Aug/100
Android’s new app licensing scheme apparently easy to break
Remember that new licensing service for third-party developers that Google started advertising last month? A new exposé on Android Police claims that it’s actually pretty easy to get around — easy enough so that the crack could probably be packaged into some sort of automated script that breaks protected apps en masse for distribution through pirate-friendly channels. Though that’s obviously bad news for developers, it’s just as bad for consumers on Android devices who’ve customarily had less support from top-tier software brands and game studios than Apple’s App Store has — not to say iPhone apps are uncrackable, of course, but considering how difficult it’s been in the past to turn a profit in the Android Market, every little bit helps. Let’s hope a renewed focus on gaming in Gingerbread helps the situation, eh? Follow the break for Android Police’s demo of the crack in action.
Continue reading Android’s new app licensing scheme apparently easy to break
Android’s new app licensing scheme apparently easy to break originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
Sharpie Liquid Pencil doesn’t dry like a Sharpie
We were pretty excited about the Sharpie Liquid Pencil when we first heard about it — it uses liquid graphite to write like a pen, erase like a pencil, and (supposedly) dry like a permanent marker after three days. Well, it’s been just over a week since our first hands-on, and we’ve got some bad news: we can still erase what we’ve written pretty easily. If you squint just right it sort of looks like it might have dried a little darker, but it’s certainly not Sharpie-level permanence. Sad faces all around. We’ve followed up with Sharpie to see what’s going on and we’ll let you know what we hear, but check the video after the break in the meantime.
Continue reading Sharpie Liquid Pencil doesn’t dry like a Sharpie
Sharpie Liquid Pencil doesn’t dry like a Sharpie originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
Cox to offer retail TiVo Premiere DVRs next year, first with cable VOD & Amazon, Netflix access
TiVo users, even with boxes provided by their cable company in the case of RCN and Comcast, have so far had to make a compromise: Choose their cable company’s video on-demand offerings, or bring their own DVR and access online video from sources like Amazon and Netflix — but that’s no longer the case. Cox and TiVo have reached an agreement — sound familiar? — that will see allow retail CableCARD equipped TiVo Premiere DVRs to access Cox’s VOD, as well as all that over the top internet video we’ve come to love. The SeaChange powered VOD will work similarly to RCN’s, but we’re waiting to see if this can give the new universal search an extra source to pull from as well. The deal also means Cox will cross promote the TiVo in its own marketing, and provide free installs for units purchased at Best Buy and other outlets including the TiVo website.
The only bad news here? While TiVo plans to start testing later this year, it won’t see a wide rollout (in “all major markets”) until 2011. Check out the press release for all the details before calling your cable company, why should Cox customers get to choose between two different modernized, integrated set-top box platforms while the rest of us are stuck with interfaces and access rules that have been around since before the X-Games?
Cox to offer retail TiVo Premiere DVRs next year, first with cable VOD & Amazon, Netflix access originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Aug 2010 00:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
Apple releases iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone and 3.2.2 for iPad, fixes PDF vulnerability
Bad news, jailbreakers: Apple’s just released iOS 4.0.2 for the iPhone and 3.2.2 for the iPad, both of which close the PDF exploit used by JailbreakMe. That appears to be the only change — and we’re guessing the Dev Team is hard at work finding a new way to crack iOS open once again.
Apple releases iOS 4.0.2 for iPhone and 3.2.2 for iPad, fixes PDF vulnerability originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
InfiniTV 4 quad CableCARD tuner is shipping
After a very long and wait since the pre-orders began, we just got the official word that the long sought after quad CableCARD tuner, the InfiniTV 4, is on US shores and has cleared customs. The bad news is that the manufacturing troubles aren’t completely over yet and there aren’t enough to fill all the pre-orders. If you had enough insight to be the first to get your order in though, you’ll be receiving yours next week. In the meantime you can get started on the installation instructions on Ceton’s site by first running the Digital Cable Adviser and then running the driver installer (coming soon) while you wait. You may also want to go ahead and schedule your truck roll as this toy isn’t very useful without a CableCARD, and most cable companies won’t let you install the CableCARD yourself. This is certainly the best news for HTPC fans since Microsoft announced the end of the OEM PC CableCARD requirement and although $400 is not the cheapest way to get a DVR, it is one of the only ways to record four HD premium channels at once.
InfiniTV 4 quad CableCARD tuner is shipping originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug/100
iOS 4.1 beta 3 breaks loose (update: Game Center killed on iPhone 3G and second gen iPod touches)
Member of the illustrious iPhone Developer Program? Well, aren’t you special? So special, in fact, that you’re once again being granted access to a highly-coveted iOS build that the unwashed commoners can’t get: yet another beta of iOS 4.1. This time around, it’s beta 3, suggesting that Apple might be getting close to having this thing ready for the mass market; after all, it’s been just a week since beta 2, and Apple tends to accelerate the pace when a release is drawing near. Now, what about that iPad version?
