Archive for November, 2009
2011 Chevrolet Volt gets taken for a test drive
The Chevy Volt is one vehicle we can really get behind. It’s hard not to be a little excited over it — we have, after all, been watching its development for quite a long time now. The electric car gets an impressive 230 miles per gallon in the city (and, all shaky rating practices aside, that’s nothing to scoff at). Autoblog Green’s just taken one of Chevy’s 80 IVER pre-production prototypes for a little spin, and they seem to have come away pretty impressed with the car. They report that the brakes are better than most hybrid vehicles, and said that when the engine does kick in after the battery’s depleted, they didn’t even notice it until they stopped and heard it running quietly. It was a short spin, so they weren’t able to gauge, for instance, whether the car can actually pull the full 40 miles per battery charge that Chevrolet claims it gets, but check out their full, detailed observations at the Source link.
2011 Chevrolet Volt gets taken for a test drive originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Flexio solar powered FM radio doubles as bookmark
Continue reading Flexio solar powered FM radio doubles as bookmark
Flexio solar powered FM radio doubles as bookmark originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Xbox 360 controller ingeniously hacked for NES use
Hey, it’s just what you’ve always wanted: to use your Xbox 360 controller on your old NES. Using a Cortex M3 processor left over from a school robotics project, Francois Gervais managed to rig his wireless pad to control something decidedly less advanced than a game of Modern Warfare 2. There’s a video of the controller in action after the break, and you can grab some of the code being used in the Google link below — perhaps one of you brainiacs will finally hack the Wiimote to control a Jaguar. A tech writer can dream…
Continue reading Xbox 360 controller ingeniously hacked for NES use
Xbox 360 controller ingeniously hacked for NES use originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Nook ship date slips to January 11th, supply chain managers weep
Hardware construction is a funny thing. Sometimes, regardless of the money you throw at something, you just can’t get products to come together any quicker. Evidently that’s the case with Barnes & Noble’s Nook, which has seen its estimated ship date slip from today to sometime after the holidays, and now to January 11th. There’s still a sliver of hope that you’ll be able to snag one from a high-traffic retail location on December 7th, but unless you’re planning on abandoning ship and helping the Kindle have its new best month ever, the realistic choices are pretty clear: a) pay Tickle Me Elmo-like prices on eBay or b) drop an IOU in a nicely wrapped box, preferably with a cute puppy. We suggest the latter.
[Thanks, Dave and Wes]
P.S. – We’re also hearing that pre-orders (even those placed moments after it was announced) are also being pushed back, though hopefully they’ll still be received before December 25th.
Nook ship date slips to January 11th, supply chain managers weep originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE
So last week the New York Times Magazine published a piece called “Against Camel Case” which argues that intercapped product names like iPhone and TiVo are “medieval,” because they harken back to a time in which people mostly read aloud, slowly sounding out each word as they tried to understand them. Proper word spacing, says the Times, “eventually made possible phenomena like irony, pornography and freedom of conscience.”
That’s sort of a crazy coincidence — while we’re not so sure word spacing and porn have anything to do with each other, we did just re-do our style guide when we launched our jazzy new redesign, and we actually thought long and hard about how to handle intercapped, all-capped, and otherwise non-standard product names. This is something we deal with a hundred times a day, and we simply weren’t going to let Motorola tell us to write MILESTONE over and over again, completely contradicting our own sense of style and taste — as the Times says, “Writers of the world, fight back!” Well, we can’t say no to that, so we thought we’d share our four newly-minted rules for writing out non-standard product names:
- Product and company names that are regular English words shall be treated like proper English nouns, complete with proper capitalization. Example: DROID becomes Droid and nook becomes Nook.
- Product and company names that are not regular English words shall be capitalized first as proper nouns, and then as the company treats them. Example: RAZR stays RAZR, but chumby would become Chumby.
