Archive for December, 2010

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RIM Denies Playbook Battery Issues

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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After early reports about the poor battery life of Research in Motion’s upcoming tablet, BlackBerry maker said in a statement that the final version of PlayBook will have a battery life comparable to its competitors. Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu raised concerns about PlayBook’s battery, claiming that it can power the device for only “a few hours,” (for comparison, Apple claims 10-hour battery life for its iPad) noting that the issue probably forced RIM to push the PlayBook launch to May 2011.

RIM was quick to deny this, claiming that PlayBook devices that were available for testing to Wu and others were early beta units without any power management. “Any testing or observation of battery life to date by anyone outside of RIM would have been performed using pre-beta units that were built without power management implemented. RIM is on track with its schedule to optimize the BlackBerry PlayBook’s battery life and looks forward to providing customers with a professional grade tablet that offers superior performance with comparable battery life,” said the company in a statement. While “comparable battery life” doesn’t sound too reassuring, we’ll definitely have to wait for the final version of the device to assess its battery’s performance.

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Advanced Trojan Could Zombify Your Android Device

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

An advanced new Android trojan named Geinimi has been found in the wild, mobile security firm Lookout reports. The trojan is possibly the most sophisticated piece of Androidmalware so far, with the ability to steal your personal data and send it to a remote computer, as well as take commands from a remote server, which would effectively turn your Android device into a zombie inside of a botnet.

The detailed description of everything Geinimi can do sounds scary: it can send your location, device identifiers (IMEI and IMSI) and list of installed apps to someone. It can also download an app and prompt the user to install it. The real threat to end users isn’t very big, however. You can install Geinimi on your Android device only if you install an infected app, and Lookout reports it only saw those in third-party Chinese app stores. Most users download apps from the official Android market, which is a much safer option; if you must install an app from a third-party store, make sure it’s safe before you do.

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“World of Warcraft” + Xbox Kinect = Magic [VIDEO]

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

A group from the University of Southern California has created the coolest Xbox Kinect hack yet: gesture-based spell casting and controls for World of Warcraft. USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies has created and released FAAST, or the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit. It’s a middleware toolkit that helps integrate full-body motion controls for games via the Kinect’s sensors. Essentially, ICT makes it possible to map full-body gestures to different keyboard commands. A YouTube video demonstrating and explaining the technology has already generated more than 350,000 views. In it, an ICT team member demonstrates how its hack can target enemies, cast magic spells, control the camera and move across the World of Warcraft landscape using only body movements like leaning forward or moving the left hand side to side. Currently FAAST is only available for Windows, but the Institute intends to develop a Linux version. It also plans to open-source the project so other developers can create more dynamic projects with the toolkit. The Institute hopes that FAAST will help open a whole new world of healthy gaming. While the World of Warcraft hack only allows for basic controls, it’s still amazing to behold. We can see a world where gaming is done through dynamic motion controls, rather than through the mouse and keyboard.

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Grace Digital adds color displays on new Solo Touch, Bravado X, and Mondo WiFi radios

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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Can’t say we had the best of times with Grace Digital’s Allegro, but the dawning of a new year means the dawning of a new effort. Three efforts, in this case. Poised for an official unveiling next week at CES, the outfit’s new trio of internet radios have all been upgraded with color displays. Up first is the Solo Touch, a $249.99 device with an expansive 4.3-inch touchpanel, bundled remote, Ethernet connection, RCA outputs and a headphone jack. Stepping down a notch, there’s the Bravado X ($179.99), which offers a 2.7-inch color display, RCA in / out and a USB connector. Finally, the $169.99 Mondo packs a 3.5-inch color display, a full-on alarm clock (with snooze!) and a USB port of its own. The whole lot can be controlled via a free iPhone app, and they’re each capable of tuning into iheartradio, Pandora, Sirius XM, WeatherBug, CBS Radio, MP3Tunes and more. Now, off to Vegas to see if those user interface quirks have been cleared up…

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Sharp Galapagos media tablets will bring 3G and EPUB content to US e-reader market in 2011

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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We like a bit of ambition around these parts and Sharp’s plans for entering the US e-reader battlefield reek of the stuff. The Galapagos tablets that recently enjoyed their Japanese debut are going to be retooled, according to the Mainichi Daily News, to include new 3G radios for the internet-addicted US consumer, while the primary content format will also be switched from the proprietary XMDF in Japan to the almost universally compatible EPUB. Content partnerships are said to be brewing as we type, because, quite naturally, Sharp intends to have its own e-bookstore for Americans as well. After the Yanks, the company’s said to be looking into bringing its 5.5- and 10.8-inch tablets to China, India, and Brazil. Highly ambitious indeed.

