Prior to the unveiling of the new iPad 3, there was a lot of speculation and rumors about what processor would be on board and what features the new tablet. The older iPad 2 came with an A5 processor which included a dual core graphics processor and 512mb of RAM. The graphics processor takes care of all the display functions whilst the main processor handles all of the other functions. A lot of the rumors prior to the new iPad [...]
Station Saint-Martin along Paris’s Metro Line 8 & 9 was closed in 1939, at the start of WWII, and although reopened once the war had ended, the station was ultimately shutter for good due its close proximity (100m) to another Metro station. More »
As much as we’re familiar with mobile device torture tests, they’re normally inflicted by us or otherwise not-so-voluntary. Nokia, however, has stepped up to the plate and doled out the abuse to the Lumia 900 itself with a hammer and nail, all based on a wager that the Windows Phone’s use of Gorilla Glass would hold up to Sonim-level punishment. The company’s Chris Ruble and Mike Meyers (not that Mike Myers) used a Lumia 710 as a dry run before an on-camera demo that not only saw the 900 assaulted with the hammer, but used as a blunt instrument itself — all without a crack or scratch. We imagine that other toughened-glass phones would survive the hit, and there’s every possibility that smacking the polycarbonate plastic would leave more than a scuff mark. Nokia’s test still proves that its pride and joy can withstand more than just a casual roughing up, and you can see the slightly cringe-inducing test in the video below.
Delaware courts have have called for delegates from HTC and Apple to meet on August 28 to talk about settling the patent dispute that has blocked the U.S. import of some HTC handsets.
It’s safe to say that anticipation is high for the upcoming Windows 8 Release Preview, which will become available in the first week of June. While we’re still curious to see if Microsoft can better integrate the desktop and Metro environments of its latest operating system, the company has now revealed a significant change to the desktop portion of Windows 8 — a completely restyled visual appearance. As you might remember from the Consumer Preview, window borders and widgets featured a simplified and subdued look in comparison to the glass-like materials of Aero, which Microsoft now calls “dated and cheesy.” With the latest refresh, however, the company has pushed its modernistic philosophy even further to reveal a spartan (yet functional) interface that draws less attention to the chrome elements and allows the user to focus more on content.
Microsoft’s latest reveal was made as part of a larger, retrospective look at its development of Windows and the evolution of the operating system. At every step, the company states that its emphasis has been on the overall “learnability” of the environment. As such, Microsoft claims that it’s making great strides to ensure that consumers may quickly get up to speed with the latest OS, and hints that it has a number of reveals yet to be seen. In its very next breath, however, it also emphasized people’s ability to adapt and move forward, which suggests the number of changes might not be as conciliatory as some might’ve hoped. Regardless, we’ll know for sure what Microsoft has in store in just a few weeks.
Update: Well, this is interesting. In the screenshot above, you’ll notice a highlighted mail-esque icon at the bottom of the taskbar. As it would turn out, Techblitz recently discovered that Microsoft swapped that shot for a nearly identical replica, albeit without the icon. Is this miniscule peek into something new in the way of Windows Live mail or similar? At this point it’s anyone guess, but we’ll keep you posted if we find out more. You’ll find the new screenshot after the break.
This morning, an updated version of the stock Android Music app was leaked along with a new version of Android Market. The new Music app, which is labeled ‘version 3′, is similar to the leaked build from December, but it has received a ton of polish — and indeed, it looks almost ready for prime time.
If you don’t have Android 2.3 — or don’t want to root your phone to install the leaked Music app — take a look through our gallery, and then read on for our initial hands-on impressions.
The CitySlicker MacBook Air Case from WaterField Designs is a beautifully compact as the Air itself. This bag is protects your Air with three layers – impact-resistant plastic, high-grade neoprene, and a padded liner – while staying thin. The CitySlicker has a ballistic nylon body with a distressed leather front flap. The back has a [...]
You’ll be saving money and packing your social calendar with this week’s best Android apps. Whether you’re looking to fill your belly or rest your head for the night, we’ve got you covered.
As much as you may Like overanalysis of the initial public offering of a Friendster ripoff valued higher than General Motors, other stuff happened this week. Tim and Brian share their Tech Timelines with you in this, The Engadget Podcast. Feel free to leave us a testimonial in the comments below. Above all, thanks for the add!
