Iphone Updates

Ouch. Over the weekend, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen tweeted that a new firmware was imminent for the Boxee Box, and given that we’d all been led to believe that both Netflix and Vudu support were inbound shortly, the natural expectation was… well, natural. Late last night the company went live with a new build, but it was pulled from existence within a few hours. According to Boxee’s blog post, the new update adds enhancements to control de-interlacing and video filters configuration, support for language selection in subtitle / audio, boosted browser performance and about 812 bug fixes. That’s the good news. The bad news is two threefold: there’s nary a mention of Netflix support, and while the team is just about there with Vudu, it’s also remaining off of the list for this particular update. Moreover, the devs noticed such major issues that the software was yanked from the servers only hours after it was posted, and judging by official comments in the source link below, things still aren’t totally ironed out. Translation? Hold tight for now, tough as it may be.

Boxee Box firmware gets updated, pulled — still no Netflix and Vudu originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Electric? Hybrid? Series? Parallel? Who cares? The Chevrolet Volt, the very car that helped us flee a soggy and cold Washington D.C. last year, was just named North American Car of the Year at the North American International Auto Show by an independent panel of judges representing major media outlets. It bested other finalists, the Nissan Leaf and the Hyundai Sonata. The Volt has won despite scoring low marks in the swimsuit portion of the competition, but in its acceptance speech the Volt thanked all the little people and indicated it would spend the next 12 months working toward world peace and alternative drivetrain configurations for all.

Chevy Volt named North American Car of the Year originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The scariest looking peripheral at CES 2011? Possibly. But for those looking to gain a split-second edge on the competition, the N-Control Avenger just may be the solution Xbox 360 gamers have been looking for. Announced just a couple of months ago, the company was here in Las Vegas to actually demonstrate a fully functional model. But simply, it straps onto your first-party 360 controller, adding triggers, straps, cables and all sorts of other contraptions that aim to give you improved alternatives to pressing buttons (while freeing your thumbs up to more accurately operate the analog joysticks). Enough talk — hop on past the break to see how exactly this $60 shell gets down to business.

Continue reading N-Control Avenger Xbox 360 attachment gets a CES overview (video)

N-Control Avenger Xbox 360 attachment gets a CES overview (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Prius this ain’t. Take a gander at Porsche’s 918 RSR, which just rolled onto the company’s stage at the 2011 North American International Auto Show. It has a 563hp traditional gasoline engine mounted amidships, with a pair of electric motors powering the front wheels that bring the total power up to a whopping 767. The electric motors are not powered by a set of batteries, as in a traditional hybrid, rather they take their power from an inertial flywheel mounted where the passenger seat would be on a road car and spinning at up to 36,000rpm. That’s spun up by momentum when the car brakes and, when the driver hits a button, that momentum is converted to give an acceleratory boost.

That’s the same setup as the 911 GT3 RSR Hybrid, which ran reasonably successfully last year. Its styling is obviously an extension of the 918 Spyder, with a number of cues taken from the incredibly successful Porsche 917 racer of the early ’70s (dig the endplates that look like the 917′s iconic fins). At this point Porsche hasn’t indicated when this car will make its debut on the track, nor in which classes it will run, but one thing’s for clear: this isn’t for the road. So, we’re a bit disappointed we still haven’t any firm details on a production, street 918 — not that we could have afforded it anyway.

Porsche unveils 918 RSR, the 767hp hybrid originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not news: NextComputing’s Radius portable workstation is still stretching destroying the bounds of what’s actually considered mobile. News: But now, the Radius is a lot more powerful than the prior iterations. The newfangled Radius is now available with Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors, with the latest model of the all-in-one workstation offering multiple full-length / full-height PCI Express slots, multiple terabytes of storage and an integrated display. As for applications? It’s still aimed at those who need serious oomph in the field, and frankly, editing political commercials or crunching SETI data in the Amazon sounds far more enjoyable than doing so in [insert your city here]. No offense of anything.

Continue reading NextComputing’s Radius ‘portable’ workstation infused with Sandy Bridge

NextComputing’s Radius ‘portable’ workstation infused with Sandy Bridge originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading ArtPro Nail Printer V6.1 hands-in (video)

ArtPro Nail Printer V6.1 hands-in (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Looks like that tease was more than just a tease. It’s a truism. Back at Computex, Bigfoot Networks’ CEO told us that his next major target was motherboards. The company already infused its Killer E2100 gaming network card into a GPU, and here at CES, it’s formally announcing three partnerships with major mainboard makers. MSI, ASUS and Gigabyte are all onboard, with the latter to offer a new line of G1-Killer mobos later in the year. ASUS will be dishing out a ROG Rampage III Black Edition (shown above) which will feature the E2100 on a combined LAN / audio called dubbed ThunderBolt, but your guess is as good as ours when it comes to specifications and CPU compatibility. Pricing and release information remain a mystery across the range, but it’s practically a guarantee that we’ll see more of these tie-ups in the coming months.

