2/5 Gadget & Tech News

Google waxes poetic on Nexus One's design in video series, new docks shown off February 5, 2010 at 11:42 AM Curious about the bright minds behind the OLED-wrapped, Android-powered Snapdragon in your pocket? Google’s just posted its first in a series of videos about the Nexus One’s magical journey from concept to production, and this particular episode calls in Mountain View’s own Erick Tseng alongside HT… DARPA-based Siri virtual assistant hits the App Store, smartphone sentience can't be far behind (video) February 5, 2010 at 11:01 AM It’s been well over six months since we first got wind of Siri, the DARPA-inspired smartphone app that pledged to take all the hassle out of… well… life. It’s a virtual assistant that can take care of menial tasks, things like finding restaurants, hearing reviews, and even booking tables — all… Nokia 6303i Classic announced, 'guarantees fun for a long time without charging' February 5, 2010 at 9:16 AM If you were waiting for a mild refresh of Nokia’s 6303 Classic before taking the plunge on a new handset… well, you’re a strange character, but the good news is that your time has come at long last. The 2.2-inch QVGA display and 3.2 megapixel camera are both carried over; otherwise, you’ve got a … Deutsche Telekom rumored to be eyeing T-Mobile USA spinoff February 5, 2010 at 7:54 AM Not a week goes by that we don’t hear of investor pressure on Deutsche Telekom to strengthen its financials and offload underperforming units — T-Mobile USA included — and the American outpost is back in the spotlight this evening coming off a report out of The Wall Street Journal that a spinoff … BlackBerry OS seemingly ported to Nokia 5700 for some strange reason February 5, 2010 at 6:40 AM First, a disclaimer: we don’t really know what’s going on here. That said, there’s a video accompanying the images posted on the forum Maxpda that have us believing some really, really smart dude with considerably too much time on his hands has managed to shove the BlackBerry Pearl 8220’s build of … Samsung answers Motorola with Android-powered SHW-M100S for Korea February 5, 2010 at 5:02 AM You might’ve thought that one of the local players would’ve been the first to announce Android gear for South Korea, but that honor ended up going to Motorola with its MOTOROI — so who’s next up to bat? That’d be Samsung, which has unveiled its biggest, baddest Android device to date in the SHW-M1… Vote for the 2009 Engadget Awards! February 5, 2010 at 3:44 AM The nominations are in, the picks have been sorted, and now it’s time for you, the reader, to help us judge the best in tech from 2009! We’ve put together a long, long list of the top selections below — all we ask is that you cast your vote for the gadgets nearest and dearest to your hearts. Vote… Government warns of wireless network congestion again, rides iPad to push its spectrum agenda February 5, 2010 at 3:22 AM The feds simply aren’t backing down from their incessant warnings of a wireless broadband spectrum crunch the likes of which the world has never seen, and they’ve seemingly found a great vehicle — the iPad — to help spread the message just a little further (and at a higher volume) than before. Th… Motorola Devour has Flash support, makes Pixi look like an underachiever February 5, 2010 at 2:01 AM Motorola’s official spec sheet for the Devour reveals that there’ll be a Flash Lite runtime on board — presumably version 3.1, which offers support for a variety of video codecs and Flash 9 content — and more importantly, it’ll work in the browser. That’s pretty cool — it gives the Devour one sma… Symbian Foundation talks about its move to open source February 5, 2010 at 12:54 AM As we’d figured out last night, Symbian’s big reveal for today was the completion of its move to a fully open, royalty-free platform — meaning you no longer need to be a paid-in-full member of the Foundation to see all the code — and they’re ready to talk about it and spread the word far and wide…. Commenting on Engadget: a human's guide February 4, 2010 at 10:25 PM As you may have noticed, the other day we shut down comments on the site. Things had gotten a little out of hand and the complaint emails we were getting from readers were stacking up, so we decided to take some Engadget time to do a little cleaning up while reflecting on how we can do a better job… AT&T letting SlingPlayer stream over 3G on the iPhone at long last February 4, 2010 at 7:32 PM After all the hubbub and controversy caused by the release of SingPlayer for iPhone back in May, we knew it would take a serious change of heart for AT&T to reverse course on the issue of 3G streaming. The app’s super-conspicuous lack of 3G was one of the clearest statements around that the iPh… Verizon advertising says Droid is for men, Pre is for women (video) February 4, 2010 at 7:11 PM If you ask us, the Palm Pre Plus pretty much sells itself. So if we were working out a promo campaign for it, we’d just display the competitive pricing front and center and get the hell out of the product’s way. But that just wouldn’t do for Verizon. After all the machismo it attached to the Droid,… Xperia X10 lands on Vodafone UK in April February 4, 2010 at 5:28 PM We don’t have pricing, we don’t have specific dates, we just thought we’d let you know that Sony Ericsson’s already outdated Android phone is arriving in the UK in April. This agrees with the release schedules for Japan and Germany, making the fourth month of the year seem like a certainty for the … Nokia mounts huge Ovi Maps signpost on a crane in London (video) February 4, 2010 at 5:07 PM We’re generally reluctant to cover purely promotional stunts like these, but when you decide to jack up a house-sized arrow on a crane and hang it next to London’s Thames river, well, exceptions can be made. Nokia’s big push to inform the world that Ovi Maps is free — now and forever — has culmin… Nokia C5 seemingly leaked, but don't expect much February 4, 2010 at 4:58 PM It’s been a little while since Nokia locked up the Cseries trademark, and it looks like they’re finally putting it to good use here following the Xseries launch a few months back — but don’t break out your party pants just yet, because it looks like this could be Nokia’s new catch-all bucket for t… Major infrastucture supplier calls it: LTE over WiMAX February 4, 2010 at 3:43 PM If you’re Clearwire or Sprint right now, the last thing you want to hear is one of the world’s major suppliers of wireless infrastructure badmouthing the very technology that underpins your next-gen network — so we imagine there’s some groaning in the hallways and boardrooms of the world’s WiMAX ca… WebOS homebrew MyTether app updated, brings WiFi hotspots to Verizon Palms w/o the extra subscription February 4, 2010 at 10:08 AM Since the last time we mentioned it, the MyTether app for WebOS phones has gone up in price from a requested $10 donation to $14.95, but that’s still considerably cheaper than Verizon’s $40 per month Mobile Hotspot plan. We’re still leery about what usage/overusage could mean for your contract &amp… T-Mobile's BlackBerry Curve 8900 rides off into the sunset February 4, 2010 at 9:39 AM Confused why you can’t put a Curve 8900 into your cart on T-Mobile’s site right now? Well, turns out there’s a mighty simple explanation for that — it’s discontinued. We’ve just gotten official confirmation from the carrier that the phone has “reached the end of its life-cycle,” so that’s that. Mi…