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Continue reading Soundfreaq unleashes Sound Step wireless speakers for audio-loving multitaskers

Soundfreaq unleashes Sound Step wireless speakers for audio-loving multitaskers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 12:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yesterday we got a preview of a new web-based jailbreak that worked with devices running iOS 4.3.3. But that version of JailbreakMe was unofficial and actually a leaked beta. Still, some users didn’t want to wait the extra few days for the official launch, so one developer named Ryan Vanniekerk got it working on his […]

We know what you’re thinking — an iPhone interfacing with a Surface? The gods must be crazy. Well, it isn’t and they’re not, so relax. This custom-built, multitouch table of Apple interactivity comes from Computer Science undergrads Artem Vovk and Shuo Yang at the Technische Universität Darmstadt in Germany. Aptly titled Project MGS (Media Gathering System), the system enables wireless transfer of your iPhone’s media to the infrared camera-equipped tabletop for some Java-based, gesture controlling fun. How does it know the phone’s on there? Simple — the table locates a barcode affixed to the back of your device and, after that, it’s just you and all the pinch-zooming, media-playing mayhem you can muster up. The project also supports file transfers between iOS devices, a feature destined for display in future videos. For now, the tech only plays nice with Apple-flavored mobile devices, but the pair promises it can easily make way for future Android connectivity. Hit the break for the full demonstration and its folksy backing track.

[Thanks, Shuo]

Continue reading Project MGS table reads your iPhone’s media, gets you hands-on (video)

Project MGS table reads your iPhone’s media, gets you hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Jul 2011 01:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Back in April, Samsung slapped back at Apple’s claims of patent infringement with a healthy helping of ten claims of its own. Now Bloomberg is reporting that Samsung quietly dropped its countersuit against the Cupertino-based company on June 30th, in an attempt “to streamline the legal proceedings.” Of course that doesn’t mean the saga is over: Apple’s smartphone infringement accusations stand, as do legal battles in South Korea, Japan, Germany, and the UK. Samsung says it will also continue to fight Apple’s accusations in the US in the form of a counter-claim. One down, one to go?

Update: To clarify, this does not mean that Samsung has abandoned its own infringement claims against Apple. Those claims have been rolled into counter-claims in the original suit.

Samsung drops Apple countersuit — Apple’s still got a bone to pick originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 02 Jul 2011 13:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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These six tablets span four operating systems, multiple screen sizes and a range of connectivity features. (Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com)

In today’s crowded market, looking for a tablet is like buying a new car. Everything looks great when it’s slick, polished and sitting on the lot. The hard part is keeping track of what’s under the hood.

Wired.com took some of the front-runners from the current tablet field — the brand-new HP TouchPad, Apple’s iPad, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and others — and stacked up their features side by side in the chart below.

In the wake of Apple’s iPad, which released April 2010, technology manufacturers are quickly churning out competing slates in hopes of luring customers into the new product category with fancy hardware and flashy apps. The tablet market is quickly gaining momentum with a new slate hitting stores every month.

(Speaking of apps, don’t miss our breakdown of software ecosystems, explaining the pros and cons of the app stores on each mobile operating system.)

That’s a lot of info to digest, right? Fret not, tablet shoppers: Here’s some of that info broken down across seven categories.

Body

Essentially, choosing a piece of hardware that works for you boils down to taste and utility. Want something light and airy that won’t wear your arm out while e-reading? Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 has everyone beat; It’s the thinnest, lightest 10-inch tablet out to date, even besting the super-svelte iPad 2.

Maybe you want something smaller, or with a rubberized backing to combat your butterfingers. Almost the size of a trade paperback, BlackBerry’s seven-inch PlayBook would best suit your needs.

Tablets like the TouchPad, Xoom and first-gen iPad all weigh and measure in at approximately the same range, but with some of the recent slimmer releases, they’re starting to look positively bulky.

Power

In this generation of tablets, you aren’t going to see any chips backed by less than 1 GHz of processing power. Our two Android tablets run on Nvidia’s powerful Tegra 2 processor, while Apple’s iPads are powered by the custom-made A4 and A5 series chips. RIM decided to go with a Texas Instruments OMAP, which Palm used in its Pre smartphones. Only the TouchPad clocks in at 1.2 GHz, running on a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon APQ 8060 CPU.

Most of these tablets come with 1GB of RAM to keep things running smoothly, save Apple’s offerings — the iPad 1 comes with a paltry 256MB, while its successor doubles that amount.

It’s difficult to run a consistent processing benchmark across three different platforms, so we’re not going to give the edge to any one tablet quite yet. Still, Qualcomm’s next generation Snapdragon chip ran smooth as silk in the TouchPad — especially while multitasking — so we’re inclined to give it props.

Frontrunner: HP TouchPad

Cameras

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Shooting photos on a tablet is just weird. Like, “defending yourself in a food fight with a cafeteria tray” weird. Still, we’re all about choice here at Wired.com, and if you want to shoot photos on your tablet, some of these slates can accommodate.

Except for the first-gen iPad, which lacks any cameras at all. Similarly, the TouchPad comes with a front-facing camera for the Skype-loving crowd, but no rear camera for the shutterbugs.

All the rest come with front and back-facing cameras of variable quality, the iPad 2’s being the poorest of them all. The PlayBook has the highest resolutions on both front and back cameras, but you’ll lose viewfinder real estate with the device’s smaller screen. Conversely, the Xoom dips a touch in front-facing camera resolution while bumping up your screen size considerably.

Edge: Motorola Xoom