Hottest Electronic Gadgets

Archive for July, 2009

This iPhone OS update adresses the hullabaloo about SMS vulnerability. Get it while it’s hot.

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While we wait for all the carriers to get on board with nixing their endless, unhelpful voicemail pre-beep messages, we’ve already got instructions from Sprint on how to disable it for your own particular voicemail box on that network.

It’s pretty easy:

1. Call your voicemail.
2. At the menu, press 3 for personal options.
3. Press 2 for greeting.
4. Press 1 to change the greeting.
5. To enable / disable the instructions, press 3.

Trust us, we did some serious searching for similar instructions on the other major carriers, but had no luck. If you know of anything, let us know!

Filed under: Cellphones

Take Back the Beep: how to disable voicemail instructions on Sprint originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you’re itching to try Google Voice, but haven’t received one of the coveted private beta invites, a Menlo Park, Calif., company called 3jam is offering an alternative.

This week, 3jam announced an open beta of its new voice forwarding and transcription service that bears a striking resemblance …

Originally posted at The Download Blog

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Think texting while driving is dangerous? How about leaning over to the center console to scrawl “NEAREST BATHROOM!!!!!” on your car’s navigation system with a stylus? Audi’s next-gen A8 includes handwriting recognition to make that dangerous dream a dangerous reality.

We don’t know much about the feature, integrated into Audi’s MMI navigation system, partly because the Google translation of the source comes up with hilarious gold like “The switch salad on the center console is passé.” Is it ever!

The new models will be coming out in November, and it looks like the revamped MMI is focusing on a touchscreen interface to simplify the process of navigation. Hopefully that extends to the odd inclusion of handwriting recognition in a car. [German Car Blog]

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Sure it’s summertime in New York and not January in Las Vegas, but that didn’t stop LG from rolling out a couple new lines of LCD HDTVs today. The new SL80 and SL90 models don’t bring new high water marks on the spec sheets, but feature LG’s take on the “borderless” design trend that’s the rage these days, built from a single edge to edge piece of glass with a slim bezel and Invisible Speaker design. The top of the line SL90 is due later this year for an unspecified price range in 42- and 47-inch sizes with LED backlighting contributing to its 3,000,000:1 claimed contrast ratio and 1.15 inch depth, plus 120Hz TruMotion processing. The SL80 line has 240Hz processing, but older CCFL backlighting means a 300,000:1 measured contrast ratio and 1.8-inch thick design, but the 42-, 47-, and 55-inch models will be available this August for $1,599, $1,899 and $2,799, respectively. Want a closer look at LG’s new global flat panel design platform? The gallery is right here.

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

LG unveils new slim design LCD HDTVs due this fall originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sherpa learns your taste over time and suggest results closest to your location.

(Credit: Taylor Wimberly)

Sherpa is a new location-based service from Geodelic that was set to launch with the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G on August 5. Luckily, however, the app got an early release to the Android Market and …

Originally posted at Android Atlas

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Since Holland is mostly under sea level, keeping houses from flooding is a constant problem. This concept fixes that problem by just having an apartment complex that floats.

The Citadel is the residential part of the “New Water” complex, which tries to embrace Holland’s waterworld-ness instead of fighting it. It’ll have a floating road to the mainland as well as plenty of boat docks for its 60 units. Apparently it’ll also be 25% more energy-efficient than an equivalent complex on land by using the surrounding water for cooling. It looks kind of crazy, but the sort of crazy that could actually work. [Inhabitat]

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We knew good and well that the fine folks over at MediaMall were toiling away in an attempt to bring internet TV content from YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, CBS, CNN and a host of other sources to Nintendo’s white-hot Wii, but there’s just nothing like hearing that intentions have become reality. Based on an email from MediaMall support to a particularly curious user, the “latest version of PlayOn includes a beta version of Wii functionality in it.” Naturally, the company’s doing its darnedest to keep this under wraps for now, but we’re eager to get legions of Wii users testing it out and reporting back with performance evaluations. The note does mention that quality will be lower than on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 due to the inherit hardware limitations on Nintendo’s baby, but hey, you knew that going in, right? Hop on past the break for the letter in its entirety, which includes instructions on getting this going on your console.

[Thanks, Anonymous]

Continue reading PlayOn media server now serving Wii customers (in beta, anyway)

Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Software

PlayOn media server now serving Wii customers (in beta, anyway) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve heard lots of speculation about the possibility of Apple attending the massive CES trade show in January, but The Wall Street Journal is reporting straight out that Apple plans to attend.

CES is devoting more floorspace to Apple this year. But will Apple attend? The Wall Street Journal …

Originally posted at News – Apple

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The ritual lives on: Sprint lost $384 million and 257,000 customers. Which looks grim, but remember, six months ago they lost a billion dollars and over a million customers. Sadly, their forecast for 2009 is simply “improved losses.” [Sprint]

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