Bigfoot Networks intros Killer E2100-powered motherboards from ASUS, MSI and Gigabyte originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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9to5 Mac reports that Apple will drop its 10 percent restocking fees on January 11th. We’ve confirmed with our own sources that this is true. January 11th happens to be the day that Verizon will hold a mysterious event in New York City, presumably for the Verizon iPhone. While this certainly isn’t incontrovertible evidence that the Verizon event is actually more of an Apple event, this definitely adds some tinder to the flaming rumor mill. Then again, Apple could merely be following Best Buy’s lead, with the 1.11.11 date pure coincidence. Either way, we’re fans of open return policies for expensive products, so if you ask us, it’s more of a good thing.

Apple will drop restocking fees on January 11th originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So, while all the cool kids were showing off their wares at CES, the good people at Gigabyte decided to throw their own tablet party across the Pacific. The S1080 is the slate you never asked for, in that it runs Windows 7 on a dual core Atom N550 processor underneath a 10.1-inch capacitive touchscreen with 1024 x 600 resolution. If multitouch navigation isn’t your thing (an odd preference for those buying tablets), there are a couple of tactile mouse buttons on one edge and an optical mouse on the opposite side for thumbs-only operation. The device has a massive (for a tablet) 320GB hard drive, SD card reader, ethernet port, and USB 3.0 connectivity to sate your computing needs. Also included is a 1.3 megapixel webcam, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth 3.0. Lastly, in what can only be considered an odd design choice, our Taiwanese friends elected to give the S1080 a VGA port instead of an HDMI connection. Word on the street is that the device will be less than $300 when it goes on sale next month, so if you are a member of the (presumably small) group of people who aren’t interested in an Android, Apple, Blackberry, or HP slate, the S1080 may be the tablet for you.

Continue reading Gigabyte shows off its new S1080 Windows 7 slate in Taiwan to little fanfare and even less excietment

Gigabyte shows off its new S1080 Windows 7 slate in Taiwan to little fanfare and even less excietment originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 02:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We weren’t able to check out the customization features of XpanD’s latest active shutter LCD 3D glasses, but we did get to try them on at their booth for a moment. They’re markedly lighter than the company’s other 3D specs and the side pods for the battery and settings storage seem to do a decent job of blocking light from the sides. We’ll need to sit down for a few rounds of NBA 2K11 3D or Resident Evil: Afterlife to know how they hold up in real life but in the meantime check out the pics in the gallery.

XpanD Youniversal 3D glasses hand & face on originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 01:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HyperMac’s portable charging systems are back on the market with a revamped product line that does not violate Apple’s patents. HyperMac was faced with a patent lawsuit from Apple over the company’s charging cables, which used Apple’s MagSafe and 30-pin connectors. The company stopped selling the infringing cables on November 2, while continuing to produce its line of HyperJuice batteries. Without the cables to connect to your laptop, though, the batteries were more or less useless.

Sanho Corporation, the company behind HyperMac, was back at CES 2011 and showed off two new DIY power cable systems that skirt Apple’s patents. One system uses Apple’s MagSafe Airline adapter and a special plug provided by HyperMac to daisy chain a HyperJuice battery to your Apple laptop. While easy to implement, this setup powers your Apple notebook but does not recharge your battery.

A second solution requires the user to splice the cable on their MacBook power adapter. HyperMac provides the appropriate connectors to let users attach this modified cable to a HyperJuice battery or to the original Apple power adapter. These modifications require minimal technical skill and do not require any soldering. Though not as easy as the Airline adapter method, this latter solution does provide users with the ability to charge their battery from a HyperJuice battery while on the go.

[Via Ars Technica]

HyperMac offers DIY solutions after Apple lawsuit originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last week while we were at CES, I asked our editor-in-chief, Victor Agreda, for one of his favorite iPhone games, and he told me one that I’d never heard of: Gravity Wars. It’s a very retro affair — the idea is that you control a pixelated ship and fire, given an angle and speed, at another ship on a starfield. Your lines are drawn out as you fire on the screen, and the goal is to navigate the complicated gravity to hit the opposing ship. It’s simple, but very interesting — you end up calculating some really complicated shots as you try to take the other ship down.

There’s a free and a paid version of the app, but there’s no difference between them — the idea is that if you like the game, you’ll buy it from the author for just 99 cents. Note that the app’s settings are unfortunately stored in the Settings app on your iPhone or iPod touch, since this is an old school title. And, of course, there’s no Game Center integration or any other bells or whistles. This one’s still fun, but it’s retro in both graphics and iOS features.

