Hasta La Gadget!

Proving once again that in this world it’s more important what you look like than what you do, the Xbox 360 has cruised to the title of best-selling console in June on the back of a sexy physical redesign. The latest numbers from NPD show that Microsoft shifted 451,700 units in the US, which ousts the Wii’s tally of 422,500 and comfortably dwarfs the PS3’s 304,800. Still, if Sony wants any consolation it need only look back to the results of its own console Slimmification last year — US sales were said to have tripled in the immediate aftermath of the new SKU’s release. So Microsoft might have a little bit of catching up to do yet, and let’s not forget that the king of all hardware sales remains the DS, which somehow managed to sell more than half a million devices in June, in spite of the whole world and its dog already owning one.

Xbox 360 sales increase 88 percent in June, give it US console crown for the month originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 01:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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GPS-guided parachutes are nothing new — in fact, we’re guessing that a few are being dropped somewhere in this wide world right now — but a new deal between the Armed Services Blood Program and US Joint Forces Command will allow these devices to start saving even more lives in 2011. As the story goes, a cadre of air-dropped ‘chutes will be sent to the front lines of the battlefield in order to deliver vital blood to medics. For those unaware, blood loss is a major cause of death in war, and by skipping over the lengthy process that’s currently in place for delivery, the powers that be feel that more soldiers can be saved. Reportedly, the JPADS system “is a family of guided parachutes that can carry payloads ranging from about 150 to 60,000 pounds,” and at a predetermined altitude, a “parafoil deploys and a GPS-device steers supplies to an exact target.” The new system, however, will rely on ultralight versions of the aforesaid JPADS in order to sneak into locations that were previously thought impossible to penetrate. ‘Course, all of this will be a moot point once the robot armies rise to power and start pulverizing each other with scrap metal, but hey…

GPS parachutes delivering blood to front lines in the coming years originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Jul 2010 16:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you trust your government? Do you just support it like an obedient Britney Spears, steadfast to your faith that it will do the right thing? Your answer to those questions will almost certainly predict your response to a Wall Street Journal exposé of a classified US government program provocatively dubbed, “Perfect Citizen.” Why not just call it “Big Brother,” for crissake! Oh wait, according to an internal Raytheon email seen by the WSJ, “Perfect Citizen is Big Brother,” adding, “The overall purpose of the [program] is our Government…feel[s] that they need to insure the Public Sector is doing all they can to secure Infrastructure critical to our National Security.”

Histrionics aside, according to the WSJ, the “expansive” program is meant to detect assaults on private companies and government agencies deemed critical to the national infrastructure. In other words, utilities like the electricity grid, air-traffic control networks, subway systems, nuclear power plants, and presumably MTV. A set of sensors deployed in computer networks will alert the NSA of a possible cyber attack, with Raytheon winning a classified, $100 million early stage contract for the surveillance effort. Now, before you start getting overly political, keep in mind that the program is being expanded under Obama with funding from the Bush-era Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative. The WSJ also notes that companies won’t be forced to install the sensors. Instead, companies might choose to opt-in because they find the additional monitoring helpful in the event of cyber attack — think of Google’s recent run-in with Chinese hackers as a potent example.

Like most citizens, we have mixed emotions about this. On one hand, we cherish our civil liberties and prefer to keep the government out of our personal affairs. On the other, we can barely function when Twitter goes down, let alone the national power grid.

Filed under: Internet

Perfect Citizen: secret NSA surveillance program revealed by WSJ originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Jul 2010 04:28:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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White House pledges another $800 million for broadband stimulus originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Jul 2010 16:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, the Brits ain’t gonna be happy when they see this in the AM. What we’re looking at here is presumably the Dell Streak’s final US packaging — a far cry from the cardboard boxes that the Englishmen are given (and let’s not forget the silly photoshop error on the top). If the features list is correct, this five-inch Android phone is definitely headed to AT&T’s 850MHz 3G band for now (hang in there, T-Mobile fans). Other than that, the accessories and the phone itself look identical to what we’ve got in London, but we totally wouldn’t mind getting hold of this sexy acrylic box — it’d make a pretty cool cradle, don’t you think? Head over to the source link to feed your eyes.

Update: Here’s another found on eBay. [Thanks, Johnny S.]

Dell Streak’s supposed US packaging is gorgeous, unboxed with elegance originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Jun 2010 01:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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