Update: Looks like there’s some bad news for legacy users in this update… namely the fact that Game Center compatibility for second gen iPod touches and the iPhone 3G has been dropped. Thanks for nothing, Apple!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
iOS 4.1 beta 3 breaks loose (update: Game Center killed on iPhone 3G and second gen iPod touches) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 Aug 2010 17:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
Apple issues Magic Trackpad drivers for OS X and Windows, updates MacBooks with new gesture support
Right on schedule, Apple’s released new drivers for the Magic Trackpad, in both OS X and Windows flavors. The download is pretty amusingly huge at 75MB, since it includes videos of all the gestures in action, but at least you’ll know exactly how many fingers to use for that new three-finger drag gesture. The bad news? It requires OS X 10.6.4, so you’re out of luck if you’re still running Leopard and itching to get your swipe on with Apple’s latest peripheral.
The new software also updates the MacBook and MacBook Pro multitouch trackpads with inertial scrolling and three-finger drag, which is pretty nice — we’ve got it installed on a unibody MBP and it’s working as advertised. Hit up Software Update now, or check the source link to score your bits old-school.
Apple issues Magic Trackpad drivers for OS X and Windows, updates MacBooks with new gesture support originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
Apple begins iPhone 4 Case Program: apply for your free case or Bumper now
Well, there’s nothing like masking bad news with good news, right Apple? Just moments after quietly announcing that the white iPhone 4 is now scheduled to ship sometime between tomorrow and your New Year’s Eve party, the company has also fired up its iPhone 4 Case Program. Just as Jobs promised last week at an emergency press event, this program will ensure that anyone who purchases an iPhone 4 prior to September 30th will be able to receive an iPhone 4 Bumper or select third-party case from the company at no charge. ‘Course, you need to be located in a country or territory that Apple actually ships to, but if that’s all squared away, feel free to hit up the App Store to download the iPhone 4 Case Program app. Once there, you’ll need to sign into your iTunes Store account, select your Bumper or case and wait oh-so-patiently (read: “3 to 5 weeks”). Better hurry — wouldn’t want the servers to get overloaded, now would we?
Oh, and if you happened to have already purchased a Bumper, the company should be hitting your credit card with a full refund (including any applicable taxes and shipping) momentarily. As for the case / Bumper choices? Every single option is available in any color you like… so long as it’s black, of course. There’s a black Apple Bumper option, an Incase Snap Case, Belkin Shield Micra, Griffin Motif, Griffin Reveal, Speck Fitted and Speck PixelSkin HD, but again, don’t go in hoping to select your favorite hue. Yeah, you’re free to bicker about free things — we won’t judge.
Update: If you’re one of those wise guys who purchased an iPhone 4 right away just to sell it, you can forget about getting a free case for the handset you no longer own. Apple has arranged this so that only one case can be ordered per iPhone 4, so even if you ordered two under your account name, you’ll need two phones to place both of those orders. Check out the error message below if you still don’t believe us.
Gallery: Apple iPhone 4 Case Program app
Apple begins iPhone 4 Case Program: apply for your free case or Bumper now originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 23 Jul 2010 08:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
Secunia ranks Apple first in software insecurity, Safari said to have AutoFill vulnerability
One vulnerability that is potentially serious, however, is an issue with Safari’s AutoFill feature recently discovered by Jeremiah Grossman of WhiteHat Security. According to Grossman, a malicious website can exploit the feature to pull data from a user’s address book without their knowledge, which has been demonstrated to take “mere seconds” by a bit of proof of concept code (you can try out yourself if you’re feeling trusting). Grossman also says he’s informed Apple of the vulnerability but hasn’t received a response, and suggests that the only “fix” in the meantime is to turn off the AutoFill feature completely.
Secunia ranks Apple first in software insecurity, Safari said to have AutoFill vulnerability originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
Verizon’s LTE network launching November 15 with two data cards and over 30 markets?
We’re being fed some information on Verizon’s launch strategy for its first commercial 4G markets today; the bad news is that it’s looking like you’ll have to wait until the holiday shopping season, but the good news is that they should have a surprisingly decent footprint at launch. Specifically, we’re hearing that two data cards (presumably including that LG VL600 USB stick) will kick things off on November 15 with over 30 markets around the country — including biggies like New York, LA, Chicago, and Philadelphia — alongside ten airports, perfect for you globetrotters on layovers. It was nice little exclusive period there, wasn’t it, Sprint?
