Build it, and they will come. We suspect the same is true with shipping papers. Go Solar USA most certainly hopes so, as it has just inked a deal with Chinese developer Yosion to bring the much-hyped Apple Peel 520 to the US of A. For those unaware, this slip-on case effectively turns your iPod touch into an iPhone, as it equips your PMP with a SIM card slot and the software needed to make / receive calls and texts. Granted, it's not without its flaws, but for "around $60," it's not a half-bad alternative to handing over your cellular soul to AT&T. Both companies have reportedly agreed to work together to distribute it in the United States, but it's unclear when those shipments will start and how much it'll retail for once it arrives. Oh, and don't hold your breath for compatibility with the latest and greatest touch -- just sayin'.

Continue reading Apple Peel 520 coming to US shores shortly for an undisclosed amount

Apple Peel 520 coming to US shores shortly for an undisclosed amount originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 07:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung knows you love a good AMOLED. They knows it well. A little too well, actually, what with all the recent shortages they’ve faced.

Samsung aren’t sitting around doin’ nothin’, though.

Samsung told the Wall Street Journal today that their new Mobile Display fabrication plant — set to go live in July 2011 — will increase the current AMOLED display production from 3 million units per month to a jaw-dropping 30 million per month. Yeah, that’s right, a 10x increase.

With these new production rates, Samsung believes that it will be able to keep up with the projected 700 million AMOLED displays that will be required in 2015.

Interestingly, the original article also stated that Samsung’s Super-AMOLED displays are actually available to any manufacturer, and not a Samsung exclusive, contrary to previous beliefs. I’m certainly happy to hear that, even if it could be a case of miscommunication within Samsung.

[via Engadget]

Sure, popular belief equates Columbian exports with guns and cocaine, but two Bogota-based companies presently have 10-inch tablet computers on the brain. Compumax has got an Android-powered Tegra 2 device on tap with a dual-core 1GHz Cortex A9, 512MB of RAM and a 32GB hard drive, and Smart PC's looking at a netbook-specced Windows 7 slate with an Atom N450 processor, a DVD burner, up to 2GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive, a folding stand and a pair of peripheral-friendly USB ports alongside what looks like a fairly responsive multitouch screen. Intriguingly enough, the companies claim the devices aren't rebrands and are actually built in Columbia from foreign parts -- the "Hyper" Android slate is reportedly already on sale for COP 700,000 (about $387), and you can expect the "Smart Touch" Windows machine to debut for COP 1,099,000 (about $608) when it debuts in Peru next month. See the latter machine in action right after the break.

Continue reading Columbia pumps out 10-inch Android and Windows 7 tablets (video)

Columbia pumps out 10-inch Android and Windows 7 tablets (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 06:25:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While it may not be as super-charged as the Samsung Galaxy S, this QWERTY-packin’ Android slider still looks to be a solid phone — even if we have only a few details on it at the moment.

“What details?” I hear you ask. Well, to be honest… very few. It’ll be priced around 200 Euros (no US pricing release details just yet).

The rest seems standard for a mid-range device: 5MP camera, HSDPA, WiFi Bluetooth 3.0, and MicroSD. The best news is that it’ll run Android 2.2 (aka Froyo), the not-best news is that it’ll probably also run Samsung’s less-than-awesome TouchWiz 3.0 UI (coz Samsung love it so).

There is no information on what processor it’s running, but for that price, don’t expect gigahertz speeds.

So why the excitement? QWEEEEERTYYYYYY!

I’m a simple man with simple tastes, it seems.

[via Into Mobile]

We already knew about Samsung's grand plans for expanding its display production in 2011, but now we also have a number to give us a sense of scale: 30 million. That's how many screens the new Mobile Display fab (set to go live in July) will be able to churn out in a month, a vastly superior rate than the current 3 million maximum. Lee Woo-Jong, the display business' marketing VP, tells us its estimates for AMOLED market demand have been revised upwards to 700 million units in 2015, with the new facility obviously being the key cog in making that growth happen. Intriguingly, he also notes that Super AMOLED -- one of the big attractions of the Galaxy S line of Samsung phones -- is not exclusive to Samsung's electronics arm, everyone can apparently use it. That directly contradicts what we heard from Sammy's mobile reps, but then this is hardly the first time that one part of Samsung doesn't know what the other is doing. Still, it's nice to at least dream of a S-AMOLED HTC HD7, no?

