As beta testing programs go, Microsoft’s Kinect venture has been kind of… leaky. No surprises, therefore, that we’ve now received our first in-the-plastic pictures of the motion-tracking camera peripheral, replete with a few select shots of its packaging. Redmond’s promise that hardware was en route to testers was clearly not a hollow one, and we can now probably expect a bunch more unauthorized disclosures about the user experience with what should be final retail units. The outside of the packaging includes a couple of teasers encouraging users to pick up some of those bodacious PDP stands and wall mounts for their Kinect — presumably the start of a tidal wave of Kinect accessories.
Microsoft Kinect starts making home deliveries to beta testers originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 08:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: Beta, deliveries, Home, Kinect, Making, Microsoft, starts, testers
Some more interesting stuff on the Chrome OS hardware front has started to pop up courtesy of Google’s own Chromium OS bug reports. Multiple references have been made to a mysterious Acer ZGA machine, which we have on good authority is also referred to generically as Google’s “dogfood device” in bug reports — dogfood referring to the practice of using your own products before you unleash them on the world. Even more interesting, someone actually managed to post a syslog of the machine, which is running an Atom N455 processor, has a 8GB SanDisk pSSD-S2 drive, sports a webcam, 802.11n WiFi, Bluetooth, an ambient light sensor (for screen dimming, or possibly a backlit keyboard), and a Synaptics touchpad. Synaptics makes all sorts of touchpads, but is best known for its higher-end innovations, such as the MacBook-style clickpads found in the HP Envy series. Of course, all of these specs could change, or this machine could be merely in as a test bed for Chrome OS, and not planned for market — like Microsoft is using its ASUS prototype with Windows Phone 7 — but a July 26th mention of a “PVT run” (Product Verification Test) could point to this machine being almost ready for actual production.
[Thanks, Mark P]
Acer ‘ZGA’ Chrome OS netbook starts popping up in Google bug reports originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 14:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: 'ZGA', Acer, Chrome, Google, Netbook, popping, Reports, starts
Looking for one box to rule them all? If so, you must have glossed right over Monsoon’s Vulkano launch, but lucky for you, there’s a reminder coming in the form of a ‘now shipping’ proclamation. Just weeks after the $379 mega-box — which aims to replace all of those other STBs under your television — went up for pre-order, the earliest of adopters have started to receive their devices. We’re still waiting on a proper critique, but if you’re yearning to have a glance at what the future of media looks like, give those links below a look. Just kidding about that last part, by the way.
[Thanks, Dan]
Monsoon Vulkano do-it-all media box starts shipping, gets unboxed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Aug 2010 12:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: doitall, gets, Media, Monsoon, shipping, starts, Unboxed, Vulkano
Sure, XDADevelopers has had an unofficial fix for a few days, but we understand your hesitation — installing custom firmware is how you got burned in the first place. Thankfully for you, HTC is now beaming the official EVO 4G patch over the airwaves, which updates your tainted 3.26.561.3 dairy dessert to a more toothsome 3.26.561.6. Just scoot on over to Settings > System Updates and invoke the download — assuming Sprint is being nice in your area — or wait it out and your handset might even update itself.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
HTC EVO 4G Froyo .6 update starts OTA rollout for early adopters originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 10 Aug 2010 23:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: adopters, Early, Froyo, rollout, starts, Update
We’ve just gotten a deluge of tips that EVO 4Gs are starting to get blessed with the official update to Froyo — a few hours prior to the promised August 3 rollout — so if you’ve got one handy, you’re going to want to start checking it right this second. Seriously, now that it’s got a trick flashlight app included in ROM, what could you possibly be waiting for? On a related note, if you happened to apply that early update that HTC posted and pulled late last week, the company’s working on a fix so that you aren’t out of the over-the-air update loop and promises to “get back” in “the coming days.”
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
EVO 4G starts getting Android 2.2 update over the air originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Aug 2010 20:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: Android, Getting, over, starts, Update
It’s long been the case that if you wanted a HTC handset over in the world’s most populous nation, you’d have had to look for its rebadged variant under the Dopod brand. But, as of today, that is no more. The prolific Taiwanese phone maker has decided that its name is now recognizable and valuable enough in China to be put on its own hardware and is kicking off a campaign with four own-branded phones. The Wildfire and Desire we’re all familiar with already, while the Tianxi looks like a mildly tweaked HD2 and the Tianyi is a mix-and-match of design elements from the rest of HTC’s portfolio. The company’s also announcing a partnership with China Mobile to bring these puppies to market, so it’s looking like smooth sailing ahead. Full PR after the break.