[Thanks, RBF]
Verizon’s LTE network launching November 15 with two data cards and over 30 markets? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
Samsung ships 1TB Spinpoint MT2 2.5-inch hard drive, but it won’t fit in your laptop
So, we’ve good news and bad news. Given that we aren’t accepting votes for which you’ll be fed first, we’ll go ahead and extol the virtues of cramming a full terabyte of space into a 2.5-inch form factor. Not that this feat hasn’t been accomplished before, but the 2.5-inch 1TB HDD realm could certainly use the competition. Now, the rough part — Samsung’s Spinpoint MT2 boasts a 12.5mm height, which is 3mm too high for your existing laptop. Unless, of course, you’re rocking one of those otherworldly Clevo machines with enough space for a Karmann Ghia in there. There’s also the fact that it’s humming along at just 5,400RPM and rocks just 8MB of buffer memory, meaning that this one’s entirely more likely to find a home within a portable HDD case than inside of Apple’s next MacBook Air. Oh, and there’s no price being made public, but honestly, we’re sort of glad Sammy didn’t bother teasing us.
Samsung ships 1TB Spinpoint MT2 2.5-inch hard drive, but it won’t fit in your laptop originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 20 Jul 2010 11:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
AT&T bonds two phone lines to extend U-verse’s reach, ensure it is the 98th caller
Like your average teenager, AT&T has recognized the power in using two phone lines to cheaply extend its reach and influence. Pair bonding technology expands U-verse’s reach by sending the signal over two copper phone lines at once and was supposed to roll out back in ‘08. No word what caused the delay, but that it’s a cheaper option than putting more “shovels in the ground” should keep costs down and Randall Stephenson happy. According to AT&T, that extra distance (about 1,000 to 2,000 extra feet from neighborhood nodes) will help expand availability to 30 million households by the end of next year, so if you’ve been waiting for some Total Home DVR / Xbox 360 Mediaroom / mobile U-verse (once the latter two actually launch, of course) action but live a block or two too far outside the radius then things are looking up. The bad news? It won’t add bandwidth for the compression issues or lack of additional HD streams Home Theater Review noted, and definitely won’t help you score concert tickets during the top 8 at 8.
AT&T bonds two phone lines to extend U-verse’s reach, ensure it is the 98th caller originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 17 Jul 2010 08:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
AMD has record $1.65B second quarter, still loses a little money
First, the good news: AMD pulled in $1.65 billion in revenue — a record for the second quarter! Now, the bad news: the company still lost money. Just a (relatively) little bit, though, with a net loss of $43 million or $.06 per share. That’s five percent more revenue than the first quarter of 2010, and a massive 40 percent boost over the second quarter of 2009, in which it lost $330 million net. What changed? Sales of graphics hardware in particular, up eight percent over last quarter and a huge 87 percent from last year, driven by success of the Radeon HD 5000 series graphics cards. Likewise, sales of mobile processors were up 18 percent over last quarter. Net profitability? Keep this up, AMD, and it’s not far off.
AMD has record $1.65B second quarter, still loses a little money originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul/100
Lionsgate first to sign content deal with XStreamHD
XStreamHD is the videophile’s digital distribution dream, but a dream is what it has remained for almost three years. The bad news is the 1TB Whole Home Media Server and clients aren’t shipping yet, but the good news is one of the big studios has signed a deal with XStreamHD to distribute titles day and date with DVD, as well as access to 12,000 catalog titles. This, of course, has to be one of many such deals if the service is to be successful — high quality 1080p video and DTS-HD alone won’t be enough. The content isn’t the only thing that concerns us though, as the up front cost for hardware (we admit we really like the user interface) and the $9 monthly service fee is a lot to swallow for the privilege of renting movies at $3 to $6 a pop. We’ll reserve judgment until we get to play with it for ourselves, but distribution deals like this and a great demo is a good start, if you can call it at start after all this time. The full details are tucked in the press release after the jump.
Continue reading Lionsgate first to sign content deal with XStreamHD
Lionsgate first to sign content deal with XStreamHD originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Jul 2010 10:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
Nokia N8 to be final Symbian N Series device, all MeeGo from here on out
Whoa. Nokia’s premier range of devices, the N Series, will bid adieu to the Symbian operating environment and go MeeGo full time after the introduction of the N8. That’s what we’ve just heard directly from the Finnish horse’s mouth. Nokia will naturally keep Symbian around — of course there’s a whole Symbian^4 to come — but will utilize it on more mass market devices as it seeks to push smartphones further down the product hierarchy. So it’s not necessarily bad news, as such, it means we’ll likely see Symbian trickle down to handsets priced more like featurephones and less like miniaturized laptops. What it does mean, however, is that Nokia is pushing forward with its modernization plans, and doing so more aggressively than previously thought. Which we consider to be a pretty awesome (and necessary) thing.
