Hasta La Gadget!

Remember that time when you were just totally stumped for ideas on a new Nike Dunk SB color scheme? Well, if you had a Microsoft Courier — whose interface concepts have now been detailed extensively in a new video on Gizmodo — you’d have little trouble recalling the incident, thanks to fancy tools like an “infinite journal,” “grid” and “search” to keep your little virtual scrapbook in order. On display are new gestures that use both the pen and fingers, and seem a little more obvious and common sense than last time around. Copying and “tucking” an image for instance (clipping it to the black binding in the center) is done with a finger, as is a swipe gesture that pulls up the browser, and another swipe that pulls up the home screen of sorts. The pen is more reserved for annotation and sketching, which seems logical. Your journals of stuff can be shared with browser-bound friends, and even packaged up into a customizable virtual Moleskine, elastic band and all. There are still plenty of missing pieces, like a virtual keyboard or pretty much any apps outside of scrapbooking and web browsing, but this iteration certainly looks a lot less theoretical and complicated than what we’ve seen so far.

Update: ZDNet‘s Mary-Jo Foley has more details from a “connected tipster” about Courier. According to her, Microsoft is running this on top of Windows 7, similar to how Microsoft Surface runs on top of Windows, and that the concept got its start as a reinvention of Microsoft’s OneNote for a strictly tablet form factor. Word is that it’s an “incubation project” (as opposed to a more conjectural Microsoft Research project) and Microsoft is apparently aiming for a mid-2010 release. The wildest part is that Microsoft is “leaning toward” the Xbox model of building the hardware itself, which apparently will help speed things along — and delight hardware partners to no end, we’re sure.

Filed under: Handhelds, Tablet PCs

New Microsoft Courier video details tablet interface, exciting life of a shoe designer (Update: Windows 7 underneath, might run Microsoft hardware) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The HTC Leo has already got hearts-aflutter the world over with its high-end spec sheet and huge capacitive touchscreen, but now that some early benchmarks have hit we might have a full-on fanboy panic on our hands. That 1GHz Snapdragon processor isn’t just for show, people — you’re looking at least a 300 percent improvement over the Touch HD on every single 3D graphics benchmark with an astounding 1,822 percent improvement on one test, and raw CPU performance was nearly three times as fast. Yeah, those are some wild numbers — we’ll have to see what battery life is like when this thing ships, but for now we’d recommend hitting the read link and taking in the full set of benchmarks.

Filed under: Cellphones

HTC Leo benchmarked, leaves blisters originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you know how old the current iMac is? Half a year. Or two years, if we’re talking form factors. In terms of major Apple design overhauls, six months isn’t a very long time, but considering that the all-important holiday shopping season is about to kick off, it follows logic to think that Apple would update its most consumer-facing Mac lineup in preparation. AppleInsider seems to have a pretty good read on a purported refresh, noting that a thinner chassis (predictable, but appreciated) and all-around lower prices are on tap. We’re told that the enclosures could closely mimic the firm’s new Cinema Displays in terms of industrial design, and while details on actual specification changes are next to nil, we are told that a few amenities “not previously available” would become so. Who’s down for throwing out wild suppositions? (And no, Blu-ray doesn’t count.)

Filed under: Desktops

Updated iMac lineup rumored for near-term release originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Look, we enjoy a bit of excessive caloric intake now and again ourselves, but the much-leaked Instinct HD really seems to have let itself go. We just got pics of the device up against a box, and the word is it “feels like a bloated s30 in your hand… and that is not meant as a compliment.” Ouch. The instructions apparently say that you can plug an HDMI cable into the phone somehow, but so far all that’s been discovered is the standard proprietary power jack — so that’s odd, but at least we have our first hint at some sort of “HD” functionality.

Filed under: Cellphones

Instinct HD spotted with box, looking chubbier than ever originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re expecting an announcement later today but the Alienware m15x has already been leaked in a trio of Dell service documents. Updates include a Core i7 processor, 15.6-inch 1920×1080 LED backlit display, a full 8GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory, options for a traditional hard disk or SSD drive of unspecified capacity, a 2 megapixel webcam, Blu-ray disc option, Firewire, 3x USB, 1x eSATA, ExpressCard and 8-in-1 card reader slots, an optional 9-cell 86Wh battery, and DisplayPort and VGA outputs among other notables. It also features the same aggressive styling of its bigger dual-GPU M17x sib. What we don’t see is any mention of its graphics. Will it be dual-GPU, too? Doubtful, but check in later to find out.

[Thanks, Jai M.]

Filed under: Gaming, Laptops

Dell leaks revamped Alienware m15x, Core i7 confirmed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Sep 2009 03:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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