Hasta La Gadget!

It’s April, the fourth month of the year, and that means it’s time for a new Ubuntu release. (This also true of the tenth month of the year — those Canonical folks like to keep busy.) Ubuntu 11.04, or Natty Narwhal as the kids are calling it, is here and packing some significant changes from earlier editions of the Linux distro. The most obvious being the arrival of the Unity desktop environment, which was previously relegated to netbooks. It’s got integrated search, a combination launcher and taskbar, and app menus that have been moved to the top of the screen à la OS X — basically it’s harvested the best ideas from Apple and Microsoft and splashed a pretty coat of aubergine paint on it. The new UI is not without its detractors and reportedly has some stability issues, but you can always choose “Ubuntu Classic” to stick with Gnome. The update also makes Firefox 4 the default browser and replaces the Rhythmbox music manager with the sleeker and more functional Banshee. Hit up the source link to download the 700MB ISO — it’s free and you can try it without installing, so what’s there to lose?

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Ubuntu 11.04 ‘Natty Narwhal’ brings new Unity UI, controversy to the desktop originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Apr 2011 16:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Rejoice, brothers and sisters, for the Froyo has been delivered! Verizon’s Fascinate was up until today weirdly stuck in its Android 2.1 gear, but the carrier has finally figured out whatever needed figuring out and is currently beaming out an Android 2.2 update over the air to expectant users. Now that we’ve put this long wait behind us, can we maybe jump to 2.3 in a slightly more sprightly fashion, Verizon?

[Thanks, Jason]

Verizon starts delivering long overdue Froyo update to Fascinate users originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that leaked build of Windows 8 that hit the torrents just a few days back? Already old hat. That was build 7850. Today we’ve got a peek at what claims to be a newer build, 7955, of the upcoming OS and it’s starting to show a few of those Metro flourishes we’ve all been anticipating. In the video after the break you’ll catch a glimpse of a new Windows Phone 7-inspired login screen and the (somewhat perplexing) ability to set a video as your user tile. It’s not a drastic overhaul — it still looks a whole lot like Windows 7, as you’d expect at this stage of the game — but it’s nice to think Microsoft is moving quickly to bring its stunning Metro UI to the desktop.

[Thanks, Vygantas]

Continue reading Watch Windows 8’s new Metro login while this creepy guy watches you (video)

Watch Windows 8’s new Metro login while this creepy guy watches you (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You had to know it was a matter of time before Windows 8 showed up on these great internets for all to download — illegitimately. An early version (6.1.7850) has been making the rounds at manufacturers and it’s finally escaped the confines of beta labs. We haven’t braved the torrent sites ourselves to download this, and we certainly wouldn’t recommend that you do, but the screenshots we’ve seen definitely peg this particular revision as a slight evolution of Windows 7, seemingly not including all the revolutionary tweaks to come. It’s still early days, remember. Plenty of time left for the magic to happen.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Windows 8 leaked, caught looking a lot like Windows 7 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 13 Apr 2011 07:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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And now it’s completely official: the new and freshened up version of Symbian we saw leak out over the weekend is indeed coming to Nokia’s latest batch of handsets. The N8, E7, C7 and C6-01, the phones that ran what was formerly known as Symbian^3, will all be getting it “over the coming months,” while the newly announced X7 and E6 devices will ship with it preloaded. The change list includes real homescreen scrolling, an overhauled browser, and yes, even a QWERTY onscreen keyboard in portrait orientation. There’s also new iconography and heavily refreshed Ovi Maps, which now include predictive search. Nokia is resolute in its belief that Ovi Maps is the best mapping solution on the market, and Microsoft’s decision to integrate it into Bing would suggest that’s true.

The “Anna” Symbian update will be the first of a series and has been driven almost entirely by consumer feedback. Nokia also shared some Ovi Store stats with us. There are now five million downloads per day going on from the company’s app repository, which now includes more than 40,000 apps in total. 158 developers have passed a million downloads each.

Continue reading Nokia announces Symbian ‘Anna’ update for N8, E7, C7 and C6-01; first of a series of updates

Nokia announces Symbian ‘Anna’ update for N8, E7, C7 and C6-01; first of a series of updates originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 12 Apr 2011 04:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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