BlackBerry Curve 3G (9300) is officially BlackBerry 6 ready


The cart left the gate on Thursday and here comes the horse: the official BlackBerry Curve 3G (model 9300) announcement just landed in our inbox. So in addition to sporting (800/850)/1900/2100MHz or 900/1700/2100MHz HSDPA data, quad-band GSM, WiFi, and GPS, we now know that if you buy this BlackBerry 5 device today you can upgrade to BlackBerry 6 “in the coming months.” Assuming your carrier can get its act together, of course.

Continue reading BlackBerry Curve 3G (9300) is officially BlackBerry 6 ready

BlackBerry Curve 3G (9300) is officially BlackBerry 6 ready originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 09 Aug 2010 07:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Innocent glasses transform into GPS-equipped routing mechanism… on video!

The Powers That Be may think that they’re pulling the wool over our eyes, but we can see the planned fate unfolding in front of us. Before long, our arms will be effectively useless — after all, once you can game and navigate with just your face, why bother pumping iron and keeping those biceps toned? Over at Wireless Japan 2010, the Nakajima Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications showcased a prototype that helps explain the latter. Dubbed a Wearable Personal Navigation System, this GPS-infused pair of glasses has integrated LEDs in the frame that wearers can see in their periphery; there’s also a magnetic direction sensor, which detects the orientation of the user’s head. Once you point your face in a given direction, the LEDs change color to let you know which way you need to head in order to walk, sprint or gallop to your destination. It’s hard to tell how long we’ll have to wait before we see these on Pearle Vision’s Buy 1 Get 1 rack, but the video after the break ain’t making it any easier to wait.

Continue reading Innocent glasses transform into GPS-equipped routing mechanism… on video!

Innocent glasses transform into GPS-equipped routing mechanism… on video! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 06:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Curve 9300 for sale on Rogers, still not announced

Uh, RIM ol’ buddy, is there something you’d like to tell us about this unannounced BlackBerry Curve 9300 that’s up and dancing on Rogers’ website right now with a $79.99 Canadian price tag on a three-year contract? We’re looking at a quad-band GSM and HSDPA 850/1900/2100 candybar with 802.11n WiFi, GPS, 256MB of RAM, a 2 megapixel camera, microSD expansion (2GB in the box), and 2.4-inch display throwing 320 x 240 pixels. And no, that’s not the latest and greatest OS which makes us wonder about the possibility for a BlackBerry 6 upgrade. Maybe T-Mobile USA would like to say something, anything?

[Thanks, Samir A.]

BlackBerry Curve 9300 for sale on Rogers, still not announced originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 05 Aug 2010 05:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DeLorme Unveils New GPS Lineup

DeLorme_PN60w_SPOT.jpg

GPS-maker DeLorme made news at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market trade show now going on in Salt Lake City, Utah, by showing off its newest PN-series GPS receivers. Visitors got a look at the new Earthmate PN-60 which offers GPX support (for better flexibility in managing and saving waypoints), an elevation profile, new power management options for longer battery life, and 3.5GB of storage. It lists for $399.95.

Also on hand is the previously announced PN-60w (shown here), a handheld that can send and receive messages via satellite. It will list for $549.95. The company is also releasing DeLorme Topo North America 9.0, mapping software with over 210,000 new or updated roads, 11,000 forest trails, and more. It’s available as an update for PN-series devices or as a standalone PC mapping application. It lists for $99.95.

Bing Maps’ Taxi Fare Calculator keeps your lollygagging cab driver in check

We’ve all been there — you step into a cab in a foreign place, ask your driver to head to your destination, and then he / she asks you if you’d rather take the highway or go direct. Or, worse still, senses your innocence and proceeds to head the wrong direction for two or three miles. In an effort to give desperate travelers a better sense of how much it’ll cost to get from point A to point B D in a cab, Bing Maps’ new Taxi Fare Calculator was created. Turns out, this add-in for the mapping service was built by someone hankering to win the King of Bing Maps competition, and while it’s only capable of calculating routes around a few dozens cities right now, we get the impression that this could soon grow into a monster of its own. Hey Microsoft, when’s the (badly needed) optimized-for-mobile version coming out?

Bing Maps’ Taxi Fare Calculator keeps your lollygagging cab driver in check originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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MasterPad prototype marries Windows 7 to 11.6-inch IPS screen (video)

Check out this 14mm-thin contender: built by Pegatron and still at the prototype stage, the MasterPad looks to be the embodiment of Steve Ballmer’s incoming armada of desirable Windows 7 tablets. It sports an 11.6-inch IPS screen, which accommodates a 1,366 x 768 widescreen resolution, a 1.3 megapixel webcam plus mic, two USB ports, a memory card reader, an accelerometer, mini-HDMI port, 3G connectivity, and 32GB or 64GB SSD options. All that hi-tech goodness is wrapped up in a magnesium and aluminum alloy body, weighing 990 grams. There are some less cutting edge specs, like the disappointing 2-cell battery that will only get you 5 hours of use and the 1.66GHz Atom N450 CPU — but we’re being promised 1080p video playback and Flash compatibility are ready to roll, and our machine translation hints at an additional HD video-processing chip. The early hands-on experience seems to have left the Israeli journos impressed, and their homeland can expect the MasterPad to arrive “in the coming months,” with an Android version also in the works. See it on video after the break.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Continue reading MasterPad prototype marries Windows 7 to 11.6-inch IPS screen (video)

MasterPad prototype marries Windows 7 to 11.6-inch IPS screen (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 06:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Unlucky Thief Caught 10 Minutes After Stealing iPhone

You’d think people would learn.