Nokia N8 to be final Symbian N Series device, all MeeGo from here on out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
Innpu’s ‘wired phone’ has retractable headphones, intractable sense of self-worth
This is news to us, but apparently there have been “few noteworthy advancements” in smartphone hardware since the iPhone and BlackBerry came out. Out to fix this stale, plateaued industry is Innpu, with its revolutionarily new “wired phone” (it’s bad news when even the manufacturer puts the product name in quotation marks, right?). Setting the new high watermark in cellphone engineering, it comes with built-in headphones and mic, which retract automatically when you complete your call. And hey, we’ve seen earphones like that selling by themselves for $2, maybe $4 a pop — luxurious stuff. Lest you think Innpu unambitious, the company’s also promising to bring this life-saving functionality to the iPad and netbooks, while noting that its sophisticated technology “can hardly be copied.” Probably because no one will ever care to try.
Continue reading Innpu’s ‘wired phone’ has retractable headphones, intractable sense of self-worth
Innpu’s ‘wired phone’ has retractable headphones, intractable sense of self-worth originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 05:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
NVIDIA Ion 2-based Acer Aspire 532g netbook canceled for now
Acer may have announced a handful of new netbooks this morning, but we’ve been waiting and waiting on the NVIDIA Ion 2-powered Acer Aspire One 532g. And we hate to be the bearer of this bad news, but it turns out we could be waiting forever on the 10-inch, 1080p-playing netbook. Blogeee is reporting that bugger has been canceled in France due to technical issues with NVIDIA and Acer drivers, and when we followed up with our Acer contact here in the US, we were told that the 532g would not be launched in the “upcoming back-to-school cycle.” It’s truly not looking good for the little laptop, not to mention it’s extremely disappointing not to see any other Ion 2 netbooks on the market almost five months after its launch. Well 532g, we’ll always look back on our time together at CeBIT fondly. Sniff.
NVIDIA Ion 2-based Acer Aspire 532g netbook canceled for now originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
NVIDIA Ion 2-based Acer Aspire 532g netbook canceled
Acer may have announced a handful of new netbooks this morning, but we’ve been waiting and waiting on the NVIDIA Ion 2-powered Acer Aspire One 532g. And we hate to be the bearer of this bad news, but it turns out we could be waiting forever on the 10-inch, 1080p-playing netbook. Blogeee is reporting that bugger has been canceled in France due to technical issues with NVIDIA and Acer drivers, and when we followed up with our Acer contact here in the US, we were told that the 532g would not be launched in the “upcoming back-to-school cycle.” It’s truly not looking good for the little laptop, not to mention it’s extremely disappointing not to see any other Ion 2 netbooks on the market almost five months after its launch. Well 532g, we’ll always look back on our time together at CeBIT fondly. Sniff.
NVIDIA Ion 2-based Acer Aspire 532g netbook canceled originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jun/100
HTC EVO suffering from glass separation issues?
Potential bad news for EVO owners: we’re seeing plenty of reports from folks having issues with the lower portions of their screens. Conspiracy theories say that the adhesive holding the glass is failing, causing the screen to peel up a bit and embark on a very slow journey to capacitive independence. This separation is causing excessive light leakage from below, a problem that we noted in our review but apparently gets continually worse as users spend more time massaging their screens — even those not being as hard on theirs as this guy was. No official response from HTC yet and we’re not sure just what a fix could be, but we have seen people do some wonderful things with duct tape.
[Thanks, Brandon; image courtesy of Ryan/Selfdestruct]
HTC EVO suffering from glass separation issues? originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 13 Jun 2010 18:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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May/100
Google Chrome hits version 5, brings stability to Mac and Linux
You’ve been biding your time, enduring the evils of Firefox, Safari, Opera and perhaps even Internet Explorer (dare we speak its name), slowly summoning your courage to give Google’s alternative a try. Well, kiddo, we’ve got good news and bad. The good news is that if your box lovingly depicts fruit or a well-dressed penguin, you’ll no longer get short shrift: Chrome 5 is out of beta and stable across Mac and Linux for the first time, with browser sync and a host of new HTML5 functionality to boot. The bad news is that Chrome has some quirks of its own… but hey, let’s not spoil the experience — no matter what platform you try it on, the WebKit browser is definitely speedy. Those flyin’ french fries aren’t just for show.
Google Chrome hits version 5, brings stability to Mac and Linux originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 26 May 2010 09:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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