preGadget

Filed under: Wireless, Storage, Networking According to AppleInsider, it sounds like Time Capsule customers’ orders are in the crucial “preparing to ship” phase about now, meaning credit cards are being charged and units will be loaded onto trucks for distribution as early as tomorrow for some. Apple still hasn’t said anything officially about shipping though; just don’t be too surprised units start showing up shortly at your doorstep or in your local Apple store.

Apple still hasn’t said anything officially about shipping though; just don’t be too surprised units start showing up shortly at your doorstep or in your local Apple store. Update: Yep, we’ve got confirmation from Apple that it’s shipping this week (although some users apparently already manage to snag theirs offline — good for you). The only question now is: will it really last 10,000 years if buried in your back yard? Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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Filed under: Misc. GadgetsRemember Project 28? That Boeing / DHS system to put a 28 mile stretch of sensor-tower laden virtual fencing along the US / Mexico border in Arizona? Well, the government swiped the contract back from Boeing last week for lack of, well, working, and is apparently going at it alone with plans to delay it three or more years to get the job done right.

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Filed under: Handhelds You know, the Kindle runs Linux, has USB, uses all standard processors and chipsets, even comes with free built-in EV-DO — you’d kind of think that stuff (and all the rest) would make it about as high a profile target for hardware modders and hackers as there are. So what gives, why hasn’t the hacker community glommed onto this thing? Hit the poll: anyone can answer, but we really want to hear from the über-geeks in the house why the call to Kindle has gone unheeded.

Update: Good news! Reader Thomas did us a solid with some obscure links on how to get hardware access to the Kindle’s console (some soldering req’d), where you can muck around with the bootloader. Also found: the complete and impressively extensive list of keyboard shortcuts. Now, let’s parlay this stuff into something useful, shall we? And by “we” we mean, “you”, since we’re merely editors of a gadget site.

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Filed under: CellphonesPhew, we were starting to worry we’d get through the week without someone suing Apple. This time it’s a patent lawsuit by a Massachusetts man named Romek Figa, who claims to have patented a caller ID system infringed by the iPhone. Figa’s patent, which was granted in 1990 and references two-line LCD screens and external caller ID equipment, describes a way to associate incoming numbers with stored contact names, and he’s looking to halt sales of the iPhone and have Apple p.

” Interesting — but they also said Figa sent his demand letter directly to Steve Jobs, which seems like the least efficient way possible of handling this deal. [Via AppleInsider] Disclaimer: Nilay is a lawyer, but he’s not your lawyer, and none of this is legal advice or analysis.  Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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Filed under: Displays, Gaming Oh boy, if ever there was a worthy use case for a giant $10k multi-touch table, it’s a serene port of Hungry Hungry Hippos called Firefly, which Microsoft developed as a proof of concept for Surface. Just gather them into your jar. Go on, gather ‘em up, those 100,000 fireflies aren’t going to gather themselves. Video after the break.

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Yeah, just another Blu-ray drive for your perusal: this one, called the DX-4O1S, reads at 4x, and will be the first by Philips and Lite-On Digital Solutions, that joint venture formed about a year ago. Exciting stuff, this; due out next quarter.  Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds While Apple might have your attention at the moment with that impending SDK, the Android OS seems to be coming along quite nicely over at Google and the Open Handset Alliance. BBC’s Darren Waters got to peek “under the bonnet” with Andy Rubin himself, and has video to prove it. The OS was running on an unknown 3G touchscreen prototype, which also had a track ball at the bottom.

Andy also showed off a version of Street View — complete with smooth panning and zooming, of course — and the fan-favorite Quake demo. Not bad at all for a 300MHz-ish processor, and while Android is still in “Alpha” stage, it’s already got a lot of good things going for it. Video is after the break. [Thanks, Omar A. ]Continue reading Android gets handled, now with Street View Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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Filed under: Handhelds If you’ve already dropped $299 on a second-gen mylo COM-2 unit, then Sony has a little treat for you — while all of you early adopters still poking around on an original mylo probably feel pretty silly right now. Sony is launching the “mylo labs” site for nabbing mylo widgets, and while right now there are just a few Sony-built widgets, Sony will open up the site to developers in March to add their own.

Sony is launching the “mylo labs” site for nabbing mylo widgets, and while right now there are just a few Sony-built widgets, Sony will open up the site to developers in March to add their own. Widgets seem to be a natural fit for a device like this, and hey, they’re free, so there’s really no reason not to love. It’s just too bad those gen-one types get left out in the cold.

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Filed under: Cellphonesdigg_url = ‘http://digg. com/tech_news/Sprint_debuts_Simply_Everything_plan_for_99_a_month’; We’re not sure what took them so long, but Sprint finally has joined its fellow major carriers in offering an unlimited plan for a flat rate — the now industry standard $99 — only this time it’s for all the marbles. Instead of just the unlimited voice offered by AT&T and Verizon, or the voice + SMS that T-Mobile has on offer, Sprint is undercutting the competition with a $99 p.

If you’ve got a family plan, it’s $5 less for every line you add ($99 + $94 + $89 and so on). While those with the gift of gab but no desire to surf the mobile webs might be disappointed that the rumored $60 unlimited voice plan didn’t materialize, this certainly undercuts the competition by healthy margin for the smartphone crowd, which is exactly what we were hoping for out of Sprint.

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Filed under: Cellphones We got wind of this in the early AM, but now it’s official: O2 is picking up the iPhone in Ireland, selling the 8 gigger for €399, and the 16GB for €499. Tariffs range from €45 for 175 minutes to €100 for 700 minutes, and all plans include 1GB of data. It sounds like quite the scam compared to O2’s iPhone plans in the UK, but we’re going to just chalk it up to cultural differences not explored in Colin Farrell’s latest masterpiece, “In Bruges.

“Update: Some tipsters have pointed out that O2 Ireland makes no mention of Visual Voicemail on its iPhone pages, which is odd considering the fact that O2 UK highlights the feature. It could be a oversight, or it could mean that those unsightly tariffs are, in fact, true highway robbery. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments.

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