The Gadget Geek

Samsung Pixon 12 phonecamera hybrid gets tested

It’s probably best to think of Samsung’s Pixon 12 not as a phone with a killer camera, but more so as a good point-and-shoot with phone capabilities tacked on. Our friends at Engadget Chinese managed to get some hands-on with the device, and while they say the voice and SMS portion is nothing to write home about, the form factor and AMOLED screen seems quite nice and the sample pictures come out even nicer. Hit up the read link for some odd, machine-translated text and pretty photography.

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Samsung Pixon 12 phonecamera hybrid gets tested originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple Mac Pro
Apple Mac Pro
Augment Your Reality With Layar for iPhone
Layar, which has been the poster child for augmented reality smartphone apps, just arrived in the iPhone’s App Store. The Layar augmented reality browser looks at an environment through the phone s camera and overlays data on top of points of interest such as restaurants, shops and tourist attractions. The app retrieves information from third-party developers who contribute [...]
A New Look At The Carafe
Venice is host to some of the most spectacular glass factories in the world. A place where exquisite mouth-blown pieces are created every single day. I found new respect for this industry when I visited one such factory and saw how they artistically breathe life and form into a blob …

Acer’s Android netbook now up for pre-order, Windows 7 version coming soon

It’s totally not Q3 anymore, but Acer is finally fulfilling its promise to ship an Android-powered netbook, a pre-order page showing up on Amazon offering a reconfigured Aspire One D250. However, the company is apparently a little unsure of its open source OS offerings, so it’s throwing Windows on there as well. Your $349 will get you a dual-booting machine with good ‘ol XP taking up the other partition — a good thing, that, because Android in this application has been said to be half-baked at best. Meanwhile, Acer is also showing off a version of the D250 running Windows 7, which is set to hit Japan next week. Hopefully a Win7/Android super combo will soon be on offer as well, which sounds a bit more tasty than WinXP/Android.

[Via netbooked]

Read – Android Aspire One D250 Pre-Order
Read – Windows 7 Aspire One D250

Filed under: Laptops

Acer’s Android netbook now up for pre-order, Windows 7 version coming soon originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Oct 2009 08:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dice Electronics iTPA-220 iPod Dock
Dice Electronics iTPA-220 iPod Dock

Cheap netbook sales bringing down laptop revenues, no brainers require no brains

Hey, this is probably surprising to no one, but here we go. A new market research report from DisplaySearch says that the overall mobile PC market is down about 5 percent over last year. The main reason cited for this decline? The increasing popularity of netbooks, which average around $300, and are much, much cheaper than traditional laptops. Netbook revenue is up 264 percent from last year, and have contributed to an overall lowering of the average PC cost by 19 percent. While this is certainly bad news for the PC industry itself, hooray for all of us, right?!

Filed under: Laptops

Cheap netbook sales bringing down laptop revenues, no brainers require no brains originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 11 Oct 2009 07:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hands-On: Android App Layar Brings Reality s Unique Snowflakes to Your Phone
Imagine if you could browse the web through your eye vision: A review of a restaurant when you stare at its sign, or the times that a bus will arrive while standing at a stop. That’s the idea behind Layar, an augmented-reality browser available for Google Android smartphones. Layar allows a user to view their environment [...]

INQ working on Spotify-branded phone, possibly running Android?

While the Spotify music service continues to tease us US-bound folks from afar, there’s word of a Spotify handset now to make us even more jealous. The phone is apparently being built for Swedish provider Telia (Spotify already accounts for 35 percent of digital music sales in Sweden), and according to TechCrunch, INQ is building the phone. Interestingly, the last thing we heard from INQ about future plans was a forthcoming Android handset, and we also have a source that says that Spotify probably wouldn’t be placed onto a regular BREW-powered INQ handset, so the optimist in us would like to believe that this Spotify phone could be INQ’s big Android play — there is already an official Spotify Android app to make that whole process seem even more doable. Either way, Telia’s Spotify handset should be on the market in a “couple of months.”

[Via Pocket-lint]

Filed under: Cellphones

INQ working on Spotify-branded phone, possibly running Android? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:53:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG Vu CU915 Mobile Phone
LG Vu CU915 Mobile Phone
Archie s Grobag, Like a Bag-of-Holding For Bikes
The “Rosie” hip-pouch from Archie’s Grobags might be the most utility-dense bikers’ bag we have yet seen. Archie is a London-based fixed-gear rider as well as a cycle-bag designer (and sewer, we believe). And this bag shows the fixsters’ obsession with hanging nothing from either the frame or the rider’s body – it lets you [...]
Guessing Game Deuce
We have only this on YD once before, right now we re gonna go ahead and play the GUESSING GAME again, RIGHT NOW! Just by looking at this Pre-Picture can you guess what the item is? The explanation is in the Permalink, but be honest with yourself and tell me what exactly did …

European Commission likes Windows 7 browser ballot screen, will probably fine Microsoft anyway

Well, it took two months, but the European Commission has finally decided that Microsoft’s idea for a Windows 7 ballot screen, in which users pick which web browser they want installed, is acceptable, saying it’ll give users “an effective and unbiased choice between Internet Explorer and competing Web browsers.” Previously MS was working on a custom version of the OS for EU shores, called Windows 7 E, but nobody was particularly fond of that idea. We’re glad to see the European Commission and Microsoft finally starting to warm to each other — maybe money can buy you love.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops

European Commission likes Windows 7 browser ballot screen, will probably fine Microsoft anyway originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Oct 2009 07:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple, Woolworths in Australian trademark dispute, media in hysterically confused panic

Oh boy. So if you haven’t already seen some news on this, Apple’s opposing the formal registration of the Australian grocery store Woolworths’ logo, pictured above. We’ll be honest: we saw this story when it was first reported last night by The Age, and we passed on it. Why? Because while we’re not experts in Australian trademark law, we happen to have an ex-US trademark attorney on staff (cough), and the Australian system is similar enough to the US system that a simple notice of opposition just isn’t that interesting. Here’s what’s really going on, outside of the sad media frenzy that surrounds anything Apple does: in both the US and Australian systems, a trademark registration is applied for with the appropriate federal agency — the USPTO, or, in this case, IP Australia. After a period of review by that office for eligibility, it’s then published for other companies to review and potentially oppose because it would cause confusion with their own marks. This is the fundamental essence of the trademark process, and every company with a major mark goes through it several times a year — it’s not a lawsuit, and there’s no judge or jury, just the trademark examiner. Sure, there are some potentially meaningful and expensive consequences, but filing and responding to oppositions is something that any trademark attorney does quite frequently, and it’s not like Apple’s aggressively suing anyone here. It’s just part of the process.

We’d also like to note that all these stories today have but a single source, and that Apple actually filed their notice of opposition in March but no one noticed until Woolworths talked to The Age. If we had to bet we’d say this is a tactical move by Woolworth’s PR team to churn public opinion before Apple’s September 16 filing deadline — and if it is, well, congratulations to them, because it certainly looks to us like the reality of this story has been totally overshadowed by the second, slightly more fictional story the tech media would like to tell. Sure, it’ll be big news if Apple’s opposition is successful and Woolworths registration is denied — and we’ll obviously cover it if it happens — but chances are that Woolworths and Apple’s highly-paid attorneys are going to quietly go through the trademark process and come out with an agreement, and we’ll never hear about this again. Until the next time everyone gets this story wrong.

Update: Oh, and just to make this perfectly clear, Woolworths’ application covers “Retailing and wholesaling services including… electronic stores,” so there’s definitely overlap here.

Update 2: You know, we’ve actually covered this exact same territory with Apple in the past — will anyone ever learn?

Read – Original story in The Age
Read – Woolworths trademark filing 1258297
Read – Woolworths trademark filing 1258298

Continue reading Apple, Woolworths in Australian trademark dispute, media in hysterically confused panic

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Apple, Woolworths in Australian trademark dispute, media in hysterically confused panic originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Oct 2009 14:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive
Iomega eGo Portable Hard Drive
Crank Up Battery
Re-chargeable batteries are no good when they run out of power and you have no electric point handy to tank them up again. Here s where the concept of the Wind Up Battery steps in; re-charge these cells via the conventional battery charger OR use the hand-crank to wind up and …

Sony takes Uncharted 2 on tour, with 4K digital projection to make you forever loathe your home setup

Looking for a quick and easy way to become completely dissatisfied with your own PS3 rig? Maybe you could try tracking down Sony at one of its “sneak peak” stops, where attendees will be able to play through some of the upcoming, already-lauded Uncharted 2 on a movie screen powered by a Sony 4K digital cinema projector. Unfortunately, only four locations have been named, and two of them are in California, so not quite everybody is going to get a chance to spoil themselves for this generation of video games forever.

Filed under: Gaming, HDTV

Sony takes Uncharted 2 on tour, with 4K digital projection to make you forever loathe your home setup originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:24:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CES 2007: Dell XPS M2010
CES 2007: Dell XPS M2010

Astak’s 5-inch EZ Reader now shipping from Newegg

Astak — the company looking to give Amazon’s Kindle a ‘run for its money’ — gave us a little bit of a shock when it unveiled its attractive 5-inch EZ Reader Pocket PRO back in August. At the time, the company said that the units would be shipping by the end of September, and, lo and behold, they’re now shipping from Newegg. The Reader features a 400MHz CPU, 512MB of memory, an SD card slot, an 8-level grayscale E-ink screen, a replaceable battery good for 8,000 page turns per charge plus MP3 player that can operate in the background, and it’ll run you $250 if you want to get in on the e-reader action.

[Via E-reader-Info]

Filed under: Handhelds

Astak’s 5-inch EZ Reader now shipping from Newegg originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Garage Days 2.0
Garage Days 2.0
Sturmey Archer Three-Speed Fixed Gear Hub
Like the simple, direct feel of a fixed gear hub, but miss the ability to shift down for a hill? Old-school hub-gear maker Sturmey Archer has just the thing: the new S3X Fixed Gear Hub. The S3X is an aluminum fixed-gear hub (in 120mm and 130mm sizes) with three speeds. The difference between this and any [...]
Sun Shine And A Curtain
The practical application of Some Shine Solar Energy Storage System is quite simple. You hang up the cool looking Solar Curtain on your window, and keep the battery-pack hooked to the base. It soaks in the solar energy during the daytime, stores it and uses it to replenish your gadgets …