Hasta La Gadget!

Well what do we have here? We were loitering around the Intel booth here at the MeeGo Conference in San Francisco when we spotted this lonely little device resting unsupervised in the back, so we decided to give it a whirl and snap some pictures. It turns out it’s a circa 10-inch tablet made by i-Buddie and built on Intel’s recent Oak Trail architecture. Of course it’s running MeeGo, but sadly we were unable to connect to the Internet — something to do with missing WiFi drivers, according to the Intel rep who eventually caught up with us to snatch the tablet from our eager paws. We missed the opportunity to make a video, but take a look at our hands-on gallery below.

i-Buddie Oak Trail tablet makes cameo at MeeGo Conference 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 May 2011 21:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just because Nokia has done everything short of taping a “Dear John” letter to MeeGo’s mirror doesn’t mean the OS is dead. In fact, Intel’s Linux-based baby just got a refresh to version 1.2. So what’s new this go around? Well, primarily it’s under the hood stuff, like improved Atom support and bug fixes out the ying yang. New audio and networking stacks have also been added for A2DP streaming and HSPA+ support. The tablet UI that Intel was showing off in February is has arrived, to complement the standard netbook version and the in-car interface. Sadly, the handset edition was left out of this update. Those eager to dip their toes in the MeeGo water can download the latest version at the source link.

[Thanks, Khan]

MeeGo 1.2 lands for netbooks and tablets, leaves handsets hanging on the telephone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 May 2011 15:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Nokia N9 gets teaser video, Rick Springfield soundtrack (update: it’s running MeeGo)

Nokia N9 gets teaser video, Rick Springfield soundtrack (update: it’s running MeeGo) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 19:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last we heard, the Nokia N9 rode Stephen Elop’s burning platform into the sunset, never to be seen again. Today, there’s a FCC filing that begs to differ. Wireless Goodness spotted that RM-680 in the always-helpful government database, where it claims support for six cellular frequencies as well as Bluetooth and 2.4GHz 802.11 b/g/n WiFi — enough to appear on most any GSM carrier, to say nothing of AT&T and T-Mobile. Will the MeeGo-packing QWERTY-sliding hardware that Eldar Murtazin called “near perfect” appear in the US or Canada one day? We don’t think it’s terribly likely, but if it comes with a dash of Windows Phone 7 on board, we can’t promise not to jump for joy. See the full list of bands after the break.

Continue reading Nokia N9 hits the FCC, packs more bands than a rubber tree

Nokia N9 hits the FCC, packs more bands than a rubber tree originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 16:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has a tablet. So does RIM. HP Palm too, soon enough. And Android tablets, particularly those running Honeycomb… they’re everywhere — hell, even Sony has a few on the way. That leaves Nokia as the glaring anomaly conspicuously absent from the tablet wars. Understandable, we guess, given the company’s urgent need to transition its smartphone strategy to Windows Phone. That doesn’t mean the company is standing still though. According to an interview with YLE television in Finland, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is taking a very calculated approach to tablets, saying, “We could take advantage of Microsoft technology and software, and build a Windows-oriented tablet, or we could do things with some of the other software assets that we have. Our team right now is assessing what’s the right tablet strategy for Nokia.” In other words, Nokia is investigating tablets running Windows 7 (doubtful), MeeGo (doubtful), and Windows Next, aka that tablet-friendly Windows 8 OS (likely). But here’s the most illuminating exchange from the well-mannered Canadian:

There are now over 200 different tablets on the marketplace, only one of them is doing really well. And, my challenge to the team is I don’t wanna be the 201st tablet on the market that you can’t tell from all of the others. We have to take a uniquely Nokia prospective and so the teams are working very hard on something that would be differentiating relative to everything else that’s going on in the market.

Q. So you’re not in a hurry?

We’re always in a hurry to do the right things, but we’re mostly in a hurry to do the right thing.

Makes sense to us and echoes what we’ve heard about Sony’s relatively delayed entry into consumer tablets. Why should Nokia build another me-too tablet when it can tap into the combined Microsoft / Nokia ecosystem and make a grab at some real market share and profit? The entire 20 minute interview is interesting as Elop discusses layoffs, the first Nokia Windows Phone, Symbian, and competing against Apple and Google. Hit the source link for the full deal — the tablet discussion begins at 10 minutes and 32 seconds.

[Thanks, Pauli N.]

Stephen Elop: Nokia won’t build just another tablet originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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