Samsung Mobile Display promises 10x increase in production next year, end to AMOLED shortages originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yo Nokia, you can keep your E5 and its HD Voice fanciness, we want ourselves an N-KIA E68. Why, we hear the enraged Nokia acolyte ask, why would we defile Nokia's good name in such a manner? Mostly because this phone has one of the most fun and ingenious slider mechanisms we've seen yet. So what if we've got no idea what wannabe OS it's running and so what if it'll most likely fall apart on us a month into owning it? We still want one, dammit! Video after the break.

[Thanks, Derrty]

Continue reading Keepin' it real fake: N-KIA E68 shows what an innovative Nokia handset might look like (video)

Keepin' it real fake: N-KIA E68 shows what an innovative Nokia handset might look like (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft has chosen the small hours of the night to announce pricing of its second Kinect bundle, which is set for launch along with the standalone and 4GB options on November 4 in the USA and November 10 across Europe. The new package throws in the 250GB slim version of the Xbox 360 to accompany the newfangled motion tracker, a spare conventional controller, and a copy of the utterly unmissable Kinect Adventures! (it has its own punctuation, it must be good). Pricing is a bit on the painful side, with Kotaku reporting a $399 figure for the US and Microsoft confirming to us a £300 sticker for this "special edition" bundle for the UK. Full press release follows after the break.

[Thanks, Ravi]

Gallery: Xbox 360 250GB plus Kinect bundle priced at $399

Continue reading Xbox 360 250GB plus Kinect bundle priced at $399 in US, £300 in UK

Xbox 360 250GB plus Kinect bundle priced at $399 in US, £300 in UK originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 04:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At last, an official date for Nokia's N8 flagship Symbian^3 handset. This one's been a long time coming, featuring the first of two major Symbian updates meant to bring Nokia's smartphone division in line with the competition. Look for it in the "last week of September" at Nokia's on-line shops for £429 SIM free, or free with £35 per month contract. Otherwise, it'll hit the UK high street shops on October 1st. See the full announcement after the break.

Continue reading Nokia N8 officially for sale last week of September, UK shops October 1st

Nokia N8 officially for sale last week of September, UK shops October 1st originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My, how far we've come. Believe it or not, Mophie's Juice Pack pack is in its seventh generation of product development, with the latest 'Air' supporting Apple's polarizing iPhone 4. For those unaware, these cases nearly double the battery life of the phone they're wrapped around, and better still, it acts as protection against drops and dropped calls. Fancy that! This little guy is said to provide up to six extra hours of 3G talk time, 36 hours of bonus audio playback or nine hours of video playback. It's shipping now, just like we said, to those willing to part ways with $79.95, and it's available in any color you want, so long as it's black.

Continue reading Mophie's $80 Juice Pack Air ships to power-hungry iPhone 4 owners

Mophie's $80 Juice Pack Air ships to power-hungry iPhone 4 owners originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Yes, that fateful day is upon us, the Samsung Fascinate has made its debut on Verizon's online store pages, and it's arrived with a quite unusual (for a top tier handset) sweetener. When buying one Fascinate, you're given the option to obtain a second one for free. Well, the hardware would be free, you'd need two-year commitments on both phones with a minimum monthly data plan of $29.99 a piece, but it's still the nicest thing Verizon's done for us since it started throwing out free Pixi Pluses with purchases of Palm's webOS handsets. You should also bear in mind your initial outlay here is a quite lofty $400, with two separate $100 mail-in rebates bringing the cost down. So it's free in pecuniary terms, but probably not free of headaches.

