Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
First PC World gets all up on the soapbox that (until a certain date) the MacBook Pro is the fastest PC the mag had tested, but consider the next step taken: PC World has boldly declared Vista #1 with a bullet in in their Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007. Ok, sure, we get that it’s “disappointments” and not “crappy products” — the two imply very different things, and it’s hard not to be somewhat disappointed by any product that took the better part of a decade to come out — but if PC World harshing on Vista this bad doesn’t smack at all of linkbait, well, we don’t know what does. Oh, and here’s that link.
P.S. -Seriously though, can Vista get a break here? We mean, honestly, it ain’t all THAT bad.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Filed under: Features, GPS
We recently got to take a Dash Express beta unit for a spin, and while they’re still gluing all the software together behind the scenes in anticipation of launch, we did spot the makings of a few obvious and ridiculously useful features new users can expect in February. Besides the stuff we’ve already heard about (like sending addresses and geo-RSS feeds via WiFi and cellular, or local Zillow property values), the Dash Express has some other tricks up its sleeve, like:
- The ability to display current local gas prices in its gas station search!
- Local theaters show movies and showtimes (although you can’t order tickets through the Dash Express — yet).
- Yahoo Local searches show aggregate user ratings.
- Over the air updates via cellular data. (We’re not yet sure what happens if you opt out of service — we’d guess you’ll just have to use the old USB cable or WiFi.)
- And, of course, there’s the traffic data, which not only shows which local roads with traffic data from real time and historic Dash GPS users but also uses Inrix traffic feeds.
- And just so you know whether the system is or isn’t too sure about its traffic predictions, the Dash Express also gauges its “confidence” with dashed and solid lines — see above. (Of course, it also plots routes predicted by ETA and traffic flow, and not necessarily just by distance.)
Compared to your usual, run of the mill GPS, whole connected navigator experience was not dissimilar from the jump between going from a VCR to a TiVo — which is why we think maybe, just maybe, people might actually want to pay for service with this thing. Of course, the downside for dash is most people won’t even realize what an amazing boon these kinds of features really are until they’ve taken one home and discovered it first hand out in the world. (Oh, videos after the break.)
Continue reading Dash Express beta hands-on
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Filed under: GPS
The final pieces are falling into place for Dash, which finished with the Dash Express public beta and finally has a price for the unit and service. Prepared to plunk down $600 for the device and three months of service, and $13 per month thereafter? (That’s month to month, or you can do $11 per month for a year, or $10 per month for two.) If not, well, you can still just buy the device without the service; either way expect it in black and in February.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
At this point, the 8120, RIM’s next-generation Pearl for GSM networks is little more than a twinkle in the FCC’s eye — but T-Mobile’s ’bout to turn this party out. The Reader’s Digest version goes something like this: Hotspot @Home support, February 18. Where’s the rest of the story? Why, over on Engadget Mobile, of course!
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Like transistors? You must — you’re using a few million (or billion) right now just reading this sentence. But it’s actually difficult to overstate the transistor’s importance since its invention exactly 60 years ago today by super nerd gods John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley — everything changed when solid state circuits were finally able to replace mechanical relays and vacuum tubes. There’s little doubt electronics and technology as we know it today are only possible because of this fundamental discovery, although 60 years on we can only seem to navel gaze about what sorts of real jobs we’d all have if we weren’t just spending our days obsessing about the gadgets these transistors power.
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
