Hasta La Gadget!

Rumors of delayed units aside, it seems as though Apple has already begun shipping the first round of iPads to those customers who pre-ordered the device early. Customers who ordered the tablet on the first day have started to receive Apple store shipping notices.

As Mac Rumors points out, however, just because Apple got the jump on shipping, doesn’t mean that customers will be receiving the devices before their stated April 3rd ship by date. Apple has, in the past, coordinated delayed delivery with UPS.

The Wi-Fi only devices will be the first shipped. Those who ordered 3G devices will have to wait a few weeks for their units.

Well beginning of April, you sure do like tablets for $499, don’t ya? While the Eee PC T101MT has been available to suave Europeans since February, ASUS has let out word that the 10-inch, multitouch tablet will start shipping in the US sometime in April for $499. Not a bad deal considering the Pine Trail-powered netvertible has been priced around 499 Euros overseas — though we’re unsure at this point of the final specs of the American T101MT and what version of Windows 7 it will boot. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled for it at the usual retailers, but before you head out and buy one you may want to wait on our upcoming full review to see how this thing measures up to the other netvertibles out there.

ASUS Eee PC T101MT headed to US in April for $499 originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s the first poker table we’ve seen since the enviable X10 surfaced in 2008 that would fit appropriately in the new Aria (read: Vegas 2.0), and given that we just left the halls of CTIA ourselves, we couldn’t be drooling any more heavily over this gorgeous creation. Designed and built by students at the University of Duisburg-Essen, the Poker Surface magically combines a multitouch surface with an interactive mobile application that enables users to see their cards when they tilt the phone upwards towards their face. Then, users can complete a play by sliding in their bet(s) and flipping their hand once they’re all-in. There’s no word on when (or if) this gambler’s dream will be available for shipment to man caves everywhere, but you owe it to yourself to peek the video after the break, regardless.

Continue reading Poker Surface beautifully weds multitouch table, cellphone interaction and illicit gambling

Poker Surface beautifully weds multitouch table, cellphone interaction and illicit gambling originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been hearing of OpenPeak devices for years, but the company is a little camera shy — particularly because most of their products, like the Verizon Hub and O2 Joggler, are re-branded by carriers. However, the company seems to be getting behind its recently announced OpenTablet 7 in a big way, recently announcing a partnership with AT&T for data plans in the US. Neither party will confirm exact plan pricing, but we’re getting the vibe that it will be “familiar” to folks who’ve seen iPad data pricing. The device itself is surprisingly well built — not at all one of these dime-a-tablet jobs — and the software is rather mature as well. OpenPeak claims to have “thousands of apps” for its platform that stretches across devices including phones, frames, and now a tablet, with a Linux-based platform with a Flash layer on top.

Refreshingly for the tablet space, the UI isn’t a bit laggy, and seems pretty far along, though we’re promised even more polish as this thing nears market. We didn’t check out a browser, and some elements like the touchscreen keyboard are pretty dismal, but for home automation or video conferencing (the device packs a 1080p front-facing camera and a 5 megapixel shooter around back), it seems like OpenPeak can carve a niche for itself on the market. Most of all, we’re impressed with the 1.9GHz Moorestown chip under the hood, which offers huge power savings over Atom; plenty of juice for some media rich apps, UI elements, and video; and even runs cool to the touch. An included docking station offers charging and port replication, but there’s also an HDMI plug built right into the bottom of the tablet, along with removable microSD up top. No word on when exactly this will hit the market this year, how much it’ll cost, or if it’ll be rebranded by AT&T. Check out a video hands-on after the break, and a quick note on the press shots below: apps are subject to change based on the rebadger’s own partnerships.

Continue reading OpenPeak’s OpenTablet 7 hands-on: Moorestown has found a friend

OpenPeak’s OpenTablet 7 hands-on: Moorestown has found a friend originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Wall Street Journal is running a piece that focuses on ad sales for the iPad. Pretty boring stuff except for a few nuggets related to the actual content we crave. Rupert Murdoch already confirmed that his monument to main stream media was coming to the iPad. Hell, they’ve even been treated to a rare, in-house device to assist with the development of the iPad version of the Wall Street Journal. Now it’s quoting “a person familiar with the matter” (wink) who says that The Journal plans to charge subscribers $17.99 per month for iPad subscriptions — for comparison, the print version of the WSJ costs $349 for 52 weeks or about $29 per month. Not bad, but you can’t roll up an iPad to swat the dog.

Conversely, magazines appear set to offer weekly or monthly editions out of the gate, not annual subscriptions. Sources told the WSJ that the April issue of Hearst’s Esquire magazine (no stranger to new media) will arrive in downloadable format without advertisements for $2.99, $2 less than the newsstand price, and will include five music videos (each containing the phrase “somewhere in Mississippi,” oddly enough) to take advantage of the device’s multimedia capabilities. On the other hand, a full iPad issue of Men’s Health with match the glossy’s $4.99 price. Of course, as we heard earlier, publishers will be experimenting with advertising and pricing models to see what works so expect things to be fluid for quite some time after the April 3rd launch.

WSJ on iPad for $17.99 a month, magazines to be at or near newsstand prices? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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