Ainol’s V9000HDX ‘Megatron’ PMP looks lovely, does 1080p, freezes its enemies in blocks of ice

Ainol’s V6000 series had great specs, but sadly rocked a GPS-worthy aesthetic. The V8000 players went for something a little more stylish, but also a lot more vanilla. Now we’re up to the V9000 series and we finally have a look that’s sophisticated and distinctive — and a little creepy with that “please help I’m frozen over here” wallpaper. It’s displayed on a 4.8-inch, 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, though the device is capable of rendering 1080p video out its HDMI port for display onto something a little bigger. The UI seems a little busy but very functional, and with 16GB of storage, an FM tuner, and a 2450mAh battery it should keep you entertained even on the longest of commutes. Price and availability here in the States was not mentioned, but you weren’t really expecting it would be, were ya?

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video

Ainol’s V9000HDX ‘Megatron’ PMP looks lovely, does 1080p, freezes its enemies in blocks of ice originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 08:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS’s UL30Vt announced, somehow finds room for discrete graphics

ASUS impressed the world with its lightweight, inexpensive 13.3-inch UL30 over the summer, and just last week impressed us with its switchable-graphics packing bigger cousin, the UL80Vt. Now the 30 is getting the discrete treatment, enabling users to choose from molasses rendering and “all-day computing” battery life or slightly more robust graphics and slightly (about an hour) shorter longevity. The system also packs DDR3 memory, a 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 processor (able to be overclocked), and that “stylishly robust” aluminum lid. No word on release or price, but the earlier Vt models didn’t come with a massive leap in MSRP, so we’d expect this one not to fall too far from UL30’s $749 street price.

[Thanks, Neti_Neti]

Filed under: Laptops

ASUS’s UL30Vt announced, somehow finds room for discrete graphics originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Motorola Droid camera autofocus fixed in secrecy?

While we were busy looking into external speaker problems on the Droid, it would seem Moto was itself hard at work remedying a separate issue with the device. A number of users on support forums have complained of the Droid’s camera failing to focus and giving them “red corners” when attempting to take pictures, but now — suddenly and without warning — their ailment has gone away as if touched by the hand of an omnipotent being (or, alternatively, a silent firmware update). This particular autofocus issue was mentioned in Verizon’s 5-page treatise on known issues with the Droid, though the planned resolution was an official update by December 11. The fix seems to have been delivered early, as green corners are sprouting up all around, but this silent update conduit sounds a bit nefarious, no?

Update: Sure enough, we can confirm from testing one of our own Droids that the issue has been resolved. The endless quest for the green focus box is over, and you can now finally begin scanning all your discount cards into Key Ring.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read – Android Forums
Read – Howard Forums

Filed under: Cellphones

Motorola Droid camera autofocus fixed in secrecy? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nook for sale at Barnes & Noble stores on November 30th?

If you’re looking to pre-order a Nook today you’ll be greeted with a December 18th ship date from Barnes & Noble’s on-line store. However, if you stop by your Barnes & Noble on November 30th, you might find the Android-based dual-screen ereader in stock and ready to take home for $259 plus the usual government tithe. This according to a B&N spokeswoman who told Computerworld that units will be for sale in stores on the 30th. Whether than means all 774 retail outlets or just the majors is still unclear but hey, at least you’ve got options.

[Via I4U News]

Filed under: Displays, Handhelds

Nook for sale at Barnes & Noble stores on November 30th? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lenovo ThinkPad W701 hints at Core i7 Extreme in FCC reveal

Lenovo can’t be feeling too much warmth toward the FCC right now. After Intel and Wistron combined to remove any mystery from its next IdeaPad, here comes the latter with yet another filing revealing yet more tasty morsels of knowledge. Wistron’s latest submission is for a “Notebook Computer with Wacom Digitizer,” which immediately points us toward the high-end ThinkPad W series,with the W700 being the only Lenovo laptop to sport such an appendage so far. Reassuringly, the new model name appears to be W701 and we’ve spotted a 2GHz Intel CPU, 320GB Fujitsu HDD, and a Samsung-made 17-inch WUXGA (1920 x 1200) display in amongst the test specs. If your appetite hasn’t been titillated already, the only contemporary mobile CPU from Intel that we know to run at a default speed of 2GHz is the quad-core Core i7-920XM, which comes with 8MB of L3 cache, 3.2GHz single-core max speed, 55W TDP, and a truly stratospheric price. We might have a Holiday Gift Guide candidate for 2010 already.

