Hasta La Gadget!

Calculators were the original handheld computers, but unlike the whole PDA fad, they’ve had amazing staying power through their 40-year history — to this day, buttoned-up dudes crunching numbers at wooden desks have HP 12Cs next to them not for the kitschy retro street cred, but because they’re functional, familiar, and do exactly what they’re expected to do. Thing is, even purpose-suited perfection can only carry a product for so many years; eventually, raw technology and a new generation of users with different expectations are going to conspire to tear down the status quo. HP was the first giant to recognize that it might be a good idea to have virtual versions of its products available for a more modern medium, porting the 12C and 15C to the iPhone; now, TI — HP’s archrival in the calculator business for decades — is doing the same by offering its BAII Plus as a $14.99 download from the App Store. That’s exactly the same price as the 12C, so come on, you HP and TI diehards — duke it out and tell us which brand makes the better adding machine once and for all, won’t you?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

TI joins HP, creates official business calculator port for iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Sep 2009 09:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re not sure whether to chalk this up to the fact that every good brand name is already taken, or to some folks’ delight in torturing us with obscure pronunciation — but whatever the case may be, it looks like the Wireless Power Consortium have finally come up with a spec for Wireless Power, and for it they’re using a name (and logo) probably dreamt up after repeat viewings of Big Trouble in Little China: Qi. Pronounced Ch’i (you know, as in “prana” or “life force”), the first universal wireless standard has achieved 0.95 for interoperability testing a mere seven months after setting their eyes on the goal, paving the way for an “accelerated” acceptance of 1.0, according to a company spokesperson. The Qi standard applies to devices 5 watts and below, and members of the consortium include Duracell, National Semiconductor, Olympus, Philips, Samsung, Sanyo, ST-Ericsson, and Shenzhen Sangfei Consumer Communications. At any rate, it’s nice to hear about something happening ahead of schedule for once.

[Via SlashGear]

Filed under: Peripherals, Wireless

Wireless power standard almost here, named Qi (of all things) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 18 Aug 2009 11:23:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is quite possibly a better Vaio P… you know, if it actually worked. This non-functional stunner of a prototype is sitting pretty at Computex, an event where OEMs (like Sony, HP, and Dell) shop from the latest ODM (like Foxconn and Compal) designs before tweaking for retail launch. Instead of taking chances with Vista overpowering an Intel Atom processor, however, the ECS T800 on display at Computex is destined to run Android on your choice of 800MHz OMAP3 3440 or 1GHz OMAP3 3450 TI processors. It measures in at 246 x 121 x 20-mm / 800-grams (1.76-pounds) and packs an 8.1-inch display, 512MB of memory, a 2.5-inch hard disk or SSD, and a pair of internal Mini-PCIe slots for WWAN cards. Regarding ports, we’re looking at 2x USB 2.0, a 4-in-1 card reader, and an audio jack for your headset. Hey ODMs, we’re interested (even if the case for Android on a netbook hasn’t been clearly defined) especially if it can be offered for $99 or less through a subsidized carrier agreement. So who’s going to bite first, huh? Maybe you Dell now that your Mini 9 netbook has been discontinued. Video after the break.

Continue reading Video: ECS T800 netbook brings us to our knees with Android on 1GHz OMAP3

Filed under: Laptops

Video: ECS T800 netbook brings us to our knees with Android on 1GHz OMAP3 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This one’s a bit of a stretch but totally plausible. Archos just announced a press conference in Paris on June 11th — that’s a fact. However, the choice of Android-green in the invite above has caused widespread speculation that we’ll be getting a first peep at Archos’ heavily rumored Android-based device. Remember, TI was kind enough to give us the full specs on a 10-mm thin Archos Internet Media Tablet “with all the functionalities of a premium smartphone” back in February. At that time, TI listed specs like a 5-inch high-resolution screen, Adobe Flash support, TV recording, HD playback, 500GB of storage, 7 hours of video playback off battery, voice and HSUPA data radio all powered by a smokin’ OMAP3440 processor from TI. If true then we can expect to see the device hinted at in the invite launch in Q3.

[Via SlashGear, thanks Chris]

Read — Archos Press event
Read — Archos Internet Media Tablet [February 9th, 2009]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video

Archos event June 11th: 5-inch Android tablet with voice expected originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 May 2009 04:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This economic crisis has been tough for nearly every business worldwide, perhaps best evidenced by the number of corporate spats we’ve seen develop lately as everyone gets more and more protective of their respective turfs. While Intel and NVIDIA have lately been engaged in an epic war of PowerPoint presentations, fewer disputes have been bigger or longer-running than the one between Intel and its more direct competition, AMD. That “us inside” company just earned some bragging rights, being named the biggest processor manufacturer in the world again by iSuppli, with a 13.1 percent global market share. AMD, which came in tenth last year, dropped down to the number twelve position in 2008 after its revenue declined 7.8 percent compared to 2007. News was also bad for Texas Instruments, which dropped a position largely thanks to the success of mobile processors from Toshiba and Qualcomm. Don’t be so glum, TI, maybe successes from Russell Crowe’s favorite flavor of pico projector will make up for the difference.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Intel rated leading chip manufacturer again, AMD slips out of top ten originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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