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Send your questions to @tim_stevens. Leave us a voicemail: (423) 438-3005 (GADGET-3005) E-mail us: podcast at engadget dot com Twitter: @bheater, @tim_stevens
The day Grayson James Walker was born, his parents—Heather and Patrick Walker, of Memphis, Tennessee—knew their time with him would be brief. Grayson had been diagnosed in utero with a rare neural tube birth defect called Anencephaly, in which a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull. More »
The Weather Channel for iPhone is the most popular alternative to Apple’s built-in Weather app and it recently received a complete makeover. It still has all the great features of the previous design, but the new UI is much more beautiful and user friendly.
It was bound to happen eventually, every other gadget does it. After debuting in a serious black sheen, the PS Vita is now getting a stylish white shell as well. Sadly, the shiny new pale version will only be available in Hong Kong at first, starting June 28th. There’s no price premium for grabbing the lighter shade of handheld, though, if you want the matching white accessory pack, you’ll have to pre-order. On the plus side, if you pledge now, they’ll toss in the Trooper Pack, Armor Game case, 4GB memory card and (perhaps most importantly) a lint free cloth for free. Check out the PR after the break.
Today in international tech news: Still irked about Google Maps’ non-labeling of the Persian Gulf, Iranian state-run media says the country is considering legal action against the search company. In the UK, police implement a system to extract data from mobile devices of detained suspects, while Sky News talks with police about the broadcast of a rape victim’s name via a televised Twitter feed.
Auslogics Disk Defrag has been part of my system maintenance toolkit for quite some time. With the release of version 3.2, it’s now even better at tidying up and optimizing your system’s hard disk drives. In addition to a cleaner, easier-to-use interface, Disk Defrag 3.2 offers improved single file and folder defragging, better processing of multiple disks, a simplified scheduling screen, and more informative tool tips. Auslogics has also fine-tuned the program’s defragmentation and file consolidation algorithms.
For laptop users, there’s a new option to lock the program if your system is running on battery power — so scheduled operations don’t kick in and drain your power source at an inopportune moment. If you happen to have an SSD installed in your PC, you can head to the Disk Defrag options and exclude it from scanning (many think that defragmenting an SSD is a very bad idea).
Auslogics Disk Defrag is a free download and works with most versions of Windows.
If you found yourself longing for the minor tweaks Samsung made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1in Germany earlier this year, you may be in luck: Apple’s filed for a preliminary injunction against the slate stateside. It isn’t the first one, either, Cupertino filed something similar back in February, though it didn’t quite pass legal muster. After gaining some headway earlier this week, Cook’s crew is in for round two, according to FOSS Patents, asking for Judge Koh to rule in their favor without a new hearing. Concerned consumers, however, can sidestep the whole mess by simply opting for an injunction-exempt Galaxy Tab 2. Details and speculation can be found at the source link below, just in case you aren’t already sick to death of the whole Samsung / Apple spat.
Graphene has long-held notions of grandeur over its current silicon overlord, but a few practical issues have always kept its takeover bid grounded. Samsung, however, thinks it’s cracked at least one of those — graphene’s inability to switch off current. Previous attempts to use graphene as a transistor have involved converting it to a semi-conductor, but this also reduces its electron mobility, negating much of the benefit. Samsung’s Advanced Institute of Technology has created a graphene-silicon “Schottky barrier” that brings graphene this much-needed current-killing ability, without losing its electron-shuffling potential. The research also explored potential logic device applications based on the same technology. So, does this mean we’ll finally get our flea-sized super computer implant? Maybe, not just yet, but the wheels have certainly been oiled.
Internet radio purveyors from Spotify to Rdio keep upping the ante with more playlist features and design overhauls, and the competition for your ears’ attention is only getting fiercer. One of the newest players is Thefuture.fm (formerly known as Dubset), which launched last month with a focus on DJ-curated mixtapes. Today the service outed its iPhone app, which includes a “smart search” feature for finding mixes by song or artist and lets users sync their web accounts with saved playlists for listening on the go. Looking for a new online-listening destination? Head past the break for a look at the press.
When the SpaceX Dragon capsule blasts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop the company’s Falcon rocket Saturday morning, it will be doing more than just setting off on another cargo-laden trip to the International Space Station. Rather, as the very first commercial attempt ever to fly to the ISS, this test launch will be making history.
Have you ever found yourself scrolling endlessly around your phone’s chronologically arranged photograph album — called “Gallery” in Android — looking for a photograph you’ve captured? If you can remember the specific place but not the date, then Scalado Album may be for you. I say “may be” because there are some downsides to using it over the stock “Gallery” app, which I’ll get to.
Prior to the unveiling of the new iPad 3, there was a lot of speculation and rumors about what processor would be on board and what features the new tablet. The older iPad 2 came with an A5 processor which included a dual core graphics processor and 512mb of RAM. The graphics processor takes care of all the display functions whilst the main processor handles all of the other functions. A lot of the rumors prior to the new iPad [...]
