Last time we saw the 10-inch EROS tablet it was powered down and pouting about its two hours of battery life, but the tablet’s pulled itself together and powered up to show off its skills. The performance is pretty much what you would expect of an Intel Atom-powered Windows 7 Home Premium netbook with its keyboard chopped off, and from what we’ve been able to glean from the 11 minute video below the touchscreen seems responsive to writing with a stylus and to flicks of photos and pages in a comic book. You’ll notice, however the reviewer only uses his fingers a few times, though he’s actually quite good at typing on the on-screen keyboard. The rest of the time he uses the stylus to move through those far-from-finger-friendly Windows 7 menus. If you’re wondering why Windows 7 still needs additional software tweaks to work on a purely finger-driven tablet device, spend 10 minutes watching the video below. Or just listen to The Weepies’ awesome “Gotta Have You” — which perhaps not coincidentally ends when the tablet’s done booting.
Continue reading EROS tablet video is a lesson in why Windows 7 isn’t strictly meant for finger navigation
EROS tablet video is a lesson in why Windows 7 isn’t strictly meant for finger navigation originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Motorola’s so-called Calgary has found itself on a lengthy, fascinating journey from rumor to retail — a journey that began way back in 2008. Finally, here we are a whole bunch of months later, the high-end Droid having been released back in November and Verizon still without a midrange choice for Android hopefuls — but that’s about to change. Right, Verizon? Right? The latest intel from Android and Me suggests that the Devour (as it’ll almost certainly be known to the public) will feature a Qualcomm MSM7627 — the same next-gen entry-level core being used by the Pixi that’s designed to replace the aging MSM7600 series, very likely a chip that we’re going to be seeing a whole lot of over the next 12-18 months in devices that manufacturers don’t deem worthy of Snapdragon. Meanwhile, Android Central seems to have scored a shot of some promotional material for the Devour suggesting that it’s not far off — the site says we’re looking at a retail box here, but considering how small and narrow the Droid’s box is, this could actually be some in-store signage or something to that effect. We’ll know soon enough, hopefully.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Update: And look at this, Motorola’s support documents for the Devour are now live (we count 10 pages’ worth, total). Not too much interesting in here, but we can confirm that the name will be Devour, it’s got WiFi, and there’ll be a car kit available. Thanks, Stormdancer!
Motorola Devour for Verizon gets boxed, shares Pixi’s processor? (update: Moto’s support site is live) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It may only represent a smidgen of the multi-trillion dollar annual federal budget, but funding for NASA never fails to stir up debate, and that looks like it’ll be the case more than ever with the Obama administration’s just-announced 2011 budget. While NASA’s budget will actually increase slightly to $19 billion, the big news is that Constellation moon program started by the Bush administration in 2006 (with the goal of returning by 2020) is being shelved amid what amounts to a fairly big change in priorities for NASA. That includes the first phase of more than $9 billion in spending on robotic exploration and heavy-lift rockets and, perhaps most notably, $6 billion in spending to promote the development of commercial rockets and spacecraft — which NASA hopes will eventually be able to transport astronauts into orbit. Turning around a space agency isn’t exactly easy though, and it’ll apparently cost $3 billion over two years simply to end what’s already been started on the Constellation program.
Feeling a little wistful? Then head on past the break for a brief history of NASA’s recent lunar ambitions.
Continue reading Budget puts NASA’s moon program on ice, promises to ‘blaze a new trail of discovery’
Budget puts NASA’s moon program on ice, promises to ‘blaze a new trail of discovery’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Here’s the thing about Sony Ericsson’s Xperia Pureness: once you get past the translucent display, there’s not much to it. Seriously — it doesn’t have 3G, a camera, hunks of precious metal, or even a fancy name to flaunt like Vertu, Dior, or Versace; it’s just a low-end phone from a mass-market manufacturer that can’t do much other than make calls. We suppose that’s why it was so easy for a Shenzhen KIRFer to pop out this near-perfect duplicate of the Pureness — the Somy X5 — in no time. Heck, it’s even got support for two SIMs, or exactly twice as many as you’ll find on the $1,000 genuine article — which, if you’re keeping track, is over twelve times the bargain-basement sticker on the Somy here at RMB 550 ($81). Anyhow, looks like it’s back to that search for a faithful Aura replica, eh?
Somy X5: basically a Sony Ericsson Pureness for a tenth the price originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 16:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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North Americans are about as familiar with Alcatel as Europeans are with baseball, but the brand — owned by China’s TCT — actually does a decent amount of low- to mid-end handset business around the world. One thing Alcatel isn’t known for, though, is venturing into the smartphone fray, so it comes as a bit of a surprise that they’re taking a swing at the Android market here with the OT-980 slider. Even more surprising, perhaps, is the fact that it basically looks like a cheesy Pre with red accents, but stay with us: TCT wants to undercut HTC’s ultra low-cost Tattoo when it brings the 980 to market, so you might be able to find this one for peanuts. Apart from the fact that it runs Donut, the spec sheet reads pretty nicely, too, with 192MB of RAM, Qualcomm’s relatively new 600MHz MSM7227 core, WiFi, 3G, and a magnetic compass, but you’ll have to wait a bit — it’s not expected to hit the market for another few months, it seems.
Alcatel’s Pre-alike OT-980 with Android seeks to undercut HTC Tattoo originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:41:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Have any idea what a SureType keypad would look like if it were removed from a BlackBerry and (barely) enlarged? We’re guessing it’d look a little something like this. Designed by Mobience, the smallQWERTY keyboard is meant to give you a more tactile option when it comes to texting or inputting characters into your phone, MID, UMPC or pretty much any other handheld device. There’s no mention of a price, and we’re not told exactly how long it’ll take to master this thing, but we’re bubbling over just thinking of the fun we could have from hacking into the text input fields of nearby devices with this. Shh… you didn’t hear that from us.
Mobience smallQWERTY keyboard saves the lives of touchscreen detesters originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:17:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It looks like Fusion Garage is out to remind people that there’s more than one $499 tablet in the world today: CEO Chandra Rathakrishnan is talking up the Joojoo tablet’s pre-orders, and the company’s lawyers have filed a delightfully snippy motion to dismiss TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s lawsuit over the device formerly known as CrunchPad, saying his claims are “legally barred, facially flawed, and fatally imprecise.” As we predicted from the outset, the argument boils down to the fact that there was never any contract between Fusion Garage and Michael Arrington or TechCrunch — and Fusion Garage also points out it can’t have stolen an idea that Arrington posted “all over the Internet.” Snap. It’s a little more complicated than that, though — we’ve broken it down after the break, grab the PDF and follow along.
Continue reading Fusion Garage files to dismiss CrunchPad lawsuit
Fusion Garage files to dismiss CrunchPad lawsuit originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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We got a chance to check out Alienware’s ultraportable
M11x laptop at CES last month, but the company unfortunately wasn’t ready to reveal too many specs beyond the NVIDIA GT335M switchable graphics at the heart of the rig. A couple of newly leaked slides have now cleared up most of the remaining mystery, however, the biggest of which is that the system will apparently be available with either a Pentium SU4100 or Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor — making the “netbook” term even more of a stretch than it was before. Curiously, the slides also show a target price of $899 (up from the $799 we heard at CES), and a ready-to-ship date of February 5th, which would seem to indicate that the “Spring” launch tossed around earlier may have been a bit cautious — that latter detail is further backed up by a post on Dell Japan’s website, which indicates that the laptop will be released in the country this month.
[Thanks, NitroFrost ]
Alienware M11x ‘netbook’ gets detailed, headed to Japan this month originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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It ain’t the first company to do it, but Logitech’s new iPhone app is certainly one of the easiest to get into. Oh, and did we mention that it’s completely free to download? Available now in the App Store, Touch Mouse transforms your handset into a wireless trackpad or keyboard, and thanks to its reliance on vanilla WiFi signals, you won’t need any proprietary equipment to get it up and running. It’s fully compatible with both Mac and PC platforms, and it’s obviously a pretty fantastic way to control your HTPC without dragging a full-fledged keyboard / mouse into the living room. Hit the source link for more details, and be sure to let us know how it goes in comments once you give it a roll.
[Thanks, Wulf]
Logitech app turns your iPhone into wireless trackpad or keyboard originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Do you like video games? Are you filled with rage? Then GNILLEY just might be the game you’ve been waiting for. Developed by Glen Forrester (a.k.a. Radix) for Global Game Jam 2010, the game apparently started out as being about “pitch and color,” but quickly became “all about yelling at everything,” and ended up winning the award for most original game at the competition. Head on past the break to check it out for yourself — we’re sure you’ll agree he made the right decision.
Continue reading GNILLEY: the game where you scream to survive
GNILLEY: the game where you scream to survive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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