Hasta La Gadget!

SAN FRANCISCO — If you’re on Facebook 24/7, love music and take photos constantly, you’re probably under 25 — and you’re right in the demographic bull’s-eye for Microsoft’s two new social-media–centric phones.

The company launched the two phones Monday that are based on a new flavor of Microsoft’s upcoming mobile operating system, Windows Phone 7. The phones, called the Kin One and Kin Two, come with an entirely new interface that puts social services such as Facebook, Twitter and newsfeeds at its core.

“If you are focused on social connection, self expression and a digital life, how do you bring that to a phone?” says Robbie Bach, president for entertainment and devices division at Microsoft. “As we were working on Windows Phone 7, we decided we had an opportunity to go after this social group of people?”

The phones have been manufactured by Sharp and will be available on Verizon’s Wireless network in May and on Vodafone in Europe later this year. Kin One is a petite, rounded device with a 2.1-inch screen. Kin Two is a larger, palm-sized device with a 3.5-inch display.

Kin One has a 5-megapixel camera, while Kin Two sports an 8-megapixel camera. Both phones have multitouch displays, an accelerometer and video-recording capability, as well as hardware keyboards that slide out from underneath the screen.

Phones that integrate closely with social networking sites have been a huge trend with handset makers in the last two years. Almost every major phone maker, including Motorola and HTC, has phones that integrate Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, MySpace and newsfeeds into a single stream on the phone’s display.

Microsoft’s latest phones are based on the concept of sharing, and try to bring the PC and the phone closer, say company reps.

The phones use some components from the company’s latest operating system, Windows Phone 7. But it isn’t exactly the same OS that powers this device, says Bach.

Think of it as a fork in the road for Windows Mobile 7, where Microsoft has taken some components from the OS and added a new interface layer to create the Kin phone, says Microsoft.

Kin phones will have three home screens. The first includes access to e-mail, phone, newsfeeds, photos and browser. Swipe to the left and the next screen throws up a stream of status messages updated from contacts and newsfeeds. Swipe to the left once more and the third screen is a list of favorites marked by the phone users and what their social status says right then.

Microsoft is late to this party. though. Rivals such as Motorola and HTC have already done this with the MotoBlur and the HTC Sense interface, respectively.

What makes the Kin different, says Microsoft, is that it automatically backs up all its contents on a password-protected website. This idea of storing information in the cloud means users can access their photos, videos, messages and even call history from a browser anywhere and don’t have to just depend on their phone.

The service offers unlimited storage, says Microsoft and will be free.

Kin also integrates Microsoft’s Zune digital music service. The phone’s music player has the same interface as the Zune HD. It also includes access only to Bing search.

Developers, however, won’t be able to create apps for the new phones.

Microsoft has not yet announced prices for the two new phones, which will be available from Verizon in May.

This closeup of the Kin One shows it with the keyboard hidden. Photo courtesy Microsoft.

And here’s the Kin One with keyboard open. Photo courtesy Microsoft.

Kin One can be used to compose text messages. Photo courtesy Microsoft.

A Kin Two with keyboard closed sits in its hoped-for natural habitat: a coffeeshop table. Photo courtesy Microsoft.

This Kin Two has its keyboard open and exposed. Photo courtesy Microsoft.

Top photo courtesy Microsoft.

Remember those network investments that AT&T was talking up just days before Time Warner slipped over an offer for help? Looks as if the firm wasn’t kidding around, but there’s still nothing here that should get you excited about more available bandwidth in the coming days. Utilizing that fancy new Cisco router, the carrier recently completed a live network environmental trial of 100-Gigabit backbone network technology (far more hasty than that 40-Gigabit stuff that’s around today), but we’re told that the tech isn’t expected to be ready for “commercial deployment” until the “next few years.” ‘Course, we suspect we should be struck by the notion that the internet may actually have the proper infrastructure to keep on keepin’ on once Hulu really does take over the world, but for now, we’ll just have to extract a bit more joy from those vague “little things” in life.

AT&T completes 100-Gigabit Ethernet field trial using new Cisco gear, proves it does care originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Small- and medium-size businesses, LaCie has your storage needs covered with a line of three new big data solutions. They include the d2 Network 2 (with a single disk), the 2big Network 2 (with two disks), and the 5big Network 2 (shown above, with five disks). The line offers data access of up to 70MB per second and lets users share files or back up networked Windows and Macintosh computers.

LaCie designed the Web-based administration tool to be extra-easy, and it can be used to manage users, groups, and shares, as well as to place data use quotas easily. Admins can also join a Windows domain using Active Directory, to automatically import users and existing permissions.

The 2Big Network 2 and 5big Network 2 offer RAID 1 for redundancy, while the 5big Network 2 offers RAID 6. Each comes with a three-year warranty. The line starts at $229.99 and is available from the LaCie Online Store.

Never mind keeping track of how many gold medals Bermuda, Cayman Islands and Monaco rack up during the Winter Olympics; the real nerds are watching to see exactly how many tweets are being pushed out per minute from a smattering of cities around the world. CASA’s Tweet-O-Meter has been running on a webpage for awhile now, but frankly, the novelty tends to wear quickly. These, however, are far more tempting to the retinas. What you’re looking at above are a few analog Tweet-O-Meters, which do exactly what you think they do: showcase the amount of tweets that are leaving New York, London and Paris at any given time by moving a needle within a conventional gauge. Head on past the break for a video, and be sure to express your reaction on your favorite up-and-coming social networking site.

[Thanks, Dr. Andrew]

Continue reading Analog Tweet-O-Meter shows city-specific Twitter activity the old fashioned way

Analog Tweet-O-Meter shows city-specific Twitter activity the old fashioned way originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Okay, this one isn’t exactly for those who listen to MP3s through their iMac’s built-in speakers. Olive and Thiel Audio have unveiled the Olive+THIEL HD Music System (HDMS), a high-end audio setup that consists of three parts: a server, speakers and cabling.

The flagship 4+ HD music server holds 6,000 CDs or 20,000 24-bit HD music tracks, and comes with a touch screen LCD and support for an iPhone and iPod touch control app for use as a remote.

Meanwhile, Thiel’s SCS4D loudspeakers are two-way bookshelf models that work in both upright and sideways configurations (no small feat, as the audio response changes dramatically when you do this). Each speaker features a die-cast aluminum front baffle, a 24-bit DAC, and a 200-watt class D amplifier.

The system connects together with Ethernet cables, and lets you connect up to four pairs of Thiel SCS4D speakers. That’s assuming you’ve got the money, because the base system with one pair of speakers costs $7,900. Head over to www.olivethiel.com for more details.