Subscribe:

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Shops Online

Shops Online

Paice drags Hyundai, Kia into long-running hybrid patent fight with Toyota

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 01:42 PM PST

Paice drags Hyundai, Kia into long-running hybrid patent fight with Toyota


Paice drags Hyundai, Kia into long-running hybrid patent fight with Toyota
Filed under: Etc., Hybrid, Hyundai, Kia, Toyota Paice. With all the news coming out recently about the small claims lawsuit over the Honda Civic Hybrid, readers may have forgotten the name behind a long-running legal issue over Toyota's hybrid system: Paice. The latest development is that Paice and the Abell Foundation (an investor in Paice) have sued Hyundai and Kia over the gas-electric technology used in the Optima and Sonota hybrids (pictured), which...

Arnova launches 8b G2 slate, hopes to keep it cheap

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 01:42 PM PST

Arnova launches 8b G2 slate, hopes to keep it cheap


Arnova launches 8b G2 slate, hopes to keep it cheap
Arnova isn't exactly a newcomer when it comes to dealing with budget-friendly tabs, already having produced the 9 and 10 G2s. The outfit's newest addition to its tablet lineup is simply dubbed 8b G2, honoring its 8-inch, 800 x 600, TFT display. Coming in what some could consider "last year's specs," the slate's packing a 1GHz CPU, 512MB of RAM, a front-facing shooter, microSD slot for extra storage (4 or 8GB...

March Madness streams to more platforms in 2012, but not everything is free

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 11:30 AM PST

March Madness streams to more platforms in 2012, but not everything is free


March Madness streams to more platforms in 2012, but not everything is free
Last year CBS and Turner Sports brought every game of the NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball Tournament home in HD on four cable channels, and streaming for free to PCs and iOS devices. While the broadcast plans remain the same this year, if you want to stream the 41 games broadcast on cable networks then you'll need to subscribe to an affiliated TV provider (all the major guys except Time Warner)...

High price for high tea

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 11:30 AM PST

High price for high tea


High price for high tea
This hand-grown tea from Hawaii costs about $20 per cup.  And it might be worth every cent.

Home Economy: 14 uses for wax paper

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 11:30 AM PST

Home Economy: 14 uses for wax paper


Home Economy: 14 uses for wax paper
It's not just for the oven.

Google quietly launches Latitude Leaderboards, threatens Foursquare under its br...

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 10:02 AM PST

Google quietly launches Latitude Leaderboards, threatens Foursquare under its breath


Google quietly launches Latitude Leaderboards, threatens Foursquare under its breath
Google didn't exactly offer much fanfare for this new feature -- as far as we can tell, it still hasn't been officially announced. With the latest update to the Maps app, Mountain View delivered an extra level of functionality to the all but forgotten Latitude. Now check check-ins earn you points which are tallied and used to rank Google+ users on a global leaderboard, just like on Foursquare....

Student hacks into Facebook, gets eight months in prison, twelve likes

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 07:07 AM PST

Student hacks into Facebook, gets eight months in prison, twelve likes


Student hacks into Facebook, gets eight months in prison, twelve likes
The next time you get caught hijacking your friend's Facebook, remember it could be worse. On Friday, British Student Glenn Mangham was sentenced to eight months in not-so-social jail, for hacking deep into Facebook's servers. Apparently no user details were taken, with Mangham heading straight for "invaluable" intellectual property instead....

Toyota starts making, selling Camry Hybrids in Taiwan

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 06:23 AM PST

Toyota starts making, selling Camry Hybrids in Taiwan


Toyota starts making, selling Camry Hybrids in Taiwan
Filed under: Hybrid On February 15, Toyota began making Camry Hybrid vehicles at a Taiwanese factory owned by the Japanese automaker's Kuozui Motors affiliate and will soon start sales of the mid-size hybrid in that country. The world's biggest hybrid maker will make about 7,000 Camry Hybrids a year at Kuozui Motors' Kuanying Plant, which will be the seventh location outside of Japan to make Toyota hybrid vehicles....

Old dining room, new use

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 06:23 AM PST

Old dining room, new use


Old dining room, new use
If you don't use a room for its original function, transform it.

DARPA's 'Avatar project' aims to give soldiers surrogate robots, make James Came...

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 04:14 AM PST

DARPA's 'Avatar project' aims to give soldiers surrogate robots, make James Cameron proud


DARPA's 'Avatar project' aims to give soldiers surrogate robots, make James Cameron proud
In a fevered mash up of blockbuster films directed by James Cameron, DARPA is looking to put soldier controlled bi-pedal robots on the battlefield. Think Terminator meets Avatar. The agency has set aside $7 million of it's $2.8 billion 2012 budget to develop an "Avatar program" that will "develop interfaces and algorithms to enable a soldier to effectively partner with a semi-autonomous bi-pedal machine and allow it to act as the...

NASA simulates fly through of ginormous crack in Antarctic glacier, takes you fo...

