October 06, 2005, 5:10 PM PDT
Cingular and 3G
Posted by: Kent German

Cingular Wireless is moving ahead with its plans to build the six-city 3G network it inherited from the merger with AT&T Wireless. The carrier promises it will have its UMTS/HSPDA network in up to 20 cities by the end of the year, with an expansion to most major markets by the close of 2006. Download speeds should be 400Kbps to 700Kbps. Cingular also announced that it's planning to add 4,000 new cell sites over the next several months and 4,000 next year, as well as integrate overlapping Cingular and AT&T networks and migrate customers still on AT&T plans to Cingular contracts.

Permalink | 1 comment

• Read also: Cell phones
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 2:27 PM PDT
Photos of the new video iPod
Posted by: Jasmine France

Well, not really. As you probably know by now, industry insiders have decided that the earlier hype was largely based on unsubstantiated rumors and that we can actually expect to see an update to the color-screen iPod. This seems a bit more plausible to me because while there's a fair amount of evidence that a video iPod is in development, it would seem counterproductive to make such a big announcement so soon after the release of the highly successful iPod Nano. But aren't you just dying to know what the "vPod" might look like? Me too. So I went hunting around and, thanks to Engadget, was able to find the following enthusiast-engineered images:

• iPod movie
• (no name)
• iPlay
• vPod
• Pod comp
• iPod V

Permalink | 13 comments

• Read also: MP3 players
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 2:00 PM PDT
Sober careens drunkenly across Web
Posted by: Molly Wood

I'm sorry to tell you that your old flame from high school is not actually trying to get in touch with you. And your password hasn't been changed. Both e-mails contain new variants of our old friend, the Sober worm. Clicker beware.

Permalink | 3 comments

• Read also: Buzz
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 1:23 PM PDT
Media Center 2005 update coming real soon
Posted by: Dan Ackerman

If you have a PC with Windows Media Center Edition 2005, you've probably been sitting around anxiously waiting for the next OS update, dubbed Rollup 2, or Emerald. This is especially true if you're in Denmark or Finland, two of the many countries that will now support Media Center functions after the update, which will be available for free through the standard Windows Update app. If you're not in one of those countries, or in Slovakia, Norway, and so on, there are still a few things to look forward to, including support for a second HD tuner and Xbox 360 Media Center Extender functionality.

Registered Microsoft OEM system builders have been able to download the update for almost two weeks, so that means Joe Consumer is next in line. All signs point to mid-October.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Desktops
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 12:58 PM PDT
iBall: Futuristic speaker for iPods
Posted by: Jasmine France

During my daily perusal of informative tech sites around the Web--in this case, Tech Digest--this space-age-looking device caught my eye. The iBall ($300), a 2.4GHz wireless speaker from Oregon Scientific, is designed with the iPod in mind (really, what isn't nowadays?). The Ice White, soccer-ball-size device is concave on one side, which is where you'll find the three speaker drivers and grille, as well as a glowing blue LCD that displays the time, the volume, bass, treble, wireless signal strength, input selection, play/pause status, and battery power. The speaker features rechargeable batteries that are rated for 6 to 8 hours. The other half of the system is the transmitter, which also functions as an iPod dock, charging the player and allowing for computer syncing. Other features include:

• Adaptive frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) that delivers digital stereo audio up to 100 feet
• Adjustable treble and bass
• Built-in controls on speaker unit for iPod
• Compatible with Apple iPod, iPod Photo, iPod Mini, and iPod Shuffle (Shuffle adapter sold separately)
• Auxiliary stereo line-in miniplug for use with other audio sources
• S-Video and A/V stereo line-out miniplug for listening and viewing through other A/V components

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: MP3 players
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 10:51 AM PDT
New iPod, no video?
Posted by: Molly Wood

ThinkSecret, breaker of all news Apple, is speculating that Apple's October 12 announcement will include an iPod that does not have video. So, a new iPod, followed immediately by a new iPod, and neither new iPod has the thing that everyone thinks a new iPod should have? For real? Oh, and PowerBooks, too.

Permalink | 11 comments

• Read also: Buzz
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 10:43 AM PDT
Everybody wants to be The Man
Posted by: Molly Wood

Here's the thing about going corporate: It pays. Weblogs Inc., publisher of such blogs as Engadget, has been bought by AOL for a cool $25 million in cash. So, will a fat new stable of cool blogs make AOL hot again? Nah. No one has that kind of money.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Buzz
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 10:42 AM PDT
Google Maps go Local; mash-ups go loco
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Google gets so much press for and use of its free products that it's easy to overlook that most of them are still in beta, the testing phase. Presto, the beta label disappeared overnight from the fabled Google Maps, now called Google Local.

Google Local has a new a split-screen layout, with directory listings on the left and maps or satellite views on the right. Google hopes that it can finance its freebies by linking maps with ad-laced local search, à la Yahoo Maps. Microsoft is also scrambling to profit from local search.

Such directories are most relevant when they adapt through the tinkering of users. Yet to the horror of people who have grown to rely on hacks of Google Maps, some of the dozens of mash-ups, such as one of the New York City subway, suddenly aren't working anymore, says the Google Maps Mania blog.

Permalink | Post a comment

• Read also: Internet Services
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 10:23 AM PDT
Obey your printer cartridge, court rules
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Do you remember signing a contract when you opened a printer ink cartridge? Didn't think so. But so-called box-top licenses can tell you what to do with what you buy, warn consumer watchdogs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, thanks to a ruling this August by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. A collection of third-party printer cartridge makers sued Lexmark for its "prebate" program, which sells refurbished laser toner at a discount. The catch? As the New York Times reports, the toner box orders you "to return the empty cartridge only to Lexmark for remanufacturing and recycling." In other words, you shouldn't take the cartridge to another company or even throw it away. The court said Lexmark has the right to tell you how to use its patented products.

While it's environmentally friendly for Lexmark to refurbish cartridges, digital rights advocates fear the ruling could set a precedent preventing DIYers from modifying their gadgets (celebrated in popular blogs such as Hackaday). Proponents of fair use argue that we should be able to do what we want with the gizmos we pay for.

What if you're itching to make your printer's inkjet cartridges spray Jackson Pollock-like art on public walls? Could the printer vendor slap an agreement on its ink tanks telling you not to commit grafitti? Apply this idea to other products, and you can imagine the slippery slope. For example, could Kraft stamp a box of Velveeta with rules forbidding you to melt its cheesestuff on third-party nachos? OK, so that's a stretch. But ACRA v. Lexmark could have an interesting impact on future copyright fights.

Permalink | 1 comment

• Read also: Peripherals
• Email to a friend | Print this post

October 06, 2005, 8:32 AM PDT
Symantec flaw
Posted by: Dorian Benkoil

In case you missed it, News.com a couple days ago reported on a Symantec security flaw that could make its enterprise products vulnerable to attack.

"The problem affects various versions of the (AntiVirus Scan Engine), which is the part of the security software that actually scans for threats," says the piece, specifying the problem is with corporate-level products, which it does not name.

The good news: Patches are available. More technical info is here.

Permalink | 1 comment

• Read also: Work
• Email to a friend | Print this post