Filed under: Laptops

Lenovo ThinkPad W701 hints at Core i7 Extreme in FCC reveal originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 06:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 beta GPU acceleration tested, documented

We know you don’t actually care about 99 percent of the contents of the latest Flash Player update. What you really want to know is whether those new 1080p YouTube streams will run smoothly on your machine thanks to the newly implemented graphics card video acceleration. AnandTech has come to our collective aid on that one, with an extensive testing roundup of some of the more popular desktop and mobile GPU solutions. NVIDIA’s ION scored top marks, with “almost perfect” Hulu streaming (see table above), though Anand and crew encountered some issues with ATI’s chips and Intel’s integrated GMA 4500 MHD, which they attribute to the new Flash Player’s beta status. On the OS front, although Linux and Mac OS are not yet on the official hardware acceleration beneficiary list, the wily testers found marked improvements in performance under OS X. It seems, then, that Adobe has made good on its partnership with NVIDIA, and made ION netbooks all the more scrumptious in the process, while throwing a bone to the Mac crowd, but leaving the majority of users exercising the virtue of patience until the finalized non-beta Player starts making the rounds in a couple of months. Hit the read link for further edification.

Filed under: Software

Adobe’s Flash Player 10.1 beta GPU acceleration tested, documented originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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T-Mobile cautiously resumes Sidekick sales at lower prices

After a protracted “let’s be absolutely certain we’re in the clear” period, T-Mobile has gone ahead and lifted its self-imposed moratorium on Sidekick sales following that little meltdown you may have heard about. Oh, and there’s a bonus, too: they’re a little cheaper this time around. The Sidekick 2008 has dropped to $49.99 on contract while the top-of-the-line LX 2009 has shed $25 down to $149.99 on contract, so if you were looking for an excuse to live dangerously with your precious address book, this might be as good of a reason as any. Then again, what are the odds of lightning striking twice?

Read – Sidekick 2008
Read – Sidekick LX 2009

Filed under: Cellphones

T-Mobile cautiously resumes Sidekick sales at lower prices originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 05:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Walky robot understands iPhone gestures, football fanaticism (video)

Hey there sailor, we imagine you’ve been doing your fair share of button mashing what with a certain new bit of software out and about, but how would you like a whole new control paradigm? Taking up Steve Jobs’ war on buttons, a group of grad students at Japan’s Keio University have put together a comprehensive robot control interface that relies solely on finger swipes, taps, and presses. By employing the iPhone’s built-in accelerometer and multitouch screen, the robot can replicate a humanistic walking motion, perform sidesteps and, when called upon, kick a football with gusto and presumed passion. Your destination is just past the break, where the video demo awaits.

[Via HDBlog.it]

Continue reading Walky robot understands iPhone gestures, football fanaticism (video)

Filed under: Cellphones, Robots

Walky robot understands iPhone gestures, football fanaticism (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 04:19:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 betas are out, multi-touch and video acceleration are in (video)

Here we go: Adobe just made its Flash 10.1 prerelease packages available for download in fulfillment of its Open Screen promise. The download is available for Windows, Intel-based Mac, and Linux systems with a smartphone version coming later; notably, while no other mobile OS is specifically mentioned, Adobe says that a beta for Palm webOS is slated for “later this year” on its Flash Player 10.1 page. At the moment, however, only the Windows release includes hardware-based video acceleration for H.264 video. And this is beta-ware kids, so there’s more than the usual level of hazard with installing. Then again, for those of you with Atom-based netbooks brought to their knees by full-screen HD video, well, the benefits likely outweigh the risk for you. Adobe also announced an AIR 2 beta which allows developers to build more feature-rich applications including multi-touch capabilities — see the unholy union demonstrated on an HP TouchSmart in the video after the break.

Update: As noted by reader ZeroK2 in the comments, the release notes [warning: PDF] specify which GPUs will benefit from the hardware acceleration. These include ATI Radeon HD 3xxx and 4xxx series, Mobile Radeon HD 4xxx series, select FirePro products, Intel 4 series chipsets, the Broadcom Crystal HD decoder, and most NVIDIA ION and GeForce 8/9/1xx/2xx powered PCs. In other words, the vast majority of netbook owners with integrated GMA950 graphics need not apply.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Read — Press release
Read — About Flash Player 10.1

Continue reading Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 betas are out, multi-touch and video acceleration are in (video)

Filed under: Software

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and AIR 2 betas are out, multi-touch and video acceleration are in (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell’s 5-inch Android Streak MID on AT&T in 2010?

It’s not much to go on but after months of rumors and then the sudden appearance of Dell’s 5-inch MID on video, well, even unsubstantiated reports from the Commercial Times can be taken with a degree of truthiness. The latest tattle has QISDA manufacturing Dell’s Android 2.0-based MID (spotted with a 5 megapixel camera, 800 x 480 capacitive touchscreen, 3G data, and WiFi) with the intent of ramping up for an AT&T launch sometime in 2010. Given the uptick in leaks recently, we’d expect a Q1 launch to be just about right.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Dell’s 5-inch Android Streak MID on AT&T in 2010? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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