Continue reading HTC starts selling phones in China under its own name
HTC starts selling phones in China under its own name originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: china, Name, Phones, Selling, starts, Under
Automatic refunds, or so the email says. We’ve been on the receiving end of a deluge of tips this morning pointing out that Apple has begun funneling cash back into its users’ pockets — a most unusual event, to be sure — to live up to its retroactive promise of free Bumpers for all (who buy their iPhone 4 before September 30). If the particular wording is to be trusted, that should mean that even those who haven’t yet bothered to put in a claim, but did purchase a Bumper, will find themselves enriched in due course. Apple estimates this bandaid solution to its antenna problems will cost $175 million in real cash money, but we suspect the biggest price to pay will be in the form of pride and reputation.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple starts refunding Bumper purchases automagically originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: Apple, automagically, Bumper, purchases, refunding, starts
Oregon and Southwest Washington are enjoying more than just the launch of Comcast’s updated A28 guide today, the company also announced it has begun offering Anyroom DVR (not to be confused with Anyroom On Demand) setups in the area. It’s a pretty standard MoCA implementation, one central HD DVR that allows customers to watch and control recorded programming from other hard drive-less set-top boxes in the same house. Comcast say Anyroom DVR is available in 20 markets including the Bay area, Western Mass, Augusta, Knoxville, Chattanooga, Little Rock and others, while forum posts on DSLReports indicate promos have been spotted in Chicago and Pennsylvania with a price tag of $19.95 for the main DVR, and the usual fees for the other boxes (maximum of 3).
We couldn’t get an official confirmation on the amount of storage available, but the reported 500GB is an all too welcome improvement over the 160GB / 250GB drives still sitting in most standard DVRs Comcast issues or the FiOS one we tested a while back, outpaces the 250GB / 320GB options in AT&T’s U-verse setups and would put it on par with DirecTV’s HR24 (can be upgraded) and the new Cox Plus Package. Sure, it’s a little late to record every World Cup match in HD (or 3D) but we’re sure you’ll find something to watch.
Continue reading Comcast starts offering multiroom features, 500GB hard drives with AnyRoom DVR
Comcast starts offering multiroom features, 500GB hard drives with AnyRoom DVR originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 01 Jul 2010 18:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: 500GB, AnyRoom, Comcast, drives, Features, Hard, multiroom, offering, starts
It isn’t hard to get behind a company like Willow Garage, who not only has enough funding to invest heavily in building on ROS, an open source Robotics Operating System that’s gaining traction in the robotics community, but also managed to dig up enough spare change to give away $4.4 million in robots to a few lucky research institutions. There were 11 schools selected to receive the Willow Garage-developed PR2 Beta, which stuffs some very high end sensors, two articulated arms, and sixteen CPU cores on top of a rolling base — providing a lot of leg room for advanced functionality. Of course, in the world of robots, “advanced” means stuff like opening doors and not running over your cat, but with a common code base to work from and all this fancy hardware, hopefully these schools will manage to push the industry along a bit during the next two years that the PR2 Beta Program lasts.
Willow Garage starts shipping its PR2 Beta Program bots: get ready for ROS-powered hijinks originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 May 2010 20:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: Beta, BOTS, Garage, hijinks, program, Ready, ROSpowered, shipping, starts, Willow
What’s that, you say? The iPad pre-order button is now propagating itself over on Apple’s global assortment of online stores? The Australian retail is already taking your hard-earned change, while we just saw first-hand the UK variant go down, go up with an iPad pre-order icon on the front page, then subsequently hidden again behind a yellow sticky note within minutes of this writing. We imagine the rest of the stores will be following suit (if they haven’t already). Ladies and gentlemen of the pro-Apple persuasion, better double check your bank accounts — in case you forgot, the full launch is May 28th.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Apple starts rolling out international iPad pre-orders originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 09 May 2010 19:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: Apple, International, iPad, preorders, Rolling, starts
