Do you understand your smartphone. really understand it? Know its moods, its wants, its desires? A survey hosted by Best Buy Mobile shows that half of people don't, with 47 percent saying the things confuse the heck out of them, while 60 percent of those aged 35 - 49 feel that people with smartphones spend too much time working and not enough time playing Wii Sports Bowling . Those feelings of confusion and ire doesn't stop a "sizable segment" of the rest of the 1,000 people surveyed from wanting a handset with brains, with most desiring access to the sort of apps you can't get on dumbphones, and 14 percent of women saying that playing games was "very important" -- only nine percent of men said the same. Sadly, there was no figure indicating how many people enjoy paying too much for text messages and signing their lives away on lengthy contracts. Filed under: Cellphones . Best Buy-sponsored survey shows that Americans want smartphones even though they don't understand them originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments .

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Best Buy-sponsored survey shows that Americans want smartphones even though they don't understand them

Here's what you get when a manufacturer tries to justify a $199 price tag on its newest headsets. The Jabra Go 6400 (pictured above) and Pro 9400 look to be standard noise-cancelling Bluetooth and DECT headsets, respectively, with a multifunction button to answer/reject/redial/mute calls and adjust the volume. However, these headsets are paired with an industry first touch-screen base for call management. The 2. 4-inch capacitive LCD displays caller ID, call records, and lets users switch between their mobile, desk, and corporate softphones via a spin of the carousel. Fun sure, and exceedingly geeky, but hardly worth the $199 to duplicate functions already built-in to the headsets or accessible via the displays on the devices it connects to. Then again, these are aimed at office professionals (read: corporations) when they launch in September and $199 is nothing when you're spending someone else's money. DECT configuration pictured after the break. [Via SlashGear ]. Continue reading Jabro Go 6400 and Pro 9400 with capacitive touchscreen base redefines overkill, want . Filed under: Portable Audio . Jabro Go 6400 and Pro 9400 with capacitive touchscreen base redefines overkill, want originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments .

Jabro Go 6400 and Pro 9400 with capacitive touchscreen base redefines overkill, want

Now fully finished, the amazing full-scale Gundam is now an unofficial Tokyo landmark. The robot is so impressive that photographers are populating Flickr with beautiful photos showing every single little detail. [ Flickr Search ].

The Tokyo Gundam Like You Have Never Seen It Before [Gundam]

What do you get when you mix a Fiat 500 —a popular and tiny 50s car in Italy—with a bulldozer and a crazy Japanese ironsmith? A Fiat 500 bulldozer with crazy—and very happy—Japanese ironsmith inside, as the video shows. Kogoro Kurata's invention only runs at 3 kilometers per hour, but who cares. It's red, it has treads, it can destroy stuff. That's all that matters to me. Better than Transformers 2 for sure. [ Ironwork via Pink Tentacle ].

Crazy Japanese Ironsmith Creates His Own Bulldozer [Japan]

LONDON/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp's new Bing search engine gained U. S. market share in its first month in operation but still trails dominant rival Google Inc, according to data released on Wednesday.

Microsoft's Bing search wins share from Google

It might look like your run-of-the-mill car seat, but Dorel's Air Protect comes with an extra dose of parental paranoia, or as they call it, side impact protection. Sure, you could protect your child by not driving like a reckless maniac, but where's the techno-loving fun in that? You're far better off strapping junior into a pre-inflated airbag, while disregarding the fact your giant SUV is killing the world he is supposed to grow, live and love in. Now that we've guilt-tripped you into recycling your soda cans, how about a self-serving video of the crash test after the break?. Continue reading Video: Dorel Air Protect keeps your blow-up children safe . Filed under: Transportation . Video: Dorel Air Protect keeps your blow-up children safe originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 05:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments .

Video: Dorel Air Protect keeps your blow-up children safe

To celebrate Steve Jobs' official return to Apple ( AAPL ) this week, Kobi Shely has posted a YouTube clip from MacHEADS , his 54-minute "fanboy documentary" on the cult surrounding the company and its charismatic CEO. Shely wrote, directed, co-produced and edited the film. The 2-minute 22-second segment he selected is centered around the return of Jobs to Apple in Dec. 1996 after he was ousted in a boardroom coup nearly a dozen years earlier. The clip includes rare footage from the July 1998 keynote in which a younger, chubbier Jobs announces Apple's return to profitability and introduces the first iMac. It's worth a look, if you can ignore the first 15 seconds of computer-generated weirdness, the bizarre Church of Mac segment in the middle and the young woman stroking and kissing her computer at the end. The clip is pasted below. The full movie is available on iTunes and Amazon Video on Demand. Or you can order a DVD here . Below the fold, a two-minute trailer for MacHEADS that includes sex columnist Violet Blue's priceless line: "First of all, I've never knowingly slept with a Windows user. Ever. ". See also:. Top 10 moments in Steve Jobs' career . Film: Inside the cult of Mac .

Video: The last time Steve Jobs came back to Apple

If you still have the Windows 7 Beta installed, today is the day when it starts shutting down every two hours. You know, to annoy the hell out of you. So go and get the Windows 7 Release Candidate. That one will start shutting down every two hours in about a year .

Windows 7 Beta Shutting Every Two Hours Now [Windows 7]

It's not often that a remote control becomes the centerpiece of a product launch, but man, would you look at that. That's the remote for Sony's NAS-Z200iR, a WiFi-enabled shelf audio system with slot-loading CD and iPod dock. The Z200iR is DLNA-certified so it works with any DLNA device in your home including NAS boxes and of course, your PC or Mac. The re-chargeable remote features a 3. 5-inch LCD display that gives you full control over sourced media including Internet radio, integrated AM/FM tuner, or devices connected via the Z200iR's USB or audio-in ports. The sound comes courtesy of a pair of independent, 20-watt speaker enclosures with double neodymium magnets used to drive the bass. A simpler, WiFi-less CMT-Z100iR system will launch first in July with the Z200iR headed to Europe in mid September. Sorry, no prices announced so no joy. Gallery: Sony's newest remote control ships with a Z200iR compact music system . Filed under: Home Entertainment . Sony's newest remote control ships with a Z200iR compact music system originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments .

Sony's newest remote control ships with a Z200iR compact music system

Nazis or aliens or Nazi aliens are back and they have invaded Northrop Grumman's top secret grounds in California, where engineers have been testing the surprising anti-radar capabilities of the Horten 2-29 . The results: It could have changed everything. Germany lost the Battle of Britain partly thanks to the British radar. The fat baton-bearing lunatic and chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring turned to the Horten brothers to develop something that would give the German air force superiority. They came up with the most advanced plane of the war, one that surpassed everything else out there by three decades but fortunately never had the time to be produced in any kind of significant numbers: The Horten 2-29, a plane unlike anything else out there, which—as this reconstruction shows—looks alien in its design. Northrop Grumman's black-op engineers—who usually work in top secret USAF projects like the B-2 Stealth Bomber, Ho 2-29's design heir —analyzed (again?) the remains of the only surviving plane, reconstructed it, and tested its stealth capabilities. It's probably not the first time they have done that, but this time they did it for a National Geographic TV documentary. As it turns out, Hitler had an stealth fighter in the Ho 2-29. Thanks to the use of wood and carbon—which increased its radar absortion—jet engines integrated into the fuselage, and its blended surfaces, the plane could have been in London eight minutes after the British radar system detected it. In comparison, other planes took 19 minutes since detection to target, which gave the RAF fighter enough time to scramble and hunt down the bastards. The Ho 2-29 would have made the interception almost impossible, if at all. The bad news is that this plane could have completely changed the course of the war if Germany only had one or two extra years of lead time. Not only in the fight against Britain, but also against the US and the Soviet Union. The Horten brothers had another design based on the Ho 2-29. A design for a intercontinental strategic bomber, the Ho 18. The 142-foot wingspan bomber was submitted for approval in 1944, and it would have been able to fly from Berlin to NYC and back without refueling, thanks to the same blended wing design and six BMW 003A or eight Junker Jumo 004B turbojets. As the documentary shows, had the Nazis extended the war in 1946 and developed the atomic bomb as planned, the Ho 18 could have been their Enola Gay. The good news: That's a lot of ifs, the Allies decided to invade Normandy soon enough, and we are all here without wearing stupid outfits, swastikas, and funny moustaches. Life is good, people, life is good. [ Fight Global ].

The Hitler's Stealth Planes That Could Have Dropped a Nuclear Bomb in NYC [Airplanes]

Most of the news about USB 3. 0 —the finalization of the spec , the first drivers , the first controller —doesn't tell us much about when we'll actually get to see a product hit stores. The answer? According to Nikkei, before 2010. Their contacts in the Tawianese PC industry predict the first machines to include the hardware will start rolling off the line by the end of the year, citing rapid development in integrated circuits and the shipment of compliant controllers to PC manufacturers. The date is a bit earlier than the "early 2010" prediction that's been bandied around recently, but not by much. A quick reminder of what this means :. With transfer speeds of 4. 8Gbps, it'll dump a 25GB HD file in about 70 seconds, and the architecture has been beefed up with extra data lanes to make for more sustained, rather than bursty transfer speeds, making it better for camcorders and the like. Even though it delivers more power than USB 2. 0 to charge gadgets faster (and it'll revive a completely dead one too), its new polling architecture makes it more efficient. Unfortunately, full 5Gbps speeds won't be reached for some time . [ Tech-on ].

USB 3.0-Equipped PCs To Start Shipping By End of 2009 [USB]

You're not still running Windows 7 Beta are you? Tsk tsk, better get your RC build before your system starts spontaneously shutting down every 2 hours. As Microsoft has warned repeatedly, Windows 7 Beta builds will begin bi-hourly shutdowns starting on July 1st in a bid to move you over to the latest release candidate. RC user will suffer the same treatment starting March 1st, 2010 on the way to a June 1st expiration -- well after the October 22nd launch date of Windows 7 to retail. This concludes this Engadget public service announcement, your regularly scheduled snarkiness will return in a moment. [Thanks, Kyle]. Filed under: Desktops , Laptops , Tablet PCs . Windows 7 Beta automatic shutdowns begin today, RC users safe until March 1st originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments .

Windows 7 Beta automatic shutdowns begin today, RC users safe until March 1st

It's one thing to bury something like developer mode -- a mode that the average Pre user will never need -- behind a cute-but-exhausting throwback Konami code , but it's quite another to hide useful stuff that way. A PreCentral tipster discovered that entering "RocknRollHax" on the keyboard (and yes, capitalization is important here) while in the email app enables the previously missing capability to use it in landscape mode; presumably Palm hid it from end users because they thought it was too buggy or weird for mainstream use, but it certainly works alright for us. Worst part is that the code needs to be re-entered each and every time the email app starts, so you'd better really want it -- but at least you don't have to root to get it. Filed under: Cellphones , Handhelds . Frustratingly long secret code enables totally useful landscape email on Pre originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments .

Frustratingly long secret code enables totally useful landscape email on Pre

Having already given you the AT&T spec sheet and images on this new Nokia, the only things missing are launch date, price, and a bit of video. Well, a janky QIK video just made its way to YouTube claiming that Nokia's Mako is coming to AT&T in mid-July as the 6790 Surge. It should be "priced pretty well" but those details haven't been finalized. So if a quick messaging device running S60 beneath a 2. 4-inch 240x320 pixel display with HSDPA data and 2 megapixel camera is enough motivation to prompt another mouse-click then by all means, click through for the video overview provided after the break. Stay cool, bye. Continue reading Video: Nokia 6790 Surge / Mako gets a QIK onto the small screen . Filed under: Cellphones . Video: Nokia 6790 Surge / Mako gets a QIK onto the small screen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Jul 2009 03:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink | Email this | Comments .

Video: Nokia 6790 Surge / Mako gets a QIK onto the small screen

Review: The Elektron Machinedrum . Paper Speaker: Japanese company sells DIY cardboard speakers . Video: Classic video games done up LEGO-style . Doug goes on TechVi, hilarity ensues .

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