TUAW’s Daily App: Gravity Wars originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has announced dates for this year’s iTunes Festival London. Like last year, the festival will run every night in July. Sixty artists will be performing over thirty-one days at Camden’s Roundhouse in London. Three of the confirmed bands are Linkin Park, Duran Duran and Rumer.

As in years past, tickets to the shows are only available for free via competitions. Apple will be giving away a limited number of tickets for each showing. The entry form for the competition can be found here. Participants may apply for as many of the gigs as they’d like but are limited to the three confirmed bands for now.

Those who can’t make the festival should still be able to watch highlights, read the latest news and see behind-the-scenes photos on the event’s Facebook and Twitter pages as they did in years past. Apple has also set up an official Ping page for the concert this year. All performances will also be recorded and sold on the iTunes Music Store worldwide.

Apple announces dates for iTunes Festival London 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 10 Jan 2011 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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My colleague Chris wrote a post about the popular video playback client VLC being pulled from the App Store following objections from a developer who worked on the project that it was in breach of the GNU Public License. [The app has now been released on Cydia for jailbroken devices.]

This unpopular move had provoked strong reactions throughout the Mac blogging world, and Chris made a strong case for the prosecution in his post. However, every story always has two sides (and somewhere between them lies the truth). I’m here today to present the case for the defense: why Rémi Denis-Courmont was absolutely in the right to do what he did.

However, to do so, I’m going to have to lay out some open source history to give structure to my arguments. Please follow me on.

Continue reading The GPL, the App Store, and you

The GPL, the App Store, and you originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We mentioned the CarTrip when they announced it earlier in the week, but after seeing this thing in person at CES, I really want one. Primarily because the device will allow you to clear the stupid “check engine” light in most cars made after 1996 with an ODB-II port. You see, the CarTrip features a dongle that plugs into the ODB-II port in your car, and it communicates via Bluetooth with an iOS device (in your hand or dashboard).

The CarTrip can then show you certain codes from your car’s “brain” and alert you to problems or clear the check engine light. Plus, a little plant sprout on the app will show you how efficiently your car is driving, and the device will track efficiency even if you don’t have your iOS device in the car. Check out the video on the next page; we had a chat with Eric Weisinger from Griffin about the CarTrip. It should be available in the second quarter of 2011 for US$89.99.

Continue reading Griffin CarTrip will track efficiency and show diagnostic reports (video)

Griffin CarTrip will track efficiency and show diagnostic reports (video) originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hm, what product could make Apple cover the windows of a retail shop so soon after the holiday shopping season? Surely not the iPad 2. Maybe something that looks the same but works on a totally new network? You know, that Verizon iPhone that we’ve been hearing about for a few years now, perchance? Well, as it turns out, probably not.

The above pic and another one posted on Uneasy Silence by way of TwitPic (dated January 9, 2011) show retail employees deploying the big black shroud to cover the store windows. The poster is from the UK, but no specific location of this store is given. Calls to several US stores said they are not covering up, and honestly, covering up (and closing a retail shop) for an entire day before a major announcement would be nuts. This cover-up is most likely for an already-existing product that is getting a new window display, which would be installed overnight. It happens frequently at Apple Stores, particularly after the holidays.

Despite the unrelated cover-up, we’re hearing that retail employees will have a meeting next weekend for the “red zone” — a code name given to the sales area of the floor. We’re also hearing of a possible new set up area, meaning you may see a part of stores set up strictly to accommodate new iPhone purchasers and get their phones activated. This would be great for Verizon customers suddenly flocking to Apple’s warm embrace, yes? At any rate, it’s more about the service than the product, both in the retail experience and on your network when you leave the store.

Update: As 9to5Mac points out and we hear independently, starting January 11, there will be no more restocking fees. Perhaps this “test drive anything” policy is getting some big display announcement? That would seem apropos.

Update 2: We’re hearing the reason the windows are being blocked off? Retail employees are being trained on new “set up areas” that aren’t for the Verizon iPhone, but for new customers who may be unfamiliar with Macs or iOS devices and would like to get things started with the help of a friendly Apple retail employee. Doing that now involves clogging up the Genius area in many cases.

Apple Store spotted covering up, but likely not for new iPhone (updated: no restocking fees, setup centers) originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 20:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As promised a while back, we got to chat with Elliptic Labs here at CES, and CEO Stian Aldrin walked us through the touchless gesture technology his 15-person Norway-based company is developing as a prototype. The whole thing is based on ultrasound, it turns out — a small speaker kicks out frequencies higher than the ear can hear, and a set of microphones listens in on the reflections, using an algorithim to calculate where your hand is at as you wave it through the air. The result is a gesture-based control system for touchscreen devices, but without the actual touch.

