Hasta La Gadget!

When a tablet version of Chrome OS was teased back in February of last year, we found it a legitimately exciting proposition. Now that we have Android’s Honeycomb iteration designed specifically for slates, however, we’re having to wonder just why Google’s still chasing that keyboard-less dream with its web-centric OS. CNET has been doing some snooping in and around the latest iterations of Chrome OS, where it’s discovered numerous pieces of circumstantial evidence, such as a new onscreen keyboard, suggesting tablets are still very much on the menu. Chrome OS kicked off life on the development device known as Cr-48 and will resume availability this summer courtesy of Acer and Samsung, though we’d kind of assumed it would stick to notebooks now that Android’s making a sincere effort on devices bigger than an EVO. Mountain View has responded to CNET‘s queries with a pretty inconclusive statement, saying only that “We are engaging in early open-source work for the tablet form factor, but we have nothing new to announce at this time.” Check out last year’s concept video after the break.

Continue reading Google adding touchscreen-friendly tweaks to Chrome OS, still has tablets on its mind

Google adding touchscreen-friendly tweaks to Chrome OS, still has tablets on its mind originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 07 Apr 2011 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Our good friends over at PreCentral have just received a couple of juicy scoops, even for this time of the day. According to their proven tipster, what we’re looking at here is an upcoming webOS phone sans keyboard — a first for Rubinstein’s crew, as many of you might already know. While there’s not much detail to go with this pic, it appears that this here slate’s just slightly bigger than the Pre 3, and that the little spot above the screen could be either a front-facing camera or merely a proximity sensor. Following PreCentral’s logic, this could very well be the Stingray that showed up in the list of codenames back in November — the similarly sized Pre 3 is Mantaray, whereas the smaller Veer is Broadway, leaving Stingray and Windsor unclaimed. But of course, we wouldn’t place our bets just yet.

Speaking of the Pre 3, the same tipster also sent in a spyshot of said phone connected to Verizon. While we already know that this slider packs both CDMA and GSM radios, this is actually the first prototype seen running on the former. Alas, the mysterious tipster is again keeping a tight lip about this leak. Picture after the break.

Continue reading HP’s keyboard-less webOS phone and Verizon Pre 3 leaked?

HP’s keyboard-less webOS phone and Verizon Pre 3 leaked? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 02:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In life as in death, it seems, getting your hands on an iPad 2 is no easy feat. Reuters is reporting today that paper replicas of the tablet are selling out in parts of Asia, as revelers prepare to set the things ablaze during China’s Qingming festival Tuesday. As is tradition, paper versions of money, clothing, and, yes, consumer electronics are burned as offerings to the dead, and this year Apple’s latest slate is apparently all the rage for expired techies — one shopkeeper in Malaysia said his stock of 300 paper iPad 2s sold out quickly, leaving him unable to meet demand. Sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it?

China’s dead affected by iPad 2 shortages of a different sort originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 21:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Boy oh boy, these Taiwanese companies are seriously gunning to take the bottom out of the Honeycomb tablet market. After we saw ASUS stride forward with very competitive pricing on its 10-inch Eee Pad Transformer, we’re now being treated to Acer’s riposte, an eminently reasonable £300 ($483) price tag attached to its 7-inch Iconia Tab. Nothing is really skimped on here, you get the dual-core Tegra 2 and Android 3.0 one-two punch of hardware and software that’s become so popular lately, and of course the RAM is 512MB, not KB as indicated on Amazon’s listing. Perhaps the 8GB of storage will be a little on the light side, but given the price, we consider that a most forgivable shortcoming. Amazon notes the release date as April 20th in the UK and we doubt the rest of the world will have to wait much longer either.

Acer’s 7-inch Iconia Tab A100 priced at £300 in UK, launching April 20th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 04:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In non-Soviet Russia… presidents tend to receive some pretty swanky high-tech gifts. Dmitry Medvedev, leader of the good people of Russia and one of the few men to successfully rock denims with a suit jacket, has been bestowed with a fresh new iPad 2 and his facial expression seems to suggest he was immediately irradiated with blasts of magic, fairy dust, and the smiles of innocent children from across the world. We just hope he hasn’t seen the crummy camera yet, he is something of a tablet photography connoisseur.

Darren: “Why, lookie there! I can see Alaska from my iPad 2!”
Joe: “I can’t believe I’m playing chess with Gary Kasparov!”
Jose: “I wonder if Barack also likes to play Risk on his iPad.”
Josh F.: “See? The cat is talking but he’s saying ‘has’ instead of ‘have!'”
Don: “Kickin’ in the front seat, sittin’ in the back seat, gotta make my mind up, which seat can I take?”
Tim: “Look, it already has Words with Comrades installed!”
Vlad: “And this has push notifications for when Mr. Putin has instructions for me, yes?”
Richard Lawler: “10,000 apps and it’s still cheaper than buying the New Jersey Nets.”
Myriam: “And so if I tap here, it opens the door to the shark tank… and over here are the laser controls. Cool, eh?”
Richard Lai: “Hullo Anna!”

Caption Contest: Russian prez is impressed by iPad 2 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 17:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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