Xbox 360 IPTV rumors ride again with ‘Project Orapa’

Just because Microsoft’s Mediaroom IPTV service is finally supported on the Xbox 360 after years and years of expectations (as seen above) doesn’t mean the rumor mill stops, with rumors surfacing of a “Project Orapa” that reportedly combines Xbox Live, Kinect and IPTV service all in one. ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley has heard from tipsters that it’s related to the previously rumored Ventura multimedia project and will let subscribers to Mediaroom powered IPTV services like U-Verse use Kinect’s gesture and voice recognition like ESPN3 already does to control their TV experience while Xbox users would get “more content.” We should find out how much of this is reality and how it ties into previous rumors pretty quickly, since it’s apparently going to be in testing this month, and available by the upcoming holiday season.

Xbox 360 IPTV rumors ride again with ‘Project Orapa’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 17:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile’s rumored 10GB data plan goes up a few dollars

It looks like those new webConnect plans from T-Mobile are still slated to go live this Sunday, but TmoNews — which reported the original rumor — has circled back with a minor bummer: the biggest of the plans has gone up a few dollars per month. There’s no information on why the carrier has opted to suck a few more dollars out of your bank account, but the good news is that it’s not too bad — it’s just another $5 (now $84.99) or another $4 (up to $67.99) if you’re pairing it with a voice plan. Of course, both the 5GB and 10GB plans are overage-free — it’s just a question of how far you want to go before you start getting throttled.

T-Mobile’s rumored 10GB data plan goes up a few dollars originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile’s rumored 10GB data plan goes up a few dollars (update: confirmed)

It looks like those new webConnect plans from T-Mobile are still slated to go live this Sunday, but TmoNews — which reported the original rumor — has circled back with a minor bummer: the biggest of the plans has gone up a few dollars per month. There’s no information on why the carrier has opted to suck a few more dollars out of your bank account, but the good news is that it’s not too bad — it’s just another $5 (now $84.99) or another $4 (up to $67.99) if you’re pairing it with a voice plan. Of course, both the 5GB and 10GB plans are overage-free — it’s just a question of how far you want to go before you start getting throttled.

Update: TmoNews was on the money — these prices are now live at T-Mobile.

T-Mobile’s rumored 10GB data plan goes up a few dollars (update: confirmed) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 16:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Symbian UI overhaul scheduled for the fall?

While Symbian might be good as dead to most Engadget readers, Nokia must continue supporting the millions of S^ wearing faithful until it can fully transition to a Windows Phone smartphone shop in 2012. So we were interested to hear Marc Driessen, Nokia Benelux product manager, spill some details about a few previously unannounced Symbian updates for 2011. As you’ll recall, S^4 as a product had been canned months ago, but the scheduled UI updates were still part of the Symbian roadmap. According to Driessen, Nokia is targeting a major UI overhaul in the fall, an update rumored to include a dedicated pull-down status bar up top; new iconography; new flexible widgets; a simplified navigation bar below; and better menus throughout that don’t require a scuba suit to navigate. While Nokia HQ won’t confirm the dates or details to us (we asked), the fall timeline does match with what we’ve heard elsewhere. Dutch site All About Phones is also reporting that a smaller update for N8 and E7 users might come as early as this summer. Of course, those owners are still waiting for the first real S^3 update that was promised for early 2011, so hopefully Nokia can squeeze in the split screen text input, portrait QWERTY, and improved browser before March is done.

Symbian UI overhaul scheduled for the fall? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 12:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony readying NGP for November 11th European release?

Sony’s Jack Tretton told us the company intended to launch the Next Generation Portable in “at least one territory” by the end of 2011, and now we might know which one — MCVUK reports that the quad-core, OLED-equipped handheld may arrive in Europe first, and on November 11th specifically. While it’s probably a little too early to drop the hammer on a specific date — even one as rhetorically pleasing as 11/11/11 — the publication’s anonymous sources say that “development deadlines have been set to ensure key Western releases are finished before the end of the summer for deployment in the autumn.” Plenty of time to drop euros in your piggy bank.

Sony readying NGP for November 11th European release? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Mar 2011 03:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony working on a Cyber-shot camera with 3G cellular connectivity?

If the warm, soothing waves of IEEE 802.11 are beaming down on your location, there are certainly several ways to send pictures directly from your camera to the cloud, but Sony’s reportedly prototyping a camera that won’t need a single bar of WiFi to get your upload on. Our friends at gdgt cite anonymous sources that say Sony’s got a camera with a built-in 3G modem in the works, and we’re not talking about a cameraphone. While Sony’s cellphone CMOS sensors may have improved, gdgt says the prototype unit will probably be a dedicated point-and-shoot, though the publication says their moles aren’t sure it’s actually coming to market. If it does, though, here’s hoping it comes with some Whispernet so we don’t have to foot a monthly or (perish the thought) per-picture bill!