[Thanks, Mike]

Verizon sweetens Samsung Fascinate deal with Buy One Get One Free offer originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 02:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seemed like a bit of a stretch from the beginning, but it looks like India's $35 Android tablet is intent on proving the skeptics wrong -- the Indian government has just announced that it's awarded the manufacturing contract to HCL Technologies (makers of the once world's cheapest laptop), and that the first batch of tablets are slated to be available by January 10th. That initial run will reportedly only include the 7-inch model that we've been seeing all along, but there's also apparently 5-inch and 9-inch versions planned for launch at a later date. We also presume that the tablet is still hanging onto that $35 price tag (for university students, at least), but that key detail is curiously absent from this latest announcement.

India's $35 Android tablet reportedly on track for January launch originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Genius quietly introduced the Ring Mouse back at Computex, but little was said about the curious critter up until last week. Our pals over at Engadget Spanish managed some alone time with the device at IFA, and while we can't imagine any long-term mouse user being able to grasp this (mentally, not physically) without first overcoming a steep learning curve, those more accustomed to cellphone optical pads may be in good shape. Put simply, the ring has an optical trackpad ("Opto Touch Wheel") and an embedded 2.4GHz wireless model; wearers use their thumb to navigate the cursor, while miniature left / right click buttons do exactly what you'd expect. There's still nary a word on price, but here's hoping that we can wrap our hands -- er, something -- around this in the not-too-distant future.

P.S. - These guys are big, big fans.

Genius Ring Mouse slips around your finger, cues up Beyonce jams originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In addition to the intriguing new Coolpix P7000, Nikon also announced the Coolpix S8100 (pictured above) and S80 tonight -- sure, they're not the dramatic new models, but they're certainly respectable updates to the S8000 and S70. The S8100 actually learned one trick from the P7000: it's dropped the megapixel count to 12.1 from the S8000's 14.2 in order to improve light sensitivity -- it can now hit ISO 3200 natively, which isn't bad for a tiny cam with a 10x zoom. It's also got a new 1080p movie mode and a faster 10fps burst mode -- although we're told it can only burst five frames at a time, so that's not nearly as interesting. It'll hit later this month in a few colors for $299.

The S80 goes the other way, boosting the megapixel count to 14.1 from the S70's 12.1, and upping the 3.5-inch touchscreen to OLED. The touchscreen enables all the same snazzy tricks as on the new S1100pj, including the ability to draw right on your pictures, and and the 720p movie mode and 5x optical zoom are unchanged. It'll hit this fall in all sorts of colors for $329. Honestly, we're still not entirely sold on touchscreen controls for cameras to begin with, and on top of that we're definitely concerned that OLED will make a touchscreen camera virtually useless in daylight, but we'll wait to see this thing in person before we rain too hard on this parade. Check a pic of the S80 along with both press releases after the break.

Continue reading Nikon Coolpix S8100 gets 1080p video, S80 sprouts an OLED touchscreen

Nikon Coolpix S8100 gets 1080p video, S80 sprouts an OLED touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well well -- what's this? Look like all those rumors about Nikon licking its wounds and gunning hard for the high-end compact camera market were true: this hot little piece is the new Coolpix P7000, Nikon's answer to the Canon G11. Like we'd heard, it actually drops the megapixel count from the P6000, with a 10.1 megapixel CCD sensor that can hit ISO 6400 sensitivity natively and 12,800 when boosted behind a f/2.8-5.6 7.1x VR zoom lens and a three-inch 921,000-dot LCD display. It also has full manual controls for virtually every setting, an optical viewfinder and accessory hot shoe, RAW support, and a 720p/24 movie mode with VR and continuous autofocus that might actually be useful for more than just casual shooting because there's a mic jack. There's also the usual range of Coolpix automatic adjustments and modes, of course, but come on -- look at all those manual dials and buttons, people. It'll hit later this month for $499.99 -- we're definitely requesting a review unit to put this head to head with seemingly-similar G11 and others pro compacts like the Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX5, so stay tuned. PR after the break.

