the name of pedestrian safety?

Continue reading Buick, GMC getting IntelliLink smartphone connectivity

Buick, GMC getting IntelliLink smartphone connectivity originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With it being ordered in 80 percent of its 2011 models, SYNC’s been a boon to Ford’s bottom line, but it’s not all peaches and cream for the Dearborn crew’s connectivity platform. Our friends at Autoblog are reporting that the second generation of the infotainment software has a nasty little habit of restarting itself when something goes wrong with one of the applications. Doesn’t sound like such a big deal, except these automatic reboots take several minutes (an eternity if you’re relying on the GPS to get you around), and the system tends to misplace your indexed music and linked phone info while fixing itself. Apparently, the only other way to deal with such glitches is to take afflicted autos to a dealer for a full-on software reinstall or reinitialization — why Ford and Microsoft went the Ctrl-Alt-Delete route instead of finding a more user-friendly solution, we’ll probably never know. The Blue Oval boys claim that Autoblog’s experience was atypical, but have nonetheless rolled out software updates to alleviate the problems. Hopefully, it’s enough to stop SYNC systems from doing the Force Close dance.

SYNC’s second version off to a buggy start, Ford fixes with Ctrl-Alt-Delete originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Apr 2011 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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