Hasta La Gadget!

Yes yes, y’all: it’s the Engadget Podcast. We’re brimming this week, as usual, with the low down on what’s going down with all the new stuff. We’ve got the killer combo of lots of streaming news and a dearth of optical drives. We’ve got shaky earnings calls translating into big deals on the floor at Best Buy. And boy, do we have a little bit of Android news? We do! It’s all here, as usual. Enjoy.

Host: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater
Guests: Dana Wollman, Richard Lawler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Beethoven’s 5th

02:24 – Mac mini review (mid 2011)
03:20 – Editorial: Apple’s officially over the optical drive, for better or worse
09:16 – MacBook Air review (mid 2011)
16:10 – Netflix adds Mad Men in the US today, CBS content in Canada and Latin America later
16:34 – Amazon Prime Instant Video is adding CBS TV shows, including all of Star Trek
17:50 – Amazon strikes movie streaming deal with Universal, adds ‘Fear and Loathing’ to free shipping
24:17 – The Engadget Show – 023: We tour a headphone factory, talk record labels, and look at They Might Be Giants’ favorite gadgets
25:36 – Nintendo posts earnings, drops 3DS from $249 to $169 August 12th, current owners get 20 free games
28:47 – Logitech CEO steps down after money losing Q1, Revue price slashed to $99
37:15 – Toshiba Thrive review
39:52 – HTC Status review
44:46 – Windows Phone 7.5 Mango in-depth preview (video)
46:20 – HTC CFO says it’s time to ‘figure it out’ with Apple
48:52 – Two more fake Apple Stores spotted by officials in China, two get the smackdown
50:40 – Listener questions

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Send your questions to @tim_stevens.
Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005)
E-mail us: podcast at engadget dot com
Twitter: @tim_stevens @bheater @danawollman @rjcc

Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 250 – 07.29.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jul 2011 13:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Don’t panic! That’s not a herd of horses about to parade through your living room, but it is the noise that only 10 Engadget Podcasters can make as they run through your WiFi and into your speakers for this, the first-ever Engadget Partycast! We’ll play Twister all over some new Sony tablets, pin the tail on the red envelope, and we might even fire up the hottest new music-streaming service on the HiFi to get you moving. The party is happening right now down below underneath that play button. We’re almost at capacity, but we’ll let you in if you hurry the dang heck up!

Host: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater
Guests: Richard Lawler, Dana Wollman, Darren Murph
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: Young Folks

00:02:52 – Sony S1 and S2 hands-on
00:03:40 – Sony’s S2 tablet coming to AT&T, price and availability remain a mystery
00:09:53 – Sony’s VAIO Z finally arrives in the US, goes up for pre-order starting at $2,000
00:15:23 – Netflix officially separates DVD, streaming pricing; $15.98 and up for both
00:33:50 – Netflix streaming comes to the Nintendo 3DS tomorrow
00:38:26 – The Engadget Interview: HP’s Stephen DeWitt
00:49:58 – Spotify launching in the US tomorrow
01:02:36 – Listener questions

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Contact the podcast

Send your questions to @tim_stevens.
Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005)
E-mail us: podcast at engadget dot com
Twitter: @tim_stevens @bheater @rjcc @danawollman @darrenmurph

Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 248 – 07.15.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 14:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get up, wake up, wake up: it’s the first of the month, and it’s also a Friday, so gather the fam ’round the glowing laptop by the fireplace and fire up the 246th edition of this, the Engadget Podcast. Dana Wollman rolls with us this time around the week in tech, which featured a generous stacking-up-upon of the already gigantic pile of tablets we have lying around HQ. We also had a plus-sized shot from the dark out of Mountain View and a healthy smattering of statistics and other news-morsels we know you wanna hear about. It’s all here for you for free, so get at it!