Sony working on a Cyber-shot camera with 3G cellular connectivity? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid X2 is a Droid X with a smaller microSD card? (updated)

You know how it works: people see unusual product names in inventory systems, and imaginations start running wild. We’d been hearing some pretty crazy things about the rumored Droid X2 for Verizon, only to have those expectations reigned in to a light refresh — and in light of the Droid Bionic’s upcoming launch, a deeply overhauled Droid X launching in roughly the same time frame never made a ton of sense in the first place. On that note, we’ve just been hit with a memo that’s supposedly floating around SCK — the Radio Shack subsidiary responsible for Sam’s Club kiosks — that calls the X2 “a new Droid X version” with a 2GB bundled microSD card replacing the original model’s 16GB… and it’ll sell for the same price.

Now, we’d heard from our sources before that the X2 would be warmed over with a front-facing camera and the same 1.2GHz single-core processor bump that the Chinese version recently received. Nothing in the SCK memo suggests that’s not happening, and the microSD card reduction might mean there’ll be more internal storage space, too. We can hope, right?

[Thanks, anonymous tipster]

Update: Several folks have written in to point out that the Droid X packages with the smaller microSD cards are already in other retail outlets, so SCK may just be playing catch-up. If so, that’s a horrible choice of name for the inventory system, we’d say. Thanks, everyone!

Motorola Droid X2 is a Droid X with a smaller microSD card? (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 10:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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64GB iPhone 4 prototype spotted in China? (Updated)

If 32GB just isn’t enough to carry your entire collection of Police bootlegs and Greatest Hits compilations, prepare to look enviously upon this bastion of storage salvation. It’s a 64GB iPhone 4, a supposed prototype leaked by a Foxconn employee. M.I.C. Gadget scored a quick video of the phone, even prying off the back cover revealing internals that certainly look official. The back is curiously designated “XXGB,” which thankfully does not indicate a turn to Roman Numerals, while the model number and FCC ID are similarly X’d out. Other details, like a missing silver ring around the camera lens, indeed make this look like a prototype, but of course the question now is whether this plucky little handset will ever follow its dreams of becoming a production model before getting relegated to obsolescence.

Update: We went over to the Sin Tak shopping mall in Hong Kong to get up close and personal with this mysterious device. Shockingly, the folks wanted a hefty HK$13,500 (US$1,734) for their phone, but this alone doesn’t really prove whether it’s a legit Foxconn prototype. We also got some folks to run the numbers through Apple’s system, and while the serial number is invalid, the model number indicates that this device was manufactured in early 2010, which probably means at one point Apple intended to release a 64GB version of the iPhone 4, but then changed its mind. Ah well, let’s see what this summer will bring us.

Continue reading 64GB iPhone 4 prototype spotted in China? (Updated)

64GB iPhone 4 prototype spotted in China? (Updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 09:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hulu Plus on TiVo apparently being tested, live streaming to iPad apparently being considered

So, an update. Er, a refresher if you will. Back in September of last year, TiVo announced that ingrained Hulu Plus access would be coming to its DVRs “in the coming months,” but we’ve heard precisely nothing on the matter ever since. Enter the present. We’ve got a tipster who owns a TiVo Premiere and was just invited to join a Field Trial to “test Hulu Plus on TiVo,” and he’s also receiving codes to receive a free month of service. It’s hard to say what kind of gap we’re looking at between the testing period and the go-live period, but at least we’ve got a little assurance that no one simply forgot about their promise. In related news, other tipsters are starting to receive some fairly interesting surveys from TiVo itself, with a few questions in particular asking consumers how they’d feel about the option to “stream live TV, DVR recordings and TV shows from a cable company’s On Demand library to one’s iPad.” This seemingly includes in-home and remote streaming, and we have to say — streaming to the tablet just might be the magic feature that finally gets TiVo out of the hurt locker. Probably not, but are you really going to judge us for being blindly optimistic?

Hulu Plus on TiVo apparently being tested, live streaming to iPad apparently being considered originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 09 Mar 2011 08:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nokia C7 with T-Mobile user’s manual hits FCC: is this the Tiger?

Rumors have been circulating the past few days that Nokia would be teaming up with T-Mobile to release the Symbian^3-powered C7 — right on the heels of the Nuron 2’s possible cancellation — as the Tiger. Well, here’s some fuel for the fire: a version of the C7 with AWS 3G support and mentions of T-Mobile in the attached user’s manual just showed up in the FCC. Interestingly, there’s absolutely no sign of T-Mobile branding on the phone itself, but it’s possible Nokia’s prototype here simply didn’t have the final silkscreens applied. Of course, plenty of devices get FCC approval without ever seeing the light of day — but it’s a sign. Who’s buying?

Nokia C7 with T-Mobile user’s manual hits FCC: is this the Tiger? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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