Once upon a time, there used to be a DOS game with a caveman and a human powered helicopter. The caveman would shuttle around the screen, madly trying to get customers to where they wanted to go.
Jetbus is not that game, but it’s obviously inspired by it. You’re driving a yellow school bus which has jets. I guess the jet engine takes quite a bit of space inside the bus, because you can only pick up one person at a time.
There are several doors on the screen, each with its own number. As you pick up a person, the status bar at the bottom of the screen shows you which number door you have to take them to.
You must fly your bus carefully, because if it gets bumped around too much, you lose. You earn money on each level, and can visit the garage to buy better jets and damping, power-ups, or even a whole new vehicle.
So while this game isn’t made as well as the original that inspired it, it does provide a few minutes of fun. And now, which one of you guys remembers the original and feels like pointing to it in the comments?
It may still be some time before you can take Google’s ambitious wearable computing project for a spin, but there’s certainly no shortage of head-mounted displays out there for those looking to blaze a trail of their own. You can now add Silicon Micro Display’s new ST1080 glasses to that list, a full 1080p display that will handle both 2D and 3D content (in a variety of formats), and also allow you to see through the glasses for augmented reality applications (albeit with just 10 percent transparency). As with most such glasses, however, you won’t get head-tracking capabilities, and you’ll have a couple of tethers to contend with (HDMI for video and USB for power, including via an optional battery pack). Those not put off by those constraints or the whole visor look can place their order now for $799.
Here’s one for our knowledgeable commenters: I recently bought my girlfriend an iPad. I, on the other hand, own an Android device. And now we’re looking for games we can play using both devices.
There’s no dearth of multiplayer games either for Android or for iOS. But finding multiplayer games that can cross the platform boundary is an entirely different matter.
Jay recently posted Words with Friends which is one such game. It’s actually an ideal example, because it’s turn-based so you don’t necessarily both have to be next to your device at the same time (great for long-distance gaming).
But what other examples are there? What multiplayer games are there that let iOS users play with Android users?
There are a small, but vehement, group of people that hate cilantro with a passion. But it turns out that they might not be fussy; instead, they might just be unlucky enough to be beneficiaries of a curious genetic mutation. More »
Auslogics Disk Defrag has been part of my system maintenance toolkit for quite some time. With the release of version 3.2, it’s now even better at tidying up and optimizing your system’s hard disk drives. In addition to a cleaner, easier-to-use interface, Disk Defrag 3.2 offers improved single file and folder defragging, better processing of multiple disks, a simplified scheduling screen, and more informative tool tips. Auslogics has also fine-tuned the program’s defragmentation and file consolidation algorithms.
For laptop users, there’s a new option to lock the program if your system is running on battery power — so scheduled operations don’t kick in and drain your power source at an inopportune moment. If you happen to have an SSD installed in your PC, you can head to the Disk Defrag options and exclude it from scanning (many think that defragmenting an SSD is a very bad idea).
Auslogics Disk Defrag is a free download and works with most versions of Windows.
Sand Trap is one of those games that at first seem too hard to bother with, but when you try to stop playing it you discover you’re hooked.
The goal is to get as much sand as you possibly can out of the maze and into the bucket at the bottom of the screen. You need to rotate your maze every which way to get the sand rolling around it. You then try to direct the sand to one of the exits of the maze, and hopefully into the bucket. It took me several tries to actually get sand into the bucket, but that might be due to the fact that I didn’t even realize the bucket was there at first. Things improved significantly after that.
As you level up, the mazes get more complicated, with moving parts and other things making your life more difficult. Once you manage to get through all these obstacles and get enough sand into your bucket, you can move on.
As I mentioned, this is not an easy game, but it’s highly addictive. The graphics remind me of some long lost game from the 80s, but this just proves that you don’t need super graphics and crazy sound to make a game work. There’s a soothing guitar track playing in the background and that’s it, as far as I could hear, and you can enjoy it just as much with no sound at all.
If you like a fun physics challenge, don’t miss out on this one!
In a welcome move that Comcast says is due to our changing Internet habits (streaming, streaming, streaming), Comcast is upping its monthly data caps from 250GB to 300GB. Nice! That’s definitely less awful. This is the first increase in data cap size since Comcast introduced it back in 2008. More »
Those benevolent armchair philanthropist Redditors are at it again! Four days ago a ‘self’ post extolling the potential virtues of a Backup Day exploded with 2500 upvotes and 1000 comments — and now World Backup Day 2011 is actually happening.
