Filed under: Handhelds

We already had a pretty good handle on General Dynamics’ ruggedized, Flipstart-like GoBook MR-1, but the company’s now gotten official with it, and is providing a few more specs and clarifications. While the MR-1 shares much in common with the Flipstart, it has gotten a few significant upgrades, including a 1.2GHz Core Solo U1400 processor, some new wireless options (including WWAN by the end of the year), and a hard drive boost to 80GB, with 16GB and 32GB SSD drives also available as an option. Of course, perhaps the most significant upgrade is its newfound ruggedness, which meets or exceeds MIL-STD 810F specifications for temperature, drop, and vibration tests, as well IP-54 specs for dust and humidity. Getting the biggest boost, however, is the device’s price, which will come in a hefty $4,450 when it’s released in September.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Features

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment:

Last week’s Switched On discussed Lala.com’s introduction of free music locker services that sync directly to the iPod (and only the iPod). However, because it believes the sampling capabilities of the original Napster days were key to driving music purchases, Lala is also developing something that is bound to shake up subscription music services such as Napster and Rhapsody — free and unlimited streaming of user-selected music from major labels.

Once agreements are secured, Lala will essentially be giving away the rough equivalent of Yahoo Music’s Unlimited’s $5/month PC streaming service.. While Lala’s version will have some offline functionality with cached tracks, it doesn”t yet offer tethered or a la carte downloads the way that Yahoo! Music and other PlaysForSure services do.

At its preview launch, Lala will offer access to the complete Warner Music library — hundreds of thousands of tracks — and is pursuing agreements with the other major labels, as well as independents. It expects to pay approximately $140 million on licenses in the next few years to spur huge increases in music sales via viral and social network marketing; something that Napster.com’s limited free listens were unable to do.

Continue reading Switched On: I’m in ur site, hearing ur t00nz

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Meta

Here’s your chance to show some love for our very own Pete Rojas, who made the dynamically shifting Business 2.0 Who matters now list. He’s trailing behind some serious bigwigs, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try our damnedest to push him up the ranks. Seriously, let’s see some hustle for the man who redefined hustle!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Digital Cameras

Liquid lenses have been kicking around as the Next Big Thing for a while, but outside of cameo appearances in a couple Samsung cellphones, they haven’t exactly made waves in the market. That may be in part due to the fact that they can be made smaller and cheaper than conventional optics, but haven’t been able to provide zoom or particularly high resolution. All that might be changing, however, as a Fraunhofer Institute team working in conjunction with French firm Varioptic has developed a system of 4 liquid lenses that can snap from 1 – 2.5x magnification at the touch of a button. The system isn’t quite ready for primetime yet — exposure times are still a little long, it can’t zoom continuously, and the assembly is a little big at 29mm — but the team is already considering solutions to those problems and is ready to go to the prototype stage. With all the interest from cellphone manufacturers, we’ll bet they solve those problems right quick.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Announcements

Incredibly, Engadget Mobile’s still celebrating its glorious relaunch — and why shouldn’t it? Celebrations mean giveaways, and today, “giveaway” means a shiny new Sanyo M1 for Sprint. Equipped with a full gig of onboard storage, the M1’s pretty much a music fan’s dream, so why not take a crack at winning it? Click on!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!