Gallery: Nikon's Coolpix P7000 brings manual heat to the prosumer level

Continue reading Nikon Coolpix P7000 brings manual heat to the prosumer level

Nikon Coolpix P7000 brings manual heat to the prosumer level originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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While it was fun while it lasted, it was obvious that Willow Garage couldn't keep giving away its ultra-high-end development platform PR2 bots forever. After shipping 11 of the bots to research institutes, Willow Garage is now selling the PR2 to all comers -- as long as they've got 400 grand in their back pocket. We've covered the specs before (oodles of CPU power, two highly articulated pincer arms, and high-end vision systems), along with some of PR2's recent hijinks, and hopefully we see more of that sort of stuff now that the rugged, ready-for-adventure PR2 is on the market. If you can't scrap together all the cash, Willow Garage will also be offering a discount $280k version to people and institutions that can demonstrate "past performance and leadership" in open source robotics software -- a topic obviously near and dear to Willow Garage's heart with ROS, the OS that powers PR2 and is slowly spreading throughout much of the world of higher-end personal robotics.

As for the high price and its generally opaque business model, Willow Garage compares the current state of its industry to high end workstations in the 70s, back when researchers were spending more money and time figuring out what their computers could do than actually accomplishing anything with them. Willow Garage isn't planning on making any sort of killing in the business yet -- they'd just be happy to have the PR2 project at a self sustaining level -- but they're working toward what they see as the "next radical shift" in productivity, a personal robotics follow-up to the personal computer revolution. This is a future similar to the one Bill Gates was talking up back in 2006, but of course Willow Garage wants its open source ROS platform to be the "Microsoft" this time around. They certainly don't plan to corner the hardware market in the process, however: the company hopes the quasi-followup to the PR2 will actually be built by multiple companies.

Gallery: Willow Garage PR2 press shots

Willow Garage now selling the PR2 for $400k a pop originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ready to get swept away into the wild, wild abyss known as quantum computing? If not, we're certain there's a less mentally taxing post above or below, but for those who answered the call, researchers at the University of California Santa Cruz have a doozie to share. A team of whiz kids at the institution have developed a minuscule optical device that's built into a silicon chip, and it's capable of reducing the speed of light by a factor of 1,200. If you're wondering why on Earth humans would be interested in doing such a thing, here's the long and short of it: the ability to control light pulses on an integrated chip-based platform "is a major step toward the realization of all-optical quantum communication networks, with potentially vast improvements in ultra-low-power performance." Today, data transmitted along optical fibers must still eventually be converted to electronic signals before they're finally understood, but the promise of an all-optical data processing system could obviously reduce inefficiencies and create communication networks that are far quicker and more robust. There's still no telling how far we are from this becoming a reality -- after all, we've been hearing similar since at least 2006 -- but at least these folks seem to be onto something good... even if it's all too familiar.

All-optical quantum communication networks nearly realized, 'Answers to Life' airing at 9PM originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 23:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Gather up a group of people who make their living through web design, and they’ll probably all agree on at least two things: A) touchscreens aren’t going anywhere, and B) designing web stuff for touchscreens sort of sucks. Native apps have, in a sense, spoiled users; with things like drag-and-drop and basic touch gesture recognition almost laughably simple to implement in native apps, web app developers are left to hack in such features themselves or risk having their app seem dated from the get-go.

Today Yahoo! is looking to make things a bit less painful with the latest release of their open-source User Interface library, YUI.

Here’s the problem: most of the web was built before touchscreens became popular, so it was up to touchscreen browser developers to ensure compatibility. Now, that may seem trivial; a mouse click and a touch screen tap are pretty much the same thing, right? Right — but they’re also totally different, for one important reason: mice are point-and-click, touchscreens are point-to-click. When you click down with a mouse, you generally click down on a specific element intentionally, expecting that element to react in some way. When you tap down on a touchscreen, you may be interacting with an element — or you might be panning around the page, trying to zoom out, or any one of a dozen behaviors that all look pretty damn similar to an input device.

Here’s how the touch browser guys solved it: rather than firing off a mouse-click event when a user taps their finger down on the screen, they fire it based on when they lift their finger up. That oh-so-seemingly-slight difference makes all the difference in the world, giving the system time to parse whether the user is panning, zooming, or actually trying to tap on the thing they tapped. Alas, it also makes doing things like drag-and-drop in Javascript quite a bit more intense. It’s by all means doable; it just generally means reinventing the wheel with a big ol’ nasty hack.

