Hasta La Gadget!

Not content to rest on its milestone-achieving laurels, Verizon’s trek towards an America blanketed in 4G continues to plow ahead. Hot on the heels of the operator’s last expansion, comes another 15 markets that get to surf along at blazing wireless speeds. Launching on September 15th in the western areas of the US, Big Red plans to flip the LTE switch on in the likes of Reno, Nevada; Moorhead, Minnesota; Fargo, North Dakota; Iowa City, Iowa; Canton, Lima and Mansfield Ohio; three counties in California and five additional markets in Illinois. At this pace, it looks like VZW might just hit that promised 185 million mark by year’s end. Be sure to hit the source below for the full pressers.

Verizon Wireless’ LTE expansion keeps on trucking, 15 new markets on September 15th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Verizon News Center  | Email this | Comments

Well, this is awkward. As the IBM PC celebrates its 30th birthday today, one of its original designers is already mulling the end of its reign. In a blog post penned this week, Mark Dean, IBM’s CTO for the Middle East and Africa, reflected on the dawn of the desktop era and looked forward to its seemingly inevitable demise.

“When I helped design the PC, I didn’t think I’d live long enough to witness its decline. But, while PCs will continue to be much-used devices, they’re no longer at the leading edge of computing. They’re going the way of the vacuum tube, typewriter, vinyl records, CRT and incandescent light bulbs.”

Dean added that he’s glad his company sold its PC business to Lenovo in 2005, as part of a move that, according to him, allowed IBM to position itself at the forefront of the “post-PC” era. No word yet on when the funeral rites will be held, but you can read the full post at the source link, below.

IBM exec says PC is ‘going the way of the typewriter,’ kills our birthday buzz originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 12 Aug 2011 13:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  A Smarter Planet  | Email this | Comments

Intel may still be king of the microprocessing hill, but from the looks of IDC’s latest market report, scrappy underdog AMD is starting to claim more of the $9.5 billion dollar pie. The semiconductor stalwarts faced off in four separate market categories with runner-up AMD seeing gains in all, save for servers where its paltry 5.5 percent share dropped 0.6 percent versus Intel’s commanding 94.5 percent lead. The Q2 2011 report pegged Intel’s overall worldwide share at 79.3 percent, a 1.5 percent decrease from the previous quarter, while AMD saw a 1.5 percent increase to 20.4 percent. For the mobile PC realm, Intel once again saw a decline as its 84.4 percent share took a 1.9 percent quarter to quarter tumble, with AMD again seeing a nearly 2 percent gain in its 15.2 percent stake. In the desktop PC segment, AMD grabbed an additional 1.5 percent, bringing its stake to 28.9 percent, with Intel’s 70.9 percent share dropping 1.5 percent versus Q1 2011. Wondering where the second place chip maker got its second quarter stride? According to the research firm, its new Fusion platform, along with Intel’s Sandy Bridge, now accounts for “more than 60% of total PC processor unit volume in 2Q11.” You paying attention, Sandy? It’s time to sleep with one eye open.

[Image credit via Vault Networks]

Continue reading AMD’s market share tiptoes higher, Intel still ruler of the roost

AMD’s market share tiptoes higher, Intel still ruler of the roost originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Aug 2011 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink VentureBeat  |   | Email this | Comments

3G wireless is now less a privilege than a right, and and with any luck our 4G networks will be similarly self-evident soon. Verizon is doing its part, flipping the switch on 28 new LTE markets today. This boosts the total number of covered areas to 102. Added highlights include: Colorado Springs, Colorado; Augusta, Georgia; Louisville, Kentucky; and Hilo, Hawaii. Meanwhile, folks in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Diego, Las Vegas, Dallas, San Antonio, and Seattle can now roam a little further from city center without losing LTE. The full list is after the break, but if you’re feeling lucky just go ahead and enable everything on your handset. We’ve got our fingers crossed for you.

Continue reading Verizon flips the switch on 28 new LTE markets, Louisville Sluggers now available with 4G

Verizon flips the switch on 28 new LTE markets, Louisville Sluggers now available with 4G originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Jul 2011 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

We’re no strangers to SwiftKey here at Engadget HQ, and today TouchType is launching a major new version of everyone’s favorite Android virtual keyboard — SwiftKey Tablet X for devices running Honeycomb, and SwiftKey X for devices running Android 2.x. Both applications improve upon the original by using TouchType’s Fluency 2.0 artificial intelligence engine, a unique predictive phrase system which learns how you write. New features include cloud learning, which analyzes how you type in Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and text messages to predict phrases in your style, plus keypress technology which continually monitors your typing precision and adapts the touch-sensitive area for each key to improve prediction accuracy. SwiftKey now supports 17 languages (with more coming soon) and is smart enough to interpret three languages at once. There’s also a handful of other enhancements, including support for themes which allow users to customize the look and feel of the keyboard. And that split keyboard option we first encountered at CES? It’s there of course, in the tablet version.

We’ve been testing SwiftKey Tablet X on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for a few days now, alongside SwiftKey X on a handful of phones (including the Nexus S and the EVO 3D), and it’s probably the best virtual keyboard we’ve used on Android yet. In fact, it’s now replacing the stock keyboard on all our HTC Sense-equipped handsets. Prediction accuracy improves quickly after you start using the keyboard, and we liked having the option to turn off the spacebar-triggered auto-completion of words and phrases. Another useful feature is the ability to display arrow / cursor keys on the phone version. The supplied themes are attractive (especially Neon), and the layouts are intuitive — although we’d have preferred the numbers to be arranged in a row instead of mimicking a numpad. Both applications are available today only for $1.99 in the Android Market. Regular pricing is $4.99 for SwiftKey Tablet X, and $3.99 for SwiftKey X. Take a look at our screenshot galleries below, and hit the break for our hands-on videos and more.

Continue reading SwiftKey X virtual keyboard launches for Android tablets, we go hands-on (video)

SwiftKey X virtual keyboard launches for Android tablets, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments