At last, an official date for Nokia’s N8 flagship Symbian^3 handset. This one’s been a long time coming, featuring the first of two major Symbian updates meant to bring Nokia’s smartphone division in line with the competition. Look for it in the “last week of September” at Nokia’s on-line shops for £429 SIM free, or free with £35 per month contract. Otherwise, it’ll hit the UK high street shops on October 1st. See the full announcement after the break.

Continue reading Nokia N8 officially for sale last week of September, UK shops October 1st

Nokia N8 officially for sale last week of September, UK shops October 1st originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:56:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Genius quietly introduced the Ring Mouse back at Computex, but little was said about the curious critter up until last week. Our pals over at Engadget Spanish managed some alone time with the device at IFA, and while we can’t imagine any long-term mouse user being able to grasp this (mentally, not physically) without first overcoming a steep learning curve, those more accustomed to cellphone optical pads may be in good shape. Put simply, the ring has an optical trackpad (”Opto Touch Wheel”) and an embedded 2.4GHz wireless model; wearers use their thumb to navigate the cursor, while miniature left / right click buttons do exactly what you’d expect. There’s still nary a word on price, but here’s hoping that we can wrap our hands — er, something — around this in the not-too-distant future.

P.S. - These guys are big, big fans.

Genius Ring Mouse slips around your finger, cues up Beyonce jams originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 01:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In addition to the intriguing new Coolpix P7000, Nikon also announced the Coolpix S8100 (pictured above) and S80 tonight — sure, they’re not the dramatic new models, but they’re certainly respectable updates to the S8000 and S70. The S8100 actually learned one trick from the P7000: it’s dropped the megapixel count to 12.1 from the S8000’s 14.2 in order to improve light sensitivity — it can now hit ISO 3200 natively, which isn’t bad for a tiny cam with a 10x zoom. It’s also got a new 1080p movie mode and a faster 10fps burst mode — although we’re told it can only burst five frames at a time, so that’s not nearly as interesting. It’ll hit later this month in a few colors for $299.

The S80 goes the other way, boosting the megapixel count to 14.1 from the S70’s 12.1, and upping the 3.5-inch touchscreen to OLED. The touchscreen enables all the same snazzy tricks as on the new S1100pj, including the ability to draw right on your pictures, and and the 720p movie mode and 5x optical zoom are unchanged. It’ll hit this fall in all sorts of colors for $329. Honestly, we’re still not entirely sold on touchscreen controls for cameras to begin with, and on top of that we’re definitely concerned that OLED will make a touchscreen camera virtually useless in daylight, but we’ll wait to see this thing in person before we rain too hard on this parade. Check a pic of the S80 along with both press releases after the break.

Continue reading Nikon Coolpix S8100 gets 1080p video, S80 sprouts an OLED touchscreen

Nikon Coolpix S8100 gets 1080p video, S80 sprouts an OLED touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 08 Sep 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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At Apple’s last event, Steve Jobs called the iPod touch the company’s “most popular iPod,” and it’s easy to understand why. In just a few short years, the iPhone-with-no-phone has kept in lockstep with Cupertino’s halo device, benefitting from the same kind of constant hardware and software updating that has helped turned the iPhone into an iconic gadget. The touch has been right alongside the iPhone’s meteoric rise in popularity, becoming the go-to second-pocket slab for millions. There are good reasons, too. Apple boasts about gaming on the device — claiming it beats out both Nintendo’s and Sony’s offerings in sales… combined. While we can’t concede that the device is a dedicated game console, it most definitely games. And it’s still an iPod, an internet device, and a thousand other things thanks to Apple’s vastly populous App Store. Now the player has once again reaped the rewards of iPhone updates, boasting a new Retina Display, the A4 CPU, two cameras which allow for FaceTime calling and 720p video recording, and all the new features of the company’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 4.1. But despite all of the plusses, we still have to ask: is the little do-everything box still worth the premium price tag? We took a deep dive on the latest model and have the verdict, so read on to find out.

Continue reading iPod touch review (2010)

iPod touch review (2010) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Well, thar she blows — we just got this shot of the HP’s seven-inch Zeen Android tablet that’s shipping with the leaked PhotoSmart eStation C510 printer system just straight chilling in the wilds of China. Apparently this unit is a little bit closer to final than the one our other tipsters have been playing with — and unfortunately, the stock Android homescreen has been totally removed in favor of the TouchSmart UI. As we’d guessed, there’s also no Gmail app or Market access, although there is a homegrown email client and a fair bit of integration with Yahoo services like Mail and Messenger. Facebook is also preloaded, and the screenshot shows apps for 60 Minutes, MSNBC, and Dreamworks, so it looks like there’ll be some video action going on — and that Barnes & Noble logo all but confirms the Nook compatibility our previous tipsters had mentioned. There’s also a printing app and that Coupons app, which we’re guessing… prints coupons, but maybe HP’s trying to surprise us.

We’re told the software is better than on earlier Zeen units and that the previously-bad touchscreen has been improved, but that there’s still work to be done before the projected late September launch. Don’t get your hopes up about snagging this one without a printer, though — we’re told the solo SKU has been canceled, and only the $399 bundle with the Zeus printer will be available. Makes sense — we’re guessing it’s all webOS for HP from here on out. One more pic after the break.

Continue reading Exclusive: HP’s Zeen C510 Android tablet in the wild

Exclusive: HP’s Zeen C510 Android tablet in the wild originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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HP says that Hurd was deeply involved in creating HP’s business plans for the next two years, including specific plans to compete with Oracle in the enterprise market, and that there’s no way Hurd can do his job at Oracle without revealing trade secrets and other confidential information he agreed to keep under wraps when he signed his employment contract with HP. What’s more, he reaffirmed those commitments when he signed his severance package, so that’s a double whammy — and although California is usually pretty hostile to noncompete agreements, HP’s trying to say Hurd violated one of those, too. HP’s asked the court to prevent Hurd from working for Oracle or any other competitors at all, so we’re guessing this one’s going to be a fight — we’ll let you know if Larry Ellison says something bonkers again anything good happens.

P.S.- The WSJ piece linked in More Coverage says there’s no noncompete agreement in play here, but we’re reading the complaint and HP specifically references a protective covenant forbidding Hurd from working for a competitor under certain conditions — that certainly looks like a noncompete clause to us.

HP sues former CEO Mark Hurd, doesn’t want him working at Oracle originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Self-repairing solar cells could also fix our energy dependency originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 11:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TomTom rolls out Go Live 1000 series navigation units originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 09:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s September so that can mean only one thing in Intel land: IDF. The second of this year’s Intel Developer Forums is this year preceded by speculation that the big blue giant’s next motherboard reference design — codenamed Cougar Point — will include USB 3.0 support. Intel’s relationship with the 3.0 interconnect standard can at best be described as strained, but motherboard and laptop makers haven’t shied from integrating it into their wares and as the number of devices supporting SuperSpeed increases, it’s becoming somewhat inevitable that Intel would have to play ball as well. At least until Light Peak shines its “instant obsolescence” ray onto USB cables next year. Then again, bear in mind China’s Commercial Times has been wrong before, so let’s not credit this as fact until someone with a blue name badge tells us so.

Intel may finally be ready to embrace USB 3.0 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 05:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sony just released its 3.42 software update for PlayStation 3 owners. As a mandatory update, PS3 jockeys must accept it if they want to continue accessing the PlayStation Network or PlayStation Store. While Sony’s American mouthpiece isn’t saying much about the release, Sony Japan says that it fixes a “hardware security issue,” and that’s it. Sounds like a patch for PSJailbreak and its open-source variants to us.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

PS3 3.42 software update reportedly patches jailbreak, hates fun originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 07 Sep 2010 01:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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