Hasta La Gadget!

Comcast’s Plaxo acquisition has borne fruit beyond its social media address book roots with Tunerfish, aimed at pulling social networking features and TV into one website. Currently in closed alpha, it lets TV watchers note what they’re watching and share with others, Foursquare style. No word on what being “mayor” of Chuck gets you (if it’s not a discount at Subway we’ll be disappointed) but the idea is to be able to keep an eye on what’s trending amongst the larger pool of viewers or just your friends (who, presumably, have similar tastes. Of course there’s Facebook and Twitter integration, and an iPhone app will be available when the beta launches in the next few weeks. Notably absent at this time is any Comcast branding, so it should be wide open no matter where you get your TV broadcasts from, but given the company’s interests in bringing together internet and TV we wouldn’t be surprised to see some Xfinity labeling work its way in sooner or later. Check out an epic 35-minute video interview with Robert Scoble (embedded after the break, demo starts about 10 minutes in) for more info, or just go ahead and sign up for the latest updates on the official site. It’s like we always say — if your followers & friends didn’t want to know what you were doing every second of every day, then why did they add you in the first place?

Continue reading Comcast’s Tunerfish adds social media check-ins to your TV watching

Comcast’s Tunerfish adds social media check-ins to your TV watching originally appeared on Engadget HD on Mon, 24 May 2010 20:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft’s two newest phones, the Kin One and Kin Two, take aim at the same demographic as the company’s earlier Sidekick phones: Text-happy tweens.

The phones have a promising new interface that puts social media updates front and center, with tweets, Facebook updates and other tiny news blurbs stacked up in an attractive column on the phones’ home screen. And the smaller Kin One is super cute.

But do the phones measure up? They’re not exactly smartphones, and with poor web browsing and e-mail capabilities — not to mention no app store — they don’t deliver everything you might expect.

Check out the video below, in which I go over the high and low points of these phones, which are available now from Verizon.

Highlights from our recent review:

Kin One

WIRED Super pocket-friendly size and weight (4.1 ounces). Cute as a button. Surprisingly usable keyboard. Built-in FM tuner. Extremely responsive touchscreen.

TIRED Screen too small for much reading or web browsing. Autofocus problems, especially on closeups. Video recording is only standard definition. Doesn’t integrate with Google contacts or calendar. Limited Twitter capabilities.

$50 (after $100 mail-in rebate, with 2-year contract)

Kin Two

WIRED Free and automatic browser-based phone backup. Easy sharing of photos, videos and web pages.

TIRED Lack of apps and games. No easy way to access maps. El cheap-o design. No calendar or alarm. No onscreen keyboard.

$100 (after $100 mail-in rebate, with 2-year contract)

Want more of the lowdown? Read our review of Microsoft’s Kin One and Kin Two.

While RIM’s WES 2010 keynote is still ongoing, the company’s YouTube channel has kindly released the first teaser video for the incoming BlackBerry 6 operating system. There’s a lot of movement on screen — so much, in fact, that it’s almost like RIM really doesn’t want you to see the OS at all. We did catch sight of a Cover Flow-aping music organizer, an onscreen keyboard engaging in some threaded messaging, Facebook and Twitter clients, and even the briefest of glimpses at that famed WebKit-based browser. Interaction in the video is done via touch, but you’ll naturally be able to utilize the new interface on more conventional, touch-less devices as well. Skip past the break for the moving pictures.

Continue reading RIM shows off BlackBerry 6 on video

RIM shows off BlackBerry 6 on video originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 09:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The countdown is over and the mystery is solved. Nokia just let us in on the secret of its “everyone connect” teaser: a trio of new middling handsets. Yes folks, hardware, but not the N-series flagship many of you were hoping for. Instead we’ve got a handful of affordable QWERTY cellphones bent on bringing messaging and social networking to the masses. Naturally, these devices aren’t going to compete for the attention of the N8-00 crowd — that’s fine, they’re not meant to. Today’s launch is part of Nokia’s global strategy to push the smartphone experience down into the dumbphone market.

Let’s start things off with the colorful C3-00 (available Q2 for €90 pre-tax and pre-subsidy) — Nokia’s first Series 40 QWERTY. The quad-band GSM candybar crams its social networking tools onto a 2.4-inch QVGA homescreen with Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, and 55MB of internal memory (and up to 8GB supported on microSD) coming along for the ride. It’s also packing the Opera Mini browser in addition to the standard Webkit fare for browsing the mobile internet on the C3’s paltry EGPRS data connection. But hey, €90. Moving on, we’ve got the more ambitious C6-00 (Q2, €220) 4-row QWERTY slider with quad-band GSM/EDGE and quad-band HSDPA/UMTS on the 850/900/1900/2100 frequencies. The familiar looking C6 runs S60 5th on that 3.2-inch nHD (640 x 360 pixel) touchscreen (resistive, we presume) with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera and flash riding the backside. Of course, it also features integrated A-GPS for free Ovi Maps turn-by-turn navigation as is the case for all new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones. Finally we’ve got the E5-00 (Q3, €180) for those in need of a S60 3rd device that’s a bit more business-minded than the C3 but twice the price (but still cheap). That means tri-band UMTS, A-GPS, WiFi and another unfortunate 2.4-inch LCD. Full press release after the break.

Continue reading Nokia C3, C6, and E5 try to smarten up the dumbphone market

Nokia C3, C6, and E5 try to smarten up the dumbphone market originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple patent applications are usually pretty dry, but it looks like a new one turned up by Patently Apple has a bit more user-focused meat to it — it describes a location-based social networking app called “iGroups,” which lets groups of people share data amongst themselves using a service like MobileMe. Once group members are identified and linked up, they can securely share information and users carrying devices without GPS-abilities will be able to triangulate their position using the positions of other GPS-enabled devices in the group. Of course, the actual patent itself is focused on the cryptographic key system that protects all the data, and we’re pretty sure the “iGroups” name is just a placeholder for now — we’d guess the developer of the iGroups app currently in the App Store hopes so too — so how this winds up in a shipping product is totally up in the air, but our interest in what iPhone OS 4.0 may hold has certainly been piqued once again.

Apple patent reveals iGroups location-based social networking for iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 01:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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