Hasta La Gadget!

We came, we saw, we took pictures. A London-based startup by the name of Agility today unveiled its first and only product, the Saietta electric sports bike, and we just had to pop out to the MCN Motorcycle Show in its hometown to peep it for ourselves. Well, what is there to say that the pictures don’t already? We should probably start off with that massive hump you see up front. At first glance it makes the bike look extremely front-heavy, but it is in actual fact mostly a shell — made of a lightweight composite material whose ingredients we were not allowed to know — which channels air into the areas that need cooling and, more importantly, optimizes the hell out of this two-wheeler’s aerodynamics. There’s an exposed double wishbone suspension system, just some of the eye candy on this extremely reflective racer, and the weight balance is, contrary to our first impression, almost perfectly even. This is due to the battery packs being stashed in the center, just in front of a brushed DC motor with 90+ percent efficiency (Agility tells us the whole roaring machine has an 83 percent throughput efficiency).

There will be a choice of body panels, we saw a highly reflective chrome one, but a tamer red version is also available. Speaking of colors, the tiny speedometer lights up in a snazzy blue for night riding. We were looking at only the company’s third production prototype, but pre-orders are already being taken — at prices of just under £10,000 for the S model with a 50-mile range and just under £14,000 for the R variant that has a twin battery pack and, correspondingly, can stretch out to 100 miles — for an April delivery. US pricing is said to feature a “slight” premium, but Agility hopes it may be able to build some of these Saietta bikes over on the West Coast, potentially cutting into the expense of selling them in North America. The only thing our pictures don’t reveal is how a bike with instant torque and a four-second 0-60 acceleration (on the lighter S model, the R does it in five) feels like, but if we’re really good over the next few weeks, we might just get a chance to ride one and find out for ourselves.

Agility Saietta electric sports bike eyes-on originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Today Google announced that Android in-app purchases are coming to the platform and we were able to get a demo by Paul Sebastien of Disney. He showed us how to buy a track pack (Far East Movement, for those who care) in Tap Tap Revenge 4 over 3G on a Nexus S, and using a fake credit card! It’s interesting to note that the in-app purchase UI matches the look and feel of the new Android Market and developers can implement the functionality in a few simple steps. In-app purchases should start rolling out in various Android apps this spring. In the meantime, take a look at our video after the break.

Continue reading Android in-app purchases hands-on (video)

Android in-app purchases hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 15:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

Fully-functional Xooms with complete (or seemingly complete) builds of Honeycomb are out in force here at Google’s event in Mountain View today, and a bunch of partners are hanging out to demonstrate the tablet apps they’ve been working on. We checked out both Monster Madness — a game that’s been on Xbox 360 and PS3 for some time — and Grocery IQ, both of which obviously bring very different experiences to the table (unless you consider grocery shopping “a game,” which some of us admittedly do).

Though we thought we detected some stuttering and lag from Monster Madness when it was demoed on stage, the experience up close and in person was much smoother — definitely 100 percent playable. We double-checked and confirmed that the tablet game is a 100 percent content port from the console games, you’re not missing anything here. It features three control modes that let you toggle between two on-screen analog sticks, one stick, and a fully accelerometer-based mode that most users probably won’t consider practical because you’ve got to tilt the screen too much. Interestingly, the developer noted that there’s a low-res mode that he actually toggled in an area of the game with a lot of water because it tends to slow down, despite the fact that it’s running on Unreal Engine and is fully optimized for multiple cores. Could it be that game studios are already pushing the limits of this hardware from day one?

Moving onto Grocery IQ, it’s basically a fancy shopping list with coupons — it’s already on both iOS and Android phones, and odds are good you already know what it is. What was really interesting, though, was that we got a full demo of “application fragment” layout switching between landscape and portrait views (the app has a two-pane view for tablets) and the process of adding and removing widgets. As with some of the first-party widgets we’ve seen, Grocery IQ seems to have done a good job making its widgets visually rich and engaging — particularly the coupon browser, which appears as a stack of rotating coupons with color graphics. See videos of both products after the break!

Continue reading Android Honeycomb / Motorola Xoom hands-ons: widgets, Grocery IQ, and Monster Madness (video)

Android Honeycomb / Motorola Xoom hands-ons: widgets, Grocery IQ, and Monster Madness (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Feb 2011 14:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

“A few weeks”? “Later this year”? Don’t worry about Comcast’s recent meddling with the fine print, Xfinity TV‘s latest update for the iPad allows you to “play movies and TV shows anywhere and anytime on your iPad using a Wi-Fi Internet connection.” The deal is for select networks (aka not everyone’s on board to start) including HBO, Starz, Showtime, and Cinemax. Version 1.1.1 is now available; we’re downloading now and will let ya know exactly what we find.

Update: We’ve taken it for a brief spin, and it looks like only ten networks are currently available, but there’s still a hefty selection of content to choose from: BBC America, Cartoon Network, Cinemax, Starz Encore, HBO, MoviePlex, Showtime, Starz, TBS, and TNT. All are VOD only at the moment, but we hope that live streaming could theoretically be around the corner. Video starts streaming pretty quickly, and while quality probably won’t be as good as your 1080p TV, it more than suffices for the iPad’s 10-inch screen — especially the HD stuff. Check it out in the gallery below!

Continue reading Xfinity TV for iPad now streaming VOD for ‘select networks’ including HBO and Showtime (update: hands-on)

Xfinity TV for iPad now streaming VOD for ‘select networks’ including HBO and Showtime (update: hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Feb 2011 22:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink AllThingsD  |  iTunes  | Email this | Comments

When startup Alphyn Industries speaks of jacketing an Apple iPad, the company means it in a literal sense — this PADX-1 Ledge is a form-fitting polyester and silicone pullover with a zippered shelf to both protect your slate and offer easy access. Twin straps hold up the slate in a work-friendly position, connected to load-bearing straps built into the jacket that fully distribute the weight — a technique founder Ben Raviv learned as a ballistics specialist for defense equipment provider HighCom Security. At $285, it’s certainly an investment, but we found the garb both comfortable and quite warm when we donned it today at Macworld 2011, and though the close proximity of the screen to our chest didn’t make for easy typing, it’s more useful than other products we could name.

Alphyn’s also got a second $285 jacket, the SOMA-1, which also quite literally sticks an iPhone or iPod touch up your sleeve. We weren’t able to wear this one, but we admired the design, with a zippered channel that runs all the way up one arm to connect and store earbuds and a thick transparent film for wrist-mounted use. You’ll find the PADX-1 available right now, and the SOMA-1 up for pre-order at Alphyn’s website. PR after the break.

Continue reading Alphyn Industry jackets play iPad close to the chest, stick smartphones on your wrist

Alphyn Industry jackets play iPad close to the chest, stick smartphones on your wrist originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 Jan 2011 19:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments