Visit a Starbucks and you can now forget about cash or cards: Just flash your phone to pay.
Starting today, iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry users will be able to pay for coffee and coffee-themed products in 6,800 of Starbucks’ own stores and in 1,000 Starbucks in Target stores. The scheme has been tested since last year in a handful of stores, and is now available nationwide. Read More…
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on January 19, 2011
Looks like buttonless is in this season.
No, not on this spring’s selection of evening wear. We’re talking about renderings of HP’s rumored webOS-powered tablet published this week on Engadget. It’s a sleek, all-black rendition of what we may be seeing from HP soon, and like the soon to be debuted Motorola Xoom, the tablet has got a button-free face. Read More…
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on January 19, 2011
There are two ways you could take the news that Hewlett-Packard has confirmed WebOS phones for early next year. One is “At last! What took so long?” The other is “Thank God they didn’t rush this thing.”
Speaking at a Conference in Barcelona, Spain yesterday, HP senior VP Eric Cador said “You will see us coming early next year with new phones” and added that Palm’s WebOS is “extremely fundamental.”
HP bought Palm earlier this year, so releasing new phones early next year is still pretty fast. But if we have learned anything from the runaway success of the iPhone and iPad, it’s that these things can’t be rushed: Apple’s devices were in development for years before they launched.
What we’re really looking forward too, though, is a WebOS tablet. Could it be that HP, once known for innovation but now just another commodity gray box maker, is taking its time to come up with an amazing, killer product? Let’s hope so. Right now, there’s only one tablet worth buying, and that lack of competition is not good for the consumer.
HP to launch new webOS phones in early 2011 [Reuters]
Image: New Palm Pre WebOS screenshots
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Source:wired.com
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on October 7, 2010
Now that HP has sealed its acquisition of Palm, the PC maker is working hard to get Palm’s webOS mobile operating system onto HP products.
Palm’s webOS will power HP upcoming tablet, says HP CTO Phil McKinney. The tablet known as HP Slate had earlier been designed using Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. HP also plans to put webOS on printers, says McKinney.
“There’s a gap for devices that are larger than a smartphone but smaller than a netbook,” he told attendees at the ongoing Mobile Beat conference in San Francisco. “Slates could fit in that category.”
Unlike rival Dell, which chose the Google-designed open source Android OS to create its cellphone and tablet, HP spent $1.2 billion to buy Palm. The transaction closed earlier this month.
HP wants to control all pieces of the mobile ecosystem, says McKinney.
“If you look at success in the market, they are those companies who can control the end user experience and the entire experience stack,” he says.
That sounds more like Apple and less like Google. But it is clearly the direction that HP wants to go. In March, HP seemed poised to launch its Slate tablet offering sneak peeks of the device through carefully edited videos. Leaks of the company’s plans for the Slate pegged the price of the device at $550.
But in a surprise move in April, HP announced its buying Palm and with that it sent the Slate back to the drawing board. McKinney says HP is not yet ready to announce a launch date for the Slate.
“I am not going to pre-announce products but I will say that we are investing money into research & development and marketing at Palm.”
Photo:HP
Source:wired.com
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on July 12, 2010
Dell’s new tablet called the Streak is set to make its debut in the U.S. this summer. But while temperatures have been soaring, there’s still no sign of the device. The Streak, which was launched in the U.K. last month for 450, is expected to be available on AT&T for $500.
Dell now says it has been testing the device and hopes to have it in the hands of U.S. consumers soon. The company still won’t disclose the exact availability. Meanwhile, Gadget Lab got some hands-on time with the U.S. version of the Streak.
Nearly 30 percent thinner than the iPhone 3G S, the Streak bills itself as a tablet but also offers the option of a SIM card in it so you can make phone calls. The device includes 3G connectivity and a 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor.
Think of it as a turbocharged phone.
“The 3.5-inch to 4-inch screen devices are optimized primarily around the phone experience,” says Kevin Andrew, product manager for Dell.”The Streak is for those who want something bigger than a phone but not something so big they have to carry it separately.”
The Streak fits the bill. It is ultra-thin, lightweight (7.8 ounces) and extremely easy to use. Read on for our hands-on impression of the tablet.
The Streak’s five inch touchscreen display is just a little bigger than the latest crop of Android smartphones (HTC Evo and Droid X sport a 4.3-inch touchscreen) but significantly smaller than the iPad’s 9.7-inch display. That puts the Streak in an awkward netherworld: too big to be a phone, too small to be directly take on the iPad.
But the Streak’s 5-inch display looks much better in real life than it sounds on paper. The screen is smooth, responsive and big enough to comfortably type and access different widgets.
The device itself is ultra-thin, just 9.9 mm thick compared to the iPhone 3G’s 12.3 mm thickness and almost on par with the iPhone 4. It slips easily into your jeans or the jacket pocket and doesn’t feel awkard if you hold it up to your ear to make a phone call.
The Streak has just one 30-pin connector and no USB port.
The Streak runs Android 1.6, which seems ancient considering that Google has released Android 2.2 or Froyo.
But Dell says it has created an enhanced version of Android 1.6 that puts it almost on par with Android 2.2 or ‘Eclair.’
“If you compare Android 1.6 on the Streak to Eclair, the only feature that is missing versus Eclair is the live wallpapers,” says Andrew.
The Android experience on the Streak is very similar to what we have seen on the latest Android cellphones. The Streak supports up to six home screens. The main screen (shown above) has icons for phone, calendar, messaging, browser, maps and market among other things.
A small round dot at the top left corner of the screen acts as a shortcut to applications. Streak users can download apps from the Android market.
The Streak has a 5-megapixel camera on the back and 0.3 megapixel VGA camera in the front. It can also shoot videos upto 720p (1280 x 720 pixels resolution). Sharing photos is easy and should be familiar to most Android phone users–click on the photo, choose the share button from the virtual menu and pick Facebook, Twitter or Flickr to upload it to.
Dells also offers an accessory dock, with an HDMI output that can be connected to a TV.
The Streak will have a user-replaceable battery, internal storage of 2 GB and additional storage using a microSD card for up to 32 GB.
Overall, the Streak is an exciting, well-engineered device that should appeal to consumers who want to super-size their phone. But that’s also means its unlikely to have Apple or iPad fans quaking. The Streak seems like a tablet for a very different audience than the iPad.
Photos: Dell Streak/Priya Ganapati
Source:wired.com
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on July 7, 2010
Palm CEO John Rubinstein will continue to head up his webOS team under new boss HP, and will be working on smartphones, “future slate PCs and netbooks,” according to a statement from HP
The computer giant completed its acquisition of Palm yesterday, and announced that Palm will continue to develop both hardware and software, headed up by former Apple employee Rubinstein.
This will include new phones (the Pre and Pixi lines are now also owned by HP), but most exciting is the confirmation that there will be webOS tablets. After all, apart from iOS, name another operating system that is as suited to a tablet as the webOS (sure, Android is close, but still a little too clunky).
Better still, HP has the deep pockets to go up against Apple, and if Rubinstein and team are left to work on great machines their combined experience (many of them are also Apple alumni) should finally provide an iPad competitor. And even if you are a total, unashamed iPad fanboy, this should still excite you. Competition is good for us buyers. Take a look at the iPhone 4: Do you think it would be this good if Android and Palm weren’t chasing so close behind?
HP Completes Palm Acquisition [Yahoo]
Photo: Lisa Brewster/Flickr
Source:wired.com
Posted under Gadget Reviews
This post was written by Journalist on July 2, 2010
