Hasta La Gadget!

Flexible displays? Samsung’s got ’em, too. A few days after Nokia showed off its Kinetic Device prototype under the blue lights of Nokia World, Samsung made mention of its own plans to unleash some bendy mobile devices on the world. A spokesperson for the company was scarce on details, but noted that the flexible displays are targeted for 2012. The technology, which was showcased at this year’s CES, will initially be incorporated into handsets, with tablets following down the road.

Continue reading Samsung to offer flexible displays in 2012, challenges Nokia to a twist contest

Samsung to offer flexible displays in 2012, challenges Nokia to a twist contest originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 07:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Let’s be honest: with the size of a brick and a relatively short battery life, it’s no surprise that ITG’s xpPhone hasn’t quite dominated the smartphone market since its launch back in November. In fact, we haven’t even seen one in the wild, and we certainly wouldn’t have missed it if there ever was one on the street. That said, ITG hasn’t given up, as the company’s just announced its second-generation Windows-powered smartphone. The reason? Well, interestingly enough, ITG prefers Windows’ greater range of compatible software compared to those of mobile OSes, namely Android and iOS. Let’s just leave it at that for now.

Simply dubbed the xpPhone 2, this beast of a QWERTY slider packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 chip, along with 2GB RAM, up to 112GB of SSD storage, 4.3-inch display and compatibility with both Windows 7 and Windows 8 — obviously the latter OS will depend on its final release date. Not only has battery life been bumped up to around 18 hours of call time or 46 days on standby, but the phone’s also been slimmed down to 140mm x 73mm x 17.5mm, which is a huge improvement compared to its bulky predecessor. With the touch-friendly Windows 8 on board along with a non-underclocked CPU, we have a feeling that the xpPhone 2 will at least fare much better than Fujitsu’s F-07C; as for the rest, we shall see when it comes out in January next year. And no, it probably won’t run Crysis.

Update: Looks like we were misled by the company’s other promotional photos and thus mistakenly thought the xpPhone 2 will have a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. This would explain the slimmer body then.

ITG xpPhone 2 to get some Windows 8 love, starts living large in January originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Oct 2011 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, you may be fast asleep in your warm comfy bed back stateside, but we’re here at Nokia World in London, gearing up for a Windows Phone-packed keynote with CEO Stephen Elop. The excitement begins at 9AM local time (translated to your time zone below), so tune in just before for the play-by-play.

Psst… and toss your own time zone / day in comments below!

10:00PM – Hawaii (October 25th)
01:00AM – Pacific (October 26th)
02:00AM – Mountain (October 26th)
03:00AM – Central (October 26th)
04:00AM – Eastern (October 26th)
09:00AM – London (October 26th)
10:00AM – Paris (October 26th)
12:00PM – Moscow (October 26th)
05:00PM – Tokyo (October 26th)

Continue reading The Nokia World 2011 keynote liveblog!

The Nokia World 2011 keynote liveblog! originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 Oct 2011 03:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What will the future hold for a post-MeeGo Nokia? Sure, we have a fairly good idea, but you have mere hours to wait until the rumors are confirmed. We’ll be coming to you live from the company’s keynote at Nokia World in London, where we’re expecting not one, but multiple Windows Phones to make an on-stage debut. The show kicks off at 9AM local time, and we’ve included a handy list of round-the-world start times below. Bookmark this page right here and find out as it happens.

Psst… and toss your own time zone / day in comments below!

10:00PM – Hawaii (October 25th)
01:00AM – Pacific (October 26th)
02:00AM – Mountain (October 26th)
03:00AM – Central (October 26th)
04:00AM – Eastern (October 26th)
09:00AM – London (October 26th)
10:00AM – Paris (October 26th)
12:00PM – Moscow (October 26th)
05:00PM – Tokyo (October 26th)

The Nokia World keynote is tomorrow — get your liveblog here at 4AM ET! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 10:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Liking that Face Unlock on Ice Cream Sandwich we saw this morning? You can thank PittPatt for that. Here at AsiaD’s opening session, Android head honcho Andy Rubin just confirmed that said Pittsburgh-based company — acquired by Google earlier this year — was responsible for this nifty security feature. While the demo didn’t go as planned for Matias Duarte at the launch event, Andy was able to show us how Face Unlock’s meant to work on the stage just now. In fact, Andy said his team even had to “slow down the process” as PittPatt’s software was too fast to make folks believe that any security at all was involved — for what it’s worth, Walt Mossberg’s beard couldn’t get past the unlock screen on Andy’s Galaxy Nexus. Head on over to our hands-on video to see us getting up close and personal with Face Unlock.

Andy Rubin: Ice Cream Sandwich’s Face Unlock is developed by PittPatt originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Oct 2011 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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