Hottest Electronic Gadgets

Archive for January, 2010

Just two days ago Mozilla pushed out the third release candidate for its first mobile Firefox browser. On Friday, Firefox 1.0 for Nokia’s Maemo arrived.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

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When Apple’s iPad 3G ships in April, U.S. wireless partner AT&T will offer two data plans for the gadget, with different costs and monthly download allotments.

Specifically, AT&T will offer a $14.99 monthly plan that allows for 250 MB of data consumed, and a $29.99 monthly plan that allows for unlimited Internet consumption.

Which should you buy? That depends on how you’ll be using the device on a 3G network, of course. (We think most people will buy the cheaper iPad without 3G service, but many will buy the 3G model, too.)

For an idea of what the cheaper plan offers, here’s what 250 MB translates to:

* About 35 minutes of YouTube video at standard-definition
* OR about 8-10 minutes of YouTube or iTunes video at 720p hi-definition
* OR about 70 songs from iTunes
* OR a few thousand Web pages and typical email usage
* OR more than 4,000 Facebook photos

So, if you think a month’s worth of 3G access looks like this, then you should be fine with the 250 MB plan:

* Browsing a few dozen Web pages a day and typical email usage (without downloading big attachments)
* Looking at a few dozen Facebook photos a day
* Watching a few minutes of YouTube video a week
* Downloading a few songs and podcasts from iTunes per month
* Downloading a few small iPhone or iPad apps per month, light app usage

If you think you’ll be using more bandwidth than that over 3G, you may consider the $29.99 plan. Remember that you can cancel anytime, change plans on a monthly basis, or turn service off and on, because there is no contract. (And no “activation fee” was disclosed during Steve Jobs’ presentation.)

Remember, using the iPad in a wi-fi zone doesn’t count toward this limit. So if you’re going to be using the iPad primarily at home—the best use case—or at the office, or anywhere there’s wi-fi, you won’t need to worry about hitting the 250 MB cap. AT&T is also including free access to its wi-fi networks in its 3G plans, which includes Starbucks locations.

What happens if you go over 250 MB? Will AT&T stick you with unreasonable overage charges?

The company won’t say.

But our hunch, because this is prepaid service — no contract or credit check required — is that once your 250 MB are up, AT&T’s network meter will simply require you to upgrade to the $29.99 plan to continue using the Internet.

This seems the more consumer-friendly, responsible thing to do, and eliminates AT&T’s risk of offering you credit. But AT&T refuses to immediately give more information than what Jobs said in his presentation. So we can’t be sure.

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Alienware didn’t drop too many details about how it was revising its M15x and M17x gaming lappies back at CES, but now both of those are finally ready to be ordered by the drooling masses. The “little” guy is available with a Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 processor, your choice of a 512MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 240M or 1GB GeForce GTX 260M, a 1,600 x 900 or 1,920 x 1080 15.6-inch WLED panel, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR, 250GB HDD (or a 128GB / 256GB SSD for those with the coinage) and plenty of lights to go around. The big brother can be ordered with a Core i7-920XM processor, dual 1GB GeForce GTX 280M GPUs (or a pair of Radeon Mobility HD 4870s), optional Blu-ray drive and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Follow the links below if you’re eager to be first in line — the M15x gets going at $1,199 (and should ship early next month), while the M17x starts at $1,799 with a Core i7.

[Thanks, Joshua]

Alienware’s Core i7-equipped M15x and M17x now available to order originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:47:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Researchers from Princeton and Caltech come up with a piezoelectric material that could harness body movements to charge consumer electronics–even pacemakers.
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Scientists have discovered that they can coax a tobacco plant into growing temporary solar cells by injecting it with a genetically engineered virus. Sounds freaky, but the process could provide us with cheaper synthetic photovoltaic cells and greener renewable energy.

At a quick glance, “hacking” tobacco plants to grow these solar cells sounds like it’s full of benefits:

Using live organisms to create synthetic solar cells has several advantages over traditionally made solar panels. No environmentally toxic chemicals are required to make biologically derived solar cells, unlike traditional solar cells. Growing solar cells in tobacco plants could put farmers back to work harvesting an annual crop of solar cells.

There’s just one rather big catch:

[S]cientists haven’t even demonstrated that the cells can turn light into electrical or chemical energy yet. But they hope to do soon.

Let’s hope they get around to sorting that part out, because until that happens this will be yet another way-too-good-to-be-used-in-real-life concept. While waiting around for that too happen though, you can read more about the process over at Discovery and Treehugger. [Discovery via Treehugger]

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We weren’t sure things could get any more interesting with Microsoft’s mobile rumor mill, but along comes Zune Boards with some tantalizing findings in the latest Zune software update. First up is the eEndpointFamily files, which lists all the compatible hardware — ZuneHD, for example. Also found, however, were entries for “PmxPure” and “PmxTurtle.” PMX, if you recall, seems to be a reference to Microsoft’s
Premium Mobile eXperiences group, the remnants of the Danger acquisition who have been whispered to be working on Project Pink. As for Pure and Turtle, let’s go back all the way to September 2009, when we first heard those names as the initial Pink duo — there were some supposed renders, too. If that’s not enough, two PMX table entries pointed to a snippet of text stating that “Studio members” can “View and manage pictures and videos taken with your phone at the Studio,” followed by a link that for now redirects to Zune.net. Could the mysterious Project Pink and the oft-rumored “Zune phone” be one in the same, with some “Studio” service for uploading media to the cloud? Is this all some red herring perpetuated by some amused Microsoft staffers? We don’t know, but it’s mean to tug at our heart strings like that, Microsoft, and worse that it makes Mobile World Congress even more painful to wait for. #tmdp

Zune software references rumored Project Pink devices, a video upload service? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 23:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You have to admit that the second the word “iPad” came out of Steve Jobs’ mouth, you envisioned a future where the Gadgettes devoted an entire episode to the mocking of such a product name… right? Buckle up, space cadet. It’s time to take a crazy ride into the world of double entendre.

Listen now:

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EPISODE 171

Best iPad one-liners

And a few more:
Will the iPad absorb new readers?
It comes in light, medium, and heavy.
You have to pay extra if you have a heavy data flow.
The new dry-weave feature actually pulls moisture AWAY from the sensor!
New: Apps with wings!
The great thing about CNET is they give us our iPads for free. Everywhere else you have to pay 25 cents!
The Apple iPad: It Just Fits.
The Apple iPad: We can handle your data flow.
You’ll never think of FLO TV the same way again.

So, um, about that name…

…

Originally posted at Gadgettes, the blog

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When asking each member of Giz what they planned on spending their hard-earned pocket money on this year, Jason Chen chose this shower. I’m sure after eyeing up this “cocoon shower stall” he’ll change his mind.

Like an egg pod from space, the cocoon is not only a shower, but also a bathtub and hydro massager. Well, it would be, if it wasn’t for the small fact that Arina Komarova‘s creation is just a concept. Rats. Still, at least I now know what to take to Bathroom & Tiles Co. when I want a new bathroom designed! [Yanko Design]

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Continue reading Cypress demos 14-inch TrueTouch capacitive multitouch screen

Cypress demos 14-inch TrueTouch capacitive multitouch screen originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 12:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe finds out Apple’s new iPad doesn’t support Flash and it isn’t too happy about it. A group manager mentions that frustration in a blog post.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

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