Last week, a man grabbed an iPhone out of the hands of a woman standing on a San Francisco city street, then sped off on his bicycle.

Ten minutes later, he was in custody of the police. It was his bad luck that the victim had been in the middle of testing a GPS-tracking app, and the app was running on the phone at that very moment.

She returned to the office, called the police, and was able to give them the exact location of the iPhone because the app was still running.

“This reminds me of the bank robber who arrives during the security test,” said the phone’s owner, David Kahn, in the newspaper report. Kahn is the CEO of Covia Labs, and had given the phone to another person in order to demonstrate his company’s GPS-tracking capabilities.

The would-be thief isn’t the first phone grabber to be nabbed thanks to GPS. In 2007, the town of Babylon on New York’s Long Island was able to retrieve 14 stolen city phones, thanks to GPS tracking. A company called GadgetTrak has a whole page of devices retrieved using GPS and the company’s software. Apple offers a “find my iPhone” feature with its optional, $100/year MobileMe service, and similar services are available for other GPS-enabled phones.

And don’t forget that Brian Hogan was tracked down by the authorities after allegedly taking home a prototype iPhone he found in a bar, thus kicking off one of the biggest gadget stories of the year.

For now, the odds are probably still in phone-snatchers’ favor: You have to have a GPS-capable phone, and you need to have some kind of tracking app or service turned on before you lose the phone. But over time, an increasing number of phones are going to be trackable, whether they are stolen or simply lost in the trash.

Thieves should probably start to think twice before snatching a phone out of someone’s hand.

Unluckiest thief nabs iPhone with GPS tracker (San Francisco Chronicle)

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

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Apple responds to congressional inquiry, details location data collection in 13-page letter

When Apple’s latest privacy policy revealed the company could track any iPhone’s location in real time, it threw some for a loop… including a pair of gentlemen from the US House of Representatives, who asked what Cupertino was up to. In a thirteen page letter dated July 12, Apple’s legal counsel explains the whole matter away, while giving us a fascinating look into how the company collects — and justifies collecting — all that GPS data. Legally the defense is simple, as Apple claims users grant express permission via pop-up messages for every single location-based service and app, and if you don’t care to be tracked, you can simply shut down location services globally or (in iOS 4) on a per-app basis in the phone’s settings panel.

Where it gets more interesting is when Apple explains what it actually collects, and who they share it with — namely, Google and Skyhook, who provided location services to earlier versions of the operating system. In iOS 3.2 and beyond, only Apple has the keys to the database, and what’s inside are locations of cell towers, WiFi access points, and anonymous GPS coordinates. None of these are personally identifying, as the company doesn’t collect SSIDs or any data, and in the case of device coordinates they’re reportedly collected and sent in encrypted batches only once every 12 hours, using a random ID generated by the phone every 24 hours that apparently can’t be linked back to the device. In the case of iAd, Apple says coordinates don’t even make it to a database, as they’re immediately converted (by remote server) to a advertising-friendly five-digit zip code. Concerning location data collection for services other than iAd, there’s still the little question of why, but we’ll just leave you with Apple legal’s quote on that subject after the break, and let you hit up the full document yourself at Scribd if you want the deep dive.

Continue reading Apple responds to congressional inquiry, details location data collection in 13-page letter

Apple responds to congressional inquiry, details location data collection in 13-page letter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 01:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RIM finally catches up to the competition with non-GPS-based BlackBerry ‘Locate Service’

It’s hardly the first company to implement the technology in a smartphone, but it looks like RIM finally has an answer for folks not satisfied with the GPS capabilities of their BlackBerry. It’s now announced the simply-named ‘Locate Service’ for developers, which relies on cell tower triangulation to to either augment the phone’s built-in GPS, or completely replace it when a GPS signal isn’t available. According to RIM, the service also includes a set of components that “integrate seamlessly” with the BlackBerry Maps and Contacts applications and, of course, the GPS capabilities of the device. There’s still no word on any apps that actually take advantage of the new service though, but it is now at the disposal of developers, so we’re guessing we’ll see some soon enough.

RIM finally catches up to the competition with non-GPS-based BlackBerry ‘Locate Service’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Magellan busts out 510, 610 and 710 eXplorist outdoor GPS for all you… outdoors types

Magellan’s just updated its eXplorist handheld outdoor GPS units. The 510, 610 and 710 (as they are called) all feature 3-inch, touchscreen displays, 3.2 megapixel, auto-focus cams, plus a microphone and speaker for recording notes along the way. They’re also waterproof, and come pre-loaded with maps of the entire world. The 710 unit comes with the most detailed on and off-road maps of the series, and both the 610 and 710 feature 3-point compasses. The new eXplorist units are available now, and the 510 will run you $349.99, the 610 is $449.99, and the 710 is $549.99. Full press release is below.

Continue reading Magellan busts out 510, 610 and 710 eXplorist outdoor GPS for all you… outdoors types

Magellan busts out 510, 610 and 710 eXplorist outdoor GPS for all you… outdoors types originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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