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Creative Zen Touch 2 passes FCC, adds yet another new button arrangement to Android world

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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Oh Android, is there any device you won’t grace for the cheap thrill of adding to your army of followers? Creative’s Zen Touch 2 served up most of its specs a couple of months back, including a resistive touchscreen and the use of Android 2.1 as its OS, but today it’s formalized its US intentions with a bit of FCC certification action. The 3.2-inch PMP’s 802.11b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1 wireless transceivers all checked out okay, though the exhaustive teardown also revealed a “vibrator” module and an 1150mAh battery contained within its plasticky walls. Another note of import was that two variants, one equipped with GPS and one without, were offered to the FCC, in line with the company segmenting the Zen Touch 2 into “standard” and “enhanced” editions. If you’re in the UK, you can have one of these music players shipped to you tomorrow, but the US online store only lists it by name and doesn’t yet have a full page for it. Shouldn’t be long now.


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Gigabyte slips out Atom N550-based M1005, Q2005 netbooks

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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We’re guessing we’ll see a more official announcement about these soon enough, but for now we’ll have to make do with some product pages that have quietly turned up on Gigabyte’s website for two new Atom N550-based netbooks: the M1005 and Q2005. As Netbook News notes, the latter of those (pictured above) looks to be remarkably similar to the Jolicloud Jolibook, also based on the same dual-core N550 processor, while the M1005 appears to be a relatively minor update to the company’s M1022 model, right down to the same docking station (check it out after the break). Still no indication of pricing or availability for either of them, but you can find the complete specs for each at the links below.

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Skype video calling for iPhone is official, available now (update: hands-on)

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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for a few days now, All signs have been pointing to this release , but we’ll admit: we expected Skype to wait until CES next week to pull the covers off what could become its crown jewel service over the coming months. Skype’s official iOS client has finally sprouted the ability to make video calls, allowing iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and fourth-generation iPod touch users to share real-time video amongst each other and users of Skype’s Windows, Mac, and Linux clients along with the ASUS Videophone (obviously, 3GS users won’t have the convenience of a front-facing camera, but they’ll still be able to broadcast video from the rear-facing one). Additionally, you’ll be able to receive video from others if you’re using an iPad or a third-generation iPod touch. The service is free and works over both WiFi and 3G — and considering Skype’s existing PC footprint, we’d argue this stands a very real chance of putting the hurt on FaceTime usage. No word on when Skype will be making video-capable clients available for Android or other mobile platforms, but Skype says that there’ll be “plenty more” announcements in Vegas next week, so we wouldn’t be surprised.

Update: So we just gave 3.0 a spin, calling iPhone-to-iPhone (both WiFi), iPhone-to-desktop (both WiFi), and again iPhone-to-iPhone (both 3G). The first two worked great, although the desktop camera produced better quality. As for the worst-case scenario, 3G-to-3G video calling, well… we wouldn’t recommend it unless absolutely necessary. Video after the break, and be sure to note the battery life — after about 10 minutes of use, we dropped from 66 percent to 61.

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Ford launches SYNC Destinations, the free app for people who go places in cars

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

Smartphone user? Regardless of platform you have no shortage of navigation options, and now Ford has added another way to get where you’re going — if you’re also an owner of a SYNC TDI-compatible car, anyway. Using the new SYNC Destinations app (available today for iOS and Android, with BlackBerrycoming soon) you can more efficiently pre-plan your route. The app lets you pick a destination, view real-time traffic updates, even check out congestion predictions based on weather, time of day, and holidays. It’s a feature that would have been pretty handy last week when we were simultaneously dealing with a heck of a blizzard and a whole lot of people trying to flee their in-laws.

The app will even suggest what time you should leave to avoid the most headaches, a potential boon for those desperately seeking any excuse to hit the road a little early. It is, however, just for planning, sending your route to the car and then disabling the phone’s display when you cross the magic 5mph threshold. It’s safer that way, after all. Full details are in the PR below and if you’re on the lucky two supported platforms with a suitably compatible car you can download today for free.

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Olympus XZ-1 and other pre-CES camera rumors from Sony and Panasonic

Posted by admin on December 30th, 2010 | No Comments »

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It’s no secret that CES is the stage from which camera companies unleash more compact shooters than you can shake a tripod at — and preceding those come a glut of rumors, naturally. 4/3 Rumors has heard Olympus will unveil the XZ-1 (pictured), which boasts the LX5’s 10 megapixel sensor and a none-too-shabby 28-112mm f/1.8-2.5 lens. The site also heard that a few Panasonic model numbers that at this point really don’t tell too grand a story: DMC-S1 and S3, DMC-TS3, FH2, and FH5. Meanwhile at Sony Alpha Rumors, the eponymous company will reportedly launch a number of compact cameras (go figure) including a Cybershot DSC-HX1 successor, some new Bloggies, and new 2D and 3D video recorders… and though no Alpha and no NEX models will be on the show floor, the site is also suggesting the future NEX-7 and Alpha A77 models have 1080p60 AVCHD and a 0.1-second autofocus. Latter tidbit notwithstanding, we’d wager by mid-January everything else here will be either confirmed or forgotten.

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