Host: Tim Stevens, Brian Heater
Guests: Dana Wollman
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Music: A Hard Day’s Night

00:02:50 – HP TouchPad review
00:10:00 – HP confirms it’s in talks about licensing webOS, Samsung tipped as a possibility
00:13:46 – HP tempts webOS early adopters to buy a TouchPad with $50 rebate
00:21:30 – Google+ for Android app (hands-on)
00:21:50 – Google+ invite received, we go hands-on
00:30:09 – LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer tablet hands-on (video)
00:36:07 – Cisco Cius Android tablet hands-on (video)
00:39:39 – Congolese VMK Gingerbread tablet eager to show its face, shipping in September
00:43:26 – ThinkPad Tablet shown off with keyboard-laden folio cover, could ship within a month
00:45:30 – Andy Rubin: over 500,000 Android activations a day, and growing
00:48:00 – Windows Phone 7.5 Mango in-depth preview (video)
00:54:08 – HTC Status for AT&T announced on Facebook, risks being tagged in embarrassing pics
00:56:05 – CyanogenMod 7 on the Nook Color hands-on (video)
00:58:15 – Ubuntu demonstrated running on Galaxy Tab 10.1, summarily dubbed ‘Tabuntu’ (video)
00:58:46 – US Supreme Court strikes down California law, says video games are protected as free speech
01:00:20 – Listener questions

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[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace

Download the podcast

LISTEN (MP3)
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LISTEN (OGG)

Contact the podcast

Send your questions to @tim_stevens.
Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005)
E-mail us: podcast at engadget dot com
Twitter: @tim_stevens @bheater @danawollman

Filed under: Podcasts

Engadget Podcast 246 – 07.01.2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Jul 2011 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Downcast podcast catcher does what the iPhone (and iPad) should do already

ICloud SchmiCloud. Apple’s new non-syncing sync service might already let us iOS users get new apps and books and — in the future music — pushed to our devices, but it still doesn’t push podcasts. As these are likely the most often updated things on our iPhones and iPads, it’s an annoying oversight.

There are several iOS apps that will grab podcasts directly to your device, but Downcast is the first I have found that has a great interface, and works on both the iPad and the iPhone.

To use the app, you first have to tell it which podcasts to watch out for. This can be done from a built-in directory, or by importing an OPML file. If you already use iTunes for podcasts, you can export this file (right click “Podcasts” in the left-hand source list, choose export and pick “OPML” as the format), put it in your Dropbox public folder and then point Downcast to that file.

In use, Downcast has almost every feature from my previous favorite, Podcaster, but without the annoyances. First, the interface is way, way cleaner and easier to use. Second, it doesn’t refuse to download episodes of the excellent VFX Show. And third, it doesn’t have tiny play/pause buttons that cause you to skip a track instead of just pausing it.

What it does have is automatic downloading (suck it, Instacast), the ability to not have the next episode auto play, a sleep timer, AirPlay support for both video and audio and — here’s the big one — gestures.

Gestures let you control playback without having to hunt down a tiny on-screen button. To play/pause, you double-tap with one finger. Swipe left or right with two fingers to skip 30 seconds back and forward, and swipe up and down to mark a podcast as listened or unlistened.

I’d ask for just one thing: the ability to sync my playback position between devices. At home I use my iPad more, but when I go out I grab my iPod Touch. Not having to find my place would be great, although I understand syncing is a tricky and expensive thing to set up.

But the best part is the price. Downcast is just $2.

Downcast product page [App Store]

See Also:

• App Store is a Goldmine: Indie Developer Makes $250000 in Two …
• Direct Podcast Downloads Coming to iPhone?
• Autocue Turns You Into a Podcasting Pro
• CastGrabber: Standalone Podcast Downloader

When Microsoft unveiled Windows Phone Mango last month, the company spent a lot of time walking us through some of the 500-plus changes to the OS — most notably, conversation threads, people groups, enhanced search functionality, Twitter and LinkedIn integration, IE9, and the instantly responsive Bing Vision. It’s no wonder, then, that Redmond didn’t have much time to talk multimedia. Well, the company just spilled the beans in a blog post, laying out a raft of new features that run the gamut from podcasts to improved playback controls. We’ve got a lot to recap, so join us past the break, won’t you?

Continue reading Microsoft outlines new features for Windows Phone Mango’s Music and Video Hubs

Microsoft outlines new features for Windows Phone Mango’s Music and Video Hubs originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Jun 2011 14:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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