Hasta La Gadget!

Buying a Samsung Galaxy S sounded like a fantastic decision when Android 2.1 was hot stuff, but now that Gingerbread‘s out of the oven, Fascinate, Captivate, Vibrant and Epic 4G owners are starting to get a little tired of being stuck behind the curve. And while we can think of at least one fairly nasty reason why Samsung might be delaying, we’ve been hearing all sorts of conspiracy theories, ranging from holding back Froyo to sell more dedicated Gingerbread phones to making the cellular carriers foot the bill for Android updates for every handset sold or else not get the update at all.

Well, it seems that last rumor’s gained a little traction, because Samsung’s taken it upon itself to squash the story flat. The company gave Phone Scoop the following statement: “No. Samsung is not charging carriers for Froyo updates to Galaxy S. We hope to have more detail on status shortly. Promise!” At this rate, we’re wondering if Samsung should just skip Froyo and just start rolling out some Gingerbread men instead.

Samsung says it isn’t charging carriers for Android updates, promises Galaxy S status report originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ouch. Over the weekend, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen tweeted that a new firmware was imminent for the Boxee Box, and given that we’d all been led to believe that both Netflix and Vudu support were inbound shortly, the natural expectation was… well, natural. Late last night the company went live with a new build, but it was pulled from existence within a few hours. According to Boxee’s blog post, the new update adds enhancements to control de-interlacing and video filters configuration, support for language selection in subtitle / audio, boosted browser performance and about 812 bug fixes. That’s the good news. The bad news is two threefold: there’s nary a mention of Netflix support, and while the team is just about there with Vudu, it’s also remaining off of the list for this particular update. Moreover, the devs noticed such major issues that the software was yanked from the servers only hours after it was posted, and judging by official comments in the source link below, things still aren’t totally ironed out. Translation? Hold tight for now, tough as it may be.

Boxee Box firmware gets updated, pulled — still no Netflix and Vudu originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Good news for those early adopters burdened by an underperforming Sony Ericsson LiveView: help is on the way. According to the official Sony Ericsson Product Blog, the company will roll out an update via its SE Update Service in January that should address connection issues between the wrist-worn display / remote control and Android phones. Other “minor issues” will be solved with updates to the LiveView Application in the Android Market, though SE isn’t clear on when those might be made available — hopefully soon because we can’t wait for this device to finally achieve its potential.

Sony Ericsson LiveView getting much needed January update originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 22 Dec 2010 05:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft just released — or should we say, Apple just approved — version 2.0 of the Bing search app for iOS devices. In addition to several other new features including integrated Facebook Likes on search results (really!?) and in-app checkins to Facebook and Foursquare, Bing now comes packing Streetside, something that first blew us away as Street Slide when it was still in the labs at Microsoft Research. Unlike Google’s Streetview that requires a lot of forward- and back-clicking and turning in order to get a feel for a location, Streetslide provides a more comprehensive view of the shops and businesses in an area by letting you strafe down the sidewalk while zooming in and out of the buildings located on each side of the street. We took it for a brief spin (literally) and came away impressed. You won’t find Streetside implemented for all locations yet (for example, San Francisco’s Make-out Room was found on Streetside but the Slanted Door restaurant wasn’t) but they do seem to have large swaths of major cities covered based on our brief testing of Chicago, Seattle, New York, and San Francisco. Sorry, nothing yet in London and Amsterdam but maybe you’ll have better success searching your own neighborhoods. See the full list of what’s new after the break in addition to a Streetside demo from Bing’s architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas — unfortunately, we’re not seeing the impressive Panaroma feature he mentions in this release.

Update: We’ve been told that Facebook Likes, like Panaroma, like totally didn’t make it into the app release. It’s a web search results feature only for the time being.

Continue reading Bing 2.0 brings better Facebook integration and the impressive Streetside to iPhone (video)

Bing 2.0 brings better Facebook integration and the impressive Streetside to iPhone (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Dec 2010 05:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See, sometimes dreams do come true. Just days after we asked how you’d tweak the second generation Apple TV, in flies an update that a good many TV owners have been anxiously awaiting. The 4.1.1 update purportedly solves “an issue that causes some high-definition TVs to incorrectly display at 480p,” as well as an issue that “may cause a movie or TV show to be re-downloaded.” It’s pretty obvious that Apple’s aiming to correct a nagging color / banding problem that has been plaguing some owners since day one, but according to users over at Apple Insider‘s forums, it’s not a cure-all solution. A handful of members have stated that their sets — typically using an HDMI-to-DVI adapter — still display incorrect colors after the update. Flip on your own box and get the download started, and let us know if it’s the fix you’ve been after down in comments below.

Apple TV updated to 4.1.1, aims to fix resolution and download problems originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Dec 2010 08:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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