Along with a laundry list of other features (see below), today’s release of YUI 3.2.0 brings support for touch events — that is, code that knows to fire the very instant something is tapped (rather than when the finger is lifted), making things that support drag-and-drop, flicking, and sliding a whole lot less of a chore to build.

YUI 3.2.0′s other new tricks:

• Capability-based Loading: Allows certain code to only be bundled/executed for certain browsers. Yes, IE6, everyone is glaring at you.
• Support for the latest beta build of YUI CSS Grids, one of a number of projects aimed at making the process of building layouts in CSS suck a whole lot less.
• Flash-based file uploader

YUI 3.2.0 has plenty of other tricks up its sleeve, but it’s not exactly bullet-point friendly stuff. They’re the sorts of things that you’d primarily be interested in knowing about if you were about to build something with it — and if that’s you, you probably already know where to find the details.

At Apple's last event, Steve Jobs called the iPod touch the company's "most popular iPod," and it's easy to understand why. In just a few short years, the iPhone-with-no-phone has kept in lockstep with Cupertino's halo device, benefitting from the same kind of constant hardware and software updating that has helped turned the iPhone into an iconic gadget. The touch has been right alongside the iPhone's meteoric rise in popularity, becoming the go-to second-pocket slab for millions. There are good reasons, too. Apple boasts about gaming on the device -- claiming it beats out both Nintendo's and Sony's offerings in sales... combined. While we can't concede that the device is a dedicated game console, it most definitely games. And it's still an iPod, an internet device, and a thousand other things thanks to Apple's vastly populous App Store. Now the player has once again reaped the rewards of iPhone updates, boasting a new Retina Display, the A4 CPU, two cameras which allow for FaceTime calling and 720p video recording, and all the new features of the company's latest mobile operating system, iOS 4.1. But despite all of the plusses, we still have to ask: is the little do-everything box still worth the premium price tag? We took a deep dive on the latest model and have the verdict, so read on to find out.

Gallery: iPod touch (2010) hands-on

Continue reading iPod touch review (2010)

iPod touch review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple's sixth generation of the iPod nano is essentially the first complete rethinking the product has had since its debut in 2005. The previous form factor -- slim and light with a decently sized display and clickwheel -- has been all but abandoned. The new design is a complete departure; a full touchscreen device that brings to mind something more like a large, living postage stamp than a portable music player. Along with the radical hardware redesign, Apple has infused the media player with a brand new operating system as well -- an interface that looks and plays more like iOS than iPod. We've spent the past week or so knocking the nano around to see if it's worth your hard-earned dollars, and we've got the answers inside -- so read on for our full review.

Gallery: iPod nano (2010) hands-on

Continue reading iPod nano review (2010)

iPod nano review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Uh, wow. Oracle CEO Larry Ellison just released a statement in response to HP suing former CEO Mark Hurd for taking a position as Oracle's co-president, and well, just read it:
Oracle has long viewed HP as an important partner," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. "By filing this vindictive lawsuit against Oracle and Mark Hurd, the HP board is acting with utter disregard for that partnership, our joint customers, and their own shareholders and employees. The HP Board is making it virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together in the IT marketplace. Yeah. Homeboy isn't playing around. Of course, HP's entire lawsuit hinges on the court agreeing that HP and Oracle are actually direct competitors in the enterprise space, and, as the lawsuit points out, Oracle itself has filed SEC reports saying its hardware and software products "compete directly" with HP and other companies, so perhaps this is all more sound than fury, but at this point we wouldn't count on a quick settlement putting all this to bed anytime soon.

P.S.- We told you Larry Ellison would say something bonkers again.

Continue reading Larry Ellison on HP's Mark Hurd lawsuit: 'virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together'

Larry Ellison on HP's Mark Hurd lawsuit: 'virtually impossible for Oracle and HP to continue to cooperate and work together' originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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