|  |  |  | | | | | Engadget | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | "Definitely the best Android phone available today -- it's possibly even the best phone available today, period." That's the oft-repeated conclusion to our Galaxy Nexus review and the question is, were we right? Four months have elapsed since the handset arrived and it's still the daily driver for a number of staffers here. But what about you out there? What are your feelings about the camera, was your model perfect from the off or did you have the same trouble as Alex Ioannou and, if Andy Rubin's gearing up to put the finishing touches on the Galaxy Nexus 2, what improvements (if any) would you ask him to make? How would you change Samsung's Galaxy Nexus? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 23:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.
Happy April 1st! In honor of the day, we've rounded up some of Inhabitat's best April Fools stories for your reading pleasure. Our collective jaws dropped this morning when we were sent an anonymous photo from a tipster which hints at intergalactic plans for Apple's new Cupertino campus. Google also surprised us today when it announced a partnership with the city of New York to replace NYC taxis with driverless Google Cabs. In other NYC news, it was revealed today that New York City's ever-popular High Line park is going to bring a train back on the High Line to keep up with the growing crowds, and satellite photos divulged that Dubai appears to be building a series of Dubai-shaped islands off of its coast.
In more serious news, the New York Auto Show is hitting Manhattan next week, and in preparation this week Fisker released the first sketch of its highly anticipated Nina Plug-in Hybrid. Inhabitat will be on-scene at the reveal on Tuesday to bring you the first photos of its unveiling, so stay tuned for Inhabitat's live Fisker Nina coverage on Tuesday! We also brought you a sneak peek at several more innovative eco vehicles that will displayed at this year's New York Auto Show -- including NYC's taxi of tomorrow and Infiniti's new Nissan Leaf-based EV. Meanwhile, Lexus divulged that it is considering producing the sexy LF-LC hybrid sports coupe, and Chevy Volt's sexier European twin the Opel Ampera racked up 7,000 orders, putting it well on its way to meeting sales targets. In two-wheel transportation news, bicycles kicked into high gear as Specialized launched the world's fastest E-bike and Jose Hurtado designed a hubless 'Twist Bike' that can be turned into a tandem in a snap. Continue reading Inhabitat's Week in Green: gigantic LED cube, synthetic bones and a playground from recycled wind turbines Inhabitat's Week in Green: gigantic LED cube, synthetic bones and a playground from recycled wind turbines originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Your smartphone and / or tablet is just begging for an update. From time to time, these mobile devices are blessed with maintenance refreshes, bug fixes, custom ROMs and anything in between, and so many of them are floating around that it's easy for a sizable chunk to get lost in the mix. To make sure they don't escape without notice, we've gathered every possible update, hack, and other miscellaneous tomfoolery we could find during the last week and crammed them into one convenient roundup. If you find something available for your device, please give us a shout at tips at engadget dawt com and let us know. Enjoy! Continue reading Refresh Roundup: week of March 26th, 2012 Refresh Roundup: week of March 26th, 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 20:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Oh no! The evil pigs of purchase inhibition taken the valuable eggs of smartphone desire and captured them within a complex structure. Fortunately, there are a number of powerful birds that can be slung through the air, space or various sets of children's movies to smash down the structure. Why can't they just fly through the air since they're birds, you may ask? Gee, you sure ask a lot of questions. Just plunk down your $0.99 and gear up for in-app purchases for these valuable premiums. Continue reading Switched On: Angry Nerds Switched On: Angry Nerds originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It's 1996. You might have a cellphone, but it doesn't do much more than make phone calls. You might have a laptop, but it's likely too heavy to carry with you everywhere you go. Or you might only have a phone that's plugged into a wall and a PC that's confined to a desk. That's the environment that gave rise to the Personal Digital Assistant (or PDA), a new type of product that first arrived in the late 1980s but really came into its own in the mid-90s. 1996 also saw the release of the first PDAs developed by USRobotics subsidiary Palm Inc., the Pilot 1000 and 5000, which had more in common with today's smartphones than many of their contemporary devices. They had a touchscreen with only a few physical buttons at the bottom. They had apps you could download. They could sync data with your computer. And they were small and light enough to carry with you at all times. They just didn't make phone calls. A year later, Palm released the slightly upgraded PalmPilot Personal and PalmPilot Professional (with 512KB and 1MB of RAM, respectively), and the ensuing years would see a regular stream of new devices -- not to mention an acquisition by 3Com, and a new spate of Palm OS products from Handspring, a company founded by the folks behind the original Pilot. But it's those first few devices that come to mind when someone mentions "Palm PDA," and with good reason -- they set a mold that wasn't deviated from much until Palm made the jump into smartphones. Continue reading USRobotics PalmPilot Personal review USRobotics PalmPilot Personal review originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The year was 1999. I was pondering all too carefully what kind of threads I'd be wearing come the new school year. But all I could really think about was exactly how much of my styling budget would be blown on some antediluvian piece of technology that -- in my mind -- was no longer necessary due to the invention of the internet. That hunk was Texas Instruments' TI-83 Plus. So far as I could understand it, the "Plus" meant that it had a few extra megabytes of RAM; why you needed loads of RAM in a graphing calculator, I had no idea. At $119.99, it was the most expensive purchase I made leaving middle school, and now that I've had well over a decade to toy with it, it's about time I sat down and gave it a proper review. Join me after the break, won't you? Continue reading Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus review Texas Instruments TI-83 Plus review originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 14:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The staff of UK video game retailer GAME's remaining 333 stores can breathe a collective sigh of relief today: investment firm OpCapita is buying the chain. "We are pleased to have reached agreement with the Administrator," declared managing partner Henry Jackson, "We strongly believe there is a place on the high street for a video gaming specialist and GAME is a leading brand in the £2.8bn market in the UK." The retailer's UK assets will be transferred to Baker Acquisitions Limited, an OpCapita funded company. The firm stated that it has "no plans for any further store closures," and that it hopes to safeguard the remaining 3,200 jobs the chain still has under its belt. OpCapita picks up GAME retail chain, plans to keep 333 stores open originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 13:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink |  BBC, Guardian, MCV | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Multiplayer gaming today has become an inherently and bewilderingly antisocial affair. You grab a controller, take up as much space as possible on your couch at home, then connect to some random game hosted by some random server filled with some random people with whom you do your damnedest to fill with some collection of lead thrown from some assortment of futuristic weaponry. Along the way, you'll be taunted, insulted and, if you're playing a Halo game, quite possibly physically shamed.
Back in 1976, of course, things were a bit different. Pong was the height of at-home multiplayer gaming. Two dials, one button and one switch is all you had, and with your opponent sitting in extremely close proximity to you, chances are most of the heckling would be the good-natured variety. It is a vastly simplified experience versus what we have today, but in some ways a vastly superior one. Click on through to see why.
Continue reading Atari Pong review (1976) Atari Pong review (1976) originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | To say that Nokia's 7110 is an easy phone to review is something of an understatement. This is the first handset to ship running the company's Series 40 OS, but it also packs a dual-band GSM modem and a WAP browser. All of that is shoved into a handset no larger than your average candy bar. Of course, for all of its technical achievement, you're likely to be too busy focusing on its similarity to the customized Nokia 8110 used in The Matrix. The spring-loaded phone in the movie was merely the fever dream of art director Owen Paterson, albeit one that's now brought to life. But is its famous exterior a boon or a burden and does all that style detract from the substance? Pop a red pill and follow us down the rabbit hole for a closer look. Continue reading Nokia 7110 review Nokia 7110 review originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Although ARM-based SoCs are generally associated with mobile devices, it's no secret that Qualcomm and NVIDIA want to get Windows 8 computers into the fray. We knew that both companies began seeding developers with prototype SoC-loaded computers back in February, but now more details have arisen about Qualcomm's plans in the area. According to PC World, the company's senior vice president, Rob Chandhok, explained that it's aiming to have a variant of its quad-core Snapdragon S4 chips in notebook PCs by the end of the year. It's said that this'll enable manufacturers to create machines that are immensely lighter and thinner than Intel's Ultrabooks and Apple's MacBook Air lineup, while offering up a unique experience thanks to its built-in 4G compatibility and graphics handling. What's more, the company also has a version of the chip on the table for the 64-bit version of Windows 8, but there's no word on if and when it would come to fruition. We can only imagine how many more options you'll have to run Microsoft's latest OS when it finally hits shelves this October -- for now, you'll find more details about Qualcomm's offerings at the source link Qualcomm details Snapdragon S4-loaded Win8 notebooks further, will be lighter than Ultrabooks originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 09:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink  Electronista | PC World | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Screen Grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dot com.
The residents of Mystic Falls, Virginia are the most tech-savvy bunch of supernatural creatures we've ever seen. If Edward Cullen and Bella Swan bothered to email each other, then we'd have been spared the horrors of New Moon. Quite the opposite here, as The Vampire Diaries folks have their fingers close to the undead pulse of gadgets, with one character in last night's episode refusing to type a text message so they could write out their response with an S-Pen. Fans of the show that keep score should know that it currently stands two to Microsoft, two to Google and the fate of humanity all to play for.
[Thanks, Mark]Screen Grabs: Vampire Diaries uses Galaxy Note to scratch out sinister signals originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Apr 2012 04:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Permalink | | Email this | Comments | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
