Hasta La Gadget!

As much as we love our rumormongering, a good hard confirmation never goes astray around these parts, and we’ve just heard directly from Moto that its Xoom tablet will be arriving in the UK next week. When precisely, we don’t know, but the major electronics retailers will all be playing their part — Dixons (and its subsidiaries Currys and PC World) plus the Carphone Warehouse were specifically named. As to pricing, we’ve seen pretty strong indications that it’ll be £500 for the WiFi-only version and £600 for the 3G-equipped one, though there’s no immediate confirmation about which (or if both) will be coming next week. Either way, the important thing is that the world’s first Honeycomb tablet will be on sale in some form just as soon as the next British fiscal year gets started.

Motorola Xoom officially landing in UK next week, still has to finalize pricing and SKUs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Oh, woe is us. Or, to be more precise, woe is us if we wanted the Xperia Play on the UK’s O2 network on the day of its release, April 1st. The British carrier has been candid in admitting it found software bugs on the Play and is holding back release of the gamer-friendly device until those have been ironed out. We appreciate its effort in “testing the phone non-stop for weeks” and its reluctance to grab a quick buck by releasing imperfectly baked goods, but a major question remains — if this isn’t an O2-specific software problem, and we’ve heard no peep of O2 customizing the Android 2.3 build on the Play, why are no other carriers signaling a similar delay? Vodafone is still aiming to deliver UK pre-orders by April 5th and there seems to be no indication of flawed software from others. Only thing we can think of, given that O2 has the white Xperia Play exclusive, is that the white phone curse has struck again.

[Thanks, Ed]

Update: Here’s what Sony Ericsson has to say on the matter:

“Sony Ericsson Xperia[TM] PLAY will be launching on 1st April across all UK mobile operator partners except for O2, who have decided to prolong the testing period in order to ensure that the software meets the requirements of its procedures. Sony Ericsson will be workingwith O2 over the next couple of weeks to expedite the process and ensure that O2 customers can soon join consumers across the UK in being able to enjoy the world’s first PlayStation certified smartphone.”

Xperia Play delayed by O2 UK due to software bugs, what are the other carriers doing? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Mar 2011 11:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Crime, it just doesn’t pay. Well, actually it does, to the tune of £53,612, but then you get caught and you have to work off that salary with two years at Her Majesty’s pleasure. One Ashley Mitchell, an enterprising 29-year old from Devon, England, managed to break into Farmville maker Zynga‘s mainframe, hijack the identities of two of its staffers, and procure for himself a cool £7 million ($11.4m) in virtual poker chips. He then proceeded to sell about a third of them for the above sum, while consuming a big chunk of the rest in satisfying his own gambling habit. Ashley already had a history of digital malfeasance, having previously hacked into the systems of Torbay Council, his former employer, and is now on the receiving end of a two-year prison term for his current crime plus the activation of a 30-week suspended sentence. There’s a warning in this tale of woe for us all, however — Monsieur Mitchell piggybacked on his neighbors’ unsecured WiFi networks in order to do his dastardly deeds. Slap a password on that router, won’t you?

Hacker nets two years in jail after pilfering £7 million in virtual poker chips originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While the US military is developing solar powered tents, the UK is instead focusing on solar powered uniforms for soldiers.

By including photovoltaic solar cells in the uniform itself, it will eliminate the need for soldiers to carry around heavy batteries. In fact, the solar cells could be up to 50 percent lighter, creating a dramatic shift in weight. This increased lightness, combined with the fact that soldiers will no longer have to return to base to recharge equipment, will allow for increased mobility.

Researchers are also attempting to include thermoelectric chargers in the uniforms, which would allow them to continue to produce energy even when the sun goes down.

The high-tech gear could be ready within the next two years.

Via Inhabitat

People who love a given car tend to keep that car for awhile, longer than they should sometimes, but that isn’t always an option. Sometimes you have to give it back, and such is the case for the 40 “pioneers” who were among the first to get their mitts on and bums in the electric prototype Mini E in the UK. That fleet of test vehicles has been summoned back home, but thankfully not to suffer the same fate of the recalled GM EV1 — most of which were crushed in the ’90s. Instead, most of these Minis will find new homes among corporate vehicle fleets, though the testing program itself is largely over. From that program BMW learned that most drivers got along just fine, despite a complete lack of public charging stations, though some said cold temps put a crimp on the driving habits — a possible counterpoint to one EV Mini tester on this side of the pond found. All that data is being used to tailor the upcoming BMW i3, which we’ve already seen hooning around in some rather frigid weather but won’t be seen hooning on public streets until 2013 or so.

Mini E field trial ends, for the 40 testers a search for a new car begins originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 20 Mar 2011 12:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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