Aldrin told us that the system is already in use in a Norwegian hospital, where surgeons control touchscreen tablets without having to take their sanitized gloves off during surgery. Currently, the system only allows for a few simple gestures (swiping up and down, or left and right), but that’s just a limitation of the demo units Elliptic Labs has created. Potentially, such a system could not only recognize the placement and speed of your hand passing by (and indeed, one of the demos in the CES booth could monitor both proximity to the screen and speed, flipping on-screen content faster if you pushed your hand by faster), but even calculate multiple points of movement, doing things like multitouch gestures in the air.

You do have to be pretty close in to the screen to operate the device — rather than a big cone like a Kinect, the system monitors a sphere around itself, so you’ve got to have your hand enter that sphere for it to register. But Elliptic (who already plan to be back at CES with an even bigger booth next year) suggests that the system could be used for lots of things, from quick music controls to car controls, or anything else where you need to make a touch-style gesture without actually touching the screen. We’ve got exclusive video after the break of Aldrin demoing a dock version of the system, connected via Wi-Fi to an off-the-shelf iPad running a custom-made app.

Continue reading Elliptic Labs demonstrates its touchless user interface for iPad (with video)

Elliptic Labs demonstrates its touchless user interface for iPad (with video) originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It is time!

This week we have plenty to discuss, including the Mac App Store’s debut and the white Verizon iPhone confirmation. As such, this calls for a freshly-baked batch of random speculation so tonight I’ll be hosting live from my House Of Crackpot Theories. We might even have a few developers along to give us some actual insight and bring balance to the conversation.

Your calls and questions help us make the show the best it can be, otherwise I’m just talking to myself! To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only client, the embedded Facebook app, or the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in.

For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (yay for free cellphone weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8.

If you’ve got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free Gizmo or X-Lite SIP clients; basic instructions are here. Talk with you then!

Talkcast tonight, 7pm PT/10pm ET: Crystal Ball Edition! originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Picture this: you’re hanging out at a friend’s house, and the familiar “doodle-dee!” of the iPhone’s Tri-tone alert sound goes off. But four people simultaneously start reaching for their iPhones, because they’re all using that sound for SMS/MMS alerts. Or how about this: you’re on a bike ride and getting audio feedback on your pace from RunKeeper Pro. As you ride along, you hear the Tri-tone alert go off half a dozen times. Is it someone sending you an important text message, or is it just Twitter spamming you with @reply notifications?

If you’re using Tri-tone for Messages alerts, there’s no way to tell the difference unless you stop pedalling and check. Now imagine that your iPhone is more than ten feet away from you, or you’re in a room where the ambient noise is above whisper level, and you get a new e-mail. How would you know? The New Mail notification sound is so unobtrusive, even with the iPhone’s volume maxed out, that it barely ever registers.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve encountered all three of these scenarios with distressing frequency. It’s well past time that Apple allows us to customize our alert tones.

Continue reading Dear Apple: It’s (past) time to let us customize our alert tones

Dear Apple: It’s (past) time to let us customize our alert tones originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve been wondering for the past day or so what the distinguishing features of the Verizon iPhone might be. Will it come in colors? Aside from VZW’s respectable network and CDMA technology, how will the iPhone experience on Big Red be different?

If the Wall Street Journal is right, there’ll be a big difference in the service plans: unlimited data. The paper cites a source familiar with Verizon’s plans saying that an unlimited data option will be available. By comparison, AT&T moved to a capped tier this summer, which angered some users who preferred the unlimited option.

[via Business Insider]

WSJ: Verizon iPhone will offer unlimited data originally appeared on TUAW on Sun, 09 Jan 2011 16:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple announced today that over one million apps have been downloaded from the Mac App Store in the first day. “We’re amazed at the incredible response the Mac App Store is getting,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Developers have done a great job bringing apps to the store and users are loving how easy and fun the Mac App Store is.”

Apple today announced that the Mac App Store is now open for business with more than a thousand free and paid apps. The Mac App Store brings the revolutionary App Store experience to the Mac, so you can find great new apps, buy them using your iTunes account, and download and install them in just one step. The Mac App Store is available for Snow Leopard users through Software Update as part of Mac OS X v10.6.6.

Apple today announced that it expects sales of its new Apple TV to top one million units later this week. The new Apple TV offers the simplest way to watch your favorite HD movies and TV shows and stream content from Netflix, YouTube, Flickr, and MobileMe — all on your HD TV, for the breakthrough price of just $99. iTunes users are now renting and purchasing over 400,000 TV episodes and over 150,000 movies per day.

iLife ‘11 is Barron’s Gadget of the Week, and reviewer Tiernan Ray gives it all 5 stars, saying iLife “makes it a breeze to polish and present photos, movies and music.” Ray particularly likes the “handsome coffee-table book” he created from his vacation photos using iPhoto, and he also highlights iMovie trailers and GarageBand Groove Matching.