Posted: 19 Feb 2012 02:04 AM PST

NASA simulates fly through of ginormous crack in Antarctic glacier, takes you for virtual ride


NASA simulates fly through of ginormous crack in Antarctic glacier, takes you for virtual ride
Swooping through the trenches of the Death Star likely ranks high on every geek's bucket list, but thanks to the global financial crisis, we likely won't be seeing Dubai's Death Star any time soon. Fortunately, the folks at NASA have rigged up a passable alternative -- flying through a massive 19-mile crack across Antarctica's Pine Island Glacier....

LG Optimus Vu officially revealed ahead of MWC with stylus, 1.5GHz CPU

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 11:14 PM PST

LG Optimus Vu officially revealed ahead of MWC with stylus, 1.5GHz CPU


LG Optimus Vu officially revealed ahead of MWC with stylus, 1.5GHz CPU
Similar to its pre-CES reveals, LG just couldn't wait for Mobile World Congress to get underway on the 27th to show off its new Optimus Vu handset. These new pics offer a much clearer look at its 4x3 aspect ratio, 1024x768 res, stylus-friendly 5-inch IPS LCD display, while the official specs confirm rumors it would pack a 1.5GHz dual core CPU, 8MP camera, LTE, 2080mAh battery and Android 2.3 in a...

Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 flexes its imaging muscle (video)

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 09:08 PM PST

Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 flexes its imaging muscle (video)


Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 flexes its imaging muscle (video)
While we already know that Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 will offer a quad-core variant, incorporate LTE and use a 28nm manufacturing process, the company posted an article to its media blog ahead of Mobile World Congress showcasing the new features provided by the chipset's Image Signal Processor. You're likely familiar with some of the imaging functionality available in Qualcomm's existing Snapdragon processors -- technology like Scalado's Rewind (pictured above) which we've covered...

Ask Engadget: Best expedition planning software?

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 07:42 PM PST

Ask Engadget: Best expedition planning software?


Ask Engadget: Best expedition planning software?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from Martin, who's planning an expedition and wants something more sophisticated than a cork-board to manage it. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com....

Georgia Tech researchers turn an iPhone into a Braille writer with BrailleTouch app

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 05:35 PM PST

Georgia Tech researchers turn an iPhone into a Braille writer with BrailleTouch app


Georgia Tech researchers turn an iPhone into a Braille writer with BrailleTouch app
It wasn't all that long ago that we saw a student turn a tablet into a Braille writer, and now some researchers from Georgia Tech have done the same thing for smaller touchscreens, too. The Yellow Jackets produced a prototype app, called BrailleTouch, that has six keys to input letters using the Braille writing system and audio to confirm each letter as it's entered....

Engadget Mobile Podcast 126 - 12.18.2012

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 05:35 PM PST

Engadget Mobile Podcast 126 - 12.18.2012



Engadget Mobile Podcast 126 - 12.18.2012
Some weeks, there are descriptive themes we can ascribe to the Engadget Mobile Podcast in retrospect. This isn't one of those weeks. We are simply all over the place: good phones, bad phones, fat phones, skinny phones, phablets, spectra, lions, leaks, rumors, lies, and videotape. So just kick back with your usual hosts and their bud Dan Seifert for two hours of mobile mega-miscellania....

Blockbuster On Demand pulls back from TiVo and others, is it on its way out?

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 04:52 PM PST

Blockbuster On Demand pulls back from TiVo and others, is it on its way out?


Blockbuster On Demand pulls back from TiVo and others, is it on its way out?
From Zatz Not Funny comes word that TiVo owners are being notified their access to Blockbuster On Demand will come to an end March 31st, ending a run originally announced three years before. While this certainly affects TiVo's ability to offer the one box to search multiple services idea introduced with the Premiere, it could be more telling about Blockbuster's plans for the current incarnation of its internet movie service....

Microsoft SkyDrive apps for Windows, OS X and extended storage pricing revealed?

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 04:11 PM PST

Microsoft SkyDrive apps for Windows, OS X and extended storage pricing revealed?


Microsoft SkyDrive apps for Windows, OS X and extended storage pricing revealed?
Take this with a grain a salt, but it appears that like Microsoft's SkyDrive cloud service is getting dedicated desktop applications for Windows and OS X, along with options for extra storage if you're willing to pony up some funds. Felipe Zorzo of Gemind uncovered the unannounced details (example above) while accessing its Brazilian web interface....

Mobile Advertising Is The Baby Huey Of The Media World (And Apple Is Taking The...

Posted: 18 Feb 2012 03:28 PM PST

Mobile Advertising Is The Baby Huey Of The Media World (And Apple Is Taking The Low Road)


Mobile Advertising Is The Baby Huey Of The Media World (And Apple Is Taking The Low Road)
Editor's Note: This guest post was written by Frank Barbieri, the SVP of Emerging Platforms at YuMe. You can follow him @frankba I had dinner last week with a senior exec from a global advertising holding company who asked what I often get asked these days, "What's going on with mobile advertising?" it's a timely question as last week Apple announced they were lowering the buy-in price for iAds from $500,000 to...