On March 31, as part of the global data-saving initiative, you are encouraged to back up all of your cherished photos and videos, and important documents. If you’ve ever had a hard disk fail, and not had a backup to fall back on, you’ll know that it’s a bit like losing a sizable fragment of your soul. If you’ve never backed up your important files — or if you only back up sporadically — do it on World Backup Day!
It’s not hard to back up your data, either. A 2TB drive costs only a fistful of dollars, and it takes just a few minutes to set SyncToy for Windows, or Time Machine for Mac, to mirror your data every night. If you prefer a cloud-based solution, there’s always SugarSync and Dropbox. Finally, don’t forget that Bundlelytic has a charity giveaway for three excellent data-backup-and-recovery tools — $160 of software for only $25, and 100% of the proceeds to go the Japanese Red Cross.
All iOS 4.3.1 jailbreaks are still tethered, meaning you’ll have to jailbreak your device after every reboot. An untethered jailbreak is slated for release sometime in the next week — but 4.3 was meant to have an untether, too, and that never emerged.
Maybe Apple’s updated security mechanisms will finally keep hackers at bay!
There’s a trend starting to emerge of judges wanting Apple to talk settlements with others rather than duke it out in the courtroom. Just two weeks after Apple and Samsung were steered towards talking about a potential deal, a Delaware court has ordered Apple and HTC to meet on August 28th in the hopes that they could shake hands and put an end to an increasingly hectic legal battle under the eyes of a mediating judge. Whether or not that happens is very much up in the air. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said he’s not a fan of lawsuits, but he hasn’t showed indications that he would take legal action off the table just yet. Likewise, HTC is no doubt eager to eliminate phone shipping delays stemming from Apple’s court wins, but the lack of immediate pressure and the hopes of winning countersuits might lead it to hold off. Still, if the court’s ideal vision of the world comes to pass, you could see HTC’s Cher Wang shopping in an Apple Store without staff giving her the evil eye.
Scientists in China have transmitted quantum bits, or qubits, over a record distance of 97 km, or roughly 60 miles. This is more than six times the distance of the previous record of 16 km, set by another team of Chinese researchers in May of 2010, as reported in Nature.com.
With Windows 8 milestone 3 now up for grabs for select Microsoft Connect partners, it’s inevitable that leaked bits and pieces will start popping up around the Web. In fact, the first “official” wallpaper image from the still-brewing OS is already making the rounds.
As you can see, it’s got a similar feel to the good ol’ Windows 7 default background, but features a more subdued smattering of cerulean hues. Those of you who want to use the Windows 8 wallpaper on your current desktop can download it from our file dump.
A few other details have been revealed, too. According to ZDNet’s source, the Windows 8 Jupiter libraries and Twin UI are starting to take shape — though all that’s been located thus far are “[various files] scattered throughout the OS” and the aptly-named twinui.dll.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the next iPhone will have a display which measures “at least 4 inches diagonally.” Quoting sources familiar with Apple’s supply chain, they also suggest that production of the device is due to commence next month. More »
The May 17 ShopAndroid.com Deal of the Day is the Seidio Spring-Clip Holster for HTC EVO 3D. This holster holds your HTC EVO 3D securely in place, and then lifts for quick access. Both the felt liner and the face-in design protect your screen from scratches and exposure to outside elements, and Seidio's signature soft touch coating provides a better feel and added grip.
The Quadrofoil looks like a vehicle from a James Bond action sequence. But while the world’s favorite spy seemingly has no regard for the environment while he’s blowing things up, this personal hydrofoil is powered by an eco-friendly electric motor. More »
TripAdvisor, the popular travel planning tool, has just launched an app for Windows Phone 7. Just like the mobile website, the app allows you to search for anything travel-related — from hotels and flights to restaurants and points-of-interest to visit once you reach your destination.
Geolocation is supported, which allows TripAdvisor to quickly locate places nearby. But while that’s a neat feature, it’s also a bit of a downer — because, really, it’s about the only feature TripAdvisor for WP7 brings to the table that its mobile Web app doesn’t already offer (its browser-based geolocation doesn’t work with WP7 at the moment).
While it’s nice to see Windows Phone 7 users getting some big-name apps, it’d be even nicer if we saw some packing a bit more swagger.
Still, TripAdvisor for WP7 might just be worth installing on your device if you’re frequently on the go — at least until a better browser arrives with the Mango update.
A jailbreak of iOS 4.3.1 is now possible with both PwnageTool on Mac, and Sn0wbreeze on Windows. RedmondPie — who else? — has some handy guides that you can follow for 