- Intercapped product and company names should generally be treated as the company treats them, unless it’s egregious and / or looks weird. Example: iPhone stays iPhone, BlackBerry stays BlackBerry and TiVo stays TiVo, but ASUSTeK becomes Asustek. This rule is subject to many exceptions based on usage and history, and also functions as the “this is stupid” loophole.
- Acronyms should obviously be in all-caps.
We think these rules are flexible to handle most situations, although there are some edge cases and blatant Rule 3 violations out there. Still, it’s a start — unlike the Times, we’re pretty sure “iPhone” and “MasterCard” are here to stay, but we feel like our rules are a small step towards making our site clearer and more readable. Either that, or we’re just crazy in the head.
Editorial: The Engadget style guide reaches a MILESTONE originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:09:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ClearPlay introduces first content filtering 1080p upscaling DVD player
ClearPlay — remember those guys? You know, the outfit who garnered all sorts of attention years ago by having their content filtering DVD players yanked from store shelves, only to be vindicated by Congress itself? Amazingly enough, these cats are still hanging around, and they’ve just pushed out their first filtering DVD player to upscale content to 1080p over HDMI. As expected, the $99.95 deck still sports the same filtering technology that gives dutiful parents the ability to block objectionable content based on customizable settings, but now you can rest easy knowing that any slip-up in blocking a steamy bedroom scene will be viewed by your impressionable youngster in glorious high-definition. Huzzah.
ClearPlay introduces first content filtering 1080p upscaling DVD player originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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ASUS Maximus III Extreme mobo lets Bluetooth cellphones tweak settings
ASUS has been giving its motherboard owners ways to tinker with their wares for years now, but it sounds like things are about to get seriously amped up with the Maximus III Extreme. The P55-based board, which falls into the growing Republic of Gamers lineup, adds a new feature to the existing ROG Connect overclocking system: Bluetooth control. You heard right — ASUS claims that this mainboard actually “enables users to tweak system settings wirelessly over Bluetooth via a mobile phone.” More specifically, RC Bluetooth allows users to “review the status of their systems’ hardware and tweak parameters wirelessly from a Bluetooth-enabled PDA phone,” with examples like controlling music playback and dealing with Skype conversations given. There’s no specific mention of a price or release date, but you can bet we’ll be digging for specifics on the limits and functionality baked in here.
ASUS Maximus III Extreme mobo lets Bluetooth cellphones tweak settings originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Pocket Tool X’s Piranha looks like it’s a multipurpose animal
How many uses can one tool have? If you think the answer is “never enough,” the Piranha by Pocket Tool X might just be for you. A multipurpose job (which kinda reminds us of a dinosaur’s head), the Piranha boasts a double-ended bit holder, both open and box wrenches, a bottle opener, a nail puller, a scraper, and pry ends — and it’s made of heat-treated S30V Stainless Steel — which means it should be sturdy enough to make it through a few family camping trips. The tool is available for pre-order now, with shipments heading out sometime in December, and for $49 it could be all yours.
Pocket Tool X’s Piranha looks like it’s a multipurpose animal originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Samsung Behold II review
Continue reading Samsung Behold II review
Samsung Behold II review originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Engadget has been nominated for ‘Blog of the Decade’ — and you vote for the winner!
Hey gang. Normally we’re not very concerned with prizes or accolades; just getting to play with the latest and greatest gadgets is reward enough for us… though we’re a little excited about this one. Adweek has just announced its “Best of the 2000s” awards, and Engadget is up for “Blog of the Decade”! We’ve got some pretty amazing — and fierce — competition over there, but you guys can help decide who takes the prize by voting for your favorite (us, right?). If you like, you can hit the read link and cast your vote for Engadget. That would be super cool of you. If you’re not into the awards thing, that’s okay too; we promise not to come to your house and force you to vote for us under threat of physical harm. That would be crazy. Just crazy enough to work.
Engadget has been nominated for ‘Blog of the Decade’ — and you vote for the winner! originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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