Hasta La Gadget!

So the UK is finally catching up with the fine money-grubbing nations of this world and allowing product placement in British-made TV programming, starting from next Monday, February 28th. Advertising embedded in internationally sourced films and shows has long been tolerated as a necessary evil within the Queen’s realm, but now that the telecoms regulator Ofcom is opening up locally farmed TV content to the blight of commercialization, it’s come up with a suitably austere logo to warn us of its dangers. Basically, any future episodes of Hollyoaks that may contain a “stray” Diet Coke or Nokia N8 within the frame will be preceded by the above P placed within a P, which will prep you for the pernicious potentiality that the programming you are perusing may provoke you into purchasing new property. Capiche?

Product placement gets a logo of its own, turns the world inside out originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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February 11th, 2011. It looks set to be a day to remember in the grand history of that titan of the mobile industry, Nokia Corporation. Its fearless new leader has been trumpeting the need for change both in public appearances and in the private corridors of Espoo, and tomorrow he gets the stage all to himself, having been handed the keys and told to pick a direction in which to drive. Will he steer Finland’s proudest export into the warm embrace of Microsoft and its developing Windows Phone 7 platform? Will he respond to being described as the orchestrator of a turkey sandwich? Or will he be his usual understated self and lay out a sensible roadmap for righting the wrongs of Nokia’s recent past? If we’re lucky, he’ll do all three tomorrow morning. The show gets started early, at 10AM GMT, but whether you’re staying up late or getting up early, we don’t expect you to miss a moment of it.

12:00AM – Hawaii
02:00AM – Pacific
03:00AM – Mountain
04:00AM – Central
05:00AM – Eastern
10:00AM – London
11:00AM – Paris
01:00PM – Moscow
03:30PM – Mumbai
07:00PM – Tokyo
09:00PM – Sydney

Nokia’s Capital Markets Day is tomorrow, and we’ll be there live! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 10 Feb 2011 13:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A BBC Interactive Operations Engineer has British hearts all aflutter tonight with a tweet announcing that the iPlayer app for the iPad is ready to roll out this Thursday, February 10th. It’s specific to the tablet for now, so no iPhone, and will only debut in the UK, so no BBC America for you just yet, though this is the first step toward making that cozy dream a reality. Taking the BBC TV catchup service into international waters will be done on the basis of a paid subscription model, which should dissuade all the TV License payers in the UK from revolting, but do bear in mind that this upcoming tablet app will only allow content streaming over WiFi. You’ll be able to browse the iPlayer over 3G, we’re told, but will need to hook up to some roomier wireless pipes to sip the sweet nectar of BBC Entertainment on your iPad (in app form, browser-based options are a whole other matter). Stay tuned for the fully detailed announcement in a couple of days.

BBC iPlayer app landing on UK iPads this Thursday, US in June originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lovefilm, the closest thing Europe has to an answer to Netflix, was recently swallowed whole by the Amazon juggernaut, but that doesn’t seem to have stunted its progress toward ubiquitous availability. Samsung has just announced its intent to include Lovefilm movie streaming as an app on all of its Blu-ray players in the UK, enhancing both the subscription service’s profile and its own claim to providing the user with multifunctional, “smart” technology. It’s disappointing not to see this rollout effective across all of Lovefilm’s European markets, but we guess small steps are better than no steps.

Continue reading Samsung adds Lovefilm streaming to UK Blu-ray players

Samsung adds Lovefilm streaming to UK Blu-ray players originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 31 Jan 2011 04:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The United Kingdom’s Department for Transport passed regulations making Segways subject to road traffic laws four and a half years ago, which effectively banned their use on Britain’s sidewalks. And now, after years of apparent non-enforcement, UK’s Highway Act of 1835 has finally claimed its first Segway-riding victim. An unemployed factory worker was convicted of riding a motor vehicle on a “pavement”, which apparently is another word for sidewalk in the Queen’s English, and was ordered to pay a total of £340 ($540) when the court found that Segways qualify as motor vehicles under the 176 year-old law. Given that Segways don’t meet the safety standards required to be legally used on UK roads, it looks like Brits who own Woz’s preferred mode of transport are exclusively limited to tooling around on private property lest they risk similar governmental retribution.

British man convicted for riding Segway on the sidewalk, can’t ride on the street either originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 19 Jan 2011 06:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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